Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

Just preparing for the long weekend.



I do this on Thursday as Friday is just waiting in lines for parties that aren’t supposed to happen. Nothing like standing in line three feet away from those people! So that got done. Not that I was expecting anything but nothing on the business side is getting done apart from my internal stuff - all very quiet.


BlackBerry End of Life:




Passport still in use in 2019!




For all things BlackBerry, well, it’s all coming to an end in January 4. 2022. All BlackBerry services should stop or just break and not be fixed. BlackBerry World - which is still there - will go dark. No more BlackBerry Protect, BlackBerry Blend - you get the idea. Even calling on the phones goes away with the end of 3G. The only question is what happens with BlackBerry ID. I still have a Passport and I disabled BlackBerry Protect but will keep BlackBerry ID until the end. I still have BlackBerry Enterprise and will see what happens there. BlackBerry 5G - dead in the water…..


I’m telling you all this for those few that still have BlackBerry devices in cupboards that this is your last chance to download apps and prepare
for BlackBerry servers going down for the last time! You have been warned!




My first BlackBerry!



BBM? Still around as BBMe but apart from some companies - who uses it? The last diehard posted his eulogy on the Crackberry forums (that are still around for at least one week more in it’s usually itineration):


“That's it. It's over



A Noise Annoys

My last contact on BBMe just cancelled their subscription. After a somewhat healthy 20 odd at the beginning, making it worth while, I'm now down to none.

I stuck around until the last possible minute.

Goodbye BBMe. Hello Signal!”




I’ll give the postmortem on the 4th but the death of this once proud Canadian brand deserves some mention in passing….




Later…..





https://youtu.be/rPC6ArDN8WQ

[Maurice Ali]

Another year past…..



After a night of thought I’ve come to the conclusion that for my life the only thing that mattered is the international advocacy. The ideas are original and mine and I get to express them to the right organizations and people for a chance at real change. As slow and tedious the process may be - it is the only thing that really matters.



This year the worldwide vote was officially disseminated at the United Nations and the Global Social Contract was submitted. All other accomplishments with the corporations are in another universe and I’ll handle that in the New Year. But the advocacy is the only thing that really defines who I am…..



Happy New Year to you all!

[Maurice Ali]

So I’m doing the security wipe on the BlackBerry Passport as a prelude to BlackBerry servers being shut off in three days. I disabled BlackBerry Protect which I disabled but came on again. This time though I deleted the protect account. I keep the BlackBerry ID account just in case things go sideways and the wipe fails. That should restore it to as new condition. The Playbook remains as is as there is no regression here, once a critical error happens the Playbook is bricked.




Passport phone being wiped of all data!




A few hours later…..




It worked and the Passport is back to its original state. And while it’s back to ground zero - all the updates stayed intact! The only thing that broke is BlackBerry World. To be honest is isn’t worth the hack to get it working. There is a suppository of working apps by the remaining fans for this online so if I need anything I’ll use that. Anyway, that’s the last chapter on BlackBerry in the cellphone market - thanks for the memories!



What else….. oh yes, the New Years Eve post…..



What I meant there is that all the stuff with the commercial companies was a means to an end, it’s was all for the advocacy anyway. Take the Amazon experience. You’d think that contracting with one of the world’s biggest tech companies would be secure, but every contract we had with them lasted only a couple of months. I spent hundred of dollars on closed captioning for Amazon just to see it only last months. CDs and DVD sales literally lasted for four months. I was able to “tick those boxes” of my fantasies but that was all. More of the same going forward but the only things that had legacy were the advocacy. That’s what I was getting at…..




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/dVgKsoHfEFw

[Maurice Ali]

A snow day so an early one today.




Amazon’s Prime Video Direct - it turns out - still has the movie contract open for us! This means that I was slightly in error in the previous post and this contract is now coming up on two and a half years. We have nothing active on it anymore but I did get a notice in November explaining further cuts to availability in non-fiction which is the only videos they now will accept :

“Content submission notice
Prime Video Direct helps rights holders, from independent filmmakers to major studios, offer titles for rent/buy (TVOD) through Prime Video. As of November 1, 2021, we aren't accepting unsolicited licensing submissions for content with the Included with Prime (SVOD) offer type. Learn more”


SVOD means subscription on demand and meant that back in the day if you have a prime subscription you could watch all my videos for free. Since November 2021 they will be rent or buy only. For indie this is another death blow at Prime Video. Now people can’t even browse the material and watch it if they want, as now they have to pay for it. Good luck with that business model going forward if you are indie…..







All of this is Prime Video slowly killing direct indie submissions now that they have access to expensively produced content from sources that previously only dealt with theatres and TV - but now have opened their catalogs to streaming services. They simply don’t need indie content anymore. Prime Video is slowly closing ip on Netflix (the biggest streamer) up one percent to 21% and Netflix dropped from 28% to 27%. Prime simply doesn’t need indie anymore with the catalogue that they have now but are slow only cancelling all (indie submissions) because of the bold statements they made in the past about supporting indie and free speech and all that.



So first they got really selective on material, then got rid of non-fiction. Then no more video on demand model paid by minutes watched - and that started at 15 cents a minute in the beginning and was down to 1 cent a minute when we arrived and now is less than a cent a minute and today you can’t even get any of that anymore. Many filmmakers had full-time jobs in indie based upon Amazon’s openness to indie. Not today, and me thinks many are working joe-jobs now to make ends meet!



Those who scoffed at indie amateur documentaries and said Amazon’s purge was a long time coming to get rid of the riff-raft soon saw their titles disappeared and then quietly kept their mouths shut. Then the non-fiction scripted film makers applauded the move as a maturation of the platform to traditional entertainment and now you see what is happening to them. Me thinks it already is a curated access to Prime Video and the hollow, empty, and vacant site for indie submission is just something for Amazon to point to when someone brings up their abandonment of indie.







At least I can say we were on Prime Video like all the other titles free for viewing in North America and Europe. With a reach close to half a billion people! But that is just bragging rights now that we are off it. Prime Video has become Netflix and with deeper pockets. Anyway I was and still am doing business with Prime - I can still submit our material and anyone that wants to distribute through us as our role is now that of distribution. In fact FOF Entertainment will put out post today stating that we have access to IMDB and Prime Video for any indie film studio that needs access. How long that lasts is anyones guess. But as of today we are still a distributor with IMDB & Prime Video!




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/SulnsWb6w8Q

[Maurice Ali]

The royalties stuff is done…..



Finally that is over! So the second long weekend got stuff done. Now the only thing left is what happens to the BlackBerry on January 4. The Playbook seems to randomly ask for BBID every once in a while and if so the thing is a brick. At least I remember it that way. Maybe it’s only the password. The thing is nobody knows.



A slow day on Monday and many IT guys helping out in the final hours of BlackBerry with advice and hacks. It’s just fascinating to see how it all turns off - just like that!




Doug Ford and his BlackBerry!



Tuesday will be an interesting day. Also, our Premier of Ontario loves his Classic BlackBerry to the extent that he bought a pile of new ones back in the day to keep going BlackBerry. I wonder what he will do…..



Plus there is still a small army of fanboys to the end saying things like: Nothing will every replace a BlackBerry. Use OS10 until it dies, and then use Android BlackBerry until it dies. That is how you show support for the brand!



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/qjzJYa7tHLs

[Maurice Ali]

Much of Tuesday was spent grocery shopping and running errands before we go back into lockdown on Wednesday. I just don’t want to wait in-line like some 1950s communist soup kitchen lineup to do groceries when it’s -12 below zero. So that got done.



I’ll also lay low on bitching about waiting on business stuff as many businesses are being shuttered as of Wednesday. Some have incurred massive debt. Some have had mental problems and some have committed suicide. Many are sole-proprietorships where there is unlimited liability. Many should have incorporated so if the going gets too difficult you dissolve and they can’t come after your personal property. Government assistance also favours corporations so they would probably have had more support under that business model. But every situation is different.







Looks like the United Nations is semi-closing access to NGOs again due to the Omicron variant. A maximum of 3 passes per headquarters (down from 7) and proof of vaccination and all the rest. A a good thing I went with the written statement back in November…..



Then there is the ongoing saga of Blackberry but expect nothing to happen till January 5 (2022).




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

So basically Omicron has ground down government services to a haunt even though most are working from home. That is why I can’t renew the IAIJ-FOF Group name. That is if I want to keep the original start of the company. Not a big deal for me so I may just renew as a new company which is automated.



Ok I just did it as a new company - completely automated with no bureaucracy in the way…..



Apple is another issue but not vital now and unlike the name registration they can do what they want so I just wait.



Miscellaneous Ramblings:



I stupidly paid for Halide which is a photography app that gives you total
Control and RAW files. Apple gives you RAW and ProRaw so that is not such a big deal anymore. Anyway I get it on My iPhone Pro Max but get it also on my iPhone 6S Plus, so for one price it’s in two iPhones with Raw unique to the 6S Plus. But the price! 79.09 CAN with sales tax (included) which is a new one for the App Store I see! Unless you are really into old school manual photography - stay away from this app. It has a companion app for processing those raw files at almost the same price but they have a free but crippled version. But they unlocked the paid stuff in my download except for the photo managing stuff so that was a deal for me!



On the Pineohone: I tied to get the SIM card out of the privacy phone and into the 6S Plus but it’s stuck in there. Getting it out could break some contacts so that is now officially my secondary phone after the iPhone 12 Pro Max it seems


BlackBerry: Nothing happened on January 4! Sort of like waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square on New Years Eve - and it never drops! Everything still works? All that media attention for nothing. We shall see if things really do close down in the next few days.



Still doing tasks around the house that I kept putting off. I had to drain a soap dispenser from the kitchen sink that had to be done like seven years ago. Got the container out and the soap sill looked like soap. Squirting the dispenser got me some grotty stuff though but that flushed out. I’ll crawl under the sink and put it back together dry and leave it there…..

My life under lockdown - again…..


Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

BlackBerry made good on its promise and decommissioned the servers for many BlackBerry services on January 5 (2022):


As of about 11:00PM Eastern all NOCs were dark (or at least in North America and Europe). No BIS or BES. No BBW or BlackBerry Protect, BlackBerry ID. The BlackBerry pip icon does not show on wifi anywhere in the world.



BBM is still up in the air. I have enterprise security with BlackBerry but not BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) on the Passport some iPhones and Samsung and it still is working.


Practically speaking all the early BBOS and B10 devices are now crippled. There are only a small amount of active users - especially BBOS and BIS users! There are still literally millions of Android BlackBerry phones out there though. From the Priv to DETEK versions and on to the Key versions. Then there are the unique versions for the third world we hardly know about. Carrier support for these will end first in the US and then in Canada but the phones could still soldier on much later in Europe and especially Africa. So not completely dead yet…



I’ll boot up my devices and see what the lasting legacy here will be.





My Linux Pinephone!




I’m now really interested in if I can get a hack to get my Linux phone on BlackBerry security - just another project - maybe…..


In other news, more of my gang are going back to school. Sam’s kid is getting potty trained and she’s very proud of the progress. Life goes on around me. That means more for me to do. One more month to see if the Global Social Contract gets disseminated at the United Nations. All sorts of stuff getting done. Except: After plunking 60 bucks to renew my business name - nothing - man does this piss me off!



Personal life - what personal life - Soaking in the tub for 20 minutes is my personal life. As has been said to me many times before: You finally have a life, just no personal life…..



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/7tiyXx000Qo

[Maurice Ali]

The Omicron variant - could it be messing everything up in business?



Everything I want to do in the business bureaucracy seems to have stopped. I’m starting to think Omicron infection rates are to blame because of staff shortages. The stuff I am waiting on are simply not that urgent so those people get yanked from that job and replace sick employees at the more urgent jobs. Everywhere you look there are staffing shortages. People aren’t dropping like flies from the Omocron variant but they need a week to get over it. And the numbers keep ratcheting up. Even our own Jessica is a home now with Covid!



You are stuck at whatever you were doing and nothing moves ahead. Maybe it’s something to talk about to the kids when you are really old but for now this is just incredible. You actually pay for stuff and nothing happens - wonderful…..




Tesla charging stations!



Society is still functioning which is good but only at essential levels. Everything else is a crap shoot as to whether it functions or not. And not just here in Canada but also in the States. Even YouTube video production is affected so you can’t even watch that. I’m relegated to watching people in the UK and Ireland bitch about electric car ownership (Hint: It’s charging on the road!). That is what its come too - Covid is changing everything you do and can expect to do. How about seeing peoples faces for a change - good luck with that! Advocacy: freeze frame baby! Music promotion - everything is closed. Video production - now that’s just laughable!



So that’s how it goes. Nothing to talk about except that there is nothing to talk about…..




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/A-M9Z6F18Vk

[Maurice Ali]

I forgot to finish the BlackBerry “death” saga…..



So on the fifth of January BlackBerry NOCs (network operation centres) became unresponsive. First of all it looked like all traffic was going around the usual NOCs and all by slough NOC which is the main one. Then Canada and the UK (the main NOCS) went dark. Final pins were sent to legacy users informing them the service was ending and thanking them for their loyalty.



Oddly enough my BBM special service still works but the official service is not BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) and messaging is technically not BBM or BBMe or even BBM Protect so it seems it is above all that. All this from an iPhone 12 Pro Max that administers it.





Blast from the past: A Blackberry Torch and Playbook!



Anyway the phone and Playbook still work. The Playbook nags me about BBID but you can just dismiss it. On the Passport no nags anywhere so this is nice and I’ll continue to play with it. So not quite as bad as I thought. Then Onward Mobility who has been quiet for months tweets it’s still alive with the BlackBerry 5G. This just goes to show how hard it is to kill a brand.



I’m not a BlackBerry fan boy but curious as to the fate of a brand that captured almost half of all smartphone usage at its peak. For a Canadian company that is huge and if Blackberry was an American company it’s fate would have been much different in my opinion.



Anyway it’s back to scratching off things on the “To Do” list this weekend at home.



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/vfQMqBj9UJk

[Maurice Ali]

So four weeks until official dissemination of the new Global Social Contract at the United Nations!







So close now.




That should be a slam dunk with the written statement. This should get done and be distributed to member nations.



It should…..






What happens if something happens and it does not? Then all bets are off! Scuttling a written statement goes against UN protocol and that type of sculduggery means I get to go straight to the Secretary General and tell him what is going on in his organization and also tell him about this New Global Social Contract concept and philosophy I have and that if he is looking for one (like he says he is) - here it is!







However I doubt that will happen. It will get disseminated and most will turn their noses up at the idea. But it will have been disseminated and so will start the process to discussion and eventually possible adoption. I don’t expect things to happen immediately but this play has to go in for the others to take place - one way or another.








All my business issues lately mean nothing - only the big play - everything else is beneath me. I’ve turned into a old man (at least in years) doing this and this is the legacy of it all. This is what’s important. Discovering what makes people happy (The Fortress Experiment) the way to achieve happiness (the Positive Mandate) and its implementation to achieve happiness for all (the new Global Social Contract). It even goes beyond this as a base engram for any possible sentient AI and the expression of God via empirical evidence.



All this and more you will find in the videos and books I have produced. This is the play! If you watch and read things others supposedly say is important by likes and views - you are simply being shepherded by advertisers and the like to watch what they want you to watch. A simple web page with doctored up views and likes and some glowing reviews and the thing has a mind of its own even though the video has no point or meaning to it. It’s all just to turn a buck.



It just drives me crazy having to wait on it all…..




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/wUgkGUP4o9g

[Maurice Ali]

After having talked about how services were disappearing it now becomes more real.



So now even emergency services calls may not happen. They ran out of ambulances over the weekend as every emergency area seems down by a third right now. Things are grinding to a halt. If Omicron weren’t so mild society could be toying collapse and ordinary people taking matters into their own hands. Gangs and criminal organizations replacing the usual stalwarts of society. Ok, so that’s a stretch but it does get you thinking.



Our “civil society” is more fragile than you think. Once it starts to break people start carrying weapons as the police are never around. Barter becomes more common. And so on and so on. How long this will last is anyones guess and it’s more of the same everywhere in the world. This weekend was depressing and all I did was sleep and watch movies. I did buy groceries and wash the car before we went back into deep freeze but it was very depressing and the same was happening with one of our directors in the UK. One big downer. The only funny thing this weekend was watching the movie “Hot Tub Time Machine” and the one memorable line:



“You are the patron saint of the totally f*cked!”



That could be the grave yard marker of my tombstone if all the advocacy makes a difference. I never stood a chance anywhere - especially according to the anthropologists - so to be crapped on by every aspect of society and still pitch to change society for a better one should get sainthood for those of us in that predicament. Just a really funny moment!


I fact the only thing of interest last week was the death watch of BlackBerry. I did give the middle finger up to that death by wiping and reinstalling the OS in my Passport without BlackBerry services and on Sunday I side-loaded apk (Android) apps to what I had before. Nobody cares that the phone is working again like it did before the shutdown - but - it felt good to actually resurrect the phone to usable condition even though it now gets turned off and shelved for the time being.



As for the pandemic - society is suffering due to lockdown protocols at a time we are really entering the endemic stage. Pandemic measures are now doing more harm than good - so time to shift gears in strategy…..




Goodnight…..





(NSFW)
https://youtu.be/CwUozz5gDh8

[Maurice Ali]

I basically deleted a long post and spared myself some embarrassment…..



In the dog days of this pandemic in January we see everyone’s spirits down. And my guess is that this post will only reinforce that nihilist vibe. At the end of it all we really amount to nothing. Even if you are Elon Musk you still have to rely on your own websites and news accounts to create interest in your new phone. I actually like the phone if it can deliver on the promise of satellite connectivity. I only mention this because so little effort has been made to mask it. Elon’s car company does not turn a profit on any car sold so you constantly have to create interest for people to keep pouring money into your companies or the whole thing can collapse. Stay afloat for a few more years after all the start up costs are gone and you can be a proper profit motivated company. Anyway I admire and realize the tightrope he has to walk, and even then you still have to shamelessly promote yourself. I leaned that many self-made people actually don’t count all the shameless self-promotion shenanigans against you as they had to do the same in the past - but I digress.





Tesla Bot - the phone is easier to make!



There is another phone manufacturer in Asia that does the same thing as the Tesla Phone and actually these two companies in promotion sound the same in many areas. Anyway these companies are huge and well funded and still - you can’t do it the regular way but have to beat the algorithm to get noticed. Elon is going to have to actually produce a phone to be reviewed to be taken seriously on the web. Similarly for the Onward Mobility BlackBerry 5G phone that just got resurrected by Onward Mobility after the BlackBerry services shut down.



Now part of this is the shortage of chips and other supply issues due to the pandemic, so I’ll give everyone a bit of empathy there. But Onward Mobility just staying quiet didn’t work and the Tesla Phone promo videos also don’t work. Like my business transactions - everything has come to a screeching halt in the pandemic! Fine, but at least have your shills try to look objective…..










And that is your replacement post for the other one that will never see the light of day. No matter what you do, time has dominion over all. Whatever you do it will all be quickly forgotten and your existence will have meant nothing. The anarchists love this stuff as it empowers the “live your life selfishly” for yourself mantra. What I’m doing makes no sense to them. But I will proceed basically because of a moral imperative and the fact this is the only thing I have created. And that’s about as upbeat as I can be right now. Look at it this way, for all I have done - has my personal existence changed for the better in anyway? I can answer that by saying it really has not. I live the same solitary lifestyle I always have. Alone and getting kicked around by all aspects of society, as to the masses I am just another Black/Brown guy. Maybe we can kid ourselves as to how magnificent our lives have been, but that’s about it. At your funeral will be a handful of people and they will lower you into the ground and go home and have dinner and watch TV. And there you have it. Nothing has changed and the anthropologists were correct all along…..



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/UiKcd7yPLdU

[Maurice Ali]

I’m going to give you all the long winded post tomorrow but this one will be short and sweet.


This time in January is usually the lowest point in time for happiness - and - given the Omicron surge, we are mostly really down on life.



So what to do?



Strangely for me it was buying a 6.99 buck Bluray of the movie Beverly Hill Cop! As petty as it sounds that Bluray with the director’s commentary really uplifted my spirits! I’ll watch that baby this weekend. So go out and buy something - as crass and commercializing as it sounds.



Worked for me.




Goodnight…..






(NSFW)
https://youtu.be/B-dwgPmevis

[Maurice Ali]

Ok, so that post I said would never see the light of day got nixed because it could have appeared a bit “tin foil hat” in nature.


On one hand the ideas I espouse could be seen as a threat to the status quo, but normally nobody would get access to the UN to disseminate it. Realize that the Commission for Social Development is closed to all but NGOs that have consultative status. So these provocative ideas would never have been officially disseminated in the first place. However it appears that due to some politics at the UN we got status anyway and thus got access to the Commission for Social Development.



So with access in hand, as a journalist org and could bring up issues in advocacy about literally anything as long as it concerned journalism or an in-depth report we made. In the end we were able to uncharacteristically disseminate really good ideas that would continue human social development and increase human happiness all at the same time! Technically that should all take place in February which is why I’m so nervous about strange things happening that could scuttle the official dissemination.



So the post that got tossed out was about a couple of strange things happening on my social media that never happen to me before and my paranoia may have got the best of me in my conclusions as to what is really going on. Could be true but probably not - and that is as far as I will go….



This is my big play unfolding in real time. Disseminating a concept and philosophy for a new form of global governance. And by extension a possible empirical proof of God could also be at play and the reason I sent that package to the Pope. In a very strange way you could say that I may be doing God’s work here if you really delve into my ideas.



Am I an instrument of God in an abstract sense to show humanity their true purpose? I really don’t tell them this, but show them how to achieve it. This would in fact then make me a “Holy Roller” of sorts. Not in the traditional Protestant Christian version rolling in the pews as connected to God, but in a more abstract form. As more people embrace the ideas I am disseminating, in that abstract reality they would be getting closer to God. And some parts of formal religion could actually be endorsed by empirical means! Huge, huge play going on here - at least in my mind.



And there you have it, in my mind and so open to interpretations that may not exist - but in this case not on the ideas themselves but in my attempts to disseminated it. I doubt anyone wants to put a bullet in my head, but the idea of pocking around in my life does enter your thoughts. Probably just made up fantasies - but you never can be sure one hundred percent. And that was what happened a few days ago…..



I’m not religious though my sisters are Catholic (mom was Roman Catholic) but none of this is traditional religion and so is not a threat to it. This is much more abstract and philosophical and scientific in nature. However there is a possibility to endorse the “faith” with empirical evidence in the near future. And I’ll just leave it at that…..



In other news: Actually sending music to the CBC. And the constant search for a Nu Metal female lead to add to the record label stable…..




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/-mSBEpKtH_s


https://youtu.be/qP6hjjeD9oQ

——————————————————
——————————————————



Edit at 11:00am:









Good news:



They put up the written statements up on the UN website ahead of time and our written statement has been received by the Secretary General! I’m out and about right now so I’ll get into it all later, but I hate feigning excitement a day after it happens, so you get this news in real time.



Anyway, good news and a great day!



More later…..





https://youtu.be/3GwjfUFyY6M