Tag Archives: Netherlands

May 2, 2022 · 06:34

At times I hate being right

To get that we have to take a trip into the past. To February 5th 2021. It was the day I wrote ‘Not a good thing’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/05/not-a-good-thing/). In the article I wrote about the energy shortage that certain players were certain to face. I also made reference to ‘Trillion Dollar Musk’ a story written on December 3rd 2020 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/03/trillion-dollar-musk/). The important reference is “the UK has an increasing need for Scandinavian power and soon it cannot be met. I reckon that in the next 2-3 years that shortage will be close to systemic all over the EU”, with the added “now that the stage is here, Eon Musk has a massive opportunity and soon enough it will grow into Europe as well, I wonder who will cash in before the half baked solutions stir their ugly heads. Because the impact of that stage is not a good thing.” And now that we get the Dutch NOS making reference to “Companies that want to establish or expand, often cannot meet their energy needs. This applies, for example, to Royal Smilde Bakery in Edam, a retail company in bake-off products. The company cannot run at full capacity. “And that means we are not at the production capacity that the market demands,” says Andries Tuinenga. The grid operator has imposed a maximum on the company that may not be exceeded. And then the peak months are yet to come.” Now this setting comes early because of the Russian gas situation, but it gives a larger stage, the shortage is here now, consider the Netherlands going towards summer and if summer bites (a realistic chance) we see a nation with millions of AC units and no power to fuel them all. That is a realistic future this year and for two years they could have opted for discussions with Elon Musk and all his energy solutions but how many governments exactly have started this discussion? 

A stage I saw coming two years ago, so why isn’t anyone else? And the small laughable story by BBC Technology that gives us ‘Energy supplier counts cost of devices on standby’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61235367) does not cut the mustard as I see it. Lets be clear, they are not wrong, but the setting is way too late for that. With the giggle moment supplied through “households would save around £55 per year by switching off all their devices when not in use. The organisation, which promotes sustainability and energy efficiency, did not give exact details of how it came to this figure.” I get it if everyone does that you do save, but at what cost? Larger changes have been needed for well over a year and the UK (EU too) are not ready. The age of ACDC is coming (hah, me making a funny yet again) and the saving will not operate the millions of households that want to enjoy the AC they have no matter how much DC it requires. I stated two years ago that energy changes were becoming essential, but it seems that governments has ego and ostrich issues. It seems that they all were willing to attack Elon Musk and too little of them would be ready to engage with him in serious conversation. Now that time is up they might all want him at the same time, as such it becomes a problem Anyway, should Elon Musk buy my IP, they get added hardship, because I can see that there are options (not big ones) to connect what I have to domotics and smart grids. So connect my IP to a smart grid and collect energy numbers from all the domotics around it. It is not what I had in mind, but it could work and the value of my IP goes up, so what do I care. 

The problem is that GOVERNMENTS should have been on this page in 2018, but are they? The fact that we see shortages now is not merely the impact of Russian choices, it was ALWAYS going to happen in this way, they merely got to this point faster in this way. So who will you blame? Will you have another go at Elon Musk, or will you start asking YOUR government for ignoring the painfully obvious for well over a year now?

I will let you decide. Have a really nice sunny not air-conditioned day today.

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April 24, 2022 · 09:29

Gapping data

I did take notice of the story, but there were other considerations. So what is the issue with a two week old story? Actually there is nothing wrong with the time gap, it actually works out nicely. Yet before we go anywhere, lets take a look at ‘A data ‘black hole’: Europol ordered to delete vast store of personal data’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/10/a-data-black-hole-europol-ordered-to-delete-vast-store-of-personal-data) there we are given “The EU’s police agency, Europol, will be forced to delete much of a vast store of personal data that it has been found to have amassed unlawfully by the bloc’s data protection watchdog.” Here I have an issue with the stage of “amassed unlawfully”, then we get “The unprecedented finding from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) targets what privacy experts are calling a “big data ark” containing billions of points of information. Sensitive data in the ark has been drawn from crime reports, hacked from encrypted phone services and sampled from asylum seekers never involved in any crime.” There we get “hacked from encrypted phone services and sampled from asylum seekers never involved in any crime” You see, the biggest problem in any data set are the data gaps. MISSING VALUE analyses will not get you anywhere and data cannot be analysed on data that is not there. As I see it, the commercial world amasses worlds of data and the EDPS (European Data Protection Supervisor) does next to nothing. We could start an argument that the EDPS is catering to organised crime, but that might be a stretch. I know my data has been collected by CIA, FBI, GCHQ, Mossad, DGSE and at least two other organisations. You think I care? I live my life and keep doing what I am legally allowed to do. The data merely reinforces this. So why is there such a rush to maim the mobility of Europol? I have nothing against laws, I believe that laws are important, but how stupid is it to set up the laws to hinder the law? When our data is all over Microsoft, Google, Amazon, GTCOM and whatever Russia has. The 4,000 TB that is to be deleted will serve organised crime and criminals, no one else. And more importantly it will not protect refugees, if anything, the data shows them to be innocent. Did no one make that leap? You see I oppose “Europol had worked with the EDPS “to find a balance between keeping the EU secure and its citizens safe while adhering to the highest standards of data protection”, the agency said.” I oppose it because data does not protect or endanger lives, it is the one wielding all that data does and whilst commercial enterprises are given a wide berth avoiding their ‘legal’ teams, the EDPS has to prove its existence by having a go at Interpol.

Yes, it is their job, but in what job do you hand opportunity to criminals, organised crime and terrorists? 

And the Guardian is appeasing the stage buy giving the simplest of examples, the example that makes you go ‘awww’. But the example “The political activist, whose only serious run-ins with police amount to breaking a window to gain entrance to a building and create a squat for homeless people, was removed from the Dutch watch-list by authorities in 2019. But a year prior to this removal he had moved to Berlin, which unknown to Van der Linde at the time prompted Dutch police to share his data with German counterparts and Europol. The activist discovered his entanglement with Europol only when he saw a partially declassified file at Amsterdam city hall.” So a criminal, guilty of breaking and entering, that is the simple truth. But we are not supposed to see that, are we? And when the next assault is not in London, but Amsterdam and the gapped data will show to have been an option to stop this, what will the EU give as a response? 

 

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April 18, 2022 · 06:04

Escalations

Things escalate, this happens and sometimes it is part of a plan, at times it is not. The Ukraine issues can only escalate. If Vladimir Putin states that it is up to the other side we can safely conclude that he is massively delusional. In between headlines like ‘Russia’s unspeakable horrors in northern Ukraine: Torture, murder and cluster bombs’, ‘Russia’s mass rapes in Ukraine are a war crime. Its military leaders must face prosecution’ and ‘Second British soldier captured in Mariupol is paraded on Russian TV’ we see little other path than the path of escalation. Of course there was good news too. 

As speculation goes, the Russian navy is just as dependable as Russian tanks. They are both equally effective in adhering to gravity and the Russian cruiser Moskva is giving testimony of that at the bottom of the Black Sea. The Slava class, Soviet designation Project 1164 Atlant, a class of guided missile cruisers designed and constructed in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy, and currently operated by the Russian Navy. Well there were two, now there is one, so 50% of their guided missile class has been destroyed. Is that what they mean with ‘Slava Ukraina’? 

Anyway, escalation. The Dutch are possibly restoring their active duty needs, and many nations are adhering to this as well. There is every thought that Russia woke up a setting they were not ready for and their Nuclear arsenal is all they might have between defeat and utter defeat. With all the Nazi claims they made, we see more and more that their actions represent the Nazi activities. So in the end, will we see a Nuremberg like trial in Strasbourg where the defendants will all respond in the same similar way? We will hear all of them state “Я выполнял приказы”, but in the end in Nuremberg 161 were convicted, and 37 were sentenced to death. I wonder how many Russians will end up with a death sentence. We see rape, torture, murder of civilians, we see the bombing of hospitals, the deployment of cluster bombs and the indiscriminate executions of people trying to flee the war-scene. The drones recorded a lot more than that and the Russians will face the rim reaper in many ways. That and the stage that life of a Russian outside of Russia (or Cuba) is now a thing of the past. These are all escalations that are happening now and will be happening more in the next month. Even now as Forbes is contemplating a G20 without Russia, we see the long term damage and that turns Russia in a 3rd world nation. It was going good and then it turned nearly every nation on the planet in another direction. You see commerce requires trade and how much trade can Syria, Belorussia and Cuba offer? That and the end of Gas-exports are making for a nasty treasury coffer and whilst Russia depends on its army, the hardware that army needs is sinking, destroyed or out of gas. Escalations can go in any direction, yet history shows us that most escalations go in the wrong direction and Russia is experiencing this the hard way. We sometimes forget WW1. My Grandfather was there and as such I keep tabs on that event. Does anyone remember the fallout of WW1? The Treaty of Versailles (signed in 1919) and the 1921 London Schedule of Payments set a massive bill for Germany after WW1, I reckon that Russia faces an even steeper bill on the damage they did to Ukraine. I reckon that 90% of al Russians will pay 20% taxes on their income for 30 years to Ukraine. That is the setting of escalation and that is the consequence of waging war, its invoice has always been the harshest message. And as I consider what might be next, we might see a new NATO, an EU army with France leading it, it is the most ready and the best equiped at present. A setting both the UK and Germany would not have held possible a year ago. What a difference 53 days can make. 

I wonder if older and very grey Vladimir Putin has any idea what is coming his way in the short term?

They say that confidence cannot escalate to arrogance, it only happens if the blood of pride is running through your veins. Knowing that picking a fight with Ukraine was not the best idea to have, but it seems he is learning that the hard way. You can doubt me and it would be fair, just ask the captain of the Moskva, he is in the Black Sea somewhere. 

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April 12, 2022 · 05:30

Elements of whatever

Another dream, but this time it I different. I had part of this dream before. It did not make sense then and it does not now. Now is even more confusing. The stage is two fold. First the now, because I fear it will leave my mind quickly. I am not sure if it is for. Story, a script, a game or just isolation. I am at the transfer of Dutch KLM. The KLM desk is for a different plane, much larger. There is a PX store. I show a regimental image. I want that shield. I mention that a friend was there. The PX store shows me some wannabe self centred piece of crap. He states to me that the commander of that battalion was a traitor and as such he refuses to give me the shield. OK, I respond, I will talk to the press and ask for clarifications. The man signals another. That man tells me to come with him, with his hand menacing in the jacket. I was holding orange peels from an Orange I just ate. I squeeze them and the peels spray. I merely say ‘Biological!’ And I am gunned down. 

The event is trivial. I suddenly remember the boarding area, almost like a rocket launch from another dream. I pretended to be diplomatic staff. The plane seemed weirdly large. I have been on 747-400, this seemed a lot larger. In the previous flight it was from somewhere in Asia to South America. This I do not know. But the plane stuck. The boarding area stuck. The story seems to matter, there seems to be levels of arrogance, levels of over the top elevation in the boarding areas and it was all linked to Dutch KLM planes. Even now I am starting to remember other elements of the previous dream. The walls were like glass when I looked at them with glasses. They were from some metal. The plane was almost like a Hindenburg on steroids. The plane was like a small town. Like the shop area on a passenger liner. Rooms with chairs, two wide, by the windows, overlooking where we flew. In the Asian part it was overlooking beautiful green forests, mountains and a lot of oceans. It all seemed so peaceful. There are remembrance moments of ‘Murder on the Zinderneuf’ a who dunnit game based on a zeppelin. I wrote about that in ‘Shadows are Us’ (and a few other places), in this setting I wrote about a change to gaming (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/05/31/shadows-are-us/) which I wrote about n May 2021. This is not entirely the same. My mind is wondering if a return to the days of the zeppelin is too wrong a concept. The idea was abandoned during the marshmallow clambake of May 6, 1937, when the Hindenburg burned down. But that was in the era of Hydrogen, later we got Helium, but the need for speed overshadowed everything. Now, in a stage when we can ALWAYS be connected, we can work everywhere. Is speed really essential? We can all understand that we need presence in places at times. But how we get there is another matter. With the era of 3d printing, light weight shops and a more essential setting of what matters during flights, Consider the image below and the way the materials were made. 

newspaper clipping (date unknown) Diagram of Hindenburg living quarters.

Now we can have twice the strength at only half the weight making a zeppelin much more effective. The top of the zeppelin could have large solar cell panels fuelling batteries and the propellors pushing the zeppelin forward. Did anyone reconsider what a Zeppelin could achieve, especially with todays abilities? Even now Titanium is heavier than aluminium, yet you need a lot less Titanium to get the same strength as Aluminium. The stage is all over and the need for a reduced carbon print (or was that a bacon foot print) is out there. So why do we not look at the old ides and how we can offer a renewed idea for getting to places. It is just an idea and it was in parts fuelled by a game as well as its optional newly launched version on Amazon Luna, but I am genuinely surprised that no one has taken up the baton, why is that? I am no airplane designer, so why is this path abandoned? 

There might be reasons that mediocre me had not considered, I am willing to accept that, but the dream was weird and it came twice around. Even now the first dream comes back in waves even as the second one faded away. 

So is Helium a solution, or merely an element of whatever and no one gives a fig? I honestly do not know, but I do really like the idea of a steampunk version of the Zinderneuf, I really do.

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April 5, 2022 · 19:13

The joke that was once CCCP

I grew up in the aftermath of the cold war. My friends and myself, my street friends as well as myself, we feared Russia, we worried about what they were able to do. Russia was regarded as very dangerous. Then the 90’s came. The stories of collaboration came, the stories of acceptance came and we rejoiced in part. There was an option of co-existence. We rejoices and we saw and hoped for the best. And for 30 years that continued. At some point there were sides in me that had a pro-Russian side. I abhorred the Chechen attack on Moscow civilian buildings. There was a side we all saw that Russia was not as bad as the Americans made them out to be. An afterthought of McCarthyism and I was wondering if America would ever learn their one sided hatred.

March 2022
The Ukrainian invasion is going on for about a week, for about a week we have questions, we wonder what set this in motion. What did the EU do, what did NATO do? But there is no clear answer and within a week we get to see the other side, the side that sanctifies the position of America. At present a dozen sources show me the Putin monster. The Russian acts of crime, transgressions of the articles of war, transgressions of humanitarian war and we see this all happen and we see governments do too little, or nothing at all. They send equipment, they send hardware, they send software but the Ukrainians fight by themselves (largely) and the 21st largest army on the planet is pushing back the second largest army in the world. The Russia we feared is losing hardware, people and morality. They lose on much larger scales than ever expected and Russia merely changes what the truth is on their TV stations and via trolls all over the world. There are some who fights these parties, but too little of them are there to make sure the people get to see the truth. The Guardian gave us in one instance “He said in one interview: “You see these atrocities and you are still not ready to do anything to make Putin lose his appetite for these atrocities. How can you sleep if you find strong words after these pictures, but do nothing? What else should happen so that the toughest sanctions are put on the table? Chemical attacks, or what is it you are waiting for?”” What is it you are waiting for is a generic question, it applies to governments as well as others and it applies to a lot of governments. Russia is done for. It could start a nuclear war, but all nations will turn on Russia that much they do know. China will not act until provoked but when they do it will be the end of Russia and it is not even close to the near end. 

The BBC gives us ‘Ukraine war: The Syrians signing up to fight for Russia’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-60931180) there we are given “Social media in Syria has been flooded with requests for people to join Russian troops in return for up to $7,000 for deployment” how long do you think Russia can set this game? If these troops get paid after 6 months, they are stupid and they will die stupid, their families will get nothing. If they get paid ahead and they hand it to their families, the Ukrainians will end their lives and we will see two parts, A Syria without men, women with money and nowhere to go and Russia with even more debt. And that is not the end. Nations like the Netherlands are showing themselves to have too many pro-Putin people in too powerful places and that should worry NATO, when FVD party leader Thierry Baudet states that there is no Russian aggression. When we see the dozens of photographs, the cadavers burned, shot in the streets, the setting of a government too dangerous to be part of any decision maker stream involving NATO. There is a clear stage that this merely involved 2-3 people, but they have too much power and any intelligence going to Russia is not acceptable. We need to set a much stronger example and we need to make sure that politicians, just like the WW2 NSB politicians are set to example. If they want to run to Russia fine, but they better leave fast and no argument on ‘the stage of nuance’ will be accepted, not when one states “there is no Russian aggression” and we see dozens of photographs, videos of civilian bombings, shooting of civilians in the streets will be accepted as some form of nuance. I will personally hang that traitor in a tree and if I have to spend the rest of my life in jail for that, then so be it. 

And we are nowhere near the end yet. You see the Russian army is about to become a joke, a bad one at that and the deployment of Syrian troops in Ukraine merely because the Russians do not have the ability makes me wonder why we were ever nervous about Russia. It makes me wonder what the Russians are about, when they have such a political and military engine, when they openly and knowingly support inhumane actions against civilians, what is left of a once proud nation is not worthy of writing down. I believe that Piers Morgan stated it best “How much of a cowardly society have we become?” As I see it, the Russian bear was defeated buy Paddington bear and the other nations were for the most on the sidelines watching. And lets not forget, their inactions is what Russia is using to gain Syrian fighters and that is the next round of slaughter we get to see and it is clear that Putin is not about diplomacy, it is to satisfy the need for blood, to make sure that if Ukraine wins, it will be on the premise of scorched earth. 

And we all have front row tickets to watch these events unfold. 

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March 6, 2022 · 03:13

The intelligence nightmare

Yes, that is how I see it. You think that you have seen it all? It is about to get worse and the BBC actually is showing us the start of it. With ‘Thousands of pro-Russia Serbs march in Belgrade’ we are merely scratching the surface. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60630351) does not give much, but it gives us “Friday’s march was a show of support for Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine. Serbia has religious, ethnic and political ties with Russia that have existed for centuries” You see it is a lot worse, Serbian arms dealers are all over Europe. Paces like Rotterdam, London and Paris come to mind, but there are more and now as we see all the pro Russian events starting, we see a stage where Serbs could destabilise most of western Europe. They can fuel lone wolves tying hands all over the place and they sit back and watch the chaos unfold. A setting Moscow really likes. So how speculative is this? Well the issues with arm dealers in these three places alone are worrisome and they have been for the longest of times seeing a lot more visibility in 2020. Now with this BBC article it is still speculative to connect the two, but I am not sure that it is merely speculation. There have been issues for the longest of times and it is merely brought to the surface and a more visible pedestal now. 

The problem is that a lot was not monitored for the longest of time and now the intelligence organisations are lacking information on too many sides. Some sources (unconfirmed ones) give rise to activities in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Luxembourg, USA, Norway, Montenegro and Austria. Do you really think it is all speculation? They have been busy under nearly everyones noses for over a decade and now that Russia is pushing the buttons, some are claiming allegiance, some are waking up and some are set to set Western Europe on fire. Which is which? I cannot tell, but there are connections on all kinds of levels. Did no one consider why Russian weaponry was relatively easy to get in Amsterdam and Rotterdam? In 2020 the Times gave us “While Serbia had a glut of Cold War-era stockpiles and a robust but underused defence industry, the Iraqi government was ill-equipped to battle an insurgency. So in late 2007 the two countries struck a £190 million deal to bring Serbian assault rifles, machine guns, anti-tank weapons, ammunition, explosives and other ordnance to Iraq”, I personally believe that these pipelines were there to also get Russian weapons into Iraq, and not merely the ones they have, to a larger degree the Russians provided hardware and that sets a new station, the station of storage. The Netherlands has been (for the longest time), a transitional port of arms, but there is also the speculation (never proven) that at times a container was ‘misplaced’ and ended on Dutch soil, a container filled with arms. So, how much of this is speculation? There is a fair amount of it, but I worked in the harbours of Rotterdam, when I was young and gullible, so anything is possible. Yet in this day and age, when serbs are ‘proclaiming loyalty’ do you want to take that chance? I will let you figure it out.

And whilst you do the Intelligence organisations of Europe will have to take a harsh look at what they have on the Serbs in their domain, because they really do not get to have a choice in that matter, not anymore.

And me? I have found a few more cogs to add to the previous story, I like to remain creative.

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March 3, 2022 · 11:40

Netflix Prime

Yup, that is it and it is not a conundrum. This setting applies to both Amazon Prime and Netflix (other layers too). You see, their valuation is set to a larger stage of WHAT and HOW MUCH they can bring. And in a stage where we are on the brink of active militant debates, having an alternative is never a bad idea. You see, for some unknown reason I have been thinking of the Dutch movie ‘De Prooi’ (1985). 

I remember how stunningly beautiful the leading lady played by Maayke Bouten was. But there is more (there always is), the story was quite good, it was done as it always was in those days. Like a race to the destination with several scenes in the middle. Yet the foundation of a decently good movie was there and it could be remade, the story needs a little adaptation, and if it is set to a different location (San Francisco, Vancouver, Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans) a little extra work might need to be done. A script ready for collecting (whomever has the rights) and it is not a small setting. There are hundreds of scripts out there where the rights are no longer active, where the rights to a movie are nickels and dimes away from ownership (instead of tens of thousands or more). A setting that all streamers need at present and they are all over Europe, all over the commonwealth too. We forgot about the younger watchers, did we not? So what happened to the dozens of movies that were part of the Enid Blyton collection, the hardy boys, and there was a female version too. Sweden has its treasures (beyond Pippi Longstocking that is) and so forth. Even the Netherlands has its share of treasures. All forgotten, all in some drawer catching dust, all whilst everyone is chasing the next mediocre version that comes from one of these great stories. 

As such I wonder how long these stream chasers keep on chasing a reinvented wheel, whilst there is a place where you can find a good collection of second hand wheels at 10% of the price. You will spend op to 5% rewriting it, but is one in 5 is a decent success, you will have an interesting track record as well as a decently fast growing library of works. If we look back to the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s we see movies all with a gimmick, but as long as the story is good, it can be rewritten with the gimmick of today and tomorrow. So where are these writers? What will Netflix (Amazon Prime too) do when the budgets are trimmed down? I did not forget about Apple and Disney, but it seems that they have a different approach to where they want to go, or how they want to get somewhere. I might be wrong, but that is how they feel to me. It is up to them and it is up to Netflix and Amazon, they might to get ahead of the curve before the are chasing it in some uphill battle against that very same curve, because that is what falling behind the curve tend to be. A never ending uphill battle. 

And I reckon that this is a race where the number two has no reward, they merely chased the other one too late. Who will it be? I have no idea, I am not buddies with either on that level, I need not be (not entirely true), I have my own stories to write and for now I reckon that I might have a new chapter coming up in the mini series ‘Residuam vitam’, I think it had a different name earlier. For some reason the others have titles set in stone, this one does not. I cannot figure that part out, even as the story was pretty much set, but now there is a new stage, but I need to write it differently, because the party involved are not like us and that changes the stage. I should say that Meng Po alerted me to that part, but I cannot, because every time she serves me soup I forget what I was doing, but the soup is so delicious.

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February 23, 2022 · 01:27

Seesaw without balance

This happens, a seesaw is play-toy with a shifting balance, but early in life someone thought it through, because if it works for people it works in a lot more places and balance is always option to stages. 

In this, we see two on the left and two on the right, so someone figured out that if one side is too heave, the other side will be too light, so if there is a moderator on the axial of the seesaw, that person can shift weight just before or just after the axial and the seesaw seems fair again. And it would have worked for much longer if there wasn’t someone checking the game that is being played. So today, 6 hours ago Al Jazeera gave us ‘Saudi forces destroy Houthi drone targeting airport in Jizan’ (at https://aje.io/45xbqg), so far nearly none of the western media has it, in 6 hours, no reporting and it is a repetition of an attack 2 weeks ago which came down on Abha, both attacks on civilian populations by Iranian driven Houthi terrorist forces. Yet as I personally see it there lies the rub, the media will avoid negative reporting on Iran, because there is the delusional figment of a nuclear accord shimmering somewhere and no one knows where. Yet in the meantime Houthi claimed attacks continue on Saudi Arabia and the west is not informed by its media, why is that? In this attack 16 people were wounded, and according to Saudi state TV 3 people were in critical condition. 

The problem here is that we rely on people giving us ‘Nuclear talks with Iran enter the endgame’, but not the larger game that Iran is playing and it will cost us, it will cost us all. I would not be surprised if someone at Aramco closes the European and American tap for 2-4 weeks, it would wake up useless politicians getting calls from people in their district that fuel prices have doubled, they would suddenly call crime on every street and as loud as they can, but at present the attacks on Saudi Arabia can continue, can they not? And in this we can ignore the Ukraine and the ‘danger’ that oil prices could go up by $20, if some have had enough oil prices could go up by 200%-300%, but are the people at Aramco willing to go there? Some of the big boys think that they are too big to fail, but in the Netherlands the SNS bank made that very same mistake in 2013. So when someone figures out that there are two parties, the heavy players on one side and the moderator in the middle pretending that this is a fair setting are part of the problem, we will see a much more intense and volatile setting come into play and in this Aramco closing the tap might become the least volatile of all moves. 

This is not speculation, this is merely the optional stage of available strategies that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has at its disposal, you see, the west ignoring and refusing to give the people all the information is becoming a larger problem. Beside the fact that the KSA has embassies everywhere, and as such they see all the papers. The internet is showing everyone the lack of reporting and as such we all have access to Al Jazeera and Arab News. The idea that these news bringers are backwards was proven incorrect for well over a decade and as such people can look beyond their own papers to get a much better view of what is going on and when the people wake up to some media whoring to digital dollars, they could optionally stop looking there for filtered information and look in other places for actual news and at that point the game changes, the axial grinders for the seesaw become no longer needed, but the people employing them will have to keep on paying them, they saw too much. They took calls from stake holders, they took meetings with media parties and they have seen the larger field. I say this not in some speculation, or hiding behind some conspiracy theory. This is simple tactics. The seesaw principle when you start taking notice of all the news that was ‘filtered away’. And when we consider the media greed ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ we see that ignoring international events made no sense. It cannot be because they ran out of space (internet space is obscenely cheap), it cannot be because people did not care (see a casualty and a thousand eyes become instantly interested), someone was filtering. You see tactically speaking Aramco can make a move, or the KSA can force the hand of someone else, and there is every chance that they know who the stakeholders are. So the game is soon coming to fruition and I personally believe that any Nuclear accord that is too weak will suddenly get the larger interest of the KSA and the state of Israel. Thee two settings are a larger play and the media ignored these settings for too long. How long can you say ‘nothing is happening there’ whilst smoke is coming from there? How long until people will take another look via other means? I think we are getting close to that point at present, but that would be speculation. There is no way to tell at present, but the fact that those we trusted to bring us news, those who seemingly shifted to bring us presentations, those are becoming a larger problem and the people seem to be walking up to that part, but that could be my delusional insight in this. 

There is a larger play afoot and we are not given the real deal, a mere ‘Putin is testing ‘how far he can push us all’, US tells Ukraine crisis talks’, not that that statement was wrong, but the story we were given by many over time is watering down, it is how the game is played say some. I wonder what else we are not told, and that might just be me.

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February 18, 2022 · 19:23

Unintentional?

Whilst playing a game (Horizon 2, Forbidden West) my mind was drawn into a setting I have not openly done before. In the intro part we are (optionally) drawn into the conflict of intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness. A thief preventing theft is the clue (not giving away anything. But consider that I consider Microsoft to have shown (several times) the application of intentional shortsightedness. This goes back from the Xbox One and after. For whatever reason they did this, they set up intentional shortsightedness on storage for the longest time (since 2011).  And I have scolded them for it, I could do so because their competitor (Sony) set up an option where it could be solved. They did this in the PS4, PS4Pro and PS5. Microsoft since the Xbox One avoided that and only now (2020) offered another option, I reckon because they could no longer avoid that. Now we see streaming and I warned about congestion, the setting in the UK is now “UK’s biggest network operator, might soon become its biggest 5G provider. EE currently has 5G live in the UK in 160 places and plans to cover the whole country by 2028.” So proper national 5G in the UK by 2028, implying congestion in a lot of rural places. Europe and the US are in no better state. There we see “All of the major U.S. wireless carriers say they have nationwide 5G service, but industry analysts say that service is largely indistinguishable from 4G LTE service”, yet 4G LTE and 5G are not the same, in no uncertain way! So we see an industry who is hiding behind  shortsightedness to leave one third in the dark and that applies to the UK, US and Europe. 1/3rd is not worthy to be properly connected and in that we see a problem, it will taint streaming systems (and it works for Sony in no small way too). But I am not here pleading for Sony, I am here pleading for gamers.

The game gives us the stage of unintentional shortsightedness, because can we predict what happens or what is needed in 1000 years? Of course not, but the clarity we could see in 2011 was addressed by one and not the other, that makes it intentional. They cannot hide behind ‘We did not see that coming’ because nearly all could see it coming a mile away. Some hid behind what would expected to come (trade agreements) and someone boasted his trumpet too soon and the brand suffered, the other one made a video of one person handing a disc to another person and made short of the situation, but they too hoped for change and it is seen in there terms of service, the media largely ignored it whoring for digital dollars, but they too are guilty. 

These are all stages of intentional shortsightedness. So when does it become unintentional shortsightedness? Because of the filtered business approach, the approach of common sense or the approach of what a board of directors stipulates? I honestly do not know. I am willing to go with common sense, but common sense and business sense are not aligned, or better stated they are more often not aligned than aligned. There is the stage of common sense versus service level agreements, there is the stage of common sense and dependancy of suppliers and there are a few other stages. Yet if the the UK is any indication, the delay to national 5G (real 5G) until 2028 sets a much larger premise. The ability to offer 5G solutions and 5G added abilities to a nation when it needs to rely on other means. It is (as I personally see it) as the 80’s setting that Dutch Luc Sala stated as the have’s versus the have not’s and it is coming to actual deployment in the next 5 years and not merely in the Netherlands, it will be seen on the global stage. A stage of technological discrimination, the problem is to see the difference between intentional versus unintentional shortsightedness, because even as a game brings it to the forefront, this stage has been deploying for close to 3 years and if you want to refresh your information (I stated it several times) at present only Saudi Arabia has a national deployed 5G network, and it is more than that it is merely 700% faster than the US, it is a nation that took serious steps to make its nation 5G and over the next 5 years it might get a lot more benefits in its wake than any other player. South Korea might have an advantage as well, but that will be seen over the next 2 years. A stage that we saw coming a mile away, so is it at that point intentional or unintentional shortsightedness? I will let you decide. But the lack of services that we will see pop up all over whilst some providers hide behind ‘It works fine under 4G LTE’ and whilst the media keeps n ignoring certain steps should inspire you to seek out the real information bringers and make sure that the media starts operating less under the appeasing structure and more supported by the common sense pillar. 

Just to recap the important setting “In theory, 5G is likely to reach speeds that are 20 times faster than 4G LTE. 4G LTE has a peak speed of 1GB per second; 5G could theoretically achieve speeds of 20GB per second. … But where you might get 10Mb per second from your 4G network today, 5G could possibly provide 100MB per second everyday speeds”, so it becomes the “Do you really need 20GB per second?” And you think you are swayed, but the part ignored is that banks and others can have 20 times the transactions, so when you are in a bidding war and you will (nearly) always be missing out on a bid, it becomes the option where those who have will get the goods, those who have not will miss out on the goods. Transactions that are 20 times faster, the seesaw in a truly unbalanced stage. Consider your business where the information is brought to you at 5% speed, how appealing is that to some?

All matters that were out in the open for 4-6 years, now slowly pressing on your business, on your home, on your gaming and on your stream speed. You really think I was kidding when I saw congestion as the next big evil coming to your front door? So when short sighted people give you (on June 4th 2018) ‘NBN chief blames online ‘gamers predominantly’ for fixed wireless congestion’ and whilst we see see “The fixed wireless component of the NBN covers approximately 600,000 Australian homes. 234,000 homes are currently connected.” The larger ignored setting is that “streaming 4K video can use as much as 7 gigabytes (GB) per hour”, a clear setting of intentional shortsightedness, as (Australian) Netflix users surpassed 11,000,000 the Q1 2019, as such we see a massive cluster of shortsightedness. The issue here is prediction when does prediction become intentional? I cannot tell and Covid changed the metrics by a lot, but the levels of congestion were clear, they were clear before covid (2018), there are cogs that are connected, but I can tell you right now, that those claiming to see the difference can not always tell (including me), but I saw a lot of the factors upfront and I blogged them at the time since before covid. As such I feel that I have proven that a lot of unintentional shortsightedness was indeed intentional shortsightedness. Yes, I agree that some cases can be made in a few directions, but not all and too many points were unattended by too many industrials, and not merely in one nation, but near global and in the upcoming 5G commercial wars it will give raise to several failings that we are bound to see in 2023 and 2024. Perhaps suddenly the issues I raised in the streaming wars are a little less innocent, especially from the view of some of the industrials as they gave them. Consider some ‘stream’ presentation and consider who in the end they are really for.

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February 18, 2022 · 15:23

The Dutch lead the way

If someone told me 5 years ago that the Dutch would become a new leader in open world gaming, I would have told them to stop using drugs and could I please have some of whatever they were taking and I would be proven wrong and I am. The software maker Guerrilla Software, the makers of the Horizon series did something way unique, not only did they set a new record, the have now 2.3rd (if there will be a third part) to actually surpass Mass Effect in storytelling. A scenario that was unheard of 5 years ago. There was no doubt, there was no doubt that part one was exquisite on many levels, but at present, as I approach the level with three snakes, the point of the first repel I feel that there is a larger station, a story that could become legendary and a Dutch software maker did this. Yes, I saw a few glitches, I saw 1-2 bugs, I also saw 1 error and as Eloy is now visible in the red grass (intentional or not) is beside the point. This game is roaring an introduction that is unheard of and it is merely the intro to something we can only guess on. And (to vex Microsoft) it is only for Sony PlayStation gamers! 

The game plays like we are getting in our most comfortable shoes. We see the things we loved, the controls we remember and the game has the feel of a world we understood and on the PS 5 it is so gorgeous, water the blight, it is amazing and there are dozens of hours head of me, optionally up to 100 (speculation) hours of amazement and gaming. The posters revealed San Francisco (what is left of it), those large red towers were a bit of a giveaway and some of the trailers showed that we have so much more to see. But the part that get me the most is that the intro part gives us what was and a larger story (supplementing) on what became through time. A station largely ignorant of the player, making us watch whilst we game through a story that goes into a direction we do not know where. In part because I would not give spoilers, but to the largest part because I am merely at the first repel point (it makes sense when you get there). The horizon story is breathtaking and I feel certain that NO ONE had a clue what we were in for when the first trailers were given to us in 2015 I believe. We knew that we were seeing something special but how special is only coming clear in the beginning of part 2. 

In the speculative part of me, I do hope there is a deeper setting to Sylens (Lance Reddick), apart from the cast of Fringe (Scarecrow) being upset, I believe that there is a lot more to the setting of Sylens (but that could just be me), It seems that the story can go a whole lot further, but that too is a combination of speculation and wishful thinking. What is true is that I am at the mere start of the game and it is impressive beyond believe, to be honest, it has been a whilst since I was that impressed. It is the combination of Story, gameplay, character and anticipation/thrills. You see, the corners, the triggers we have seen in past games have presented anticipation and even as we think we know what we get into the first repel will dazzle and optionally surprise us (I actually do not know yet). 

And this is brought to us all by a Dutch game maker. It would be folly to think that all great games come from America/Japan, but to see another game maker surpass thresholds like the story of Mass Effect trilogy and new levels of gaming that America seems unable to deliver is something no one would have expected and as other games come, some need to realise that the old standards no longer apply. The old masters have to some degree now been surpassed. It would always happen, but I never expected to be around to see that and it should be a harsh lesson for players like Microsoft and Ubisoft. There levels will only maintain with the upcoming new titles, so whatever they think they have, they better test it and if it does not break the 83% marker it will bring them down, not sustain them. We have arrived at that point and their influencers and marketing will not aid them, not when these new levels of excellence are brought to the gamers. It was a lesson they were always going to have to learn, but I reckon that they hoped that there would be time until 2023/2024. As I see it, 2022 will be the first moment these makers will get the crap kicked out of them. And it was a Guerrilla army of makers (360 of them housed in Amsterdam) that would treat them to the first kick.

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