Tag Archives: Netherlands

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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August 10, 2020 · 06:51

Government driven destabilisation

That is a term you are not familiar with, is it? Yet it is more now than most other things, even as some are all about ‘donations for Beirut’ all whilst the larger groups ignore corruption there as well as the stage that Hezbollah is not in the clear for storage of explosives in the Beirut harbour.

Last month Houthi forces fired on Saudi Arabia, now there is an issue. First of all, the target was military (King Khalid Air Base) making it in my eyes a valid target, yet the western press for the most ignored it completely. The Jerusalem Post gives us “Saudi Arabia said it intercepted ballistic missiles fired from Yemen overnight between Sunday and Monday. Four missiles and seven drones were launched by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen”, the fact that the Iranian part in all this remains largely unreported in the EU and the Commonwealth is still a massive issue, I have little faith that the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) starts being of use in any way (other then prolonging the war in Yemen), yet the larger issue is not the attacks, the issue as I see is that as I personally see it, governments feel happy to set a stage of destabilisation in the Middle East, so that they can feel safe, at least from their Ego driven point of view. The paper also gives us “The military of Yemen’s Houthi group said it attacked and hit a large oil facility in an industrial zone in the southern Saudi city of Jizan” and in all this the amount of goods that is required coming from Iran is still not being investigated, and the dangers that they bring can be wielded in a few directions. My personal issue in this is why we are not getting a full constant update from the Middle East, why are the papers ignoring the actions from the Iranian side and Houthi atrocities in 

Yemen? We might give rise to the article (at https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2402186/yemeni-speaker-complains-un-over-houthi-violations), yet the western media steered clear of ‘Yemeni Speaker Complains to UN over Houthi Violations’, so when we consider this, who was aware of “Yemen’s National Alliance of Political Parties (NAPP), a group of parties loyal to the internationally recognized government, had also called on the UN and its envoy to condemn the ongoing Houthi attacks against Yemeni pro-government leaders”, how many Commonwealth and EU newspapers took notice? And when we take notice of “The parties added that the militias insist on continuing the series of their crimes against the Yemeni people, rejecting all international efforts to reach peace in the country. “Such behavior is reflected in their decision issued last March to sentence 35 Yemeni pro-government deputies to death,” after charging them with cooperating with the Saudi-led Arab coalition, the statement added”, how many newspapers took the trouble to see what the humanitarian impact is of Houthi decisions here? 

We can argue all week on what is right and what is wrong, yet consider that we cannot argue on matters that most newspapers do not publish, so when we see ‘Huawei-supplied stc wins 5G contract for Saudi mega-city’ (at https://www.capacitymedia.com/articles/3826056/huawei-supplied-stc-wins-5g-contract-for-saudi-mega-city) in here we see “NEOM’s infrastructure will utilise AI, robotics, and human-machine fusion to deliver greater predictive intelligence and enable faster decision making across all NEOM sectors. The procurement and deployment of a future-proof wireless network is a critical first for NEOM in realising our goal of driving innovation in the future digital economy”. Considering that I wrote about that part in ‘There is more beneath the sand’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/11/15/there-is-more-beneath-the-sand/) almost 9 months ago, and on some matters even before than, two weeks earlier I raised ‘Change is coming’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/09/01/change-is-coming/), all matters on Neom City and 5G that the western press left unattended, so what else did we not get to see?

Issues in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran all remain unreported. And I admit, there is a reach from unreported to Government driven destabilisation, I will admit to that part, in all this there is a larger stake, when we consider that papers are run by people adhering to the needs of Shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers, we get the first part in this, and yes it is subjective and there is space for debate and disagreement, I do not deny this. But when did you (if ever) wonder on matters not published in Western media? OK, in this, I admit that this is still a far stretch towards destabilisation, and that is a fair call, and I would be wrong if it was 1-2 items, but when we add the numbers Houthi attacks on civilian Saudi targets in 2018 and 2019, Iranian intervention in Yemen 2015-2020, with ‘US Navy intercepts ‘Iranian weapons’ bound for Houthis’ (at https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/us-navy-intercepts-iranian-weapons-bound-for-houthis-1.978874), we get a larger stage, how many newspapers reported on this in the EU or the Commonwealth? I also have https://news.usni.org/2020/02/13/video-uss-normandy-seizes-cache-of-iranian-made-weapons-in-arabian-sea and a few more newspapers (like the Adelaide Now), yet over three pages of links, no BBC, No Guardian, no Washington Post, No Dutch, Swedish, or German Newspapers. There were Middle Eastern newspapers and the Jerusalem Post. Did you consider that part of the equation? When we see the redaction of Iran smuggling drones and weapons to Houthi forces in Yemen, what other matters are you not aware of?

#JustAsking

 

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August 5, 2020 · 19:26

Boom goes the dynamite

Yup, I got this from a trainee presenter in an American show, it stuck and now as we see the numbers come from Beirut and the devastating boom that the population in Beirut is facing, the term stuck again. I have waded through 4 hours of video, I read the articles and the sage does not  make sense. Yet, be aware that a lot of it is speculative, so do not take this as gospel, or as given facts, even as I try to go from some of the revealed facts, they too are up for reconsideration of optional inaccurate facts.

The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/aug/04/beirut-explosion-huge-blast-port-lebanon-capital), gives us a lot of small facts, but some sources like CNN (and others) give us “2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without safety measures, “endangering the safety of citizens,” according to a statement”, first of all the number comes down to 2,750,000 kilograms, which is not a lot, it is a massive amount to have. In a nation (with explosive needs or not), where there is a shortage of all things, that amount of fertiliser amounts to 125 40 foot containers, filled to the brink with fertiliser, and it was there for 6 years (according to some). When you realise the events can be seen in other light, the numbers do not add up, yet the explosion was real. 

Speculation
So why if there was more than fertiliser there? Consider Iran has been supplying Hezbollah with volatile goods for a long time, what happens when TNT (or dynamite) stats sweating? Now consider that we weren’t dealing with 125 containers, but with a mere 4 containers, but with TNT and it was kept in what some would consider the safest place, also consider that it had been there for a few months and sweating explosives tend to sweat nitro glycerine. Consider that Iran made a deal with surplus stuff and it backfired on its customer.

It is speculation, but consider the blast, according to some the blast was noticed well over 100Km away. I do have a point of reference, the Fireworks blast in the Netherlands (Enschede) had a similar effect, but nowhere near the size, the video’s I saw told a different story, one car on the highway with a distance of around 2000 meters away got its windows blown out and the rear view mirrors got blown off the car, and that is one of a few video’s that show me that this was no ordinary blast. Even as it is understandable that the real cause cannot be known yet, we see within 13 hours “2,750 tons of chemicals detonated”, the explanation is very much too soon. But I get the inkling of dire need to set a story out there, in light of the explosive nature of goods that Hezbollah relies on in Beirut. So when we consider “Over time, regardless of the sorbent used, sticks of dynamite will “weep” or “sweat” nitroglycerin, which can then pool in the bottom of the box or storage area. For that reason, explosive manuals recommend the repeated turning over of boxes of dynamite in storage”, and when we consider that and the supplier to Hezbollah, no matter where it would be stored, is my speculation so thin? Or is it a lot closer to the truth than you would imagine? And when we consider the shortage seem in Lebanon, consider 125 containers of goods untouched for 6 years, or 4 containers with Dynamite untouched (or partially touched) for 6 months, what is more likely? 

It is linked to a second speculation, what if Iran had to get rid of explosives that have a limited time left? Who would be appreciative of receiving explosives at below cost price? I feel certain that this is a direction that Iran did not anticipated, but it is what it is and remember, I am speculating here, yet in this case is it more likely than not is the question and yes, we need to await the real news, but as I see it, the media is accepting the 2,750,000 kilograms of Ammonium nitrate that was in folly stored for 6 years, and remember one small detail “Ammonium nitrate does not burn on its own”, and there was already a fire, I will also give you “Ammonium nitrate decomposition can be set off if an explosion occurs where it’s stored, if there is an intense fire nearby. The latter is what happened in the 2015 Tianjin explosion, which killed 173 people after flammable chemicals and ammonium nitrate were stored together at a chemicals factory in eastern China” The events seem to add up, but the amounts do not (as I personally see it), no matter how we see this, certain people have lost a lot, they will lose a lot more and Iran gets to be a supplier yet once again.

 

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April 23, 2020 · 01:31

Opposing the light

There are several things happening in this world, yes there is a Coronavirus happening and last monday I lost a friend to that. I had not seen him for months and he had his own life (a good life mind you), he was a friend, a friend I could not see too often for all kinds of reasons (not all mine). Such is life and we need to realise that at times, we reach a point where all that changes overnight. 4,950 died in Australia, one of them was my friend, in a population of 25 million, it is a mere 1% of 1% that I am personally connected to. I should have bought a lottery ticket last week with these numbers!

The BBC gave me an interesting update as numbers go. A lot of it was not interesting, it was a been there done that. The entire situation takes a turn when we are given the realisation that France included the deaths at  care homes, England does not, as such the numbers we are introduced to are flawed and incomplete. In all this we have a group of EU nations who decide on what is reported and what is not. Apparently a corona death in a care home is not a corona death at all, how is that for today’s tuna bake?

Yet the realisation that his is happening, how about Germany and France? France had 158,000 and 20,796 non living whilst Germany had 149 thousand and only 5,117 deceased, as I state in previous blogs, the numbers just do not add up, and it gets to be worse when we compare the deceased in France and Germany 20,786 versus 5,117. That is not merely care deaths, that (in my personal opinion) constitute another factor, the difference is too big. If this is not the case, if this is truly about reporting, then we see that the case for ending theEU has been made, after all this time, billions squandered, there is no correct protocol for reporting? And the entire pandemic, or uniqueness does not count. The numbers are squandered all over the place and the people are kept in the dark, in all this the EU has become somewhat of a joke. 

And when it comes to ‘rescue packages’ the sun really lashes out. Now, I get it, there is a good case to push for some relief and I would not disagree, yet there is a strong sense that this is just a jacked up dal that was denied when there was no coronavirus. As such we see Austria, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands are opposing any deal for the mere reason that they are held liable for repaying the debts of the irresponsible politicians in the south and that case had been made a few times over. A stronger case for ending the EU is right there.

As long as nations are not held responsible for their acts, their ability to push their gravy train on the other members has now reached the size where several nations are strongly pushed towards ending the EU and there is the larger problem for the EU, they should have stepped in when Greece went over the side and they did not, they let it fester for over a decade and now we see that the pull to remove the EU is now a much clearer path, the UK got out in time, but only just. Due to the Coronavirus we now see a possible escalation that would give a much stronger rise to Frexit and Nexit due to the political strife they face. To be honest, I never saw Nexit happen as Geert Wilders (a Dutch politician) fell short by a larger amount, yet that time is gone and renewed options are in play. Is their path the best for them? I actually do not know, I feel that it was the best course for the UK, but that does not mean it was the best for all. I think the Netherlands has strong enough ties to survive that move, France as well, yet in that light Italy and Spain face much larger hurdles. Even as the French economy is in the drain, they do have options, Spain and Italy much less so.

Will it happen? I do not know, but the Corona setting is allowing for a much larger setting of anger in the populations then we ever thought possible, as such the stage changes by a lot. The entire lockdown will only fester it worse, that is how I see it. Even as Geert Wilders sees the Corona escalations to push Nexit, his strength is waning and he cannot bring it about, yet in all this the EU and their approach to their gravy trains are another matter, millions of Europeans have had enough as inequality is rising, Spain and Italy will set another stage, one that the EU cannot face, and whilst the EU will not show responsibility and forces politicians to be accountable, the entire matter merely escalates. A lot of Europeans no longer see the EU as the light and some are actually opposing that light. The Corona mess in Europe is bringing a festering wound to the open limelight that was previously only slowly festering before. In all this the EU breakup was always going to happen, the Coronavirus is merely escalating matters. 

Can it be worse? Yes! Will it be worse? That depends on the EU and its greedy politicians, even as we saw the media report on all these people their is still the flaming income and gravy train matter that is out in the open and the people who are scraping by are getting more and more angry, now that we see that even a simple cadaver tally cannot be relied on, the dam is breaching and that festering issue is merely blanketed and optionally misrepresented by the connected stakeholders. 

People are opposing what was once seen as a solving light, it took a mere case of the flu to bring it to the surface.

 

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April 6, 2020 · 11:09

5G? Gesundheit!

OK, to be fair, I never saw this coming. In all this, even in the rage of panic and stupidity, I saw a deprived population that had left leave of its senses, the fact that they would abandon common sense even more than usual was a little bit of a surprise to me, so when I saw the news ‘false coronavirus 5G theory‘, I was actually dumbstruck for about 5.7 seconds.

Not merely the idea that some conspiracy theorists are loons under the best condition, but the fake news that is spreading in a few ways giving rise to the consideration that ‘5G is spreading the Coronavirus‘ is so ridiculous that the personal view of shooting idiots of that calibre before they have kids and create a situation that 2 generations believed that nonsense seems like almost the only option. So as I read “But content that is simply conspiratorial about 5G mobile communications networks, without mentioning coronavirus, is still allowed on the site. YouTube said those videos may be considered “borderline content” and subjected to suppression, including loss of advertising revenue and being removed from search results on the platform.” (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/youtube-to-suppress-content-spreading-coronavirus-5g-conspiracy-theory), I wonder just how stupid people have become in the week I was down and out. I myself have been outspoken and adamant that there is another factor propagating the Coronavirus, yet technology is not that path, it is within us and at some point the clever health people will find it and include us in these findings. 

There is another factor and the numbers (at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) leave me with almost no doubt at all. almost 70,000 dead, and the age station gives us:

80+ years old 14.8%

70-79 years old 8.0%

60-69 years old 3.6%

50-59 years old 1.3%

40-49 years old 0.4%

30-39 years old 0.2%

20-29 years old 0.2%

10-19 years old 0.2%

Yet when we look at the numbers in Italy, Spain, Germany and France and set that against China (Wuhan) the calculation does not completely add up. In this situation I only took these nations as time is a known factor and these nations have enough cases to see a level of stability. Even as some hide behind “Experts say large elderly population, social behaviour and weak healthcare system have contributed to high fatalities“, I personally see it as some people hiding behind a shallow wall with almost zero protection, the numbers are not adding up!

For the math to work over 90% of all corona fatalities would have to be by the 80+ age group (in Italy and Spain) and we know that this is not the case. In other paths I see an option to giggle. In the Netherlands there is an old saying “1 gek kan meer vragen dan 20 wijzen kunnen beantwoorden” (1 fool can ask more than 20 wise men can answer), and YouTube is seemingly getting hit with this expression. There is almost no way to stop a crazy person with propogating stupidity. 

And the problem is not going away I reckon, as stupidity reigns, we see all kinds of forgiveness (they know not what they do) and we ourselves propagate that stupidity. No matter what happens, at some point these people get found and then they end up in court, they get a slap on the wrist and are let go. I reckon that this is the most likely scenario. In all this, I wonder how long we need to consider that path of reinforcing stupidity.

Yet in my mind, no matter how we all push the paths, how anyone would give rise to any notion that the flu was propagated by your mobile is just too insane to waste a second of time on, but that might just be me.

 

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