Tag Archives: Netherlands

December 30, 2020 · 23:12

At the end

Yup one full day left in the year, and my mind gets hit with all kinds of thoughts, towards the Sony directed RPG I came up with a different setting of weapons expertise.

You need to have minimum levels, yet the use of it, also over time strengthens the player. Bash weapons are all about strength (Mace, Club), darts and blowpipes are a pure dexterity event, whilst blades require strength and dexterity and also power both, and Bolas are for strength and intelligence, knifes require dexterity and intelligence and the staff is a pure intelligence weapon. This has two events, you can strengthen a property you do not need, but can power up, all whilst the pure of heart will have play-throughs with different weapons, depending on the person they selected to be, so whilst I was thinking that through, we see new articles on the UK and their dire Covid situation, this is actually more important than you think. Even as we have covid more and more here, the setting of the indication is not merely that what we see (at https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-cases/uk-coronavirus-cases-set-new-daily-record-prompting-extreme-concern-idUKKBN2931P5), a setting that gives us ‘UK coronavirus cases set new daily record, prompting ‘extreme concern’’, all whilst the information I gave in ‘The lull of writing’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/12/28/the-lull-of-writing/), a setting where we see presented evidence that the quick test gives a false negative in up to 40% of the time, that is quite the issue and as we see “Britain’s government reported 53,135 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, the highest number since mass testing started in mid-2020 and up sharply from the previous record of 41,385 set on Monday” I am massively surprised that the NOS data as well as the data given by the LUMC, a academic place that equals John Hopkins, and no one is picking it up? How much ignorance is required in these positions? 

I am not asking them to merely accept the outcome, but as far as I can tell there is no debate on the findings at all, which is positively weird, especially as the Covid issue in the UK has filled 414 caskets in the last 28 days alone (some went into a vase), the silence on this is positively deafening.

So we see additional issues at the end of the year and I haven’t even started on the weird Brexit issues I am finding. All stations of discussions, but the news is all about different things and a largely less reliable covid test is not coming up, why not?

So whilst we applaud the setting of “Andrew Hayward, warned that Britain was heading for “catastrophe” over the coming weeks if it did not take tougher action against the more infectious variant of the disease”, the issue might be too late at present, the more transferable version is out and about and even if it is not more deadly does not matter, when the UK has 35,000 additional patients instead of the 15,000 they might have had, the hospitals would not be able to deal with the additional 20,000 so more people will unnecessarily die, it is basic numbers. And that setting is there out in the open, as such I got real angry over the Swiss setting and the spoiled touristic baboons there. 

A station of hurt is coming our way and there is almost no way to avoid that and as the media is not giving the people essential information, the people will continue to be a lot less careful than they should be. A setting that I optionally face in the next week, which has one upside, if it hits me in the most negative way, I can laugh because I decided to ignore a tax bill until next June, one payment I will optionally not live long enough to pay for, joy joy joy!

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December 28, 2020 · 04:23

The lull of writing

We all have it, a small gap, a gap, which is not the same as a writing block, something I have been smitten with in the past as well. This lull was intentional, you see, I found information tht changes the game, it explains a few matters and sets a different premise. I found it two days ago and I waited to see who would pick it up, and would you believe NO ONE HAS. The apparent setting is one that requires scrutiny, the two sources are high end sources, one is a (what some would call) an Ivy League university that is as renowned as John Hopkins medical school is, the Dutch NOS has had a long term high level journalistic side that equals the New York Times and the Washington Post. They give us ‘Leids onderzoek: veel gebruikte sneltest minder betrouwbaar dan gedacht’ (at https://nos.nl/artikel/2362024-leids-onderzoek-veel-gebruikte-sneltest-minder-betrouwbaar-dan-gedacht.html), the title translates to ‘Leiden research: frequently used rapid test less reliable than expected’, it gives us “Een sneltest die in Nederland dagelijks duizenden keren wordt gebruikt mist 40 procent van de coronagevallen, komt naar voren uit onderzoek van het Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum (LUMC)”, which translated gives us “a quicktest that is used thousands of times in the Netherlands misses 40% of the corona cases, this is found by the Leiden University Medical Cantre”, this is a dire setting indeed, and one that is kept from the people and the media, I wonder why. The micro biologist Maurine Leversteijn-Van Hall gives us “people are going home thinking that a negative result implies that they are free of COVID-19 this is incorrect”, I was shocked to learn this and the fact that these two renowned sources give us this, is a worry, the fact that others are not asking questions and have not given its people any information is a larger worry still, the fact that they blatantly copy one another on the setting of the tits of a Kardashian or how its hanging with Ryan Reynolds, it it sinking in that the media setting is largely facilitating to shareholder, stake holder and advertiser?

So when we are given the carefully phrased denial ““Abbott’s Panbio antigen rapid test is a proven and accurate test,” the manufacturer argues. “We are not aware of this investigation and the researchers have not contacted us.”” The additional ““But we do not find that 90 percent sensitivity”, says lead researcher Frits Rosendaal, professor of epidemiology at the LUMC. “We conduct independent research and never contact producers about it.”” Is added worry still.

The fact that this is not out in the English speaking open after 2 days is food for thought, and even as many do not have the multi linguistic skills I have is not their fault, the fact that the media is not all over this is a clear failing of the larger media. So whilst the larger media is all over ‘Japan’s Shinzo Abe apologises over ‘cherry blossom’ scandal’, the fact that they are not all over the Dutch findings of. Failing quick test in light of the 4,045 new dearly departed of the Coronavirus in the last 24 hours is a large worry, a worry we might happily ignore, if it was not for the fact that 81 million people either have, or had the virus. A stage we are so willing to ignore, so when the numbers go out there and the vaccine, is equally failing, will you start to take things seriously? Will the media wake up, or will they flame it in need for digital click coins?

I will leave it up to you to make up your mind, yet consider that the NOS article, after you pass it through the Google Translate will leave you with a lot of questions, I wonder who will give you the answers, when you realise that the media is not the party earning your trust (well most of them anyway), where will you find the stage where you can make up your mind?

I apologise or leaving you with many questions and no real answers, I am not a medic, I will not give advice where you need answers to clear and concise questions, this is up to people who are educated in the knowledge of Medicine, yet consider that two sources, one in journalism (NOS) and one in medicine (Leiden Medical University) give us a serious failing of 40% and no one is picking that up, why is that? Not merely not picking it up, but also not openly opposing the findings, it is a worry and a clear question mark. 

I wish I could tell you more, but I could not wait any longer to inform you, and hopefully we see more in the coming days, even though I remain doubtful of it and it is another clear example on how shareholders, stake holders and advertisers seem to have a pressure point on the media.

I will leave you to make up your own mind. 

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December 23, 2020 · 11:56

Ego or lives?

There is a setting you are perhaps uncomfortable with, but that is what I do, put the uncomfortable in the limelight, but before I do that, I need to take a step back and explain how we got there. 

Piece One
In the first part we see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55388846), ‘New coronavirus variant: What do we know?’, this is important, because it is what we know that brings light in the darkness. So we see “All the work is at an early stage, contains huge uncertainties and a long list of unanswered questions”, this is fact, and the setting of ‘uncertainties’ does not help any. There is also “The government’s advisers on new infections now say they have “high” confidence that it is more able to transmit than other variants”, it is seemingly less of a fact, yet we see that this new strain is now in Denmark, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. So as we see countries closing their borders to the UK, we also see a secondary reaction and that is the puzzle of today.

Piece Two
So as we are told ‘Coronavirus: EU urges countries to lift UK travel bans’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55404087), why is that? I am not happy on any travel ban, yet the new strain is a fact, there is a lot we do not know and w do not even know (officially) whether this strain is more deadly, which was counter argued from the moment the new version was seen, and I am fine with a little good news. Yet do these countries have a responsibility to their own citizens? Then we get “It also said transport staff in the EU, such as lorry drivers, should be exempt from travel restrictions and mandatory testing”, yes because lorry drivers never stop for coffee and infect more people around them. From my point of view it seems that the people in Strasbourg are a little dim on the dangers of an infectious disease. Now, I have advocated the opposite and I have advocated the lack of mortality to a larger degree, I stand on that, but to see some flaunt dangers on what might be regarded as the expression of ego is another matter. As such, when I see “more than 50 countries around the world from India, to Iran, to Canada have suspended flights from the UK”, I get it, people need to be safe and that applies to any country, and when I am told ‘a long list of unanswered questions’, the setting of “EU urges countries to lift UK travel bans” makes way too little sense. 

A stage that needs to be smothered, not invigorated and in all this I wonder what their ego’s are telling them and why we are not telling those politicians to keep their ego’s in check UNTIL there are actual answers to all the unanswered questions. Or perhaps they need reminding on the setting that the US has 330,000 dead people a lot of them due to inactions and people not taking the entire Coronavirus setting serious enough. Oh and that is ONE country that has 20% of all the global fatalities, perhaps that makes a little more sense to them. I get it, to some degree there is an overreaction, but that does not take away basic national responsibilities that any nations has to its citizens, and opening borders whilst we see ‘a long list of unanswered questions’ does not make sense to me, but that might just be me.

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December 20, 2020 · 18:40

The rest of our lives

Yes, we all look towards the rest of our lives, yet how much of it is left? There is every indication that is is a little less than we expect it to be. I was looking forward to write more on the TV series my mind created (Keno Diastima), I was adding a little more science to it all, science makes fiction easier to swallow for the sceptical among us and I like plenty of science with my fiction, so there.

Yet, as I was brooding on this, I saw the Coronavirus messages from all Directions. The Netherlands is banning all flights from the UK, a part of Sydney now has a larger problem and the news keeps on coming in, I especially ‘liked’ ‘Covid: WHO in ‘close contact’ with UK over new variant’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55382212), there we see “The new variant is spreading more rapidly than the original version, but is not believed to be more deadly”, it is the application of ‘is not believed’, which basically implies that they do not know and that is fine, we accept that not all answers are available at point zero. Yet, who considered the impact on these to approved vaccines? Is vaccine one good enough to fight off and prevent version 2? What will happen when there are more mutations? And the largest issue the media and most people ignore is the 1% speculation. In June (6 months ago) we could see a global increase of 1% over 3 million cases, which is 30,000. In September the number was 7 million, in three months, the number had doubled, as such we come to a stage of 70,000 new cases. Day (globally), now the total number number is 76,635,408, 10 times of what there was three months ago and it is time to button down the hatches, because the 1% rule gives us 766,000 cases a day (globally) and all whilst some sources make claim that in India there is a 60% setting of people with the Coronavirus, 60% of 1.35 billion, a number we do not see anywhere, making optionally the source unreliable, yet I have had my concerns with the Indian numbers for the longest time. You merely need to see actual footage on the population pressure in the Mumbai region alone to see that question mark. The reported figure are present is at 10,031,659, When w apply the 1% rule we see 13,500,000 a day, and so far that number has been exceeded on a global stage by nearly every country, so not in India? Consider the population:

If even one person in this crowd has the Coronavirus, how many will have it tomorrow? That is the ignored part, partially because most non-Indian people have no idea just how populated India is and that is the larger danger, we tend to ignore what we do not know and in this case it is a dangerous setting to have. And this is not some sought special picture, Google Search can give you well over 100 images like it, all from different areas of India. 

As such, when you contemplate the rest of your life, did you consider your life (if you have any left) after the coronavirus? The numbers are in my favour here. The 1% rule was surpassed by a lot over the last 6 months. We might lockdown everything, but it takes one stupid person to ignore this and quickly visit a friend, and the scared ones do it more quickly than any other. 

At present the BBC (at best) give us “There is no clear-cut evidence the new variant of coronavirus – which has been detected in south-east England – is able to transmit more easily, cause more serious symptoms or render the vaccine useless”, which is fair enough, more importantly, we also do not know what we do not know, this sounds complex, but variants are tricky bastards and there are no real answers until a laboratory have positively analysed the mutations, this is fair (at https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55312505), but the number one scare for governments is “or render the vaccine useless”, several players paid billions for the vaccine, so the term ‘useless’ is one they do not need to hear, but in the end, we simply do not know. Neither do we know whether the vaccine to strain one will also lower the power of strain 2, 3 and optionally 4. Anyone who believes that this ends today is paving the road to hell, all on their own.

In this the West Australian had the funniest setting for all this, they give us today “Coronavirus crisis: WA Premier Mark McGowan says hard border with NSW needed to ‘save our Christmas’”, yes because saving Christmas trumps the need to keep our lives safe, that made perfect sense and if you are forced to self-isolate celebrating Christmas is really topping your chart, isn’t it?

Well, whatever you do, you will have the rest of your life contemplating it, and should you die tomorrow, then I hope you resolved whatever you were brooding about. #Oversimplification

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December 11, 2020 · 20:54

A weird vindication

Yup, we all face vindication at some point, it can be ‘I told you so’, it can be ‘Yup, I watched it and it went exactly as I expected’, and it can be ‘You should have listened to me’, To be honest, I hope at times it is almost never the third one, there will ALWAYS be an exception, but the third one is laced in arrogance and I personally think that it is laced to deeply in arrogance, as such I tend to side with the first two sentiments. 

Now, this day started weird. I woke up from a slumber. We all have those moments at times, in this instance I had  sort of waking dream, so I cannot say what kind of dream it was, it might be a movie script, yet the setting was a little too surreal. It was in the Netherlands, apparently the Dutch Military Police (they also guard the royal family) had set a parameter where the non used royal houses were used as stash locations. They were instructed to investigate a reporter who had found a snippet of that setting and they decided to smear his career in several ways as to take focus away from those locations. They involved the foreign office to muddy the waters. It was a small group of less than a dozen agents, but the stage was sullied by VEVAK as one of its agents performed a ‘service’ once and they had an inside scoop on technology that was stored in one of the locations. As the foreign office operative was smearing the reporter, VEVAK had altered the information to the smallest degree, but it woke up Mossad and as they started to look into the matters the reporter as well as well as the crooked military police agent were all in their  alleged private hell and as Mossad as played in a few ways the criminal police officers had no place to go but towards handing over the technology to Iran. Anyway that is when I woke up, and I saw that I missed out on the first hour of the Game Awards 2020. 

So why is this vindication? The Last of Us part 2 (7 wins), Ghosts of Tsushima (1 win), Final Fantasy 7 remake (1 win), 9 wins, all Sony exclusives, that is what I mean with Microsoft being off their game by a massive amount, there were more non-Microsoft wins (Animal Crossings) as such the weakest console got the award when the most powerful console did not. Microsoft did win the   Sim/Strategy Game Award and the Flight Simulator that they have left no surprise, it is BEYOND amazing, fair is fair. But that is one title, in this game award show Microsoft was a larger absent force, to get to the top layer you have to up the game to a much larger degree, Sony did, Microsoft to a larger degree did not, the absence of Ubisoft needs to be noticed too, there is a larger stage and both Ubisoft and Microsoft are no longer in the centre of it, the fact that Microsoft got mentioned (in light of Sims) is fair but it is one in a stage where they used to be a contender to a much larger field, fo me this is an ‘I told you so’ event. 

The exclusives matter, if they rock the field they rock gaming, and this year is a sore point for both Ubisoft and Microsoft. I wonder what will happen next year. CD Projekt Red has fixing to do, yet they could end up taking some of the awards, There are a few more players, but the stage is shifting and in this there is a larger push for Sony to rule the complete center stage. The 9 awards are a clear indication of that. It was always hard for any fight between two Sony titles, as such there is a little surprise that Ghosts of Tsushima only got one, but the competition was fierce and The Last of Us part 2 was a price fighter here. No matter who of the two won, the players and the gamers in the end they won, especially if they had both games. So as we are about to enter Saturday I will continue on the RPG I was working on, still haven’t worked out the new levelling system, well actually perhaps in part I have, but I need to think through whether it will not become too chaotic. In gaming chaos is fine, in programming a little less so, it allows for too many bugs and glitches to creep in. Innovation is cool, but the path towards it, often enough, less so. 

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November 11, 2020 · 00:40

A,B,C,…..D?

We all have ways to promote the thinking pattern within ourselves, we all have our way to get about it, I am no exception. Yet, today is a weird day, I am overwhelmed with a thought and a sensation from the 60s. I was a wee young lad (a little piss ant is more like it), I was never a saint, especially when I was young. And in all this we all had our own ways to deal with ourselves, again, I am not exception. 

The sensation that bugs me today is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while. It is like a nuisance that keeps on bugging me and I do not exactly know why. It is a drink, in the Netherlands it was for a small time (in the 60s) decently wanted. The bottle was long and slim, with a light blue lid, it contained some form of a tangerine drink. That drink has been on my mind for a while now, and I miss it, but until recently it’s been nagging me and I do not know why. I looked up a few things and I noticed that there is no decent tangerine liquor. The drink I used to have was a lemonade, basically tangerine juice, settled with a third ingredient like water, still water. So why was it on my mind so strongly?

I had been considering a lot more from that era, mostly TV series, it was all before the house of Pong set up its shrine (a manhunter New York joke). And then it hit me, it was 1968, the Dutch TV series ‘De Fabeltjeskrant’ created by Leen Valkenier started, the UK got it later titled ‘The Daily Fable’, the setting had connections to the fables of Jean de La Fontaine, Aesop, and others. No matter how simple it was then, it was close to unequalled until it ended in 1989 after well over 1600 episodes, a gem too many had forgotten about, The adventures narrated by Mr Owl, with Miss Stork, 

Mr. Cunningham the Fox, Mr. Crow, Boris the Wolf, Bert and Fred Beaver, Zippy the Hare,Shelly the Tortoise, Miss Ant, Gerald the Pigeon, Milord the Horse, Harold the, George the Guinea Pig in the British version, Mumbles the Mole, Myra the Hamster, Greta the Cow, and Zaza the Zebra. There were more characters, but I stopped watching when I grew a little older, yet consider the simple fact that this series ran for over 1600 episodes and consider all the old tales as well as the tales of Grimm and others, what a treasure trove it could be, even today, we are all looking at the hi-tech series, but there is a reason that Tim Burton struck gold with the Nightmare before Christmas, stop motion animation is still an art that can move all the senses we have and we forgot about that tiny detail. We seemingly forgot about the situation where what was is still good, but how to embrace it? The fair part is that children do not mind, they embrace the story, the interactions, the inclusion, it is the inclusion that tends to take the cake, but it is merely one of a few factors and to be around for 22 years, that matters, that shows that you have a winner. So can it be relaunched? That is the question we need to face. E can remaster it, it can be remade, but in the same way? It is like the original Mass Effect, these gems are close to timeless, in 15 years when we have the Playstation 6 and the Zbox (or XboxX), a game like Mass Effect will still have a value that equals its weight in gold, so TV series too will have their moment and the IP and its owner sees a new life where none was expected. It is the showing of a real visionary, a game like Mass Effect (the original trilogy) is truly one of those. 

So whilst my mind focussed on a tangerine smell and a faint taste of what was, the reason was lingering in the back of my mind and the Daily Fable is not the only thing from those days. Netflix is investing a little over $17 billion in this year alone, but on how much actual IP? What if a fraction could get them several series that could give them a much larger offering of series? As the workflow comes back (after another lockdown), we see that there is a need for materials that will be there for the younger and the not so young viewers. 

It is about series, games, streaming and non streaming. It is all directed via IP, but it is not the only option, there is a whole league of games that lost their IP protection years ago, the same for TV series and the clever mind is one that looks in the past and find the troves most forgot about.  A setting we need to take another look at. So consider on what Netflix is spending and then add the billions that DisneyPlus is spending and see what some can get at a mere farthing per pound, a setting too enticing to ignore, but the will be the name of the game soon enough. 

It links to an old joke, what is the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant? A zookeeper has a $10 note and hands you 10 $1 coins, an accountant squeezes the $10 note until it gives up 11 $1 coins. We can laugh at the or realise that the Netflix has an optional $1,700,000,000 around, all because not the right accountant took a look at the $10 notes. We can laugh at the joke, or we can consider that there are parts none of them looked at, why is that? Or better stated, where are the gemstones? You already saw one, let me give you one more, it was a Swedish series called ‘Den vita stenen’, a series based on a 1965 award winning book. In a collection of nations, a mere 2 options and that is before you realise that France, Germany, Norway, Estonia, Netherlands, Belgium and Spain. They all have the gemstones no-one noticed or they forgot the impact they had focussing on a local market tends to have that impact and the time goes short, soon more than one will catch on and when they get it done it will be too late for them.

Such is life, as such, did you get to point D? If so, is it a square, a rectangle, a trapezium or a parallelogram? All options and none are the same.

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October 17, 2020 · 23:23

Follow Dick the Butcher

Yup, this is one for the record books, and one for publications. First of all, people who follow me here know that I have to the largest part no real love for most of the media, I tend to flock to those giving us the clear views, and I make fun of (read: chastise) all the others. That is how it should be. Yet, I have stayed short of actual violence (as it tends to be counter productive). One of the good media outlets is the Dutch NOS, it is government run, but to the largest degree for well over half a century it gives the Dutch the real deal, it has no issues going after government issues with the subtlety of a mallet. They have done this for pretty much for the length of my life (before that I was enjoying the view from my dad’s left testicle, so I cannot vouch for the time before I was born). 

So as I have been taking in the news of the NOS having to hide their logo, NOS journo’s getting attacked, I was a little dismayed and I wondered, especially in light of the population requiring a really large decrease in numbers to sae nature, the idea formed ‘Lets kill all the stupid people’, it is based on an idea submitted by Dick the Butcher given to Henry VI, it must be true, because Shakespeare wrote about it.

I was for a little while wondering why I am the only one coming up with this brilliant idea, but I was wrong, I was not and a book was published on this concept. The book (see image above) gives us the stage we have today. I will not go into the book (copyright issues) but if you want to catch up, it can be found (at https://www.amazon.com.au/Saying-Stupid-People-Warning-Problem/dp/167518836X), and also because I have not read it yet. The cover was all explanatory to me.

I also found a T-Shirt, but that reflects on a virtual kill, so basically a non-kill and even as there is a second of relief, there is no legal issue, yet the fact I that there is a larger stage, whether these people are scared or frustrated, the stage to attack journalists or health care officials is a separate class of stupid. Now I have seen the ass kissing journalists out there and there is an inner need to become violent, take an image of Paul Dacre, who does not have the feeling to attach his picture to a dart board and have some fun? The same can be argued on a whole range of newspapers and publications, Yet when we go after people of the Washington Post, the NY Times, The Boston Globe, Dagens Nyheter, the NOS and a few others, we seemingly lost the plot. In part the politicians are to blame here, they wanted all the papers out there, they catered to Rupert Murdoch and his ‘assistants’ and the problem becomes slightly clearer, the people cannot tell the difference anymore, although in the UK the difference between the Daily Mirror and the Guardian is rather large, in the Netherlands it is a little harder, their journalists are for the most pretty high end, and we agree every basket has its rotten apples, but those tend to not be around in the Netherlands for too long. The Guardian gives us ‘Dutch state broadcaster pulls logo from vans after attacks’ with the added text “the national counter-terrorism agency warned of a heightened risk of far-right violence in the Netherlands”, for the most I have no issues with political differences, but this far-right violence is completely unheard of in the Netherlands. The stage as the Guardian gives us “almost daily, journalists and technicians on the road to report are confronted with verbal abuse, garbage is thrown, vans are blocked [and] people bang on their sides or urinate on them”, as such we see a shift and people wondered what got into me when I proposed a movie called ‘How to Kill a politician’ with a likeness towards Geert Wilders, when people ask me why, I can now point at the NOS situation saying, “Because of this!”

A stage that is ignored for the longest time and consider that Geert Wilders is not even close to the worst. That part is seen in Foreign Policy (at https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/28/the-new-face-of-the-dutch-far-right-fvd-thierry-baudet-netherlands-pvv-geert-wilders/), where we see “On election night, Thierry Baudet, the leader of FvD, addressed his audience with a speech that was broadcast live to well over 1 million households by the Dutch national broadcasting organisation, NOS. Baudet did not, as is common, address the crowd in front of him and thank staff and volunteers. Instead, he spoke directly into the cameras. Baudet repeated his core political message of the last two years, conjuring a stark image of the near-total decline of the “boreal world”—a term popularised on the French far-right as an alternative to the discredited “Aryan”—imagining a white cultural and political space “from Gibraltar to Vladivostok.” A quaint word to the uninitiated, the term “boreal” has long been recognised as a deafening dog whistle to white supremacists.”

For me it means to swallow for a second, I knew that neo nazi and white supremacy organisations were around, but the idea that they have Dutch origins is a little more than I am ready for, the Dutch are in a stage where they blamed the Germans the last to decades for something the Dutch themselves created. I would never have guessed that and it seems to me that these players fear the NOS the most, the NOS has never had any scruples holding politicians to the sunlight and let everyone see what they were looking at and for those people the NOS is scary, the NOS never hesitated to set light to the things not making sense. 

In the stage where nearly all politicians voiced negatively against the violence against the NOS, we see Thierry Baudet give us (at https://www.alkhaleejtoday.co/international/5101936/Distressed-reactions-after-decision-to-remove-NOS-logo-‘Terrible’.html) “according to him it is his job as a politician to express ‘cultural criticism’. “But the idea that that could be translated into threats in the physical sphere is of course terrible, absurd and abject and must be fought with the fiercest of terms,” he told Een Vandaag”, when we read this carefully we get to “the idea that ‘cultural criticism’ could be translated into threats in the physical sphere is of course terrible and absurd”, I am not so sure, it is his side that sets the stage of violence, and he is not calling optional transgressors to stop violence, he is giving the world a political statement declaring himself not responsible, they are not the same.

The problem is larger, it is not merely the stage of inactions and the stage of ultra right, the budgets have dwindled to zero pretty much all over the EU, setting a much larger stage where inaction is all that we see and as such the situation will get larger soon hereafter, how much worse it will get? There is absolutely no way to set any kind of expectations here, but as long as the far right keeps on getting away with it, they will continue. That is how things tend to go, hence the power of one book cover.

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September 24, 2020 · 18:59

The stage of a game

We all have an idea, some have the idea of a life time, but I cannot make that claim, not because I do not have one, but because I have too many. Yes there is the call to make remasters (Knights of the Sky), there is the call to reinvent the wheel (System Shock by Nightdive Studios), or there is the need to take it to the next level, a next level that was not possible in the past, mainly because technology did not allow for it.

This is how I always saw Pirates (by Sid Meier), there was a chance where Black Flag was a nice tribute, but it was the dawn of PS4 and Xbox One and Ubisoft took a cowardly way to progress a franchise on a lack of factors. So as I initially played Black Flag, my mind went racing. And then I remembered another pirate game, a board game with additional bluff cards. So what happens, when w take the foundation of Black Flag and make it more towards the original the Sid Meier made? The map would be well over 20 times the size, a lot more like the actual map of the Caribbeans in those days, the game would not be some fruity assassin, it would be your version and you get to live the life of a cutthroat, a buccaneer, a privateer, it is up to you, to go from a small skiff to a full-grown galley or slave ship if you are good enough. You see, there is something totally awesome about the way the game Elite Dangerous is designed (by David Braben). There your life does not matter, the game does not care, nor should it and it is time to set that stage to RPG and a pirate RPG makes a lot of sense. You cannot always be a captain, you start as a simple sailor. And in this you could get to a rank if you are good enough. 

So how do we go about it, we tend to look towards the wars of adjustment, yet there are so many wars the were never on the radar, the Dutch independence wars (which took close to 80 years), the age of piracy and lets not forget the Sudan wars (Mahdist War 1881-1899), all places that seem to be forgotten. Who remembers the siege of Khartoum? Some are so set in a stage of winning, the we sometimes forget that half the fun is surviving, so how far will you get? The original siege went on from 13 March 1884 to 26 January 1885, so what happens when you are in charge, how long will you last? Games are so much about winning, the we forget the enduring is nothing less. To make it to the date or even past it would be a victory and a half. It is so American to be the victor the most of them do not understand ‘the Last Samurai’, it is not about winning, it is about not losing, or better stated, the way you live towards the final days matters more, we forgot about that part, didn’t we?

We can set any gaming stage, but it is how we play where we see if we measure up, not if we merely tap the mile poles in a game. I reckon that the achievements made us all a little complacent in games. We can go in any direction, a Hindenburg flight simulator, yet in there we will always come up short against the Microsoft flight simulator, it makes more sense for them to add the Hindenburg. Yet what happens when we turn the script? What happens when we set the stage to a simple thing, what if the player is a no one, yet his/her grandfather was Hades, Poseidon or Zeus? What happens when we map a place like Monte Carlo completely and get him to retrieve a relic that one of the 2,261 millionaires or 50 billionaires has. Is it in a house, is it on a boat or is it somewhere else (like a museum)? We can simplify any game for as much as we can, but in the end we need a healthy story and for the most Wars tend to do that (an unhealthy endeavour if ever there was one). I saw the need of a game on mines, and remembered some bomb defusing game on the CBM-64, so where to go from there? The stage of a game is important, because it sets a vested interest of the gamer, Ubisoft had the down to perfection in Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood and after the they lost the plot, they almost won it back in AC4 Black Flag and they definitely got it back in Origins. I would think the a Battlestar Galactica RPG is one the would be favourable with the BSG fans, but not much outside that, the same can be said for Babylon 5, the Star Trek fanbase is huge, so that tends to be a close win any given day of the week, but that does not guarantee a good game, the issue is seen when an idea with a small base entices a large following, that is the stage we all seek. CD Project Red did so with Witcher and seemingly is about to do it again with Cyberpunk 2077.  It is the setting the fuels the story, and the story is everything, I have always believed that, it is the power of an RPG. It is because of the that we see out the great stories (Tolkien), yet I wonder what happens when we try this with Herbert on a larger scale with Dune, not merely on Arrakis, why if all the other places become involved? Perhaps a visionary will see that option with the next Dune movie (2020). In this books have been the strongest source of inspiration, mainly because there are so many of them. Yet most of us go to the same source, why? I agree that it is appealing, but there are so many nations with alternatives. That is something we saw when someone created the Untitled Goose Game, brilliant t in its foundation, as such I wondered if someone had considered the same thing with a cat (Minoes, Annie M. G. Schmidt), a writer the has a following of millions in the Netherlands and Belgium. In that same setting, as Skyrim became such a hit, did anyone ever look towards the famous Spanish Comic books of the Mercenary by Segrelles? It has all the makings of a much larger game, a stage where some are set not in multiple games, but one game with a season pass and several DLC’s.

Then there is the comic hero Rork, by Andreas, or even the Trigan Empire by Don Lawrence. I remember growing up to these stories and the stories of Ravian (Valerian), I am a little surprised that the Trigan Empire never made it to the silver screen or the computer, Don Lawrence has a flair for imagery and the computer always needs this. So what is the stage of a game that will be set next? The is the question and the is where players like Sony and Google/Apple will find themselves. Microsoft might be acquiring the brands (Bethesda), yet they do not have the stage alone and the next innovator might be just around the corner. For me, the idea that the $7,500,000,000 lemon the Microsoft acquired (not Bethesda mind you) would backfire largely and loudly and the would be OK with me.

As I personally see it, Microsoft pissed of true gamers and that group of people doesn’t pull punches when they play with their idols, we do not fault Bethesda in any of this, but aligning with Microsoft was not the best idea, as some say, you are only as good as your next game and Bethesda had plenty of winners, but what is next? We look not merely to the stage of the game, but to the next stage of gaming and I believe that they are too often hiding behind terms like ‘hype worthy games’, yet that is a setting from the mind of a marketing department, they predict that people who play games, will think this is a hype. Yet true hypes come from games the are on the edge of what is possible in gaming, the Witcher 3 is the perfect example there. Cyberpunk is also on the stage, neither of them are Microsoft games. Yet it was brilliant to buy Bethesda, but the also means that those who do not love the Microsoft console will look to the borders and see what else is possible, optionally setting the stage for the $7,500,000,000 lemon, not because of Bethesda, but because gamers have a lack of trust in Microsoft and the fact that some had the numbers that only 1 out of 3 considered the new Microsoft console, the gives me the impression that Microsoft has a much larger problem and buying software houses will not solve it, making visionary games do and the is the lesson Microsoft has not learned. They opened the door for Sony to look what else is out there, what else could become an exclusive and the is where Sony will win and gamers will win. Because it is on the edge of possible gaming where new gamers will be born, new games will be born and at the end of my life I see that there are options coming towards gamers, games the will create new gamers, it will create new creativity and new thinking through gaming and this is a good thing. The simple truth is the there is real gaming beyond Ubisoft and Microsoft, true gaming is never soft, it is challenging and the is where we need to look, we need to look where they are not looking. That is how I got most my IP in several fields. Not by being some bullet point presenter like all the others, but by looking in a direction they decided not to bother looking. That is how most revolutionary IP is created, and it is funny as this is the way Microsoft and Ubisoft started, to look where no was. Too bad they forgot about the part of the equation and I reckon the Sony is waking up to that lesson at present.

 

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August 30, 2020 · 19:24

Sweden has it too

We know that the far right is not blessed with a lot of intelligence, and as such I did not expect Sweden to get overly right winged, but the Quran burning in Sweden is proving me wrong. So when the BBC gave me ‘Protest against Koran-burning turns violent in Sweden’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53959492) I was a little surprised. And there was more, with “Earlier on Friday, police barred far-right Danish politician Rasmus Paludan from attending the Koran-burning rally” we see that the hatred prolongation against Muslims is a lot worse then we thought, it is a European problem and they are not dealing with it. It started with the images of Mohammed, which in turn made me come up with the script ‘How to assassinate a politician’, which could optionally be eligible for an International Oscar if it was made. I just don’t get it, I thought the Nazi’s were stupid with their book burning, which they optionally got the idea from Girolamo Savonarola, who burned my copy of the Decamerone (bloody bastard), and he became the original designer of the Bonfire of the Vanities. So the Nazi’s got a hold of that idea and now we see a repetition of stupidity by the Swedish far right. As I see it christianity is waning, after 2000 years we are finally seeing that reflections don’t help, it merely assists the greed driven in setting up shop and trying to prove me wrong merely assists the far right and the atheists. I don’t comprehend this level of stupidity, why burn books, why burn any book? In doing so it just pisses of the Muslims, which is apparently their goal and it is less intelligent than any other option and that is saying something. I have no issues with Muslims and I have no issues with people who are not pro-Muslim, but keep it to themselves. There is a level of acceptance that christian people seemingly have. Perhaps there is a sizeable group that are not cheering for Muslims, but as we are in a station where we accept other religions, I accept that we have Muslims in our midst, we have a welcoming nature, so it is fine with me. I see no problem, and I get that some people get nervous, but is it nervous out of knowledge? I doubt it.

So whilst far right politician Geert Wilders sets in motion “Geert Wilders revived a controversial Prophet Mohammad cartoon competition. The Dutch politician declared the winner to be a dark drawing of a bearded man wearing a black turban”, we see the repetitive acts of intentional insulting Muslims, and anyone doubting the idea I had on the movie project ‘How to assassinate a politician’ would be an allowed stage where a person not unlike far right politician Geert Wilders ends up being dead (in the movie that is). So as we are getting over the shock that Sweden is just as discriminating as any other EU nation, we see a larger issue making it to the surface. In a stage where people hide behind ‘freedom of speech’ whilst knowingly and intentionally whacking others is just a slime move. So as we turn back the clock to April 2019 and we see ‘presentation on Gendered Islamophobia in Europe’ (at https://efomw.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/EFOMW-Strasbourg.pdf), I wonder about that setting, I am not saying that the setting does not exist, I merely state that there is a much larger stage of ‘presentation on Islamophobia in Europe’, gender is not an issue, the discriminants see man and women of muslim faith both equally unacceptable in their region. Yet all this should not be given to you without ‘Danish man who videoed himself burning the Quran charged with blasphemy’, a situation from February 2017 with the by-line “Case is first time Danish prosecutors have charged anyone with blasphemy in 46 years”, as such I accept that there is forward momentum, yet that was three years ago and there is not much evidence that forward momentum is a given. And if we accept Danish law “Under clause 140 of Denmark’s penal code, anyone can be imprisoned or fined for publicly insulting or degrading religious doctrines or worship”, I wonder why Rasmus Paludan is still an elected official or even a free man, don’t you? 

 

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August 21, 2020 · 20:59

Lawlordtobe MD

Today I rejoice, today I celebrate, today I say cheers (using a bottle of Chardonnay), today I salute (with a bowl of Chilli), today I become Lawlordtobe MD. Unlike some I did not study medicine, I have two postgraduate degrees and one master degree, none of these three are in medicine. Yet what I did is write 1500 articles, with the 1500th article completed today. So today I salute MD as a nudge towards the roman empire (or the Italian republic as it is known now), I might optionally piss off my Greek grandfather (Hades) or my Greek mother (Marakai), yet here I stand and as such I turned my creativity towards an environmental problem, the issue of micro plastics in the sea. It is a hard sell, how to stop it and how to diminish it, but we are now in a stage where we have gained the ability to make extinct all fish in every sea and ocean to a much larger degree because of micro plastics and something needs to be done. So unlike others complaining like Monday morning quarterbacks standing on the side expecting Poseidon to fix it for us, I decided to think towards a solution. So when we take notice on “The Ocean Cleanup has been criticized in the past for directing its attention only on plastic waste already in the world’s oceans. Experts say 8 million metric tons of waste flow into the ocean each year from rivers, creeks and seaside areas. The plastic endangers fish and other sea creatures”, whilst their actions remain criticism in its foundation, I join people like Boyan Slat to offer solutions (which might need tinkering) and offer something that might help.

In my version I see a boat, slowly moving by the sea shallows, often no more than a few miles out. The boat is catamaran in nature, the middle part has beams with cables with extensions like jellyfish tentacles, 3-5 per beam, with 10-20 beams. The tentacles are statically powered drawing in the plastic, sticking to the tentacles, as it moves over the length of the ship slowly it reaches the end and is pulled up as the tentacle reaches the end of the ship and falls to the top of the ship, where the tentacle loses its static power, at that point the tentacle gets heated to 150 degrees and goes through bristles that drag off the plastic and cools down the wire, when the wire traverses the rest of the ship to the front the tentacle falls back in the water gaining its static power and the path renews. The collected plastic will fall of the bristols into a catchment where it is warm enough to melt into larger bricks. 

It took me less than an hour to come up with this concept and I understand it is not fool proof, it might have issues and it is not perfect, but if I can do this in under an hour what do you think actually intelligent people (optionally not related to an Olympian god) could achieve, but apart from Boyan Slat, the actions by so called clever people is not to be found until it is too late for fish and as such for people as well, or did you think that there would not be any repercussions for this situation? I did this on the side next to the concept for 6 video games, patentable 5G IP devices and a truckload of 5G IP, I still found time to come up with this concept, and I also made a side design for shallow water and rivers in a somewhat similar way. So in all this, where are all the so called ‘real’ clever people, have they solved some of the environmental mess that their peers created? I wonder where they are, so as we push towards a new stage of issues that will collapse a lot more than the economy, do we not have a responsibility to use our creativity to create solutions for the mess we see now?

Consider that part of the situation we are running, not walking, running towards.

 

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