Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

A quickie today…..



Im taking care of some bad things that happened on the trip. Like that busted lens should be mostly be paid by my heath coverage - for example.




I take the worst selfies - but yes I was actually there!



People consider it a massive flex when I would just decide to go to the General Assembly Hall and listen to Presidents and Prime Ministers at a whim at General Assembly with just my passport and Grounds Pass. I never thought about that as most people could not pass the police at 2nd Avenue. I just decided to do it that morning and it happened - a hassle but I proved it - so I guess that is a flex.







The last statement is why the Worldwide Vote and that Positive Mandate for Humanity will happen out of a moral imperative or out of emergency. I want it to happen now as I don’t do crises management. but - I will prepare for the implementation of that new global layer of involvement as a “turn key” solution. There you go. Advocacy and preparedness. Issues like the future direction of humanity in a world of super intelligent AI to mundane things like how to feed the world and such - a new global social contract is needed and I believe my vision is the best - Im just sorry it is a ”he” and a brown guy with “Ali” as his last name - it is what it is…..



BTW, this is not the quickie post I had planned - it just came out - sorry about that…..




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

Back to the reality of running seven corporations and a handful of private companies. Yes , five “for profit” corporations and two “not for profit” corporations.



First is that I now know how to submit my tax forms electronically! I have one left and that is More Vision Inc. - an advertising company. I should have it done this weekend and submitted next week and then see if any alarm bells go off.



Next is losing our second local phone line. We had it with 711 Speakout and now that the 3G service is gone they wanted you to get a traditional monthly payment system instead of their 25 buck a year plan. We are cheap so I just added a new number to our international plan and it is probably cheaper than Speakout as it is just a rider line there. All is well and good calling in direct but if I call back the caller ID display says “Estonia” so I’ll probably call back on my personal line - hehehehe…..







I always wanted to do some advocacy for old people - like myself now. Currently that is not forgotten speeches at the United Nations but that ongoing 3.8 billion dollar case with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The Ontario Provincial Government treated many old people badly during Covid and old people in general just meekly put up with it - not me - so I pushed back to make sure old folk are treated equally under the act with regard to health care going forward.



And yet - for all these altruistic acts, people still consider me questionable. They are afraid to even download my apps that have been vetted and declared safe by Google and Apple. Nobody has given me a penny for my advocacy. In the end that is probably a good thing as I remain my own man and I owe nobody anything for any of this advocacy. I’m basically on my own as a one man band and so I embraced the “lone wolf” philosophy of advocacy. Human nature is just sad in many ways - like skin color being indicative of intelligence or creativity. I am sure most of you think I was raised in some Islamist culture when I was growing up. In fact it was German that I spoke and those that raised me til four years of age fled Nazi Germany before the Allies forces and Soviets took over. And why would they flee Nazi Germany before that? Anyway, the first words out of my mouth were German and I lived and slept five days a week with this family. My Oma changed my diapers and sang me German nursery rhymes and all the rest. She was actually proud of me and loved me and how fast I picked up on things.




Me and my Oma!



Suffice to say I am not what prejudicial attitudes would think I am. And I have my own ideas of where humanity should be heading and what maximizes human happiness. But everyone will still try to pigeon hole me as an Islamist and if not then some extreme right wing guy - and I was for a few years. I was a prairie boy born and raised in the west with all these idealistic ideas in my head. The far right (nothing like the far right today) took an interest in me back in the day as I was smart and unique. The big wigs loved me and we would have philosophical talks and such - one was a colonel in the Canadian Army for example (many were businessmen and politicians and all the rest). For another example I had to pass this test of theirs and this white guy in a cowboy hat and all gave me the test and I argued that some of the answers were wrong even though they were right for the right. We argued a bit more and I figured I failed and then he wrote over it all with 100%. So I was in, and he just smiled at me. So there I was - a brown member of the far right with all its privileges. I even did some lobbying for them (mostly in the Senate). The racist among us tried to take it out on me, but these were like family fights more than anything else. So strange now that I think about it. However, they made a man out of me and showed me how society and government works. Many of those old white guys are actually a part of me now even beyond thier graves. I owe them for accepting me where the others would not and giving me a home back then. But I am my own man with my own ideas - a globalist of sorts and everyone hates these people. So the advocacy continues that left and right hate - but I got to be me! So don’t make the mistake of assuming who I am. Old timers here have heard that rant before but the newbies need to know my past.




Me and my Oma!



The intro from Get Shortie” always reminds me of those days…..




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/cbS59jnX0ow?si=0Btp24U24q3Tg0pg

[Maurice Ali]

A no-nonsense weekend.


The taxes for More Vision on Saturday. Actually, it is basically done with just making sure the formatting is proper before I upload the files. Maybe start rustproofing on my father’s car. Home improvements. Sunday is more of the same and I have to nail down codecs for the cameras and a directory for the new clips. Avid does it for you, but in Resolve you have to select the directories.



That pretty much nails it…..



As for my all that personal prattle the last few days - reactions to me will always be negative. It will always be negative - so some reality of my background will still be negative but at least it’s not a stereotype…..




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

The taxes for More Vision Inc. are done!



All that remains is the delivery to the CRA (the tax man in Canada). That I have to get right to avoid another 4,000 dollars in penalties! I’ll give it a try later today or early tomorrow.



Other than that is taking care of things for other people and back to winterizing the cars and houses. It just never ends, and the fact you are getting older and the fact people of one generation older than you seem to be dying all at once. You are running out of time and stuff has to get done or it never will - and I want to change the world! That should be a wake up call. Time is not on my side…..




1960s
https://youtu.be/sEj8lUx0gwY?feature=shared


2024 - I never knew the sang wasn't theirs…..
https://youtu.be/wlxc3SHLKKc?si=GO_PP_S5JOHFmoOr

[Maurice Ali]

Taxes are such a pain in the butt…..



The More Vision Inc. taxes are done but filing electronically is the issue. Because I have many corporations I can’t get the easy to issue access number to file - but have to get the other number that professionals tax preparers use. Then they say you can’t use the number unless you apparently get payed for this service. So I will call them up and see if I can do each corporation with its own filing number - taxes are fun!



Aside from that boring stuff I have another rant about why not to buy launch day cellphones and especially iPhones:



The thing I absolutely hate about almost launch day iPhone purchases is that accessories are hard to get.




The front of the iPhone 17 Pro Max in its case!



Take a case and screen protector. I found one screen protector for my iPhone 17 Pro Max (only one) and screwed up the install, so had a brown person use the second protector in the box and it was perfect and still pay them like installing one of their own - that they didn’t have anyway (its a nice one). Same with the case. The only cases available didn't completely cover the “plateau” because they were made from early block samples sent out. The closest I could get was this “sort of” close to the lens protection. The ones with precise holes for the lenses and microphone and such on the other side are still not distributing as manufactures want to be sure on the dimensions. One or two that try their luck somerimes get it wrong and then ill fitting cases ruins the reputation.




The back of the iPhone 17 Pro Max in its military case!



I was going to take a close look at Dbrand total covering for the iPhone but you can only pre-order it now. See - they waited to make sure it fits. So there you go - the Pelican is the best I can get - now - and then get the full protection later with another brand. That is one reason I hate early adoption. With the iPhone 14 Pro Max we had the camera IOS shaking the camera like crazy - and mine clicked here and there for no reason. It got fixed with an update, but I wondered if it damaged that camera or its longevity.



Then there is the unknown issues. Wifi and scratches and dents from the aluminium. The orange color can turn red. I will say the dents seem to come from ill fitting cases allowing the phone to deform the case and slip by the case marerial and hit the hard surface and dent. Anyway I started with a Zag and returned it for the Pelican. The Pelican is a tight fit but not perfect - but - at least it was available for early adopters. Then I guess I’ll have to buy another one later one…..


Update: I had my first iPhone drop! The phone slipped from my jacket breast pocket as I bent over and fell into hard ceramic flooring on concrete. The Pelican case gave this hollow bumping sound for all of the three hits but the phone did not pop out! I pulled it out later and of course no damage at all. So - maybe this case is the real deal! If you have no choice as in - right now - I guess I can now recommend the Pelican Voyager case (24 foot drop protection - which after my usual conversion is 6’) with reservations…..





I said it before and I’ll say it again - dont buy launch day phone - unless you have to…..




Goodnight…..




https://youtu.be/0wCC5EqN-c8?si=1aW4FxgmAkG6endH

[Maurice Ali]

Taxes, taxes and taxes.....



So I avoided the four thousand dollars in penalties for sending in my corporate taxes in the mail. However, to send the taxes online now you are forced to use a third party and pay them to create a .cor file to upload to the CRA (taxman). The cheapest one is 60 bucks gor one, but 100 for five - so that works for me. Now I have to contact them to see if that is five for just the current year or if they are just five licenses whenever you decide to upload. So it's 100 bucks but the courier costs and no xerox costs to offset it. We shall see how that goes.



This is all part of cutting costs for running all of "this". Getting all the video stuff paid off was me cheating to keep that part of production alive. Then pivot to get the new phone costs away until the big projects are done. All that is a pain but it's done and can be forgotten now.



I'm running out of time and have to prepare for retirement. The actual orgs will continue but the projects will be severely cut in retirement which is why I was buying stuff while I can. The advocacy will continue and that can really be done on the cheap.



But now it is just dealing with taxes.....



Also, why is Apple's keyboard such a pain to use. Nobody is putting any effort into making it better. But now I know. Nobody is using a keyboard to type anything of substance anymore. I am - but I'm just some old fart of no consequence. That may be closer to the truth than you may want to believe.....




Goodnight.....





https://youtu.be/hksVvXONrIo?si=FOTDyqMriyHZ7nC4

[Maurice Ali]

A couple of things.....



Apparently my use of " - " may be a sign that I am AI! Well, I'm not AI - trust me on that. Apparently you are not supposed to have a space on each side of the dash, so maybe I'm not AI.....



There was a sale on beige Samsung T7 SSDs at a Canada Computer store chain and so I just went and bought another one as they only had one left in Toronto. This will be the one for the iPhone as I do not like swapping drives between cameras. So now I will just reformat the Pocket 4K drive and that just stays on the rig. The iPhone SSD likewise just gets used in the same way. Funnily, when testing cables that work at the higher transfer speed - I lucked into the Final Cut Camera app hack that allows you to record ProRes Raw Opengate internally. I confirmed this a couple of times and right now I could do it again if I wanted to. Basically I connect and record a short clip and then disconnect the SSD, and now the phone will just default to recording internally. However, as soon as your really close the app you will need to
connect the SSD again.




ProRes Raw filling 2tb in 2-3 hours!



This is a bit of a hassle but I could see a use for this if you don't want to look too obvious recording a video in the highest quality out and about. I see it stays a available until you deliberately close the app. Anyway, another reason not to disparage getting the two TB version! In raw Opengate you will only have two hours of recording time doing it this way - so yes getting the 2tb Pro Max actually have a real use case! The reality is that the next update of the Final Cut Camera will address this - so don't update!




An iPhone recording ProRes Raw internally like the big boy cameras!



Finally, my quest to get all five for profit corporations under the five for 100 buck e-filing plan will now go forward. This took three emails as to do it is tricky. But if I wait till Nov 2 I can get five returns for 100 bucks. Now if I did it before November I would have wasted four returns - its just a bunch of shenanigans! So anyway, the tax journey continues.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

Looked at an old video of me getting a sales award like 41 years ago. I found my old business cards:




My business card as a salesman!



https://youtu.be/-FhbKsX9giw?si=f54zqazeVtt-0Vnh



I covered mortgages with life insurance back in the day as the banks didn't do it back then - so I did it. Sometimes five policies a night. I would have some telephone solicitors call up new home buyers from a list we would get from Teela. My price was the lowest term policies and they all just bought it on the price! Money talks and even a brown guy could get everyone to sign up because of the price! I started to actually win awards for my sales and this is how I got video of me as a 25 year old kid! The company wanted me to sell the more lucrative whole life policies to kids that didn't need it. They actually sent up his guy from the States (Reg Hubbard) who went with me for a day and concluded he could find no fault with my methods




Back in my youth I wore contacts but I found out I sold more wearing glasses. This was an official pic taken by the company! BTW: The glasses was my idea - company liked me without - money talks!



I then got tired of mortgage insurance and started selling whole life - but to aging business men with high blood pressure and heart problems, who normally were uninsurable, but needed insurance for business purposes. So I would take their application to re-insurance with several insurers and spread out the risk. Super high commissions and with a large policy, these guys would purchase huge term riders to cover their business dealings. Again, the company hated this but could do nothing. I only sold insurance for one year as a favour to help a family friend start his branch office in Scarborough. The sales experience was invaluable when running your own businesses. As an educated dude, I had the ability to just call big business people and secure a meeting and get those enormous commissions with these high risk clients.



Those were the days.



I called up the head man for Marathon Realty in Ontario and Manitoba for a house he just bought and turned that into personal business insurance - insured high risk policies for businessmen. Seeing him was like Bud Fox meeting Gordon Gecko in the movie Wallstreet. Best line in the movie for me: " Calls me 59 days in a row - wants to be a player!" Basically I was in a pool of salespeople at this place and this woman took me through everyone else's office until we reached his - a two story office with private bathroom with a balcony looking on to the first floor inside for example! When I left I gave those policies to my friends there and that one came through with a 4 grand commission to my fellow underwriter back in 1985. I always had his ability to get the ear of the big wig in any organization, be it in business or right wing politics - etc. - the others simply could not get their attention Anyway, as a philosopher I never sold a client anything they didn't need, I still lived with my parents so didn't need the money.



Anyway - memories.....




Goodnight.....









https://youtu.be/vziHnwB_mkM?si=it7eeTvheO4B7TEv



https://youtu.be/sw_e9gahvpc?si=Vhns7SK09Sq2vKfl



https://youtu.be/-WJ_2ycsHl8?si=ssFbZAKUEz6EYAz5

[Maurice Ali]

There is never enough time to do anything.





2005 with Jessica, Shane and Ryan (left to right)!




I suppose that might be better than the reverse. Anyway, Ryan from twenty years ago at FOF sent me an article about Ai I'm now reviewing. I'll go over it a couple of times and then just send it at IAIJ/FOF/FOFSTOCK. Anyway, here it is:


Neil Young vs. Artificial Intelligence! 
(Will quantum brains take music?)



By Ryan Robichaud (Canada)


 
So here we are in 2025 wondering whether humanity has a chance against robots, artificial intelligence, and the matrix that we are more and more everyday seemingly living in. I’ve painstakingly, messed around with roughly 40 or so different A.I. programs, while gritting my teeth and falling asleep on my keyboard for weeks and I can tell you, it can get costly and time consuming just trying to figure out which one to use, and then how to use it properly. You could spend hundreds of dollars in subscription fee’s and usage credits (that’s right! it’s like when cellphones first came out and you had to pay for minutes!) and you haven’t even come up with a structured system of creating yet!

A.I. certainly isn’t click, click, boom! It requires prompts, and refining prompts, and editing, and more trial and error, and self-learning than one may think. So, even if it takes the music industry over it’s not going to be everyone who can easily delve in and get massively rich, and even if they do it certainly won’t be at quantum speeds.

Now that we have the absence of potential instant easy fame and riches covered, does A.I. in the right hands have the potential to do better at making rock and roll and/or country music (we’ll leave out electronic music for now, since that may actually be a better use for A.I. driven music generations, but that’s another topic of discussion) better, faster or more entertaining, than 27 Grammy nominations and 2 time Grammy winner, 9 time Juno awarded (31 Juno nominations), twice Rock n Roll Hall of fame inducted, Eddie Vedder vetted, autobiography worthy, “Godfather of Grunge” dubbed, singer/songwriting legend: Neil Young!

Here’s the facts (Artificial Intelligence vs. Neil Young):

A.I. is great for one thing if nothing else and that is learning, and more relevantly research! Facts, facts, facts and statistics are at my fingertips on this one, and I was able to figure out at quantum speeds the information I am about to share with you. Though there are dozens of A.I. music generators and approximately 170 million (2023) fully A.I. generated tracks out there, I was able to find one! Yes, just one A.I. band that gained any traction at all, hitting a million listens per month on Spotify and that band is “Velvet Sundown” also found on YouTube and maybe even TikTok (but I apparently don't have the attention span to have checked the platform that caters to those with the shortest of attention spans, namely TikTok, but I’m sure it’s there because TikTok has everything)!

So then, Neil Young vs. Velvet Sundown! Round one! Where did Velvet Sundown come from? What’s his/her/they’re/they’s/its story? I don’t know because his/her/they’re/they’s/it doesn’t exist before the creation of the music! But I can tell you that Neil Young, was a straight up badass! A humanitarian, a political activist and a legend, dubbing him a rockstar in my books before I knew him, or was even born for that matter. He opened a copyright infringement lawsuit against President Trump during his election campaign for using his music, showing he backs down to no-one including the leader of the free world! Is A.I. going to fight against Ticketmaster, for overcharging its fans at concerts?! I don’t think so, but Neil did do just that!

I mean, the guy is loved, he’s known, he’s adored by people all over the world, for not just his music but also his story, his achievements and accolades, his badassery, and his influence and endeavours. These are things that make a rockstar! These are things A.I. music generators will never be capable of pinning to their trophy wall.

Round 2! Let’s not forget to talk about the feeling, the passion! Oh wait, let’s save the best for last and that’ll be round 3. First, let’s cover the obvious problem of going to see a live show, tour dates and collaboration with other artists. I mean, what do we do? Do we turn the SkyDome in Toronto into a satellite, to get more AI generated, fake pictures, of incoming false flag alien encounters, like 3i/atlas, and scrap outings all-together? No!

Ok, the 3rd and final round! Quality! Passion! Feeling! Does A.I. have it or not? Well, I listened to a few songs by the only A.I. band of notoriety out there, namely “Velvet Sundown”, and here’s my opinion in non-biased form. I was actually quite impressed with the timing, song-structure, professional studio (like) sound, general voice tonality, and even the lyrics. Overall, there’s way worse being done out there, by humans for sure.  But! I’m not A.I.!  I’m a writer, a creator, a musician, an artist, and a human with a personality and passion, and a drive to be freaking original and different! Velvet Sundown is (you guessed it) lacking passion, and drive, because it doesn’t feel when it sings, it doesn’t emphasize the energy of emotion at just the right time, and frankly from the few songs I listened to, there really wasn’t much to have emotions about in the first place. Just real mathematical genericness…

Anyway, you get my point. Maybe you see it how I do, maybe you don’t, and that’s ok as that’s what makes us human.

A.I. has many uses, and even in music it could be a very powerful tool. Maybe an artist who doesn’t want to have to rehearse a song he just wrote a hundred times, before putting the guitar away, and just singing, he could let A.I. take the reigns and provide a mathematically, seamlessly timed, instrumental to practice his voice to (something I plan on admittedly experiencing with, to prepare for raw studio recording after). Maybe a talented songwriter suffers in the composing department, has no bassist or drummer around but wants a full sound to work with. It could solve alot of low-budget issues for a starving artist with a lot of talent, to give him/her a foot up in developing a working demo, including an artist not having a space that is noise friendly to work out of. Bring in real musicians later, but have a working product now. Again, a very powerful tool! Completely replace a human's creativity? Not in a million years (in my opinion), unless you see music as disinteresting in the first place, amidst your caviar and $80,000 champagne bottle, or just work too much to care about it. That being said, as a singer/songwriter myself and as many many people out there (as we were all born/made/whatever to be creators) are musicians, painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, novelists, journalists, writers, dancers, and other forms of artists; we “I believe”, will always have a need for human creativity, and those artists who create are legion and presumably will agree with me.

Again, this is just my take on the subject, a thought with the likeness of a grain of sand on the beach of an ever infinitely expanding universe, in the void of space, more vast than the space there is for further questions and discussions!