Tag Archives: New Orleans

August 8, 2025 · 22:17

Contemplations

We all have them and in this day and age we kinda need them. The idea that you are weighing issues that might not be important at first. I got to this stage in a few ways and they all relate (in my mind). It started with Denmark and their ‘fight’ for digital independence. 

This got Libreoffice on my retina’s 

I currently do not need it as my Mac comes with Pages, Numbers and Keynote, but I am always looking for a next challenge and as Australia is drowning in Ageism (I am no longer a teenager) getting a larger field of interest is not a bad thing. The additional setting is that Microsoft keeps on pissing people off and that could result in drastic acts from all kinds of people. So when the Commonwealth throws out Microsoft, there will be plenty of people needing people who have knowledge of something beside Microsoft. The smaller setting is that Libreoffice comes with Draw and a Database and I have been away from databases too long. As I see it there will be a need for people with data cleaning skills. This is an undeniable fact and that means my skills might come needed in the near future. As such these settings all mean that I will have to set a larger stage and I reckon that starting with LibreOffice is a first stage. So when areas of Europe goes ‘non-Microsoft’ There will be an optional need for me. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? 

In other news I started shaping my second script Residuam Vitam now. It will be a jumpy ride as this is the first mini-series I create and I am still getting the hand of Final Draft, so it will be a sort of rollercoaster ride to say the least. The script is still forming and so far I seem to get things wring in casting the right ‘illumination’, some parts of the script seem to get the format wrong, so I am doing something not correctly and that is the short and sweet of it, so whilst I am ‘shipping’ the script from blog original to script original I seem to be making a few ‘errors’ (or so I think) and that is also the need for the LibreOffice text component. It might give me the visibility of the format codes before I copy it back into Fina Draft, or so at least I hope.

The Mini series should be set over 6-8 episodes all an hour long. But it is still shaping and as such I have no idea how this fares in the end, and it is spread over dozens of blog writings going back to August 2021 and ending in February 2024. I reckon that over those times there will be gaps and that will be done in this stage as well. There is always the chance that Baron Samedi (or Maman Brigitte) might take offense, but I hope they will not. In that setting there are a few other players like Lady Jiang and that gives me options, because script wise I am using the tales and ‘myths’ of people that tends to be missed by others and I combine them, something that has been done before, but never with these people and as such I might have a new original out here.

Still, the ‘offset’ of text formats is a little infuriating, especially as I am doing it all in Final Draft. It is infuriating as I am making mistakes, or at least that is what it seems to be. We have been brainwashed to the larger degree by Microsoft settings we adhered to using MS Office that we forget to keep and open mind in resolving issues. Perhaps LibreOffice will aid in this new mental ploy. It is the new age. Microsoft got us to think in certain ways for decades and now that we ‘see’ that it is bad to be depending on one solution, we see that we lost a little more than we bargained for. This is not on us or on Microsoft. They did develop ideas and drawing air from the solutions handed to us and now, after decades when we consider that there must be another way we see that we are pushed in a mindset that favored them (which is fine) but we lost something along the way. I thought I had resolved part of this when I stated using the Adobe way of things. But that way also has its mentality to resolve things the Adobe way. It is how we tend to be wired. 

So what to contemplate?
First is the way we think around programs, you might think it is simple, but it is not, we get trained in thinking a certain way and when we are comfortable with that way of thinking we forget other options. It is said that the dangers of too much comfort include stagnation, a lack of personal and professional growth, and missed opportunities, preventing you from reaching your full potential. I kinda agree with this, but it is not that clear cut at times. In addition staying comfortable also hinders the development of resilience by keeping you from facing adversity and can create a cycle of self-doubt that makes you less likely to pursue dreams. This is said, but in this I disagree. I do not think there is a lack of development of resilience, it is merely the thought of looking the other way, the road less travelled. I have done this plenty of time and the ‘connecting’ path to pursue dreams is as I see it massively American. 

You don’t need to pursue dreams, you merely have to recognise these ‘dreamy’ moments as milestone you might encounter. Or to be ‘fashionable’ with the influencers Sydney Sweeney wasn’t wearing American Eagle for me, she merely felt good wearing them and American Eagle paid her handsomely for posing in them. I was never a factor. Influencers use her to tell me that this is what I wanted all along and it is not. OK, she is pretty, the advertisement is nice and that is it. I am utterly convinced she has never heard of me. Influencers are making you doubt this small certainty and people fall for that setting of doubt. So resilience of self delusion is part of that larger stage that you face. To go your own way (sorry Fleetwood Mac) and drive yourself where you WANT to go, not where others expect you to go. 

As such I will beat Ageism, I will beat stupid people as I am now working realising the completion of my second Script. Just two more to go after that and whether or not they become real is not the issue. It was the creation my version of self required me to complete. That was all. Yes, it is ‘intoxicating’ that my dram state sees Matt Damon and Ridley Scott buying my creations, but it remains a dream. The reality is that I had to create them getting to howl laughter at my previous bosses who blindly follow Microsoft (or others) to get to the ‘success point’ they considered real. I might not fill that hole (I came up with a version of Facebook 5 years before Facebook and my boss said it had no future, he told me to focus on the mission statement). In the meantime I created more IP and created new lanes to solutions that made me feel good. And now I started my second Script. I am rolling in creativity and I reckon that is what I need to develop further as the world is rolling after AI and what it isn’t this world will soon come to a setting that the creative people are the actual gold any company has. And some might not work, but consider Nintendo, the failure that was WiiU caused the development of the Switch and Switch2. Since 2017 they sold 154 million consoles beating Microsoft and the Sony PS4 (117 million) and Sony had 5 more years to get the numbers. So creativity was as I see it the ruling factor and as I see it, certain bosses have little clue how to harvest creativity. I reckon that the setting for LibreOffice might get people thinking in different ways, optionally creating new technology. 

So whilst I see the soup vendors, I also see the myth of Lady Jiang and Meng Po Soup. I do advise you not to drink the soup, the old soup and certainly not the new soup. You’ll learn that lesson the hard way. Creativity is a bitch at times, but there you have it.

Creativity runs amok (I never knew that it could run a mock) and feel free to delusionally consider that a girl in good looking jeans is thinking of you (like some will suggest) but the critical mind knows better and you know it. We might all have creativity, but it requires a critical mindset to instill self doubt on what you design. I did it on at least 3 IP projects. The doubting mind searches deeper on itself. 

Have a great day. 

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December 30, 2022 · 18:41

Never forgotten

There is a stage I hd not forgotten about. I had no writers block, but a logic block. Stories fantasy or not have their own rules of logic. It might not make sense to the reader (at first) but it does to the writer and in my case, the logic did not add up. So instead of making ‘fictive’ logic, I took time to think through the events. And recently I did so. So whilst I kind of need to make a small recap to Residuam Vitam, the recap is mostly limited to the other articles, so that you can pick up the pieces. 

August 13th 2021 Death as a resource (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/13/death-as-a-resource/)
August 14th 2021 When death and chicken taste alike (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/14/when-death-and-chicken-taste-alike/)
August 16th 2021 When death is taxable (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/08/16/when-death-is-taxable/)
March 3rd 2022 From pot to bowl (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/03/from-pot-to-bowl/)
March 14th 2022 A view in the east (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/14/a-view-in-the-east/)
April 9th 2022 Struggle (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/04/09/struggle/)

There are a few more, but I am rewriting it all, optionally to insert it as a pdf. 

So, where was I? I had set the stage with Baron Samedi, the meeting with Hades and at that point we added Meng Po, they all have larger stages to contribute, and that is going smoothly. But the wind caught on, and as such, so did Ereshkigal and Mot. Their powers are similar, but not the same and as such they started to tread on the loom of life, the loom that these two wield like masters. The loom of life has sustained them throughout the ages as they became part of that machine, but now that the rules are adapting it changes what they are given in the end and their share has been so large for such a long time. They now create shadows the size of giants on their former selves and that changes the equation by a much larger degree. So as the gods create a new alliance, they also unknowingly create the anti-pod of their alliance and the people, the mortals are between the two parties. 

The detective (from the very beginning) becomes the axial of the middle, the becomes unknowing to her and to others the axial of a seesaw. Hades, Meng Po, Baron Samedi and Anubis are the main players of one side of the seesaw, the other end has Ereshkigal, Ta’xet, Tia and Mot occupy the other end of the seesaw. But these players are slowly introduced. As the new brew influences the people Tia becomes aware who informs Ta’xet. Ta’xet had a connection to Mot from the old days and now they start to learn on what is going on. Ereshkigal is the last to connect to this new eave, but only because Ereshkigal has had a deepened distrust of anything Anubis touches. It is at this point that Hel is awakened. She is awakened by Ta’xet who feels kinship to Hel, no like, but kinship is enough to take the stage in different ways. Ta’xet thinks (decently correctly) that any negative impact of dishonourable souls will anger Hel and it does, but she has no real friends as such she also investigates and she will get under the skin of the detective through all the people she lost in her career and as such she can stack against the other side. 

Now that I have a grasp of how the interactions are going, I can start looking at the dialogues of these characters. I need to push a few more items to the surface and I need to see what to do about Meng Po, her duty and her tsk never failed. As such I need to push a different border to clear her vested interest to the top of the pile. She is driven too, but how to ‘exploit’ it? That is still a stage I need to examine. The ‘mortal’ side is decently clear, the side of Hades (and the twist in all this) is also clear. I have some ideas on how to counter Baron Samedi. Here we can rely on Maman Brijit. She is also the Loa of justice and vengeance and the drink is a stage of injustice to those who will die and there is the rub, as Samedi will become a lot more powerful, the imbalance between Maman and the Baron becomes stronger. To some degree he becomes his own worst enemy and that was one element Hades was counting on. He played the game for so long, the sound of every string on the loom of life are distinct in sound and he knows all the sounds. So there we have the three parts and now I need to set a line to all the characters and reread everything to see if I left any obvious holes. 

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May 21, 2022 · 15:21

Feeling confused

Well, there are two things, the first is that I got a workable idea to a final twist in ‘Exhaurire vitam’ the mini series that predominantly plays in New Orleans. There are a few scenes in other places, but the bulk is there. There are a few more issues that I uncovered in ‘How to assassinate a politician’, as such I have it close to ready, a movie and a mini series. Then there was the series ‘Kenos Diastima’, I have been tossing and turning on that and I feel that leaving it (for now) with an open ending at season three is the best way to go. Then I got another idea, this one was initially for ‘Exhaurire vitam’, yet the new series (the one I talked about a few times), has more traction with it and it opens up a nice can of worms. You see, the gods are all over all places, so there much have been some dependency. So what happens when one of them is in debt, or better stated, what happens when the debt was opened to a new source? That was the setting I contemplated on the subway. As such the main character would be open to all kinds of other things. That was the setting my mind worked on. And as I contemplated what could be possible when Bastet is thrown in the mix, the equation changed and that has long repercussions, not bad ones, but unforeseen ones and that tends to be good, because the unforeseen brings more than a surprise or a plot twist, it gives the story a new direction and I am all about that. But in part I have no idea why the images are coming to me so rapidly and so directly, that is the part that has me confused. It is like your brain playing some year at Hogwarts and you create the setting, but you never created the stage. In this example we all know it is J.K. Rowling. But the stage I create is new, has never ben contemplated, or written about. I have no idea where it all is coming from, so for now I follow the thoughts and create more stories and optionally more scripts. And I have no idea where it all goes. Even as I seek the implementation of Saudi TV in the movie, I wonder where it will end. So whilst I get that “Bryan Fogel says Netflix, Amazon and others wouldn’t buy ‘The Dissident’ because they were scared of angering Saudi Arabia” my story does EXACTLY the opposite and as such might be loved there, what I do not get is why not more are considering that step. In the end, good business is where you find it and basically I found it. 3 TV series, one movie, a game, console settings and the evolution to another 50 million consoles and beyond that I reengineered several Ubisoft games and created several 5G IP. Not bad for one person in less than 5 years. So if you are wondering what stops others doing the same, I have no idea. But I do believe that they are all looking in the wrong direction and I feel that more and more of that is proven. But the confusion stays. What if this is all between my ears? I do not believe that this is so, but if you cannot look at it from opposition from a distance than it means you have gone bonkers, have gone round the bend. Oh, and I also designed a weapon to get rid of the Iranian navy, so there (and that part is already online). But the confusion stays. I have no idea what is driving this all. Perhaps a last knee jerk action by the brain before it stops? Your guess is as good as mine, I am honestly clueless.

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March 14, 2022 · 01:36

A view in the East

There is a new stage coming, I believe that it is a new part towards ‘Residuam vitam’ but I cannot place it in the whole story at present. There are gaps in the setting, but as far asI can tell, it is all happening in China. There is an open cave, a pipeline between north and south of the mountain. The stones are dark grey and profound. The cave pipeline looks like a stretched oval, with a width of 2 meters and about 5 meters high. The funny part is that the wind always comes through here and always from the north, that wind is quite strong and never lets up. I cannot tell whether the cave is below the snow-line, or I am seeing this in summer, it does not feel warm. When you walk into the cave, a cave the locals for unknown reasons avoid we see two large rotors. They are half in the mountain, half sticking out like teeth hungry for the north wind. The vanes are about 120cm wide, so these rotors must be about 2.5 meters in size and they stretch for a height of about 3 meters. They must have been here a while, they rotate, as the wind pushes them both. Between the two rotors is a gap, but not natural, it is man-made. It goes into a container, the container looks quite good, but the electronics are old, like they were installed in the 50’s and it is then that I hear the hissing sounds. I look around but I see nothing. It is at the other end of the container when I see a door and I open it slightly, the hissing is quite loud now and my flashlight illuminates hundreds of snakes. I have no idea how poisonous they are, so I do not go in, but the large surprise is in the back, quite visible. It is Wimshurst machine, it is huge, 5 meters across easily. Made of wood, with points in between and as the current inhabitants seem nasty, I will not venture forth. But those discs are no longer moving. I reckon that this is what the rotors were for, to power the Wimshurst. If this works there would be an unstoppable amount of energy for an entire valley. What made it stop? It was then that the hissing stopped and the snake sounds made one noise ‘Ao Shun’ it was the sound I had hoped to hear. Ao Shun is one of the few living aspects that could lead me to Ereshkigal, Queen of the Great Earth and she was the only one who once visited the true throne of Anubis and returned from there. So she was the only one who could tell me where Anubis rested and recuperated and that was preference to meeting him anywhere in the world. Anywhere else he could avoid me and not face me, in his place he had to face me and accept me as more then all the other mortals, a weird and dangerous stage, but the only one that could lead to results. So as I contemplated this I took a step onto those steps towards the Wimshurst machine and figure out why it had stopped working.

Then I woke up (darn), a nice setting towards the mini series which I believed would be all in New Orleans. This little sidestep proves me wrong, but I have no idea where it will take me from there at present. 

 

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March 3, 2022 · 11:40

Netflix Prime

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

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

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

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

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December 16, 2021 · 00:00

After a fact to begin a fact

Yes, nice and cryptic. Not intentionally, but that is how I roll. But before I get into that, I promised to give something tomorrow, but as it is about 0:01, tomorrow is now. So here goes. As I was (trying to) being clever, I considered that any off looking equipment will get caught soon. It shouldn’t but that is no guarantee. So I needed the valve to disappear. Now, one thing I learned that security staff tends to be lazy. Perhaps technically unobserving is a better term, they are not stupid, so something that looks off will get noticed quickly, unless it looks the same. So I can be as clever as I can, but the valve might get noticed. So as I was considering options I remembered the colour picker app. An Android app that uses the camera to scan a colour and translate it to an RGB tint. So there was a solution, but there is no way we can have all these colours in stock, so I created an adjusted primer spray paint. Primer is white, so I added the design of a dial at the bottom (see below).

Now we can pick the colour, adjust the 10 scale Red-Yellow-Blue-Black dials and insert the pigment, a few good shakes (5-15 seconds) and the colour is ready. Now we apply the paint and the device and its band will look as painted as the pipes are and now, the chance of overlooking is massively larger. So that part was solved and I created a new piece of IP in the process. So spray-paint makers might find this approach an interesting twist. Instead of 187.4 colours, you have one article and let the user fix what they need. No hassle, no ‘not in stock’ issues. All in a days work.

Anyway, what set all this off is that I was day dreaming (at 22:00). And suddenly I had an idea towards the Exhaurire Vitam concept, how it all started. How Anubis and Hades meet each other. All because of a young girl (9) who gets abducted by molesters and her Dachshund (which I affectionately name Kransky) ends up in nowhere land, right in front of the one person that the molesters would never have wanted involved and the carnage is one they will remember for all days. These is a lot more, but let’s not quench your thirst too much at present. 

So as Anubis owes Hades and he repays by offering a gift that is useless to him, but he knows that it will benefit Hades, so he repays in this way and opens a door that will shiver and shake New Orleans in ways you might have read earlier. A setting I never thought of, I never contemplated it. It merely came to me, that and the rest of the settings are weird, close to a dozen pieces of new IP, no idea where it is coming from and when it does not impact my IP (5G, TV, selected IP) I will make it Public domain, perhaps I can actually restart some economies making me more electable then whatever is in political office at present. Yet, feel free to ask Meng Po for an opinion and a cup of soup, it’s free. 

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November 19, 2021 · 20:29

Cacophony

It is a weird term, it means ‘a harsh discordant mixture of sounds’ and we do not always accept it, we sometimes drown it out, yet weirdly enough it can at times help with the creation of whatever your mind is conceiving. I have had it before, but not like today. Today I was relaxing (watching an old classic). I decided to watch the Godfather again, a movie I had not watched well over 15 years. The Godfather (1972), as I was enjoying the film, the mind went from “I wonder if James Caan (Sonny) and Robert Duvall (Tom Hagen) can remember that they were once THAT young” towards a movie I had designed ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and for some reason, I suddenly added two cogs to the machine, two cogs adding story to the machine, intersecting with other parts of the movie, I suddenly added 15-20 minutes to the movie. As they intersected with other parts, the dialogues would add a decent amount of script to the setting. It can after my mind recalled a quote by Milton Jones “I believed words could never hurt me, then I fell into a printing press”, the thoughts crossed left to right (and vice versa), all parts of something I had seen before and before I knew it, the two cogs added themselves into the story machine and added a section to the movie, several actually as they intersected with other parts. 

I then thought of another part, but the mind rejected it for the movie, yet now I saw an option to add it to the mini series ‘Residuam Vitam’ a play that happens mainly in New Orleans. But there is still several parts to consider, but the addition was new, I had not considered that before. All whilst I continued watching the Godfather. So whilst my mind was dealing with ‘a harsh discordant mixture of mental sounds’, the events that started it all were too deep in my mind, and I was watching a movie, yet the back of my mind, and you mind too does not care. A true multi processing system was doing its job on the fly and now I am considering the events that happen when Meng Po is no longer merely one play, but her activities sets up a few politicians in the process? The trick is to prevent complications, not some twist every 5 minutes, but a stage, a loom with a tapestry of politicians, merely two that are in that game, yet the idea to add a political field is important. Not for the twist, but to make them part of the tory, part of the equation. Perhaps a setting where to opposing politicians tend to share a cup of soup, but how to enable the larger story? You see, I believe in the slogan of FX, the story is everything. So it must shine, and not be bloated by interactions and too many faces. The latter part is already a little bit of a problem as the cast is set to 20 people at present and that is before we consider special effects. And I am not even close to act 3 at present, so I need to rewrite parts to set them over the 4 acts, over a stage of disjointed stories which need to fit together like a puzzle before we get to act 4. By that time the image should be decently complete and the watcher can connect dots of the story and not get overwhelmed in the final episode (like some stories do). 

I wonder what happens if I watch another classic tomorrow. So far watching one has given me a lot of juice for two plays and as I am in a holding pattern for my IP, I need to do something, as such I might as well be doing this and perhaps a new play comes from that. In this I still feel the pressure from within to leave ‘Kenos Diastima’ at 3 seasons. A story with an open ending. It is my love of Terry Gilliam movies that seems to press for that consideration at present and there is something balanced about an open ending. Like nearly all we believe that any story has a beginning, a middle and an end. That does not mean that the story needs to be a closed ending, does it? Time to do a little more brooding, especially as I had an idea towards a few elements of a whole new approach to TV’s and displays. It is weird that this is based on 1985 technology and hat is before we get to evolve it into something more and serious. I wonder why DARPA never considered it, the open ended evidence is all out there, and there is no longer a patent protecting it, so what gives? Well, their loss and my opportunity, that is if I get the other parts done. 

I am on fire today (ice water is here next to me to cool me down).

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July 29, 2015 · 10:14

Freedoms removed by Amazon

One of the most outrageous articles of the year hit me this morning, via the Guardian off course! The piece in question is ‘Amazon proposes drones-only airspace to facilitate high-speed delivery’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/28/amazon-autonomous-drones-only-airspace-package-delivery). In the first, since when does a company decide on traffic rules? Can anyone explain that to me? In the second, since when is a company allowed to set FAA rules (or in general rules of flight regarding safety of airspace)? In the third, how in the name of all blazing hell does a company decides on how amateurs, hobbyists and innovators do their work?

Well, it seems that Amazon has stepped up to the plate to ‘suggest’ a few changes. Let’s face it, Amazon is a place of nothing, a mere grocery store for parchment products. In the UK they paid £11.9 million in taxation and the year before that £4.2 million, so why should we give them even the slightest consideration? The Australian Amazon site is limited to kindle stuff, so they pay even less there. You know, they are big in Luxembourg, so there is every possibility that they can pursue their drone packaging strikes in that country. But to give any consideration outside of Luxembourg and the US is a little too strong, so the quote “Amazon is proposing that a pristine slice of airspace above the world’s cities and suburbs should be set aside for the deployment of high-speed aerial drones capable of flying robotically with virtually no human interference” should not be taken too seriously.

We cannot fault Amazon for having vision, but it comes at a cost. You see “It envisages that within the next 10 years hundreds of thousands of small drones – not all of them Amazon’s or devoted to delivery – will be tearing across the skies every day largely under their own automated control” shows us that there would be a massive drop in the need for delivery people, which is not good for job security. Now, in opposition, these things happen, when people started to correspond through their computers, the people did not think it would grow beyond the realm if Geeks and Nerds, now, the bulk of the population has not touched parchments, quills and ink for a long time. Less postman were needed and on a global scale dogs were in mourning for nearly a decade.

Now we get the part that Amazon thinks is visionary “The company’s aeronautics experts propose that a 200ft slab of air – located between 200ft and 400ft from the ground – should be segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment and flying at high speeds of 60 knots or more. A further 100ft of airspace – between 400ft and 500ft – would be declared a no-fly zone to act as a buffer between the drones and current conventional aircraft such as passenger and cargo planes, thus mitigating fears about the impact on manned flight or dangers posed to people on the ground“.

I wonder how these aeronautics experts got their degree, perhaps it was added to the side of the pot of vegemite in an effort to market the product to Americans? Perhaps their degree was the wrapper for Troyer Roll Butter (if you know the product, the joke makes sense, Google it!). You see, the sky is filled with these weird things, that need to be all over the place, they are called helicopters, the police uses them, the press uses them and oh, yes, the emergency rescue services uses them all over the world, also in city areas. So this ideas hold a few operational holes even before it is seriously considered.

There is an additional concern. We do not deny that drones will be the big thing in the next decade, which also means that indie developers and visionaries will emerge, so is the quote “segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment” anything else than an attempt to crush market growth and keep it in hand for a few established brands? How will that ever be any good for innovation? Furthermore, the image gives way that hobbyists, rural hobbyists will be pushed from their rural live to little spots, just like the Native American Indians were. In my view, if you want to be top dog, you’ll just have to create a superior product that can anticipate these events. By the way, helicopters come in all these areas, including in the no fly zone, so this idea is saturated with bad insights from even before day zero. Not a good start me thinks!

So in reference to the position papers where the call states “It calls for a “paradigm shift” that will allow hundreds of thousands of small unmanned aircraft to fly under their own technological steam without the current involvement of humans through air traffic control“, that part could only work if there is one player, once there are more, if becomes a technological jungle of miscommunications and lost handshakes due to iterative updates, flaws and glitches. So how about letting drones work above the freeways and major lanes? It would not hinder anyone, hobbyists and innovators continue and unless a helicopter absolutely must land on a highway (likely medical emergency) they can continue without any hiccups.

Wow, I just solved the ‘lack’ of free airspace in 7.2 minutes. How clever am I?

Then we see “Amazon sets out five capabilities that drones must meet if they are to be allowed to fly inside the new 200ft high-speed corridor“. well let’s just agree that this is not up to Amazon to begin with, the fact that they precede this with “to realise that futuristic vision safely“, implying that they are working on a solution only they will offer, laws must abide with… In my view it is not up to them, many nations know that drones will be the new slave labour force (read: unpaid population that will drive others away from a job), which is a little out there (the way I framed it), but the reality is that this market will massively evolve over the next 2 decades and we have to give space to innovators and visionaries, not limit their scope to the need of “sophisticated GPS tracking that allows them to pinpoint their location in real-time and in relation to all other drones around them“, which is basically stating that drones must be a product made by DJI, Raytheon or Northrop Grumman to be allowed in this airspace. Amazon does NOT get to make THAT call!

the additional quotes “Online flight planning that allows them to predict and communicate their flight path” and “Communications equipment that allow them to “talk” and collaborate with other drones in the zone to ensure they avoid each other” give additional notice to forcing us into a one player path. That is not what innovation is about. First the TPP is pushing innovation to the mercy of big business, now Amazon add more limitations here? That is not a playing field that the world signed up for.

So as we see that hobbyists and indie developers (and visionaries) are slowly pushed into reservations like the Native American Indians by the quote “Under Amazon’s proposals, by contrast, hobbyists would only be allowed to fly within the new 200ft-400ft corridor if their vehicles were equipped with the latest hyper-sophisticated gadgetry for autonomous flight. Otherwise, they would have their activities confined to geographically demarcated airfields in relatively unpopulated areas that would be set aside specifically for the purpose” we have to wonder what Amazon has up his sleeve. Because either the US government is so bankrupt that it will agree to anything to not collapse before the results of the next elections, or is Amazon just waving in the air to be noticed?

The quote by Brendan Schulman, drone lawyer and senior executive and DJI gives us additional issues regarding the Amazon statement “by far the greatest use of unmanned aerial vehicles today was by amateurs. That’s currently by far the most common use of the technology, so before you disrupt their experience you want to think carefully about what slice of airspace would really be needed by these new technologies“. I would say ‘Amen!’ to that, because the issue that the article danced around (perhaps intentionally) is that Amazon needs to adhere to established safety protocols, we do not change protocols because of Amazon. I can agree that down the track changes will have to be made, but that time is not now and especially as the paper ignored several basic avionics issues.

Which now gets me to the paper where in a mere flash something stood out to me. Consider the quote “Amazon believes the current model of airspace management will not meet future sUAS demands, particularly highly-automated, low-altitude commercial operations. A paradigm shift in airspace management and operations is necessary to safely accommodate the one-operator-to-many-vehicle model required by large-scale commercial fleets“, in that apart from a massive dose of arrogance, we see “the one-operator-to-many-vehicle model required by large-scale commercial fleets“. So it is already on the premise for big business where one controller manages 100-200 drones. The shift of a workforce that only requires payment in cc’s of fuel.

In my view, the air is for now still empty, it will change, that much is certain, but it will be the people that decide on how far this goes, it is not Amazon to make that move. I am not entirely certain that Amazon should be the lead at all, but that is perhaps a discussion for another day.

What is in the last part an issue is the small part privacy activists were given. They are all up in arms regarding police and spook drones. Which is massively farfetched as these people have already given away their liberty through Facebook and other social means, so these two parties receive via e-mail all you did, including the amounts of times you ogled the ass of the neighbours wife (and teenage daughter). We seem to forget the massive danger that follows, it is not Amazon with its non-human package delivery system. It is the fact that in any innovation, organised crime follows pretty quickly, because they know that it takes the government up to 5 years to catch up, so in the first 5 years they can strike it rich. Drug deliveries, via cheap drones to penthouses. The paying clientele gets balcony to balcony delivery via a $499 drone and there is no link between the parties. Crime is already making a nice killing here, so the proper focus is not here and when it gets to be in the right place it is already too late.

So Amazon should not be setting the pass for removed freedom, it should set pace to create the right atmosphere, an attempt that they failed miserably from my point of view.

My opinion in this matter is strengthened through a previous article regarding Amazon which was published on March 30th (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/30/amazon-tests-drones-secret-site-canada-us-faa). The title ‘Amazon tests delivery drones at secret Canada site after US frustration‘ already implies the ludicrous part in all this. A ‘secret Canada site‘. Why? Because a spotter could take a pic? Because of industrial espionage? Actually, that last one is not THAT far-fetched. So let’s leave it for now.

In the article we get two parts that show my view the first is “Into that aerial slice the company plans to pour highly autonomous drones of less than 55lbs, flying through corridors 10 miles or longer at 50mph and carrying payloads of up to 5lbs“, which represents as stated in the article for 86% of all the packages, now that is fair enough, if you want to address 80% of what is done now, yu see a choice that is just common sense. Now part two “The Company wants to offer its customers the ability to have packages dropped on their doorstep by flying robots within 30 minutes of ordering goods online“. Initially that pat makes sense too. Yet combined, we get ordered articles are delivered within a range of 18 miles. Here we account for loss of time for picking up, after which the drone gets 30 minutes, so 18 miles is pretty much the limit, so this is a metropolitan solution, this is less about ‘global change’, but more the need to address the high impact profit places like New York, Vancouver, San Francisco, Honolulu, Seattle, New Orleans, San Jose, Chicago and Los Angeles and a few other congested places. The ‘global’ part was just nice to give it marketing. They need to address congestion and dromes will make sense. Yet the visionary part is that they are trying to address it on a global scale, because if this is accepted, Amazon would be sole player in places like London, Paris, Amsterdam, The Hague, Munich, Berlin, Rome and Sydney for that matter too. That seems to be the reality and it is not a bad idea to have, but in that adjusted view, Amazon does not get to set policy, especially as Europe might develop its own drone solutions. Binding options for developers through ‘sophisticated GPS tracking‘ is what I would call ‘the big No No’.

Brendan Schulman, aka the drone lawyer shows us the merits of my thoughts “Amazon’s Canadian airstrip-in-exile should be a “serious wake-up call to politicians and regulators”. “America has led the world in aviation development,” he said, “but for the first time in history we are at risk of losing out”“.

There is the part, where I made the reference to the TPP. These presentations are all about big business carving their patch making sure no one else can inhabit it. The plane industry is polarised, but drones are another matter, drones can invigorate visionary workers and dreamers, because a drone is not an expensive tool, you can buy them in a game shop and the next kid getting one could be the one who revolutionises that field because he/she thought ‘what if I want to do this, could I alter my app….?’ that is all it takes to create a billion dollar corporation.

The FAA has (according to Amazon) taken much too long to make up its mind, it also stated “it does not believe that drones can be flown safely under their own autonomous control, and is insisting that humans must keep them within eyesight at all times“, which makes it non-profitable for Amazon. For now the FAA is right, but there is no given certainty that this is still a truth in 5 years. The mobile industry, Wi-Fi and sensor market is evolving at an alarming rate, my $699 mobile phone now has the same technological options a $15K digital film camera had 10 years ago, only the lens is the physical difference in quality, so that market will evolve, possibly beyond my comprehension before I die.

I feel certain that the FAA realises this, but they report to others and those people see that drones will be the new orgasmic high for organised crime. Common Law in the US and in the Commonwealth is flawed enough for all players to realise that this opens up massive undeclarable profits for these players. With the one to many option, whatever small chance of successful prosecution of a drug dealer any Districts Attorney had in the past, flies straight out of the window via drone. Here we see how the law has not caught up again.

Should it stop drone development? No! But there are a few sides that need addressing, which cannot be done today, but soon it will be the only blockade remaining. What happens when that day comes?

 

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