Tag Archives: the Guardian

March 21, 2015 · 12:27

This is not Sparta!

You might not realise it, but many of us have a Greek side in us. The gamers are all about ‘This is Sparta!’ as they slay their opponents Gerard Butler style (a Scotsman no less) in Diablo 3, more than a few of them would also consider becoming the consort of Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo), a woman who might be twice their age, but still looks better than the average 25 year old photo model. Some with a more academic approach will be confronted with the Socratic Method as they get through another Uni class. Some will love it, some will hate it. It seems there are no people in the middle ground here. Doctors still recite the Hippocratic Oath and we could argue that Prudence which comes from Phronesis, a Greek word, which got introduced by some old Greek with a beard. I remember the speech, this old guy suddenly making a speech, roughly 334BC, I was watching the Panathenaic Games and suddenly he starts deliberating (at himself) in a most bombastic voice. The man starts ‘ranting’ about something called Nicomachean Ethics, nice, but not while ‘I am watching a game!’ Someone told me his name was Aristotle. I reckon the fab never caught on. Let’s face it, public speakers and the virtue of practical thought, it will never catch on, I reckon. Guess what! It has been 2345 years and I was right! Take this Tsipras fellow, as I see it, he continues a long line of public speakers void of practical wisdom.

That we see in ‘Greece financial crisis: EU offers funds in return for urgent reforms‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/20/greece-financial-crisis-eu-offers-funds-in-return-for-urgent-reforms). You see, this Alexis Tsipras has been in office almost 2 months now and as we can read in the article, he has nothing to show for it. He was supposed to show reform, he now has 10 days and the photo as printed shows away hiding his mouth behind his first. Is it agony, frustration, defiance? Is it all just theatre? The BBC with ‘Greece to draft new reform plan within days – EU leaders‘ (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31963952), which shows a ‘smiling’ Tsipras with the quote “Greece has agreed to come up with a new reform plan within days to secure the additional bailout funds required to prevent bankruptcy“, read those words carefully. It does not state, ‘will finalise’, or ‘will complete the current draft’, it states ‘to come up with a new reform plan’. So when we see the quote “I think that all the sides confirmed their intention to try to do their best to overcome the difficulties of the Greek economy as soon as possible“, I feel slightly miffed. You see Tsipras is all about the blame game. In one part, he has every right to be so, because the mess was not initially of his making. He did get into the elections as he saw he could ‘play’ the voters and now it is crunch time, he cannot deliver, because whatever defiant act he will attempt will cost the people of Greece dearly. As I see it, he’ll end up doing exactly what Antonis Samaras was doing, I wonder if that constitutes election fraud? Promising something, not doing it and doing what the opposition was doing all along. As I saw it (yes, a personal view), Antonis Samaras was a fine politician trying to decently play a really crappy hand that he got dealt. You see, in this regard, none of them have done anything  about holding to response the previous administrations that tailored the deal, that spend money an entire next generation did not have, not to mention the artful tax dodgers, none of that was as I see it done! I reckon that Tsipras would only have to arrest Kostas Vaxevanis to show that he is no better than any of the other previously elected politicians.

You see my emotion here is because I love Greece (Specifically Crete), I feel pain as I see that it is driven into the ground by elected officials, it is largely done so through inactions, which makes it even worse. It is sloth in its most profound form, not just spiritual and emotional apathy, it is done through additional decisive inaction. A form of treason of the worst kind. Almost like the captain of a ship who now INTENTIONALLY goes towards an iceberg expecting the iceberg to get out of the way. It reminds me of an advertisement where the captain of a cruiser (USS Montana) who decided to play chicken with a lighthouse (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYsdUgEgJrY), yet in this case it is not a person being handed ‘incomplete’ or ‘incorrect’ information. In this case we all know the object in front of the good ship Hellenic Republic and its captain(s) have not taken the measures they should have. This is how the news is reading to me. What should have been done is a list of continuing meetings non-stop with all parties. The Greeks were given a play, theatre of a mediocre level and soon they will not be left with any options. As I personally see it, politics of its very worst kind.

All this now reflects in a bad way, especially if we take the word of the NOS (Dutch News). Here we see “‘De verwachting was dat het goed zou komen’, zegt de Rabobank-econoom. ‘Maar het probleem is dat de Grieken steeds hun beloftes breken. Ze proberen steeds opnieuw over de voorwaarden te onderhandelen’” “‘The expectations were that everything would be fine’ said the Rabobank economist, ‘but the problem is that the Greeks break their promises and then try to renegotiate their deal again and again’{translated}” as well as “We zijn wel gewend van de Europese politiek dat oplossingen pas gevonden worden als we bijna in de afgrond stappen” “We are used that European politics will find a solution as we are about to step into the abyss {translated}”.

This all directly reflects back to the days of the SNS-bank debacle ‘too big to fail‘. It seems that Tsipras is taking the ‘let’s take this over the abyss, so I can blame someone else‘ approach. Not the most subtle path of the blame game, but a blame game tactic none the less. When did we see any serious step to address reform from Greece? It seems to me that the ‘let’s be nice one more time to Greece‘ is counted upon, yet no clear and decisive act from the Greek elected officials is coming. So as the possible mark of bankrupt is looming no more than 2 weeks away, did the Greek population consider that if the government is out of money, how much money is actually available at a bank? When the run on the bank starts, how quickly are those coffers empty and where will the people get cash to pay for the average need like food, water and electricity?

That part seems not addressed in any way!

Actually it is (at http://www.afr.com/news/world/greek-coffers-running-on-empty-bring-accident-threat-closer-20150320-1m3nym), the Australian Financial Review is not the only Financial Review paper, so there will be more, but for the most, we see little about this little part: “While Mr Tsipras isn’t saying what’s left in the bank, he acknowledges Greece is facing ‘liquidity pressure’. The country’s cash shortfall is projected to hit 3.5 billion euros in March“. So even if that part might be ‘virtual’ to some extent, how much money is actually available to banks? That part might be seen when we consider “The Bank of Greece has plugged cash shortfalls by tapping the reserves of other public sector entities, including pension funds, hospitals, and universities“, as well as “The Bank of Greece and the European Central Bank won’t report official cash outflows for January until the end of the month. But sources in the Greek banking sector have told Greek newspapers that as much as 25 billion euros (US $28.4 billion) have left Greek banks since the end of December“, which comes from http://www.cnbc.com/id/102439432. So in two weeks, how will things get paid for?

That is a question Greeks (the population at large) should be asking, because when the money is gone, how will they address the bills with the cash of their savings whilst the banks had pushed them in possible other none profit making endeavours? At least, if things really collapse, we can always opt ‘at least it was due to a radical left vision’, in the past (read 70’s), the radical left visions gave way in Italy to Brigate Rosse and in Germany to the Rote Armee Fraktion. Their economy was never this desperate, so I wonder what the Greeks will come up with, I am however sure that it will be blamed on the Germans (again).

In my view, I wonder, was I correct two years ago? Could an independent Crete have created at least a partial economic growth? Would Crete have been better off in a state of independence? I do not proclaim to have the evidence, but I feel that my feeling back then was spot on. Now the rest of Greece could drag down this island against their will.

It seems very unfair, but then in the politics of Tsipras (and that of politicians at large), fairness never had anything to do with it.

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March 17, 2015 · 11:02

Building Social gaming

Yes, this is about games, about video games specifically. There are two sides to the current article we see in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/16/roblox-minecraft-user-generated-gaming). The first one is the entire ‘for kids’ approach.

Well, that part I am smitten with, you see, games should be to a decent extent to get the next generation into technology. To get them to know how to get by, how to interact and how to properly use technology. Like any skill, a child starts with crawling, moves to walking, soon we see tricycles, bicycles and more advanced options for movement. We have puzzles for the mind, whether jigsaw or other. Even though these options are falling to the back more and more, it is the threshold of technology that will help them move forward and move forward faster. Nintendo has always been a champion in this matter. As it catered to the younger player and to the family game environment, Nintendo had a niche. PC’s have for a long time remained far behind, because the revenue to cater to a less young population was forever more appealing. Even though most will see Minecraft as a provider here, Roblox has been around a lot longer.

Now that Microsoft dished out 2 billion and spare change for Minecraft, Roblox is hoping to see an influx of cash in their market as well, and why not?

Yet now we hit the part that is a little (just a little) cause for concern:

““In December, we hit 4.7 million players. The foundation of Roblox is user-generated content: just like on YouTube there is so much to watch, on Roblox there is so much to play,” says Baszucki” as well as “People get really attached to it: many of our players have played for four to five years, and our developers range in age from eight to 80. Some of the top developers are 18 or 20, and we have kids in high-school who are making two, three or four thousand dollars a month“.

You see, where do they get that money from? More important, who is paying for these ‘costs’?

Well the article explains that as well: “How? By creating 3D games on Roblox’s website, then sharing them to be played online, as well as on iOS, Android and Kindle Fire devices. The money comes from the in-game currency, “Robux”, bought by players to spend within games, and then exchanged for real money again by those games’ developers“.

Is that a problem? Well, no not directly, as I see it, Roblox is all about creativity, yet some things must be bought. So their currency sets 400 Robux at $5 (for builders it is 450 for the same price), making a Robux around a cent (1.25 to be more exact), which might not be a biggie and 10,000 for $100 (15000 for developers), which makes a Robux $0.01, even less for developers. But what does it get you? More important, if some ‘developers’ get 5000 a month, how much money is exchanging hands here? Well, when you become a member of the Outrageous Builders Club and you have in excess of 100,000 Robux and a valid PayPal as well as a verified email address, you could qualify, if you successfully signed up for the Devex program. The last one seems to be set up to prevent phishing, falsehood and a few other markings. This all seems on the up and up. The exchange is 100,000 for $250. That comes down to 0.25 cents to the Robux, which gives the makers of Roblox a 4 to 1 profit. Now we get back to the very first paragraph “Some of our top developers are starting to get about a quarter of a million dollars a year. They’re treating it literally as a career, and starting to hire their friends…”, so how many Robux did that income make?

Now, this is supposed to be about the games and gaming design, which I do not oppose, so when I see the line ‘we have kids in high-school who are making two, three or four thousand dollars a month‘, meaning that they sold R$800K, R$1.2M, R$1.6M. At 4 to one that works out pretty spiffy for the makers, but is no one asking the question, how much money are your children sinking into this game that is the question! Even though much is clearly stated by the people behind it and even though we see “Roblox is free to play, but to get Builders Club which gives you more features“, we soon see that the smallest club is already $6 a month, making this a $70+ a year enterprise, which might not be bad, but everything costs in this game, from hats (that are seen as a status symbol as I personally see it) and there are more parts to all this, so when I saw the ‘promise of income’ as the article seems to imply, my question to Stuart Dredge becomes: ‘How deep did you look into the article you wrote?’ There is another side to the cash thing that was also not mentioned, The Roblox people had relief fund drives, which means that buying a hat (red, Blue, Rising sun) and for every hat sold, Roblox donated to relief funds for Haiti, Red Cross, the Tsunami efforts, so there is also a social drive towards good causes and this game ended up sending thousands upon thousands of dollars fuelled by the people getting the hat to be socially aware. That is a very good thing, especially as this is an environment driven largely towards the ‘less adults’ (small citizens usually younger than 18).

So, am I lashing out at the makers of Roblox? No, not really, they seem to be clear about the options and about the costs, and people can start with a free account, one world and the choice to continue if it is their kind of world. This is all fair, but do the parents realise what happens when these kids sign up for more? Perhaps they do, but do they realise the added price tag? You see, that might all be fair and good and it is important to note that Roblox shows nearly all the information openly and clearly. They have no traps in there. The only paragraph touching on this is “A platform with lots of children playing and a growing number of games using in-app purchases? It sounds like a recipe for controversy, especially with the US Federal Trade Commission poking around in the affairs of Amazon, Apple and now Facebook over children’s in-app spending“. I think the paragraph is much too meager and other elements are not looked at (as I showed in my earlier part).

There is also a second side to Roblox. A side we all ignored unless we actively dug into it ourselves. You see, I was around when Atari had STOS, Amiga has AMOS and when we saw the growth of Little Big Planet one, two and three. We all think we are future game developers. I played with some of the demos and was able to change a few things get some things rolling, but overall, no matter how good my insight, you need creativity and vision. Roblox is giving tools to the makers to address their creativity, but what about vision? Well, I got my parts done in the builder of Neverwinter Nights, and the best result was making an actual adventure for the Commodore-64. The last part was done by a set of articles that were published in a magazine called ‘Computer and Video Games (CVG)‘ in the mid 80’s. I learned so much from those articles.

Here we see the power of these tools, which brings out vision and creativity through patience and persistence. When a parent realises this part and that a game like Roblox could empower these two elements, then spending $72 a year is a steal at twice the price. Whether this results in making some actual cash, or just makes the maker break even with the costs involved, the last one would be worth it all because whatever they make now, will shape the power of innovation down the line. Kids (adults too) could go through life never realising the power that creating innovation brings.

It is the last paragraph that matters: “Ultimately, games that start to look like high-end CGI movies. And companies are starting to realise that this user-generated content segment could be bigger than any individual games company. There’s so much leverage from being a platform rather than a content producer, where every few years you need a new huge property”. There is a truth and a hidden untruth here, the games that look like high end movies come at a large cost for the player, when we see $100 games that give us no more than 10 hours, we see that a move towards sandbox games are definitely worth it, because the overwhelming difference that value for money gives the player, yet the failed attempt we see in games like Assassins Creed Unity, a game released last November, that is still receiving patches (at http://www.designntrend.com/articles/40441/20150218/assassins-creed-unity-ps4-xbox-one-patch-release-ubisoft-gameplay-graphics-multiplayer-glitches.htm). By the way, personally as I see it, when we see the quote “patch 1.05 goes a long way towards promoting ‘stability and performance’ in the latest entry to the annualized franchise“, I mention this for two reasons, the first is that high end games, when not properly supervised could become the end of any software house, the second reason is that the Assassins Creed Wikia calls it a “Assassin’s Creed: Unity is a 2014 sandbox action adventure game“, trust me that any reference to Assassins Creed being a ‘sandbox game’ is like comparing a Ford Edsel to a Bentley, Minecraft being the Bentley that is.

So as we see Roblox and Minecraft as the growing community towards the sandbox loving gamers, I see a win-win situation. You see, I remain a fan of RPG games, these games propel the interest and the desire for RPG games and as such, I will win as better RPG games are released.

So as we consider the subtitle where we see that Roblox is an environment of 4.7 million people, focusing on growth, we can see that Roblox has a future as it focuses on all devices and Cloud based usage. The only danger I see now is that they might try to grow too fast in too many directions. There might be a comparison to Minecraft, but not in the user base, because Minecraft has over 100M users registered on PC and well over 50 million copies sold on consoles. Roblox could grow faster and larger, but as I see it, it will have to offer more to the free player, as I see it by adding 2 worlds and adding those option to have more options for free. It would be fair enough to make those free players earn these options to be unlocked in some way, but as the starting player is reeled in through the growth of options and interactions, so will their eagerness in becoming a premium member. It is that growth curve that Roblox will need, because no matter how proud they are with their 4.7 million players, if they want to attract bigger business they will need to do more than just double their current base, in addition, as the article shows a drive for makers to ‘make’ money, we need to also consider (in all fairness) that in the end, it must be looked at how much currency is transacted in and how this is broken down in user population (especially the age group based demographics). As I stated before Roblox has been on the up and up in this regard, but their continuation will require a massive jolt towards value for money, because that will drive growth faster and a lot more profound.

 

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March 16, 2015 · 01:10

In fear of the future

As elections draw near, we see an everlasting image of what was, what could be and what is. The last of the issues is then rejected in two directions. As the Tories will go from what is into what could be, we will see labour into the mesh of what was and what did not happen. They are elements we saw coming a mile away (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/14/osborne-budget-speech-economy-growth-deficit).

War is constant!
The political face of warfare never changes!

Both true, both unconditionally an issue in this day and age.

You see, the one trillion in debt is bogging down the UK and the Commonwealth as a whole. We need to bring it down, yet when we see the more likely response as it is given in the Guardian: “Deficit reduction has been much slower than Osborne forecast five years ago. In his first budget, in June 2010, the chancellor predicted that he would need to borrow £37bn in 2014-5” and “that tax receipts would cover day-to-day government spending. The actual figure will be almost three times that“. Both are right, both are staring down the wrong rabbit hole! If we accept the generic statement that the UK faces a £43 billion interest bill every year, which is more than the spending of Defence, are we catching on? Bankers end up with a 43 billion payout, which is certain money, no risk and all very much fuelling a banking bonus. The interest is just a little shy of 50% of the allowance for Education. Getting rid of the debt must remain the highest priority. Apart from most of us regarding the interest bill as an issue, it is nothing compared to what happens if the budget is not properly managed. Yes, it sounds so nice that we see the quote “Vince Cable has warned that George Osborne has no room in next Wednesday’s budget for a substantial pre-election giveaway, but acknowledged that there was some headroom in the public finances for modest tax cuts or an increase in public spending” (at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/13/vince-cable-osborne-budget-no-room-pre-election-bonanza), but regard the Guardian image (at http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/mar/21/budget-2014-tax-spending-visualised#img-1). Here we see that borrowing was still needed, at the amount of £84 billion, which means that the debt is not diminishing. At the same time, the Eurozone decided to go on a one trillion spending spree, which will hit the UK (as part of the EU) sooner rather than later, which is part of the problem too, because these spending sprees are only working for a drive of the people towards Ukip. To be honest, I am not sure if the premise has changed. I remained on the fence considering that leaving the EEC was too dangerous, but as we see irresponsibility and non-accountability (the sad comedy of a threesome involving a Greek, a credit card and a banker) is now fuelling a stronger drive towards Ukip, Whilst political Europe is wording bad management clauses and whilst they have no real solution, we see deeper dive into debt. The UK MUST AT ALL COST prevent this nightmare. It seems all too clear that Germany is now also ready to leave the Eurozone. Perhaps not the politicians in an outspoken way, but the German people seem to have had enough. Of all the crazy rock bands that Europe has, the Greek one, with at the microphone Alexis Tsipras, the drums are played by Panos Kammenos and as ever in style of Greek theatrics, the Bass is played by Yanis Varoufakis. The name of this band is Aite and it remains to be seen how long the band will remain in existence. You see, instead of addressing failures, the players of this band entered the blame game. A game played by many, yet always only illustrating their own lack of commitment.

In that we see a link to the UK, the UK, its MP’s and those in charge with a title of that what is (like Chancellor of the Exchequer), this person cannot relax, because if it was needed to borrow £84 billion, that means that the words of Vince Cable were poorly chosen, because there was never any headroom. Even if there had been no borrowing, the headroom was not there, the debt must go down, the faster it goes down, the better everyone will feel and the more the government can do for the People of the United Kingdom.

It is just that simple and yes, we will all feel the pain for many more years, because previous governments had not taken control of its spending. Now that the invoice is way past due, the bulk of politicians are all about pushing it forward about pushing away that what should have been dealt with by a responsible person (read a person elected into office). The Tories are trying to get that done and they have also faced backlashes and setbacks. No one can deny that, but the debt must be dealt with.

The issue is seen here: “The Lib Dems have been pressing for a further rise in the £10,000 a year personal tax allowance – the sum before which any income tax is paid – in an effort to press home his party’s ownership of the single biggest tax reform of the parliament. The allowance is already projected to rise to £10,600 from April. Every £100 annual increase in the personal allowance costs £500m. The alternative will be to align national insurance with the personal tax allowance, a measure favoured in the past by Cable as doing more to help those on low pay“. In view, I am willing to consider this as an essential option, but if we are to move forward, it should only be allowed in a balanced budget approach. So, helping those on low pay is fine, but only if we change Basic rate to 21% and higher rate to 42%, which means that above the £10,600, the basic income goes up by a maximum of £318 and in addition, high income get an additional maximum of £836. This allows us a balanced budget. If you wonder why not the highest toll? Well, they also get the 1% of the base and the 2% of high anyway, that group is dwindling down and to seek even more to that smaller group seems a little unfair (the non-bankers that is). The second premise here is that this extra collected fee can ONLY be used to balance out the lost revenue from the basic rate group that had their annual income between £10,000 and £13,000 per annum. The rest of the collected tax MUST go towards lowering the debt. If we can believe the 2014 article by the Guardian, this will hit 6000 people, which means that it only raise a few millions, so taxing the rich has always seemed like and always remains a hilarious act of pointlessness. It is the 1% from the basic rate that will truly make a difference. It will drive the debt down faster, it will lower the interest bill which will help lower the debt even more.

It is basic calculus, an abacus can give you the information and politicians at large have just been skimming the sidelines towards the premise of confusion. If you doubt these words (always a fair notion), than ask Vince Cable to clearly explain where he found the headroom to manoeuvre!

The only big issue I have with George Osborne at this point is the voiced idea “We will ease back on austerity while sticking to our deficit-cutting target“. The article states against this “Even after a trim, Osborne’s cuts programme will still look drastic. Labour will argue that he is taking too much of a risk with economic growth and jeopardising essential public services“, in my view, easing austerity remains dangerous, the fact that the interest bill exceeds defence spending should be a massive red flag over everyone’s budget. On a global scale, bankers grow rich whilst sleeping through the bad cycle, how is this ever a good idea? Sticking to deficit cutting remains a goal, but you endanger this premise by ‘easing’. That is not a premise or a guess, it is a mathematical certainty. Whomever is telling you a different story is (as I see it) lying to you. My evidence? The 1 trillion debt, which resulted in total into £43 billion in annual interest bills and still there were £84 billion in additional loans. Total fo5r last year would be £127 billion in money going somewhere else.

The final issue is the crackdown on tax evasion, these politicians all talk and talk, but this could have been settled in the simplest of ways 2 years ago, perhaps even longer. It only requires one simple change to be accepted ALL OVER EUROPE, in all EEC nations. That one line is: “A company is taxable at the point of purchase by the consumer“, the buyer is the point of purchase, he/she buys an item, it does not matter WHERE the sales server is, by forcing locality in taxation we now see a fair dinkum approach; where the consumer spends that nation also sees taxation. I wonder how quick the Americans will now protest. They have played a long game of possum and now as we act, they will suddenly fear a drop in economic revenue as it all shifts in the true directions of where the money had gone. The change is so simple, is it not weird that those European Big Wigs could not, or would not consider such implementation? It will not make friendly faces in Ireland, but at least many will see a fair adjusted sales taxation approach.

Now we get back to the linked items, Germany is at the centre of changes that will impact the UK. I kept an eye on Bernd Lucke in the past as he was trying to drive Germany out of the Euro and the Eurozone. It was laughed of as a non-issue on more than one occasion. Now we see that Hamburg 2015 is a game changer, you might think that +6.1% is nothing, it seems low against the SPD with 45%, but the AFD now has seats where it did not have them before, also as the SPD is no longer a majority party, the game now changes in Germany for many people. The German people have had enough, the events of last month whilst a nation with a mere 2% of the Eurozone GDP is an affront to many people, especially as Greece is not cleaning up its act. This matter will soon shift in stronger ways. Linked to this is the victory Front National booked in 2015. They won the first round in the by-election. Something also quite unheard of, but not by me as I have seen the premise change all over Europe. Now as we see escalations, whilst the damage that uncertainty brings in regards to the UK total debt is seen in the growth of Ukip (at http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/07/ukip-100-second-places-may-election-nigel-farage). Now we see the title ‘Ukip on track for 100-plus second places across England‘. I believe the Greek issues will drive a walk towards the Nigel Farage party even stronger. And to more than a lesser degree it can be seen a result through the actions of Greece. Bringing up WW2 reparations was (as I see it) the worst they could have done. You see, we all have issues in that regard, but they are counterproductive. As I see it, the Germans still owe my grandfather a Bicycle (Dutch cultural joke), but that device will not do anything for any economy, now even my own and I guarantee you, the bike did not cost anywhere near €162B, even as special a bike as my grandfather had in 1943.

So I am in fear of future, because these escalations are mostly all due to non-accountability. As Greece shows the self-confidence and pride that seems to be self-destructive, we see this element of Aite the Greek band I mentioned earlier, named after the Greek goddess of folly, ruin and delusion, leading to the downfall of all Greeks in the end. Feel free to doubt my words, but only today did we see this in Reuters (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/14/eurozone-greece-italy-idUSL6N0WG08S20150314), Italy is now making clear that Grexit will not represent a risk for Italy. The Greeks allowed for a game of chance once too often, now we see: “a Greek exit would be ‘very negative’ but he was confident a solution would be found. EU executives warned on Friday that Greece abandoning the euro could lead to ‘catastrophe’“. One dark cloud does not make for Grexit, but Europe at large seems to have its fill of Greece and not facing consequences of THEIR actions. Does the Greek population realise the dangers and the hardship the Drachma will bring? The rich of Greece will get by, I reckon the rest as all savings are diminished by exchange rates a lot less so.

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March 10, 2015 · 22:48

Dante’s Greek tragedy

There are two issues currently in play, one is a local one that gives all kinds of ‘human rights’ vibes and I will get to that in the next instance. This one is all about Greece. There are more than two views. The first view is the one we see in the Guardian. The title “’Talk less and do more’, Greek PM urges finance minister Yanis Varoufakis” (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/08/talk-less-and-do-more-greek-pm-urges-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis), seems apt, but the Greek PM needs to realise that he wanted a rock star, the visibility, the game. Did he forget that he needs to SHOW results? Guess what, I reckon that he did just that, because after the victory speech, when he needs to get the ball going, the Greek people might start to catch on that the only decent path Alexis Tsipras has is the one that Antonis Samaras had been on in the first place. The second story comes from the BBC called “Greece told to ‘stop wasting time’ over debt deal” (at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31793145), the two important quotes are “European creditors want to approve a detailed list of reforms before they release any loans to Greece” and “But, so far, Greece has only outlined a broad range of intended changes“.

This links back to the event where a ‘rock star’ is the Greek governments CFO.

The Dutch news (NOS) gives us “Grieken uiterlijk woensdag in gesprek met trojka”, meaning that the Greeks will talk to troika (IMF, EEC and the ECB) within the next 48 hours. Here is as I see it, where the ‘rock star’ will have to ‘earn’ his keep. You see, whatever deal the current government wants to achieve, if they do not make actual commitments, the money ends, Grexit becomes a reality and the Greek way of life will be the first civilisation that became extinct twice. It’s a whole new world!

Still, we must all realise and accept that Grexit is an extreme, one that bankers on a global level are trying to prevent as the consequences for many players will become the realisation that the Dutch SNS bank faced. When the idea ‘too big to fail‘ is replaced with ‘screw that, you’re done!‘ we see another mesh of consequences.

There is another side to all this. If we look at several sources, in this case the quote comes from Al Jazeera we see: “Varoufakis said in an interview to Italy’s Corriere de la Sera newspaper that if the creditors do not eventually approve the reforms, his government could call new elections or a referendum“, which get us to the wasting time part. You see, reforms were ALWAYS at the centre of it all and as such, from the moment they got elected, it was up to Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis to lock themselves up in their office and work on actual possible solutions, even though in my mind, that path was (even though too harshly) walked by Antonis Samaras. You see, in all this, the non taxation, the Greeks with Swiss bank accounts and the lowering of revenue as a whole was the issue no one was willing to address at any time. Add to that previous irresponsible players with bond billions leaving repayment to the successors of government had no solution ever. It all viewed like an episode of comedy capers with the people at large taking the word of a junkie stating ‘trust me’, whilst the junk pointed at a highly mobile fence stating ‘he’ll check the numbers next week’ then the masses at large are surprised that the fence moved on, the junkie partied to death and no one is willing to foot the bill. And this seems to be a government based view.

At the heart is the fact that Greece could be seen as stumbling towards her end directly through inaction. Whilst plans could be presented in 48 hours, what happens when that is accepted and 94 days later a referendum rejects those? What then? Are we held to a new version of the Divine Comedy by Dantris Alighierakis in three parts, EEC, ECB and IMF? EEC is the part that could give us:

Greece enters the realm of indecisiveness

  • Here, the economists sigh as well, but not nearly as loudly or painfully as the tax payers
  • Suddenly, Greece sees a fire break up the darkness. The fire is the glow of a luminous castle and Jeroen Dijsselbloem is there.

And Greece enters the circle of Desire

  • She’s Pheme, a Greek girl and, in terms of blood, something like a princess. During her life, she was forced into a loveless political marriage. However, she fell in love with her husband’s younger brother and had an affair with his credit card. When the husband discovered her spending spree, he foreclosed them both, but ignored the unpaid invoices.
  • Greek, stirred to the deepest fibres of its soul stirred to the extreme by their emotion, sleeps it off and ignores it

And Greece enter the circle of Hunger

  • Greece incites political strife between the EEC and IMF. First the EEC will win a battle and drive the IMF out. But then the IMF will return with the help of the ECB and crushes the EEC, eventually driving many of them into destitution and deadly depression. Greece rallies as the other parties ignore reason so that Greece can continue “spending, ignoring and inaction”

I can go on but I might get way to close to replacing comic banter with plagiarism here, the message is clear, as we see the unfolding of another Greek tragedy, the people will be caught in the middle by inactive politicians, as they rely on their comfortable futures from those they need to deal with and a theatre is evolving where those getting the money are playing a game where the Greek people are left out in the cold. I wonder if Dante Alighieri ever envisioned that his epic work could end up being a metaphor for reality, I feel certain he did not.

Yet, as we look at the elements, will a serious deal be struck? Politicians must remain positive, but between the proposed plan and the actual implementation of it, years will pass, which means that money will be released on an academic whim that might not ever have been a reality. So are we watching the news, or are we watching a newscast presenting an episode of the Punch and Judy show?

This is at the heart of the matter. It also strikes on the next article that takes a harsh look on Human rights, refugees and the UN no less. Because we see the glittering neon presentation on how certain nations are ‘inhumane’, but those making the allegations (living on 6 figure incomes and higher) are very aware that the drive that propels forward humanitarian causes is defiled by the bulk of large corporations that have achieved non taxed status, which means that the coffers of governments are no longer able to foot bills. This links to Greece again as certain implied allegations (at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/greece-outlines-radical-immigration-reforms-150302083444990.html), now we see the quote “Within Greece, Syriza intends to provide alternatives to detention to tens of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees, such as open shelters, assisted voluntary returns, and integration programmes“, the reality is that there is no viable way to get integration programs started, in addition, the Greek unemployment rate is around 25%, so one in four is without a job, so how do you think an integration program will work? Greece had to act on many levels to their ‘immigration’ process, whilst they all know that these people would go on towards ‘wealthier’ and ‘healthier’ waters, like Italy and Western Europe, see Reuters video (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC12vbuWKds), so as there is a report of change towards ‘open’ reception places, where do you think these undocumented people will go to after they have been there for a day or two (catching their breath). This part is all innuendo, but that is at the core. We understand that we need facts, but as we see another Reuters article (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/10/us-eurozone-greece-varoufakis-idUSKBN0M60MN20150310), where we see the title ‘Varoufakis unsettles Germans with admission Greece won’t repay debts‘ with the quotes ““Clever people in Brussels, in Frankfurt and in Berlin knew back in May 2010 that Greece would never pay back its debts. But they acted as if Greece wasn’t bankrupt, as if it just didn’t have enough liquid funds,” Varoufakis told the documentary”, with the added quote “It was unclear when the program was recorded“. Really? Are you the reader that dim, to believe that little line?

Any digital recording has properties, like ‘date filmed’ and ‘last date edited’ as well as who filmed it and so on. They are known as Meta tags, and now we see a lack of clarity in facts? This article less than 6 hours old is nothing less than an introduction to a dance of letting Greece (partially) off the hook, with the possibility that Jeroen Dijsselbloem end up eating some humble pie in public on failing to resolve the Greek ‘issue’. No one wants to hold Greece to account at present (least of all Greece) and all this is a new iteration for those on high incomes to remain to keep the status quo a little longer. The article was written by Madeline Chambers, most important it was edited by Noah Barkin. I am curious to what EXACTLY was edited, what will become part of a managed bad news cycle this time? I get that Reuters will wait for actual facts, as they are a news agency, so as such, the editing might be extremely valid. What is also a fact is that the truth is that less clever people were also aware that Greece could never pay its debt, but what is not acceptable is that we see a European rock tour by Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis whilst the newly elected government is another one that could end up being the next one in a line of several elected Greek governments that end up never doing anything serious to tackle a failed Greek tax collection system, a failure that has been around for way too long now.

 

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March 10, 2015 · 19:05

What we create for us

The entire issue started with Jail time for a teacher. (at http://www.epictimes.com/2015/03/jail-time-for-teacher-who-showed-students-sexually-explicit-horror-flick/). It linked to the Guardian article (at http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/06/us-teacher-sexually-explicit-horror-film-jailed-the-abcs-of-death). The issue is that she did something so wrong, that I am surprised that she is only going away for a month (with a 3 year probation). Now, I am trying to exclude the movie as much as possible. It is not about that movie (apart from the level of inappropriateness of the chosen movie).

The first part to consider is found here: “She said that she faced away from the screen throughout all the screenings of the film and was unaware of its content, a claim described by Judge Charles A Schneider as “unconscionable. There’s no way you’ll persuade me that’s what happened.”“, in my view there is every indication that she knew exactly what she did.

After the case “she handed a note to reporters that read: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.””

Last there is a sideline with the quote: “Like Kearns’s lawyer, Schneider criticised the Columbus schools board for hiring a woman who couldn’t speak Spanish. “This is what happens when you put a teacher in a class that she cannot teach,” she said. “Here we are, with the Columbus public schools telling us what wonderful things [they] are doing.””

You see, apart from hiring the wrong people, part of this is (as I see it), the continuation of something different, something we might obscure intentionally, for the simple reason that the reality is just too horrid to contemplate.

You see, the world today has become so unbalanced that the people who think that they are in control are creating a different kind of workforce. The need for cutting corners is so direct, the need for cheap is so high that those in control are as I see it creating sociopaths.

Now, to look at this we need to look at the definition. A Sociopath is a person with a psychopathic personality whose behaviour is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. (Source: dictionary.com). Now, let’s take away that part ‘often criminal’, often does not mean always!

So, now we get a person with anti-social behaviour, social conscience and moral responsibility. You might think you do not know such a person, but I think you do. You see, look at any decent workaholic and you get a person who is just that. A workaholic often is not social, it is all about work, making that person both non-social and lacking a social conscience. As we see such a workaholic, that person tends to lose moral responsibilities more and more, yet this person is for all intent and purposes not doing anything wrong, or illegal. The married one forsakes marriage and perhaps even children as this person is too busy. When the family complains, the boss, the workload and the cost of living gets blamed (not always incorrectly).

This is what the workforce created, a workforce, largely less and less connected to morality and values, all about the goal, the revenue and the target. Some will throw in a Christmas present and a Christmas party day, a tax deductable event to keep the workforce ‘sort of’ happy, with added congratulations and speeches on how well it all went and soon after that a new goal that is like to be at plus 10%.

Let’s take a look at the Sociopath, or Anti-Social Personality Disorder (ASPD). The elements are:

 A) A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:

  1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
  2. deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
  3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
  4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
  5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
  6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour or honour financial obligations;
  7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

B) The individual is at least age 18 years.
C) There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.
D) The occurrence of antisocial behaviour is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.

You might ask how a workaholic would fit here, now consider the following:

i. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt or mistreated someone else.

The non-single workaholic will hide in work, being might be indifferent, but who is rationalising that this person is hurting the family that they were trying to protect by giving them something better in the first place.

ii. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour or honour (financial) obligations. You see, what is the viewpoint of irresponsibility? From the eyes of the psychiatrist that viewpoint is the person’s commitment to non-work and to some extent to work. And what about consistent work behaviour? Getting the targets that management sets up in a sales driven world? This point is on a scale that is revolving on the mobile premise of the moment, making this element an issue all by itself. The fact that I question that it is limited to financial obligations must also be observed. My reasoning here is that this revolves around a continuing increasing cost of living whilst the nett balance at the end seems to be diminishing. So are we confronted with irresponsibility or are we looking at a sliding scale that cannot be achieved.

iii. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead could be seen as an inability to plan ahead in the light of a changing atmosphere and at times have to make impulsive changes to keep up with a game that is forever seems to be set against the workaholic in question. For those who enter the workaholic game tend to get isolated and pushed forever forward.

So as we see the premise, in my view the three elements have been found. Now, be very certain. I am not a psychiatrist, and I have no psychiatry experience of any kind, so my view here is not just highly debatable, it could be very wrong too (and it likely is).

I see myself as a workaholic, but not as a sociopath, so why label myself as such?

Now we get back to the teacher story, because that is what started it. The quote “The film features scenes in Spanish, as well as English, Japanese and Thai, and was screened as “an act of glorified babysitting” according to Kearns’s lawyer, who claimed she showed the film out of desperation at being unable to teach Spanish. She said that she faced away from the screen throughout all the screenings of the film and was unaware of its content“, as I see it the movie would have been one of the worst choices, which makes me wonder just how extremely ‘unbalanced’ this woman was. In addition the ‘mysterious note’ as it was given to the reporter. The question that the press is not asking and that is missing in all of this is how the woman was hired in the first place. The person who hired this woman should also have been looked at. Why hire a woman, who does not speak Spanish to teach it? It makes the initial hirer less bright, no questions, no references, and no checks? Yet, how does one link to the other? Now consider whomever hired this woman and ‘b. consistent irresponsibility’. This is not the first time such an event has occurred and I think that the amount of these instances is only increasing.

I am not questioning whether more and more people are sociopaths, I am contemplating that the sliding scales of industry are pushing people in a niche group that might no longer correctly be considered to be true sociopaths. Which beckons the question, which of the other labels need to be looked at? You see, if the definition changes and relies on 5 elements the game changes significantly. Is that the solution, or is that the path we are all treading on? You see, I have been forever decently proud of being a workaholic. I create solutions, I get the work done. It is my zone to get the puzzle and to exceed the challenge. From the initial view of being the least likely to succeed and I became one of the few ending up with several University degrees. In Science, computer engineering and Law. Yet, I do not feel like a success, I just feel driven to the new challenge, the new puzzle and the next hurdle to overcome. Does that make me a sociopath? More important, when we choose to find the challenge for our future, our family or to keep up with today’s environment, are the settings of what makes a person normal or sane correct?

Now we move to the driver in these matters, the economy. Part of this we get from the article ‘US economy shrugs off winter weather to add 295,000 jobs in February‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/06/us-unemployment-jobs-numbers-february). The quote we need to look at is: “Furman said more work needed to be done and that the unemployment rates for African Americans and Hispanics remained unacceptably high. Youth unemployment also crept up. Unemployment for those aged 20-24 years old was 10% in February – up from 9.8% in January” and linked to this is “The actual figures beat predictions on both scores with the unemployment rate dropping to 5.5%“. I personally believe that our work environment is changing, the expectations asked from us are vastly increasing. From this I am (in an unscientific way) postulating that the demands (read: ‘pressures placed upon’) the new young workers, African Americans and Hispanics will creep higher still; add to this increasing pressures for them to get a job, the consequent higher ‘willingness’ to meet increasing unrealistic demands. This will only push these new groups into a stream that leads to more extreme editions of workaholics and very likely these people will now lean towards ‘real’ (read: stronger) sociopathic behaviour.
By the way, this example is just that an example, this issue is not an American one, it is a global one!

Is there any realistic premise that I am correct? I do not proclaim to have any idea what is the truth, but I am willing to ask the hard questions. Are you the reader contemplating these elements around you?

 

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March 6, 2015 · 12:47

Consent, a complex simplicity

There is an article in the Guardian, some will think it to be a decent piece, but I have an issue with it. There are all kinds of issues in the article, I cannot tell whether it was real, it did not feel as real. Whether it is or not is not really the issue. Yet there is an issue with it. Perhaps it is just me, but that issue is important, because the story touches on several issues, one that is close to my heart, as I was a witness for over a decade, unable to stop what had happened. Only to know, that he fled in fear, because one day, that one day that he saw me, the real me , it scared him all the way to South Africa, where he died of a Pneumonia, what a shame they likely got his prescribed anti-biotic dosage wrong, it must have made it worse. I had a great party celebrating his demise (seriously!).

The story by Monica Tan starts with a title ‘My boyfriend ‘sort-of’ raped me. But I didn’t break up with him‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/05/my-boyfriend-sort-of-raped-me-and-i-didnt-even-break-up-with-him). My very first objection, there is no ‘sort-of’ it either was or it was not. The story as it is written is a mere introduction to a case that is not mentioned here. The case was ‘R (on the application of F) v The DPP [2013] EWHC 945 (Admin)‘, Here we see a review of the CPS as it has decided initially not to prosecute the husband. There was a realistic prospect of this case not resulting in conviction, the High Court took steps to order the CPS to look into the decision in this case. The issue before the High Court was whether ejaculation without consent could transform an incident of consensual intercourse into rape.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 gives us in Section 1:

(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person
(B) with his penis,
(b) B does not consent to the penetration, and
(c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents

Yet when we look at the definitions of consent we see at S75(3)

“Reference to the time immediately before the relevant act began is, in the case of an act which is one of a continuous series of sexual activities, a reference to the time immediately before the first sexual activity began“, the crux is that ejaculation comes after the consent of the act. Which explains the actions of the CPS, yet I was not alone looking at this. This is not a new case and Olivia Stiles, a trainee solicitor (in those days) at Kingsley Napley wrote this: “Penetration is a continuing act and so consent can be withdrawn even after penetration has begun and this will transform an act that begins as consensual intercourse into rape. Levitt was troubled by the facts of this case insofar as it was not clear at what point the intervener should have ceased to have intercourse with the applicant. Levitt’s view was that if the intervener embarked upon the act knowing he would ejaculate inside her against her wishes then it was arguable that he knew she did not consent. However, Levitt felt that as a matter of evidence it would be impossible to prove that it had not been a spontaneous decision made at the point of ejaculation“, Olivia’s article is good to keep next to the actual case, as for me, My issue is (as I see it) stated in S76. Here we see:

76 Conclusive presumptions about consent
(1) If in proceedings for an offence to which this section applies it is proved that the defendant did the relevant act and that any of the circumstances specified in subsection (2) existed, it is to be conclusively presumed—
(a) that the complainant did not consent to the relevant act, and
(b) that the defendant did not believe that the complainant consented to the relevant act

(2) The circumstances are that—
(a) the defendant intentionally deceived the complainant as to the nature or purpose of the relevant act;

So, she objected to the relevant act, she did NOT consent!

Even though it would be very hard to prove that the situation as such existed, there is a criminal event in play.

The article then continues with a reference to the Julian Assange sex issue of 2010, which is exactly what happened in ‘R (on the application of F) v The DPP [2013] EWHC 945 (Admin)‘. Yet here her story goes south in a bad way, she writes: “It was not rape, but my reaction was too involuntary, and its intensity too high, to say that nothing bad happened. Something happened. And it had the whiff of rape”. No! It either is, or it is not and the events as prescribed add up to non-consensual sex, making it rape, assault by penetration or causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent. The last one could land you in prison for life!

This all blends with the issue I have here. The quote “There is nothing more dangerous than shutting down public debate around sexual assault and domestic violence with a dismissive “lock the perpetrators up and throw away the key”. Such violence is rife in our society“. You see, some harsh changes are needed in the legislative sphere, it needed to be done yesterday and so far the law has been too soft as I see it. Domestic violence is more than a killer. When we look at the LWA (at http://www.lwa.org.uk/), we see that it accounts for 16% of all violent crimes and that it costs the public £23 billion per annum. These numbers might sound nice (or horrible), but that is not what this is about.

There needs to be much stronger legislation in regards to domestic violence. As I see it (and as I wrote before, in my article ‘Cleaning house!‘ on July 1st 2014). It is my firm believe that Article 3 of the ECHR should state:

“ARTICLE 3, Prohibition of torture
1. No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
2. Domestic violence will be regarded as inhuman and degrading treatment of a person and is as such subject to local criminal law“

Until a larger operation makes clear case in a legal way attacking domestic violence, making it a capital crime, a massive portion of the population remains at risk. So in my view, the article by Monica Tan is an issue on several fronts.

The quotes “Now that I’ve taken a small sip at the cup of rape” and “This is not my story of rape. But it is a story with rape-ish qualities” makes me object loudly. As I see it, she never took a sip of anything. Either she was subjected to rape or she was not. It is not to be trivialised in any way. Monica found a case that was an issue in legal terms. Even though the law tries to be protective, it was flawed. The CPS states “Consent can be withdrawn at any time during sexual activity and each time activity occurs“, I am all for that however, WHY does the Sexual Offences Act 2003 not clearly states this? The issues in the caser as mentioned earlier, the writing by Olivia Stiles showed this and above all, the fact that the article ‘CPS and police focus on consent at first joint National Rape Conference‘, written on the 28th of January 2015 discusses this (at http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/cps_and_police_focus_on_consent_at_first_joint_national_rape_conference/), should be sustenance for discussion.

Monica Tan has now mixed two issues, issues that are clearly linked, but remain separate. The law is so bend on the sexual crime issues, making it all murkier, and again more powerful legislation needed to deal with domestic abuse falls behind again. I personally feel that if we can effectively lower domestic violence, it would also impact sexual offences as a whole. I personally witnessed as a kid for many years how my mother was beaten to near death again and again. I was too young and too late to protect her, but in the end I danced on my father’s grave (I did it to the Shaggy song ‘it wasn’t me’) in 2002.

As I personally see it, Monica Tan found an interesting case, added a picture of a woman looking distressed in bed added emotions and got a story out there. The legal ramifications on consent are interesting, but that is all, interesting! The issue of consent stays, and is still debated largely. I personally feel that taking the CPS event as a centre piece, illuminating that consent remains an issue would have been a lot better. You see, the heart of the matter was a clearly stated in the CPS article in 70 words: “Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders said: “For too long society has blamed rape victims for confusing the issue of consent – by drinking or dressing provocatively for example – but it is not they who are confused, it is society itself and we must challenge that. Consent to sexual activity is not a grey area – in law it is clearly defined and must be given fully and freely” and guess what, domestic violence is NEVER EVER done with consent. There is always a transgressor and a victim!

That part must be dealt with, it should have been done so decades ago. If that had been done, than perhaps my mother might have been around to share in the pride, when I was added to the roll of attorneys, it was not meant to be!

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March 3, 2015 · 20:48

The dangers of freedom

I am all for freedom, I reckon that anyone growing up in Western Europe, USA or the Commonwealth has that same feeling. We love our freedom. There is however a dangerous downside. As I see it, freedom comes with the granted option to become an idiot, a moron or any other type of person that we usually find revolting to some extent. There is another group. There is nothing wrong with hem. They seem to be nice, they seem to be honest, and usually are portrayed as fair and they believe in fair dinkum. This is all good, no negative word on that part, they also exercise their right to free speech and they do just that. They believe in certain change, which is all good, but now these people are pushing us all into a dangerous area, where the consequences could be dire. This is not so good, yet they believe that they are doing the right thing. Some might state that the road to hell is paved on good intention. I think that this is too strong a statement, I believe that those people are getting on a bandwagon that goes into a foul direction, because they do not foresee the dangers that lie ahead. This is the issue!

We see this side in the Guardian (at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/03/australian-republicans-we-can-no-longer-afford-to-wait-for-the-monarchs-passing). The title ‘Australian republicans: we can no longer afford to wait for the monarch’s passing‘ gives a hint of what some might regard as treason, but I am still willing to see it as people, devoted to Australia, but not seeing the dangerous currents of that journey. That excuse is not valid, when we consider the article with Bill Shorten (at http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jan/25/move-to-a-republic-would-show-australia-is-modern-and-inclusive-bill-shorten-says), ‘Bill Shorten: move to a republic would reflect a modern and inclusive Australia‘. Here we go on dangerous grounds.

You see, the politicians are all about self-preservation! No matter who gets hurt in the process!

My reasoning? I had highlighted them on earlier events, the list is long. One link is found with the ABC (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-10/shorten-says-car-manufacturing-shutdown-was-not-inevitable/5250834), Where Bill Shorten stated: ““All of a sudden, all the car component makers (in Australia) for Holden don’t have enough work,” he said. Mr Shorten says “government subsidies for car makers are essential for keeping manufacturing alive”“. Well, we have seen the use of subsidies, in that same article we see the statement: “”Australia subsidises its car manufacturing in the order of about $17 (per car), whereas the Germans do it at about somewhere between $65 and $90 and the Americans, $250″”, yet, when we see the Australian (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/lies-damn-lies-and-car-subsidy-statistics/story-fnbkvnk7-1226824091831), we get: “Reworking the figures, it turns out that Australia has subsidised the manufacturing of vehicles to an extraordinary extent — $US1885 per vehicle, compared with Sweden ($US297), Germany ($US206) and the US ($US166). In other words, Australia has the highest rate of budgetary assistance of the seven first-world countries listed“. We could argue that this amounts to slave labour, as the subsidies is so large that the factories end up with prepaid labour. How is this not regarded as slave labour? Because people are allowed to go home and the money comes from somewhere else? Why should car be subsidised to SUCH extent? In addition, we get the quote “We now know that Toyota Australia has received nearly $500 million in the past four years. Given that there are some 2500 Toyota employees, this works out at $50,000 a worker a year“, so we have car manufacturing plants which seem to come with prepaid labour. How can a nation survive when these factories bend over backwards to avoid taxation and in addition, they received well over $100 million a year?

The next part comes from the Courier mail (at http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-the-nations-budget-is-broken-but-bill-shorten-and-labor-wants-to-stop-us-fixing-it/story-fnihsr9v-1227143768045), “The Budget deficit blew out to an astonishing $48 billion last financial year, largely because the previous Labour governments went on a massive spending binge and left nothing but IOUs in the kitty come the next global financial crisis“, by the way, the Labour party has NEVER given any clear explanation on how that money was spend, on what it was spend, and who signed for it. I reckon that is why the Labor party decided on the three party stooges approach (I wonder who plays Curly), namely Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, and now Bill Shorten. There was additional bad news, there is NO WAY that the drop in Iron was to be predicted. Neither Labor nor Liberals saw that coming. It cut export with an additional amount surpassing 30 billion, when the coffers are empty, that is not a good thing.

Now we get to the Bill Shorten Republican view. Here we see the following: ““Let us breathe new life into the dream of an Australian head of state,” he said. “114 years ago Australians found the courage and goodwill to transform this continent into a commonwealth. In the 21st century let us live up to their example. Let us declare that our head of state should be one of us.”“, you see, the article reads nicely unrealistic. There are parts that are not mentioned at all. I will get to them soon.

In the same light that Labour overspend us into massive debt, as Labour wrongly ‘illustrated’ the car industry, he also sees his option to get a little ahead as a possible first head of state (odd, do we not have a prime minister?), as he fantasises himself to become. You see, becoming a republic comes with a massive amounts of additional debts we cannot even fathom. As part of this Commonwealth, we are not alone, our army is a joke compared to Russia or China (65000 soldiers do not add up to much against the other large players), even against Indonesia, which might not have state of the art equipment, but they outnumber us 4 to 1, not the best odds to have. Together as one Commonwealth, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, we do wield a massive bat, we are part of a whole. So if China wants to play rough (or Russia for that matter), we have a few big brothers in our corner. Now, we could rely on New Zealand to give aid as soon as needed (they would never back down from helping a neighbour), but as Air Vice-Marshal Gavin Turnbull might confirm, the Sopwith Camel really does not have the range to make it to Australia, meaning we need to rely on our own planes alone.

This is only one element and not the most important one when we need to rely on our freedom. You see, I believe that Labor is squarely in the pocket of the US Democratic Party (the one who nearly bankrupted the US), the US is playing too many dangerous games, enabling big business, not holding big business accountable and overall not having the ability to manage its budget. Labor is on the same footing, and how long until the Labor party dances to the song of the White House, making us lose our choices, our freedoms and our value of fair dinkum. Is that what we desire?

What is so bad on being part of what we used to regard the British Empire? I believe that the core values that this Empire had, which were moved into this Commonwealth of ours is still good, it is still strong and it is every bit as Australian as it is British. When the lower classes here lose it all as business no longer deems these people to be of marketed value, who will they cry for? Labour? No, that lot just gave their rights away. In this the Liberal party is not without faults either, but they are not on the republican horse, giving us heaps more options.

This economy is in a bad state, no one denies that. I myself am hurting as much as many others, but like the harsh methods of Germany in 2009, their Austerity saved them and got them on top, I feel that the same will work here, Labor overspending by spending each annual budget twice is too dangerous for us. This is at the heart of the issue.

It is all directly linked to us remaining part of the Commonwealth, the one part that Labor SHOULD have been doing, they are not (or so it seems)! I voiced more than once that our future is on finding strong interactions with other Commonwealth members and offer what we have in surplus, whilst getting what they have in surplus. With Nurses here looking for jobs and the UK having such a massive shortage, why are we not seeking solutions together? Not just the medical industry, we need to put our commonwealth heads together, solving them together, not playing politics on who looks better in a pissing contest, which leaves us with a smelly floor and no actual solution. In this we should also look at what we could mean to Scotland and vice versa. Scotland will at some point be more independent, would it not be great if our message of fair dinkum and our workforce could help this stability, because a stable and prosperous Scotland helps all members of the Commonwealth, including the UK.

So as the Honourable BS talks about some republic, he should realise that unless the deficits and the bad economy are solved, we have no future ahead, other than one as someone’s vassal, a path we evolved from long ago, so whatever story he spins on how the republic gets a better business profile would soon be dead, as soon as people realise that it only opted for one goal, to give large corporations a place to get by on 1-3% taxation, how would that ever be fair dinkum?

 

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February 25, 2015 · 20:39

The price of soccer

This is how I see the issues as we see the mountain of ‘complaints’ in regards to Qatar 2022. The first part is seen on the BBC site (a http://www.bbc.com/news/world-31605149). Richard Scudamore is very disappointed, which is fair enough. My issue is with his statement: ‘if the integrity of a football league has to stop for 6-7 weeks‘. Is that truly the case? The integrity of a league does not diminish when they are out playing their best for their nation in a world cup. It shows that these people, with multi million pound incomes can set it all aside to play their best for their nation. That is the simple truth of it all. So is this about FIFA, UEFA? Or is it because of advertisers? You see, those 6-7 weeks advertisers will move to the world cup, they go to where THEIR visibility lies. I think that this is a side that the football managers forgot about. When they spread the visibility of Soccer, getting more and more nations, they forgot that new members are every bit as eager to promote their national side and we can safely say that the middle east has plenty of money to invest in new stadiums.

Part of me is just a little amazed that both FIFA and its members did not see this coming. It is a sports event! In a places where for all kinds of environmental reasons, the Olympics cannot be held there, is it such a surprise that they want to show off their nation by hosting the soccer World Cup event? That what followed is still to be regarded as an episode of comedy capers, for those too young to remember, see the intro here (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjZMfRwsuOM), see the man at the back, that could be Martin Ivens, you remember the Sunday Times claiming to have seen all those ‘millions of documents‘ reported by Reuters on July 28th 2014? I mention parts of what was claimed in ‘Sacking the Editor?’ on November 14th 2014 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2014/11/14/sacking-the-editor/), it could be regarded as evidence on just how much a paper tiger Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) is. As mentioned before, if we go by the words of IPSO “We uphold the highest standards of journalism by monitoring and maintaining the standards set out in the Editors’ Code of Practice” than they should also be pre-emptive. Especially when allegations of corruption are being made.

Was there corruption? That question remains a valid one, but when we see “FIFA report into alleged corruption clears Qatar to host 2022 World Cup” (at http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/13/fifa-report-alleged-corruption-qatar-2022-world-cup), the mention by the Sunday Times give way to bring a forced publication of that evidence, or be hit for damages. None of that seems to have happened. In addition, we see this in The Star (at http://www.thestar.com/sports/soccer/2015/02/24/fifa-deserves-red-card-for-the-debacle-that-is-qatar-world-cup-arthur.html) “FIFA judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, who sits on FIFA’s ethics committee, reviewed the report and released a 42-page summary to the public that stated the report cleared FIFA in the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, respectively“.

I am not denying the facts that are, but no one seems to show evidence, which is crucial. You see, as stated before, I think this is for the larger part about something else. If we go back to the statement ‘if the integrity of a football league has to stop for 6 – 7 weeks’, is that so? How about taking a 7 week break and prolonging the season that one time? I think that these soccer players, who are making tens of thousands a week, can work an extra 8 weeks that one time. If it is about the advertisers, than it is just bad luck. You see, many people have had enough of ‘enabling’ advertisers to the max, and if this costs them a little extra this once, than live with it. It is NOT about the advertisers, it is about the sport and everyone is very adamant not to mention that ‘A’ word, or ‘sponsors’ for that matter. Is it all an inconvenience? Yes, I reckon that is the case and this is also the consequence of broadening the membership list of soccer playing nations, there is a consequence at some point. So, yes, I do agree that Qatar was never the best place, but guess what, they did the dance, they went through the motions and they got the gig! Now all others will have to program around this for once, I think that the fact, that this had been running since 1888, implies that the sport could use a little exception and a little flexibility.

This does not take away the issues that play at FIFA, there are a few issues with the Russian part, especially the ‘the Russians claimed that all e-mails relating to their bid had been wiped from the computers they used, which were rented’, I mentioned that in a previous blog too, because such levels of incompetence should not be allowed anywhere. Yet, the full report of Garcia was never given to the public at large, which gives us a few extra issues, but then, the Sunday Times under Martin Ivens blowed a lot of hot air, but then did not release any evidence of in any shape, size or form. It seems to me that this is not a good thing either.

If we accept the star with their quote “But FIFA is so powerful, so unaccountable, that the inartfulness of the lies doesn’t matter” as well as “FIFA pushes slush piles of money to federations all over the world in the form of development grants, and that secures the necessary votes to keep Blatter in power“, that we have a massive problem. You see, I have been (to some extent) on the side of Qatar, because there were allegations from many, but NO ONE presented actual evidence and all these events played like this was all about big business not getting their way. I have an issue with that! In my view, if you love soccer and it is your life, that that is fine, but when we see these pushes whilst an average soccer player gets per week what most people get per quarter, that we can agree that those people get to suck it up a little and not whinge or whine like little bitches when they suddenly get an ‘adjusted’ calendar once per 4 years, the fact that this now happens for the first time ever, they can just shut up and take it, so this once they get to experience what most workers endure on a yearly basis.

On the other side, if there is a level of unaccountability from FIFA, that it makes equal sense for ALL members of FIFA to break with FIFA and create something new, to which ALL members of FIFA are to be excluded for a few decades. See how that solves issues. The reality is that Qatar 2022 might be the only deviant event (compared to all other world cups) as a lesson for future FIFA events, in that case FIFA will have learned a lesson, but perhaps we learn another lesson too. Perhaps that environment will only fuel a global desire for soccer and in that light, premiere leagues of all nations will have to consider that once every four years there could be a different light in how that year the league is played. It might be refreshing in so many ways that it will, for some, rekindle the true love for soccer. Let’s not forget in those 6-7 weeks those players do not represent their team, they represent their nation, is that not a great thing? It should be!

In that light we should also see the response BBC sport had “The former Manchester United and Everton defender added that he would be “licking my lips” if he was England boss Roy Hodgson because “we’ll have the freshest ever national team going to a World Cup”” (at http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/31610300), you see, it is not all bad, I reckon that soon we will see similar responses from coaches and players in The Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.

Now consider the following quotes from the links used earlier: “The 2026 World Cup television rights in North America were awarded without a bid to Fox and Telemundo, who had complained about the Qatar schedule change, for which they hold the broadcast rights“, “Six European federations demanded Fifa clean up its act. Three top commercial backers, Coca-Cola, Adidas and McDonald’s, did so too” and “Of the 11 men who voted on 2018 and 2022 World Cups who are no longer on Fifa’s executive committee, only five provided answers to Garcia’s inquiry. Two could not be located at all“, it is clear that there are issues, especially when considering the part, ‘two could not be located at all’, is this for real? What, did that person go on a $600K cruise and there is no phone where these people are at (just one of a few options)? There is no question that there are issues on several sides, but there is still the matter of evidence, evidence that is either concealed or never found. The fact that the report was never released is also cause for concern, I do admit to that, but in law when we apply ‘is it more likely than not‘ can be just as easily applied to the large sponsors who see their return on invested revenue lessen to a small extent, taking into consideration that 2022 will be the first time (possibly the last time) that this happens brings for the question ‘why enable big business to this extent?‘ is a matter that is not and likely will not ever be answered, which is why, I currently remain on the side of Qatar. Sport is about the sport, whether it is local or nations playing, it is about the sport, not about the visibility of the sponsors. They get visibility because of sport, not the other way around. It is time big business learns that no matter what game they play, the sport itself remains untouchable, which also means that sometimes the game needs to be slightly more flexible. That part is also shown in regards to Fox and Telemundo, who complained about schedule change. Really? Complain now about an event 6 years away? If it is such an inconvenience, than give the 2022 rights to one of the free TV channels. I wonder how that channel will suddenly benefit from sponsors. If anything, this event shows me how corporate greed has been maximised within sports, an upsetting issue.

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February 20, 2015 · 23:07

2500 years later

Yes, it seems such a long time that Peisistratos, father of the Greek tragedy has been active, this was all voiced into life during one of the religious festivals for Dionysus. Is it such a mystery that a place of wine and a sad story is the frying fields where politicians feel most at home? This is at the foundation when we see another round for some Greek event. More talks (more wasting money on flights and expensive hotels), whilst the people have no clue, that they are being told another story. Like any good sad story, this too is in three parts, even though within the foundation, no one would have a clue on this. Now there is Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who got in place in 2015, before that there was Karolos Papoulias, who got his place in 2005 and before that there was Konstantinos Stephanopoulos who started in 1995. This is the foundation of the Trilogy.

You see, I discussed this before, the premise, not the links. First is an article I mentioned in my blog ‘Whinging from a desperate left‘ from January 29th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2015/01/29/whinging-from-a-desperate-left/). The article by Prokopis Hatzinikolaou gives us “The state collected less than half of the revenues it was due to receive last year as it appeared unable to ensure that taxes and fines found their way to its coffers, according to a State Audit Council report submitted in Parliament on Tuesday by its president, Ioannis Karavokyris“, this means that the Greeks themselves are basically sinking their own ship. In one year, Greece has been unable to address the outstanding part which is a lot more than the settlement. It actually adds up to almost 16% of the ENTIRE Greek debt, so why should Germany play nice, as they are not at fault, they were not the reason and the latest puppet in Greek politics is not addressing the issue at all. Consider the image (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/feb/17/greece-bailout-talks-europe-deal-live-updates), where Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis smiles like a clown, stares like a Vulture and casually stating that “an “honourable agreement” was within reach for Greece“, yet no mention that they will clean up their taxation system. Is anyone at this point catching on that a nation cannot survive if it is not collecting on its taxation? There is a nice PDF available at (http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/publication12298_en.pdf) which shows part of the problem. Now in addition consider this report from 2008, than consider the article ‘Greek Bond Sale Tops $4 Billion in Return to Markets‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-10/greece-readies-bond-sale-as-athens-car-bomb-reminds-of-upheaval), so when we combine the tax information that we got from Prokopis Hatzinikolaou, we add the fact that the Greek tax system is faulty at best (a disaster at worst), how was it that Greece was even allowed to go back to the markets? So if we accept the wiki definition “A government bond is a bond issued by a national government, generally with a promise to pay periodic interest payments and to repay the face value on the maturity date“, how can bonds be sold if your tax system is not functioning, meaning that repayment is not an option (50% loss in taxation leaves you with nothing to manouvre with). So again I ask, why were they allowed back on market and more important, why are the bulk of the newspapers not looking into this side? An additional part I also mentioned in my blog was “Of the 2069 Greek accounts in Switzerland (as mentioned in a Greek magazine), who besides the journalist has appeared in court?” the Journalist was Kostas Vaxevanis, now we see in several papers, including the Times with the headline ‘Greece shreds files on tax cheating by rich and powerful‘. So as this has reported to have happened just before the January General elections, we could argue that in light of the loud non-mentioning of these events by both Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis as well as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, as well as his three predecessors, that there is a lot wrong in Greece, the fact that the Greeks themselves are creating their own mess, why be nice? Are they not accountable for their own mess? So when we see the ominous text on what Germany will do, and how their 80 billion plus part could be lost, we must wonder whether it is not a lot safer just to cut Greece away. Lets face it, it will take forever to clear the current debt, they have no intent of actually cleaning up their mess and the rest of Europe might like a vacation spot where their coin gets them 400% more. Is it wrong to think so exploitative? No, not when the political parties are all about talk and none of them are about resolving issues. This is a side the papers seem to ignore as well. You see, debt deals and GDP promises and talks on ‘futures’ sounds all so sexy, to plainly report that a nation is beyond salvage because their political leaders will not bow to responsibilities whilst allegedly catering to the wealthy and the corrupt is just to plain and too direct.

So after 2500 years, the Greeks are reinventing their own creation called a tragedy, they are now however willing to put it all on the line, hoping that they get the same response ‘they are too big to fail’, but is that true? a nation with 11 million, no true exportable resources, what value do they have apart from beach front property? In addition, property that cannot be serviced as there is almost no infrastructure left. it was all sold on the bondmarket at 9.95%, not as bad as the 11% they had at the beginning of the month, but with tax collection at an all time low and no plans to do something about the 2069 accounts that Kostas Vaxevanis reported on, where does the Greek population think it can go to? We can see part of this from CNBC (at http://www.cnbc.com/id/102439432), where we see the headline ‘Worried depositors rush to pull cash out of Greek banks‘, when we see the quote “On Thursday, by mid-afternoon, deposits had shrunk by about 680 million euros (US $773 million)“, we must wonder whether we see the bank in a similar situation as we saw the Cypriot banks move to. So as funds go into banks, the deposits are lower and lower which means that the banks will not survive, or the ECB would have to up the financial support by a lot more, money Greece cannot pay back, so Germany is now in a place where accepting the 87 billion loss would not be the worst part in all this. So as we return to the old story of Diogenes of Sinope, the Greek that made poverty a virtue, yet in today’s world, the participating parties are devaluating all Greeks into a life of poverty, I wonder if the Greek population sees the virtue in that side. Will they react in Cynical philosophical rhetoric (founded by Diogenes of Sinope), or will they see the Irony, laugh it off and let the next politician take even more from them?

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February 19, 2015 · 22:32

Burning out your life

Yesterday’s news in the Guardian is skating on an interesting side. Yes, there are more games awards coming, there are new releases and there are all kinds of events coming into play. So when I read ‘Crunched: has the games industry really stopped exploiting its workforce?’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/18/crunched-games-industry-exploiting-workforce-ea-spouse-software), I read it with a different set of eyes.

The first part is “EA relied on vagaries of American law that classify some IT professionals as exempt from overtime pay. The settlement in the second case featured a quid pro quo: employees would be reclassified in order to get overtime but would give up their stock options“, I can guarantee you that I have been in the same set of shoes, Market Research is at times as caring as a steamroller driving over Miss Daisy. It is nice to see the claim ‘stock options‘, yet that flavour of reward tends to be for the managers and the heads of development, not for all the programmers. They tend to get an evening of free food and booze. Take 35 programmers each having done 100-250 hours of extra time, getting paid off with a $300 meal, works out great for the manager getting his 25,000 stocks at $0.50, not so great for others. I am not stating that this works exactly like that in gaming, but I have seen it in other areas of software.

“The most common theory is that the industry is simply too young and too fast-moving to integrate proper management techniques. “Our project was huge and our overall quality assurance process at the time was very basic and waterfall-esque,” recalls one quality assurance worker at EA“, is the second part. This has been shown in several games of late, if we look at the flawed releases of 2014, we can clearly see a lacking scale of QA. It then refers to the work of Fred Brooks on how company size influences efficiency. There is no denying that. Proper management is required, especially when the group grows faster than projected. A special mention of the honour guard must be given to the Marketing department who then also changes the timeline, to get that extra revenue, like marketing COULD have figured that part out at the very beginning. All this will add to the burden of quality delivery and the stress of the workers.

This quote is important, as I consider this to be a stronger part of the sliding quality scale “I was a quality assurance tester at Rockstar, and at its worst, we worked 72 hours a week“, a decent reason for quality to slide (irritating that Rockstar still pulled of a 90% plus rating, although they had a few start-up issues), especially when you consider the following quote “if you had issues with it, you were told ‘Well, you can go stack shelves at Tesco instead or answer phones at a call centre’. You were treated as disposable“, not an entirely unknown event for some in the IT pool. When we consider ““Developers and managers should never have to work more than 40 hours a week,” he says. “It’s a fun job, but it shouldn’t be an exploitative one. Everyone has a life. Let them live it, it’s short enough as it is”“, that sounds partially as a solution, but only if it affects the entire range of staff.

I personally see this all as a reason on why there has been a sliding scale of quality. Is there a chance that Ubisoft has been on this track? This is NOT an accusation! You see, too many hours result in burnout, burnout influences creativity and resolve, crunch time, might give a little extra resolve, but in the end it costs more then it brings. I think that the power of innovation will always win, if balance and rest (to some extent) is made available to revive the soul and the mind.

I think that the next quote sounds nice, but is it enough? “Over the past 18 months, EA has been making significant investments in new quality assurance tools and automation technology, implementing ongoing testing right from the beginning of game conceptualisation. These changes are ultimately improving game quality, as well as reducing the need for the crunch periods”. These tools need proper implementation, they need proper assessment and the people need to properly use them. It tends to add a strain to all levels for a little while. More important, it is only one side of the game (pun intended). For example Mass Effect 4, the engine, the locations, the interface, all are under stress to be made. What if a solution throws the gaming experience? What happens then? What happens when the initial reception is ‘average’, what will marketing do then and more, what will the size of crunch become at that point? You see, the article ignores one little part. For all intent and purpose, games tend to surf at the very edge of technology.  In some cases the makers will attempt to get the max of a system that is at times a little buggy and when you try to use 99% of the system, things tend to go pear shaped really fast. We can offer that the danger of being over ambitious is a bad thing, but this is how some games came into existence. The very first Unreal and Unreal tournament were both chartering the maximum of graphical capability when they were released. Some people invested hundreds of dollars to get a Diamond Labs Graphics card to get the maximum of the game. This is only the tip of the iceberg, when we see consoles there is less manoeuvrability, yet getting the maximum of a game has never stopped the developers. That part is not addressed and that part is every bit as important in dealing with the timeline and QA of a game.

Yet, it is not as much as it was (or so they say), but making the great hit at the E3 or another main release date is the main drive of crunch, especially when the final piece of the development puzzle does not quite fit. That part might be addressed in the management charter, but we must also be realistic that a great game takes time to develop, which made a statement given by Ubisoft “We are able to offer people a new Assassin’s Creed every year because they want Assassin’s Creed every year” nothing more than a joke. Especially if they wanted to rule the gaming industry. In addition I would like to raise that the next big thing is supposed to be ‘No Man’s Sky‘ which will arrive in 2015. We must realistically anticipate that the hype gets away from us all, but it is still seen as the big thing. It took several years, which gives additional view to the hilariousness of: “Ubisoft: No Annual ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Would Be ‘Very Stupid’“, it is such an issue because true innovation takes time, consider on how certain glitches had been around in AC2, AC2B, AC3 and AC Revelations. I can understand that some of these glitches were around in the second game, but to still have those issues 2 games after that is just a laughing matter. There is a reason for me to mention Ubisoft, not because I am ‘so’ against them (I truly am not), but their track record speaks for themselves. So will 2015 be an EA year? That part remains to be seen, however, as I see it at present, there is enough indication that Ubisoft had been hit by burnout staff (assumption on my side). Will a change of atmosphere give us better games? I certainly hope so, because games thrive on the creative and innovative mind, a state that crunch time seems to destroy. This is not just my view, there are loads of views out in the open, some scholarly, some less so, most of them all agree that crunch time and creativity are opposites, so why rely on it? My personal view is that in several cases, these companies (the big ones) didn’t choose the wrong style of management, they choose the wrong sort of manager altogether.

If you doubt my words (which is always fair enough), then consider which games were the true big hits and how they were made. The age old example remains the strongest one. Minecraft was never a big project, yet Microsoft regarded it to be worth over 2 billion. a simple low res game, addictive as hell is worth more than the bulk of the gaming industry, you see, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts both made the same mistake, as they ‘relied’ on a business approach with BI solutions and spreadsheets, they forgot their number one part. If a game is no fun, you lose all your customers really fast. They both made that mistake in huge ways. Both forgetting that their games rely on innovation and creativity, both have ad massive losses in that regard. Will Ubisoft recover? That is hard to say, the EA machine is claiming improvement and it seems that Mass Effect 4 will be their greatest test. EA got hurt badly by Sims 4 and Battlefield, we should also look at ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition is great, but here are 8 things it could do much better‘ on GamesRadar, because when we read that this is a 100 hour game and it loses momentum, we can agree that $100 for a game that could be played within 2 weeks is a little demotivating. It goes back to long before Infamous: Second Son (which is just one of the games that could have been legend), I think that the makers need to retrace their steps on how many hours a game should offer. No matter how good the graphics are, I finished Tombraider in one weekend, which is not good mojo money, especially when you consider that the initial edition (on PS1, 19 years earlier) took a lot longer and was riddled with juicy little challenges. Aren’t games supposed to go forward on more sides than mere graphical resolution?

So as we judge those who make the games we desire, we see that those thinking that they are pushing towards what we desire, only end up delivering a lessened product due to pressures from too many sides, not in the least pressures that they internally created. Even delays (Watchdogs and Elder Scrolls Online) end up not being solutions, in case of the Elder Scrolls, with so many delays that the latest tells us June 2015, has been the reason for many people to just cancel the order altogether. The fact that Elder Scrolls has dropped the subscription part shows just how dangerous their position has been. Here I do want to brag a little, because I came up with an entirely new Elder Scrolls almost two years ago, one that could have saved them many issues as they tried to ‘fix’ their MMO approach. Just as consoles require great games to survive, great games require the right people, people who need to be well rested to get them that golden idea that will make legend. Watchdogs did get a lot closer due to the delay, but what if the difference between 84% and 93% was two weeks of rest? That one golden idea that drove the game to legend status? Is it realistic? You see in hindsight that is all good and well for me to claim, but that is AFTER the fact. I believe my view is the right one, they just needed the right manager to inspire them a little further along, but as always, it is a personal view and it is a debatable one, I do admit to that part.

 

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