Tag Archives: UK

December 13, 2022 · 23:32

Will you never learn?

I just got across an article from December 5th. It was given to us by the BBC with the headline ‘I had £8,000 stolen but Revolut won’t refund it’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63796738). When we google Revolut we get all the bells and whistles. No hidden fees, ATM withdrawals in 120 currencies and transfers in 29 currencies directly from the app and it sounds amazing. The fact that most people will never see these countries is beside the point. But what is not beside the point is “as of December 2022 they did not have a UK banking licence” and “it does not reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud.” And now for the stupid people in the back. A financial institution is not a bank, in this day and age if you are not with a bank, anything goes wrong it is on YOUR dime. It costs you! So when we get back to the BBC article we see “The fraudster said her bank account was under attack, and persuaded her to download some software that allowed him to take control of her computer.” Which is never a good idea to say the least and these fraud attacks tend to go on, and until we get clearance to execute fraudsters you are on your own and not being with a bank you will have nothing to protect you for these events. Financial Institutions wash their hands and come with some kind sounding answer that boils down to ‘Not our problem’ and that is what you face. So when we get that Revolut is an e-money company that offers digital banking services, we see the words, but the important part that they are not a bank is missing. And my idea of using targeted killing against these fraud people (not the fintechies) is not without merit. The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63736573) gives us ‘Police text 70,000 victims in UK’s biggest anti-fraud operation’, which means that we could keep well over 70,000 people safe by killing these economic terrorists. Yes, they are not merely criminals and we do not care about their age. Just like they did not care about the financial situation they put their victims in. There comes a time when any action is better than the level of inaction we see here. In addition people need to know that places like Revolut is not a bank, they applied a year ago, but they are not at present and the call for reduced fee’s does not hold water, not when you end up with a loss of £8,000, but that is something you see after the fact. 

To be honest, there is another side. There is more and more indications that banks are seemingly not bringing home the bacon in regards to their customers. We saw that in the Guardian when the people were told in June 2022 “UK’s largest banks are no longer “too big to fail” and could foot the bill for their own failures, the Bank of England has said” it does not help people much, but it needs to be clear that you need your savings in a bank, because no matter what you have some protection, with e-money companies, financial institutions and other FINTECH options you have little to no protection, or you are in danger of having no protection and a banking license is pure protection for the bank and its customers. And my so called over reaction? Consider that in this economy a new criminal is born every minute, all hoping for that score. When you start executing the offenders and making sure EVERYONE knows, the wannabe’s might seek other avenues of income, not all of them legal, but avenues that keep them alive. And with 70,000 victims in the balance, I have little problems blowing off a head or two, three, four, five. You get the drill.

We want to be the ones finding a peaceful (non terminal) solution. But the police is losing this war too fast, there are too many victims and the parents do not get to cry that their son (or daughter) was such a good person, not with 70,000 people in the mix and one losing £8,000, and there is clear evidence that this was not the biggest gain. There comes a time when we need to acknowledge that the floodgates are bringing in too much trash and do not worry about where to leave them, Exmoor National Park could shelter well over 1000 cadavers, so there is space to grow.

Worried yet? 
You should be there is too much happening and nowhere near enough being achieved and I am not blaming the Police, they are fighting this war with both hands on their backs and it is time to alter the game a little, enough for some of these criminals to get worried. And the price is decent, 70,000 victims is not nothing, even as we see “as many as 200,000 people in the UK may have been victims of the scam” and to tamper your anger, we are also given “Fraudsters paid between £150 and £5,000 a month in bitcoin to use the iSpoof service, contacting, at times, 20 people a minute. Those behind the service are allegedly earning £3.2m and living “lavish” lifestyles” as such I believe they had their life, time to end it and capture these funds. Whose with me?

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December 8, 2022 · 11:31

Once upon a silencer

Before I begin, lets be clear the story part is all unadulterated fiction, with a capital ‘U’ no less. So do not see this as anything else than fiction. The story might not make it clear but this should and you should take care on what you trust as fact. 

There is a town, the name Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. In that overgrown village is a house, the house is filled with all manner of people, all very adapt in English. They are awaiting a signal. Until that moment comes they sit, they sit whilst the ventilators are blowing cooled air towards them. Then a mobile sounds and one of them answers. The only response is ‘Yes, sir’ and he disconnects. He stands up and holds his assault rifle in the ready position. It is the signal the other dozen people were waiting for, they all instantly stand up they set their weapons to ready and walk towards the door. No word is exchanged, they are all aware of what must be done. They silently leave the house and they are like a silenced unit in the early morning. These soldiers have a few parts in common. They have no insignia, for all intent and purposes they could be walking shadows. They are all equipped with the SR-3 Vikhr. Made to keep noise down to a minimum, all experts in targeting, silent walks and shadow dancing. They approach the house where soft voices sound. They had prepared for this and they were ready. The locks on the front door were surpassed in less than 10 seconds. They walk in each in their intended direction and everyone was dispensed with in mere seconds, the entire operation took less than 20 seconds and there were no survivors. Then three other soldiers walked in, each holding 2 jerrycans, they stand in the room awaiting a signal. The corpses were relieved of papers, quick snaps were made of the face and hands and left where they were. The man in charge point his finger to the 3 soldiers. They move to their locations and thrust a hole in each of their jerry cans when they put them in place, safety pin is removed and they move to the exit following the other soldiers. In less than 10 seconds it is done and they walk back to their location, only to exit it on the rear and move towards 4 SUV’s that had arrived without making noise. They get in precisely as practised and they slowly drive away making a left turn, they are not in a hurry. People in a rush get noticed and these people are experts in not getting notices. Before they get to the end of the street they notice smoke in their rear view mirrors, only now would people notice that something was wrong, but they were already out of the notice zone.

Meanwhile in Germany
In Germany that day the officials started to arrest members of the Reich Citizens. Yet there was more in play, members of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and the Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK) have their own charter to follow. Seven people who are part of no one, their only adherence is money and they have been funding issues that caught attention of the people who kept Germany safe and these seven people were adeptly removed from life. Each of the seven units were a mix of BND and KSK. The BND followed the KSK after people were relabelled corpses and started to gather whatever could hold intelligence that could be gathered. They were gathering intelligence but the orders were clear, passive collection only. Now the active collections started and the entire operations were completed in under 6 minutes and each team vacated the premises setting the location on fire through a short and patches of pure alcohol, nothing was left to chance.

The ugly intent
North of London is a small town named Hertford. In there is a house, a house with a young lady repeating the slogans she had taken to heart. Her dedication to JustStopOil might seem nice and even as she has no ulterior motives. She is a believer, but her ‘funding manager’ is not. It was orchestration of a new kind. And someone caught on, the man shuck in with an overgrown ratchet and crushed he skull with one precise hit, the girl falls down to the ground, dead before her head hit the floor. She was one of half a dozen targets, all done away in the same manner. The special operations branch took a different view from the others. They wanted the message to be clear to all supporters of anarchy. Your days are done!

It was then that the view looked to the west, but the members of QAnon were the responsibility of the FBI and CIA. 

Yes, this is pure fiction, but the underlying story is not. This all took month of preparations, of coaching and we see groups like Reichsbürger with sudden means for action. We see people like Prince Heinrich XIII, we see JustStopOil and we see other places. Someone is orchestrating, I have no idea who, but this isn’t some stage of lets follow someone else. This took money, it took a serious amount of coin, all anarchy requires funds to remain undetected for so long and now the governments have had enough. It is costing them too much. Now I have no idea what governments thinks (many are unable to do so). But the need to protect coffers and freedom require actions and even as I am fictionally am setting these actions in motion, I have no illusions on these governments having their needs and their solutions. That is something that is a clear stage and we need to recognise it. I once (about half a decade ago) accused a judge of cowardice. You see, I believe in laws, it sets us apart, but it is not the golden calf. There needs to be flexibility. The law keeps 95% in check, this includes criminals. The law takes care of it. 4.9% is dealt with in other ways, 0.1% cannot be dealt with, so the law wins. However 0.1% of the 0.1% is the problem. It amounts to 80,000 people who will do whatever they can to harm and hurt the 8,000,000,000 around. Which implies that on average around 400 people in a nation are extremely dangerous. Some are psychotic, some sociopaths and nature tends to deal with them, but a few of these are clever, they are hidden and they thrash out damage after damage and they need to be stopped through targeted killings. There is no other way and relying on the golden calf names ‘laws’ is a cowardly short sighted action. Actual actions are required and now we et to the stage where too many connect to social media giving these anarchy driven people a larger platform to connect to, inspiring too many people and action is required. What the best action is? I cannot tell, but with the media relying on digital dollars implies that these dangers are getting worse, as such my storytelling side is using fiction to ward of that feeling of inactions. Actual actions are the prospect of governments and it is up to them to actually act, but that might be me oversimplifying the issue.

Have a great day!

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November 24, 2022 · 20:08

iSpoof, You spoof, everyone spoofs

It sounds sad and perhaps that is merely part of the stage, but both the Guardian and the Dutch NOS report on this and they are not completely reporting the SAME thing. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/nov/24/100-people-arrested-ispoof-uk-biggest-investigation) give us ‘100 people arrested in UK’s biggest fraud investigation’ where we see “More than 100 people have been arrested in the UK’s biggest ever fraud operation, which brought down a website police describe as a “one-stop spoofing shop” used by scammers to steal tens of millions of pounds from Britons via fake bank phone calls”. We also get to see “At one stage almost 20 people every minute of the day were being contacted by scammers hiding behind false identities created using the site and it is estimated that criminals may have stolen close to £50m. The actual amount is likely to be higher as fraud is often underreported.” With for the finale “Those running the scam shop made about £3.2m over a 20-month period, it is estimated” so it seems that these people were able to do their ‘thing’ for 2 and a half years. It took that long to get a handle on things. Lets be clear, I am not having a go at Scotland Yard here. The stage I presented over two years ago is hereby proven, with a full 5G deployment the damage could have been 10-20 times bigger. That is at stake and that needs to be stopped, it sucks to be Scotland Yard soon enough, but this victory they have and they earned it. In the mean time the Dutch report (at https://nos.nl/artikel/2453655-politie-rolt-internationale-spoofingdienst-op-en-arresteert-fraudeurs) ‘Police roll up international spoofing service and arrest fraudsters’, there is clear mention of the English police, yet we also see “In the Netherlands, there are probably thousands of calls per month. The tap led to the arrest of two men from Almere, aged 19 and 22” so it is far beyond the British borders. We also get “The police have so far discovered a hundred users from the Netherlands in the mountain of data and based on this, identify themselves and build up a file. More arrests will certainly follow, according to the police” as such we can say that the situation is fluidic and more reporting will come soon enough. The element that gives us that there is pressure on several sides and the people are at times pressured in ‘acting now’. It makes things hard and with a full 5G it will make it even harder. The law needs adjusting and it is barely catching up with the facts they face. To be honest I wonder if serious prison times will come with the catch. I am expecting some lawyer to come with some cry story that brings tears to the eyes of the judge. It would be nice to reintroduce hard times with prison work where 90% of the earned money goes towards paying for the damages and no parole until all damages are paid for, but people will say that this is merely delusional and it will never happen. 

Time will tell.

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November 23, 2022 · 21:35

Oil in the family

This is not exactly new, it is a stage that evolved in the last week. To see that we need to take a look at ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) which hands us (at https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/opec-production-cut-has-washington-questioning-the-value-of-its-saudi-alliance/) a mere three weeks ago ‘OPEC production cut has Washington questioning the value of its Saudi alliance’, in itself the question is not invalid. Every nation assesses its value towards services delivered, but in that same stage, the direction can be inverted and as such the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is questioning the value that the United States brings to the table. President Biden asked to make Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud a pariah. It has stopped deliveries of defence equipment to the KSA all whilst the KSA was under attack by terrorist forces who were receiving aid from Iran. And when we see “Critics of the OPEC decision say it will increase the price of oil at a time when US consumers are already feeling the impact of high energy prices. A higher oil price will also provide a significant boost to Russia’s struggling economy.” All whilst the US exports 90% of its oil, as such they are sitting pretty as well. But the article does not mention that, it is increasingly one sided. Then we get the second setting and it is seen with “Saudi Arabia has lost much of its prestige and is in damage control to rebuild its image internationally and shore up its relations with the US. To reset the relationship in Washington, Saudi-backed lobbyists have spent millions of dollars. Biden responded by visiting Saudi Arabia, presumably as a gesture of goodwill and to attempt some recalibration.” It is the ‘lost much of it prestige’, by what standard? The KSA gained massive silent prestige with Neom and the line, two stages never seen before and the US has nothing in opposition to that. It will be relying on the coattails of Saudi achievements for the next 20 years. A nation that is so broke it cannot fix its support structures, and that all before we see the damage the ultra right is making in the US. And where is the so called hypocritical ‘honest’ media? When did you see any clear article on the line or Neom? The mainstream media is steering clear of it, no doubt due to the (my speculative view) word from stakeholders. 

This is in contrast to the Vox a week ago where we see “Biden “wants to be able to reevaluate in a methodical, strategic, effective way,” clarified national security adviser Jake Sullivan, “rooted in his fundamental interest in making sure that the relationship the United States has with Saudi Arabia serves the American people effectively.” Sullivan in essence suggested that things so far had not been going well.” We see this (at https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/17/23423031/why-america-cant-seem-to-quit-saudi-arabia), it is showing us a stage set. We are given “Now that the Biden administration re-evaluates its approach a third time, will it come to a new conclusion? It will be tough to change much. The US, after all, relies on the kingdom as a major oil producer and economic power with important shipping lanes, a close partner in countering Iran and terrorist organisations, and a significant trading partner and number-one purchaser of US weapons.” But that stage is not entirely true, that WAS the stage, but as China moved in, we see a spiralling US economy. Lets not give food to the speculator’s there. China increased exports and services to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 24 billion in 2019 to 30 billion in 2021, some views give us that it is now approaching 33 billion and as Neom and the Line grows, China will gain more. That is 9 billion the US and Europe lost, more importantly China is now getting more oil and the talks implying that Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan gives us the indication that this will not halt any day soon, it also implies that the US is partially done for. Its games are now backfiring, should oil deliveries decrease by as little as an additional 1 million barrels US economy could implode with all the nightmares and trimmings that come with that. I personally do not care, I warned the US and the UK that there will be a price to pay soon enough and I made that prediction in 2020, now that this is about to happen, President Biden can play its games and let the media decide how much they hate the KSA and Muslims, or he can fold the game. The UK with its CAAT is in a similar position. They had the upper hand towards 2-3 billion in weapon sales, predominantly the Typhoon, now that money is most likely to go towards the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, China will be extending its arms for extended services towards Saudi Arabia.

The players wanting to keep Saudi Arabia on some kind of leash are now forced to fold their game. They lost to China and the damage is increasing. It is a fair assessment that the Russian – Ukrainian stage did not help, but that is how the cookie crumbles at times. As some stakeholders encouraged anti Saudi sentiments, they forgot that they weren’t the only players and what is coming now is hurting their long term policies in the Middle East and in the Far East. Did you think it was a fluke that the Silk Road was investing in Indonesia? It has over 200 million Muslims and that opens up new commerce borders and Saudi Arabia is ready to collect. I saw part of this last year and I tried to bank on it, but alas the KSA was not assisting (poor me), now that we see this evolving stage, players like Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his Kingdom Holding Company will make increasing profits in new areas, all whilst the US and EU are given their walking papers. In the next two years their share will decrease by well over 40%, all whilst their political power in that region is most likely to be a trivial one. One ego driven stage led to the larger loss on influence in the Middle East and soon the Far East as well. A stage that China is happy about, the others? Not so much.

But I saw parts of this a year ago, so why did the media not see this? I am not more intelligent than them, but I can read raw data and that was where a lot was all along. But feel free to disagree with me, it is your right, yet when the oil valve closes a little more, just watch the chaos unfold. When you create a mobile industry you need to be weary of essential parts you need, fuel being one of them and the other solution is not as fast as people keep on slapping Elon Musk with his Tesla. All elements in a game where the people who have oil in the family will have the last laugh. Which remind me, how much longer will the US export 90% of its oil? Is there no shortage in the US? 

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November 17, 2022 · 20:13

Brain drain, by design

I was sitting in my room, enjoying the sounds of David Bowie. Then the track ‘This is not America’ came. It took me back to 1985, the movie ‘The Falcon and the Snowman’ which uses that song was released. I saw it, but I did not get it. You see, we steal for our governments and we commit murder for our governments, these things happen, yet I personally never understood treason I never accepted that act. I believe traitors are due a bullet to the back of their head. They are a little better than child molesters, but not by much. 

And at that point the mind started to move the cogs. You see we see acts of treason against employees all the time, but we ignore it. Some listen to the reason of Wall Street and that is when people get hurt, it is business as usual for Wall Street and America. But what happens when someone takes that given foundation am makes something of that. In this we see India and a conglomerate is acquiring talent. These people are offered a choice of two places. One in Himachal Pradesh and one close to the Kumarakom Lake Resort. To places, one for summer and one for winter. These are closed resorts and they are set as 5 star resorts. The difference is that these two resorts are only for the invited. As India sees the betrayal of staff, these people are approached and offered a different way of life. They merely have to create IP, the value is the ante for staying there, when breakthroughs are made, when these people make the numbers they are off for the rest of the year if they want. Optional these people can work forward, as such if they create the IP that exceeds the numbers they are given the option to relax and rest. A person could work three months in year one and if the value exceeds the numbers he has a paid vacation until the end of year two. All orders these people have are managed online. And that is how their version of paradise works. Yet there is more, that project is managed by India and China. They are sitting on a wealth of IP, and as the people create and commit, they are treated like kings, nothing is missing in their lives, their kids get the best private tutors and their partners have access to a life of wealth and good health. The one downturn is that they cannot leave the resort. 

The beginning of a miniseries, it will be too large for a movie, but a 4-6 episode mini series with a run time of 60-90 minutes could work. China remains below the surface (at lest in the beginning) and the idea that we see a list of damages

United States $275 billion, United Kingdom $43 billion, European Union $27 billion (and so on) and now consider that the stage where two 5 star resorts are created to facilitate for the acquisition of $345 billion dollar. This could work and the settings I saw over the last week where Google and Amazon are firing staff, people are in a runt to make ends meet and they casually left $6 billion on the floor, I reckon this approach to a new kind of logistic assault on nations is merely a heartbeat way. It is not 5G, it is not the stage of greed. It is facilitated by the simple need of people wanting a decent life, the question is do the people still remember what a decent life was? In this day and age the cogs of labour are changing and companies are finding out that holding the people against the bottom line of a corporation will facilitate such places and there is a chance that some will be willing to move to a place like China. The US has a much bigger problem than they realise and that is the setting for this script and exercise. It took me 3 hours to set up the station for this story and consider, what happens when 200 engineers take the road towards a decent life and a decent way of life. You figure out how much certain places could lose and more importantly how that impacts their economies, because the last time I checked the loss of $275 billion in value could drive a place like the US into utter bankruptcy. They all forgot about what happens when the makers and creators leave, just like Covid, they were never prepared for that scenario. Why not? And if that I true why not treat those people better? The foundation of  story and optionally a TV series.

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November 12, 2022 · 17:56

The other foot

A thought occurred, it happened earlier today, but my mind was not with the program that runs within me. You see we have a foot we prefer, almost like left handed and right handed, but the foot is less obvious, it is merely in the back of our minds, perhaps it is linked to instinct, perhaps it is less than that, but the setting exists. Yet what happens after? You see we are so of the mind that we walk we do that, and sometimes we run. Then we meet with people who tells us not to run, but to walk. Some have an actual concern. It can be safety, or merely the chance of danger. The other group gives us that setting do that we can be caught up to, we do not run faster than they do, it worries them. 

Yet there is another place. Where we rely on asymmetric gait, it is skipping. The interesting part is that skipping, even for 1-2 minutes a day strengthens you and increases your accuracy. Yet be honest. When was the last time you did that exercise? When do you no longer need to rely on increased strength and accuracy? You thought of that as a child’s game, did you not? 

The other foot is there too. What happens when you start concentrating on moving the other foot first? It is a simple question, did you ask yourself that? What happens when people state that there is no need, you are good as you walk and for a while you suddenly get compliments. Did you consider that someone does NOT want you to increase your mobility? In the 90’s my bosses did something similar. Convince me to NOT learn Oracle. It did not sit well with their exploitation of me, yet I did not learn that lesson until much later, too late actually. Yet in my twilight I have merely a few goals. Sell my IP and get a really nice stake in my retirement. And in good faith those who wronged me will never be allowed near my IP (Microsoft is not invited either). 

Yet the stage is not my IP, this stage is about you. When were you given a real option in the last two years? You see bosses are now no longer in charge (sort of). It is an employee setting and for the most they cannot get a good employee at present. EVERYONE is short of staff. As such this is the time to slam your fist on the table and set precise goals that they have to adhere to, although if you do that, you better deliver on their needs too. 

The AFR (at https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-we-don-t-have-enough-workers-to-fill-jobs-in-4-graphs-20220621-p5avcc) gives us in a first graph that the shortage increased by 30% in the last 2 years alone and it is not merely the ageing group. Bosses have short sold their staff for over a decade and now the invoice is due. In the blue collar stage it fluctuates between 20% and a whopping 74%. As such businesses on a global scale have a problem. Fortunately for them they have some options in other fields. Instead of relying on ‘Fake it until you make it’ they need to rely on ‘learn it until you lead it’ and there could be options all over the Commonwealth, Europe and even the US. Places like Oracle can start hiring trainees and after their first courses are passed they can be placed at their customers. Rotating every 6 month until someone ‘Shanghai’ them to become permanent employees. And this is not merely Oracle. There is Oracle, IBM, Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, end a few others.

The HR departments on a global scale need to alter their Modus Operandi it no longer works the way they think it does. The old days are over and you either adjust or you restrict your business. Of course players like Oracle need an alternative workforce, but there Universities and experienced oldies might be two streams of getting the workforce enabled. In addition they have the ability to enhance cyber knowledge all over the field making their people more enticing than the other ones. There the AFR had another view (at https://www.afr.com/technology/skills-shortage-a-handbrake-for-technology-companies-20220503-p5ai8r) and here we see ‘Skills shortage a ‘handbrake’ for technology companies’ which is merely the top-line. It is “The Australian Information Industry Association’s annual member survey found 75 per cent of technology companies are expecting their revenue to grow by at least 5 per cent this year but are concerned skills shortages will be a barrier to expanding their business.” And that is merely Australia. The commonwealth (especially UK and Canada) have growing issues and the US is in deep trouble and with their approach to everything it is now becoming the least interesting place to work. Plenty of California places (as well as the large players) have an option to syphon services via Canada, which is not a great solution, but better than nothing. In addition we see “AIIA chief executive Ron Gauci says his members are looking offshore to find specialist tech talent” and there we see the first problem, they rely on HR systems that did not evolve, that did not adjust and I see the same BS emails in my inbox to prove it, all half baked ‘invitations’ to come to Malta, they even pay the first month rent. Moving to a place where ‘others’ call the shots? You have got to be joking. When you are young and in the workplace we had 7 years ago, some people might give that a try. In todays setting it does not hold water and that is also a problem in Australia, the people who fell for that approach the last 6-10 years ago now have different stories and their friends are giving it a miss. But some places have options. They merely have to wake up and look at the equation from the other side to see that opportunities and options are there, merely for those willing to throw the gears in another speed setting and start with the other foot, it is seemingly that simple.

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November 7, 2022 · 09:12

Start with the blabla

Yes, that is what it seems like. It feels like merely yesterday that we had COP26 and a young lady calling it a ‘bla bla’ moment. And with the actions of the exiting Brazilian president we might hope that the dangers to the Amazon are over, but I am not convinced. They were given until 2030 to fill there pockets and there is every chance that all but the final 1/3rd of the Amazon will be gone by November 2029. There is also other news COP27 will be held in Sharm-el-Sheikh. It is nice when these things are held in a place I know to some degree. I was there in 1982, there will be a lot of changes, but for some reason it clicks a lot more. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63517078) ‘COP27: ‘Climate chaos’ warning as UN summit begins’ where we are told:

At last year’s summit in Glasgow a number of pledges were agreed:

  • to “phase down” the use of coal – one of the most polluting fossil fuels
  • to stop deforestation by 2030
  • to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030
  • to submit new climate action plans to the UN

Developing nations – which are at the forefront of climate change – are demanding that previous commitments to finance are upheld.

It is nice to stop deforestation, but Brazil saw that as a moment to increase deforestation by well over 20% at present, so we have that to deal with. In other news the Guardian gave us a list on November 2nd. This list (at https://green-alliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Global-methane-pledge.pdf) offers “a series of low-cost measures, which it says could reduce methane emissions from their 2020 levels by 43%.” I would state that we do not give livestock Mexican food, but the document is a lot more serious and they give us “The feed additive Bovaer/3-NOP, manufactured by DSM, could cut methane emissions from dairy cows by at least 40 per cent, if it was approved by the Food Standards Agency. It must be fed to cows regularly, making it immediately suitable for dairy cows but less so for outdoor reared beef cattle and sheep.” The two issues I currently have with it is the question whether ‘Bovaer/3-NOP’ has been properly tested for long term issues in beef and milk. We made similar mistakes before, lets not do that again. On the other hand it seems that the stock of DSM will go the roof if this happens. To be honest, with all the issues at hand, I cannot say how useful this meeting will be. Call me a pessimist, but the events following COP26 in Brazil made me weary of progress here and lets be clear Brazil will be the first screaming for money, yet where exactly are these deforestation profits going? 

In other news

I woke up from a weird dream this morning. I was in some kind of marketing trailer. They were running a large screen (85”) and the image war sublime, it allowed for 4K where on the image of a salesperson, and whilst we walked and moved in the trailer the image was captured and placed on the TV, we were midgets walking all over the person on the screen and it was uncanny. The feet the stance were all instantly adjusted to the new stage based on the images captured in the trailer. The angle of the feet, the angle of us as we ascended or declined the salesperson laying on a couch. They called it Oracle Eloquent, and it gets weirder. I looked it up a minute ago and it exists. Or at least Oracle Eloquent exists. I was unaware, I have not talked about Oracle for at least a decade. I learned two things in the dream. Oracle Eloquent was free with the video equipment, it was (I think) a stage of new marketing and direct editing to make video and events in Meta, in addition to this a person had a work login, a deployment login and a third login (not sure what it was). It allowed for some kind of AI based deployment (read: deeper machine learning), it seems that some players are ready for the big players in Meta, what I saw was overwhelming and I think that something like this will appeal for the entire top tier of the Fortune 500. I partially recall seeing some Apple advert and it was amazing, but even now the dream is falling into the realm of shades and beyond my grasp. The trailer was set up for a team of 6, they would be Abel to interact and combine options to create new miracles in a setting that is mobile. As such the trailer could be moved to different Coca Cola locations. But that trailer could be placed in a specific place, linked to power and AC units. A locked setting to get the next Meta trend event to take place. It was all I saw but the thing that threw me the most was “Oracle Eloquent Model. Updating Blob directly using OracleEloquent.” I found it half an hour after the dream, so I am in the dark. I searched my history but for the last two years I have not looked at anything Oracle related. I might have seen something in a place like Verge, but I am unaware of it. The brain makes the weirdest jumps at times. As such I am willing to accept that I could see the name subconsciously, but the rest, I am drawing a blank.

So, that is enough bla bla from me for at least 10 hours.

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October 31, 2022 · 10:28

The path not trodden

That is something that has been with me a lifetime. Even when I was little, being a passenger in a car, I always wondered where the exits led that we passed. Over time, as my knowledge of geography grew I knew where they led, but it was not that simple, although I never realised that at the time. So when I got accepted into Uni something started to stir and I got myself degrees in internet-working and legal studies with a master of Intellectual Property. That did not open the doors I hoped would open, yet it opened up doors inside of me. A much more rewarding part. I started to question almost everything and it led to over a dozen pieces of IP. UTS opened a doorway into how other people were thinking and that was utterly rewarding, because the exits I saw pass by were now in the open for me to explore and a dozen of IP pieces are now mine. Google never looked there, Amazon did not look there and wherever Microsoft is looking and not looking is not something anyone needs to be bothered about. Especially as some give us only 15 hours ago ‘Microsoft warns that October 2022 security updates can cause problems joining domains in Windows 11 and older’, I wonder if Microsoft can actually properly test security updates, they have become too big and the cracks are showing. In all this I found billions in revenue and to be honest, I do not trust a whole lot of wannabe tech firms. You see them on LinkedIn with fortune cookie wisdoms, getting their friends to like their post and liking the posts of friends hoping they gain traction. It is one of the reasons I handed the first part of my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and if part 1 comes through they get a shot at the rest as well. As the large firms contract into the billions, I found additional billions as well as a few more options, because I explored the paths not trodden. Not only that, I found a few new sides that were ignored for longer than anyone would be happy about. When I started to meditate on these parts, my speculation (perhaps presumption) was that they either did not understood what they were looking at, or they didn’t fit it with their ‘marketing’ revenue. And that is the larger station. They are all trying to cash in on advertisements, and as they do that, they left billions on the floor. The certain telling of a limited field of view, like Microsoft. It is still a mystery why dopey googly Google would miss out and for that same reason Amazon, but there you have it, by looking where other race by, you tend to find the gemstones. The problems is which party could want and would pay for these gemstones. I am banking on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE is an option but too far from Sydney at present and there are too many unknowns there too. The fact that the tech firms in the US, UK and EU have the same failing implies that they are all connected and optionally a discriminating source to some, as such I went the other way and now that there is a real chance to take a slice of the marketshare that should have been Google and Amazon (or wannabe Microsoft too) is a larger concern. I did not forget about Apple or IBM, they have focussed areas and they focus on these places as any tech firm will. So they never faltered (not to that degree), and in all this when you start digging and you see how they are all in the same mindset you will see that they miss the same opportunities again and again, which is now amounting to billions. So when you see ‘Google reportedly spends $100 million on avatars to take on TikTok’, or ‘Google making disinformation profitable via ad business: Report’ you get a first view that they are all looking at each other, optionally coveting the piece of pie the other one has and I found a new pie that I would not need to share (well whomever buys my IP). And now we have a new ballgame. The IT representing hundreds of billions of value is ignoring the few percentages that I found and no one else is aware (for now), I actually wonder when they will wake up from their dog eats dog momentum to realise that the dogs fighting over the same bone left half a dozen bones still covered in meat alone. Me as the little chihuahua got those bones as they were seemingly too small, but at 2%-5%, these billions are a lot to a little Chihuahua like me and I am happy with the spoils that they bring, I reckon that Saudi Arabia will be equally pleased. They get to sit at the big tech table and the other players will wonder how that happened. It happened because they followed each other and they all ignored the few exits that made me wonder, they all thought it went nowhere, which tells you more about them than me. And after my first win, the other IP pieces will become interestingly easy to sell, but I am also loyal, as such Saudi Arabia gets to pick first. The others never wanted to show interest, now they do not have to. That is only fair, is it not?

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October 28, 2022 · 23:21

Two things

They are not connected, not in any way, but the first part is too short to make a blog by itself as such I connected the two in separate parts.

Zeus Awakens

I have been brooding on the entry for Zeus, there is no way he can be omitted from the story, it is in one part as he is father to Ares, he is the other grandfather and he will emerge. In part that as our main character is gaining strength, the main character is now becoming a larger concern to the big three. As such I had to add Zeus to some degree and the second season was a decent moment to introduce him. 

It was a nice summer day in France, Nice to be more exact (as it is a nice town). I was sitting on a balcony on the esplanade of Nice, looking at the sea a mere 122 metres to the south. I heard a woman’s voice in the back asking me if I wanted any tea. ‘Yes please Lucia’ I responded and a few minutes later she came with a pot of tea. I saw her shiver and I took a gaze at the thermometer to my left. It was odd, it was slowly going down from the 28 degrees it was a minute ago. In one minute it had cooled down to 19 degrees. Grab the cat I said, I started to close the windows inside, she came in with Charcoal who was clearly feeling the lack of warmth and we closed all the windows. I moved towards the gas heater and turned it on. I didn’t need it, but she would definitely need heat soon enough. I looked at a contraction in the cupboard. It had thermometers, barometers and they were all going nuts. Air pressure was down to 950 and the temperature had gone down to 9 degrees. I looked out and I saw people run for entries wherever they saw one. It was definitely a larger problem, but I had never seen anything like this. The clouds in the air were dissolving, the sky was deep blue and the thermometer was now at 6 degrees. The sea looked calm, the air was quiet and the thermometer kept on declining. Within a minute it was down to 1 degree and it seemed to stop there, in the two minutes that I looked outside, I saw people grab coats. I saw a shopkeeper hand sweaters to some women in bikini as well as to men wearing shorts and t-shirts. The cold was felt everywhere. I noticed that the cat was keeping his body against the heater, it as not used to the cold. Then Lucia screamed, I looked at her and she pointed to the room. A man with long silver hairs was standing there. He was wearing a Victorian suit and he looked at me. I had never seen him before. He raised his hand and sparks flew out of his fingers towards the glass table, he then vanished and the heat came back, I looked at Lucia in puzzlement. I smelled a distinct Ozone air and I looked outside. The heat was coming back and I turned the heater off. I looked outside and the sun was there, the heat came gushing in everywhere and within a minute the temperature was back to 20 degrees. I looked at the table. The glass was there and so was a text, in the glass ‘Ελάτε στην Ακρόπολη, πρέπει να μιλήσουμε’. I got that message loud and clear. So this was my grandfather? Time to learn more about the other branch of the family. I send a mental note to grandpa Hades. “Zeus summoned me, will update you later” I looked at Lucia “It seems I have to make a business trip”, she nodded. She did not understand what was going on, but I got the impression that she was eager to go into denial. “Break the table into small parts, keep the cat away and be careful. Get a new table please.” I walked into the bedroom and got a small bag and from the living room fruit bowl I got my keys, wallet and some small stuff. Time to see Athens again.

Time squandered, time wasted

That was the first thought I had when I saw the Guardian article ‘Profits at world’s seven biggest oil firms soar to almost £150bn this year’. It is not their fault. The article is not what I am commenting on, not really. We get (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/27/profits-at-worlds-seven-biggest-oil-firms-soar-to-almost-150bn-this-year-windfall-tax) “Mathew Lawrence, the director of Common Wealth, a think-tank, said Shell’s zero windfall tax bill for 2022 showed the levy introduced by Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor in May was “not fit for purpose” and needed significant change”, yes. That is how it starts and I am not saying that the comment is wrong, because that would require me to be an expert on taxation, and that is definitely not me. But consider that I wrote ‘Heating at what price?’ On December 3rd 2018, almost 4 years go (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/12/03/heating-at-what-price/).

I mentioned tax overhauls before that, years before than and now we see the impact of inaction and I get that Shell is not wavering, because tax laws were never properly overhauled and now there is a problem. So in 2018 I wrote “It is the first time in history that a Middle Eastern nation has the ability to put the US and EU to shame with their lack of technological progress. They claim to have it, yet Saudi Arabia is making a move towards ‘showing to have it‘, changing the game for both the US and Europe. This is where we see the difference. China and Russia see this as an opportunity, whilst Europe and the US are seeing it as an inconvenience” and now it is no longer an inconvenience, now it is an actual problem and the UK, EU and US are not ready. I warned of these dangers 4 years ago, but they all knew better. How do you feel? Did they know better? Did they know more are were they merely playing stationary, optionally licking stamps. And the opportunity that Russia sees and the opportunity that China sees are different. Russia is out of the equation, but China is now fulfilling what I saw 4 years ago and it will get worse. As China has more and stronger ties with Saudi Arabia they can get more oil and America? They can play indecisive politician, play the pariah game a little more. The UK has its tea grannies (CAAT) messing things up and Europe has little options from the start. All things I wrote about in 2018. And the UN is useless in this case (as I see it). Two things can be seen in very different things, in different ploys. In players and receivers. In actions and lack thereof. Two things almost half a dozen times over and I made clear mention of it in 2018. So as I prepare to sell my IP, I can now see that the timing is near perfect. The players will overreact and by the time they figure out what they could have done I will be retiring. In this it will be either Google versus Amazon, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia versus all others. If one acts the other loses and it will be billions that they lose, if one accepts they will have billions in a direction they never considered before and as I see inaction upon inaction I am wondering if their inactions is why they never saw what they could have gotten. I know it I speculation, but when was the last time anyone left well over 5 billion a year on the floor? And it plays out in the same way that Shell and others are coaching their fortunes. The inactions of others is making them rich, I deeply hope that I get that same bonus, my retirement kinda depends on it. 

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October 25, 2022 · 21:11

Questioning the drawing board

That happens at times, we all have a drawing board, we have an idea or IP and it goes swimmingly and then the floor drops. Not because of the idea or the IP, but the floor drops because you forgot, or were unaware of certain parts. This happens and there is no real blame here not in any direction, it is merely what is. This is currently happening to me. In this my IP bundle 3 was knowingly with some risk, because it is depending on certain Meta evolutions, but over time there would be the stage. Yet in event number one we are confronted with a video regarding Modern Warfare 2 Amsterdam Mission. (At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_LlSR6-ibA) this is so close to real that the metaverse cannot be that far behind (when they figure out where to put their data centre). This is part presumption (a better from of speculation) and the fact that certain players want a benefit now in the metaverse and that works in part in my favour. Yet my idea was set to a stage where the takings were set to somewhere between two and three billion. In part because of the Meta risk, in part to how things tend to evolve. That is in part the name of the game. Now with the evolution stage being that far pushed, the takings of my IP could be 5-10 times higher and there still is a risk. So what gives? Well there are three cogs in that machine. The speed of adapting to the metaverse. That cog is now a lot smaller (hence quicker adaption) because of some of the Modern warfare 2 imagery. Cog two is personal evolution, this remains steady at the same size, it will go quicker because of cog 1, but not that much faster. Cog three is technological attachment. That one remains a little bit of a mystery. Because of what we see in Modern warfare two, we can assume that the rest will be as great, but that is not a given, there will be congestion and there will be overlap, but it matters as the whole image is now a presumption of what Modern Warfare 2 brings. And that matter as the adaption goes quicker, more will adapt and that quantifies the 5-10 times larger growth then I had foreseen. The risks remain the same, as the adaption is more complete my solution will find a home in a lot more cases than I can anticipate, but that is less presumption and more speculation. Amazon is still the frontrunner, but Google has options here too. Amazon has a few extra benefits (if they adapt), but that does not take Google out of the race, not by a long shot. And this matters in other ways too.

You see, these thoughts raced through my mind when I saw the three day old article ‘90% of schools in England will run out of money next year’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/oct/22/exclusive-90-of-uk-schools-will-go-bust-next-year-heads-warn) there we see “Nine out of 10 schools in England will have run out of money by the next school year as the enormous burden of increased energy and salary bills takes its toll, the Observer can reveal”, I do not completely agree with this. I can agree on the entire energy setting. The UK and other nations are dealing with the Russian part of the equation, as such we are given “electricity and gas costs for schools in his chain had rocketed from £26,000 a year to £89,000” and there is no way that any organisation can foresee a rise of well over 300%, as such other solutions need to be found. We can return to covid stages and shut the schools down for now. This could work in my favour, but I prefer not to go there. Amazon will have a much larger benefit there and both Google and Apple are close by. In all this Apple could trump Google, but that too is speculation. What does matter is that these two elements have similar solutions and we need to look at solutions. The concepts of schools are now more and more outdated. Outdated might not be the right word, but the drain on energy needs to be stopped and as such schools in winter become a no-no. But that same setting gets pushed to homes and they are equally not entirely on the mark for dealing with this. The reality is crass and not that nice. But you need proper isolated warehouses where you can place a few hundred students all with proper internet access, all with power supplies. Well, that or properly isolate schools which should have been done decades ago. The lesser evil needs to be found and I am not sure what the best for education is. As such we have a drawing board, but we need to question that one too. That drawing board is set to old standards, new standards are required and I am not sure where to find them, and I need not worry as it is not on my plate, but that stage is altering enough that we all need to think what is possible here. There is a larger stage and that is on the politics (of the UK), the stage that 90% runs out of funds is only in part on energy, the rest is the consequence of inaction. We want to give blame but the Covid era was a year and too little was done there, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine made the mess complete but that too is only in part (for western Europe). I believe that Strasbourg and London should have had large debates with Elon Musk on the energy issues and that could have been started well over two years ago, now it is seemingly too late and one generation will get the mess of inactions. That is almost a given. I could be wrong, but see of what is happening and see what was not done, not merely in the UK, in most of Western Europe. The early bird that hesitates gets worms. An expression seen in 1988, so this is not new. I will let you mull over what could be a solution for schools, but I am not sure if there is a good one at present, it might be a little too late for several solutions. 

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