20 - 007 Dedication to George Szubinski (1946 - 2020)

It is with deep regret that I have today to confirm that I have just attended the funeral of George Szubinski who died on the 14^th April 2020 of coronavirus aged 73 years. His 74^th Birthday would have been on the 21^st April 2020. He was my partner in ZigZag Digital Associates where David Bannister had the handle Zig and George Szubinski was Zag. We worked together, often over enthusiastically, on a number of digital projects. None of them commercially successful but we really enjoyed working together on the challenges of digital innovation and creation.

To illustrate our odd ZigZag thought processes. We particularly liked using the “xyz” Top Level Domain (TLD) because we thought we were aligning ourselves with the Google parent Alphabet who used “abc.xyz” for their corporate website. We thought as our business grew we would be listed alongside Google on any Top Level Domain sorted listing. But also not surprisingly “xyz” was not well publicised and therefore they were very cheap to buy but they did the job just as effectively as any other TLD’s. In fact often more effectively because there were fewer of them to search through so the latency time to find our sites was very low. 

Listed below is a brief resume of our work together that started in both our retirements on Monday 9^th January 2017. 

Resume of ZigZag Products

eFlow (was eTube)  

Large process maps had been an interest for David Bannister over a number of years. The challenge was to allow this map to be viewed through a “digital viewer” much as Google views their geographical maps. Technically the task of segmenting and then stitching them together again within the internet browser to scan over the map was beyond our technical capability. So a compromise solution had to be found. After a lot of experimentation we created a product we called eTube.

We looked to purchase the IP for the trademark “eTube” but unfortunately London Transport threatened legal action and all reference to “eTube” had to be removed from the internet and our marketing materials. We renamed the product “eFlow” and apart from George accidently using an eFlow graphic with IP licensing attached to it we proceeded with our marketing. George setup a website called eflow.xyz which included a YouTube marketing video and then added in examples of eFlow Process Maps that David had created. 

It was an effective solution to Process Mapping and we proceeded to market it but with little success. We failed to get any business interested in it as a Process Mapping Product. David went on to use the eFlow mapping structure in two books he published through DMB Publishing. One called Traditional Project Management and one called Agile Project Management. 

MyButcher

George talking to a local butcher (MeatShack) found out he was struggling with an eCommerce package he had purchased from a computer company.

George offered to help and ended up taking on the development of the MeatShack eCommerce website. The first challenge for George was getting the existing supplier to hand over the website to ZigZag. The software was an Open Systems solution authored by an Englishman living in Hong Kong and it was used throughout China. George learnt the package and managed to get it working. The butcher then wanted it developed to support back office processes. George specified the changes and then got a programmer in Romania to code it for him. He also interfaced it to an Open Systems Report Writer package. The whole system was made live in October 2017 ready for the Christmas trade. Unfortunately there were many problems. The hosting company moved it to a new server that lacked the infrastructure to support it so it was off line for 3 days. Then all the banking interfaces accepting payments failed because they had made changes to the API which they had not communicated. Then the email software that sent order confirmations was changed by the provider and that interface also failed. Somehow George worked through all these problems managing to keep the system live and successfully running through the busy Christmas trading. 

This tenacity and determination was truly amazing. These were strengths that George had that could only be appreciated by someone working closely alongside him. Listening to his telephone conversations to numerous Support Desks when he was told “Your problem is logged as Number 10472 with our investigation promised within 3 days.” was an experience in itself. Patient but very very firm. He often could see the problem technically and the solution but obviously the Support Desk operator was not a technician often being what is known in the trade as First Level Support. He would demand to speak to a technician often without success.

George continued to work on the MeatShack system through 2018 and 2019 until they ceased wanting to use it. George then created a more generic product he called MyButcher. He attempted to market this through 2019 without success. This had been a huge investment in George’s time and effort. It was a real testament to his skills and tenacity that he kept this system live and functioning. But it was a lesson in the difficulties of maintaining an Open Systems solution. In hindsight too much of George’s effort went into this one product. Had his energies been focussed elsewhere on other products we maybe have had more success. But that is the software industry. 

Tiltyard

During 2017, whilst George was working on the butcher’s eCommerce website, David used the ZigZag tried and tested eFlow technologies to create a website for the Tiltyard Public House in Kenilworth. George ran the conversions and installed it at the Internet Service Provider (ISP). It was a real success and we got paid for the development and for the hosting. It was a basic website with clickable hyperlinks. It offered none of the gesture controls required by Smartphones. It was dated technology and it could not be marketed into the new Smartphone world. So this was a one off.

MyTim and Ourstories

These were George’s products. MyTim was to be a website where “Tim” stood for “This is me”. It was essentially a timelined digital biography. David Bannister designed a user interface for it but it never got created as a software product. Ourstories was a way of telling stories through video’s hosted on YouTube with importantly music that matched the photographs or video’s. George became an expert in using the Cyberlink PowerDirector video generation software particularly in using special effects. George created many family video’s and many others for anyone that crossed his path through life that he then gave away. Weddings, parties, holidays in fact anything where a video communicated and captured the atmosphere of the event. With the sad loss of his son James in 2007, aged just 34 years, George worked on websites telling the story of Jame’s life. In fact “Ourstories” became a way of recording his life with his wife Janis and daughter Jo and her husband Dave. The growing up of all four grandchildren also formed part of Ourstories. Ourstories became a YouTube channel. 

Adcard, Advideo and Adstore

Adcard had been designed in the later part of 2017. But David Bannister left ZigZag in November 2017 because the direction of travel being taken by George towards eCommerce business (myButcher) was not what he wanted. Mainly because it was high risk and very demanding to support 24/7. So David returned to working on his book publishing projects under his DMB Publishing imprint. For 2018 and 2019 we both worked separately on our own projects. George continued developing the MyButcher website and worked on Ourstories. David continued to develop DMB Publishing but we met socially in 2019 to catch up on each others progress. Memorable was a drink and curry in Henley in Arden on a Thursday night the 28th February 2019 where we compared our notes on each others projects.   

But George had also continued to work on Adcard but without any commercial success. But the ease with which it could be created and the way it could operate as an effective “hub” linking a whole variety of web resources make it a very attractive proposition. So in December 2019 David decided to return to ZigZag part time but it was now to be an informal Partnership not a Company. George had ceased with having to support an operational eCommerce system.

We made the first item on the agenda the relaunch of Adcard.

The big push started in January 2020. George created an Adcard for my Stratford -Upon - Avon book and it was a masterpiece. He did a similar Adcard for another book called Fat Cat. Then a flurry of activity. The separation of the Adcard from the video calling it Advideo then the decision to create a virtual “magazine” of the products we called admag.adcard.xyz and admag.advideo.xyz. Then the decision made whilst down at Gloucester Docks on the 8^th February 2020 to allow people to order and purchase Adcard’s with a free FaceBook marketing package thrown into the price.

Business Cards were produced and distributed. We were on a roll through February and into March 2020.

George looked at using an eCommerce Package owned by Wordpress to create our own Adstore capability. He was working on this the week before he died. Everything came to a sudden end. Suddenly on the 14^th April 2020 it was all over. ZigZag had lost its Zag. 

The Future

The plan is that David Bannister will continue the ZigZag Digital Associates entity linking it into DMB Publishing. The concept of digital innovation and creativity behind ZigZag will be continued by David Bannister working alone but he will always be inspired by the thoughts and memories of his dear mate George Szubinski. 

He once had a logo (which I cannot find) which helped me remember his name. The only part I can clearly remember is it had a “bin” and a “ski” within the logo and for the life of me I cannot remember what he used for the “Szu” part.

 George Szubinski (1946 - 2020)

ZigZag Digital Associates

20 - 006 Amazon the best disrupter.

Amazon is my favourite disrupter. This is because they are disrupting in both the digital world and the real things world at the same time. Apple similarly distrupt in both the digital world and in the real things world with their smartphones, laptops and watches. Alphabet (Google), Facebook and Microsoft are focussed upon the digital world but from time to time dip into the real things world. 

But Amazon is the one that makes disrupting its prime (forgive the pun) mission. Jeff Bezos the founder thinks a certain way and he has been very successful at implementing his thinking. But it is his decision to segregate his thinking into two distinct innovative pathways that has in my opinion made him so successful. He has a real physical product way of thinking alongside a digital way of thinking. It is the combination of the two that makes Amazon so successful. 

The real physical product world is about product design, manufacturing, warehousing and physical distribution. Now Amazon does not currently lead in all these areas since it would be impossible to do so for the millions of physical products that exist in our world. But deciding to focuss upon the warehousing was a very clever starting point. It is a physical storage hub not dissimilar to digital storage hub. With warehousing secured you can build out from them the "to the door" distribution networks. You can build the warehouse to warehousing global interconnecting distribution networks. You can provide warehousing services to manufacturers and other distributors. You can then move out along these distribution channels back into manufacturing and distribution buying up and investing where you see fit. So you can look to own all the sales and distribution of all physical products. Now when you align this with a even more successful digital strategy the two compliment each other making your domination unstoppable.

The digital strategy lead by sales based upon the "one click" customer purchase experience created a defining moment in everybody's living rooms. View the "whole world's product catalogue" of both physical and digital products allowing for instant purchase. Owning the "front end" sales funnel guaranteed success. Then establish ways to bring customers into this funnel like creating an entertainment media streaming channel called Amazon Prime Video (films and documentaries) along with the use of a  voice activated channel device (Echo). Then package up and support a total subscription services channel like Amazon Prime covering both real product and digital product distribution. This is only the customer facing parts. Possibly most significantly behind the scenes is a an enormous digital infrastructure.  where Amazon has created their own datacentres supporting Amazon cloud services inclusive of all the hardware and software. These are the digital equivalents of the real product warehouses. Both occupying real buildings and having real equipment. Within these data centres Amazon runs AWS (Amazon Web Services) and it not only fully supports Amazon it is sold as a service to many other businesses. AWS is a powerful leading edge digital implementation of Cloud Computing. So Amazon is advancing on both the physical product and digital product distribution channels.

So Amazon has all these strategies for the physical and digital worlds. They have an outstanding vision. But this vision does not just apply to the way they intend to trade it also defines the way they intend to finance these developments. Amazon breaks the usual rules of business. It is at present not interested in making money that is paid out as profits in the form of shareholder dividents.The profits it makes are ploughed back into research and development. At almost $30bn a year with this size of investment being more than any other company in history. The object is to keep growing the share price so if investors want money out they can sell shares often with their remaining holding not depleting in value much because of the ongoing share price growth.

It is easy to see  why Amazon that with such a huge growth vision looks to have 10 to 15 year growth plans. It all stems from having a man at the top that has such a visionary capability. Jeff Bezos the ultimate visionary disrupter.    



         







         

20 - 005 How we named ourselves ZigZag.

The name ZigZag was derived as our business name after many discussions between David Bannister (Zig) and George Szubinski (Zag). Importantly we did not want to be a normal business. We did not want to take on employees. We did not want offices. We did not want overheads. But we wanted to work with other like-minded people. People wanting to be creative. People wanting to invent. People wanting to impress others with the work they do and wanting praise more than money. People looking to act quickly working through day and night to meet an objective. People wanting the buzz of working in a creative setting. So we decided to have these people called “associates”. We also like the so called “gig economy” where people work on many different things. Maybe some of their own projects whilst contributing to ours. We also wanted to be truly international with no boundaries in terms of what we do and where our associates work.

Another part of the thinking was Google had just created Alphabet as their holding company for all their digital brands. We had visions of one day becoming a similar sized operation owning digital brands. So with Alphabet occupying the early alphabetically ordered slots in any search we thought only fair to go to the other end of the alphabet so we focussed on Z. Out came the dictionary with us reviewing all the words beginning with Z. Zen was a popular since it represented our relaxed approach, since we were retirees, to undertaking creative work. But ZigZag, indicating many sharp turns, seemed to represent the way our thoughts kept zigzagging all over the place. One thought triggering another and so forth often just zigzagging along and achieving nothing rather than just generating the warm glow of creativity. It was not long before we broke zigzag into its two components of Zig and Zag these becoming our nicknames. So Zig (David) and Zag (George).

So the name ZigZag sort of resonated with our sort of semi digital bohemian philosophy. Not surprising really since Zig and Zag are children of the 1960’s. Only those that were fans of Bert Fegg’s Nasty Book for Boys and Girls by Michael Palin and Terry Jones could truly engage with our thought processes. Working in digital creativity had to be fun. Locking yourself down into systems with multiple variations in digital transactions was never fun. Fortunately the go to computer of choice, the smartphone, with its tiny visual interface soon demolished designers desire to fill screens with multiple functions. Keep it simple became the mantra. So ZigZag Associates is simple and only does “simple” things.

But the name ZigZag also held an important place in computer history. Our hero Ted Nelson had developed a database called ZigZag along his Xanadu documents.

Ted described as “a bit crabby but what a clear thinker” had challenged the whole way the computer and software industry had developed by randomly jumping from one technology to another. Ted argued it was essentially commercially driven without adopting the purest principals he believed so firmly should have been the adopted development path. He is sometimes called the principal dissenter in the computer field. He was the maverick. Just read this below from the introduction to one of his papers.

“The computing world is based on one principal system of conventions -- the simulation of hierarchy and the simulation of paper. The article introduces an entirely different system of conventions for data and computing. zzstructure is a generalized representation for all data and a new set of mechanisms for all computing. The article provides a reference description of zzstructure and what we hope to build on it. From orthogonally connected data items (zzcells) and untyped connections (zzlinks), we build a cross-connected fabric of data (zzstructure) that is visualizable, interactive, and programmable.”

Yes Ted thought about things differently. This is extracted from a paper that goes on and on conveying his enlightened wisdom. You cannot appreciate Ted Nelson until you have read his book “Geeks Bearing Gifts” with a classic mugshot of a young Bill Gates in Police custody on the cover. So the essence of ZigZag is we think about things differently in homage to both Ted Nelson and Bert Fegg’s.

20 - 004 US Patent No. 5960411

To any business operating in the field of digital solutions and the protection of the intellectual property (IP) rights around these solutions then US Patent No 5960411 represents a significant landmark in the evolution of the application of patents to digital solutions.

Amazon.com was granted Patent No. 5,960,411 in 1999 for a “Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order via a Communications Network. “. The patent claims a method by which a web site, having previously stored information about a customer, can allow the customer to make a purchase with a single “click” of a mouse. Amazon then sued barnesandnoble.com (B&N) claiming that B&N’s “Express Lane” purchasing method infringed the patent. Legally Amazon secured a preliminary injunction against B&N on the grounds that that it would eventually go to trial where it would claim damages for the loss of business due to B&N breaking their patent. As a result B&N’s Express Lane service offering had to be shut down before B&N even had an opportunity to try to prove that the Amazon patent was invalid.

Many observers believed that the Amazon patent should never have been granted, either because others had already implemented similar systems, meaning the Amazon’s one was not novel, or it could have been very easily implemented by anyone meaning the invention falls the test of non-obviousness. If “one click” could be patented then virtually any approach on the internet could be patented. The Amazon patent cause a mad rush of patents to be filed covering everything in respect of eCommerce and every other internet solution type.

It took over a year but the Amazon preliminary injunction to protect its patent was overturned. Upon an appeal the Appeals Court did not address directly whether or not B&N infringed the Amazon patent but they ruled that there was sufficient doubt about the validity of the patent and that Amazon should not have been granted a preliminary injunction. This should have only be granted if it was thought likely that Amazon would have won the subsequent trial had it taken place relating to the infringement. In the end Amazon and B&N settled the case out of court.

The effect of all of this was to make patents relating to business methods extremely difficult to obtain. But that has not stopped businesses continuing to apply for these types of patent. In fact for any type of internet activity that a business wants to protect from the use of competitors or to support a licensing model these patent applications are still made and in many cases accepted. But the duty of the patent system is to both encourage and reward innovation whilst not constraining the evolution and development of internet solutions by locking down into patents very obvious easily invented methods and processes.

In many cases the use of Copyright covering interface designs, user manuals and procedures can be a more cost effective way of protecting a business’s ideas and creations. Copyright can be used as a legal basis to protect, for the creating business, new and unique innovations. But copyright historically has been very visually based (eg pictures, words) but its application to methods and processes makes it very ineffective as a legal instrument. Although its application to the music industry has been particularly effective especially now music can be easily digitally profiled. If processes can be digitally documented as precisely as music then copyright could become a viable legal instrument although unlike music processes lack a coherent digitised structure. Although processes have been defined in different languages these are far from being standardised to the  degree necessary to meet some legalistic verification. It is also most likely that processes will remain very difficult, if not impossible, to copyright due to the fact they are never fully novel and are often too easily invented.    

After patents and copyrights the other legal instrument that should not be ignored when looking to protect digital solutions is the Trademark. The Trademark is a particular type of intellectual property (IP) consisting of a recognisable sign, design or expression which identifies the digital solution. Unlike patents and copyrights a registered Trademark can, theoretically, last for ever.  

20 - 003 How do ZigZag Digital Associates protect their IP?

ZigZag Digital Associates spends large amounts of time, effort and money researching, designing and building new digital products and services. Many of these investments lead to nothing and the project is often abandoned. This is the nature of our business. In fact this is what drives and continues to drive the founders of the business. The successfully created digital solutions then become Intellectual Properties (IP) owned by ZigZag. ZigZag is essentially a creator, owner and trader in these Digital Intellectual Properties (IP).

ZigZag operating in the digital world and looking to create new digital deliverables has to constantly evaluate different digital methodologies, architectures, frameworks and tool sets. Many attempts to build a new product or approach fail due to the supporting solutions investigated not meeting the criteria that has been set. Considerable effort goes into investigation and evaluation. The very nature of ZigZag means it is highly dependent on solutions not owned by itself or where the standards are not owned or set by ZigZag. This inevitably makes for a very precarious process of research and development. Often the final solutions adopted do not reflect the amount of effort that has gone into putting them together. Like many success stories they look, with hindsight, easily achievable but the final solution was in fact impossible to foresee as you proceeded along an often random development path. To say that serendipity does not play a large part in the successes at ZigZag would be an understatement. The slightly fanciful name of serendipity covers chance, fate, destiny, luck, coincidence, accident and possibly a little bit of actual design. But instinctively we move down the pathways of creativity falling off at each turn to only resurrect ourselves on to new and different pathways. But how does ZigZag market such creations when they are completed?

The digital deliverables produced by ZigZag maybe sometimes be suitable for copyright but they would certainly not these days be patentable. The patent system in the UK or that matter the USA or anywhere is not suited to support what are essentially digital frameworks for producing digital products or services. The costs to define a patent and then to legally support it should anyone use it unauthorised are, unless you are a rich powerful multi-national, prohibitive. So how does ZigZag protect its designs and creations? It is straightforward. It uses secrecy. We operate just like Coca Cola because their drink is a mixture of complex natural substances it is not possible to duplicate it by just analysing the end product. It is the same with the ZigZag Digital Products which are when created usually complex pieces of coded processes and data. So although you can read this code you cannot determine how it was generated. What ZigZag keeps secret, like Coca Cola, is how we made it.

So who do we share these secrets with and under what circumstances? The nature of what we do means those becoming party to the secrets will have to be digital technologists. Without digital experience and understanding you will not be able take on the responsibility of these digital solutions. Although the users of these solutions do not have to be digital experts those operating them at the “core” have to be experts. So within businesses it will be the Information Technology units that will take on the ownership. In the case of individuals or small businesses you need to be information technologically capable.

We share our secrets under three commercial relationships. Firstly you could become an Associate of ZigZag Digital Associates usually because you intend to commercially operate one of our digital deliverables. This becomes a relationship based upon a Franchise Contract. This usually applies to individuals or small businesses. The second relationship is intended for large organisations where you Licence the use of the digital product. This forms a Licencing Agreement. The third relationship is where the digital product is sold to another business for their exclusive use with ZigZag normally retaining a nominal percentage shareholding in the new purchaser’s business entity.

20 - 002 Who are ZigZag Digital Associates ?

ZigZag Digital Associates is built on the lines of an association of like-minded individuals who share a common ethos, culture and purpose. It is more about the challenges and satisfaction of achieving different digital objectives. It is not profit motivated operating more like an art collective where digital artists share and appraise each other works and the skills to produce them. Producing digital artifacts of various types can be the subject of both appraisal and criticism by fellow digital associates. Inevitably in some cases the revenue and profits generated can become a measure of the market success of a particular digital product. But this from a ZigZag perspective it is only one measure. Anyone appraising the design of the current digital landscape can see what a mess it is due to its commercially driven evolution. ZigZag although inevitably required to operate within this digital framework does look to achieve where possible a more logical approach.
There are two key Partners running ZigZag Digital Associates. David Bannister known as Zig and George Szubinski known as Zag. They are both very experienced digital developers having both had long careers within the digital industry. David is more systems orientated whilst George is the true digital technician. Both are very creative and very critical of each other’s creations.  ZigZag has a huge list of potential projects in the pipeline with ideas evolving by the hour if not by the minute. These are held on the backburner with projects moved forward to be worked upon depending almost on the whim of David and George. Some are worked upon and parked whilst others are moved forward into a market ready state. The approach is deliberately non-commercial being more based upon looking for the satisfaction to be gained from progressing a project. If commercial success occurs that is a bonus able to fund more project activities. The whole approach is long term rather than short term.
So why have we termed it ZigZag Digital Associates? We have developed this based on the Intellectual Property (IP) industry particularly the way IP experts operate on an associate basis. Really ZigZag Digital Associates is a creator of new intellectual property. If we sell on one of our creations we are selling an intellectual property. It may be a real product made up of coded objects or it may be unique frameworks, processes and techniques. It is more often than not a hybrid combining all these aspects in one packaged solution. Selling the product IP is often more focussed upon consultancy and training in the processes and techniques used to create and operate the deliverable. It is a difficult area so making it aligned with the Intellectual Property (IP) industry makes the most sense. ZigZag makes use of a huge variety of architectures, frameworks, solutions, techniques and processes. The leaning is towards an “open systems” architecture where the software used is free of charge. But where required purchased or more commonly licensed software will be used if it better meets the needs of the ZigZag final solution.
ZigZag works with a variety of other Associates both nationally and internationally on a free of charge or paid for basis as necessary. These Associates usually offer very specific skill sets needed to develop our products. We also use ZigZag Associates skilled in our own products to support our customers.

20 - 001 Background to ZigZag Digital Associates

With the tagline “we breed ideas and grow solutions” ZigZag Digital Associates is an informal group of digital experts who focus upon digital creativity and digital solution delivery. Importantly there are no boundaries to the types of digital solutions that are developed. Many only make it to a prototype stage before being abandoned whilst others may be made operational as revenue sources. Some solutions may need to be sold off because the capital and professional investment required exceeds the capabilities or scope of ZigZag Digital Associates. ZigZag Digital Associates will always look to retain a percentage of the ownership of all sold solutions. So from now on let us just call ourselves ZigZag. So ZigZag is a digital ideas incubator really focussed on the latest digital technologies supporting both digital business solutions and digital life solutions. We are a proactive think tank able to quickly turn ideas into digital solutions. We are experts in the digital technologies in all their various incarnations. We can write code but pride ourselves on the use of productivity accelerators to quickly generate our digital solutions. Whilst being experts in so called back office technologies we are particularly keen on the human to computer interfaces. You cannot operate in the digital technologies arena without understanding and acknowledging the power of both cloud computing and social media platforms. Much of our creativity is focused upon the exploitation of these particular digital architectures. Yes both cloud computing and social media have their own distinct designs and therefore they are underpinned by specific digital architectures. Inevitably both video and audio outputs are becoming key components in the digital world as is artificial intelligence and the so called “internet of things” now set to explode with the arrival of the 5G mobile network. So is ZigZag a disruptor? We like to think we disrupt by simplicity. If any theme runs through our thinking processes it is about “keeping it simple”. Keeping it intuitive. Acknowledging paradigms or creating new paradigms. Making it fun. Making it a worthwhile experience. Adding real value. Making it enjoyable. Looking for re-engagement. Acknowledging humanity. Whilst we have a business focus, within ZigZag, as the name suggests, we like to zig and zag towards the more human emotional use of digital technologies. So some of our projects look to capture the incorporation of human emotions and memories into digital solutions. It is about sharing and legacy. It is about evoking thoughts and feelings. It is about generating satisfaction and wellbeing. One aspect of ZigZag is the constant focus upon zigzagging across platforms making use of the whole digital landscape. Integration is a key element in this type of approach. Moving the user around the internet meeting their objectives whilst streamlining the whole process of movement. We have a particular fascination for the creation of interconnecting nodes to move users through different digital landscapes. ZigZag has always had a focus on the subject of digital workflows. Or more genetically life flows. The step by step linear or non-linear movement through complex business or digital processes or life processes. The acknowledgement of the productivity gains and the communication gains to be made by the adoption of a digital workflow approach. The need to store and record life flows for your emotional satisfaction and reflection. So welcome to the world of ZigZag. You are not entering a normal world.