So let's get started. So in college, I had a professor announce in our first discrete mathematics course that he was going to teach us how to count. And that counting would be the hardest thing we would learn in that class. So as naive college students, we thought he was cuckoo.  Well, we learned pretty quickly how bloody accurate that statement was. Counting indeed was the hardest thing we learned, despite the fact that we thought we already knew how. So like counting, communication is hard. And we constantly get it wrong. It's easy to dismiss getting better at communication because we do it every day. So how bad can we be at it? When things go wrong, communication is one of the last things we tend to blame for why things went wrong. We usually assume it was a server issue or a code mishapper that went into a lot of problems. Or that, you know, developing we had issues and that's why the deadline was missed. But if we communicated those mishaps up front and why they happened and the impact they had on that delivery, they would have, you know, things going truly wrong would happen much less frequently. And then when things go right, we rarely attribute good communication as to the reason why things are going well. So nearly every problem I've encountered in software can be traced back to a communication mishap, a simple misunderstanding or perhaps a misspoken phrase. So whatever it was, a small tweak would have avoided a problem altogether. So communication on its own is kind of a huge topic. Anyone that would take probably countless 40 minute time slots to talk about. So this talk is gonna focus on five tips that will make the most impact on your life. My goal is for you to be able to leave here armed with these five tips and have them improve your communication and positively impact your relationship with others immediately. So every example or walkthrough has a foundation in the real world. This is to ensure that they're relatable and understandable and whenever possible, they are written in conversations that happen as developers.  And if you've never seen Harry Potter, this is your warning. And then the theme of Harry Potter, we can be joined by two hedgehogs, Ron and Harry. And Harry as the talk suggests is the one that's learning how to communicate. And Ron will be playing all the other roles as necessary. And when both are on the slide, Harry will be denoted by the lightning bolt scar on his head. So without further ado, these are the tips that we're gonna talk about. Think, then speak. Drop the knots. Drop the jests. And watch your phrasing. And praise in public, critique in private. So hi, my name is Laura.  And if you do the Twitter thing and like to see pictures of hedgehogs and other cute animals, I just read funny things my husband says and the occasional Sacramento health topic you can find me at Laura Trev. And for some examples of furry animals you see, that is my dog Jackie and my hedgehog princess, Kandana. Why you want me to go back? All right, so tip number one, think, then speak. So speaking without thinking can cause all manners of problems.  So when you bypass the thinking and dive right into speech, you do something I like to call word from it. Basically use feel whatever comes to mind first, regardless of what consequences may follow. And in the digital age with Slack and other editable messaging platforms, we've only exasperated the problem. We can edit our messages on the fly, changing that history to become more favorable for us. This unfortunately is unavailable in spoken communication. And yet because of how frequently edit our asynchronous messaging, our spoken tends to show a very more unfavorable side. So taking a moment to think before you communicate is a foundation of all good, understandable communication. The moment it takes to consider what was said and to consider what to say removes that word vomit. And you will say what you mean, mean what you say and be understood as it was meant to. All of the other tips we'll talk about will build on this. So there are three questions you can ask yourself before you communicate.  First is what do you want to say? This is intended, this is the intended outcome or point of what you'd like to get across. And then you want to ask yourself who you are talking to. Knowing who you're talking to is important as it directly affects question number three, which is how should you explain it? How can you phrase your inquire or message to be best received by the person you're conversing with? So as an example, let's say you need to take a day off last minute but your team is pushing towards a really big upcoming deadline. So you go through these three questions, what do you want to say? Well, you want to take time off and who are you talking to? Well, you're talking to your boss. And how should you explain it? Probably carefully.  So there's still, you can still ask for that time off but you also want to add in reassurances for how you'll ensure your work will get done and on schedule prior to that you're taking that time off. So these questions may seem for both and cumbersome to need to go over it every single time you want to communicate. And I get that. But practicing these questions over and over again, even in written communication and in your spoken communication, you'll eventually be able to do this by rote. So stopping to think first can help you avoid sharing something in private or that is not yours to share. So in Harry Potter, Hagrid had a lot of trouble keeping secrets to himself and spent much of the first movie saying things that should have been kept secret especially from Harry, Ron and Hermione. For example, he told them to the secret his three-headed dog, Flecky, was guarding was between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Vermell. He immediately realized he let out a secret by saying Nicholas Vermell and turned away muttering his regret. Oh later, while he's attempting to hatch a dragon name that he found or got from a stranger, he claimed that all of the other productions that were guarding that stone were pointless because no one but him and Dumbledore knew how to get past his dog. While less of a slip up, it was still a giveaway that there were other spells and enchantments that were guarding that stone. And so when Harry started questioning how Hagrid got that dragon egg and what happened to show up in his stranger's pocket, he confronted Hagrid about it. And then Hagrid let slip that he told that complete stranger how to get past that dog by playing him a bit of music and he fell straight to sleep. So if Hagrid had taken a moment to think about who he was talking to, there's a good chance he would have stopped himself from telling Harry Ron and Hermione about secrets. There's also a good chance they would have thought through his decision to tell a complete stranger how to get past that dog that was currently guarding a really important stone. So furthermore, Hagrid regretted what he said. So pausing to think about what he was going to say before would have saved him a lot of that regret.  So take that moment to think before responding and you'll avoid saying something you'll regret later. So Professor Monica Nagle was brilliant at thinking on her feet and filtering her thoughts and phrasing. Her statement's perfectly for whom she was talking to. And this was especially true when she was speaking to Professor Umbridge, the cruel evil professor who's wearing pink in her hair's fifth year. So when Umbridge fired Professor Trelawney and was attempting to banish her from the castle, Professor McGonagall was finally comforting her colleague and seeing this Umbridge inquired, is there something you would like to say dear? And McGonagall responded by literally saying nothing that would invoke a serious reaction from Umbridge. All of I continue to comfort Professor Trelawney. Or when Professor Umbridge then attempted to undermine her in a class inspection, Umbridge or McGonagall was literally having none of it. After the first interruption, she told Umbridge that she indeed got her notice, otherwise she would have asked why she was in her classroom. After the second one, she asked if Umbridge needed a cough drop. And after the third interruption, her reply was straight to the point and she had Umbridge right up. So tip two is drop the nuts. So dropping the nuts and negatives and denials out of your speech is probably one of the more straightforward tips you're gonna talk about. In that moment you're thinking before you speak, you can look at how you're about to phrase those responses and drop those nuts. So one of my favorite pastimes is to chain watch videos on YouTube. So occasionally I'll get through a chain of videos our kids during our saying are ridiculous things. So one example that comes to mind is where a kid was playing quietly in another room while the mother rests on the couch. And after some time, the mother realized that things were just a little bit too quiet and inquires, what are you doing? And the kid responds, I am not eating crayons. And with that, the mom leaps off the sofa, bolts to the room to find the walls covered in drawings and half eaten crayons strewn across the carpet. So we find this hilarious because it's so relatable. We knew that kid was eating those crayons simply because of how he answered that question. Rather than answering that he was coloring, they answered with a denial. I'm not eating crayons. Unfortunately, kids are pretty naive when it comes to communication. So denying when asking or denying when asked a question is tantamount to emitting guilt, which is exactly what happened. Nuts reveal truth. When you deny something, others will automatically seek that truth behind your statement. And chances are your denial speaks more truth than answering that question directly. So if you drop the word nod to the kid's response, what are you left with? I'm eating crayons. And that kid was definitely eating those crayons. So you watch these videos to read these stories about kids misbehaving. There's a general theme. Kid does wrong. Adult is another room. Kid is a little too quiet. Adult inquires what kid is doing. Kid responds by denying they're doing. And adult immediately assumes that kid is doing what they're denying. And unfortunately, this theme is a prevalent even in our communication as adults. When we ask a question, we often reach for denial rather than simply answering that question. And in general, a tendency is to communicate in various forms of negatives. So we state the lack of something. We deny things. We say no, and we skirt responsibility. All of these contribute to how we are perceived.  I can't find my keys nowhere or I'm not doing nothing wrong. So speaking of negatives increases the complexity involved in understanding what is being said, which leads to people misunderstanding you. It's a short hop to realizing that negatives are one of the reasons why we feel so misunderstood.  There are times that using the negative is the more appropriate and understandable response. So if you go into a store and ask for an item that's out of stock, you want that sales rep to tell you that they don't have any in stock. Any other answer will be frustrating and annoying. So if you're asked a direct question, answer it directly even if you're saying no. So here's some examples of knots that we should be dropping. That's not possible or a sibling, we can't do that. Our common refrains when we are presented with an impossible deadline or a feature request that is so absurdly out of scope that our gut reaction just says, we can't do that or it is impossible. If you do this often, you'll find that people will feel you're unreceptive to their needs or difficult to work with or just plain rude. So the issues with these statements is that while they're true, they're only partially correct, right? Because that deadline's gonna come and go, whether that's how time works. So rather than saying that it's not possible, focus instead on what is possible by that deadline. This kind of language opens up a conversation that allows both parties to contribute and come to an agreement. Or for those massive features that are out of scope for that system, you can be honest about it and tell them it'll take time. And then offer to break down that feature to see what the actual need is. This is important because it shows that you're willing to work with them to find a solution that meets their needs. And this exercise often uncovers a better solution to solve the problem that the users were having in the first place. So with these rephrases, you show you are receptive to their input and ideas and you're willing to work with them to find a satisfactory solution. And that's not my job. Comes up a lot when we're asked to do something that is outside our so-called job description. So in this example, it may be easiest for Harry to dismiss this request because he knows that someone else's responsibility. But what happens if Ron thought it was Harry's job? Or if Ron doesn't know who to ask and the Harry was the logical person to ask? So dismissing these requests can have an unintended side effect of creating a negative perception of you. And you may earn a reputation for being unhelpful or a slacker or that you can't or won't do your job. Instead, you can point out who does do that job and then offer to ping them and create that connection. Now my problem is a common refrain when you're trying to skirt responsibility. In this case, there are two primary ways that this can be interpreted. The first is when it is Harry's problem and he's skirting responsibility because he'd rather be doing something else. Or it is someone else's problem, but Harry, it still affects Harry because he uses that same build. So either way, skirting responsibility is perceived poorly by others. So take a moment and focus on the problem and help anyway. Don't think you're helpful and even if you're unable to solve that problem, they'll be appreciative of your effort. Of course, there'll be times that the problem really is in someone else's court. If you find yourself in this type of situation, you can do two things. You can point that person to someone who can help or you can sit down and be the rubber duck and help them troubleshoot the issue anyway. Either way, you'll find that your teammates appreciate you and your willingness to help. And lastly, not now, is the ever refrain of a busy developer. Every other example we've walked through has assumed that Harry has stopped whatever he is doing to help. And this is an unreasonable assumption. Everyone needs that flow time or the uninterrupted time and stopping what you're doing can be detrimental to your productivity. And unfortunately, there are times you are gonna be interrupted and lose your train of thought in a cloud of smoke. And when this happens, try not to lash out and remain composed. Instead, let them know that you are heads down and in the flow. People inherently understand the idea of being in their zone. So they're receptive to it. And avoiding that lash out, let them know that you're willing to help even if it has to wait until later. And there are some companies that have policies in place to ensure flow time remains uninterrupted. So for example, we have a rule that if you have headphones on both ears, you're considered to be in do not disturb mode. So tip number three is drop the jest. So jest as much as we are prone to using, speaking in negatives, we're also prone to using jests. There are three different types of jests that we need to drop. The elitist jest, the different in jest and the diminutive jest. So the elitist jest is the one that we use when we might feel superior or impatient or the subject matter is like beneath our notice or even our focus. This is especially prevalent that I found in polio quest or when people are asking questions that you might find a little bit dumb. And I find that when this jest is in question form, people tend to justify their use of it, but it's still no elitist jest. So you can see this phrase, why don't you jest spotted the nine question forms such as just do this or just do that, or you can jest. All of these imply that you're too impatient to look through the work and figure out how they actually did it or that you're too busy to dig in and understand their approach. You end up telling them how you would do it rather than teaching and you're dictating rather than showing. Instead, dig into what they did. Open up your mind and learn something new. Oftentimes what they did is completely new and interesting. And if you always do things in the old way, you are gonna miss out on learning from your peers and growing yourself. And sometimes what was done was actually confusing. So take a time to ask about it, dig into the intent behind the change. Ask them for their reasoning for doing it the way they did and it'll clue you in until their thought process. And you'll be better equipped to answer questions and help them move forward. And if their approach will ultimately cause problems or bottlenecks or performance issues, you can let them know, but also explain why. Take the extra time to teach them why their approach can cause issues. So they'll be better equipped to avoid it in the future. So validate their work. By removing that elitist just, you create and promote a safe culture of learning and growth for everyone. And when necessary, offer that alternative and suggest changes, but avoid correcting by telling, showing them the way forward and giving them room to figure it out on their own and lead when necessary. And be kind while you do it. The diffident just, or another word is a comparison just, is a just used when you lack self-confidence and detract from your own accomplishments, especially in the wake of someone else's seemingly bigger accomplishment. This is important to note that diffident differs from being humble. Someone who is humble uses unassuming, unpretentious language to describe their accomplishments whereas someone who is diffident uses language that purposely talks down, detracts from their own abilities or skills or powers. You'll find this just frequently in comparisons, but you'll also find them when someone is struggling with imposter syndrome. So when presented with someone else's comparatively grandiose accomplishment, you suddenly feel like yours is nothing and you put down your accomplishments as it was no big deal. When perhaps to you, it was a pretty big deal. When you do this, your guilty of using was diffident just. So I just ran the 5K. And perhaps in comparison to the 10K or half marathon, it does seem pretty inconsequential, but a 5K is still accomplishment, especially for newer casual runners. Or perhaps a little closer to home. I just do lightning talks or sometimes meetups. That's still impressive. Public speaking for any length of time in any type of venue is really hard. And perhaps you struggle with imposter syndrome.  I'm just a developer. Well, guess what?  So drop that just. And further, own your skills. You are an expert at building Rails applications. Or maybe you're just a bootcamp graduate and you feel that your skills are weaker or less refined for someone who came from a more traditional background. Well, God's wallop. You are still capable of building wallop or token source software and web applications. So own your accomplishments. Be proud of them. Avoid using that different just that detracts from your own accomplishments and skills. I did a lightning talk. I ran a 5K. I'm an expert software engineer. And then if you find yourself in a situation where you're the one with a cell called greater accomplishment, encourage them and praise them for their accomplishment. Nice job on that lightning talk. It takes guts to get up on that stage. Keep it up. And congrats on that 5K. You rocked it. So the diminutive just is a different than the diffident just because it's characterized by you diminishing others. This type of just presumes, puts on another or presumes that the others feelings or actions are invalid or exaggerated. So this type of just is used often in regards to feelings. And it can often be seen perpetuating stigmas around mental illnesses.   Or why can't you just be happy? Mental health disorders affect approximately one in five adults in the United States. That's approximately 43.8 million people.  And in some cases enough to spin that person into uncontrolled or download spiral. And these comments only further fuel their feelings of helplessness of not being able to help themselves. And yet people still say these things and expect them to simply step out of it. So if you're truly at a loss, tell them you don't understand. And then follow it up by telling that you're there for them. Even if that means sitting in the same room with them and saying nothing, that can mean the world. And if you know that person well, you can also offer to do things you know that might help. Everyone has different triggers and everyone has different ways to cope. Something like offering to bring them a book is helpful in a few ways. They'll know that you're there for them. They'll receive a potentially much needed physical proximity to another human being. And they'll receive a comforting object that can often break up that turmoil that's going on in their head. So one of my best friends copes with mental anxieties and depression by running. So she founded Still I Run as a way to create a community and surround herself by people who are suffering from the same thing or people who are willing to help bring awareness to mental health illnesses. So when she's struggling with depression, she laces up her shoes and runs out the door. And then I have another friend who struggles from anxiety. And in the grips of an anxiety attack, she can forget to eat or the very thought of making food or having to order food and have a stranger come to her door is way too much. And there are other people who forget to eat or miss meals simply because they're too depressed or too anxious to even think about it. So offered to make their favorite or most comforting food for them. So one of my favorite all-time favorite Harry Potter quotes is when Harry met his end at the, by the hand of Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest during the Battle of Hogwarts. When he went into that dreamlike state, Harry had asked Dumbledore if what he was experiencing was real or if it was just happening inside his head. And Dumbledore, a highly respected member of the Wizarding Society and a beloved character by many stated that things that happen inside your head are as real as anything else you experience. So tip number four is watch your phrasing. So we've touched on phrasing a few times so far but we're gonna dive into it a little bit more now. So phrasing is a pretty broad term. So we're gonna break it down into three types. Self deprecating, stereotyped and ambiguous. Self deprecating phrasing including self deprecating humor is harmful to you, to your psyche and more likely baseman falsehoods. These phrases often diminish your worth and weakens the perceptions of you to others. So how many times have you responded, I'm fine, wrote to the question, how are you? So these two words rank very high in the list of most used phrases. So how are you? I'm fine. Are you okay? I'm fine. What's wrong? I'm fine. It's a loaded phrase that can be interpreted in many different ways and will be interpreted differently depending on who you is on the receiving line. If you say you're fine, even though you're doing great, people have no idea how content and happy you really are. So try answering how you really feel and see what conversations open up for you. I'm doing great. I'm fantastic. But then also be honest when your feelings are sad. Pretending all is fine when surely it isn't is doing you to service and it can push your friends away when they observe that you're anything other than fine. So comparison phrases can also be self-deprecating. Talking down on yourself or your work because you feel someone else did a better job is also detrimental to your well-being and your self-confidence. You've already taken the first step to do that activity and that's awesome. No one is perfected out of the first time or even the tenth time or even the hundredth time. So if you're impressed with someone else's work, instead of comparing it to yours, compliment on theirs. And if you feel inclined, you can even ask for some tips to get better yourself. Or how about using derogatory of words or phrases because you're embarrassed by it. These types of phrases are harmful to you.  So be honest about your experience and help break down those barriers.   Well, medication is actually really extremely common. People take meds for all sorts of different ailments so why is meds for depression and mental illness any different? All you need to say is you need to take your meds. If someone's curious and asks what for, you can clarify that it's for depression and anxiety. But making it fuss about it being your crazy meds is wildly inaccurate and harms your perspective of others and the perceptions the other has of you. It's okay to need to take meds for any reason. So stereotype phrasing is phrases that commonly are commonly said to perpetuate stigmas or leave persons or groups out. So phrases like ladies and gents, boys and girls, men and women, guys and gals all leave person or person groups out. So instead use terms like all or everyone or folks to avoid unintentionally leaving groups of people that are outside of those binary buckets. Even Maui from Moana corrected to himself. He initially said hero to men but after a short pause he amended his statement and said and woman, men and woman, both. All, not a guy, girl thing, you know. Maui is a hero to all. So the phrase man up perpetuates the stigma that a guy isn't a man or man enough so he's belittled or shamed or showing emotion or crying or otherwise appearing weak.  And it perpetuates that showing emotions and being weaker or being unable to do something is the things that girls do in that guys or others. And the phrases like that's gay is often used to describe things that are unpleasant or bad and these perpetuate the stigma that stereotypes that guys or any other member of the LGBTQIA community are unpleasant or bad. So to start describing things as they are and remove those stereotypes, phrasings that are harmful to others and make you look ignorant. So ambiguous phrases are phrases that can be interpreted two or more ways. Occasionally the result is hilarious but taking a moment to think about what you really mean to say and then say it properly is probably in your best interest especially if your job is in marketing or copywriting. This company Sheets made an entire marketing strategy around a defecation plan words. So in Harry Potter 4 Hermione is 11 just a Victor Crum, a visiting student from another magical school and when she was marking to Harry how her relationship with Victor was she stated that he was more of a physical being to which Harry assumed that she met physically intimate and Harry Hermione really in reality only meant that Victor was not particularly talkative and watched her study. So they're also afraid that they're so vague or understating that you'd hardly know the event was catastrophic. So Sir Hasmood Duff Gordon remarked on his survival of the sinking of the Titanic was as simple it was a serious evening. Well, it was a serious evening like over a thousand people lost their lives on that ship. Or another example is during the Korean War when British Brigadier Tom Brody described the impossible odds of 650 to an estimated 10,000 as a bit sticky. And the Americans unaware of the actual numbers did not send reinforcements as they assumed that it couldn't be that bad based on Tom's message. So tip number five is praising public critique in private. The feedback loop, including both praise and critique is important. And it's also important to note or take the time to consider the implications of how we praise and how we critique each other. Both sides of the feedback go hand in hand. So this is tip is a little bit of a two for one. So praise in public and critique in private is a common adage among leadership and management. But I find I personally find this adage to have some unintended side effects when coming from the management level. And furthermore that the praise and critique coming from a superior is understood and interpreted differently than when it comes from a peer. So therefore this section is gonna focus on the praise and criticism between peers. And when praise and critique is done well at the peer-to-peer level, you suddenly feel empowered by your team and your team feels empowered by you.  So praise is intrinsic to a human nature. We crave praise and acknowledgement and we want a receipt of our effort that what we're doing and what we've done has been good. There's a certain amount of satisfaction from knowing that you did something fantastic. But unfortunately we're all a little bit bad at giving praise and we fail to celebrate as a team when things go really well. So praise in its simplest form is recognition. We seek and appreciate that recognition. The work that we do and the work we accomplish means feels better and we feel motivated to keep doing it when we are recognized for it. So praise is rewarded specific to the praise that happens as recognition for the work that was done and done well. This can be as small as a pull request or a well done pull request or as big as a feature that a customer base or a client has been requesting for a really long time and is happy to have finally received. Well done, this is fantastic. Our customers are gonna really love this. And it can be as simple as a thanks for helping out on a feature. So praise as a motivator differs from that of a reward because the outcome might have been unexpected or otherwise well shorted expectations. So the purpose of praise as a motivator is to acknowledge that initial set of work but then to empower them to grow and encourage them to keep doing it. I like to call this type of praise every day praise because it's the stuff that's super simple to do but it means the world to someone who's growing. So I really like how you did this. Can we do this over here? Oh, this is a great start, nice job. And this type of praise, it's great but it also leaves that room for suggestions and improvements. Same with this statement, the main set of work was done but now we need to follow up and solve some of those edge cases which are a little bit harder to get to. Then it's important to note that we are praising the outcome of work and not the time it got took to get there. And this is extremely important because there's a huge difference between praising for the time and praising for the work. So thanks for working late. Praise is the time commitment for whatever activity we're doing but praising someone for working late perpetuates that notion that working late or working long hours is how you get that recognition. Instead, you wanna praise the outcome. Praise that person regardless of whatever time it may have taken. This can be helping a customer staying a little bit late because the deployment bad, whatever it might have been that activity is what you want to be praising. So contrary to praising in public, critique is best done in private. Remember, you're a team that empowers each other and so it also means that as a team you're responsible for keeping each other accountable including criticizing when necessary. So as humans, when we see poor behavior or more particularly when we are at the receiving end of that poor behavior, our natural tendency is to call it out and loudly.  So while critique is necessary to the feedback loop and for growth, it's important to know how to handle and give that critique. So we're gonna be talking specifically about behavior-driven critique. This is when someone does something or says something that is inappropriate or mean or whatever and then you witness it and wanna respond to it. I mean, there are definitely times that vocal public critique is necessary but before you do that, take that moment to think before you speak because there's a good chance that a private reprimand is good enough to alert someone that their behavior was inappropriate. And critiquing publicly especially out of our emotion often causes a twofold problem.  Remember that that person you're critiquing may not yet realize that what they said or did was wrong or bad. There are also times when people have or someone has repeatedly exhibited the same inappropriate behavior and it has been told to stop repeatedly and it's okay to escalate in this sort of situation. So when you find yourself at the receiving end of critique, especially public critique, you may find yourself feeling like it's unjustified and your feelings are valid but remember that their feelings are valid too.  So if you go in assuming that your feelings are more valid or that you are right and they're the ones being unreasonable, you'll find that anything you say is taken as a further insult. So take responsibility of your words and learn from the situation. Go into the conversation with an open mind and apologize. Say you're sorry and then make a learning moment. When you apologize, mean it. If you follow your apology or something like, I'm sorry, your feelings were hurt, you're kinda doing it wrong. Remember, you're taking responsibility for your words so apologizing that they are feeling hurt completely fails to take that responsibility. So feedback, both through praise and critique is important for growth. Without either, it's easy to become stagnant. You become unmotivated to do any work because you feel unappreciated or because you're always told you're doing it wrong. So remember to think first and breathe before you're responding. Escalating leads to, can lead to mutual bad feelings that may go much longer than the actual encounter and that's not great. Moving conversations to private avenues allows for a safe place to understand that critique, consider it and learn from it and then grow from it. Public critique often invokes emotions that cloud that judgment and it often leads to a person failing to learn what they did was wrong and why. So takeaways, we made it. So we talked about think then speak. By thinking before you speak, it stops you from saying things that is meant to be a secret or not yours to share. It also stops you from saying things that you may regret later. So remember those three questions, what, who and how. And dropping the notes improves understandability and reduces the parsing complexity of negative statements. And dropping the just ensures you that you're being kind to others by avoiding and playing that you're elite or superior and it also avoids putting others down. And they also enable you to own your accomplishments and abilities rather than diminishing them. And then watch how you phrase things as that you are responsible for your words. Think about how your words will affect the people around you, including yourself. And phrase things in a way that avoids discriminating against other groups or implying incorrect meetings. And then remember that feedback in all forms is important for growth. Recognizing your team members for their accomplishments and critiquing them when necessary. So communication is hard. It'll take a lot of time to master these tips. But if you practice them and use, you know, in written communication or spoken communication, you'll eventually get really good at them. And I'm up here telling you about them because I think they're important. And I have seen how they work well in my life and have improved my relationship with others. And if you're interested, these are some of the resources I used. And then there's credits on all of the individual slides for the images. So thank you.


Ndibbo and Lagos State APC has reinstated their support for the candidacy of Bola Tunubu and Babajideh Songolu come 2023 elections. The group in their large number from the 20 local government areas and the 37 local government council development areas of the state declared their support for Bola Tunubu as the party's 2023 presidential candidate and Governor Babajideh Songolu as governorship candidate. Addressing the gathering, the state chairman of the APC, Pasokolinus Ojalabi, set with the massive turnout of Igbo's in the APC for the town hall meeting, the party has been reassured of their commitment and dedication. He urged them to go to work with rally massive Igbo support for the APC and its candidate, Joy Buque, APC chieftain and leader of the APC Ndibbo in Lagos State and Joy Jude, a former representative of Oshodi Isola in Lagos State. House of Assembly said the former governor, having effortlessly governed Lagos, has best suited to take over the mantle of leadership of Nigeria come 2023.  Other people have their own parties. In the US, you have the Republicans and the Democrats. There are other parties. You will see a family that has been Republican for 100 years, more than 100 years. So people take a stand and you stand by it. We are APC. That's what we are saying. We are making this statement clear that we are APC. What you see is our leaders from the state to the local government and to the world level. And some other associations in Lagos like the Hanezi, the Igbo-speaking community, the Indieses. These are leaders in their own right. Coming from their words on local government and states. That's what we see here today. We are just making a police car statement that this is our party and we are ready to deliver our candidate. But at the national level and at the state level. For all that reside in Lagos State, we believe in where you live to protect the interests of nurses. We are doing very well in Lagos State. Among all the states, there are no Igbo-men that have come here and said that the owners of this plant make us living our way. We have never written things like that. We are prospering in our businesses. We are prospering in everything we do. In fact, let me tell you, Igbo's are everywhere, especially in the medical sector. You know the quota of Igbo in the medical sector has been completed.  It's a good will of the negotiations, which was made as a foundation by two people and met two people. Carried on by the successors that have taken over from me, fashion, and body. So, when you want to say who are the most important people in Lagos in particular in Nigeria, look at Igbo-men because of the acceptance of the owners of this plant. So, for us, Ashwaju is their best. This is not all we have, but we just want to showcase to the people that, in the Igbo, we are serious about what they are saying. People are saying that all Igbo's are evidence. We want to tell them it's not true. We don't belong to the labour party. We belong to the APC. And we will vote all our candidates. Our votes will be seen.


And in our chat, PCUnix asked, you know, what's the difference between the existing Safari tab groups and Safari profiles? Oh, the major difference is the way I think about it is your cookies and your preferences. Or I could create a profile to be logged in one of them as personal, one of them as work, then I just choose the profile that I want to use and boom, I'm good to go. I log in as personal in my personal profile and that never changes unless I log out or it times out my login, you know, expires it or something after, you know, 30 days or whatever. And then I have my work profile that's completely different set of preferences and cookies and all of that stuff. So it's it's it's essentially multiple personalities for your web browser in a good way. I hope that makes sense. It does.


The president's budget proposal eliminates public media funding. Learn how you can help at lptv.org slash action. Students from as far away as north home and Goodridge made their way to Bemidji to watch the latest production by the community theater today. Actors from the Bemidji Community Theater Company are putting on seven shows for the students. Over the course of three days about 2,000 students will fill the seats of the chief theater to watch Dragon Song. There is no other children's theater that occurs during the year in the area. So we really think we're kind of filling a hole by giving children a chance to see live theater because it doesn't happen very often in our area. The musical is based on the popular school books by Ann McCaffrey and will run through April 9th. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


So I'd like to welcome everybody to the meeting. This meeting is about the City of Fort Worth Stormwater Project, 7th Street at Burnett, Stormdrain Rehabilitation. The project manager is Mike Bennett. My name is Dylan Johns. I'm the Assistant Project Manager on this project. This project is a part of the City Stormwater's Stormdrain Rehabilitation Program. The purpose of the program is to be proactive about maintaining the City's aging storm drain pipes and manholes to prolong their service life. The projects that come out of this program come out of investigations that are done either through known historical pipe failures, the ages of the pipes, or institutional knowledge of areas that are traditionally problematic. The pipes will be inspected through a closed circuit TV inspection using a small robot that will go up the pipes and record defects that are found. The videos are then reviewed to identify the defects and pipes are then prioritized based off of that review. The goal of the program is to use trenchless technologies to minimize the surface disturbance, to decrease the footprint of the work as well as just reduce the impact to the residents in the City. The common trenchless technologies we use in the program are cured-in-place pipe, which is also referred to as CIPP. That method involves a flexible liner being pulled through the existing storm drain pipe. That liner is then inflated to form to the existing pipe and then using either heat or ultraviolet light, that liner is then cured to harden it to provide some structural stability as well as seal off any cracks or holes that may be in the pipe. We also use another technique it's referred to as geopolymer pipe lining. It uses a mortar or concrete-like compound that is then sprayed on the inside of the existing pipe and as it cures it has polymers in it that will bind to the other polymers, which in effect forms a new solid pipe inside of the existing pipe which has its own structural stability to help hold everything in place and keep the pipe from collapsing. We also use pipe bursting which is where the existing pipe is fractured in place while a new pipe is pulled in into the existing pipe. The new pipe is typically a high density polyethylene which is a type of plastic and they use a drill-like tool to fracture the pipe and pull that new high-density plastic pipe into place. You then end up with a brand new pipe in the void left by the fractured existing pipe. These are the limits of the project. We'll be working along 7th Street from Lexington Street to Cherry Street and then along 6th Street from Cherry Street to Burnett. A little bit of background on the project. This project was identified through the storm drain rehabilitation program and the existing pipe is an old pipe and is showing signs of deterioration. There's cracking in it as you can see so it needs to be rehabilitated to stabilize it and in doing so we'll extend the service life of the pipe. HDR Incorporated is providing the engineering design services for this project. We're planning to rehabilitate most of the pipe using the cured in place method that I referred to earlier although we will have a small area of excavation at the corner of 6th Street and Burnett where a lateral pipe that connects one of the storm drain inlets to the main pipe in the street is offset and it's a severe enough defect that we cannot repair it through trenchless methods so we're going to need to dig up the lateral and replace it as well as redo the inlet as a part of that work. As far as impact traffic impacts there will be temporary lane closures along 6th Street and 7th Street during construction. The closures will be along the north side of both roads so that will be affecting westbound traffic. The traffic lanes will be shifted because of those temporary closures but the roads will remain open for traffic in both directions and we're working with businesses that might be affected by those closures to make those lane closures to make sure we do not cut off access for anyone. We want to make sure everybody can still get into their driveways and parking garages. Construction is currently expected to start early in the summer of 2022. We should finish construction within about four months and the estimated construction cost is about $700,000 and we will be construction on the project will take place completely within existing city right away. As far as access for the pipes since we're using CIPP the construction crews will be working through the existing manholes which are mostly within intersections along the project route. There will be some impact along Henderson Street because the manhole is directly in the middle of the intersection so the turn lane for Henderson Southbound will be impacted when crews are on site working however if the crews are not working through that manhole the road will remain open so our traffic our lane closures will be shifting as we progress through construction. Once we finish in one location we'll open the road back up there and move the lane closures down to the next access points. As you can see that is Mike's contact information and my contact information if anybody has any questions please feel free to call us or email us and I will open the floor to anyone that has questions now. We have a question here. Will there be other community meetings? Yes we will have one more community meeting after this. We are almost done with the design on the project and the next community meeting will be the pre-construction meeting and the contractor who's selected through the city's bidding process will be in attendance for that meeting. Okay another question is this project fixing any flooding issues? No this project is strictly to rehabilitate the existing storm drain pipe due to the deteriorating condition. We're not improving the conveyance of the existing pipe. Another question here are there recordings of prior meetings? Yes the recordings of all of our community meetings will be available on the project webpage that's on the city website and this the recording of this meeting will be uploaded once we receive probably tomorrow. Okay will you be acquiring any easements? We do need one temporary easement for this project due to the project location being on major roads downtown. We don't have room for the contractor to have a staging area so we are working with a business to try to get a temporary construction easement for that staging area for our contractor to be able to leave their equipment trailers on site overnight. Okay we have one here. Do you have the URL of the project website? I do not have that in that in this presentation. Jeff could you chime in? I just posted it to the to the chat. Okay so it is in the chat and the chat will be stored with this recording correct Jeff? Actually that's a good question probably not when it gets converted to um movie format the chat usually disappears. Well then I can read it out. It's WF. Let's just read it out. Yes www.fortworthtexasallspelledout.gov slash projects okay it's forward slash projects forward slash cfw dash seven th dash dash street dash burnett and that's burnett is b u r n e t t you could also just go to the main page and uh in the search box type seven street or burnet and it will uh it'll be the first page that pops up typically. Okay well maybe not seven street but burnet for sure. We are all out of questions. All out of questions um thank you everyone for attending and we'll go ahead and end the meeting.


Ever since even the 4th century BC and beyond I imagine there's been an interest in the possibility of life elsewhere The Greek philosopher metrodorus of kiosk was very much interested and thought that it would be very foolish To think that with all the many possible worlds in the universe that there would be only life on this planet Lucretius later on 1st century BC. It was of a similar opinion. It was only with the rise of Ptolemaic Ex-understanding of the universe that people started to think of the universe that's Earth-centered and that was a later on Phenomenon and not necessarily prevalent in early Greece As a result though of Ptolemy's ideas in the Dark Ages in Western civilization It was considered that Earth was the center of the universe and was the only place that life existed Later on that was overturned by the ideas of Copernicus and Kepler and those that followed Since the earliest of times man has been interested in the heavens Having been fascinated by the countless points of light that sparkled in the darkness of the evening skies One of these had a reddish hue to it and was known by several names depending on where one was Many of the ancients named the planet we call Mars after their god of war due to the planet's reddish hue Which reminded them of blood In fact the nickname the red planet comes from this as does the notion that possible Martians would be warrior-like It was invention of the telescope in 1609 the first clear look at this the fourth planet became possible Early astronomers believed that the Martian surface was similar to Earth's The first telescopic drawings of Mars showing distinct changes in surface appearance were made by Christian Huygens in 1659 He observed that the Martian polar ice cap seemed to wax and wane and dark patches seemed to appear on the surface of Mars These observations led to the idea that Mars was indeed a habitable world similar to our own Earth It was recognized as early as the 18th century but Mars was very much like the Earth. It had clouds It had dark areas that people thought were seas. It had a time of day was very similar to the Earth and so people imagined it to be like this and so they imagined that there was life there and this the prospect of really a life Was as I mentioned previously reinforced by these observations of the canals However, as during the early earlier this century it became clearer as As we understood the conditions on Mars better that life is very difficult to have a life on Mars And and the possibility of intelligent life was was reduced to almost zero In 1877 an Italian astronomer Giovanni V. Schiaparelli Observed the lines on the Martian surface and called them kanali The English translation of kanali is channels or grooves These channels were mistakenly called canals in English and the name stuck Of course canals would infer that some type of intelligent life form on Mars was capable of building these structures In 1879 Schiaparelli reported seeing double lines of kanali He came to believe that these kanali were rivers on the surface of Mars a natural phenomenon Others continued to think that the kanali were artificial that is to say constructed by some life form later on Schiaparelli the Italian astronomer Made observations of Mars and in trying to make sense out of the visual image He saw of Mars on one of the closer to oppositions the Word kanali came into use because he thought he saw straight lines on the surface This was seized upon by Percival Lowell and he wrote a book in the 1890s That described the possibility of a mars that would have intelligent life water but a dry planet in general so they need to get the water down to the Presumably more agriculturally inclined central parts of the planet Percival Lowell maintained this interest in a living and civilized Mars until his death in 1916 And of course his ideas were seized upon and made popular for a lot of us by Edgar Rice Burroughs whose Barsoom series was fascinating in a lot of fun in a pot boiler sort of way and I got people's Imaginations turned up about the ideas of civilizations on Mars dying civilizations and Recurrent civilizations and I think that a lot of that stayed in the public mind certainly was something that I found of interest Later on we found that mars was a much different place than chaperonella and Percival Lowell had imagined The american astronomer Percival Lowell was another who saw the kanali and believed them to be artificially created He made his observations with a variety of telescopes in different parts of the world Starting in 1896 Lowell wrote the first of his three books about mars There's been a long-standing interest with mars and with life on mars And I think it traces back to the early telescope observations when people finally started pointing telescopes at the planets They noticed that mars unlike all the other planets had distinct seasonal cycles very similar to earth It had white polar caps which shrank and grew with the seasons It had dark spots on the surface which seemed to come and go with the seasons like vegetation And it was this similarity between earth and mars This superficial similarity that I think was the spark that first started this interest in life on mars and the notion that there was civilizations on mars as well And then I think all the subsequent observations in some sense culminating with Percival Lowell's work looking for canals on mars and the Perception that there were canals and that was an evidence of human civilization or human like civilizations All of that has tended to reinforce the notion that mars was the planet that was the most like earth Better information about mars and its surface came with the development of new technology The first breakthrough came in 1964 when nasa's mariner four spacecraft flew by mars at a distance of 9,844 kilometers Mariner four returned 22 images of mars Including some which showed impact craters on the surface and caused much comment among planetary scientists of the time The images mariner four returned gave us an image of mars that was totally different than expected It wasn't until late 1969 with mariner six and seven that we got a clearer look at the martian surface These two flybys gave scientists hundreds of images and showed many details of the surface that were once again totally unexpected The imaging showed a planet stark and lunar like in appearance with craters in fast featureless areas Also seen was chaotic terrain unlike anything seen here on earth or on the moon craters ranging in size from 500 meters to 500 kilometers in diameter were seen After we started to fly by mars with spacecraft. We found that mars was a much drier place Than it ever had been conceived of before and also one where a very low atmospheric pressure less than 1% of that of the earth Total surface area of mars is approximately that of the earth dry land surface so it's a fairly large planet in terms of possibilities and As a separate world anything you say about any particular place on mars May not pertain everywhere on mars a fourth mariner mission mariner nine was successfully launched on may 30th 1971 The spacecraft was inserted into mars orbit in november of 1971 and functioned for 349 days returning almost 7 000 images When mariner nine first reached mars An intense dust storm had obscured most of the martian surface So scientists used the opportunity to study the martian moons demos and phobos Mariner nine eventually mapped over 85 percent of the martian surface with images having a resolution of approximately one kilometer Imaging return from this mission gave scientists the first really comprehensive look at the red planet Other experiments on board mariner nine told scientists that mars was a very cool planet And that the martian atmosphere was about one percent as dense as the earth's atmosphere at sea level The real dramatic change came in 1971 When an orbit was put around mars and it began to systematically look at the entire planet And it just revealed a fascinating place with huge volcanoes Vaster canyons enormous dry riverbeds sand dunes Just an incredibly very variable planet and particularly fascinating with all these Indications the water had flowed across the surface And uh some of the some of the features really quite starving because there were um Large dry riverbeds that were suggested of large floods and these floods were an enormous magnitude Uh, they would have had discharges A hundred times the discharge of the present mississippi. Of course, it just lasted a short time But about um as a consequence uh people began to rethink About uh, what mars uh How mars might have fallen to what conditions were uh were uh like in the past Many other features on mars were seen for the first time In addition to olympus mons one of the largest known volcanoes in the solar system There were vast valleys on the surface of mars as well as canyons One of which is much longer and deeper than the grand canyon in the united states This martian abyss valus marinaris extends over 2000 kilometers Other formations and deposits seem to indicate that long ago in martian history There were large amounts of water present on the surface of mars Mars was still an enigma to scientists and researchers after mariner nine They wanted and needed to know much more about mars Specifically whether or not there was or had been life there So another unmanned mission to mars was in the works viking Vikings one and two were launched from camp kennedy in the summer of 1975 and reached mars in the summer of 1976 The primary objectives of these spacecraft were to safely land on the surface of mars And to attempt to determine if there was some type of life on mars either now or in the past The mariner missions did not tell scientists if there was life on mars and in the end Viking did not conclusively answer this question either The viking spacecraft each consisted of two separate spacecraft There was an instrumented orbiter section which remained in orbit above mars taking readings and measurements Taking pictures and acting as a relay satellite for the viking landers These landers were miniature laboratories The goal of the viking project was the exploration of mars and we had had missions that went to mars before But the goal of the viking was to land spacecraft on the surface and actually explore in c2 What mars was like it was like being on mars We actually had Uh experiments that one would do if one of us were lucky enough to be landed on on the planet and dug up Handfuls of mars and had a little laboratory there. It was fundamentally what viking was all about We used two spacecraft to do that. We had a spacecraft that was a lander and a spacecraft That was an orbiter. It was kind of like a mother and a daughter The mother was the one that received the information and did a little investigation on its own And the lander was primarily used to to do the kinds of things that if we were having a field trip on mars We would have sent an exploration party off to mars to do that kind of experiment They involved meteorology. They involved biology. They involved chemistry. They involved geology Of course the biology was a predominant predominant question that we have because that was uh the kind of the bell ringer But nevertheless the the whole point of viking was to explore in breadth What mars was was like and how similar or how different it is from the earth The viking spacecraft consisted of two parts an orbiter that was placed into orbit around mars It carried the daughter ship that was then allowed to descend to the surface of the planet the orbiter consisted of a large spacecraft with Very large solar panels so that it could absorb the sun's energy to bring into electrical power and be run The orbiter was placed into an elliptical orbit around mars The periapsis of the planet was was about 1500 kilometers the apopsis of the orbit was pretty about 30 000 kilometers Imagine this orbiter now passing over a landing site with the distance of about 1500 kilometers Trying to take pictures of a landing site that was later going to be going to be used for the daughter ship The lander which was folded up like a chrysalis of a butterfly Would be later landed by descending to the surface The descent to the surface was tricky because the mars atmosphere Was just thin enough to bring you up and not thick enough to to slow you down And so there was this unique problem of a landing system that wasn't just uh Uh a parachute in fact we had three braking systems on mars Once down into the mars atmosphere a parachute was popped now this was no ordinary parachute This was a parachute that had to Slow the spacecraft down at at mach Uh at about mach four Parachute got us down to within about 100 kilometers and then a retro rocket system was used The retro rockets were firing the rockets down against the mars surface to slowly Slow the spacecraft down in combination with a radar that would tell us how far we were from the surface And allow the spacecraft to descend to the surface The very last moments would be like jumping off a small table So you'd settle down onto the mars atmosphere and protect those valuable scientific instruments from from our crash The first lander was originally scheduled to set down on the surface on july 4th 1976 in honor of america's bicentennial However when the spacecraft reached mars and began imaging the proposed landing sites The scientists saw a younger and more dynamic planet than they had expected After two weeks of studying the images returned from mars a new landing site was selected And the viking one lander set down on the cricy planitia on july 20 of 1976 The viking two landers safely soft landed on the utopia planitia on september 3rd 1976 The selection of the landing sites was one of the more controversial issues of the viking missions The biologists wanted an area that would be the most hospitable to life And the landing team wanted a site most conducive to a safe landing As soon as the lander was down onto the surface There were two things done one the well-being of the spacecraft think about you're trying to land some kind of an instrument Anywhere's first thing to do is to make sure that the system is working Elevates the the antenna to talk back to the earth Takes a measurement temperature measurements to make sure that the spacecraft is all right a kind of housekeeping maneuver Then the most the most important piece of scientific data to come back would be the first picture And the very first picture pointed down to the The foot pad to make sure that the the instruments were stable That the spacecraft was stable and also to see what the martian surface was like I will never forget that first evening when we first saw the first pictures coming back Bit by bit line by line sweeping across the mars surface and seeing for the first time That it was a surface that was familiar familiar in the sense that looked a little bit like like some Pictures we've seen of the earth and that it wasn't like the moon at all that were rocks in the surface There were features to the surface we didn't get a horizon until the second picture The first picture was just to say it's sort of like looking down at your own foot If you stepped on to a brand new planet and said what is it like on this planet? In time the other experiments were successfully activated and the results were anxiously awaited here on earth Scientists were elated at this the first opportunity to look for life on another planet in situ But data from the experiments on the surface of mars was inconclusive Additionally the meteorology packages showed mars to have an extremely cold and hostile environment to life as we know it here on earth The three biology experiments were designed to detect activity of microorganisms as we understand them If there were any present in the martian soil that viking gathered for testing These experiment packages measured a gas exchange with the surface sample for both the incorporation and release of radioactive carbon 14 In one experiment immediately after heating and humidifying a soil sample with a complex nutrient oxygen was detected About 15 times as much oxygen as is known to be present in the martian atmosphere was released This result is now thought to have been caused by a chemical reaction between the soil sample and the nutrient solution As opposed to an indication of life But at the time and until all the data returned had a chance to be reviewed Analyzed and re-analyzed no one could say for certain what this reaction meant In the third experiment that we kind of laughingly called the chicken soup experiment We actually tried to grow some organisms. We took a mixture of delicious terrestrial ingredients all sorts of vitamins and minerals and extracts amino acids and sugars all the goodies that you would use if you were going to Grow up some organisms and the idea was to inoculate the sample with these goodies Now in the experiment we had a novel First stage before we actually inoculated the sample. We wanted to humidify it Some terrestrial organisms that formed spores are known to die as a result of the ingestion of water So the idea is to do what we do with spore farmers on the earth We first humidify just expose it to water and then finally grow up the organisms In the case of that experiment, we had a great surprise Instead of the first humidification having no result, which was what we would see here on on earth We saw enormous quantities of oxygen that came out of the sample For reasons that at the time were very confusing to us. We saw this release of oxygen not at all what you find here on the on the earth Finally after some thought we figured out what that oxygen was We finally figured out that mars Surface of mars has some peroxides as though there were kind of leech or something spilled on the surface These were a little like hydrogen peroxide, although there's no hydrogen peroxide in mars It's probably iron peroxide A peroxide is something that's known to give up oxygen And when you add water to a peroxide this oxygen is released a kind of Self sterilizing surface in a way We don't know that that's the fact on mars, but that's a possibility And in fact it explains what happened in the second experiment In the second experiment where we had added the growth media Probably what happened is the peroxide on mars reacted with the growth media and released some of the Carbon dioxide as though it were being broken down by organisms a kind of chemical reaction So in fact the two experiments blended together so that the results of the third gas exchange experiment Told us something about the answer to the second the label release experiment Some of the people who have been interested then on life on mars participated in the Viking mission in 1975 launch 1976 landing where they sifted the very fine surface material And put it into what was called the Viking biology package and conducted a series of experiments looking for life on mars The results of those experiments were equivocal There were some reactions in the experiments that were consistent with life Some that were inconsistent with life and generally the tie vote got ascribed to a device called a gas chromatography mass spectroscopy device a the gcms and the gcms Showed no evidence for organic material in the soil It wasn't able to get you know Final evidence that none existed on mars and it was only looking at material taken from about the first four inches of the surface But because there was no organic material Detectable by the gcms. It was thought that The reactions that were seen in the Viking biology package were inconsistent with life as we know it At present most scientists and researchers discount the theory that intelligent life was ever present on mars There are those however who believe that at some time in martian history. There was intelligent life on the planet This minority claims that features seen in certain images returned by the viking orbiters of the martian surface Show signs of past intelligent life there They feel that some of the features seen in certain images are actually monuments left behind by a past martian based civilization For us to find and use as a beacon a beacon to home in on to find the remnants of this proposed civilization Although not endorsed by nasa Richard hoagland space author and lecturer feels that some of the viking images suggest a past intelligent civilization on mars A set of photographs taken on the morning of july 25th 1976 came in through the various channels back to the computers at jpl And then to those of us who were gathered at jpl to witness this historic first landing of spacecraft on another planet And one of those photographs showed a mile long 1500 foot high mesa in the sudonia region the northern deserts That was literally out of place. It did not belong it cried out for explanation If only for reassurance that it could not be real Because the object looked like a humanoid face It's highly speculative There's no question about it that there's an interesting feature on mars that appears to look like a human face I think that this speculation is all very much interesting to sell newspapers, but there's not a lot of scientific credibility in it Unfortunately, we don't have enough data to address The question of why this happens to look like a human face, but I would suggest that most One of the most adaptive features that humans have is the ability to recognize human faces in order to Envision that those monuments were created by a civilization an intelligent civilization You really need to extrapolate our knowledge of evolution and biological processes enormously Somehow you have to envision that life started on mars And it evolved very rapidly and persisted Even in the face of adverse conditions if the planet got colder and drier It would have been difficult for life to have continued somehow To imagine civilization there would have required that it did so The evidence of the monuments and the faces is very interesting I think they are interesting geological features Some of the people who claim that the monuments on mars and the face on mars are indeed artifacts from an extinct civilization Do not claim that intelligent life or the life forms that may have constructed these alleged structures evolved on mars Rather they say that the beings may have come from another planet another solar system Or another galaxy The idea that this supposed complex of structures on mars are a construct stems from their geometric alignment We have found other provocative sets of objects and the important thing is sets Because that the resolution we're looking at 50 meters 100 meters. You're not going to see Uh structures of comparable size to those on earth You're seeing much larger objects and the only indicator that they are made by intelligence Is their relative geometric placement relative to other objects carl sagan who has some credentials for for um Pronouncements in this area has said that on earth the first indicator of intelligent design is the geometric regularity of our constructions Taking that rule of thumb and applying it to another planet like mars If we see a set of objects in a very particular geometric configuration The suspicion is raised just the suspicion that maybe we should look closer Unfortunately, we only have really good coverage in sudonia We do not have dual sets of pictures taken at two different sun angles like we do at sudonia in other places Both sides do agree on two points First the face is indeed a very fascinating image But what it is or means is still open for speculation And second that the mars observer spacecraft should definitely be used to return higher resolution images And more complete imaging than anything viking sent back The ultimate answer to the question of were these features made by some life form were caused by natural processes on the martian surface Awaits us But until a human sets foot on the surface of mars and can examine the evidence firsthand We will have to continue to be satisfied with robotic exploration


Starting today the new evergreen line will get commuters from Coquitlam City Center to Lohi Town Center in about 15 minutes. It's an 11 kilometer extension it makes our elevated rapid transit system now the longest of any anywhere in the world. When people start to see how they're going to get home faster they will make sure that and they see that their travel time is cut by about a half we're going to see people flocking to not just take this transit but to become members of these incredible beautiful communities that are growing here. They're going to get home cleaner and greener and we're going to reduce emissions by about 18,000 tons by 2021 helping British Columbia meet the goals that we set in the Paris climate talks. This is a very big day for us and for the Tri-Cities and for Port Moody and I often say that we're we're mimicking the biggest day in Port Moody history was July 4th 1886 when the first train rolled into Port Moody and the second biggest day will be at 12 o'clock today when the second biggest train rolls into Port Moody. I'm so happy that it's finally here and I want to thank all those that had played such an important role in bringing it to us and to help thank I have brought something for the Premier it's an evergreen car freshener for that new car smell.


Thanks to Destiny Momo for that report and I'm moving on to stories in other parts of Africa. South Africa has suspended the rollout of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine after United States federal health agencies recommended pausing it to use because of rare cases of blood clots. The US Food and Drug Administration said the pause was expected to be a matter of days. Six women on the 50 developed rare blood clots in the United States, among more than 6 million people given the Johnson & Johnson shot so far. South Africa's health regulator approved Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine two weeks ago, but it has only been given to health workers in a research study so far.


So, we are here to talk about the Volta cable, but not under a sponsorship condition, although I do have an offer link down below. This is because after they sent us some, and me and Marv did a quick video and we played with them, we said, this is cool, it seems well built, but seems well built and daily usage is a very different thing. So this is now turned into, this is actually the one out of my car, and this one, how long ago was that? It's been like two or three months. You've had that one for a while. Yeah. It's been a few months. I love these. We've actually purchased several of them. This is no longer sponsored. I bought them with my own money. This is my work one. Yeah. I also have one at home. And I have one at home. I have one at my house. I have one in my office. And I grabbed the one out of my car because, well, this one in particular, I beat up the most. And it has no frayed. These are the bonded, what do you call that, a... It's like a nylon wrapped. It's really nice. Yeah. It's a really premium feeling.  We decided to actually, you know, give it a go and use it. And I'm... It is impressive. Now, the only problem I've had, and Kyle probably hasn't noticed this, but if you use it in your car long enough, and this is long enough to hit the floor, it also, because it's magnetic on both sides, does find things that get stuck in here. So, I went to put it on my phone and it does such a great job, but then it wouldn't one time and I couldn't figure out what was wrong and it turned out it picked up a stable. So, how could you do a better job cleaning out his car? I could clean out my car with this bit by bit, piece by piece, because anything that's magnetic. So, I had stables stuck to it and it got in there. Good news is it didn't show anything out, didn't cause any issues, but it is still as strong as it was. The cable is... The magnets hold the same as they have, and I feel as though it's a safety thing in my car because that way I can just put my phone and I have a little, you know, mount because I use my phone for navigation and it jumps right on there, works perfectly fine. I don't have to take my phone out, I don't have to do the little wiggle down, and when I'm in the dark I'm not fishing because you know, you put that phone on there, you want the phone on the charger, I can just do that and it doesn't, it becomes a challenge at night in the car going, hold on, let me get this little thing in there. It's been nice. So, I have, I keep it by my bed because I charge my phone at night while I sleep and I have a metal lamp next to my bed and I just, kind of at night sometimes my eyes closed. I kind of go like this until I click and it just sticks to the lamp. I've had the metal, pretty much touching that metal pole. I've had no problems with it, so. That is actually kind of another novel thing with them because it's metal, is this metal on here? Not metal enough? Oh, a little bit. Sort of. Sort of, there's not much metal on this end of this pen, but in my car, on the mount, even I can throw it on up, I'm part of my dash where the metal mount is and it just grabs over to it so it doesn't dangle down the floor and pick up anything that's on there. But I want to do this follow up just as a quick video to say that, yes, they have held up. Now, there's, even it's hard to say, hard to see, but I'll do some close-ups. There's the kinks in this from my kids grabbing it, pulling it, and because we've used it and we've put this on a couple other people, including my kids, we're testing it because I wanted them to see if it would break.  It's a really flexible cable. Yeah. I'm impressed with them. Like, I don't feel that this would break them, the nylon wrap. But that's all this really is, is a quick follow-up. I have them. Kyle has them. He doesn't use it, but she's busy working and not time to do videos. But we just wanted to say that about them. It's important to say they come with a warranty too. Oh, yeah.  Yeah. And they have a couple different new adapters and what are they going to do? They did mail these adapters. We're going to do a separate review because this would technically be sponsored because they mailed them to me. Some more adapters that we'll probably cover soon in a future video. But I will tell you that I'm impressed with the company. I'm impressed with how well their product is held up. And that's just me saying it because I like it.  I have, so I have a younger sister who I ended up giving one to because she is notorious for destroying the jacks on her mobile devices. She's had like four tablets. She's on her second phone already. But I feel the magnetic ones are better because I see her sitting down with it rest up on the couch just bending the cable. Whereas now I don't have to worry about that because it'll just kind of come apart if she does anything that's too drastic to it. Yeah. So I'm going to say a thumbs up for recommending kids. My kids have not destroyed any, his sister has not destroyed anything. So they've held up to the abuse of my wife and children of cables. So thumbs up to them. The only problem you're going to find with these is you have to have a little patience because, and I don't know if this is still the case when we've ordered them. It's generally taken a long time to get them first for overseas shipping and two. Apparently the demand for their product has been really, really high according to them. We talked to their salespeople and they said it's been good in some ways. The fact that you want your product to be successful. But you also worry that customers are going to be angry about it. It takes a long time to get the product because it's constantly on back order. But keep an eye out for it. They said they're really working on it. And I can't speak to where they're at at the moment you may be watching this video. But they're worth the weight. Keep in mind it's not free two-day shipping if you're used to some other services. Yeah. They did not offer that. It took us two weeks to get the ones we ordered. Just about two weeks to get them, which we're in such a society now that we've expected everything to be prime shipping one day, next day, two day at the most, even same day in some areas. So if you're used to the instant gratification that has become 2018, no. But it does stick to itself really well. It does. I was actually playing with that. But I just want to do that follow-up and just be straight up honest about it that we really like it as a product. So that's kind of the follow-up. So I've gotten other things that I may be like, you know, this isn't that interesting or you see a lot of people who do the sponsored videos. Yeah. We've had a few products who just have never been reviewed because I didn't want to bad mouth the companies, but the product was awful. We let them know. We had some more of these. Some other non-volta, but other magnetic ones. They were okay. Yeah. Nothing like this. I ordered a bunch of the random ones and I probably shouldn't have done a video. I didn't do it as in-depth a study on them, but it didn't take me long at all. More than about a day of views of some of the knockoff cheapy $10 ones that I could find that they just didn't hold up well. They didn't charge well.  I just didn't feel like making a bash video on the product. I left the review, I think, on Amazon that said not so great. And a lot of those don't do data either. These do data. Yeah, these do data as well. In case that's a wonder. Yeah. It's a simple product, but it's a handy product. And I'm not a huge gadget person that buys every bell and whistle gadget, but I will tell you when I find something that makes my life more convenient, I want to talk about it. So, and that would definitely be this. And Kyle thinks it's risky, but... I do. But he's already placed a screen once. I... Not Volta related. He dropped it coming into the building, but... I did break my... I have broke my pixel too, so that did happen. That's a different story. Thanks. Thanks for watching. If you liked this video, go ahead and click the thumbs up. Leave us some feedback below to let us know any details which you like and didn't like as well, because we love hearing your feedback. Or if you just want to say thanks, leave a comment. If you wanted to be notified of new videos as they come out, go ahead and hit the subscribe and the bell icon that lets YouTube know that you're interested in notifications. Hopefully, they send them as we've learned with YouTube. Anyways, if you want to contact us for consulting services, you go ahead and hit launchsystems.com and you can reach out to us for all the projects that we can do and help you. We work with a lot of small businesses, IT companies, even some large companies, and you can farm different work out to us or just hire us as a consultant to help design your network. Also, if you want to help the channel in other ways, we have a Patreon. We have affiliate links. You'll find them in the description. You'll also find recommendations to other affiliate links and things you can sign up for on laurancesystems.com. Once again, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.