Tag Archives: reuters

June 25, 2021 · 19:45

Non Comprehension

This is an article that is a little different. To be clear, it consist of an article (from Reuters) and a really weird dream I had, a dream I do not seem to understand at present, but when I think of one, the other one hammers down on me. In the dream I am in a small cubicle, a cubicle with a sliding door, the cubicle is small, barely enough space for 3 people to stand in. I a wearing some kind of hood, not unlike flame proof hood you see Formula one people wear. The hood restricts views to the side, and I kept on hearing ‘Ghost mode deactivating’ and ‘Ghost mode deactivated’, there was a man there, mid or end 30’s, yet I keep on not seeing the face. And the light, there is a small light there, but I seem to be weirdly overreactive to light, almost shunning light. Not sure why. That is all the parts I remember, there is more but every time it is within reach, it slips away. It was decently unsettling. 

The article is quite different, it I found at https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-facebook-rejects-talks-with-australia-publisher-testing-worlds-2021-06-25/ and the headline ‘Facebook rejects talks with Australia publisher, testing world’s toughest online law’ should speak volumes. As I read “Australia’s competition watchdog is looking into a claim that Facebook Inc refused a publisher’s request to negotiate a licensing deal, the regulator told Reuters, setting the stage for the first test of the world’s toughest online content law”, so when we see this some will react. Yet questions keep on forming in my mind. So when I see “Facebook declined without giving a reason, The Conversation said, even though the publisher was among the first in Australia to secure a similar deal with Google in the lead-up to the law in 2020” I wonder what is actually in play. You see, they are putting too much faith in social media, it is the old and ever returning discussion of perception and awareness, yet without engagement it almost means nothing and being on social media the way they do is not engagement, it is almost a fake form of representation. They are all vying for the wrong pile of nothing. It is almost like the Conversation is setting itself up to be someone else’s tool. The conversation has internet, it has a website (at https://theconversation.com), so why does it need social media? The article does give the answer one paragraph later with “The knock-back could present the first test of a controversial mechanism unique to Australia’s effort to claw back advertising dollars from Google and Facebook: if they refuse to negotiate licence fees with publishers, a government-appointed arbitrator may step in”, with ‘claw back advertising dollars’, it is seemingly about the money, it is always about the money. 

Yes, I agree that this is a method that seemingly works, seemingly is the operative word. Yet the mission (of greed) in light of what we see is not to push for borders that everyone pushes, it is about creating engagement, a part many marketeers and market researchers are eager to avoid, those numbers are not that impressive in too many of cases. So whilst we ponder the words of Andrew Hunter, we look at “Hunter did not answer specific questions concerning The Conversation, but said Facebook was planning a separate initiative “to support regional, rural and digital Australian newsrooms and public-interest journalism in the coming months”, without giving details”, yet when we consider that it first launched in Australia in March 2011, and has expanded into editions in the United Kingdom in 2013, United States in 2014, Africa and France in 2015, Canada in 2017, Indonesia in 2017, and Spain in 2018. In September 2019, The Conversation reported a monthly online audience of 10.7 million users onsite, and a combined reach of 40 million people including republications, it is also available in English, French, Spanish, and Indonesian, so the entire ‘regional, rural and digital Australian newsrooms’ becomes debatable. One could optionally argue that Facebook has a circle of stakeholders that is looking out for their own media friends. I agree that my view is personal and optionally debatable as well, yet the issues in play overlap in a weir way, a view with a limited view forward, not to the sides, just like the F1 hood I was wearing in my dream, I could not see the sides other then to turn my head. 

Facebook could be playing a real dangerous game, but it is not one I can see at present. They are slick and hiding behind party lines, giving us ambiguous “journalism in the coming months”, especially when the details are missing, and the media doesn’t rely on day to day, do they? And it is then, at the end of the article where Rod Sims gives the game away with “If Google’s done a deal with them, I can’t see how Facebook should argue that they shouldn’t” with the added “using the term for assigning an arbitrator”, this is about drawing borderlines and the Australian ACCC allowed for this new stage of media war, the sad part is that the ones with money will get their share, they are or will become stakeholders, the small players like the Conversation do not. It seems to be (at least in my mind) a stage that politicians never understood in the first place, or they did and they were fending for themselves, not the people. The pie of revenue is shrinking and the current players want their same share (plus 10%), the fallout will be growing over time, I feel certain of that. I merely wonder what the others will do whilst the larger players ignore engagement (for now), in the old station of a program like AnswerTree, the setting was clear, you can either mail more to keep the revenue, growing cost again and again, and you have the option to mail more efficient, growing engagement is mailing more efficient and in the end better rewarding. Yet in all this, it is not about Facebook, Google or the Conversation. It is about the political players, they are about themselves and it will cost the media a lot more than they are willing to accept soon enough.

It is merely my view, it is speculative but I think it is more on point then even I can admit to.

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June 21, 2021 · 03:16

In earlier news

This partially reflect on what I stated yesterday in ‘The stage of what is’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/06/20/the-stage-of-what-is/), it is however now that I take notice of news that Reuters gave us on the 18th. There we see ‘China must develop unified, open-source smart car OS -ex-minister’, now for the most it comes to be in the ‘bla bla bla’ shape. I never much cared about cars, but for some reason I took notice of ‘China must develop’ (at https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/china-should-develop-unified-open-source-smart-car-operating-system-says-ex-2021-06-18/), for the most, I do not care, but the notion of that part of the sentence made me stop and read the article. There we see “the world’s biggest auto market, should develop its own unified, open-source operating system (OS) for smart vehicles, as well as auto chips, to maintain its advantage in the electric vehicle (EV) industry” there was nothing to disagree with, it is in any national interest to further its goals whether it is China, the US, India, the United Kingdom or Australia, we all have national interests. Yet when I took notice of “China should learn from the United States’ curbs on Chinese technology companies and boost its independence in vehicle-related technology” the cogs in my skull started to spin, which took more alarm to “U.S. President Joe Biden in April said the United States must ramp up production of electric vehicles to catch and surpass China”, which was interesting as I thought that the US (with all its marketing) was ahead of China in that field. So we have a different setting, one wants to catch up (and Democrats do not do that too well, all talk and no achievements tends to do that), China wants to make more headway optionally unbalancing the automotive industry even further. Yet it is the end that gives us “The Harmony operating system of Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd (HWT.UL) can be used in vehicles as well as smartphones” and that is the killer. I talked about that yesterday, I stated that HarmonyOS was a much larger problem and now we see the direct impact in a second industry, all whilst the Democrats (Republicans too) want to wage war on BigTech, yes, when was that EVER a good idea? So you are gearing up for the marathon and the first think you do is shoot yourself in the foot, now we see that the idiot athlete is shooting itself in both feet, so where do you think that athlete will end? Wanna buy a wooden spoon for the awards? 

Yesterday I also referred to an earlier story from 2020, where I mentioned “if HarmonyOS catches on, Google will have a much larger problem for a much longer time. If it is about data Google will lose a lot, if it is about branding Google will lose a little, yet Huawei will gain a lot on the global stage and Apple? Apple can only lose to some extent, there is no way that they break even”, now it seems that this was less accurate, and ‘if HarmonyOS catches on’ should be replaced with ‘as HarmonyOS is catching on’, you see if China gets the advantage there, it can offer that solution to Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK all fighting to gain the upper hand in Europe. Do you think that they will ignore the HarmonyOS solution whilst the US is marketing itself ahead without evidence of actually being ahead? The damage to Google and Amazon will add up a lot more in this way and as HarmonyOS gains momentum, it will also gain momentum in 5G domotics and smart-wear. Yes, the Americans will say no, no, no, we already have something, so buy OUR solution. Yet the numbers from Tom’s guide (less than a month ago) give us: 

And now compare that to Statista from September 2020, yes there is momentum but when you are trailing by 80% to number one, you have a massive problem.

Consider that Australia is wielding a 5G solution 300% faster than the US, do you think it does not matter? Think again, the US is desperately behind nations it used to look down on and China is ahead, by a lot and with the HarmonyOS trump card (also a card Donald Trump handed them) the headway that China is making in 5G will change the setting of who Europe aligns with, they have no choice, their debts are crushing them and China would be a way out, so at what point will the US dump the BigTech BS that is largely its own fault and was created and grew as the other players became complacent? We can now use the line the US tended to use against all of us against them

Winners talk, bullshitters walk

A stage they set in motion and fuelled by relying on buying IP (and viagra) and not working hard to keep innovative ahead of the game, now they get to see the other side of the equation, one where they are in line to lose industry after industry because the shots were called by stupid people. How is that working out for them? So as President Biden is trying to create a united front against Huawei (China) he will be noticing that the armour used is less and less effective, as HarmonyOS matures (towards version 2), America’s only way is to find a solution with players like Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft and their BigTech front will have to collapse, or they need to accept that China takes all in the end. That is the setting and when politicians from both sides of the aisle are crying ‘regulate BigTech’ its own enemies within will delay matters more and more, which works out nicely for Huawei, so when France or Germany allows HarmonyOS (Germany is more likely), HarmonyOS will sweep the landscape from automotive to 5G domotics and that is just the start, the backset for Google will grow. The issue is that Google still has options and the lag is not that large, but in that setting US politics need to grow up and wake up, the latter part is more important at present. So whilst we needed to take more notice of earlier news, the news that was earlier and needed to be properly addressed was in 2020 and that was not done, and now the US has a massive problem in multiple fields, so how is that coming across? And as the Daily Telegraph apparently gave its readers two days ago that Trump admitted defeat, we see that the former American El Jefe was almost 6 months late in learning simple top-line statistics, so what happens when this president is unable to learn from those blunders and make matters worse? Lina Khan is merely a first step (which I am not blaming her for), but not the only step. When we see losers crying foul (at https://lawstreetmedia.com/tech/google-asks-court-to-narrow-scope-of-rumbles-antitrust-case-in-mtd/) on the setting of ‘monopolisation of the online video-sharing platform market’, all whilst Tik-Tok (a Chinese invention no less), grew by well over 110%, in addition to the stage that YouTube was bought in 2006 by Google and they made something real from it (they bought it for less then $2B) and it made them $20B in 2020, so a decent invention, all whilst Rumble came 7 years after YouTube and is a Canadian solution almost no one has heard of, so they seemingly try to make their money in court (as I personally see it), and this wave of crybabies is stopping US innovations, you see if these players had true innovation they would be in the game, Tik Tok came three years after Rumble and surpassed them (almost overnight), and is now valued at $250,000,000,000, which is the impact of innovation. It is time for the US and its FTC to stop whinging with BS court cases and have a larger look at the industry and the impact that others have, especially when they should not need to waste time in courts. 

The US wants to be number one, but in the process has no issues tying the hands of people who can make that happen behind their backs, how will that ever result in any option to win? 

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June 16, 2021 · 13:35

Is it your taste?

Taste is a peculiar thing, it is more than personal at times and sometimes it is massively selective, I for one loved to try my new girlfriend having a Chicken Vindaloo (before I went to Australia), or an Indonesian restaurant. You see, I need to know that she at least likes the dishes I love. I had an ex who hated pizza and therefore I ended up not having pizza for a year. And that setting of taste (and balance) continues over a larger field. So when the BBC gives me ‘GB News: Several brands pull advertising from news channel’, it gets me in two ways (both with happiness), the first is seen in “it has faced criticism from campaigners such as the group Stop Funding Hate, who say its launch brings highly partisan Fox News-style programming to the UK”, yes it all seems nice, but haters will be haters and the choices some channels make are at times proven to be hateful, the other media makes sure that it is hateful. And this can happen in a whole range of ways and the media is all over that part. For the largest reasons they do not want another mouth eating from the digital advertising dish. 

Andrew Neil (chairman) gives us “In an opening monologue to viewers on Sunday night, Neil said GB News would aim to “puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics, business, media and academia and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture for the threat to free speech and democracy that it is”” is not hateful, yet the part I have stated several times in the past and even yesterday is seen in “puncture the pomposity of our elites in media and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture”, I did not phrase it like that, but it does fit. Consider these two parts, the first is an alleged attack on Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist no one cares about and the media is hounding it for the longest time, more importantly the UN is helping push the media agenda on this via some essay writer called Agnes Calamard. Yet the actions of Martin Bashir, who as seen by a lot of people as a massive reason of het divorce and ultimately led to her death is pushed outside of the media limelight, moreso as an inquiry showed him to be manipulative using forged documents and he is not even arrested (not even pro forma). Andrew Neil has a point, will he have a case? Time will tell, I remain skeptical of nearly all media outlets that are not presented by trained journalists, morning entertainment channels giving us filtered information.

The second part is actually not good for Andrew Neil. We see Kopparberg and Octopus Energy cancelling what they had seemingly placed, as such even as the channel is only now on the air, these people did not do their due diligence, and even I cannot call whether GB News is actually hateful. Yet there is a place in the media for Fox News, not my favourite channel but I believe that we can only see actual news when we are not depending on Al Jazeera and Reuters. In this the other side of that coin is that Kopparberg, Open University, Ovo Energy and Ikea had made suspensions hiding behind “not knowingly booked slots on the channel”, implying that they advertise without investigation, as such, how stupid is that? I believe that there is more behind that. I would speculate that not unlike the old PS2 versus Dreamcast issue in 1999, some media outlets might have stated that if you are with them, you cannot be with us. I can never prove that, but I was a witness to the PS2-Dreamcast event. So it is not too far-fetched. 

Oh and by the way, so far there is the indication that GB News and Andrew Neil is getting more news flak from other media that Martin Bashir so far has. I wonder why that is, especially after these same sources had no issues posting whatever speculative (not evidence) based posting on the Jamal Khashoggi case. Do not take my word for that, investigate yourself! I do not care whether you watch GB News, that is your choice, I merely wonder how much of the news media has not been trustworthy for the longest of times and that includes the views of Piers Morgan. You see I avoided the interview for my own reasons, he had a point of view, and I am not judging him to be valid or invalid, it was a point of view, he is allowed HIS point of view and we see thousands of complaints on a point of view. So how many complaints did these people lodge against Martin Bashir? And that was before I saw ‘Meghan Markle’s claim ‘doesn’t add up’ – ‘Strange’ remark in Oprah interview picked apart’ from the Express (at https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1447782/meghan-markle-oprah-winfrey-interview-queen-elizabeth-II-prince-harry-lee-cohen-news-VN). There we were given “Mr Cohen pointed to a moment in the Oprah Winfrey interview where Meghan said she was unaware of needing to curtsy the Queen and did not know the words to the UK national anthem. The political writer found it “odd”, stating he was given stringent protocol training when he met the Queen and questioned whether the Duchess of Sussex was overall willing to learn the new customs”, it is a point of view, but that also gives a rather large nudge towards Piers Morgan optionally might having a case. As I avoided the interview I cannot really say, but who else had that part Mr Cohen stated? Why was the rest of the media not all over that? Was it the ‘Awwwww’ moment? Now take these elements and you will see that there might be place for someone like GB News. Will it be on my list? Not sure, I will look at it initially via YouTube (as I am on the other side of the planet for now), yet its future will not be depending on the advertisers, it will largely be depending on the quality of journalism and that part is left out of the media consideration, at least the dozen articles I saw and none mentioned that part, I wonder why that is, don’t you?

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June 14, 2021 · 22:19

Discriminators big and small

It happens, we sometimes discriminate, even if that was not the intent, even if it was just a joke (obviously a bad one), or even if it was an unknown reason, merely because you never knew. The last one is actually a larger slice of the cake and it is not held against anyone. If it was unintended, and we never knew the foundation of that discrimination, we feel a little ashamed when it passes and we make a mental note not to do it again. Should the media be given a pass? Are they allowed to be ‘uninformed’? It is a much larger question than you think and it is brought to the surface today by two events. The first is ‘Saudi-led coalition intercepts Houthi drone, says state TV’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-led-coalition-intercepts-houthi-drone-says-state-tv-2021-06-14/). Here we see “air defences intercepted and destroyed an armed drone launched by Yemen’s Houthi group towards the southern Saudi city of Khamis Mushait, state television said on Monday” they are one of THREE non muslim sources that gave me the article. So when we have the BBC, Boston Globe, NY Times, Washington Post, the Times, San Francisco Chronicle and several other large news papers, I found a total of three sources that gave me this article. Saudi Arabian citizens are under terrorist attack by Houthi forces and we see none of that, we will see teabag ladies holding up CAAT signs on arms trade against Saudi Arabia,  that makes all the newspapers, optionally the teabag lady was the human interest side. Some of us will shout all kinds of ‘evil Saudi intent’ yet these people have not been told the whole truth, why is that? Why is the media setting the stage of intentional discrimination? And it is not one nation, this is global, or should I say Christian global? We saw the French examples of pushing a ‘non-religion’ agenda, or is that a christian agenda?

Islam does not allow an image of Mohammed

It took me 3 minutes to come up with an alternative image to make sure that the classroom would understand that an image of Mohammed was taboo in Islam, so instead of the image explaining that is was against Islam to give any image of Mohammed, we see an image causing outrage and they knew it was going to lead to outrage, so why was that?

The second one is more despicable, I saw a few sources give us ‘New Zealand’s Ardern criticises Christchurch attack film amid uproar’, with the added text ““They Are Us” film about PM Jacinda Ardern’s response to 2019 Christchurch terror attacks has been slammed by New Zealand’s Muslims and others for pushing a “white saviour” narrative and “sidelining the victims””, I wonder why the powers are so afraid of Islam and Muslims, when we see “Philippa Campbell, New Zealand producer, on Monday announced that she was resigning, according to The Guardian”, when we realise that the producer is resigning, there is a larger issue in play with the director and the people behind the screens and that too does not yet make it to the forefront, why is that? 

As I see a daily dose of age discrimination and religious discrimination all over the field, do you really think that statements by others in the area of ‘Trust them, it will work out, they know what they do’, do you think there is any trust left? The media is eager to put ‘the people have a right to know’ in the drawer when it suits the needs of their friends, yet they are well versed in staging these friends into the circle of ‘unnamed sources’, so why is that? And more importantly why do we continue to let this happen? Gallup had a nice presentation (at https://news.gallup.com/poll/157082/islamophobia-understanding-anti-muslim-sentiment-west.aspx) for me there were two slides, but I will give one, here we see how massive that problem is and the media is shunning its responsibilities to the largest extent. 

Here we see that Italy seems to be the most accepting nation with 28% not accepting muslims, but with a 15% data gap the message there could be a lot worse, in the US that non acceptance is 52% with only an 8% gap, so at best it is a 50/50 premise there and why is that? Muslims have been part of investigations against extremism. In the FBI, CIA, and other players in town on a global scale all whilst we are shunning our duties as people, as citizens, as concerned people who need to be told the truth and the truth is being skewed and negated n nearly every turn, why is that? I do not expect you to have the answer, but I believe it is more important to be told the truth and the media is not part of that, why are news agencies stacking news to set an anti perception? Consider that today, today is a good day to consider just that. 

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May 30, 2021 · 20:17

An unfounded economy

It was hard to see through certain places, we all have that, it is not because we do not understand it. It is because the field is larger and has a few uneven spots that tend to make the situation quirky. I have been keeping my eyes on the UK for a few reasons, in the first (the selfish part) is set on an apartment and the need for either Jeff Bezos (or Sergey Brin) to wake up and take notice. The second side is that I have been to London plenty of times, as such I am not unfamiliar with the area. So today I took notice of ‘British retail faces “tsunami of closures” without rent help’ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-retail-rents/british-retail-faces-tsunami-of-closures-without-rent-help-idUSKCN2DA0IQ). The article makes sense and there is nothing against the article. Yet consider “The BRC’s survey found 80% of tenants said some landlords have given them less than a year to pay back rent arrears”. When you see this you want to be nasty to these evil landlords and that makes sense, but the stage is actually a lot worse. You see, shops in the city ‘hide’ behind ‘price on application’, the insanity of rental prices is to be voided at all cost, yet at the same time, I have seen annual rental prices of £1,600,000 that is well over £100,000 a month and that is merely the rent, now consider that this have been going on for YEARS. Does it even pay to have a shop in London? 

So when we now consider “With this in place, all parties can work on a sustainable long-term solution, one that shares the pain wrought by the pandemic more equally between landlords and tenants”, the words given to us by Helen Dickinson, chief executive of BRC (British Retail Consortium). Yes, I agree, she is right, but as I see it this should have been a political hot potato for well over 10 years. As rental prices spiralled, the landlords were given pass after pass, the rest either pay up or get lost. Yet the larger station is not that rent are out of control, life in London is only affordable to the top 7% income earners making it realistic that London will shrink to a population of 4.7 million soon enough and a lot of those are all over the planet at leat 50% of the time. When you consider these numbers, do you have any idea what happens to London? If London relies on 2 million people who have a global stage of spending, how long until the infrastructure of London implodes? As I personally see it, the problem was a larger stage from long before the pandemic. I saw places in London, shops where I had no clue how they were affording it, but they were there. It was as I personally saw it almost a legalised insurance scam where the tenant signed a lease that was approved by a bank, insured against bd weather, all whilst the numbers and the prices would never ever make sense. That shop should not be where it was, yet it was. I noticed it in 1997, in 1999 and in 2002. Yet the papers and the people were not asking questions, why was that? In one setting we see Matthew Carmona give us in 1997 ‘Policy is blind to their huge strategic and sustainable growth potential’, yet it is only one setting and it only works when everyone plays the rules straight, in the current setting it is a seesaw that has its axial point on one third and the short part is where the shopkeeper sits, the long end is for the landlord or the investment firm holding ownership of the building. As such the landlord needs merely 1/3 of its weight to stay ahead of the tenant, as such we could see that the rent is only for the really fat cat. So even if we agree on “if the government does not extend a moratorium on aggressive debt enforcement”, the stage is not ‘aggressive debt enforcement’, it is the setting that the seesaw is openly unbalanced and as I see it the players (banks and landlords) need to be investigated to the game that is being played and in all this the tenant has no option but to try and hope that his or her golden idea plays off. It is a game of legalised exploitation and politicians and policymakers are optionally wearing really dark glasses so that they might not notice what is going on. A stage where the people talk about ‘sustainable growth potential’, yet in actuality they are saying ‘growth potential: sustainability be damned!’ And now as we see (due to something really unforeseen) the dam breaking under the colossal debts, we will get to see more than a larger tsunami of closures, when this happens the insurance people want their day in court, the hedge funds want their losses covered and optionally the landlords too, but the tenant, he or she is royally screwed. 

We understand that there is a need for rent help, yet at what stage is there a need to cover investments? What is investment without risk that can be held against the investor? It is the premise of a nanny state for the really rich, who signed up for that part?

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May 24, 2021 · 22:20

The limits of an intellect

We all have them, we all see we have them, but do we realise the limitations we have? I am confronted by this, confronted in me. We all want to see the BBC as the big evil one, yet they are not evil. The issue that Martin Bashir brought to the forefront in not the evil in the BBC, yet I wonder how strong the needs and the facilitation of the Shareholders and stakeholders are in the larger setting of the BBC. I know that data leads to information, which leads to knowledge, leading to insight and optionally to wisdom. Yet we seem to forget that the lines of wisdom are really thin at times and some lead to shape a dragon of the conspiracy theorists. Any person not on the setting there is lost. Consider a cloud, you are looking at the clouds in the sky, then you see one shaped as the island of Crete, one is shaped like a sheep and one is a face. Is it real? Is the likeness a coincidence, or is it shaped due to your imagination, and the connections it makes? If all clouds are randomly shaped (well within the limits of liquid particles), there is every chance that one cloud will look just like Crete, so what (optional missing) part did the brain fill in? 

That is the stage we face, or better it is the stage I face. I get it, Martin Bashir has made me more angry than anything else. I personally always believed that the BBC was above certain matters and now I see this is a kitten, in the dark just as grey as all the other kittens. And it matters here.

Consider the BBC middle East page, we see all kinds of information, on ‘Princess Latifa: Dubai photo appears to show missing woman’, a day old. So who cares? I do not mean this in any negative way, there is news that is 5 days old, news from the 16th of May, yet the news from Yemen, news like the Arab News gave us 16 hours ago ‘Saudi project clears 2,500 more mines in Yemen’ and Reuters, who reported 4 hours ago ‘Saudi-led coalition in Yemen foils Houthi attack south of Red Sea’ we are shown news that the BBC should have been on top of, but they were not, why not? Or perhaps what ABC News gave us 11 hours ago ‘US military presence has deterred Iranian aggression on Saudi Arabia’, where we see statements by US general McKenzie. Why is the BBC not all over that? Why do we see a setting of limitations, limited exposure to what is happening, as I personally see it, the Martin Bashir setting is one that has larger ramifications. And here we see the problem, and I see the problem optionally within me, do I see lines of knowledge leading to wisdom, or are they showing me the lines that will form a unicorn, an Afreet or a dragon? Some roads will feed the conspiracy theorist, some will feed the wise and the nance is at times not visible, too small to spot the difference, and what we see is not always a given, or as Freud would say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but we are here now and we will be in this stage for some time, it will be this way because the BBC now correlates to the CIA, two organisation that decided to wash away their credibility and we are all a little more paranoid and largely distrusting because of it all.

That is the road  the BBC faces, so when we get “أنا سائح مرتبك أحاول فهم إشارة الطريق”, will we know what to do? And is this any better? “المهرجون إلى اليسار حيث توجد المناجم ، يمزحون إلى اليمين حيث توجد الثعابين”, it is limited to what we know, what we understand, the Vatican does understand “laqueis mortis sinistra dextrorsum anguis mortem”, so what will they chose? Perhaps they will wait for option three or four to open up and that is the problem, we do not know what drives the BBC at present, and we might never know, yet we need to act, we want to act but is any act by those who do not know what is the situation bare value, or bear recognition? (Sorry, I could not resist that pun), yet in intelligence analysts, business analysis and geologic, we do not always know and it is the fate of missing data, the recognition of data that I not there and more important, some decisions are arbitrary, not valid, not invalid, merely arbitrary, and in this we merely ignore the shareholders and stake holders. Is it right, is it wrong? I cannot tell, it depends on the data and there is none, recognising that is a first in the difference towards the lines making insight and the lines showing a unicorn, we need to accept and understand that, or we are lost.

We would like to blame the BBC for all kind of things, let’s make sure that the reason of blame is a valid one.

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April 1, 2021 · 19:57

The joke is on us (all)

Reuters gave light (again) to an article that I wrote earlier, 2 days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/03/30/an-almost-funny-thing/) I wrote ‘An almost funny thing’, I got it from the BBC and I feel certain that some official people were already already on the ball, being a mere 2 years late. I reckon that some figured out that the growing cash flow these people ended up with will count against certain players, if not a lot more. Some people might have gotten additional considerations with “In the OSI model, we see layers 3-7 (layer 8 is the user). So as some have seen the issues from Cisco, Microsoft and optionally Zoom, we see a link of issues from layer 3 through to layer 7 ALL setting a dangerous stage. Individually there is no real blame and their lawyers will happily confirm that, but when we see security flaw upon security flaw, there is a larger stage of danger and we need to take notice” and that is the tip of the iceberg. So when Reuters gives us ‘Ransomware tops U.S. cyber priorities, Homeland secretary says’ this morning, we might not get the entire field in view and that is not on Reuters. And as Alejandro Mayorkas gives us “ransomware was “a particularly egregious type of malicious cyber activity” and listed it as the first of several top priorities that his department would tackle in the online sphere” we are not getting the entire story and we are happily giving the Department of Homeland Security that as they have other consideration as well. Yet I personally believe (speculatively) that some programmers working in specific places got handed libraries to make more, but also got a setting where they created software that opened a backdoor, so that all parties have an excuse and any investigation will end up going nowhere. You see there are plenty of real option givers that start as ‘Top 9 Python Frameworks For Game Development’, and that is where it starts. Consider the following scenario: as some developers become better they seemingly need shortcuts and would you believe it, some knows someone on the darkweb and they will hand the developer an option, two actually, one is free, the other one is $19.99, but is ‘presented’ as a lot more secure and it has documentation, that is all that they need and as the library is linked, the trap is set. The game maker does the right thing and enhances his program with either version (both have the flaw), and now, with a passive backdoor is passive (gaming is required), it passes through a whole range of systems and as the game is offered free with ‘in-app purchases’ the people behind the screens suddenly have 100K+ stations for all kinds of use. So whilst some are trivialising “No one really knows the size of the dark web, but most estimates put it at around 5% of the total internet. Again, not all the dark web is used for illicit purposes despite its ominous-sounding name”, we see, ohh not all is illicit, but consider that this software would be in the open internet if it was all on the up and up. The indie developer (many companies of one) has that ‘special feeling’ as he was introduced and others were not, but they all were and some were offered similar links in the end all linking to the same package, and that is the game, so when we we see greed driven idiots like Epic games (and a few others) setting the stage to avoid the Google and Apple store, we will see a much larger shift, one that gives free reign to criminal minded people to infect a massive amount of systems. So when you think that players like DHS is ready for these assaults, the people will soon learn the hard way that they were not and from there it will go from bad to worse.

And this is not about Epic games, even as some will herald “Cesium will be available for free for all creators on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. It’s an open-source plugin for the engine that unlocks global 3D data and geospatial technology. This means that games that use it will be able to discover in real time the location of a player in a given 3D space, using accurate real-world 3D content captured from cameras, sensors, drones, and smart machines” (source: venture beat), we think it is all for the good of us, and it is not, it is good for the pockets of Epic Games, but what happens when other elements get a hold of the saved data linked to geospatial technology? What happens, when foundational advantages that were (for the most) in the hands of players like CIA and GCHQ; what happens when cyber criminals get THAT level of precise data and THOSE cluster data groups? Did you think of that? So whilst some laugh away “games that use it will be able to discover in real time the location of a player in a given 3D space, using accurate real-world 3D content captured from cameras, sensors, drones, and smart machines”, the data will go a lot further, it will optionally end up not merely showing those systems, but the locations of all systems they link to as well. It is a hidden version of what I called the ‘Hop+1’ intrusion malware (thought up by yours truly) that made much of the CIA counter software close to useless, someone took that idea and made a corporate version with some version of a backdoor, in that stage the internet will end up being as dangerous as walking the dog (not the ‘M’ word), in a minefield. Letting the dog have a shit will be the last thing you did that day for a very long time to come.

As such, some might applaud the DHS (they actually did nothing wrong) as we see “a DHS official said the reference was to underground forums that help cybercriminals franchise out their malicious campaigns.” Yet under these situations, finding blame is close to impossible and the mistrusting developers end up helping cyber criminals in the process, and that is if there is ever any prosecutable connection found. 4 stages not directly linked will make prosecution close to impossible. So how is that for size? And whilst we take notice of “He said the agency would “quarterback” the U.S. government’s digital defences and serve as a “trusted interlocutor” between business executives and public servants” we see that their heart is in the right place, but the people they are hunting are heartless, devious, better funded and technologically more up to speed. It is a race many politically governmental intelligence organisations cannot win, not now, and optionally not ever. What a fine mess some corporations got us into.

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March 17, 2021 · 22:22

And then there was delusion

Yup, we all see it, we all recognise it, yet who has ever called on it? I know I do, but the list is getting smaller and fading as the news is absent in too many cases. As Reuters gave us ‘Major arms sales flat in 2016-20 for first time in more than a decade’ (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-arms-trade-sipri/major-arms-sales-flat-in-2016-20-for-first-time-in-more-than-a-decade-idUSKBN2B60QD), it is my believe that some might overlook “three of the world’s biggest exporters – increased deliveries, but falls in exports from Russian and China offset the rise”, which is interesting as those three nations include USA, France, Germany, all whilst Germany, UK and US have been in a spin to not deliver to Saudi Arabia, losing them billions in sales, sales that China is working hard to deliver on. In addition there are voices that give us that the US was in a WYSINWYG stage (What you see is not what you get) in the last year, and the buyers are taking notice. As the arms industry is trying to find appeal and aspiring new technologists for their arms industry, all whilst I had an Ice-coffee and a sandwich and I rolled out a new solution to sink the Iranian fleet, it’s all in a day’s contemplation. So whilst we are trying to make sense of “The United Arab Emirates, for example, recently signed an agreement with the United States to purchase 50 F-35 jets and up to 18 armed drones as part of a $23 billion package. Middle Eastern countries accounted for the biggest increase in arms imports, up 25% in 2016–20 from 2011–15. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest arms importer, increased its arms imports by 61% and Qatar by 361%”, we see the absence of the Saudi blockade of goods by the US Congress, something that China is soon to be rather happy about. And as we see the numbers ($23 billion) for the UAE alone, my reflection on the amount approaching $7 billion for Saudi Arabia does not seem that far fetched, does it?

So whilst we get to the end of the message handing us ““For many states in Asia and Oceania, a growing perception of China as a threat is the main driver for arms imports,” said Siemon Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI, said” the part avoided is that the non-sales by Germany, the UK and the US is driving their sales, and it does not stop there. Even as the filtered information bringers are giving us the golden newslines on Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, there is a larger stage to consider. It is my speculation (which means absent of factual data) that the arms driven pie slices will decrease as the slices for the US, Germany, UK and France will add up to 10%-19% less, whilst those shares will largely go to China. I believe that the increase in Russia and China will be roughly 30% and 70% of the total amount lost by other parties. There is every chance that players like Saudi Arabia will try to get a deal with both, but that remains speculation at present. This is information that is partially out in the open, as such I wonder what the drive of Reuters was, perhaps it was as simple as giving the limelight to SIPRI. The stage that the UK is mentioned to increase its nuclear platform is taken out of the equation, it is for the most a buy once, go nowhere solution that has 1-2 specific vendors, but that out in the open after the laughingly deceptive Iranian story (at https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/iran-reveals-underground-missile-city-as-regional-tensions-rise.html), yes they might have something, but apart from the concrete bunkers, the footage showing 100 missiles (twice), do they actually work or are they defence movie props? The dozens of launchers next to one another, are they real, or are they faulty equipment? Answers that cannot be given and the sources giving us answers might not be that trustworthy, but it happens at the same time that SIPRI is shouting that arms sales are down, it is one way to start a fire sale with increased prices. So consider the timeline and feel free to wonder whether I am the delusional one, or the other players. I know a few have seen me as the delusional party and I have no issue with that, I give you the links, and for the most I hand the information that you can decide what is real, but in all this, who gave us any indication of looking at the Iranian video handing out any expected clarity on how real it was and when does Iran give the goods on their military? Is anyone looking into that part?

Have a fun day!

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March 2, 2021 · 00:10

There is a voice

There is always a voice, it goes into one direction, it goes another way, but there is always a voice.  In my Cale the voice belongs to Reuters and it gave us all yesterday ‘Don’t bully Riyadh, Saudi columnists tell Biden administration’, it is nice to see this, especially after stating that very thing for weeks. The article (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-khashoggi-media/dont-bully-riyadh-saudi-columnists-tell-biden-administration-idUSKCN2AS0BN) gives us “Saudi Arabia, which has relied on the United States for its defence including during the first Gulf War and after 2019 attacks on its massive oil infrastructure, could look to China and Russia for weapons”, the writer Malik states this and I think he is right, in my case the optional $75,000,000 meal ticket has almost nothing to do with it, my larger frame is the sickening hypocrisy that I see from both the US as well as the UK and the EU, so as I am trying to optionally increase that meal ticket to $225,000,000 we need to realise that these three dumbo’s are about to lose billions in revenue in a time where they cannot afford it, but I do not care, hypocrisy comes at a cost and whilst they fail another nuclear accord with Iran, whilst they fail to see the larger stage that Iran cannot be dealt with anymore than a petulant 5 year old will listen to the summarisation of responsibilities and I reckon we need to prepare Saudi Arabia for the larger problems coming their way and if the EU and the US will not prepare them China who is roaring to set the Chengdu to a larger field, they will have they option of raking in the gold and other benefits. The Biden administration and its tools had their misfortune and now they will get some more, it is a simple application of protocol NAH5 (nah, nah, nah, nah, nah).

And me ending optionally (read: hopefully) up with up to $225,000,000 is just icing on the cake. So not only did tools at the CAAT end up missing their goal, they are also the larger party responsible for the UK missing out on billions. Good luck with that!

It gets to be worse when you consider “Abdullah al-Otaibi, writing in London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper which is Saudi-owned, said the kingdom, Washington’s oldest Arab ally, was “not a banana republic to be shaken by threats”” the people need to realise that in 2021 and 2022, companies like Salini Impregilo (now: WeBuild) could miss out on hundreds of millions in contracts, contracts that China and Russia will be quarrelling over. And that is merely the tip of the iceberg, So now we have optional contracts that could aid the coffers of the US, UK, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, now all going towards China and Russia. It is a buyers market and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the buyer, make no mistake about that. So when we see these facts and we add ““We want to strengthen deep-rooted ties (with the U.S.) but not at the expense of our sovereignty. Our judiciary and our decisions are a red line,” Fahim al-Hamid wrote in Okaz newspaper” all whilst I have written about the issues in both the UN and the US reports, a stage that I showed a mere three days ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/27/that-was-easy/) in the article ‘That was easy!’ And then consider what the well (read; overly) paid people claim all whilst they cannot legally back it up. They are now setting the stage of you all to be in extended poverty. When exactly was that ever a good idea?

And you do not need to take my word for it, I included the documents, make up your own mind and see how the legal bitches are all relying on emotion to set the blame whilst making sure that Iran is not mentioned at all (or to the minimum extent) and Iran has been part of the problem for well over a decade, wonder why you will have to pay for that, especially as these people are relying on ‘guilty until proven innocent’ all whilst they are making sure that there is too much confusion in the entire process. If I get to pick up some nice bits because of their stupidity, it will suit me just fine, and let’s be clear, when you rely on populism and emotion to bring legal settings to a place where none apply, it is stupidity plain and simple.

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February 21, 2021 · 00:38

How to miss out on $20,000,000,000

Yup, another notch, another confirmation and in all this, I smirk. The shown stupidity by several players whilst they try to be clever and show the people through ‘filtered content’ that they are on the ball was staggering. Now Reuters gives us (at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-emirates-defense-saudi/saudi-arabia-to-invest-more-than-20-billion-in-its-military-industry-over-next-decade-idUSKBN2AK08K) ‘Saudi Arabia to invest more than $20 billion in its military industry over next decade’, the US and the EU have played their cards and are out of the race, implying that the bulk of all this will go to China, and optionally Russia will get a few slices of that cake. Some called me a fool, some said I was dreaming (well, I was to some degree), but with the Chinese economy getting a nice large slice of the $20,000,000,000 the stage is starting to change. The UK is missing out because they gave the stage to stupid people (CAAT). The US did a similar thing, the EU climbed on their high horse called morality blaming the KSA for all kinds of things, yet they refused to give the people the real deal which involved Iran. Now China has a larger stage and they did it to themselves.

The Governor of the General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al-Ohali will have to select a new stage, one that does not include the EU or the US. China who was basically not in the market with their QBZ-95, they now have a realistic chance because both Belgium (FN-Herstal) and Germany (Heckler and Koch) can not contribute. In addition China has a few other options, add to that a larger stage where they can offer airplanes and vehicles the stage is set, the west lost out on twenty billion, all due to stupidity, and they did not have that much to tinker to begin with and it only goes downhill from there.

If China sets the manufacturing stage to Saudi Arabia the stage changes even further as they will have a leg up in several Middle Eastern nations. So, if the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) gets a nice hamper this Christmas with a note stating ‘千恩萬謝’, you know that their goose is cooked. 

So what’s next? Well, as the KSA is making increasing purchases into their defence apparatus, the stage changes, it is a cost we all see, but in the past the EU and the US made hay out of the benefits they got, that part is seemingly going to China (optionally Russia too). 

A stage that I saw almost 2 years ago, is it not funny how the politicians in the US and EU did not see that coming? If they did, why was their no mention in the news? Yet it is clear that their economies are so good, they can afford to sneer at 1 to two dozen billions. Ohh, I forgot they are broke! And this is not about the CAAT, I get it, there is ideology in ‘to end all government political and financial support for arms exports’, this is nice but it only works if all players adhere to this and a nation has every right to defend itself, as such Saudi Arabia needs to do what is best for Saudi Arabia. If that requires them to start talks with China, then so mote it be. 

Realism is fickle, it is shaped by the people wielding it, even if their realism is tainted by ideology and delusion. As such that fickle statue is now going to other places and the nations with trillions of debt will need to find another solution, but perhaps selling stickers to the members of CAAT will make up for something. 

I myself would have preferred to offer the Typhoon to Saudi Arabia, but in this
I hope to sell them the Chengdu J-20, yes I might be asleep, but do we not all want a 3.75% commission out of a $2,000,000,000 deal? In all this the stage was clear for close to 2 years, I wonder what the people had to win by losing out on billions, I honestly have no clue, do you?

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