Tag Archives: Social Media

March 22, 2022 · 17:51

Influenced by license holder

Yup, this could be a setting according to the BBC. It started on March 19th 2022 when I wrote ‘57 seconds until the next sucker’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/19/57-seconds-until-the-next-sucker/), there I discussed two types that go for your budget. The deceptors and the influencers. Now we see (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60787296) that gives us ‘Influencers in Australia risk jail for breaking finance tips rules’. In this article we get to see “The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) says they may need a licence to give such advice. A 2021 ASIC survey suggested 33% of 18 to 21-year-olds follow financial influencers. And it also found that 64% of young people in Australia changed a financial behaviour because of an influencer.” And here the issue starts. You see, the difference between a flaccid proclamator and the gung-ho prosecutor are mere results. So If “A 2021 ASIC survey suggested 33% of 18 to 21-year-olds follow financial influencers” means that 1-4 people are now facing prosecutions, we could say OK, thats nice, but 1-4 out of? It implies that the female influencers are about meeting a man who can skin a gator so that they can get a really cheap handbag and the male influencers would be about how to best poach a gator and turn that into a handbag to score the sheila in the wild (a subtle Crocodile Dundee reference). But if this implies that you are reporting on 50-100 influencers the message becomes “So, WTF are you waiting for?” Influencers have been on the radar for years, as such reporting on this NOW implies that you need to find your viagra stash, that stash has tablets that looks like (see below)

So as we see “In February, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) urged caution over the use of influencers in the marketing of financial products. “Retail investments’ use of social media influencers on various platforms to market investments is becoming a concern for us,” the financial watchdog said. “Firms should ensure they have taken appropriate legal advice to understand their responsibilities prior to using influencers.” And there has been particular concern about the use of influencers in cryptocurrency marketing.” I personally wonder why this news is not 2+ years old. Because as I personally see it at present influencers will now react to the degree of “I did not know it was illegal, I only saw the news last Tuesday”, impeding prosecutions. Yes, that a really bright idea. We would like results, not excuses and according to one source an influencer “is someone with a loyal and larger than average social media following. Some influencers have as few as 3,000 followers! Influencers are paid by brands to create and post promotional content.” So we get two settings now, the influencer and the brand who engages the influencer. I would state that the brands warrant investigations as well. And lastly we get “In the same month, Spain’s National Securities Market Commission also revealed plans for new rules for advertising crypto-assets, including promotions by social media influencers.” As such Spain might be 2 years late, but Australia? How up to date were they, how many influencers were confronted, how many brands were confronted? We see nothing of that here and that beckons questions. How behind are the lawmakers and their governmental watchdogs exactly? A simple question and train of thought that the article raised, are you not curious how protected you actually really are?

 

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December 8, 2021 · 22:52

The media caper

I set the stage in an earlier article responding to CBC in ‘Six of one’, I set a few issues there and even as I did not oppose the Canadian view, the stage is a lot bigger. And what happens? To my surprise it is ABC News who gives us another angle, one I contemplated and dropped because it requires evidence. This they handed to me when the search tool gives us “Chinese developer Evergrande is likely to be in default, amid reports it has missed a final bond payment deadline, but markets are shrugging…” the article (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-08/evergrande-default-debt-developers-china/100682242) gives the goods, yet there is the stage. You see It is the search text we see (as above) and the added “but markets are shrugging…” is not ANYWHERE in the article.

The article gives a lot, but someone using the media is playing a game with all of us. A stage that is about the fine parts, about the innuendo. It is a lot more subtle then “Why are your boobs so big? Are you a free-diver or do you have a pneumonia?” There is a real chance that a collapse hitting investors for their $18,000,000,000 out there and the media plays games? Yes, you think this is trivial, and to some degree it is. But this stage happens EVERY day. It happens in all kinds of ways and it happens all over the field, but we keep slamming China and Saudi Arabia, all whilst we get a distorted view by the media and it overwhelms millions of people. 

Why does it bother me?
Well we have some serious issues and our votes are buttered by alternating and adjusted views that the media gives us. They claim to be informing us, yet they adhere to other voices and those voices decide what we see. To be honest I was a little surprised to see ABC on that stage. For the most, them and several other papers are not inclined to be that active, so it is a rare find. When we go to the ABC site, we get a little more “but markets are shrugging off the news amid stimulus from China’s central bank.” Yet the article has merely one mention of stimulus “China’s growth slowdown in 2014-15, and the large stimulus [that] drove the economy’s recovery after the COVID-19 shock early last year”, as such it is not “amid stimulus from China’s central bank”. It is also hindered, and the article’s reference to the central bank is a mere “to lower borrowing costs”, to be honest this is the first time I notice ABC in such an action, they tend to be above board all the time that I looked into matters, so this was a find, there are other media outlets that have a simpler approach to their reporting integrity as I personally see that. 

So is there no issue with Evergrande? Yes there is and when that companies implodes and defaults the damage in China and far beyond those borders will be massive. There is an added station that it will almost directly halts China’s economic growth and it will impact Chinese lives all over, one firm losing that much will have larger impacts all over China. So the news is correct, the setting is not a positive one, yet the search-line and the article shows that the media is playing a dangerous game and when people do wake up they will want their pound of flesh. And when the people will demand the names list of stakeholders, I wonder how long the delay will be and how quickly these stakeholders will run (for their lives) to the nearest airport. 

We see the stage of social media and “Deception is a distortion with an intention to mislead users, analysts, organisations, etc.” So when that gets dealt with, will someone also deal with the generic media? I doubt it, but I can hope. 

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November 5, 2021 · 03:41

As Credit Cards run dry

That was pretty much the first thing that went through my mind as Reuters gave me ‘UK could speed up criminal sanctions for big tech, minister says’ an hour ago. The article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-could-speed-up-criminal-sanctions-big-tech-minister-says-2021-11-04/) gives us the first dangerous setting ““It will not be two years, we are looking at truncating that to a shorter time frame,” she told lawmakers. “I’m looking at three to six months for criminal liability”” in the first I have all kinds of emotional outbursts as to the uselessness of certain political players. Then there are a few more chapters, yet it is not yet the moment for that (it will come soon enough). When we see “Powers to make executives liable have been proposed as a “last resort” to be introduced at least two years after the rules have been set, the government has said”, we see the first part that it is a timeline change of almost 75%, then there is the statement ‘as a “last resort”’ and I personally believe that none of it will hold up to scrutiny. There is of course the ‘old’ setting of “In general, Facebook may not be held liable for slanderous or defamatory posts due to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 protects internet service providers, like Facebook, from liability for content posted to their platform by third-party users” Yet it also means that a demand could be made to hold Journalists up to those same standards, and that is where the shoe stops fitting and the dance ends real quick.

Consider Stephanie Kirchgaessner, someone at the Guardian. On July 19th 2021 she gives us “A phone infected with NSO malware, as Kanimba’s has been, not only gives users of the spyware access to phone calls and messages, but it can also turn a mobile phone into a portable tracking and listening device. In the period before she was alerted to her phone being hacked, Kanimba said she had contacts with the US special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, British MPs, and the UK high commission office in Rwanda – all of which could have been monitored”

We now see:
A. ‘A phone infected with NSO malware, as Kanimba’s has been’
So where is that evidence? As such the guardian could be just as liable and hiding behind ‘big tech’ optionally constitutes a case for discrimination and the Guardian is also on Facebook, Twitter and so on, so what gives there?
B. When was the phone infected? Can the moment of infection be proven?

The Daily Mail reported on October 25th 2021 “The alarm was raised after an online harms issue known only to a few people at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was raised by a senior executive at Facebook in a recent meeting” So we see “I’m looking at three to six months for criminal liability”, basically Facebook would be prosecuted for events that the employees of that government leak on Facebook? How insane is that train? Who would be the conductor of that crazy brain train and with that in sight, when we consider that some of these messages come from all over the globe. And in plenty of those cases the so called trolls are to blame for some messages. When we consider that the track record in the US, UK, EU and larger commonwealth fails to deal with trolls, can we demand more from Facebook? Consider that the Council on Foreign Relations reported on June 7th 2021 “Chinese trolls are beginning to pose serious threats to economic security, political stability, and personal safety worldwide”. So how long until not so intelligent politicians see a larger string of attacks and fine Facebook whilst the business shifts to China where the US, UK and EU have no say in the matter? How stupid does one need to get to consider their stretched credit cards to get fines whilst losing billions in taxable revenue and optionally global revenue? When it all shifts to China (as well as the Russian equivalent) people like Britain’s Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries were too close to clueless to understand the digital media? Yes, we get it, Zuckerberg created a Behemoth, one a lot larger then even he thought was possible, but the rest had no idea whatsoever (I used to work for a few of them). So in all this we see lofty words like ‘criminal liability’, yet that same government (as the BBC reported) gives its population just 1.6% of rape allegations in England and Wales result in someone being charged, something the government has said it is “deeply ashamed” about. Charged, not convicted, that is a mere 80%, leaving 98% of the assailants free to do it again. That government who failed its population for well over three decades thinks it can judge “big tech firms already had the capability to make their platforms safer”, how is that insight gotten? Because as I see it in too many places the people have no clue on digital media issues, especially in social media. 

I believe that this is another ‘tax the wealthy’ stage, this time it is on what I regard as ‘false grounds’. And in that light, lets take a gander into another stage (adjusted stage in this case) of ‘flawed reasoning’

6 Most Common Causes of Wrongful Convictions

Eyewitness misinterpretation.
The stage where the observer does not comprehend all the elements of a digital track and uses his or her status as expert witness, or witness to the event all whilst the stage cannot be seen as a lot of the variables involved are not visible to that witness.

Misinterpretation.
Misinterpretation is set to what is seen, the data behind it and the stage on why and who placed it. In many cases (especially with flamers and trolls) several of these elements are faked and wrong values are captured mainly because flamers and trolls know what to change. This is similar to all the scam calls showing a UK/US number whilst the scammer is in India. YouTube is filled with those examples.

Incorrect forensics.
Is slightly the wrong term, it is incomplete forensics, because governments listened to self righteous pinko’s who demanded privacy and as such digital platforms cannot capture what needed to be captured to do more, so first (overly graphically stated) the government cuts off the hands of the media giant and then tells the media giant to pick up the right ‘pick-a-stick’, how lame is that part of the equation?

False confessions.
There is the cry-baby (hoping to get freebee’s), the trolls and flamers and those with a natural aversion to one side (abortion, politics, vegans), take a subject and there will always be a crying opponent and they are willing to embellish their side and optionally lie on what they feel, all sides that goes straight into social media and often several times over.

Official misconduct.
Basically is is seen on both sides and always will be, I used the government staff leaking lists, but the opposite side is also there (like Amazon staff greasing personal (family) needs. Several options and these things happen and time is the only way to get there, yet the issues mentioned earlier drains close to all resources.

Use of informants.
That is the larger problem, who is a real informant, and who is there to play some political game? The data will not reveal either but it also constitute a wrongful case.  A seemingly small but growing issue on a stage where size is the least visible element of all.

Inadequate defense.
The largest problem issue. It overlaps with technical abilities, privacy abilities and false confessions, they all impact the defence that is offered and as such is the easiest overrun in court or in a hearing. This also is a stage with documentation and as we see with some players at the ICIJ (Pandora papers) as well as the NSO group. There is no adequate defence as the presented attacks are too often absent of evidence, yet still there is a conviction against the players and the media became part of that problem. A stage where defense was not possible because some players were allegedly tainting the field. 

Six elements and they are out in the open, so when we see “Britain’s Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, who was appointed to the job in September, said she wanted the powers brought forward” I personally wonder whether she is clueless on what is involved, or is this a mere ruse to get fines so the governmental Credit Card is not cut into pieces by too many banks? And if the UK is in that stage, how deep is the EU and the US at present?

Before we leap to rush to the small minded people, lets make sure that they do not end up driving business to players like WeChat. A site that will not adhere to anything that is seemingly non-Chinese.

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June 4, 2021 · 22:33

The left corner

Yup, we have all heard it on TV, in movies. In the left corner weighing ……. Yada, yada, yada. The beginning of a match. You heard it, but did you realise it? It hit me today, I was thinking back to the good old days (Google Plus), it had a side others ignored and they are still ignoring it. I joined Facebook in 2004, or was it 2003? The setting was that I was travelling the globe, most of the direct family (when they were still alive) had a travelling bug. As such Facebook was part of a solution, yet it turned out that Google Plus was a much better fit. Reality shows that I have 2 best friends, I have a number of ‘sort of friends’ and I have relatives. Apart from the relative members I would happily shoot with an M-24, I did try to stay in touch with those I had no need to shoot and then time caught up with them and they died. 

Family solution

Time is the eternal equaliser and it will claim me too at some point (once). Yet today I considered how the need for greed of Facebook is leaving an untapped side to social media. They were all about boasting that everyone wants to know everything (better for advertisement), yet the foundation of Google plus was that you decided to give to certain circles, and family is its own circle. Facebook forgot about that part and the others that followed Facebook is overlooking that too (as far as I can tell). You see, the world is not interested in the desk you bought (unless it comes with a naked lady) and then they are merely interested in how visible the nudity of the lady is. But family members are different, they are interested in your new desk, your new quilt cover, especially when there is more than an hour of travel time involved. Some are a lot further away and they want to see the birthday pics of your little one, the rest of the world has no business to see those. So why did social media evolve into an advertisement space where we see all no matter how trivial, or how convoluted the message? 

And as far as I could tell there was no one, at least that was the case, former Facebook employees caught on and created Cocoon. It is not free, it will cost you $39.99 USD per year, yet as they say (at cocoon.com) “Thirty days after you create a Cocoon, one person in the group will need to sponsor it on everyone’s behalf to keep it going. You don’t need to decide upfront whether to pay for Cocoon, only after you reach the end of your trial period. A Cocoon costs $5.99 USD per month or $39.99 USD per year for the entire group”, so one family member pays the amount of slightly less than $40 a year to keep it going and only ONE member needs to pay. That is a very different story and it is one that could take off. So as we get “The app itself does not cost money to download. Pricing is per Cocoon, not per person, and you can be in as many Cocoons as you would like”, it is actually brilliant, to get back to the true foundations of social media, of true socialising and I am amazed that others had not caught on here. Consider a family with nieces, nephews and other riffraff (read: family members) and one price per family. I am decently amazed that they have not cornered that industry yet, because as I see it that setup could grow far and fast over the next three years. As Google lost its Plus side, Cocoon might be all that remains for a lot of people who are sick of the 17 advertisements an hour and the nobodies who have something not so nice to say about your niece’s new dress or your nephew’s new bike. Yes we all make fun of family, yet that is the right of a family member, to say to auntie bertha that her hat went out of fashion when Black and White TV’s did. 

I am equally aware that Cocoon is not advertising, which is debatable as a choice, because there are globally millions who have had enough of Facebook in some regard. I am not totally against Facebook, it has its space and its function when it is about schools, friends that are not family members. And with Google Plus out of the equation Cocoon has a much larger stage to play on. And as they end their sales pitch with “You can be in as many Cocoons as you’d like, but they’ll remain separate from each other and you can navigate between them using the Cocoon switcher. Your nickname, picture, and colour are distinct in each, and contents from one Cocoon can’t be shared or forwarded into another.” We can clearly see that they are on the right track, they are heading into a direction where Social media should have headed in to a much larger degree than it has been doing. If there is one downside it will be the case that I can have it on my iPad, but not on a MacBook. At times I prefer to do my socialising on something with a decent keyboard, I am just wired that way, but that is me, some will find the iPad, android phone and/or iPhone sufficient. I also believe there are a few flaws in the initial stage, but that might be me (I don’t think so though), as such it is a great setting and it does have a real future on a stage where people are being drowned on advertisement and personalised information mining. Yet cocoon is new and fresh, just like the 1985 movie which was all about family as well. 

When you have a family that you do not want to shoot at a moment’s notice, Cocoon is a bright choice in a field where most choices are smitten with some level of darkness.

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September 29, 2020 · 20:42

Using the limelight

It all started a few days ago and for the most I kept you all informed. The latest news was in my possession for well over an hour. I waited because I wanted to see how the others were reacting. And I was not disappointed, they did exactly what I expected, basically, they did nothing.

It all started with ‘Saudi Arabia says it took down ‘terrorist cell’ trained by Iran’ (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/29/saudi-arabia-says-it-took-down-terrorist-cell-trained-by-iran), so should we say it is real or not? It is a fair question to have, yet the quote “Saudi Arabia says it has taken down a “terrorist cell” that had received training from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, arresting 10 people and seizing weapons and explosives”, leaves me with the setting that this is factual. We are also given “Among the items seized were improvised explosive devices (IEDs), dozens of stun guns, kilos of gunpowder and a variety of rifles and pistols, according to the statement. It did not say where last week’s raid or arrests were carried out”, yet the western media has nothing. Not the BBC, not Reuters, not European news offices, and not FoxNews. It seems to me that Iran is given an option to get away with any action that is not set in America or Europe. And this is where we get the larger issue, the news is filtering what they think we need to know, as such we see a totally destabilised view of what is going on. 

This news matters because it gives strength to something else I stated, which was speculative at the time. I speculated that someone was painting the Aramco targets so that the drones would be more effective. These 10 men could have done just that. The arrest off the 10 men does not make my setting any less speculative. It does however open a larger stage, the news was avoiding a lot of what happened, eager to use ‘speculative’ and ‘alleged’, which is not unacceptable, yet it sets the stage that the western media is optionally complicit is setting a stage that is not part of what happened (like the Khashoggi disappearance). We see even the UN side with Turkey (where the most incarcerated journalists in history are), blatant statements even as there is no evidence is supporting any of it. 

So in this we have a much larger guilt, we are part of the problem, the media is filtering what is happening and no excuse makes up for that. It goes beyond the media, there is some indication that Google and the social media are part of this. Google calls them omitted results, social media merely hides the events on the timeline altering most results and chronological results, the last part is speculative, but the seems to be happening.

Why does this matter?

The UK, US and EU have been throwing the ‘terrorist’ word at us for the longest time, and we merely had to swallow it, now that there are additional indications that Iran is part of the problem we are left in the dark. The Saudi government gives us ““The competent authorities will conduct investigations with all those arrested to find out more information about their activities and the persons connected to them in the kingdom and abroad,” the statement read”, yet I wonder if the is enough, I wonder how much shielding Iran is receiving, Yemen and the Houthi actions made it clear that this was happening, now we are set in a stage where shielding is a lot larger making the media less reliable, I wonder who they are working for, because as I personally see it, it is not the advertisers. This all does not make the 10 men guilty, but it sets a stage of questions that most do not want to entertain, what is Iran actually up to?

 

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September 29, 2020 · 01:30

The A-social network

That is a stage, it is a big stage and it does not care whether you live of whether you die. So let’s take this to a new level and start with a question: ‘When did you last cause the death of a person?’ I do not care whether it is you mum, your dad, your partner, your child. When did you cause their death? Too direct? Too Bad!

You see, we think that we are innocent, some are risk programmers into debt insolvency programs, yet there it is not about the people, it is about the business that needs maximisation. We pride ourself in compartmentalisation, yet in the end the programmer is just as efficient a murderer as the sniper is. When I look through the sight of a .308 rifle, the sight allows me to go for a target 450 metres away, an optimum distance, the silencer will make is silent enough so that anyone more than 4 metres away will not hear a thing and 450 metres away, a person falls to their knees, the chest wound is damaging enough to ensure that the target will be dead on arrival, even if it happens at the entrance of a hospital, for the target it is over. You think this is bad? 

The programmer writes the formula that sets a different strain of insolvency. It is a form of credit risk, as such we get “In the first resort, the risk is that of the lender and includes lost principal and interest, disruption to cash flows, and increased collection costs”, as such the credit firms hire programmers that can stretch the case to lower the risk to the lender, set the stage where there is an increased option to pay back at much higher cost. In that same way we see programs and risk assessments being created where the facilitators are not at risk, they are not to blame and they are not to be held accountable. 

So here comes Molly Russell and the BBC gives us ‘Molly Russell social media material ‘too difficult to look at’’, it starts with “The 14-year-old killed herself in 2017 after viewing graphic images of self harm and suicide on the platform”, so what ‘platform’ was that? How much was viewed and what time frame was in play? These are the first questions that rise straight from the bat. It is followed by “A pre-inquest hearing on Friday was told not all the material had been studied yet as it was too difficult for lawyers and police to look at for long”, basically at least two years later lawyers and police are unable to view what a 14 year old did, and this does not give us the hard questions? So whilst the article (optionally unintentionally) hides behind “The inquest will look at how algorithms used by social media giants to keep users on the platform may have contributed to her death”, the basic flaw is at the very basic level. How did this stuff get uploaded, why was it not flagged and hw many viewed it, in addition towards the small setting of who was the uploading party? So someone gave a 14 year old the settings and the access to materials that most adults find unwatchable and I think there are bigger questions in play. It is the line “He added certain parts of the material had been redacted and lawyers and police were trying to find out why”, as I personally see it, redaction happens when you need to hide issues and this becomes an increased issue with “the investigation was seeking the cooperation of Snapchat, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter, although until recently only Pinterest had co-operated fully”, as well as “Snapchat could not disclose data without an order from a US court, WhatsApp had deleted Molly’s account and Twitter was reluctant to handover material due to European data protection laws, the hearing was told”, On a personal footnote, Twitter has been on a slippery slope for some time, and the deletion by WhatsApp is one that is cause for additional questions. As I see it, these tech giants will work together to maximise profit, but in this, is the death of a person the danger that they cannot face, or will not face in light of the business setting of profit? Even as I am willing to accept the view of “Coroner Andrew Walker said “some or all” of those social media companies could be named as interested parties in the inquest as they would be “best placed” to give technical information for the case”, are they best placed or are we seeing with this case the setting where Social media is now the clear and present danger to the people for the case of extended profits into the largest margin available?

That is a direction you did not see, is it?

We have never seen social media as a clear and present danger, but in case of Molly Russell that might be exactly what we face and there is every indication that she is not the only case and it is possible that the redactions would optionally show that.

Yet in all this, the origin of the materials and how they were passed through social media remains a much larger issue. I wonder how much the inquest will consider that part. You see, for me, I do not care. I am sorry, the picture of the girl in the BBC article is lovely, she is pretty, but I do not care. It is cold, yet that is what it is. In Yemen well over 100,000 are dead and the world does not seem to care, as such, I need not care about one girl, but the setting, the setting I do care about. It is not for the one case, under 5G when the bulk of the people will get drowned in information and all kinds of movies, one girl will end up being between 8 and 20 people. The setting is larger, 5G will make it so ad if you doubt that, feel free to wait and watch the corpses go by.

Suddenly sniping seems such a humanitarian way to pass the time, does it not? 

We need to consider that one process influences another, as such the process is important, just like the processes risk assessors write to lower risk, the stage of what goes one way, also has the ability to go the other way. This translates into ‘What would keep Molly Russell with us?’ Now implies a very different thing, it sets the stage of a lot more. It is not merely who messaged Molly Russell, it becomes what else was send to Molly Russell on WhatsApp, so suddenly the deletion of her account does not seem that innocent, does it? It goes from bad to worse when you consider on how social media links and how links and usage is transferred. Like footprints the links go form one to the other and no one has a clue? It is in my personal view more likely that they all have a clue and for the most it is extremely profitable, Molly Russell is merely a casual situation of circumstance, so under 5G when it is not 1, but up to 20 times the victims, what will happen then?

I will let you consider that small fact, the setting where your children become the casualty of margins of profit, until death deletes the account, have a great day!

 

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July 14, 2020 · 15:46

Can’t stop the message

That is the name of the game, at times, no matter the source, we cannot stop the message, we can optionally reduce the impact, that is as good as it gets and that has been the centre stage, not for a day, a month, a year, a decade, but for several centuries. The message will get across, history is filled with examples of that all over the world.

So when I wrote “the same model could optionally be used to misinform (or disinform) the person through links that have ‘altered headlines’ One party could use it to flame to larger base of the other party and no matter what claims Facebook makes, the PDF report shows that they are seemingly clueless on how to stop it.” In ‘Presidents are us’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2020/07/11/presidents-are-us/) I knew what I was talking about, as such it gives me great pleasure to see the BBC give us ‘ISIS ‘still evading detection on Facebook’, report says’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53389657) with the added text “One network’s tactics included mixing its material with content from real news outlets, such as recorded TV news output and the BBC News theme music. It also hijacked Facebook accounts, and posted tutorial videos to teach other Jihadists how to do it. Facebook said it had “no tolerance for terrorist propaganda”.”” They are basically all stages we have seen before and stages we will see again. History has shown that you can not stop the message, you can merely delay the spread and optionally the impact. That is as good as it can get and the fact that we still see: “The researchers believe that at the centre of the network was one user who managed around a third (90 out of 288) of the Facebook profiles. At times, this user would boast of holding 100 ‘war spoils’ accounts, saying: “They delete one account, and I replace it with 10 others.”” People basically never learn. 

And it is not better, not gets to be worse, I wrote in 2013 “This technology should also include Microsoft services including their search engine Bing. Tracking in mobile devices remains a key point. The big advantage of Microsoft’s emerging technology is that it could track a user across a platform.” In the article ‘Patrons of Al-Qaeda’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2013/10/22/patrons-of-al-qaeda/) that was more than 6.5 years ago, do you think that these people sit on their laurels?  So if big-tech can be flaccid and automated to keep track of nearly anyone, what do you think that Trolls and Terrorists will use to get their message across and this is not new, it is not news, it is the situation that has been out in the open for years. As the BBC gives us “another key to the survival of ISIS content on the platform was the way in which ISIS supporters have learned to modify their content to evade controls.” Yes! And that is news how? Consider that the top 10 technical universities graduate close to 15,000 every semester, so 3 teams a year. Now consider that these parts can only persuade 0.1% (which is massively low), that implies that these players gain 15 tech savvy experts every 4 months and that is before we add those who cater to organised crime, in that numbers game we see that the government’s involved are not in a place to compete, their infrastructure had been downplayed for close to a decade and as salespeople from big-tech come around on the ease of automation we see that the mess merely gets worse and that INCLUDES several defence departments in Europe, the Commonwealth and America. That is the situation and there will be no release any day soon (except for the tech person on the help desk relying on his right hand, plenty of release there). So when you consider that I was merely looking at 10 schools, and the mess is actually a lot larger, how much of a joke is the entire ‘dealing with election bias’? If players like Facebook cannot stop or largely diminish a group that nearly all want gone, how about a situation where a larger group is in doubt of acting? How many backdoors will be given to the Cambridge Analytica minded people? That question becomes a lot more important when we consider the LA Times giving us less than 5 hours ago ‘How Facebook keeps its biggest advertisers happy’ with the quote “The social media company made nearly all of last year’s $71 billion in revenue from advertising and has worked hard to build relationships with both brands and advertising companies through a clubby network of invitation-only groups called client councils”, do you think that people spending $71 billion are kept happy with “offering everything from birthday cakes to ski trips, and dinners at the Silicon Valley home of its chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg.” Do you think that is all it takes? So the people ending up having dinner at that place will also get access and that is where some will be looking, the people with access and that is why the message cannot be stopped, that is why some will persevere and that is before my 5G IP hits the markets. I honestly have no idea to stop some, because some will not be stopped, I can only minimise the dangers, but I am also at the mercy of some Telecom minimisers (or was that mini-misers). Anyway, if Trolls and Terrorists get through 0.5% of the time, those with election needs and other message needs are likely to get through 20-40 times as often and any of the Big-Tech players will remain unable to stop them, unless we employ the bullet through the back of the head solution, this will not ever stop, history has proven me right and the fact that I saw this well over 6 years ago and the BBC got up to speed just now (OK, that was an exaggeration) gives wind to a much larger problem. 

You can never stop the message. Wake up! It is actually that simple.

 

 

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March 23, 2020 · 15:36

Playstation is Go!

Yes, the console war is off to a nice start. It is important to you (the reader) to know that for whatever reason, I am a Sony guy, hence, take no offense and if you are a dedicated Xbox person (no offense taken) then you might not like this article.

The event started last saturday when I saw this article that was massively Microsoft minded and how the new Xbox would be 30% faster, that person went on by throwing teraflops at us and making all kinds of speculated boasts, fair enough, I merely glanced at it and disregarded it to the largest extent. There will optionally be differences between the two, but the difference will be less than 50% (personal conviction) of what that person claimed. In the end, the PS5 will be a huge step up from the PS4 and a decent step up from the PS4 pro.

CCN (at https://www.ccn.com/sony-ps5-reveal-beats-xbox-series-x-without-trying/) gives us “Sony’s PS5 reveal video gets more views than the Xbox Series X trailer after being criticized for being boring and technical“, yes that was always going to be the case, in the end there are two parts, the technical superiority and the games, the first one we can see and anticipate, the second one we can hope for and in coming towards our hopes and dreams the PlayStation has been a lot more rewarding than its counterpart ever was. The one time the other one stood out was when the date was October 27, 2017 and that was the day that Ubisoft released Assassin’s Creed Origins. Even as a Sony person I have to give voice to the amazement that the Xbox One X brought at that time. Assassin’s Creed Origins blew my socks off, and as a 4K title it was overwhelming. Yet that was pretty much the only time that the Microsoft console truly shined. As the self-proclaimed most powerful processor system it was surpassed by Nintendo, which with the Switch has the least powerful processor of the three, so that is the impact of superior hardware.

As such CCN gives us “The PS5 video has 13.5 million views compared to the 10.6 million views on the Xbox Series X reveal. This suggests that Sony may not have to try very hard to make the PS5 more successful than the Xbox Series X.” My response would be, Sony listens to its gamers, Microsoft only claims to do so and then does what the bottom dollar presented tells them to do, the gamer is not a consideration (proven twice over), that is how I see it (Die hard Microsoft console fans are allowed to disagree).

For me it is a much more interesting field, even as I am considering two IP’s on the matter, I can clearly see that the advantage that Microsoft created with the Xbox 360 has gone. My personal achilles issues is that the entire matter of storage has not now, not ever been properly addressed by Microsoft since the first One was released, that is 8 years ago. In all that time it was about being online, about being able to download, all whilst we see that on a global play there is a bandwidth issue, it is to such a degree that some people see how some players (YouTube and Netflix) decided to limit the video quality so that they won’t congest the internet in Europe in this Corona beer environment. It had grown to such a degree that Brussels decided to talk to Netflix on reducing internet congestion (at https://www.politico.eu/article/brussels-in-talks-with-netflix-about-reducing-internet-congestion/) and the quote “Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton today spoke with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to discuss ways to help reduce internet congestion, a Commission official told POLITICO“, as such a case I saw coming years ago (not on the how it would happen) is seen three days ago in the article, there is congestion and in that environment Microsoft wants to be an ‘Always Online‘ player? As such the Sony solution with their secondary internal drive (SSD) might be a slightly limiting factor, but as it would (speculated) fit the 2tb and 4tb drives from Samsung, the Playstation 5 will have a great situation, and the 2tb SSD version is now $325, which is not required in the initial year (unless the games become really big) I reckon that Microsoft has a lot more to lose, superior processor or not. Even as they come again with their ‘most powerful processor‘ song, the moment the gamer chorus starts with ‘Yet where can we store our shit‘ they will fall silent very quickly, 1TB in 4K/8K gaming will do that. Sony has a similar start but you can add a drive to enhance player needs and 2tb/4tb will do that nicely. I expect that the 2tb drives at the end of the year will be $250-$300, so there is that too.

The larger issues is not merely that, Tom’s guide (at https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ps5-release-date-rumors-specs,news-26954.html) gave us “In his Road to PS5 talk, Cerny gave more details on the SSD again, with the key spec that it could load 2GB of files in 0.27 seconds. That should make for some unnoticeable loading times once game devs get to grips with the new console.” in this consider a Bethesda RPG where the load times in between locations becomes almost zero, the additional joy we get by replaying Fallout 4 and Skyrim, this evolution is one I anticipated, although not the “load 2GB of files in 0.27 seconds“, that is just the icing on the cake. The idea that Elder Scrolls: Restoration (see several other articles) becomes a technical viability opens up a lot of doors for RPG games, in this I wonder what Guerilla games could make of Horizon Zero Dawn 2. It is almost beyond belief and that is before we consider other franchises that offer us more and more. 

You see in the end it is not about Sony or their Playstation, it is about the gamer and gamemaker and it seems that Sony is facilitating to an amazing degree to those two, as I personally see it Microsoft is merely facilitating to those embracing Azure, in lesser degree to the game makers and last to the gamers, it is another setting entirely. Gamers are the first priority, Sony learned that lesson when they launched on 3 December 1994, a first try to debunk Nintendo as the king of gaming, they succeeded. So whilst we are all in folds on how much it is going to cost, consider that the Xbox360 was $699 and we all shelled out because we were going to get an awesome experience. That was proven true by Microsoft and I never regretted buying a second one when the red rings of death came to ring my front door bell (two days before Fallout New Vegas was released).

It seems to me that Microsoft forgot about what gamers need and they seem to listen to those who want gamers to take a certain direction, it is not the same. Still there are options where Sony could improve too, not the gaming side, but the connected social media side where we share what we want to share, that side is up for a tremendous amount of improvements, and when they do this considering that people are not always online (consider rural France and Germany) they might just wipe Microsoft out of existence, they don’t seem to care what happens to those gamers without excellent digital path access. As i Personally see it, it is due to a population of gamers without a global scope on the matter. 

The Sony presentation (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg) is nice, but as CCN told us a little boring, still boring or not Google told me that it is #20 most trending videos at present, so boring is nice. Yet the presentation is also important as the OS is part of all this and the improvements in social media we will see before 2022, is lacking at present. As I personally see it both have that weakness and just like I was correct in storage, I expect that the social evolution on sharing becomes a much larger issue down the road and it seems that both are not ready for this part, even as it is not part of the console, it will be part of storage and synching (when possible), as such the console needs a pass through need that developers would have to adjust for and that is at present not a given. Even if it is easy, getting this in place BEFORE the console releases gives the makers of games a lot more to be ready for and I believe that it will impact the success of any of the consoles. 

How am I right?

This is much simpler. We have our friends and our social circles, at times we want all our friends to be aware, yet we have gaming friends and a social circle. They are not the same (for the most in Europe and America they are very different), I think that Sony did not consider this, or rejected this even as their PS3 presentation years ago gave sight of their plans. It was in that case a rejected plan that is now on their plate.

I am not talking about some marketing play, I am talking about gamers talking to their other gamers in an actual way, not pushing them messages (what happens too often). In this Google Plus had solved a few of the issues in the very beginning. Having circles solves it. Circles of connections playing the same game, playing a type of game and the individual messages that you can direct. So another game gets some of the messages and if that person is curious he or she can come look at YOUR wall where you see everything. So you basically have several walls, your wall, your shared wall, and circles and a message will be on some or (ill advised) all walls, your friends can select from your wall what they are interested in, and as you gain gaming fame they will optionally want to see more. It makes for a much easier social media, and that is the foundation of the dictionary “applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” it is not about pushing content, but sharing content and like in any conversation, when the other party is not interested, they cut off the conversation, that part is often ignored because some players in social media need the traffic and the advertisements to go through, actual social media is about connecting and conversing (via sharing). It is a lesson that Microsoft (for the most) never learned in the last 8 years. Sony did not learn it either, but their solution was not about pushing marketing (to the degree Microsoft did) and as such we were a lot more happy, as well as the fact that we were not required to be online all the time, the system synched when we were (most often when synching achievements).

As this approach is matched with the games, we can select for games where the information goes (all to our wall) but then we can select per game where it goes (those who have the game too), when it is a genre we can also share it with those sharing that interest. So Fallout 5 is initially shared with those who have Fallout 5 and an interest in RPG, these players can then disregard (optionally temporary) Fallout 5 materials or disregard your material. That is a reality too, I have several friends and we shared Mass Effect 3 multiplayer gaming, but only that, as such my achievements in Mass Effect Andromeda was not interesting to them. In this I mentioned ‘optionally temporary‘ as a person starting in a game might not be interested in someone’s achievements who is at 90% (for means of spoilers and optional envy). This too makes for a much nicer experience in social media.

It is the side effect of any facilitating system of news events and achievements.

I believe that the PS5 will have a large base growing much faster if the social media template is set to facilitate to a much larger degree to gamers. Whether it is done or not will not affect the initial need and desire for the PS5, but I feel certain that over time it will be a much larger facilitating and desired part of any console. I also need to emphasize the win that Nintendo had on the switch with the calendar, I am amazed that none of the others see that part. You might not want to share your calendar, but an overview of achievements gained over a week is not something a gamer is not interested in, and the option to keep that calendar for years (an option the Switch does not seem to offer). I believe the option for gamers to open this part (per game) to the developer will be much more interesting to the makers too (as the gamer decides whether to inform others). It allows for an optional  deeper connection between maker and gamer. 

This allows for two elements the first being a direct gauge where the maker can inform (once) the gamer on season passes and DLC options. The second is that we can be aware of updates required on games we have, not blindly updating a game we haven’t touched for weeks (Microsoft actually has a much better system in play here than Sony does).

As we see that the PlayStation is Go! (Thunderbird pun) we see that no matter how great any system is, there will always be space for improvements. Sony however seems to have been listening to its gamers for the longest of times, lets see what the PS5 brings and what the second wave brings. This time around there are benefits and disadvantages for Sony. The last time around the Nintendo Switch was not a factor, this time it is and no matter how strong any system is, gaming is about joy and that is a lesson Nintendo has taken to heart every single time, they did this long before the Nintendo 64 (at $699 in those days) became a reality.

Even as the PS5 players will adjust to “We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5“, we see that the ‘truth’ of the matter is that the largest Sony base will initially be interested in less than 200 of them, especially if they upgrade from the PS4 and never had a PS4pro. 4K will be the larger reason for that. As such even the makers will benefit from the setting where someone did not buy it initially, their title was good on what was and optionally now will be a great added title (especially with patches in place). 

It is still early days, for the most, I am merely anticipating what is and what we will get, not what might optionally be missing. In that regard the Playstation family has never disappointed us (apart from the day one games on PS4) and it is still 9 months away, as such I believe that there will be a lot more information coming our way soon enough, most of that is most likely around the time this year’s virtual E3 hits us.

 

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March 20, 2020 · 14:54

Gaming towards isolation?

We have so much to look forward to, especially now as Sony has revealed much on their PS5 (at https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/mar/19/playstation-5-specifications-revealed-but-design-is-still-a-mystery), the first thing I checked for was storage, and there we see “the PS5’s 825GB model is promising faster throughput, with 5.5GB/s as opposed to 2.4GB/s on Microsoft’s machine. PS5 will also offer an expansion slot so that users are able to plug in a secondary SSD“, and it also gives us the Microsoft part “the Xbox Series X will include a larger capacity drive at 1tb“, as such I wonder if the Xbox will allow an additional internal drive? They still have not learned anything, the 1TB drive was not sufficient on the oldest Xbox One and with two generations the storage requirements merely increased with 4K, but the Microsoft executives have the idea that their consumers will accept what THEY consider wisdom, well as I personally see it, they do not.

And I get it, 1TB is enough to start with, but at the end of the first year we need more. Now, let’s be clear, I do not know if that internal drive can be upgraded like the others, We did not have that information on the PS4 until the first week of the PS4, so the Sony situation might actually be better, but even then, in this situation a secondary internal drive might fit the bill. And optionally we can select the Samsung 860 QVO 2TB 2.5″ SATA III SSD for $325, which gives us the additional 2tb that gets us a comfortable 3tb in total. The nice part here is that we do not need to do it on day one and for a while enjoy the PS5 as is. Don’t get me wrong I never regretted the 2TB drive in week one, but there is a benefit to this setup, and Microsoft in 8 years has not learned this lesson (or refused to learn it). 

There is an additional win, this time for Microsoft: “Microsoft has confirmed the machine will be able to play games from each previous generation of the machine, while Sony is only currently talking about backwards compatibility with PS4 titles“, it’s a fair win, yet at present I cannot remember when I even considered playing a PS3 game in the last 36 months, all whilst the games I love will be playable on the PS5 (Skyrim, Last of Us, God of War, Elite Dangerous), and now that I will be able to replay them in 4K mode, I will get a secondary WOW feeling from games I have had for years. 

As such we are in for a little larger christmas list this year around, as the PS5 (I reckon the Microsoft contraption as well) will get the best from a 4K 120Hz TV, as well as some of the 8K TV[‘s (for the rich bastards among you folks), we get to have the nicest digital christmas for a while. In my perception (at present) the Sony X8000G 65″ 4K UHD is a great buy at $1300, and even then I realise that it is not as cheap as some models in the same size offer, in that field players like LG and HiSense offer models for less than $1000. They all have 4HDMI ports, so that is not the achilles heel to worry about, I reckon that there are automated features in Sony I kinda love, when I switch on my Sony Bluray player, the TV also goes on, when I switch on my PS4, the TV reacts as well, all things other brands do not seem to have and that is fine, they are minor points that do not take away from the joy of a TV. I reckon that the one thing we all will need to enjoy the console a lot more this time around is a soundbar, there are plenty of solutions and even as there optionally might be benefit to having the same brand as the TV, there is not one person that can convince me that there is an actual contender to whatever Bang and Olufsen or Bose can bring, I heard the B&O solution this week and it almost literally blew my socks off (I found them 30 minutes later). That would be one hell of a way to hear what the Sony PlayStation 5’s Tempest 3D Audio engine brings to the table. Now, I get it, you can get that part later, or get it when there is a sale going on, yet I reckon that you want it the first time you hear that distinction, because it will be a much larger distinction. Lets face it, you were getting a TV, it has its ups and the sound no matter how great it is with Blu Rays, will not compare what a 3D audio engine brings to the table. Will you essentially need it on day one? Absolutely not, it is actually better to get it later, the WOW factor is pretty awesome, but once you have it, you won’t enjoy sound without it, no matter if it is a bluray or a game, the soundbar brings a lot to the table.

Yet in all this I am aware that we do not all have the coins to get it on day one and in that regard it is now the time to start looking for that 4K TV, or at least saving up for it (a decent 8K TV starts at $9,000), and you need not go for the larger brands, one option was a nameless brand giving a 50″ 4K TV for $450, consider the $79 for additional warranty (an extra 3 years) and you are set for 3-4 years. Then we get the target of our desires (the PS5) and here we see that they are still not giving us a price, but I reckon that $550 gets you there, as such you see a $1100 need by the end of the year. The additional $800 (soundbar and additional drive) is set to a later date giving you a year’s respite and you will end up having upgraded your gaming experience to almost the  highest end. 

In the end we can get all geeky with “CPU: x86-64-AMD Ryzen Zen 2, eight cores, variable frequency, up to 3.5 GHz GPU: AMD Radeon RDNA 2-based graphics engine, variable frequency, up to 2.23 GHz (10.3 Tflops)“, yet in the end, we gamers want to see our socks blow off when we restart Diablo III, God of War IV, Skyrim and a few other titles and wonder how we were ever happy playing it on a standard day one version of the PS4, that too is the adaptation towards new technology. And all that before you see the impact of a PS5 game. We can argue and speculate all we want, but until there is a launch trailer and official release date, I am discarding all the rumours. CD Projekt Red already gave the goods that Cyberpunk 2077 will be a PS4 title, not a PS5 release, it will optionally look better on the PS5, but it will not be designed specific for it as such, the same tale applies to the microsoft version. It is an important distinction as we will see that the best experience on either console will be CD Projekt Red with both Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a distinction that sets them apart and ahead of all the other AAA developers. If getting a new console is about the best gameplay you could experience, it needs to include a CD Projekt Red (Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077) game. I am not discounting the joy that Skyrim or Fallout 4 brought, I will want to replay them in 4K mode, but the distinction that the best feelings in gaming will be available on day one if you have any of these games is just a little too awesome for anyone’s good.

In all this we see that others are in their own world of hurt (no need to kick a developer when they are down). If there is one speculation that cannot be ignored, then it is the coming of a Harry Potter RPG to the PS5. An important distinction here is that in all the text none of them are making any ‘exclusive’ noise, as such I reckon that both the Microsoft and the Sony console will get this title, even as all the references only include the PS5 mention, the absence of ‘exclusive’ gives the larger rise that it will be on both platforms.

So whilst we wonder what will be coming to either console, the fact that most of us have the greatest games already on the PS4 and some will be getting the Last of Us part 2 (presently on 29 May 2020), we see an abundance of new WOW feelings as we replay the games we already had (for those who had no PS4 pro). 

For that too is a side of gaming we forget. The idea that we played Skyrim, but did we see it? Try it in 4K and see if you can play the game without finding your lower jaw on the floor, I dare you! The same can be said for Fallout 4. In that same trend, if Witcher 3 blows us away in 4K mode, what will Cyberpunk 2077 do? The boys (girls also) at CD Projekt Red were very distinct in the fact that they want to surpass Witcher 3, as such, whatever more time they need, I will not be offended. I merely hope that William Gibson (writer of Neuromancer) will be there at the launch to see the world he wrote about becomes as close to reality via a console, as he wrote it in 1984, the technology did not exist to blow him away, Sony needed a little longer for that, now that the time is here, I wonder what his thoughts will be on what the in his mind created world became in the hands of CD Projekt Red. 

Even as we are isolating ourselves in gaming, the setting is not that far away, if this Coronavirus (not the beer) is here to stay, alone time with the console will set us free. Lets face it, in this day and age, we see an absurd amount of reflection on something that we cannot avoid. 

OK, I get it, what had an initial mortality rate of 3.2% is now 4.1% as such our survival rate goes allegedly down, yet the amount of people is still well over 95%, so we should not worry, or if we do get a PS5 at the end of the year and celebrate our life in another way. 

Gamers have enjoyed this style of life for decades, are we crying? Nope!

How do we game towards isolation? In fact we do not, when Facebook started groups and gaming groups got involved, we saw an uncanny amount of new connections, this is likely to repeat itself when the PS5 (and Microsoft contraption) comes out. I even speculated on an upgraded version of console dependent social media (on the consoles), yet even as the previous versions were already in that mindset, the makers (both Sony and Microsoft) took too limited a view on it and as such both lost out. It is clear that we want to shout our achievements out at times, we also want to share a lot more, but the station at which both offer that is mindlessly limited to a larger degree. Both systems forgot to think things through and even as Microsoft is ahead of that game, both still think on how THEY can profit visibility, the thought of how the gamer benefits is seen that as they can approach the gamer, the gamer wins, which is the wrong attitude to have. In this they merely had to look towards Google Plus and learn from what was there, they did not. 

I believe that the next gen consoles will have a much larger stage as they embrace ‘true’ social media (not brand and profit driven media), as such we see that both systems have a much larger field to enjoy. I am not stating that any profit driven option is out of bounds, but to have 50% of your homescreen limiting itself to advertisements (Xbox issue) is just stupid, the home screen is where you start your game and see 50% removed for usage is just silly (on more than one level). Yes, the new platforms could ring in a few stages that embrace connections, will they? I honestly do not know and even as the PS3 had the advantage, the PS5 can recreate that advantage and see a much larger boost, in the opposition Microsoft might decide to wake up and do something about it all, will they? 

I do not know, but the lost connections and the stage where it could optionally lead to better revenue is just silly. Yes, I am all for non-profit-driven-players, yet I am not saying that to some degree it should not exist. 

For example, we have social media and we have the PS3 situation of PS Home. Consider that you have your one environment, for example it comes with the next Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed game, for example the Montefiori villa. You get to have one location for yourself (the villa) you can set the main game you are playing and how far you got. in some of them, you get to have a note board where people leave links to their mail and messages, screenshots and you decide who gets to leave those (Google Plus feature). As you chose the location that provider will have a place to advertise new things (and they alone). You get to walk around your place looking at the news and at the interactions you decide on, the previous version never had that. Will it be the Montefiori Villa, a Watchdogs location, the Batcave, a last of us house, or a house in Skyrim, and there is still the community wall where you get a better sense of what is placed there and you can decide. All elements that make for a much larger stage, a stage largely ignored at present, or at times too overwhelming. It requires filtering for some and almost none are there and both players have this issue. And to be honest, I would have thought they would have done a much better job of it (ever since the PS3), both players had the wrong hat on and in the end it makes the wall a ‘whatever!’ experience. 

I believe that the PS5 (and Microsoft equivalent) have a new stage in 2021-2022, as 5G is playing a much larger stage, there will be a larger stage for people to feel comfy in, it applies to gaming as well. Even as we are all in it for the game, the stage where we are comparing and reading about other gamers will become a lot more distinct. Perhaps it is the one field where the Google Stadia could rule in the end. 

I believe that it shows a much larger community that is out there. Some gamers do not want to talk to all their friends, they do not want to read about all the others, but he or she might want to look at something specific and it will differ per game, neither Microsoft or Sony considered that for almost three generations. None of them gave the right focal point on filtering, they merely dumped it all on the player, who ignored it in a hurry.

Forbes gave us 4 days ago “Stadia has been struggling to make waves and capture the interest of harder core players who were willing to pay for Founder’s Editions or the paid tier. But now with everyone stuck indoors, it seems like the right time to introduce the free tier” (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/16/coronavirus-quarantine-seems-like-the-right-time-for-google-stadia-to-release-its-free-tier/#e60fd00b168f), I believe that the issue goes beyond that. Yes the article reads easier when we see ‘the free tier‘, yet the truth is that this is the stage of cash strapped people, the gamer has another need, to see what they want to see and that is not addressed, by none of the providers, they merely dump a shitload of items and issues, with no filtering, or at most limited filtering.

Even as we are all gamers, we all have distinct needs or interests. I am interested in some of my friends on how far they get, one of them is a Witcher virtuoso, so seeing where he gets at is interesting, some games have nothing to contribute to me and some gamers are seemingly in it to get achievements. i cannot directly see which gamer is in it to enjoy Skyrim and who is in it to run through Skyrim. Filtering of users, friends and game specific items became apparent and it has been that way since the PS3/Xbox360, yet the makers did not really catch up, not in almost 15 years, how peculiar. There is always the option that they did not think it worthy of their attention, but that choice is dwindling down in light of what 5G offer and what the hardware can currently deal with.

It is a stage where we force our bodies into isolation, yet the mind is globally available and that is how it has been with gamers almost 30 years (M.U.L.E.) that is one of the first games that had enough multiplayer sides for people to take a much larger interest and the CBM64 (with an actual 300 bit modem option, no less) took that to another level (in those days). 

We (the people at Sony) seemingly forgot to take that into account and even as the world premiere on the PS3 implied it, it never really came to the degree we all desired, yet this time around, the isolation phase in the Coronavirus might give them pause to think on what gamers need and desire and adjust the system accordingly. The fact that most is software arranged implies that the systems will not be impeded and it could all be finished and better adjusted to when the console launches. I believe that whomever adjusts to that has a much larger audience to cater to when that part is realised. We might (to some degree) be in denial of that, yet I believe that the lockdown and self imposed isolation out there will push these issues to the surface and I believe that it will happen just in time. I reckon that the 2020 Olympics will add to that flavour of realisation as well. No matter whether the Olympics will be delayed for up to a year, or that Wimbledon will push that part to the upper reaches, it is a field where we see growth of a different nature, 5G already has the ability to set things in faster mode, but gamers have not been so lucky and we need to consider this, in the past where it was all PS2, the world consisted of 150,000,000 gamers, now that number has grown to well over 500% and now, as we see that 1,000,000,000 people want to reach out, now we see that the proper addressing on how they can reach out will matter, even as Facebook ignored it for far too long to cater towards advertisers, we see that consoles have a much larger game to play here. 

I merely hope that Sony (and others) take notice when it can still impact them in a positive way, the next two years will show where it ends. Will it end well? I cannot say at present.

 

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December 11, 2019 · 16:32

Lying through Hypes

I was thinking on a Huawei claim that I saw (in the image), the headline ‘AI’s growing influence on the economy’ sounds nice, yet AI does not exist at present,not True AI, or perhaps better stated Real AI. At the very least two elements of AI are missing so that whatever it is, it is not AI. is that an indication on just how bad the economy is? Well, that is up for debate, but what is more adamant is what the industry is proclaiming is AI and cashing in on something that is not AI at all.

Yet when we look at the media, we are almost literally thrown to death with AI statements. So what is going on? Am I wrong?

No! 

Or at least that is my take on the matter, I believe that we are getting close to near AI, but what the hype and what marketing proclaim is AI, is not AI. You see, if there was real AI we would not see articles like ‘This AI is a perpetual loser at Othello, and players love it‘, we are handed “The free game, aptly called “The weakest AI Othello,” was released four months ago and has faced off against more than 400,000 humans, racking up a paltry 4,000 wins and staggering 1.29 million losses as of late November” this is weird, as we look at SAS (a data firm) we see: “Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks“, which is an actual part of an actual AI, so why do we see the earlier mentioned 400,000 players with 1.29 million wins whilst the system merely won 4,000 times shows that it is not learning, as such is cannot be an AI. A slightly altered SAS statement would be “Most AI examples rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing. Using these technologies, computers can be trained to accomplish specific tasks by processing large amounts of data and recognizing patterns in the data” The SAS page (at https://www.sas.com/en_au/insights/analytics/what-is-artificial-intelligence.html) also gives us the image where they state that today AI is seen as ‘Deep Learning’, which is not the same.

It is fraught with a dangerous situation, the so called AI is depending on human programming and cannot really learn, merely adapt to programming. SAS itself actually acknowledges this with the statement “Quick, watch this video to understand the relationship between AI and machine learning. You’ll see how these two technologies work, with examples” they are optionally two sides of a coin, but not the same coin, if that makes sense, so in that view the statement of Huawei makes no sense at all, how can an option influence an economy when it does not exist? Well, we could hide behind the lack of growth because it does not exist. Yet that is also the stage that planes are finding themselves in as they are not equipped with advanced fusion drives, it comes down to the same problem (one element is most likely on Jupiter and the other one is not in our solar system). When we realise that we can seek advanced fusion as much as we want, but the elements requiring that are not in our grasp, just like AI, it is shy a few elements so whatever we call AI is merely something that is not really AI. It is cheap marketing for a generation that did not look beyond the term. 

The Verge (a https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/28/18197520/ai-artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-computational-science) had a nice summary, I particularly liked (slightly altered) “the Oral-B’s Genius X toothbrush that touted supposed “AI” abilities. But dig past the top line of the press release, and all this means is that it gives pretty simple feedback about whether you’re brushing your teeth for the right amount of time and in the right places. There are some clever sensors involved to work out where in your mouth the brush is, but calling it artificial intelligence is gibberish, nothing more“, we can see this as the misuse of the term AI, and we are handed thousands of terms every day that misuse AI, most of it via short messages on Social Media. and a few lines later we see the Verge giving us “It’s better, then, to talk about “machine learning” rather than AI” and it is followed by perhaps one of the most brilliant statements “Machine learning systems can’t explain their thinking“, it is perhaps the clearest night versus day issue that any AI system would face and all these AI systems that are dependable growing any economy aren’t and the world (more likely the greed driven entities) cannot grow any direction in this. they are all hindered what marketing states it needs to be whilst marketing is clueless on what they face, or perhaps they are hoping that the people remain clueless on what they present.

So as the verge ends with “In the here and now, artificial intelligence — machine learning — is still something new that often goes unexplained or under-examined” we see the nucleus of the matter, we are not asking questions and we are all accepting what the media and its connected marketing outlets are giving us, and when we make the noticeable jump that there is no AI and it is merely Machine learning and deeper learning, whilst we entertain the Verge examples “How clever is a book?” and “What expertise is encoded in a frying pan?“

We need to think things through (the current proclaimed AI systems certainly won’t). We are back in the 90’s where concept sellers are trying to fill their pockets all whilst we all perfectly well know (through applied common sense) that what they are selling is a concept and no concept will fuel an economy that is a truth that came and stood up when a certain Barnum had its circus and hid behind well chosen marketing. So whenever you get some implementation of AI on LinkedIn of Facebook you are being lied to (basically you are marketed) or pushed into some direction that such articles attempt to push you in. 

That is merely my view on the matter and you are very welcome to get your own view on the matter as well, I merely hope that you will look at the right academic papers to show you what is real and what is the figment of someone’s imagination. 

 

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