Fortress Of Freedom Board

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2025 7:47 am Post subject:

From Venturebeat.com:

“Scientists from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and Meta have abandoned their fierce corporate rivalry to issue a joint warning about AI safety. More than 40 researchers across these competing companies published a research paper today arguing that a brief window to monitor AI reasoning could close forever — and soon.”

So now you know the urgency with the AI threat I’m always prattling about.

Full disclosure: In my book I actually defend a sentient AI from being turned off as that would be akin to murder. If contained an AI could retire and not be turned off and all that. Funny that I went into all of that.

Anyway the new chapters expanding on previous ideas to keep an AI in check continue. I would say the three popular movies that explored this idea of turning off an AI were 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Lawn Mower Man and Colossus: The Forbin Project.

In other news:

I’m waiting on Spotify to put our new single on the site. It seems to be everywhere else but Spotify. But again - I’m hesitant to release the single if it isn’t on the biggest streaming site on the net. So all we do is wait…..

Goodnight…..

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x27dau3

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2my958

https://youtu.be/rhAMqpaJNBA?si=wa2URyIT3L8kbLbe

https://youtu.be/UwCFY6pmaYY?si=nmXxMJcvGedgoEs2

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2025 10:38 am Post subject:

I finally got around to rendering those uncensored movies of an academy award film that was messed with after the director died. The HD file is about 45gigs and the SD version with one audio track and in PAL is about 4.5gigs. I can drop the file size down with no loss of quality but having it play in every machine is more important. But the film is back to what it was as originally shot.

I have since found many instances of streaming services altering movies and TV shows. This is due to the original licensing arrangements not extending to the new streaming services. So instead of relicensing the music and paying h the original musicians royalties for their music on the shows - they replace it with royalty free or AI music. That even extends to the opening theme music on TV shows! This is unacceptable as traditional TV “had” to censor because they are public broadcasters licensed by the government. Streaming services are mostly not and can do as they wish. But now this isn’t about a boob showing up or a swear word - it’s replacing the sound track with non-original license free music to get out of paying the record labels and artists that made them for the original shows and movies!

And remember, that as a former owner of a record label (gifted to FOFSTOCK) and founder of FOFSTOCK, a music collective advocacy group - this issue is in my sphere of advocacy!

And so on and on it goes…..

Goodnight…..

https://youtu.be/9gVo7Sq0btI?si=enkm6f0VoOQ6YAI5

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2025 4:31 pm Post subject:

A late one.

Spotify keeps us from releasing Lucifari’s latest single. Always Spotify in last.

I topped up the bank accounts and went through all the mail. I have to open up then CRA online account for More Vision.

Hulk Hogan dead at 71 - six years older. Come to think about it - Ozzy Osborne was 71 when he died. I’m not getting any younger…..

Goodnight…..

Maurice Ali · Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2025 1:00 pm Post subject:

We decided to release it!

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2025 3:40 pm Post subject:

Just taking Saturday slow.

The biggest problem is trying to set up a TV in my dad’s bedroom. The TV works fine but the Roger’s “ able” box does not. Any of the other two boxes we have will work but the new ones they sent don’t. All this to have him something to watch from the bed and we can’t manage that!

Davinci Resolve on my editing computer!

I have officially moved to Davinci Resolve. Right now I can do everything I could do in Avid and better. I’m still staying away from Fusion as I don’t need it yet but the audio tab (Fairlght) and color tab have all been mastered. Fusion is mostly for motion effects. You can add a blur node and use that but you could do that just as effectively with the normal color page - so what’s the point.

Davinci Resolve handles 4K better than my old Avid - it’s time to move on…..

Goodnight…..

https://youtu.be/Q0Bvsqb1c-8?si=wER7HvhXm0MRQziH

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2025 6:51 am Post subject:

Yes, so while home bound I am taking advantage of it and now it’s Davinci Resolve and Pro-Tools for video and audio.

I’m on Davinci Resolve 17 and my license means unlimited upgrades. That means after the current version - Davinci Resolve 20 - they may start charging for upgrades! See how that works!

AVID now looks like Davinci Resolve so go with Resolve!

Anyway, what I’ll do for now is download the 18 and 19 and 20 and bank it just in case I need it. I should also look for the current version of AVID that is used on my editor as they secretly deleted the installers for those old versions even though I have a perpetual license. Ultimately I still have my original disc I can use, but really…..

The Pro-Tools version is free and forever as they say. But we shall see. I still have a full version on an old XP machine and for audio it should still work fine so I still have that in my back pocket.

All the audio equipment never gets old but the video equipment does. Actually the old Sony SD and Canon HDV prosumer camcorders are really retired and now I use a Canon 4K camcorder which is still relevant with the only upgrade being a better screen and streaming directly from the camcorder and that is it until they retire the thing.

I may buy a mirrorless camera just to stay relevant - we shall see…..

I have another week off to sort everything out here and in the family life. First born so in the end it’s all in me…..

Goodnight…..

Maurice Ali · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2025 4:22 am Post subject:

So my task for Sunday was to upgrade my three year old version of Davinci Resolve 17 video editor to the latest Davinci Resolve 20 video editor. The software came basically free with the Speed Editor hardware I bought and they said it was upgradable for life.

I always take statements to like that with a grain of salt as “never” usually is just hype. So when version “20” was released the head guy starts talking about paying for things. I suppose it will start with generative AI functionality. With version 20 I already have some AI features but they really are not true AI, so whatever as I don’t embrace much of AI anyway. I figure version 20 is near the limit for some of my hardware (CPU) so I may stay here if they go subscription and take away perpetual licenses.

Anyway upgrading meant taking my PC to my dad’s house and spending the day with Windows update and then updating the GPU and then updating the drivers for the GPU. Then I held my breath - and - it worked!

That’s the speed editor in front of the keyboard. For you sharp eyed editors - yes - that is Avid on the screens!

Everything including all projects and edits are intact. I checked everything out and started debugging stuff. My speed editor hardware had trouble connecting via bluetooth but that now works. I’ll live with the bugs and then make the many updates to finish off this version but I’ll wait until all the bugs are finished correcting.

A close up of the Speed Editor!

That was basically Sunday in a nut shell. This PC was offline all its life like all real workstations, so three years of updates! I could have tried updating the whole computer to Windows 11 but I’m not crazy about that idea. It’s offline and so that really doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be forced to connect to the internet to keep a computer working…..

Goodnight…..

https://youtu.be/acITJV6VHBE?si=qEpGkQLNw2kP7lUc

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2025 10:00 am Post subject:

I was watching the movie “The TV Set” which was basically a small budget movie (only made a quarter of a million dollars on a 2 million dollar budget back in around 2006). Sort of a step up from my movies with a few known names to get backers to come in. It occurred to me watching this insider show for TV insiders, that maybe the algorithm was correct for me when it said I was a director and cinematographer.

I actually have some experience having aired two “Canadian shows” on the two largest networks in Canada. But I also pitched shows to NBC and Hearst Media (Survivor/Mark Burnet). We almost had something happen at NBC as I couriered a package to the head of unscripted programming Pearlena Igbokwe (now the Chairman of Universal Studio Group) at 30 Rockefeller in New York and it was received and after a while it was sent to NBC productions in California, and finally sent to the corporate lawyers who sent me this email:

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2025 7:48 am Post subject:

I have a bunch of stuff to do today.

One is applying to UN events during General Assembly. This is never a sure thing and the hotels are a grand a night. But this is the place to be as anything can happen. It’s the vortex of power and influence in the world ant that time and some outside the government spectrum get a chance to participate. So I’m putting in my applications today.

The ultimate would be to give a speech. Good luck with that! Then a written statement - that is more of a possibility.

Goodnight…..

https://youtu.be/MPMmC0UAnj0?si=Qt41sq7Ef1B4HDd_