Tag Archives: Texas

November 27, 2025 · 04:39

The sound of war hammers

It is a specific sound, nothing compares to that and it isn’t entirely fictional. Some might remember the Walter Hill movie Streets of Fire (1984) where two men slug it out with hammers, but that is not it. When a Warhammer slams into metal armor, the armor becomes a drum and that sound is heard all over the battlefield (the wearer of that armour hears a lot more than that sound) but is distinct and I reckon that some of those hammer wielders would have created some kind of crescendo on these knights. So that was ‘ringing’ in my ears when NPR gave us ‘Here’s why concerns about an AI bubble are bigger than ever’ a few days ago (at https://www.npr.org/2025/11/23/nx-s1-5615410/ai-bubble-nvidia-openai-revenue-bust-data-centers) and what will you know. They made the same mistake, but we’ll get to that.

The article reads quite nicely and Bobby Allyn did a good job (beside the one miss) but lets get to the starting blocks. It starts with “A frothy time for Huang, to be sure, which makes it all the more understandable why his first statement to investors on a recent earnings call was an attempt to deflate bubble fears. “There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” he told shareholders. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”” So then we get three different names all giving ‘their’ point of view with ““The idea that we’re going to have a demand problem five years from now, to me, seems quite absurd,” said prominent Silicon Valley investor Ben Horowitz, adding: “if you look at demand and supply and what’s going on and multiples against growth, it doesn’t look like a bubble at all to me.” Appearing on CNBC, JPMorgan Chase executive Mary Callahan Erdoes said calling the amount of money rushing into AI right now a bubble is “a crazy concept,” declaring that “we are on the precipice of a major, major revolution in a way that companies operate.” Yet a look under the hood of what’s really going on right now in the AI industry is enough to deliver serious doubt, said Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist who is now a research fellow at MIT’s Institute for the Digital Economy.” All three names give a nice ‘presentation’ to appease the rumblings within an investor setting. Ben Horowitz, Mary Callahan Erdoes and Paul Kedrosky are seemingly mindset on raking in whatever they can and then the fourth shines a light on this (not in the way he intended) we see “Take OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker that set off the AI race in late 2022. Its CEO Sam Altman has said the company is making $20 billion in revenue a year, and it plans to spend $1.4 trillion on data centers over the next eight years. That growth, of course, would rely on ever-ballooning sales from more and more people and businesses purchasing its AI services.” Did you see the setting. He is making 20 billion and investing $1.4 trillion, now that represents a larger slice and the 20 billion is likely to make more (perhaps even 100 billion a year. And now the sides of hammers are slamming into armour. That still will take 14 years to break even and does anyone have any idea how long 14 years is and I reckon that $1.4 trillion represents (at 4.5%) implies that the interest is $63,000,000,000. That is almost the a year of revenue and that is the hopefully glare if he is making 100 billion a year. So what gives with this, because at some point investors make the setting that the formula is off. There is no tax deductibility. That is money that is due, the banks will get their dividend and whomever thinks that all this goes at zero percent is ludicrously asleep and that is before the missing element comes out. 

So then in comes Daron Acemoglu with “A growing body of research indicates most firms are not seeing chatbots affect their bottom lines, and just 3% of people pay for AI, according to one analysis. “These models are being hyped up, and we’re investing more than we should,” said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at MIT, who was awarded the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.” He comes at this from another angle and gives us that we are investing more than we should. All these firms are seeing the pot at the end of the rainbow, but there is the hidden snag, we learned early in life that the rainbow is the result of sunlight on rainwater and it is always curves t be ‘just’ beyond the horizon and it never hits the ground and there will be no pot of gold at the end of it according to Lucky the Leprechaun (I have his fax number) but that was not the side I am aiming for, but it gives the idiocy we see at present. They are all investing too much into something that does not yet exist, but that is beside the point. There are massive options for DML and LLM solutions, but do you think that this is worth trillions? It follows when we get to “Nonetheless, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are set to collectively sink around $400 billion on AI this year, mostly for funding data centers. Some of the companies are set to devote about 50% of their current cash flow to data center construction.

Or to put it another way: every iPhone user on earth would have to pay more than $250 to pay for that amount of spending. “That’s not going to happen,” Kedrosky said.” This comes from Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist who is now a research fellow at MIT’s Institute for the Digital Economy, and he is right. But that too is not the angle I am going for. But there are two voices, both in their field of vision, something they know and they are seeing the edges of what cannot be contained, one even got a Nobel Memorial Prize for his efforts (past accomplishment) And I reckon all these howling bitches want their government to ‘safe’ them when the bough breaks on these waves. So Andy Jassy, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg and Satya Nadella (Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft) will expect the tax system to bail them out and there is no real danger to them, they might get fired but they’ll survive this. Andy Jassy is as far as I know the poorest of the lot and he has 500 million, so he will survive in whatever place he has. But that is the danger. The investors and the taxpayers (you and me) get to suffer from this greed filled frenzy. 

But then we get “Analyst Gil Luria of the D.A. Davidson investment firm, who has been tracking Big Tech’s data center boom, said some of the financial maneuvers Silicon Valley is making are structured to keep the appearance of debt off of balance sheets, using what’s known as “special purpose vehicles.””, as well as “The tech firm makes an investment in the data center, outside investors put up most of the cash, then the special purpose vehicle borrows money to buy the chips that are inside the data centers. The tech company gets the benefit of the increased computing capacity but it doesn’t weigh down the company’s balance sheet with debt.” And here we get another failure. It is the failure of the current administration that does not adapt the tax laws to shore up whatever they have for whatever no one has and that is the larger stakeholder in this. We get this in an example in the article stating “Blue Owl Capital and Meta for a data center in Louisiana”, this is only part of the equation. You see, they are ’spreading the love’ around because that is the ‘safe’ setting and they know what comes next. You see the Verge gave us ‘Nvidia says some AI GPUs are ‘sold out,’ grows data center business by $10B in just three months’ (at https://www.theverge.com/tech/824111/nvidia-q3-2026-earnings-data-center-revenue) and that is the first part of the equation. What do you think will power all this? That is the angle I am holding onto. All these data centers will need energy and they will take it away from the people like you and me. And only 4 hours ago we see ‘Nvidia plays down Google chip threat concerns’ and it is all about the AI race, which is as I said non-existent, but the energy required to field these hundreds of thousands of GPU’s is and no one is making a table of what is required to fuel these data centers because it is not on ‘their plate’ but the need for energy becomes real and really soon too. We do not have the surplus to take care of this and when places like Texas give us “Electricity demand is also going up, with much of it concentrated in Texas due to “data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities,”” with the added “Driving the rise in wholesale prices next year is primarily a projected 45% increase at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas-North pricing hub. “Natural gas prices tend to be the biggest determinant of power prices,” the EIA said. “But in 2026, the increase in power prices in ERCOT tends to reflect large hourly spikes in the summer months due to high demand combined with relatively low supply in this region.”” Now this is not true for the whole world, but we see here a “projected 45% increase” and that is for 2026. So where are these data centers, what are their energy surpluses and what is to come? No one is looking at that, but when any data centre is hit with a brownout, or a partial and temporary drop in voltage in an electrical power supply. When that happens any data centre shuts down, energy is adamant for all its GPU’s and their better not we any issue with energy and I saw this a year ago, so why isn’t the media looking into this? I saw one article that that question was not answered and the media just shoved it aside, but as I see it, it should be on the forefront of any media setting. It will happen and the people will suffer, but as I see it (and mentioned) is that the media is whoring for digital dollars and they need their advertisement money from these 4 places and a few more, all ready for advertisement attention and the media plays ball because they want their digital dollars (as I personally see it).

So whilst the NPR article is quite nice, the one element missing is what makes this bubble rear its ugly head, because too many want their coins for their effort and it is what is required. But what does the audience require? And the audience is you an me dear reader. I have set a lot of my requirements to energy falling short, but there is only so much I can do and it is going to be 32 degrees (celsius) today, so what happens when the energy slows down for 5.56 million people in Sydney? Because the Data centers will make a first demand from their energy providers or they will slap a lawsuit worth billions on that energy provider. And we the people (wherever we are) are facing what comes next. Keeping data centers cool and powered whilst we the people boil in our own homes. As such that is the future I am predicting and people think I am wrong, but did they make the calculation of what these data centers require? Are they seeing the energy shortfalls that are impeding these data centers? And the energy providers will take the money and the contracts because it won’t coexist to this, but that is exactly what we are facing in the short run and the investors? Well, I don’t really care about them, they invested and if you aren’t willing to lose it all with a mere card to help you through (card below), you aren’t a real investor, you are merely playing it safe and in that world there are no bubbles.

Remind me, how did that end in 2008? The speculated cost were set to $16 trillion in U.S. household wealth, and this bubble is significantly larger than the 2008 one and this time they are going all in on money, most of them do not have. So that is what is coming and my fears do not matter, but the setting that NPR gives us all with ‘Here’s why concerns about an AI bubble are bigger than ever’ matters and that is what I see coming.

So have a great day and never trust one source, always verify what you read through other sources. That part was shown to be when we all see (from various sources) that “The United States is on track to lose $12.5 billion in international travel spending this year” whilst my calculations made it between 80 and 130 billion and some laughed at my predictions a few months earlier and I get that. I would laugh too when those ‘economics’ state one amount and I come with a number over 700% larger. I get that, but now (apparently) there is an Oxford economics report that gives us “Damning report says U.S. tourism faces $64 billion blow as Trump administration’s trade wars drive away foreign visitors and cut spending”, so I have that to chase down now, but it shows that my numbers were mostly spot on, at least a lot better than whatever those economics are giving you. So never trust merely one source even if they believe to be on the right track. But that is enough about that and consider why some bubble settings are underexposed and when you see that the NPR gave you three additional angles and missed mine (likely not intentional) consider what those investment firms are overseeing (likely intentional) because the setting that they are willing to lose 100% is ludicrous, they have settings for that and as the government bailed them out the last time, they think it will save them this time too.

Have a great day today, I need an ice cream at 4:30 in the morning. I still have some, so yay me.

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October 11, 2025 · 18:36

The dams are cracking

Yes, that is the setting I saw coming, but there is always ‘space’ for interpretation and at present we see two stories that seem to illustrate this. The first one is given by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly17834524o0 where we see ‘Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we all be worried?’ It is a question to have, but what does the article ‘bare’ out? It is not that basic or simple. First we are given “Mark Zuckerberg is said to have started work on Koolau Ranch, his sprawling 1,400-acre compound on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as far back as 2014.” So, he had 11 years? Seems like overly ‘doom prepping to me’ (is this sarcasm or satire?) The additional setting is “The underground space spanning some 5,000 square feet is, he explained, “just like a little shelter, it’s like a basement”” which seems like the average floor of a mall to me. I think that when the ‘basement’ extends well beyond 1000 Sqft, we can ignore the ‘basement’ label and whatever it is, it is his to do. He might be buying up vats of wine or Cognac, whatever it is. It will be his setting. Then we are given “his decision to buy 11 properties in the Crescent Park neighbourhood of Palo Alto in California, apparently adding a 7,000 square feet underground space beneath.” So here again we get the ‘speculating’ media for the setting of a story. So he might have bought the 11 properties, but what happened to them? What evidence is there? He could have bought this for his nearest and dearest. There are many options. Then we get more ‘famous’ names and locations like New Zealand come up. Yet about halfway we get a clarion call (as the expression goes), we are given “Neil Lawrence is a professor of machine learning at Cambridge University. To him, this whole debate in itself is nonsense. “The notion of Artificial General Intelligence is as absurd as the notion of an ‘Artificial General Vehicle’,” he argues. “The right vehicle is dependent on the context. I used an Airbus A350 to fly to Kenya, I use a car to get to the university each day, I walk to the cafeteria… There’s no vehicle that could ever do all of this.” For him, talk about AGI is a distraction.” And as far as I can tell, I feel like Neil Lawrence does with an addendum, and ad the very end we are given ““LLMs also do not have meta-cognition, which means they don’t quite know what they know. Humans seem to have an introspective capacity, sometimes referred to as consciousness, that allows them to know what they know.” It is a fundamental part of human intelligence – and one that is yet to be replicated in a lab.” And it is part of what I have been saying all along. And we get the larger setting from a second source. It is SBS (at https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australians-living-in-america-anxiety/p88o60wos) that give us ‘Saving money and packing ‘go bags’: How Australians in the US are preparing for the worst’ where we see “But she says the attitude towards foreign nationals under the current administration has made life in the US feel “scary”. Kate says these fears were brought to the surface during her green card interview. “They grilled me in the interview and asked me questions not even related to our marriage but about my previous visa and time in the US,” she says.” As well as “Many Australians living in the US are reporting experiencing high levels of anxiety and feelings of instability due to the possibility of rapid political change under US President Donald Trump.”

These are the settings that matter. In the first there is the BBC article that is making the ‘doom lecture’ but that is not the setting. When AI collapses like a near empty shell, people will all be tuning for their incomes and playing the blame game, but as we are given ‘Wall Street crashes after Trump announces 100% tariffs on China; $1.5 trillion wiped out’ consider what happens when all these AI ‘vendors’ fall flat, the damage will be more than 10 times worse, America loses 15 trillion. Can you even fathom that kind of loss? That will be the sounding implosion that leads to civil war when 90% of 340 million people lose whatever they had, retirements wiped out, other savings gone, they will get angry. President Trump will have to run for his life to air-force one as quick as his legs can carry him. Evading to Russia or anyone that will have him and his billions? Mostly gone, if not already abroad. Those who bought large mansions outside of the US are likely safe for two generations in France, Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, New Zealand, you name it, some will evade and this is the setting we see. I reckon that people in California will need high walls to keep others out, optionally armed defenses as well. 

Foreigners are now seeing the scary reality they signed on for and they are getting ready a ‘go bag’ to evade to wherever they can as quickly they can. Is this doom speak?

That is a valid question. You see, the AI setting is merely one, President trump soured the waters on tourism which is down in many ways and no reflective view is given by anyone in media. That amount of bad news they find likely ‘irresponsible’ and the media has no business using that excuse as they have been one of the most irresponsible parties ever. Then foreign retail. Canada pulled all the alcoholic beverages from the shelves in Canada. How much is that costing? One source (Source: Global News) gives us that the decline is 85%, that amounts to how much? These three settings is almost a certainty of recession and there is a lot more declines in the papers but the media will not give you the proper numbers. Several sources all giving different partially overlapping numbers. As such the economic dams of America are cracking. And they will lose a massive amount of revenue and while some will give some of the numbers. Most of us aren’t given the full view. I have some of the views as I have been keeping an eye on some of the numbers. But even I do not have the full view. So whilst some give us “The sell-off erased more than USD 1.5 trillion in market value from US stocks. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market faced record liquidations of USD 19 billion. This is the largest single-day figure ever recorded.” The part no one talks about is where are the billionaires set at? We see the wins of Elon Musk and Larry Ellison, but where are the other billionaires? How are they doing? And that disjointed Microsoft view.

Why the Windows maker?
That is a fair question. You see, they were all ‘heralding’ how good they were doing, but the shimmer in the shadows is different. We are given “Microsoft is currently losing money on AI development, having spent an estimated $19 billion in one quarter on AI infrastructure, with no significant revenue from it yet. The company also experienced a reported loss of $300 million in Call of Duty sales due to the Game Pass subscription model” all whilst Activision and Bethesda was bought for over $100,000,000,000 and that has an interest setting. They might be ‘offloading’ staff (over 9,000 according to some numbers) and whilst they and Adecco (firing into the thousands) are all set to AI, there is a hidden snag. When this falls short they will face a setting that is a lot more dangerous. People will not consider them in the future. So when the non-existing AI is set to the need of engineers it goes flat and when there is no one around (an exaggeration) to program your LLM, consider where your firm will be. ZDNet gave us “Microsoft’s CEO loves to talk about ’empathy.’ But everything that is coming out of Redmond these days is perilously close to turning the company into the Borg.” Basically a non-existent setting of people that cannot live in a vacuum and that is an additional side I never saw coming. I was focussed on Microsoft turning into an empty shell and when the substance is gone, the shell collapses. That is what I saw in Microsoft Games and Microsoft Office. It started in 2012 when their service devisions were no longer up to scrap and when support goes, so does sales and when we consider the over 100 billion for two companies its, whilst they weren’t making enough to even afford the interest on that, the picture of failure starts to evolve into a nightmare setting and sacking 9,000 people will not safe it. They are telling us now that AI is the future, but at present it does not exist and what does exist requires engineers (remember Builder dot AI?) It is a fictive setting that is showing up all over America and the ‘import’ people are seeing the cracks evolve and they want out as fast as they can. Which is good news for Aramco and ADNOC as they now get the choice of the litter, but for America it is bad news. So there is no doom speak. It is the returning story of a country who think it is too big to go bankrupt. I heard that story before (SNS Bank for one) then a few more banks and they are all part of something else. And America? Parts of America could be added to Canada and Mexico would be relieved to get Texas (the latter part is speculation) and that is the dangerous reality that others are facing. The question is what does it take to throw this around and whilst Wall Street is in denial. Others, those who can afford it, will be making a new household out of American clutches (like the non-tax countries mentioned earlier) also Saudi Arabia becomes an option, but the is reserved for the chosen few (and American Muslims of course). 

So am I delusional or do I have a point? I reckon that one of the larger issues (still setting) is how America deals with Alex Jones. Because if he gets his ‘blockage’ Americans will go insane, they will not accept that this Conspiracy theorist is allowed his fortune after he went after dead children (saying they were actors, who were not dead according to sources). I wonder where that will go, because as I see it, it will be the tinder spark America will be set on fire. At that point all bets are off and I reckon that most ‘New-Americans’ will run to the nearest airport. This might merely be my speculation and optionally a wrong one. But that is how I see it.

Beyond that, the losses that America is having and when all the numbers come out, the second stage is reached and whomever thought they had a retirement, they will all try to collect on whatever possible. 

It is a hard setting and I hope I am wring, because this collapse will fall over Japan and Europe pretty much soon thereafter. Connected currencies will take a massive tumble.

Have a great day, if that is presently at all possible. 

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August 15, 2025 · 18:08

Walking back needs

I was in a rush to find another topic to look at and no sooner was it said when my brain told me to look behind me and no sooner was it done when I noticed a Bloomberg article 

This sounds odd (and correct) as the Houston Business Journal gives us a little less than 18 hour ago ‘Texans face potential electricity price surge as power demand skyrockets’, it is odd as I noticed that term was a setting a mere 2-3 years ago. I gave the setting towards an IP idea I had. It was clear that this setting would be needed in Dubai, London and a few other places. I gave the Texan setting of Austin as a reference. As such I gave the idea that a few people should talk to Elon Musk as he is sitting on a trillion dollar idea and it would be needed all over the world. So, as some ‘now’ see that there is a larger problem, which I illustrated in ‘Is it a public service’ on November 16th 2024 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2024/11/16/is-it-a-public-service/) where I clearly stated that the energy is mission for a lot of this. We get the setting three months later in Bloomberg and now we get the Houston Business Journal giving us “With new data center developments, population growth and the electrification of oil fields, power demand growth is tightening the electricity market. Here’s what experts predict for the coming years.” As well as “With a rise in data center developments, population growth, and the electrification of oilfields, power demand growth is tightening the electricity market.” The latter part is a little hilarious. A setting that could be construed as the headline for the new comedy capers. What makes it a lot harder is the need Bloomberg gave us (and me months before that) that as I see it, corporate America has to foot that bill as the Data Centre needs will be required to get filled from day one, and as I see it the people of Texas need to pay ZERO. I do like the idea that corporate America will decrease the cost of living for Americans, especially when they are ‘required’ to remain carbon zero and 30 nuclear reactors are not the way to go. And this is given a lot more urgency as Americans are faced with the needs to make more electricity and the timelines to not align, especially in light of the news by Houston Business Journal given less than 24 hours ago. The other setting is that nuclear reactors require time and experience to build. As I see it, the Need for at least 3 GEN3+ reactors require at least 5 years and that is setting the reactors close to Houston and Austin. The third one should be right next to the data centre that Texas is handed. Oh, and these reactors need to be started within the next 3 months. So, when were these plans approved that fast? If not, there is little reason for a data centre when the electricity is apparently missing. 

The fact that the American people (the HBJ too) were apparently missing this information whilst I using a simple slide ruler (classic model shown below)

Got there in mere seconds almost a year ago, and I was courteous enough to write about it. So there is that to consider. Funny enough America has the solution employing the solutions by Elon Musk. I advice then to act, before the UAE (and Saudi Arabia) asks for all the batteries that Elon has in stock. That is one idea, there are more ideas and they are out there. Yet the settings are now given by the HBJ and will set Texas on a stampede for solutions I reckon no later than coming Monday. 

So when it does come, I would advice some people to walk back the needs of energy requirements and see where that leads them. The funny part is that this was a given BEFORE the Stargate project was on everyones retinas. Even as I gave my setting BEFORE Stargate, the setting becomes on why this wasn’t clearly given as project Stargate was drawn up? As we see the answers, more questions are shown on our eyes and this is the mere start of this. At present there are two operational nuclear power plants: Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant and the South Texas Project. Each plant has two reactors, and together they provide about 10% of the state’s electricity. So when we see this, we might understand the crazy presentation on AI and the setting of available energy. So when I gave my feelings on the three reactors, we see a much larger need, but is that a given? I know that I can be wrong, even if I am proven right months later. Causality does not mean proven effect, that requires a whole different setting of statistics and proof leading to this. 

So feel free to doubt me, but there are the stories and there are the newscasts and the data that nuclear reactors require time is pretty much a given. So feel free to doubt it all, I don’t mind. Just consider the setting that the Data centers require energy and who do you want that energy to get? Your fridge and microwave or an AI data center whilst we know that AI isn’t real. I leave it up to you.

Have a great day and feel free to look around you. The data is all around us all.

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July 28, 2025 · 22:07

On the cheap

That is at times a worry, when things go on the cheap it tends to be the more expensive setting you are driven to select. But as I see it, it isn’t always bad. Abu Dhabi (capital of United Arab Emirates) have a few options here. So to show this lets take the ‘normal’ setting.

Warner Brothers Theme park $129
WaterWorld $123
Sea World $177
Ferrari Them park $144
Yas Mall Free

You would think that this will be the master of all bills, but you would be wrong. You see when you get into the Warner Brothers hotel you automatically get a ticket EVERY DAY to one of the theme parks for that day. There are more hotels on Yas Island that give that option. In case of the Warner Brothers hotel, its theme park is across the street (WaterWorld is its neighbour). Oh, and enjoy breakfast there is to be cherished. Don’t take my word for this, YouTube is filled with walkthrough videos of the Hotel and the Theme parks, see for yourself what you could be enjoying.

There is however more. Tourists have the option of buying a 4 Park Ticket for a mere $184 which allows you to visit any of the Yas Island theme parks within 6 days of activating your pass. You have to consider this setting as this implies hundreds of dollars saved per person and you get to select which park you will select. You could spend 4 days in the same park. To give you a comparison a Universal theme park ticket will set you back $600 and that is also per person. So that implies a saving of an easy $400, so what would you select? The added benefit is that the UAE is a zero tax country, so there is a decent reason to visit the Apple Store in Yas Mall and get yourself the apple extension you always wanted. 

So as America is setting the additional $250 visa cost, as such Abu Dhabi becomes the premiere location for people wanting the theme park experience. The news (up to recent) was that America is getting a $29,000,000,000 pain invoice from lost international tourists and as I was looking at the presented data from several sources pretty much anywhere, I reckon that by late September, the presented damage will be worse, much worse. 

So, why am I focussing on Abu Dhabi? Well, the theme parks are advertised by people who were there as top notch and when you consider the setting that the Diamond pass is annually AED 3,295 ($900) for a whole year with additional discounts all over Yas Island. A full year of access for $900? It is worth retiring there and cool down and soak twice a week in WaterWorld. Nearly all theme parks are indoors in air-conditioned settings and as I see it, next year we get the Harry Potter expansion and the year after that Disney will grace that setting too. In addition (at present) you also get a Unlimited Quick Pass Access, also there is the 25% discount on Dining (at places that support this and also the 25% Discount on Shopping and several other benefits. That implies that the price of the pass will be earned back in just over a week, as such you have 50 weeks of true profit. So what retirement setting offers that? The universal annual pass is seemingly set to $1,095 before taxes. As such Abu Dhabi is seemingly giving you a blast for your bucks. 

As I see it, Universal has blacked out dates, Abu Dhabi gives you 365 days of fun. Seems like the optimal saving.

So what is behind this? I am not paid by Miral Experiences (the operator on Yas Island), there is nothing in it for me. But this shows you the utter stupidity of the Trump administration adding a new $250 ‘visa integrity fee’ and when you consider that in 2023, Florida’s theme parks welcomed close to 77 million visitors, merely one state, so when you consider that a massive part of International tourists now have an alternative and a much bigger resentment of America, that are merely two of a bigger set of anti-America setting. Together with decreased rights of privacy at the border. To be clear, I am not anti America, I am merely anti-stupid and at present America is no longer worth it. This is beside America trying to push the 51st State into the face of Mark Carney (Prime Minister of Canada) and his 40,100,000 Canadian brothers and sisters. As such America is getting massive doses of hardship. So when Florida and California loses millions of tourists, what do you think will happen. I see the adjusted ‘videos’ that it will not get back to normal until 2026. Well, that time has gone. As I see it, as there are alternatives America will see this hardship in 2026, 2027 and 2028. There might be some revival in 2028, yet I doubt it, as America sees hardship beyond 2026, crime numbers will accelerate and the quality of life in America is unlikely to see any bright spots before 2029. And that is if America stops being stupid tomorrow morning before 03:00. After that the setting becomes near disastrous and that is merely the summer, at this point their winter seasons are not looking too great either. Winter is a different chicken, most ski and boarding fanatics have their slopes and that’s fine, but at present as places lose control over staff, infrastructures almost everywhere will be near collapse and without infrastructure the tourists will become absent. As a source gave me “Tourists, particularly from Australia and Canada, are increasingly rebooking or cancelling trips away from America due to concerns about border security, perceived political tensions, and a general sentiment of unease, leading to a significant drop in visitors to the US and a surge in interest for alternative destinations like Europe and Bermuda.” As such the setting for America looks grim, very grim. 

In an age and a stage of seeing the cheap route thee is a massive setting of people who will be resetting their vacation to the UAE and Abu Dhabi with Dubai a mere 35 minutes away per train. And when you consider that a 30-day tourist visa fee: AED 200 ($54). A 60-day tourist visa fee: AED 300 ($81), seems a lot less than the ‘added’ $250. So how was their ‘visa integrity fee’ a good idea? If my initial understanding is correct and America is utterly broke, then America stops being the place to go until far beyond 2030, but in the meantime the UAE and Saudi Arabia become places to go to. And that is not all, there is every chance that Europeans will return to places like Acorn Adventure (UK), as I see it, there are several places in Europe who will see a returning tourist option. 

For me there is this dish which I enjoyed in Ghent in the 11th century (before embarking on the Crusades) and that was possible as the Medieval times are set in the Archeon. They also have a Roman age (complete with gladiator arena and bathing house) and a prehistoric area. 

And the Netherlands has more. The Efteling, a theme park that won the biggest theme park award at least twice, making it the biggest contender for Disney parks. And it has its own charm. All places that will feel increased attention as America is slowly strangling its influx of tourists to death.

As such America is due a massive downturn, they forgot that they are not all powerful and other nations have alternatives to what they offer and as they are now raising prices by at least $250 the stage changes. Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, France, London (UK), Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia are all in the running of welcoming the tourists who are now over the American BS (that stuff that makes grass grow in Texas). As I see it, $29 billion was a understated and that will go on for at least 3 years. With border controls impeding out privacy, the setting for business tourists will go down more and more as well. But not to fret, Canada has a welcoming position for these business vendors as well,  a visitor visa (single or multiple entry) costs CAD 100 ($72) per person, also a lot less than $250 and that setting will continue for some time. 

It is a shame for some, but if America prices itself out of the running, the impact is on themselves. Have a great day and feel free to dream yourself into the past with pastries, I am still dreaming of Dutch poffertjes. And I have an art work by Anton Pieck to assist me in this matter. 

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June 17, 2025 · 22:10

SYSMIS(plenty)

Yes, this is sort of a hidden setting, but if you know the program you will be ahead of the rest (for now). Less then an hour ago I saw a picture with Larry Ellison (must be an intelligent person as we have the same first two letters in our first name). But the story is not really that, perhaps it is, but i’ll get to that later.

I will agree with the generic setting that most of the most valuable data will be seen in Oracle. It is the second part I have an issue with (even though it sounds correct), yes AI demands is skyrocketing. But as I personally see it AI does not exist. There is Generic AI, there are AI agents and there are a dozen settings under the sun advocating a non existing realm of existence. I am not going into this, as I have done that several times before. You see, what is called AI is as I see it mere NIP (Near Intelligent Parsing) and that does need a little explaining. 

You see, like the old chess computers (90’s) they weren’t intelligent, they merely had in memory every chess game ever played above a certain level. And all these moves were in these computers. As such there was every chance that the chess computer came into a setting where that board was encountered before and as such it tried to play from that point onwards. It is a little more advanced than that, but that was the setting we faced. And would you have it, some greed driven salesperson will push the boundary towards that setting where he (or she) will claim that the data you have will result in better sales. But (a massive ‘but’ comes along) that is assuming all data is there and mostly that is never the case. So if we see the next image

You see that some cells are red, there we have no data and data that isn’t there cannot be created (sort of). In Market Research it is called System Missing data. They know what to do in those case, but the bulk of all the people trying to run and hide behind there data will be in the knowing nothing pool of people. And this data set has a few hidden issues. Response 6 and 7 are missing. So were they never there? Is there another reason? All things that these AI systems are unaware of and until they are taught what to do your data will create a mess you never saw before. Sales people (for the most) do not see it that way, because they were sold an AI system. Yet until someone teaches them what to do they aren’t anything of the sort and even after they are taught there are still gaps in their knowledge because these systems will not assume until told so. They will not even know what to do when it goes wring until someone tells them that and the salespeople using these systems will revert to ‘easy’ fixes, which are not fixes at all, they merely see the larger setting that becomes less and less accurate in record time. They will rely on predictive analytics, but that solution can only work with data that is there and when there is no data, there is merely no data to rely on. And that is the trap I foresaw in the case of [a censored software company] and the UAE and oil. There is too much unknowns and I reckon that the oil industry will have a lot more data and bigger data, but with human elements in play, we will see missing data. And the better the data is, the more accurate the results. But as I saw it, errors start creeping in and more and more inaccuracies are set to the predictive data set and that is where the problems start. It is not speculative, it is a dead certainty. This will happen. No matter how good you are, these systems are build too fast with too little training and too little error seeking. This will go wrong. Still Larry is right “Most Of The World’s Valuable Data Is in some system”

The problem is that no dataset is 100% complete, it never was and that is the miscalculations to CEO’s of tomorrow are making. And the assumption mode of the sales person selling and the sales person buying are in a dwindling setting as they are all on the AI mountain whilst there is every chance that several people will use AI as a gimmick sale and they don’t have a clue what they are buying, all whilst these people sign a ‘as is’ software solution. So when this comes to blows, the impact will be massive. We recently saw Microsoft standing behind builder.ai and it went broke. It seems that no one saw the 700 engineers programming it all (in this case I am not blaming Microsoft) but it leaves me with questions. And the setting of “Stargate is a $500 billion joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and investment firm MGX to build a massive AI infrastructure in the United States. The project, announced by Donald Trump, aims to establish the US as a leader in AI by constructing large-scale data centers and advancing AI research. Initial construction is underway in Texas, with plans for 20 data centers, each 500,000 square feet, within the next five years” leaves me with more questions. I do not doubt that OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle all have the best intentions. But I have two questions on this. The first is how to align and verify the data, because that will be an adamant and also a essential step in this. Then we get to the larger setting that the dat needs to align within itself. Are all the phrases exact? I don’t know this is why I ask and before you say that it makes sense that they do but reality gives us ‘SQUARE-WINDOWED AIRPLANES’ 1954 when two planes broke apart in mid-flight because metal fatigue was causing small cracks to form at the edges of the windows, and the pressurized cabins exploded. Then we have the ‘MARS ORBITER’ where two sets of engineers, one working in metric and the other working in the U.S. imperial system, failed to communicate at crucial moments in constructing the $125 million spacecraft. We tend to learn when we stumble that is a given, so what happens when issues are found in the 11th hour in a 500 billion dollar setting? It is not unheard of and as I saw one particular speculative setting. How is this powered? A system on 500,000 square feet needs power and 20 of them a hell of a lot more. So how many nuclear reactors are planned? I actually have an interesting idea (keeping this to me for now). But any computer that leaks power will go down immediately and all those training time is lost. How often does that need to happen for it to go wrong? You can train and test systems individually but 20 data centers need power, even one needs power and how certain is that power grid? I actually saw nothing of that in any literature (might be that only a few have seen that), but the drastic setting from sales people tends to be, lets put in more power. But where from? Power is finite until created in advance and that is something I haven’t seen. And then the time setting ‘within the next 5 years’ As I see it, this is a disaster waiting to happen. And as this starts in Texas, we have the quote “According to Texas native, Co-Founder and CFO of Atma Energy, Jaro Nummikoski, one of the main reasons Texas struggles with chronic power outages is the way our grid was originally designed—centralized power plants feeding energy over long distances through aging infrastructure.” Now I am certain that the power-grid of a data centre will be top notch, but where does that power come from? And 500,000 sqft needs a lot of power, I honestly do not know how much One source gave me “The facilities need at least 50 Megawatts (MW) of power supply, but some installations surpass this capacity. The energy requirements of the project will increase to 15 Gigawatts (GW) because of the ten data centers currently under construction, which equals the electricity usage of a small nation.” As such the call for a nuclear reactor comes to mind, yet the call for 15 GW is insane, and no reactor at present exists to handle that. 50MW per data center implies that where there is a data centre a reactor will be needed (OK, this is an exaggeration) but where there are more than one (up to 4) a reactor will be needed. So who was aware of this? I reckon that the first centre in Texas will get a reactor as Texas has plenty of power shortages and the increase in people and systems warrant such a move. But as far as I know those things will require a little more than 5 years and depending on the provider there are different timelines. As such I have reasons to doubt the 5 year setting (even more when we consider data). 

As such I wonder when the media will actually look at the settings and what will be achievable as well as being implemented and that is before we get to the training of data of these capers. As I personally (and speculatively) see it, will these data centers come with a warning light telling us SYSMIS(plenty), or a ‘too many holes in data error’ just a thought to have this Tuesday. 

Have a great day and when your chest glows in the dark you might be close to one of those nuclear reactors. 

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May 9, 2025 · 04:58

Seek it in the dark

Yup, that is coming to your favourite room in your very own house at some point in time in the nearby future. It isn’t that it was a secret, but today I saw a reminder of what is about to happen on a near global scale and as summer is coming to the northern hemisphere, I reckon that life there might become a bit of a challenge. The news was given to me by CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/small-modular-reactor-nuclear-power-ontario-construction-1.7529338) where we see ‘Ontario set to begin construction of Canada’s 1st mini nuclear power plant’ and I actually didn’t consider Canada in my first assessment as the focal point in 2022 was America and the UAE. It was in my story ‘It was never rocket science’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/27/it-was-never-rocket-science/) where I re-iterated stories I gave in 2021 that America would be having an energy crises all by itself. At that point it was the BBC who gave us ‘Japan urges 37 million people to switch off lights’, which was a little bit of a shock in Japan. They never considered that energy has a finite point? I saw this escalation coming to places like Austin (Texas), Paris, London, New York and a few other places. I came up with a general solution for places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but the setting was clear. Action was required and I saw it in 2022. Now we get CBC telling us “It would be the first of four such reactors that OPG aims to build on the site, at a total project cost of $20.9 billion, in an effort to meet what’s forecast to be a steep rise in demand for electricity in the province”, as well as ““As it stands today, we just don’t have the supply to meet that demand,” Lecce said” according to Stephen Lecce, Ontario’s minister of energy and mines that point is coming for Canada. On the upside, Canada only has 40 million people. As such the drain might not be as severe as America has, but Canada is doing something about it, which pretty much means that America better start being nice to Canada (as well as take the 51st State BS out of their vocabulary) As I see it, if the power consumption rises a little too fast, there is little for Ontario to do but switch off the 24% delivery to Michigan, New York, and Minnesota. I don’t think New York needs that power, do they? Wasn’t it President Trump who told the world “We don’t do much business with Canada”, well, as I see it, they didn’t need Canadian energy, as such Canada can scrap the deliveries of energy. And as Elon Musk has what the world needs (something I stated before) and it will make e-Musk (little giggle) and that will make Elon one the first trillionaires on this world. He can start making cash (by the boatload). And as places like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and a few other places have larger wallets and a dire need for the solutions America gets to be number three (optionally number two as Saudi Arabia might not need it immediately) in a few places right of the bat.

So, the question for you all becomes. If I saw this in 2021/2022 why didn’t the rest of the world (read: America) see this? I set it out decently detailed, so it wasn’t rocket science to begin with and now that Canada is moving seemingly ahead of schedule, why haven’t other places locked on the problem? Merely to say “it was a complex situation and we are looking into the problem and see where notifications fell short”? If a data-man (like me) can see this evolve years ahead of schedule with an abacus, why can’t those boffins do that with super computers and AI (little teaser, AI doesn’t exist at this time). 

In America KUT News gave its audience “On anniversary of Texas blackouts, ERCOT forecasts potential energy shortages in coming years”, which is fun as I said that years ahead of schedule and Austin successfully luring business to Austin (mainly from California) should have been ready already. So when solutions are implemented way too late it is the new policy to be able to find your desk in the dark, and work with pen and paper as desktops will also require power that isn’t there. And I get to gloat because it is just another instance where I warned people years in advance. I never warned Canada as I never saw it as an immediate hindrance and as I saw this morning Canada was ahead of the flock and ready to implement a solution. 

So, when will the others wake up? In particular Mayor Eric L. Adams of New York as they require a  jug of power from Ontario. As such they should have been looking at this and optionally being really nice to Elon Musk for the simple need of a discount.

What a way to get to Friday Breakfast early, have a great day everyone.

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June 29, 2024 · 12:00

As limits are reached

The Khaleej Times give us (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/uae-summer-switch-off-non-essential-appliances-for-one-hour-every-day-urges-sharjah-authority) ‘UAE summer: Switch off non-essential appliances during peak hour daily, urges Sharjah authority’ where it starts with “Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority said the Conservation Hour or Peak Hour initiative will start in July and last until September” with the additional “Along that line, the authority has called on those living in Sharjah to participate in an initiative called Conservation Hour or Peak Hour from July to September”, for those unaware Sharjah is directly North of Dubai. The addition given is “The initiative will require residents to switch off non-essential electrical appliances during peak hours, which is from 2:30pm to 3:30pm, every day”, this situation was going to happen and it will be a global problem. I raised the issue in January 2023. The first part was in ‘Inactivity by the overpaid‘(at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/13/inactivity-by-the-overpaid/). There I raised “There will be a power shortage by 2030. Personally I think that he is overly optimistic. I would reckon that clear shortages will be visible no later than 2027 in the Netherlands” In this Article I raised the issue that I made in May 2022 and again in June 2022. There I looked at solutions. There were a few sides and Dubai would benefit from that solution. Part of that solution was given in ‘Will you feel frisky?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/06/28/will-you-feel-frisky/). There you see that the concrete that sets the floors/ceilings have space in every building to leave a mica underground, with on top of that solar panels. Now ads I see it Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah all have hundreds of buildings that benefit from these panels (the sunny side of the building) In my case I illuminated London as well as Austin Texas the day before. However this is now a race. There is a limit on solar panels. First one in, the less limitations that place has. As we now see, Sharjah is at present the first to step on the breaks. 6 years before the NOS (Dutch news media), as such I believe that the limitations will be seen all over Europe in the next two years, depending on the summers. London, Paris, Orleans, Cannes, Nice, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, and several other places. In my view I see the following solution:

The mat with the solar panel. That panel is set to be connectable to other mats, I envision a sort of Scalextric (that old racing game) connection on one side the can be connected to a wire, that connect the panels on the separate levels to a battery on top of the building. I just used the Tesla solution, but other solutions could be used. Depending on the size of the building it would be an expected 2 x 2 or 4 x 2. So that one side can be fully charged and the other set of batteries is used to fuel the net. 

Now this solution does not fully solve it (initially), but it will reduce the stress on the electricity net. As more buildings are fitted out with this solution, more stress on the electricity net is reduced. I reckon that two dozen buildings all over Sharjah might reduce the pressure enough for the peak pressure to go away. And it will push a zero carbon setting too. 

All this is not a given, but I reckon that Chinese developers will see this as a way to come in as this path could see billion in revenue. Tesla has the battery advantage, I have no idea what China has in this area. You know what is the most striking one? I had in part the solution here in this blog two years before the rest had admitted that there is a power problem coming our way. The issue becomes that as time passes, not enough time will remain to implement the solution as well as the given that too many places at the point need this solution all at the same time and no one will be able to deliver this solution. To give a rough estimate Manhattan, Texas and Los Angeles will need a rough 12000 batteries. London is another 3500 batteries and I have no idea what the EU will need. Consider that one source gave the 2030 option, it would imply that at least 20,000-35,000 batteries are needed. I am certain that these numbers are hard to reach. So that leaves the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Australia and several other countries. Soon enough it will become a rat-race for the components. 

Enjoy Saturday, preferably with all appliances still getting power.

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July 6, 2023 · 00:00

Reuter catches up

Yup, that is the frame I am looking at. A mere 2 hours ago Reuters gives us ‘Insight: Swing state Republicans bleed donors and cash over Trump’s false election claims’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/swing-state-republicans-bleed-donors-cash-over-trumps-false-election-claims-2023-07-05/) there we see “The withdrawal of bankrollers like Weiser reflects the high price Republicans in the battleground states of Michigan and Arizona are paying for their full-throated support of former President Trump and his unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him” and you wonder why this is ‘surprising’. Yet, when you consider that months ago (April 20th to be exact) I wrote in ‘Is UNemployed a thing?’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/04/20/is-unemployed-a-thing/) “Should Fox settle Smartmatic, or lose in the trials these small sharks will come and take huge chunks out of the Fox cadaver. No matter how you slice it, it will leave a gap for any contender of Fox to step forward because for 1-2 years it will have to contemplate how to go forward and how to invest funds going forward and that leaves their number one customer the Republican Party. Any contender could snatch that client away from Fox, which leaves Fox in a bind.” Now we see this happen and way beyond Fox, yet Fox too will be bleeding a fair bit. In the end these bankrollers need a return on investment and al things Republican are about to feel the pinch in a stage where they cannot afford to lose investors and bankrollers. I reckon that anyone on that horse will soon feel the pinch of lost revenue and more important, anyone feeling serious about their business will not do it with these people. With added “The dismissal impacted prime-time ratings at Fox News, with 20 percent of its audience dropping off between the first and second quarter of the year, according to a review of Nielsen data” this is merely one quote, but it fits the expectations I had and with that bloodletting, tapping the vein will be a lot more dangerous for all republicans involved. People like Liz Cheney have a chance as they turned away from the Trump madness from day one and t cost Liz, it cost her dearly, now she is about to become one of the few members (together with Mitt Romney) that could herald some future in the republican party. Personally I believe that they lost the honourable John McCain too early. That man would have been fifty times the president that Donald Trump imagined he could have become. But that is for another day. In the first the Republican Party needs to reset whatever idiotic view they had and they need to restore whatever they can and it better be WITHOUT Fox News. They lost whatever little credibility they had in the Dominion case and the Smartmatic case hasn’t even started yet. When you add it all up the republican party is in shambles and I saw this months before Reuters seemingly caught on. I reckon there is another side that will gradually catch on. You see bankrollers like Weiser will not ‘suddenly’ become democrats, I get that but that leaves the independent people in an interesting phase. Several states will now have a larger appeal to these politicians. I reckon that people like Cheney and Romney will try to salvage what they can, but people like Mitch McConnell have created gaps by ‘appeasing’ to all republican players (or at least those who shouted loudest) as such he will be trying to fence the republican meadow, but the sheep are already in a panic and large parts of the meadow have no fence. Plenty will side with Cheney/Romney, but too many will not and that is where the independents will have an interesting field day and for some it will be their first chance to gain foothold with corporations that preferred the republican side. The GOP made too big a mess and now the funds will walk away, add to that the dangers that Fox brings and the people they lost and we get a new setting. I partially captured it with “it will leave a gap for any contender of Fox to step forward” and Alex Jones already pushed himself out of the game with all that crazy talk, as such they both stand to lose more and more and the new players who are, what some would define as “republican readable information” will have a field day with collecting from the bankrollers and politicians that need a reliable platform and as such Fox will lose more and more and people will shun the conspiracy people like Alex Jones. As the comedians like Trae Crowder would state as “These people are leaving us? Is it my birthday, again?” And that is the larger setting for Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney (and a few more) and it will redraw republican political lines. I reckon that people like Mitch McConnell will look at the battlefield that they helped to create and wander to a paddock with a stable and intensely quietly live out their life in solitude. They literally bet on the wrong horse which becomes a ‘horse no show’. And that is the larger station for any corporation who had set their money on republican fields. They will consider what to do next and that is where independents will make larger gains, especially where the republicans bungled the ball (and their balls too). I reckon that Florida is in for a very new stage and 2026 will be bad news for Ron DeSantis who lost on a few fronts and the billion dollar losses he instilled via Disney will cost him a lot more, the 2024 elections (next to Donald Trump) first and his governor seat second (his approval rate now in the low 30’s). In this a new setting will evolve. Charlie Crist (D) is the clear favourite here, yet any Republican that did not agree with DeSantis could evolve an independent platform, especially if they want to make nice with Disney. That is merely one of several stages where the GOP will lose more and more ground. 

A lot of this is speculation, but it fits the data that is openly available, which does not make it true. Yet, consider that politicians require endorsements from corporations to continue. What corporation will continue in Florida after DeSantis blew a billion in investments from Disney? And after these fake allegations through places like Fox News, what corporation wants their name and reputation connected to these channels? It was a simple clear setting and no one looked into it at the time and now we see the Reuter stage and others will follow. I wonder what game people like Mitch McConnell will play next when they realise that the people they politically blew away are his only option to remain where he is? That gives a new interpretation to the expression ‘Will work for paddock and stable’ and yes I just made that expression up. 

And when you realise that the republicans are about to lose Arizona, Florida and Michigan (I personally think they will lose Texas too) the fact becomes clear. If the democrats win these three (or four) they will have the house, the senate and congress for at least two terms all at the same time. As I see it, for some republicans yielding the field to independents is their only option as they will need 3-5 years to clean the mess they allowed Donald Trump to create and in all this Ron DeSantis was little to no help at all and regaining hist lost estimated 25% approval will take way too long and Disney is not on his side. The one corporation that employs 75,000 people in Florida and that amounts to a total of (employed and connected) to roughly 1,683,000 votes. This gives Charlie Crist a new lease on political life. It is my personal view that for the republican party Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are their only chance to regain some of the lost fields, yet I reckon it will not be enough for the the 2024 presidential elections. The best they can hope for (for now) is limit the damage they incur. That is my own personal view on the matter.

Have a great day.

 

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April 12, 2023 · 07:13

A weird choice of thoughts

I have them at times, not merely during the daytime, at times the ones at night are even weirder. I was in what I think was a Google location. It was extremely sunny and warm, as such I think I might have been in California. I was in the foyer of a building, it was open and spacious. Almost like a circle, there was a circle in the centre where receptionists were working and assisting people. Around me were windows, they had a lower part and an upper part. The lower part was about 80% of the height of the room, the upper part was about 20%. The upper parts were different, they had stained windows, each window had a Google logo in stained glass style, the logo was surrounded by milky white glass. It had an interesting effect on the foyer, the foyer was bathing in colours. Each logo was adding colours to the room, one part was a little less bright, this logo was not surrounded by milky white glass, but by black glass, it was the Stadia logo. As I looked around the foyer I saw the Drive logo, the YouTube logo, the cloud logo, mail logo, calendar logo and several more. I started looking at the people and they all looked stressed, they looked worried, but I could not see a reason. The circle only had 2 of the 5 computers switched on. I started to walk around and I walked up the staircase. People looked frantic they were talking, but they were also looking though papers. I saw in one hall that only one row of computers was switched on. The conference rooms were empty, TV’s were not switched on, the coffee corner had its coolers switched off, or so it looked. There were people all around but it was a population of less than 10% of what was made room for. 

As I walked around I saw more and more people nervous, some scared but not of each other. It seemed to me that there was a massive shortage of electricity, an energy crises unlike any one I had ever seen. I had seen the energy issues on Crete, but it was a minor issue, this was a lot worse and a lot more intense. I could not feel the het, but everyone around me was sweating. The rooms had a distinct Google feeling like I had seen them in Sydney. I looked outside but I saw no ocean, perhaps the angle was wrong. On the other side I saw high rises nearby, at least a dozen buildings. Not sure where I was and for some reason I could not any of the conversations. It was almost like they were talking alien, or I was not hearing correctly, but there conversations were not meant for me, or I was not part of that side, I was merely there to see, to watch and to observe. People were massively underdressed, dressed like they knew it was a 40C degrees day, thin flimsy and mostly covering their bodies in this both men and women had taken heed of slight covering is better than melting away, and with the obvious lack of cold drinks they were relying on water, or so it seemed to me. This is nearly all I saw, I merely heard the words ‘That’s enough’, the only two words I heard in the entire dream. Was someone showing me what will be? It was only a dream and I have no idea why I saw this. I had seen data all over the place, but is this the setting the US will face in the near future? Places that cannot continue because the energy crises is overwhelming places? I have no idea, for me it was merely a dream, but one that felt uneasy, it lacked the comfort I usually have in a dream. A setting where a government due to inaction needs to find a new path, a new approach to satisfy the need of corporations and they all need energy a setting we saw for years but the greed driven were telling everyone that there would be enough time, there would be options. It seems that this setting has been passed and passed without activity. I wonder what will come next and as I am trying to make a tally, Texas, California and New York will need at least two, two and one nuclear reactor to keep on par with the energy requirements, the alternatives will not roll out in time and these reactors would not be build in time either. Yet as I consider that part, I realise that the EU and UK are in similar settings. They have a lack of energy resources and the shortage gap is merely increasing.

It was a weird choice of thoughts to have, but I think it has been fuelled by the decrease of oil, the numbers and numerous tables and charts I was looking at and I think my subconscious filled in the blanks through a story. And it is about to get worse for these places, summer is coming and that implies millions of AC units draining energy from June onwards. In this Texas and California are the strongest places, but New York is another place. The New York Times gave us 11 hours ago “The high cost of natural gas and electricity is prompting many to prepare for outages and shortages.” Yet personally I feel that it is not only the price of electricity, I feel that there will be an actual shortage and in that setting, for the warmer summer states late July through to mid September will be challenge to say the least. In California and Florida, those with theme parks will have their own set of problems and a lack of electricity will be the smallest of issues. A stage that would come, but now it comes sooner and even my dreams have no answers. In part because I cannot tell when the shortages hit, in part because I know very little of the energy solutions that nations have, it is not my expertise, but I do realise that energy can be seen in what is available and what is used and that is a simple tabular setting and as such I understand the shortages that several will face in a summer state in the northern hemisphere and as such when that happens a lot will happen and it will happen all over Asia too. 

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March 4, 2023 · 00:32

When is a fence not one?

That is the thought I had a few days ago when I was confronted with ‘Finland’s main parties back plans to build Russia border fence’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/finland-main-parties-back-plans-build-russia-border-fence), it was a newer story with added parts, and they do not matter at present. You see, the Finnish border with Russia is 1,340km, like the Texas Mexico fence, it is folly. On the stage of getting a 1,340,000 metre fence costs more than the combined reserves of ALL EU nations, as such Finland cannot afford it. Then we get the simple setting that large parts of such a fence can be tunnelled under in simple ways. And to withstand the power of any tank that wall needs to be strong and it might merely delay any invasion by an hour, so what gives anyone the idea that this wall is a solution, other than the delusional thoughts of some politician? 

I honestly do not get it. Then, if you look at the map, the northern part of Finland borders Norway, who then borders Russia, so how to solve that? Build a wall that includes Norway? There are a dozen settings where the wall falls short, as such the use of a wall there is just folly. 

So what gives someone the idea that a wall was any kind of a solution to anything at all? And when you consider the Russian smugglers who use Finland to get to the shores to Sweden (the Lulea – Tornio – Russia route), I feel sure that some people will see the wall fail there as well. But the Guardian seemed to bite on that red herring with “Finland’s border guard last month suggested building a fence several metres high, topped with razor wire and equipped with surveillance cameras and sensors along 160 miles of the border – roughly 20% of its total”, so we have a wall that is covering 20% of the border, as such where? And when you consider that 80% is still available what does it do but take resources away, resources Finland does not really have that much to begin with. Then we get “The fence would protect areas identified as posing a potential risk of large-scale migration from Russia, mainly in south-east Finland, where most traffic crosses the border, but also around border stations in the north of the country”, which now implies that the Lulea – Tornio – Russia route could also make money for refugee smuggling, so yes, that was a really good idea from day one (sarcasm implied). And then we get the juiciest steak in political Finland. It is given to us with “The project would take up to four years to complete and could cost several hundred million euros, according to border guard estimates. Final approval for the main phase could be delayed until April, when Finland is due to hold parliamentary elections”, did you catch the stage? At a minimum of 200M, the fence will cost $1.3M per mile, which is ridiculously cheap, as such the cost would be well above 400 million and that is still decently cheap. Because border guards, electronic surveillance and a few other items will put the wall, the limited wall at no less than a billion, which is a lot more than several hundred million euros and that is before budgets are overrun and the entire mess will be useless at the price of close to €2,000,000,000 and that is still pinching pennies whilst the wall has no depth, implying that digging under it would be decently easy. So in this time of need, which nation has 2 billion ready to waste on solutions that go nowhere? At present NPR gives us that the Mexican wall is set to around $20,000,000 per mile, implying that Finland is looking at $3.2 billion, implying that my simple calculus exercise was right on the nose with €2,000,000,000 and as Finland has time issues (like Winter is coming) the 4 years is also over optimistic. Increasing the Finnish army by 300% might be cheaper and as we saw that the Ukrainian turned the Russian bear into sishkebab, that idea might be a lot more effective. A wall that cannot defend itself is merely a place you can get around and in this day and age, walls are avoided most of the time. To b e honest, I would like the politicians behind this give us the numbers on how they got to the few hundred million euro. I reckon we can all use the entertainment.

I reckon looking closely at the construction firms and their connections might reveal a few additional items, but that is me, ever the skeptic. Oh that is all before we look at the cost and maintenance of guards on that stretch of wall, you would need well over 80 guard groups, with 24 hour coverage, travel settings and food/drink options. I reckon I low balled the cost by a lot.

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