Tag Archives: UK

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. 

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Politics, Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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. 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 25, 2022 · 04:25

Is no sense and nonsense the same?

I woke up from something and it nagged me a bit. It started last week when two idiots decided to treat a masterpiece of Van Gogh to tomato soup and yesterday I saw the wax museum where two royals were treated to pie slaps. The second was not as bad as the first, but it still nagged me. So lets give them what they want in a way they never wanted it. You see they import around 3310 GBP Million in oil per month. The bulk of it comes from Norway and the US. There is some from the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia as well and in previous years from Russia as well. So lets set them all to zero. And there is a small addendum. As long as at least one member of ‘Just stop Oil’ is still, alive the agreement cannot be stopped. I wonder how long it takes for them to realise that they are the cause of hardship? You see petrol in the UK is about 175p per litre (a small deviation between unleaded, leaded and diesel, but not much). I reckon within two weeks that price will go up to 355p or even 455p. Consider that there are 2,500 per million tradies and most of them rely on their vans to get around. This implies that their prices go up by a lot and that will have several negative impacts for some work will fall away. 

So how long until one of them will realise that a British wrench is also known as a murder wrench? And as long as even one is alive the agreement holds, no import of oil. You really think that they stand much of a chance with well over 150000 tradies wanting their skin? I think not and the larger problem is that these people are not that intelligent, they were coached by others. But that is not my problem, it will be theirs soon enough. So why don’t we give them what they want? We might be able to stop two problems all at once. Just a thought mind you.

I will let you decide if there was no sense to my idea, or was it all nonsense? Yet consider that these idiots will hurt a piece of art we all feel strongly about. At that point what chance to they have when we all lose our patience? 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 24, 2022 · 19:04

When is a stamp not a stamp?

That is the thought I was confronted with when I saw an article this morning. It linked to an article to the beginning of the year and it was about stamps, and I initially ignored it (there is only so much I can read), but today I saw the article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63367733) giving me ‘Royal Mail: 100 days left to use stamps without a barcode’ and this time it held my attention. In the article we see “Royal Mail introduced barcoded stamps in February, saying they would open up possibilities for “new innovative services.” The long-term plan is that people will be able to watch videos, find out information and send birthday messages to each other through the barcodes which can be scanned with the Royal Mail app”, but the implications are a lot larger. 

There are all kinds of intelligence implications not short term, but long term. If it can be paired to this setting, it could also be paired to where that stamp was bought, over time we can connect it to who bought it and that list extents almost indefinitely. QR codes are that solution too and let no lulling of some innocent setting tell you otherwise. It makes sense, the UK has billions of pounds getting shipped through royal mail under the eyes of the police, under the eyes of intelligence and something had to give. There was no other way, and frankly it is kind of ingenious, it seems no one else had the idea and that gives the UK an edge for a much longer time. 

And as I look at the solution, I wonder why no one else hd the idea, I certainly did not. I still mail things at time, but it is rare that I do so and we accepted a stamp as the most mundane of solutions and someone (a Brit no less) decided to evolve the stamp and how it is used. I reckon that someone in GCHQ will also be bucking for a promotion, because if I see this right, the criminals who rely on the mail solution will soon be out of business and that is a victory that should not now or ever be underestimated.  

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Military, Science

Tagged as , , , ,

October 23, 2022 · 20:56

Silence is sewage

Yes, that is quite the difference from the original ‘silence is golden’ isn’t it? But that thought started recently when I was given ‘UN, international community condemn Houthi drone attack on Yemeni oil terminal’ (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/2186011/middle-east). The idea started when I had a look and not entirely to my surprise I could not find anything from the BBC, the Guardian, the NOS, and that list goes on. Houthi terrorist actions continue, using Iranian materials and the west ignores it, how quaint. They did mention that Iran is delivering its drones to Russia, but the political parties are all about a hands off regarding Iran. I did make mention of an optional solution to take care of Iranian and Russian nuclear plants, perhaps I need to make that public domain. Perhaps they will wake up then. But back to the events at hand. The Arab News gives us “The UN on Saturday condemned an armed drone attack launched By Yemen’s Houthi militia on a southern oil terminal in Hadramout province a day earlier, saying it was a “deeply worrying” military escalation”, well it isn’t in most newspaper, so I reckon it is not that Important or that critical. And we also get a name with “I condemn the aerial attack claimed by Ansar Allah yesterday”, we also see very little regarding that terrorist and the BBC or the Guardian. One could speculate that the Iranian stakeholders in the UK have a lot more sway than anyone is willing to acknowledge, yet that is mere speculation from me. In addition we are given “Bin Mubarak said he also held a call with the US ambassador to Yemen, Steven Fagin, to discuss the consequences of the attacks on civilian facilities and commercial ports, and how it would worsen the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, adding he “demanded strong measures to put an end to Houthi terrorism.”” It sounds nice, but if the media shuns it to this degree, there is every chance that the Americans will not do too much in the end. They have so far not done anything successful in reigning in Iranian events, so I would not hold my breath on this either. 

The larger problem is not the these events are happening, it is that the powerful voices are lulling the people to sleep, ignoring what Houthi terrorists are up to in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia, all funded by Iran and we need to wake up, we need to see that Iran is becoming a much larger danger than we could ever be comfortable with. For China it is yet another option to spread its influence in the middle east. Consider cardinal Richelieu (Alexander Dumas, the 4 musketeers) stating “who will do something about these blasphemers?” The informative path is open, and those doing something will end with a lot more than the silent ones, but the US and UK could enjoy a further restriction of a million barrels a day. Do you think they will not buy them? The US has had an option to do something for well over 2 years and they did not. It was all about the pariah Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, but what happened when the US needed cheap oil (for whatever reason, they sell most of theirs). Yes, and now the ante is upped because no one is doing anything about Iran, no one is acting when inaction is no longer acceptable. 

When the Yemeni port is hit, when that port becomes inoperable, we will see some tea granny (CAAT) make claims that this was all the fault of Saudi Arabia, all whilst it is the western world that is in part to blame as they are hiding behind ‘Silence is sewage’ and they are fine with that, t least their stakeholders are, are you? This war has been going on for well over 8 years. Not in any point in time did terrorists have such a hold in disturbing a population and several nations. 

The fun part (for me) is that if China makes a stand, when it actually does something about the terrorists by supplying the Yemeni and Saudi governments what they need, what will the west do? For them it will then be too late. There is now a larger area that is in the mix and it could cost the EU and the US a lot more than they ever imagined and the papers will prove me right. Which paper had anything on the attack on  the harbour in Hadramout province? So far I found France24 with a decent piece, the rest? As far as I can tell, not a word. Why is that?

The age of Silence is golden is over, it was never a real golden era to begin with, it only supported greed driven entities and it supported them well. We need to change the book of tactics before it is too late for too many, but that is merely my view on the matter.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 12, 2022 · 19:52

No one wonders?

It all starts with a BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63207771) where we are given ‘Chinese technology poses major risk – GCHQ Chief’, there are two settings here. The first one was the BS approach by the Yanks (that place between the Pacific and the Atlantic river, South of Canada) and the UK issues. The Americans basically called Huawei (China) evil and refused to hand over any evidence. The UK stated that no foreign nation should be in charge to a major infrastructure. The UK is setting the centre stage to policy and that is fair and decent. In the Netherlands that same policy was used by founders Rob Romein and Franz Hetzenauer to create Tulip computers and they got rich real quick. You say Potato, I say Tomato. But policy is a real issue and that is fair in any government. So today I get to see “China has deliberately and patiently set out to gain “strategic advantage by shaping the world’s technology ecosystem”, the head of the intelligence agency told an audience at the Royal United Service Institute for its annual security lecture. Sir Jeremy argued the Chinese Communist Party was aiming to manipulate the technology that underpins people’s lives to embed its influence at home and abroad and provide opportunities for surveillance”, OK that is a decent accusation and it will not be easy to prove that, or basically it will be a stretch to prove it. We then get “China’s development of the BeiDou satellite system – a rival to the established GPS network which he said had been built into exports to more than 120 countries. He claimed it could be used to track individuals or combined with plans to knock out other countries’ satellites in the event of a conflict”, which is one approach, but could the Chinese government not claim that GPS could do exactly the same thing? In addition we get “the intelligence chief said he would not stop children using TikTok – which is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance – although he said young people should be more aware of their personal data and how it could be shared”, OK fair point and awareness of personal data is a good thing, but doesn’t Facebook (and Meta) do he same things? I have seen advertisements on Facebook that should never have appeared, as such too many players are doing exactly the same thing, but for us China is red and evil, would they not claim the same thing regarding Facebook and YouTube? We are then given “He said the UK should continue to welcome students from China but “be really clear on the areas of technology where we will require additional safeguards”. Areas like artificial intelligence and quantum computing were particularly important, he told the audience”, which is a fair point. Although it is not out of the question that this should be a marker between commonwealth countries and any other country. In that regard places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have to agree on similar settings. In this Sir Jeremy Fleming (a more dashing lookalike of Michael Andrew Gove) has a few issues on the table that make sense and although we wonder why the Americans are so easily accepted, they issues all make sense. It reflected for me how I am happy that I offered my IP to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and not to China, although the new partnership between China (Tencent Technologies) and Microsoft is not making any waves at all, funny ain’t it? I wonder if we are hitting a critical point of nationalism at this point, and where should the inventors sit? The fact that Google and Amazon are decently clueless on where I found the grounds of 50 million subscriptions will also hit Facebook at some point and I accidentally stumbled on this, the invention had a different foundation and direction, but as I aw where it could take me, I left it to these two titans to slug it out and Google dropping the Google Stadia implies that they are losing more than they reckoned on and that leaves Amazon (who is seemingly still in the dark), so now my hopes are that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accepts my offer. But the underlying stage also exists. I still have my 5G hardware, a stage I saw two years ago and no one else is seeing this, they are all hoping that Facebook makes good on their Meta and they are all in some wait state that it comes for them, I designed my hardware with the view on Neom, as well as the changing stage of marketing, a stage that ill be very different from 2024 onwards (OK, it might be 2025). But those in a “wait-state” will lose out if they cannot adjust their course and I will (extremely hopefully) retire with a nicely filled bank account to sing out my retirement with good food and seeing nice places, I worked 40 years, so I feel entitled to my decently whistling wish. Yet between the lines there are battlefronts. The issue for the Commonwealth to find the right allies, to align with the proper parties and be decently neutral against the others. Yes, we all oppose Russia in the Ukraine stage and that is fine, but do not for one second believe that America is our ally, our friend. Their friendship changes election after election and in the end they are merely their own ally, so when America implodes, and it will, we should be aware and we should be willing to continue with true allies, one that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia could be, if we could for one minute stop listening to stakeholders, whose alliance is their wallets and their wallets alone. I tried to warn people for 3-5 years that stakeholders are corporate tools that releases the media as their goals see fit, I showed years of data in that direction and soon there will be no choice, if they get their wish, they fill their wallets, they say ‘Oops!’ And they walk away, and where we will we all be at that point? The larger issue is not why we were unaware, but where the media was when the elements were in view. The missing Iran reports regarding Yemen, the list of Pi Phone articles that are only now showing up, the serious questions that the media should have lobbed at Jack Dorsey and Twitter over the last few months and the list goes on, filtered information is not news, it is news founded on discrimination and that is the stage we face, but what else are we not given? Who knew on the partnerships between Chinese Tencent and Microsoft? Who asked the serious questions? I will let you seek and search that part yourself. 

So many question and no one wonders how a simple guy like me has the inside track on 50 million optional customers, you think Google would have dropped their Stadia if they could gain 50,000,000 optional customers? Figure it out and yes, some will consider the main point that I might be spreading that stuff that grows the grass in Texas, but I asked myself questions and also doubted myself. Stakeholders will not do that, they will merely proclaim that the other side does not exist (or is irrelevant). 

It is time for you to wonder what else they are missing and that is aimed at my 5G IP. A side of 5G none of them have. 

Enjoy the day, you should, preferably before the Russian decide to make all the Ukrainians glow in the dark.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Military, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 10, 2022 · 22:02

In doubt we trust

Yes, it is the most uncanny of statements and there is al kinds of opposition to it. For me this started yesterday when I saw the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-63157632) titled ‘Molly Russell: Dad wants no further delay to online harm bill’ and I get it, he wants to do something and it all makes sense. But then we get “He also said online platforms must stop self-regulating their content” and there the trouble starts. In the first we have the UK, Canada, the US all having their version of freedom of speech and freedom of expression. And it get to be worse. The UK (like a well trained group of pussies) decided to largely ignore the Leveson report. The media CANNOT regulate themselves and even after Leveson we have seen several examples where the media is unable to police and regulate themselves, as such why hold tech players and online media to those standards? The second setting is that these players can move from place to place. It is too large a sewer to see any clear management done on any level. And I feel for Ian Russell, I really do. Yet when we see “The current government has said that they want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online and yet we’re still here and we’re not regulating the platforms. I think it’s really important, firstly, that something that is illegal in the offline world must be illegal and we must be better protected when it’s found on the online world” we see the dream state, it is the best description. The man is not wrong, but with the cloud there is even less oversight. And it is a multi tiered prong we see. We go after regulating platforms but we do not go after the POSTERS. State per nations that any poster of social media is held responsible and make sure that the penalties are harsh. It will be a first hurdle and there are over a dozen to go. You see, when that hurdle is fixed, others will offer services on an international foundation and the problem starts again. His only real option is to make sure that EVERY poster of  certain materials are published with their real name and real address. That is when the game changes. Some will stop and hide under a rock, others will get more clever about matters and we are back at square one. For one Facebook adds “more than 300 million photos get uploaded per day. Every minute there are 510,000 comments posted and 293,000 statuses updated” Facebook tories are worse they are only there for 24 hours and can only be watched by a person twice. There is no policing or managing that. It is a life of its own and that is merely one source. Add Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube and half a dozen more and you see the scale of the matter. YouTube is the centre of 720,000 hours of material EVERY DAY. The scale cannot be managed and anyone who says different is lying to you. And that is only in places where some have oversight. With TikTok it becomes a much larger mess. So we might trust in doubt, but that doubt needs a formidable bat. Making the poster responsible and these media outlets reporting and having some  grasp of the posters is essential and that is a first. It will not make a huge dent, but it could give governments and people a handle of the poster of the harmful content and there is the first setting. These people want the limelight, but when their faces are on the news and they are being asked the hard questions, they will hide behind the freedom of speech and there is the real problem. The laws are centuries old and they never considered mass media and mass slander. These concepts did not even exist in those years. It is not bout regulation, it is about the laws being adjusted and there is also the problem, when that person places it on a server in Russia, India or China, can that person be prosecuted? 

It is a rather large mess and the law followed decades behind, so I reckon that a first solution will come to shine by 2035, which might make it no longer valid. 

It is merely my view and plenty will disagree, but look at what is now and how much could be regulated and do not rely on AI, it does not yet exist. In the mean time, I need to find a contact in Riyadh, the one in the Saudi Consulate seems to be non functioning (with the option of $500 million a month for their government), the levels of inaction are weird to say the least, but that is my problem, not yours. 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 6, 2022 · 20:07

Wall and writing

Yup that is the setting and it will be clear soon enough. It was a day in July when I wrote (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/07/18/for-those-not-seeing-the-oil-field/) titled ‘For those not seeing the oil field’, there I wrote “What happens when they sell 2.5 million barrels a day less and let that go to the US shortage?” So this was three months ago and now we see at NPR (at https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126754169/opec-oil-production-cut) “The OPEC+ alliance announced a 2 million barrels a day cut in oil production Wednesday”, so I was off by only 500,000 barrels a day. I mentioned on a few occasions ‘I told you so’ and this time around it ill cost you, it will cost you a lot, because 2 million barrels less implies a fuel price rise of 10%-20% from the start and still in that time no one asked Brent oil any heavy questions. It is a commercial enterprise and as such it does not care about Americans and their cheap fuel needs. So whilst we all stare at “President Biden has been trying to rein in prices at the gas pump ahead of the midterm elections” all whilst he did close to nothing to rein in Brent and their selling of well over 75% of their stock abroad. You just cannot have it both ways. If you wanted cheap oil, they needed to treat Saudi Arabia as a real ally to a much better degree than they did. Consider going to the pastry shop asking: “Yo fat fuck, gimme a pastry for 10 cents” what are the chances that will work? Even if you make it “Sir can you please sell me a pastry for 10 cents” there will not be too many shops who will do that. A friend might, but America did whatever they could to make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a pariah whilst embracing the delay tactics of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s proxy enemy. This was all going to happen one way or another and the fake claims on Russia and Saudi Arabia are a joke. This all plays straight into the hands of China who optionally might end up with that extra oil. All settings that were out in the open from the beginning. On the other hand if oil prices go up, Saudi Arabia might be more interested in my IT solution that gives them at least $500 million a month extra. Time will tell (the commercial manager in the Saudi Consulate in Sydney is seemingly too busy to see me). Well time will tell what comes next but for now Americans will see fuel prices jump, they will see their wages go towards arming thanksgiving and Christmas households and all whilst they are all ‘enjoying’ dinner wearing thicker pants and an extra jumper. As such fashion houses take notice of those needs. 

The writing was on the walls and I saw that danger happen 3 months ago. So whilst the US and UK went to Riyadh to ‘kindly please send more cheap oil our ways’ they forgot the first rule of diplomacy (politics too), you cannot make that effort empty handed and then let other organisations slap Saudi Arabia around, it never ever works that way. So when we consider “Yasser Elguindi, the head of macro research at Energy Aspects, says there’s a perception that the Saudis are trying to push prices back to or above $100 per barrel by cutting production and tightening the market. He says the magnitude of the proposed cut has caught people by surprise”, take time to notice that I saw that danger three months ago, so the ‘by surprise’ part is either hollow or a clear first show of reduced levels of competency. Yes the latter part is pure speculation, but feel free to check my earlier article, and consider what is up.

No matter how you slice it, the timing of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is pretty good, winter is coming. Where did I hear that before? No matter what, it will be a cold Christmas this year for a lot of Americans. I wonder what the impact will be in the states like New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, not to mention Washington DC. But the media might continue to avoid the Brent Crude Oil settings and for President Biden and the current PM of the United Kingdom I suggest that they take time and get the Master of Arts in International Relations and Diplomacy or brush up on what you learned there. It might help matters a little. Just some food for thought.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 4, 2022 · 18:28

Law or punishment?

This is not really a reference to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. You see, we have that setting, the Crime and punishment, sometimes it is a setting of Crime through punishment (the scapegoat setting) but the larger stage of Law or punishment is not really looked at. It is a setting that if there is not law, there can be no punishment, if there is punishment (the legal kind) there needs to be law and we are getting more and more that the bullies are given a free pass. This has been a central for too long a setting, decades even. So when the BBC gives us ‘Bradford City: Racist fans should be jailed for abuse – footballer’, the story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-63115998) gives us “Timi Odusina, who plays for Bradford City, said he had been subjected to “degrading” abuse during his career. He hoped harsher punishments, such as prison sentences to those convicted of racial abuse, would act as a deterrent to others”, this sounds nice, but the law is clear. The UK passed the Race Relations Act 1965 and there we see “The Act banned racial discrimination in public places and made the promotion of hatred on the grounds of ‘colour, race, or ethnic or national origins’ an offence”. As such I am posting the idea that politicians and lawmakers take their heads out of their asses and set in motion a new decree. No person is given access to ANY sport event without the option to show their personal ID, any person found guilty of racism is given a bad mark, and that means no attending sport events for 2 years. They can watch it on TV and shout whatever they like in their own homestead. I have ben seeing the racism, monkey references for years now and it is time that these two parties start a clear new change, ending this BS. I do not know Timi Odusina, I also do not care about him (as I do not like football), but this is the same in EVERY sport. Abuse and discrimination are wrong and it is time that we do something about it, regardless of age. You can be stupid on someone else’s time. 

Is my solution great? No it is not, I see that but something has to change and at some point enough is enough. There I no ‘it was a bad setting of events’, we see excuse after excuse. We see racial discrimination, we see gender discrimination, religious discrimination and we shrug. Nothing is done and I believe that there is now a larger need to change this. Are there better solutions? Perhaps but no one is doing anything and it is time to make changes. I reckon that the racist when he has to sit out sport events for 2 years it might change him. Why 2 years? One year is just not good enough, it does not stop a person like that and two years might. It remain speculation whether this really works but a clear signal needs to be given and that signal is “Enough is enough”.  There will be voices making opposite claims, but when all the discriminated against speak out, I reckon that the voices will request my view on the matter. With racial, gender and religious issues all over the field there is a large enough quorum to finally do something about discrimination. 

Just merely my view on the matter.

Leave a comment

Filed under Law, Media

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 29, 2022 · 00:17

Simplification anyone?

The BBC alerted me to something an hour ago. This happens and I initially read the article with a shrug like ‘who cares?’ But  few moments later the coin dropped and I was all about the WTF setting. You see, the article ‘Mortgage deals withdrawn in record numbers over rate rise fears’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63061534), as said, I initially shrugged when I saw “Lenders withdrew a record number of mortgage products overnight, according to analysts, as they grappled with the prospect of rising interest rates”, it was always going to happen, but the awakening happened shortly thereafter when I saw “Moneyfacts, a financial information service, said that 935 mortgage products, around a quarter of the total, were taken off the shelf.” Are you effing kidding me? 935 mortgage products? How can anyone get a clear view on that many products? How can anyone see the forest through the trees in that setting? And with “lenders are withdrawing mortgage deals in order to re-price them” chaos gets a free rein. Is anyone clearly investigating these products? And that is before we get to the repricing issue. Now, I get it, things get repriced, events make that essential, but when was a mortgage holder EVER contacted because his product has been lowered in price, and there would be a windfall that would be shown in a lower monthly rate, when did that EVER happen? My guess is never. And we haven’t even touched on the crazy part. This is seen with “A total of 2,661 mortgage products are still available – but that is half the number that were on sale at the start of December last year when interest rates started to rise” this means that the people are confronted with 3600 mortgage products, this sounds way too fishy to me and no one is asking questions. I get that there are elements that make it essential to have a few products, but this is enabling a wild west of mortgage consultants and that ain’t right. So when I see “Brokers are reassuring those who already have a mortgage, or an agreement for a new mortgage, that they will be unaffected for the time being. However, when they come to remortgage, they are likely to find monthly repayments have become a lot more expensive” There is a clear setting here, mortgages are frozen for a time and this time tends to be 3-5 years, so after that time remortgage will have an impact and with the housing market reducing in price by a speculated 10% that will be a very costly event for a lot of people. And that setting is made with “When the family bought their house in Manchester in 2018, they fixed the mortgage at 2.05% for five years with monthly payments of £927, Mr Ahmad said.

Usman, a 33-year-old self-employed courier, said if he took out a fixed rate mortgage today he would be facing monthly payments of more than £1,250 a month” Yes there are a few sides here and that is not all on the people. The first is what property did they buy? Did they leave space for situations that they could not foresee? The second part is the 2.05%, that is below currency valuation, a larger setting that influences everything and that is before you realise that all these events are setting their mortgage at almost 30% higher and optionally even more in 2023 and 2024. That whilst they lose 10% of their value makes it a rather large issue. And in this I have little faith in the ‘calming’ voice of Rachel Springall from Moneyfacts. We might be given “Various lenders have been very vocal that their decision to withdraw products is a temporary measure, amid the uncertainty over interest rates” but one persons temporary setting is speculation, we just do not know what will happen and the fact that there were over 3500 mortgage products was a idiotic setting to say the least. Yes, it is personal ad there might be all kind of reasons but go to ANY bank, how many mortgage products do they have? They will not give you that 3500 list, will they and banks are still the centre piece in any mortgage and that is now becoming a much larger play. Andrew Wishart, senior property economist at Capital Economics gives us “The rise in market interest rates that has already happened will push up mortgage rates to at least 6% and reduce the size of loans that lenders can offer” if that is true, Usman Ahmad’s house is a cooked setting, from 2.05% to 6% implies a cost rise of almost 300%, he might want to get out whilst he has a chance because this is about to get really ugly in the UK. And whatever short term someone hands them is a loaded cannon, it’s like walking backwards in a minefield thinking that you are more safe that way, I never saw that reality and you should neither. I reckon that a larger investigation is needed the fact that the BBC does not think this to be important is their loss, but here do you see the stage where there are over 3500 game consoles, no business can set that stage and survive, the fact that mortgages got away with it makes me wonder if any of them had the welfare of house buyers in mind. I have my doubts here.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Media, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , ,