Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

Well the FOF Records website looks proper now:


https://fofrecords.org





And we have advocacy to go from “the get go”. Even at FOF Records we see that AAVRY Knapp became The Brawlers, Twenty6Hundred became Lucifari, Yung Spot became Corporate Spot, Tabitha became Rudegal Tab, and Frenzy became Shane and so on. What this new policy at Apple means is that an artist can’t go back and bring all or some of their songs under the new brand – just because Apple says so! I said before it not illegal to do this as the author/composer is one and the same person. And nowadays branding is everything! So that is our first campaign at FOF Records Advocacy.....


Normally at this time I would be preparing for another trip to New York. Usually a couple of trips to the UN and more exploring the city which sort of has become my home away from home. Not this year though – as the pandemic took care of that. I was lucky to have gotten into the UN last year just before things locked down and early on I figured I would have been back there this year. Not happening and time starts slipping away faster and faster.


Time is not on your side now. In the past I didn’t want any help from my parents as I wanted my freedom and now I end up holding the bag for everything. You don’t want to think about the future but you have to, and more and more it’s a future with less and less of the advocacy. So I was right all along to have the companies run on vapors – that was one of the biggest advantages I ever enabled. But with time are diminished monetary resources, diminished mobility, diminished mental processes and basically diminished everything. You still have responsibilities and you look at those who live alone as a luxury you can only fantasize about. On your own you just live as you please and if it isn’t worth living anymore you just end it. As macabre as that sounds it is the best you can have in old age.


Time just keeps moving on and changing and the old just become irrelevant. I just noticed two phone jacks beside me, and do they even have phone jacks in new homes anymore? There is a wall phone in my kitchen that is there just for show. For the longest while it even had a dial tone but didn’t work, and now dead air. This is the metaphor for our lives as we get older. As I look toward sending this blog to the new forums because the old one is falling apart, you see all the parallels to a life that is slowly ending. And things are over before you know it. Is the advocacy over - when the pandemic lifts we will surely find out. I would not mind a year or two to travel the world a bit - in the advocacy space - and tidy up loose ends here and there. And we are not talking about extended vacations here – hit and run trips of a few days which is the best I can do now. Mostly ensure the positive mandate is a permanent concept out there.


I now see that the more self-indulgent parts of my life are easier to accept now that I know if I just worked and saved I would still basically be in the same place that I find myself now in. For example, the total cost of The Fortress Experiment could have been eaten up by new cars and simple trappings like that. During the experiment I drove my cars into the dust and the current Mustang was the only new car since 1989. The same amount of money would have been eaten up some other way. Maybe, if I had really saved my pennies, I would be a bit more secure but I saw that outcome with those close to me and their lives didn’t quite work out like they hoped. Nobody has a crystal ball and fate can be fickle. For you oldsters, Mary Ann from the TV show Gilligan’s Island got millions from one of her co-stars in the will, and she alone continued to get residuals from all the airplay of the series, yet she ended up almost penniless having to rely on “go fund me” money from fans for medical expenses. It always seems to end up like that.



Anyway I have that bit of musician advocacy to deal with and then the in-depth report on the social contract for everyone on earth.




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

Well it looks like we will be at the 59th Session of the Commission for Social Development:

[Maurice Ali]

So, there is “some” good news for iPhone users that hate using a passcode when wearing a mask. You will soon be able to unlock your phone with a mask on reliably - if - you own an Apple Watch!





The idea is to pair the watch with the phone when you go out and about to a mall, for example, and wear a mask and work the phone without a passcode. You can do this in the upcoming iOS 14.5 and watch OS 7.4. By pairing the phone to the watch with “wrist detection” on, there is enough security in the system to allow the watch to authenticate instead of FaceID when FaceID detects a mask. So as long as that bluetooth connection maintains you can forget about a passcode - until - you make in-app purchases or use Apple Pay.


For Apple Pay in this instance I would just double click the watch (if they allow wrist detection after initial passcode to be security enough) and use that instead of a pass code on the phone and I’m not too bothered about in-app purchases out and about. That is a lot of bother to achieve what any cheap 300 dollar phone can do during a pandemic. Between my stainless steel Apple Watch 5 and my maxed out iPhone 12 Pro Max I’ve spent close to 3,500CAN dollars to go through this insane kabuki just to have a phone that doesn’t work like my old Phone 4 (which oddly enough it looks like).


Anyway, I’ve re-enrolled in the beta program and will try it out as soon as Apple allows me to upgrade to iOS 14.5 Beta.



I have the next two weeks off so that social contract report will be top of the “things to do” list but I will also seriously start to work on the new forums. The old ones are falling apart and not working properly. They will be an archive only thing soon enough - but I have to get the announcements at least over to the new forums and then cut the cord with the blog and start it over there. 18 years is an insane length of time in tech but I kept it going - but - time to move on.....


Oh, and for the gear heads, the zero weight synthetic has been a complete success! Why I didn’t do this sooner is a mystery to me. The car is completely reliable except for the monthly rad fluid mensuration. Dry for almost a week now - so I can’t get warranty work unless it’s flowing like crazy in front of their faces - how diabolical! Anyway this does not stop the car from working or even require adding fluid - so - I guess I just live with it for now.....




Goodnight.....





https://youtu.be/cdVmNcq6jD0

[Maurice Ali]

Three annual returns submitted. Tabitha’s rebooted album is released. And a whole bunch of news rooms and media personalities got the axe on Wednesday.

[Maurice Ali]

So two weeks off and I have to get that Global Social Contract report finished…..





A Global Society Logo!



So the global social contract play:

1. Show the reader that they are not alone but others exist just like themselves - and keep it simple. No solipsistic universe here.

2. Show the reader that if others like themselves exist, that it need not be an us against them existence for selfish ends; but that through a universal goal of happiness as the end purpose (the Positive Mandate) we can throw away the archaic ideas of xenophobia and work together on a global scale for the most entropy of happiness for all possible!

3. How this arrangement can be governed - ie. - the worldwide vote.







An academic ideal, but I now have a turn key solution and thus the pragmatic opportunity to make the plays. At this stage probabilities don’t matter. The only thing that matters is you have the idea/concept/philosophy and the pragmatic solutions to make it real - and access to make it happen! You have a chance, and in a sphere as rare as this a 50/50 chance is as much of a chance as a one in a million chance. I have a chance and I must make the play…..



Was it worth it - of course!



In other news…..



I downloaded the iOS 14.5 Beta operating system for my iPhone and a pretty large file at 4.5gigs - just like a real PC OS. To upgrade the watch all I got was error codes which I put down to everyone trying to download at the same time.


So no review of unlocking your iPhone with a face mask on. But I did get the ability to have 5G along with dual sims - you could not do this before. So not a total loss, but I really wanted to try out the phone unlock business…..



Goodnight....





https://youtu.be/oP4xpHTKhnc

[Maurice Ali]

Ok this is for iPhone only users with FaceID.



You can now open your iPhone with a mask on if you have an Apple Watch that can run the Beta version of watch OS 7.4.


1. Get Beta profile for your phone and download and install it. Check for iOS update and install.
2. Get Beta profile for your watch and download and install it. Check for watch OS update and install.
3. Watch and phone have to have wifi and Bluetooth on! Then go on to settings in Face ID and activate the mask unlock feature.
4. Open watch with passcode and ensure wrist detection is on.
5. When you go to unlock your phone now, it will simply see if it detects a mask.


You still need a passcode to use Apple Pay. Since the watch is on wrist detection you can use Apple Pay in the watch instead with no password and just the double click.


It seems to work all the time - a better track record than FaceID. This feature has saved me from thinking about an upgrade if they bring back Touch ID again. But it works for when you are out and about.

[Maurice Ali]

Ah…..



The vacation! Two weeks to catch up on things! First will be the global social contract in-depth report for IAIJ. I’ll keep it as simple as possible and then publish it and also add it to the positive mandate book and make a second addition.





United Nations Headquarters




We have reached a stage where I don’t need the UN to keep disseminating ideas, but need the United Nations to help develop this inevitable idea of a global social contract - or constitution for all of humanity. Believe it or not I foresee a majority vote to make this happen at the UN and thus the establishment of a “third house” at the United Nations along with the worldwide vote all enthusiastically endorsed by member nations. No, not the thoughts of a deranged intellectual, but the arguments to member nation’s enthusiastically endorsed from self-interest. However, that all starts with a totally fleshed out philosophy and pitched to member nations at the UN.



In other news…..



Messing about with the iPhone and Apple Watch. It was funny to be constantly sent to the developer’s log in - but I forgot about that time when I was developing the cell phone app for the worldwide vote (in the end three apps were made for the vote, FOF and IAIJ). I stuck with Android as Apple wanted to review every single change. And thus this stuff comes back to haunt you later when you least expect it. I have found some minor bugs, mostly in the 5G sphere. Apple gave us the iPhone 12 with rudimentary 5G support and the current betas refine it but not quite there yet.




5G Dual SIM Support!



I also talked with Shane about current stuff at FOF - yes - these are real people that work here. Everything here is the real deal and that makes this adventure worth reading about. But why do I have to tell you this…..



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/lk2-bgwA0Ro

[Maurice Ali]

So far the vacation has been a bust…..



Saturday I mostly just slept in. Now the start of Sunday was no better but I did do one final check of upgrading the old message board to a newer version and remembered that it would not work. So that bit cemented the fact I would just have to do the more tedious work on the new board. I will check and see if I could pay someone to upgrade but these people are few and far between.



Next is the global social contract: I know what I’m gong to say so this should go quickly but you don’t know till you try it.


Other stuff: I have to buy groceries for everyone. fluorescent lamps have to be replaced at my father’s house - you get the idea.


Seriously, with options like that for a vacation who wouldn’t sleep in. But I promised myself I would get things started today so I will.



Later…..

[Maurice Ali]

I’ve started to do stuff…..



HRH Princess Victoria


First of all I’m planning my strategy post-Covid 19 and it may not be what you thought. But I’m actually thinking of petitioning royalty to help me get the word out. I noticed this years ago as sometimes an HRH would give a speech there for some advocacy at the UN. There is royalty everywhere in the world even if some of it is not in the form of a typical monarchy. However there is more of it than you would think, especially in the Arab world for one.




HRH Queen Maxima



So it is possible to either directly or on neutral territory at the UN to propose my ideas and see what happens. Royalty is aristocracy and not always with the geopolitical biases and stances that I face now. They - the aristocracy - may lend an ear to my ideas of changing the world. You just never know.





HRH Crown Princess Mary



Look, this adventure has take me places I never would have imagined and this venture into royalty is no different. It’s another play to make and circumvents some problems at the UN. A royal title still carries some weight in the world. So it is worth a try…..



Later…..

[Maurice Ali]

More work on the forums but I’ll be back working on the social contract for Tuesday.




HRH Queen Mathilde



The royalty play though - is for real. Royalty can be found handing out global citizenship awards and such, in a way it’s a good fit for what I am up to. It will happen at my end - whether they want any part of it is up to them…..



So if you go to the new forums you see a new skin and new posts from way back when. The plan is to faithfully recreate all the posts in the board displayed. There are more forums her than you can see. Much more and mostly from the early days.






I won’t be reproducing that so if we aren’t reproducing everything, what do we keep? The smaller forums like FOFSTOCK will be kept fully intact. The larger forums like FOF news at almost one thousand posts will be pruned. One way is no replication. No FOFSTOCK posts and no newspaper/book posts. And certainly no replicated music posts as almost four hundred are at the FOF Records site.



So instead of actual pruning we just don’t duplicate and maybe I can live with that at - we shall see.



I did the abstract for the social contract paper and started with the fundamentals but all that got done on the weekend. Like I said earlier I get back into it today. Meanwhile I replaced some fluorescent bulbs at my dad’s place. He had new bulbs but nobody to replace them and he was down to the last working bulb. All fixed now but that is how it goes in old age. Things keep working until they break and stay broken until someone from the outside fixes it. Just like our aging forums, the question is not “if” but “when” it breaks down for good. So I continue on with the new forums…..



Goodnight…..




https://fortressoffreedom.com/phpBB3

[Maurice Ali]

This is just an extra post for you gear heads out there. Three and a half years ago I bought the cheapest Mustang you could get instead of buying a Hyundai Elantra. Never regretted that move as I was set to buy the Elantra, but at the moment of truth I had to go back to the Mustang - I just couldn't do it! So a V6 Mustang after 19-20 years of V8 Mustangs but these new ones put out over 300 horsepower and because they were being discontinued and just kept for fleet sales they downgraded the output to 87 octane levels to make the turbo 4 look more attractive. So these the things actually put out 314 horsepower on 93 octane but with a procharger it puts out just under 500 and with a light injector upgrade you go right up to the platform's limits of 580 horsepower.





Actually you can go up to 1200 with an intercooler but that car is now a dragster and no daily. With the mundane "in the box" setup you can daily drive it with only a marginal rough idle, and since it works with the current platform suspension I can take it off in the winter and go back the current set up. The prices are about 8 grand Canadian new, but most buy used as many just buy it and try it out and get out quick. So for about 5 grand you get a faster car than any stock Mustang and for way less than any sale price on a stock car. I can't do any of this now as it makes the car un-drivable in the winter - but people are so desperate to get rid of these things while they can - I could just snap one up and sit on it till needed.



Decision.....decisions.....






https://youtu.be/2Q1c-7AZKT0

[Maurice Ali]

The on-line version of the 59 to Session of the Commission for Social
Development is underway.






That above was on such event at the United Nations. Of course it lacks the adventure, the vitality of actually going there. You get to New York and then get your annual UN pass (as this is usually your first event of the year) and go in. You now know people there and catch up on things. You pop into the actual session to check things out and then maybe sit in on one of the side events. Then off for lunch and out to explore a bit more of New York.


In New York you can also do FOF business as all the major players seem to have an office there. You have your regular “haunts” for food, drink or even just to hang out. The Museum of Modern Art is one as is a daily walk around Central Park.


This year there is none of that, just hanging around your house hoping it doesn’t snow…..


But (and they say never start a sentence with but. But I’m a rebel…..) everyone is in the same situation so I won’t complain too much - but I still will complain a little. Tuesday had me pass “critical mass” on the new forums and it’s just a matter of time till posts stop appearing here and all go over there. So that much got done. More work on the social contract paper. I still have time as I have two weeks off. And frankly if I didn’t plan to travel I would have just taken a week off - but two weeks forces you to finish arge projects so there is always that.


And that’s pretty much the situation as it stands. No travel and since we are locked down presently due to the pandemic, there is nothing to do at home - at least in terms of shopping and going out on the town - but it does make it easier to concentrate on necessary but onerous tasks like setting up the new board.





HRH Queen Mathilde now has clothing made with matching face mask - who can’t respect that! Anyway there are many more royals to contact, especially in Asia. I’ll leave this alone for a while as I have a more mundane persons to contact while on vacation: Tim Cook…..


Yes Tim Cook…..




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

When I got sick of transferring old posts to the new board I got worried that I was falling behind in the global citizen paper. I forced myself to start working on it - and about an hour later - the critical text is done!



Just like that - done! Of course it’s not done but needs to be fleshed out but the paper now has structure as in a beginning to body and conclusion.



As for the new board: Work continues at a pace I am comfortable with. No rush but I want it caught up quick just in case the main board breaks permanently. I will keep using the old board till it really looks like it will break - then officially go to the new one. The posts will all be duplicated there but the view counts will not reflect the real views. Even that is a two year old version as the newest requires a php version on the server that breaks the old board. But it’s easy to upgrade the new board to the newest, and the database can be swapped as it’s not corrupted. If you a user called “hidden” on this board - that is me copying and pasting posts and not some nefarious person spying on you.




Rudegal Tab cover art finalized!


FOF RECORDS Advocacy: I’ll start working on the Tim Cook letter today and courier it off before the end on the vacation. Then we shall all see the journey and destiny of a legitimate grievance to a new policy at Apple the messes up every artist‘s ability to control their branding. I’ll break the whole argument down over the next few days, but Apple started this and it’s starting to spread to there platforms so we actually have a teeny tiny chance to stop this before it becomes commonplace. This is the first fight for advocacy at our record label. We just got lucky with this one…..



Back to “Tabitha” because Apple says so!


Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

It’s looks like I still got credit for participating at the World Bank annual meetings back in 2019:


https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/meetings/external/annualmeeting/Participant-List.pdf





This was a welcome nugget of happiness today as I was really bored and happened upon this. Yes I did apply to host an event there on the Positive Mandate but didn’t make the cut. I did download the app and tried to be a speaker there at some of the events. I guess all that was enough to make the list!



How whack is that!



I’ll take it given the present situation. This does make it easier for me to speak the next time I apply as I can list our previous participation! What a nice surprise!



Also there was another mass zoom call at the United Nations today that I participated in:





And that was the morning. More work on the report/board and Tim Cook letter. But this will be a two mocha Starbucks day today, mainly because of all the lament that I didn’t even do a recon mission at the World Bank/IMF meetings after all that hassle trying to speak there. This sort of makes up for that in a way.



Me likes the unexpected nugget of joy when things get really mundane and boring…..



Later…..

[Maurice Ali]

A late one as we just had the IAIJ Annual General meeting.






We will make the announcement of our participation at the World Bank in 2019 as that holds us in good stead for 2021 possibly. Plus, stuff like that only keeps my hold at IAIJ as I’m definitely “the man” right now. But whatever, the advocacy carries on. What on earth could I discuss at the WTO? Well in 2019 it was AI/Positive Mandate and the Global Economy but these days a global vote at the World Bank would probably get me a speaking position….. We shall see how we proceed, but I’m not here for a lifestyle change…..



I got a shipment of CDs in for the ZX/81 album and we will probably make a little promotional blurb at FOF Records. As for Friday: More work on the new board and more work on the social contract paper.



Later…..