If you need MEN 21 coins for anything, make sure to go to buymuntcoins.com. Check it out with the link in the description and my code MMG is 15% off. Hello? Mom? Mom? Mom, oh my God. Oh my God.  Yeah, I know. I was busy praying to my statue of Kyler Murray in my closet. I thought that we lost to the lions yesterday, but I'm so glad I'm awake. Ha ha ha! Ah! Detroit lions are going. A, right, A, A, A. Write it down right now. You can come back to me. You can tweet at me.  I'm calling it Detroit lions 12 and four to end the season. 12 and four. And if I'm wrong, if the lions are not 12 and four at the end of this season, if I'm wrong, you guys can choose in the comment section one jersey, one NFL players jersey that I must purchase and wear for the next wheel of mud. Okay? So let's say the lions lose their fifth game or the lions win their 13th game, which is actually more likely. Then you guys come in the comments, say, probably means you got to wear this jersey. You got to copy it for the next wheel of mud. That's how confident I am. Yo, so I'm actually recording and editing a wheel of mud all in the same day. Very proud of myself. But yeah, I do want to apologize. I know I've been slacking on wheel of mud and Madden 21 in general. I really am just having so much fun playing other games. Right now, I feel like they're kind of fumbling the bag on content. So I'm just going to play other stuff and hope you guys enjoy it anyway. All right, let's keep on naked. Let's do this episode.  I just realized that since I've only posted like two or three episodes of this that you guys haven't seen my prestige Jamal Adams. It's just fair to say we have the best safety in the game. Now I am going to switch his front art to the ultimate kickoff because he likes a savage. Yo, I don't know if enforcers as good as it was last year, but the fact that I have an enforcer safety already. Oh God. Stonewall out my way enforcer. It's basically a run stopping safety right there. All right, so we already started out with like a really good pick. So if I don't get something great here, it's not the end of the world. This could be very good. All right, so I can get any defensive player but only from a certain team. Team wheel. This could be so incredible and it could be so dark. Don't give me a trash team. Oh my God. It's literally the Lions or the Jets. Ooh. The highest rated defensive Jets player is a guy that I have never heard of and whose name looks like it's literally made up. Faulorunzo Fadacusi. He has 74 speed at right outside linebackers. You know what? I have a very big void in the right outside linebacker position right now. So I guess I'm going to go with that. Oh my God, that couldn't have been worse. The Jets are actually the worst team in the league right now. Is there anyone who thinks there's a team worse than the Jets right now? Be honest, cause I don't think there is. Whatever. Whatever. Oh, oh, oh. My next Wilson is a heavyweight. I set my phone up here and I forgot that I spun it. I will take that. We are definitely going to get a really good player here.  I'm pretty sure of Lane Johnson or something but I'm still really, really happy to add an 89. Kevin Sightler, 89 right guard. Yeah, I remember that from a pack opening action. I know he's a starter at another position then switch him to starter at this position. I'm convinced that people who make might do not play it. There's no way they play it. There's no way they've like actually sat here for hours and built a team and been like, yeah, this is reasonable. The best way I can describe this episode so far is scuff. This episode is so scuff. But that's okay. We got some interesting upgrades. 89 right guard and then Jordan Jenkins. By the way, if you're confused, I'm five and O cause the first game I recorded for a different video. And then we also had a DC. So technically I'm a little close to playoffs and I should be, but that's okay. Yo, by the way, the challenge wheel is insanely important right now because there are insane packs in the store. I really, really, really want to open one.  All right, basically what we need is like another gimme game. I got to beat my opponent in both the rush and the pass which guarantees me one pack from the store. I'm trying to get this shmoney. The Roy Glover Lamar Jackson Marvin Harrison. That's his team. Mine looks a little bit better though. See how much damage we can do. Oh, the dig, the dig. Oh, there's nothing. There's nothing. Let's go. Good stuff. I'm really scared of that Marvin Harrison. Oh no, we're good. He throws out a bounce. Damn. One more stop. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Let's go. Fourth and eight. He has a zero, wait, what does he have? Two yards? Oh wow, I don't know about this man. This is early. You know what? I do know about this. I would do the same thing. What do you got man? I just want to know what he's going to throw. What are you doing? That throw was so weird. Kind of just like flopped to the...  Oh my God. Here's how this is going to work. I'm going to spin the ratio wheel, then we're just going to hop into the next game with the same challenge. Quick, it was just like lame. And we get, ooh. Ooh, wait, do I even have anybody for that? We get one power-up level.  So I just add a power-up to somebody. So that I can upgrade him if this happened. And that's exactly what I just did. We got 85 over El Jo Tomas now. We're cruising so hard through this season that I... Can we really get a buy? We literally can get the buy right here. Oh, okay. I like his top three though.   Are you shitting me?   Oh my God. I don't even know where the down markers are. I don't even know where out-of-bounds. If it doesn't stay like this, I'm gonna...  I don't, oh, Peekzone bubble. Respect. Respect, you're right, I feel Peekzone bubble. I love to see that. This game is virtually the same as Madden 20. Yet it's a hundred times less enjoyable. How that is possible, I really don't know. Jamal Adams did just light that man up there. All right, this, I'm thinking this can be a run. No, it's an underneath.  I am gonna cover deep, so I don't make a mistake again. Oh, I was right there for that. I have to beat him in both rushing and passing yards though to complete this challenge. Yup, we gotta run. We gotta run and make us all over it.  Goes to seek, that's a stop. That's fourth and one. Fourth and inches, damn, this is big. Yup, yup, yup. No, he fit the phone. Oh my God, I literally have Stonewall. What's the point of the Stonewall ability? I rocked that dude. I literally have it out of my way. Stonewall an enforcer. I was in the back. Wow, nice of you, we're out for the touchdown. That guy played all that really well, but I should have had that fourth and inches stop, man. I have Stonewall for a reason. The other thing is I can complete this challenge and lose the game. That is a possibility. There's always something to look for in this game, even if it gets bad. But I don't think it will. I'm gonna throw that. No, you did not. Oh, geez. I already caught it, but that boy was out of bounds. Wait, what, it wasn't? I did not realize I was picked off until literally right now.   Come on, no way! I got a QB spy this time. Okay, and my star corner just got dusted by a corner out. God, his passing game is lethal, bro. Oh, he rampics on bubble on me and he doesn't even see it. God, they made that play really trash though. Oh, good. Can I feed that? Bold. Wow. He usered me again.  It really though, it really still isn't over. It's not looking good, but it ain't over. Ooh, he's going for two. I respect. I respect this decision. Damn, just walk that puppy in. Ooh. Talk about needing that. God damn that we need that. All right, so I still get, this is what I mean, this game is not over. I get seven here, I get the ball out. What would be electric is a stop right now. A stop right now, an ability to score and then ball out half. All right, so verticals. Verticals, got him! And we just got to get, oh, oh, damn. Big hit! God damn, we're hitting him so hard.  My user's trash right now.  Ridiculous. Just does not fumble. My ball, my ball!  Let's go. That's what I need. I got 13 seconds left.  No, he didn't. Pass interference! Pass interference!  Do I just take the field goal? No, I can't just take the field goal. I'm gonna rifle one to Julio for a touchdown. User's on the left side. That's Larry Fitz. No!  Wait, is he gonna return this too? Just can't let him return it. All right.  This guy's the truth though. This guy's good.   Nice blocks, boys. Nice blocks!  First and 10. Yup, yup. Damn. We're moving the rock. Now, I don't know how I feel about that. Oh, B is open. Wow, wide open, Tyler Lockett.  Sometimes, dude, I'm really over it. But I don't even know what to say. I don't mind that. Oh, maybe I do. I guess that's karma. I deserve to get picked off on that. I feel like so barely was in for that. Look at that. This is why you don't give up.   Oh my God, the option read on peak zone and Lamar is fast. Respect for getting mad yards on me on peak zone bubble though. I will say that. Underneath? Underneath? Yes, yes! It's to the crib, baby. Oh, good, dude. Good play by him. Go play by him, but that is all big stuff. But I'm scared of his two point conversion, bro. I'm so scared of this two point conversion. I think I'm gonna run. I'm gonna run half back stretch on the two point. Come on, come on! So his users on, okay, I see it. I see it. Yup, underneath? Easy! But see if he switches where his user is. If he switches where his user is, I could probably throw that touchdown again.  Dude, he's not there! He's not there!  Come on, man! 22 to zero! This is the stretch. I said I was gonna run this stretch for this. I'm gonna run the stretch for this. Toss those blocks, boys! Let's go!  No, we need to close. We need to close. This game is not over. Go ahead! God, I'm lighting him up so hard! Give me the bubble! If he really got like a nice first down here, he could end the game by chewing the claw. I don't really see that happening. Let's see what he's looking for here. Make a mistake. I have a QB spy on him. He's gonna snap with one second left. Oh, it's just a QB run! He doesn't get shit! Does he do it again? Does he do it again? Play over top, boys. No mistakes. He does it again! We got him again! That's four to five!   If he doesn't go for it, he loses. The only way he wins this game is by getting this. That's the only way you're winning this game, my friend. All right, he's gonna look McCaffrey. He's gonna look McCaffrey? Oh no, oh no. That's open. Good play. Wait, let him in, let him in! No, he can chew clock and just kick a field goal now. I had to let him score that touchdown. I'm not even in field goal block, which is kind of an L. Wow, you know, I've never watched a man choke so hard, but I've also never watched a man technically not choke so hard, because he choked it all the way to 22-22, but still closed it out. So, I respect it.   I don't think I beat him in Russian pass, but we'll be able to see right now. He scored three in the second half. I scored 15. I just played so poorly in the first half. Yeah, that was my biggest mistake. That play right there, biggest mistake of the game. Yo, that's a GG though. That's a big time GG. Ooh, so I beat him in pass and he dominated me in rush. He did definitely outplay me because I had a kicker-turn touchdown. I forgot about that.  I forgot that I did that. Damn! Our first loss. We were six and all. I was disgusted by all the nastiest comeback I've ever done and actually getting a vibe in the playoffs. I've been sick. Now, the good news though is since we got that rage quit right at the start, which, yeah, it was lame, but I did, I locked in all my players. The only issue is I didn't get my challenge real complete so I can't open any packs right now, but all in all, we made out pretty clean. I get to keep my right guard and Jamal did play amazing, that's for sure. I'm sorry.  I had a lot of fun playing that game. I will see you boys in the next video. Peace out.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casewrakes.com doing the random number block randomizer for Panini National Treasures Baseball pick your team number 22 So we pulled the remaining teams out of pick your team 22 and turned it into a serial number break There's all the details right there if you're not familiar with it Which kind of changes up the the risk level a little bit big Thanks to this group for getting in on it appreciate it and there are the numbers right there Thanks to Jeremy for getting that last spot in mojo by the last two spots there Let's roll it randomize names and numbers five and four nine times each one two three four five six seven eight and nine For nine we got Michael down to Justin five into four nine times for the numbers one two three four five six seven eight and ninth in final time After nine we got seven down to one Make sure you got all that correct Excellent All right, so here's how it shakes out Michael with seven Jeremy with two Tristan with four and zero That means Tristan you get any and all redemptions for that group of teams in that bottom tab They're including one of one redemptions Justin You'll still get live one of ones per the rules Steve with eight Tristan with five Jeremy with six Steve with three and Ed with nine So let's order these numerically And coming up in the next video will be the break itself. Jasper's case breaks.com. Bye. Bye


and snoring in Lampas right so luckily there is a stop in between in Paris and while I was there I also bought myself a baguette and had a look at this church that burned down which actually still looked quite okay I imagine it was now it doesn't really make that much sense to take the bus actually because prices are sort of the same as a plane plane could actually be cheaper and it just takes long 32 hours in a bus compared to two hours in a plane and actually if you include layovers it takes like 40 hours which is almost two full days compared to two hours so for me the only reason to really go with a bus is that it it uses less carbon less CO2 emissions in the air but I was also thinking like is that really the case now the more I really think about it the more I know interesting it becomes because if you realize that that bus needs to transport you and move 32 hours compared to a plane just two hours and in a way it runs quite longer but it also needs quite some infrastructure to get you going there it's not just the fuel but also the roads the signs like thousand kilometer of asphalt just to get you on the other place whereas a plane only uses the air or maybe a place to land but in a way if you really want to make a calculations and not just based on the CO2 it uses but also the whole infrastructure behind it like how is that taken into account and I have to say I'm quite curious to this topic to dive into it also have other stuff on my plate but it could be an interesting story opera video but let me know if it's something you would be interested in because if you guys get motivated I get motivated so anyway now I'm going back into my bus 32 hour drive 26 left I'll see you back when I'm in Portugal in the meantime have a look at this clip from Paul and Nate we're currently doing research of ocean plastic in the Maldives thanks Dave hope you're enjoying that long bus ride to Portugal so Nate and I have been here in the Maldives for almost a couple months now and one thing we've been doing is research into plastic and how we can recycle that in a way that's effective and useful so some stuff that we've been finding a lot on the beach is these marine textiles they're made up of really small fibers that just break down really easily and get lost into the environment they're really hard to collect after that has happened so we've been doing experiments to see if we can recycle them into more durable longer-lasting forms which has actually been going pretty well and so now that we've kind of learned that we've taken ocean rope which is one of the most prevalent kinds we're finding to see if we can recycle it not just into these sample tiles but into something that's actually useful that could be used by people so we've experimented with shredding processes to see what the best way to shred the rope is and then we take this shredded material and we've been experimenting with feeding it into the extruder to see if we can extrude it into beams so we've made some modifications to the hopper to help make it feed into the extruder a little bit better since the rope is so light weight it doesn't really fall in the same way that shredded plastic does with the angled walls so the vertical walls help to make it so that the plastic actually falls into the gaps between the auger and then we extrude that plastic into beams and so we found that we can actually take this this fiber that's usually degrading in the ocean into these tiny little bits and pieces and turn it into these stronger or more long-lasting less degradable beams and Nate has been well we've both been working on finding ways that we can make these beams useful so Nate's gonna show you a little bit about that. Hey guys yeah so just like Paul said we got big beam construction going on as always we've been making all sorts of different things more specifically these great hanging chairs we saw these sorts of things as soon as we got to the island they're called jolly chairs figured beams would be a great use for kind of reconstructing the frames of chairs so we whipped out some beams Paul made some excellent like lap joints so they're nice and square and we're able to do this really cool net sort of technique and make them so you can hang out them very comfy. We've also got the bench. We also have a nice bench, a little step, lots to do. Yeah well that's what we've been up to yeah we've been documenting it in the forums if you're interested you can see our whole process there. Yeah see you guys next one. Alright so we're now in the sunny Portugal looking for the land this is the first one we're going to visit actually also the biggest one here's the crew hanging around looking at the other side here's like a ruin they have rocks we could climb yeah we're just gonna watch more of them. So hello we are Adriana in Catarina we are in Portugal trying to get the knowledge and introduce ourselves for the next year to come with project here so the first week we were meeting some architects and visiting some other sustainable projects here in the area for having the knowledge for how can we start the project like this so from the architect we already learned what can we build in each land what we have to ask to the real estate agent what to take in account in each land yeah from then the sustainable projects all the process the legal process to how to start a project like this. Yeah so after getting to know all these background information and processes how it works here we started looking at properties and within like 10 days or two weeks we saw 30 properties more focused in the central area of Portugal just yeah to get a feeling for how big it actually is so we've seen small ones bigger ones more some with more mountains and the river and some with yeah more flat land and like useful land yeah we've seen a lot of different one and every every one of them was really nice but had different specialties to offer like a big rock core. Castle. There's a lake. Very nice forest here. River waterfall. Shoach cork tree. Fake tree, fake tree. Orange tree. Olive. And then we made this selection of the properties and showed it to Dave and Mathia to make them also get the feeling for the areas and what we actually like what's next we will now from this selection narrow even more down to what we really what selection we really like and then go more into specifics so get the architect get architects and a lawyer and set up a company and talk to the municipalities to then decide which one works for us. So if there's any Portuguese in this area like it's mostly Castelo Branco Coimbra and Viseu the municipalities are going to be more less found out. Daña Nova, Panamacor, Tava, Lusa and Oliveira d'Hospital. So if there's any Portuguese around that can help us please let us know. And as always we will keep you updated in the forums link is in the description and now Charlotte will continue with the monthly news no community news. Bye! Yo it's Charlotte and I'm going to talk to you about the community news from our lovely community from all around the world again. And to kick off the feature I'm going to be talking about Precious Plastic Ukraine they have just made this super sick bench that has just been placed into the capital city Kiev. The bench is made from recycled plastic it's made using plastic beams and the colour is really nice and I love the like the speckles in it from the different types of plastic and the design is also really nice with this kind of curve that they have and what I just love about this bench is it just shows the potentials of recycled plastic the way it's done to such a high standard it's super nice to see and also to see such a big object as well rather than just small things so very very nice work. And next is a designer based out in Norway and he has taken old plastic straws are being thrown out from their shift from plastic back to paper since they can all these plastic straws which would either go in landfill or to our precious oceans and he's making these nice little flutes with them and so he's made a he's CNC milled a mould and yeah he's just using the injection machine and making these three nice little flutes but just a really nice idea because as we make this shift from plastic back to paper all these plastic straws are just being thrown out so it's a nice idea to actually make use of them and this is another favourite of mine one of our workspaces all the way out in Singapore are making these really cool card holders and handbags and tote bags all made from recycled plastic bags and once again just making really high-end finished quality product that looks super cool and they've even achieved this kind of like fake animal leather look which is super impressive and hopefully we'll start replacing materials such as leather or canvas which are usually made for bags and they also do custom-made designs so if you want anything specific they can do that for you which is also really cool and to close the feature I have to mention that we had our first drop-off session this month now that we are half a few the project we are starting to finish machine testing and machine developing and we're now moving into the product design phase which is super exciting and in order to make these products we need a lot of plastic and so we thought we'd ask local people local business owners hairdressers cafe owners to come in and donate their unwanted plastic but we will be having more of these drop-off days so if you're passing through the country or passing through Eindhoven just keep up to date and we'd be posting more of these dates soon and that is it for me this month thank you again for watching I hope it was fun and interesting if it wasn't I'm sorry and if you're building machines you're creating products around the world use a hash like that is plastic so you can see what you're up to it's always super inspiring to see the kind of weird and wonderful things you guys are creating and also thank you to our patron supporters who contribute to the project each and every month thank you goodbye


Michael Orthofer is a man on a mission. In a recent profile of him, New Yorker magazine wrote, quote, he has so far reviewed a staggering 3,760 books on that site. His goal is to read a book a day, but he averages about 260 a year. Of course these numbers are now badly out of date. Michael's specialty is fiction, in particular world literature and fiction and translation. So we're here today to talk about books and fiction with Michael Orthofer. Hello Michael, thank you for coming. Hi Thomas, thank you for having me. Let me start first with the question that's a little bit expansive. Now if we think about fiction, for all the wonderful novels we read, it actually turns out to be the case. The events in those novels didn't actually happen, right? Even especially vivid works like Lord of the Rings, right? Those are not real events. So if we're reading for some reason to learn things or be moved emotionally, why is it that things that didn't happen have so much power for you or other readers relative to things that did happen? Why is fiction so special? Well I think being not tied down to the actual events, allowing the imagination to roam really, writers are able to do amazing things and I think that's what we get out of it. That non-fiction, the description of what has actually happened, first of all it's also very difficult to capture just precisely what has happened. And often fiction allows you to go beyond that to imagine the reasons behind it which you might not be able to if you were doing just purely following the facts so to speak. But say we think of it in marginal terms, you know, I'm an economist. So if I say, well, reading Hamlet, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, of course that was essential for one's own education to speak to other people. The core, I don't know if you'd quite call them ideas, but inspirations in those works move people's lives. But at the margin, given how much you read, and you know, I read the fair man of fiction too, how much value is there really for that marginal work of fiction, given the regularity of patterns of stories that we see? What is it you get out of the marginal work of fiction? Well, it varies. I mean I have to admit that the great deal that I read I don't get that much out of. And you really, I think one of the reasons I do read as much as I do is because it really takes that whole mass to really find all the different things you're looking for in it. But I definitely think it really, it expands my horizons in a way that other things can't. Travel, talking to people, meeting people, reading the newspaper, following current events. Those things obviously also help you understand the world better. But I think fiction adds a totally different dimension to it. And truly great fiction really can take you much farther than other things can, I think. There's a book I read a review of. I'm sure you've heard of it, maybe you read it. Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings. Very positive reviews, right? It's 704 pages and they're fairly dense pages. I thought of reading the book and then I sat down and I said to myself, with the time it would take me to read this book I could fly to Jamaica and spend an additional three days. I've only been to Jamaica once. And therefore it didn't make sense for me to read the book. How do you feel about that reasoning? Well, I'm full of admiration if you think you could capture, you know, spending three days in Jamaica would be the equivalent. I don't think it's equivalent. I think it really is a separate experience. I think also many people don't have the possibility of just traveling and reading a book as much simpler. The axis is always there so you really can pick whatever strikes your mood, which if you commit to three days in Jamaica, you're stuck in Jamaica for three days and maybe it turns out that isn't really what you wanted. But I think the Marlon James adventure, his way of seeing it, one of the things we have to remember when someone's writing a book, a work of fiction, usually years of work in that. And I think that is reflected in the final product. The final product might seem like a compact 700-page book. That's already a very long one. But there is so much that is being worked through in that and in good fiction, great fiction, the work itself reflects that. So if we take American citizens who are not necessarily the people who read you, but at the margin we could give them more non-fiction, we could give them more travel, we could give them more fiction, or we could actually give them more of some really good TV. Which of those things are we rooting for them to do more of at the margin? At the margin I would think travel. I think really the experience of the foreign place would be the most benefit because I think most people really don't get that, don't have that opportunity. I don't think they need more TV. I think TV is pretty well covered in this country and everybody gets their fill or the proper, or probably more than the proper dose. But I think fiction is up there. I think fiction is an important part of it as well and it's such an easy part to get to as well. So I think people should take advantage of that. In that sense the marginal cost is relatively low since you can just go to your local library to the local bookstore and you have such a wide selection. It's actually inclined to give them the marginal dose of TV. Really? I think people absorb it and process it better. And the fact that they watch a lot of TV means they're good at it so you're very good at reading fiction. You absorb and process it very well. So TV shows really stick with people. If at the margin you're giving people quality TV, it might even be my choice over travel. A lot of people come away from travel, alienated. They don't always enjoy travel. They vaguely feel it was good for them. And they argue with each other. I can see that. So the general mix like what people do versus what they really enjoy, I find interesting. Now you have a blog which has two parts. One is called Literary Saloon and the other is Complete Review but I think of them as one integrated entity. You review books on a very regular basis and most of all you review books which are being translated from other languages into English. Is that a fair way to put it? Yes, foreign fiction dominates. And why the appeal of foreign language fiction to you? What catches you there? Well in part it also came about the site, I started the site in 1999. It's been around a long time and one of the reasons I started it was because I saw how many people were posting book reviews online and suddenly you had the possibility of getting book reviews not just from your local paper or from the national magazines but from anywhere in the world. And one of the things that struck me and this is also partly has to do with the timing in American publishing and in American book reviewing is that there was very little coverage of especially translated fiction which would be much more popular say in the 1970s. And suddenly we had reached a real low point and so I made a conscious effort also to move in that direction. But aside from that I also I find foreign fiction more interesting in a way. It's not that I find foreign fiction more interesting than American or British fiction but just I think it's better to read from everywhere from all over the place rather than one specific locale. What's your theory of America? Where have we gone wrong? So you say correctly there was more interest in foreign fiction in the 1970s, right? We've moved away from that. Why has that happened? What's the institutional failure behind that? You could say lack of someone like you may be part of it but you're here now. It's still the case. A novel comes out in American English and they try to hide the fact that it was translated quite often. I'm sure you've seen this or maybe not seen it. Well I think actually things have improved a lot in the time I've been running the site. I think a major reason was that there was a generational shift from the especially the publishing world the publishers who had come across from Europe around World War II and who obviously had brought a lot of international fiction who were aware of what was being written elsewhere in the world mainly in Europe unfortunately so relatively localized as well but still. But you also had it with the interest in Japanese fiction for example there was that generation which is also very much due to the sudden interest in Japan from World War II the people who learned Japanese and then began translating the work and I think there was a generational shift which played itself out most fully in the 1990s but I'm not sure why exactly it went as far down as it did. The wonderful thing is that translation has really been revived in the past couple of years I think there really has been a greater interest especially with smaller publishers who are really interested in publishing translations. But it is a kind of paradox of globalization right so after the 70s in particular immigration to the United States goes up quite rapidly there's a lot more trade especially with Asia many more Americans get past ports they travel abroad and at the same time we're less interested in some aspects of foreign literature and maybe there's something more general to this so if you think of America as in some ways an open country actually we're much less willing to watch foreign films than our people from most other countries and then you go to Canada for all of its talk of cultural protectionism they do a small amount of it or Paris arguably they're in many ways more open to foreign cultures than America so what's the general paradoxical lesson about globalization we can pull out of all of this? It might be a cultural thing that America is in many ways always being sort of integrating it is integrated the immigrants that come in and it is value that they become American that they adopt American values and part of that has been leaving behind to a certain extent the culture a great amount of literature of sort of the first, second, third generation Americans and how that lives but it's almost all in English and there's very little of returning to the languages that these immigrants brought with them on the other hand it's fascinating how many foreign authors live especially in university settings in the United States but they live in these sort of isolated pockets and that part of the broader American literary culture which I find the bizarre paradox I don't quite understand why that happened Let me tell you an argument about New York City which I occasionally hear and I know it's not true about you but whether you think it's true at all and it gets at these paradoxes of globalization that in some ways New York City or maybe just Manhattan is fairly provincial because people think and they're led to believe that the whole world comes here in some ways that's true tourism and migration but you don't actually get the whole world here at all you get a highly processed filtered version of a bit of it from each particular region and then people here in the way become more inward looking they don't go as many other places they feel everything's right here they get into their routines and is it possible that parts of Manhattan are evolving into this highly provincial place because of these cultural paradoxes? I think so although New York still remains such a dynamic place because you also have great shifts in what populations come here and how that affects the city I think and so there is that dynamism the changing neighborhoods so I still think in that sense it is a very vibrant city and it's fairly unprovincial for a metropolitan city compared to even some European from Austrian Vienna is it's a cosmopolitan city but in the end it is it is, yeah now my friend Ben Kazanoka he's always talking to me about this idea of life hacks like advice where you can live your life or learn things more efficiently and let's say I was approaching foreign language literature in translation as an economist and the following life hack occurred to me I'm gonna lay it out and you tell me why it's wrong there's always more to read always more wonderful things to read in all of the major languages but if you can read a language fluently usually you'll enjoy the fiction or poetry in that language much more so you're not gonna run out of things to read in the languages you can read in so therefore in translated literature you should read like the very most famous works so if you don't read Russian yes read Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace and a few things and then stop and if you read say English, Spanish and French then just read in those languages and translated literature at the margin put it aside never look at it again now that's not what you do but what's wrong with that argument well I think you're really missing so much because the problem is finding what's what is a value what is important and I mean we have these established books like War and Peace or Crime and Punishment but Russian literature goes so much deeper for example to take just an example of a big language and it also changes with time so rapidly I think that in every ten year period you could select a new set of a dozen recent relatively recent of the past quarter century from that culture works which would give you a completely different view and yeah provide you a completely different experience and the bigger problem I see of course is that you're missing out on so much literature from elsewhere that there really is for a lot of cultures and languages there isn't that stand out that you know oh Russia Tolstoy got it but if you want to read something from the Philippines you're unlikely to be able to find that one author or any other languages and cultures and there's so much being written now which it really is worthwhile keeping up with would you agree then that it's a good life hack say for poetry so if I try to read poetry originally written in Russian I don't speak Russian I understand some of it I know enough to get that I'm not getting it when I read it in English it just doesn't come through no matter how great the poet and I don't enjoy it that much so in this case I followed the life hack I don't read poetry in Russian and I feel that's efficient do you agree with that when it comes to poetry but I do read poetry in the languages I read well poetry is a bit more difficult because first of all there seems a lot more with fewer less poetry that stands out it's very difficult often to recognize the great poetry of the day in the time being especially with modern poetry I find it very difficult to get a sense of what I really should be focusing on so I mean I guess it is a useful life hack because really there is only so much we can read and I might very well act similarly with poetry because I don't spend that much time reading poetry but with fiction I wouldn't accept it here's another life hack which I totally reject but it may just be because I'm an addict of sorts but you tell me why for you it's wrong a lot of people say to me well I love fiction but I'm never going to read new works because I can't tell what's really good I'll just wait 20 years and then look back on what was truly excellent from 20 years ago I wouldn't read that 20 years later but in the meantime now I'll just read classics or things in other areas which are verified as being truly excellent does that make sense well I worry very much about people who rely on what gets that stamp of approval just because it's been has a cover review in the New York Times book review does not mean that that book really is if we look at it from 5 or 10 years down the road that that book will still be a significant work and I find so much which is highly praised at any one point a long term won't be and again however well much that we look back on is we've lost in the margins as well because it's really hard to keep track of all the great books and we saw at Strand earlier today, Stone or John Williams this is a book that disappeared from view for a long time it was always recognized sort of I mean people would say this is a great book but it had really fallen out of view Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai was just republished I just ordered it on Amazon I'm excited to get my copy I didn't know about it right and this was sort of that legendary books but it had gotten a great deal of potential when it first came out and then through odd series of coincidences it just sort of fell from view and there are many many many more books which are in this grey zone where if you really dig if you really look you could still pluck them out but because there's so much new work being published it's very difficult for it to rise out of that noise I'm an American but I'm someone who doesn't have as much time to read as you do or I do and I'm only going to take away one book tip from this podcast or video I'm going to walk into a Barnes & Noble or go to Amazon and I want to buy a new book and at the margin what's the piece of information I should have that will help me make a better decision other than just saying well go to literary saloon and see what I tell you to do but more generally I forgot my iPad I'm in Strand or Barnes & Noble well I think depending on the bookstore but it works probably even for many of the Barnes & Noble ones I really think you should have some faith in the staff that they will be able to best guide you I'm certain at Strand for example which booksellers there are book lovers and if you give them a bit of information about what would be suitable for you that they will be able to guide you I like to think that the complete review is meant to guide their books so I think on the more localized level in the bookstore you hopefully get that as well I think I've bought more than 100 books because of you so I thank you for that let's say now I'm someone who more or less reads for a living maybe I write books or I'm a book reviewer I'm a certain kind of journalist or I work in publishing and you can give me advice at the margin how to make a better book choice something to buy and read for that kind of person harder to give advice right but what would your advice be I don't know that I would I don't really have a system for picking books myself but that can't be true you may not have articulated your system and you have rules and principles you turn the corner at a certain time you know what sections to go to right and it's a very personal selection process I think and I mean it's I think it's whatever information works for you one source of information for example is seeing what imprint is published at certain publishers so if new directions or New York review books have brought out a volume you know what kind of book this might be and so that helps narrow it down and in a book store you have to be familiar with the older imprints for example which just takes a lot of practice I guess but that for example is one of the sources of information it's very difficult I think to narrow it down and that's one of the wonderful things of going in a bookstore and being willing to take a chance and pick up something that hasn't been shoved down your throat hasn't been recommended in 15 different publications because the offerings out there are so rich that you can really find many things just at the extremes I once did an experiment I went into a bookstore and I said I'm just going to pick out the book and put aside whatever other impressions I might have of that book and really see this through just to see how good of a predictor that would be and I ended up liking the cover of a Kate Christensen novel and I then liked the novel and I've liked some of her subsequent writing so when it comes to covers covers are there in a way to trick us but there's also a kind of matching going on it signals maybe how intellectual the book is or what kind of person should buy or read that book so you see a cover that shows the information there if you like the cover does it sway you it can sway me but it rarely does I'm not a big cover person I'm really a text person not an image person and so I try to see beyond the cover but it does the aesthetics obviously do play somewhat of a role but it's a very I think a cover can attract my attention but won't be decisive anything about a cover could convince me that this is a book I must have I think I will leave beyond that but it can get me to pick up the book say a parent comes to you the parent says I have a 12 year old smart child shows some interest in now wanting to read what advice do you give that parent for hooking the child on reading since you yourself your whole life you've had extreme intense love of reading maybe you were born with it but how do people get hooked on reading I think you want to let them loose in a book environment so in the library in the bookstore and you want to give them the freedom to explore for themselves to make because I think reading is very much a personal thing especially in childhood and especially where parents are often tempted to well is this a book that's good for the kid and I think you want to avoid that because the child has a completely different perspective and really has to want to read the book and I think by letting them make their own choices their own selections finding their own way and not really pressuring them I don't think you want to say you know reading is good for you you have to read whatever this but just making it easy for them to read whatever they want to read you know what I did a few times with Yana I put a book on the table I point at it and say you're not ready for this yet and then I just walk away and that was fairly effective are there books which are better translated into languages other than the languages they were written in novels? I think there are probably many which are let's say B novels so pub novels for example can often be especially stylistically improved translation and you often have so-called literary authors translating crime authors and they do a wonderful job of it there are also cases where I don't think it's better but some of the most interesting translations that appeal most to me are those of experimental works which basically are not you can't translate them literally so the word for word you don't care so the translator basically becomes a recreator of the text and takes a new approach and some of those are wonderful as well what's the best book that you never finished? that I never finished I don't know because I really I finish almost almost everything it takes a lot for me to give up on a book see I don't finish most of my books maybe I finish 10% I'm not sure but a fair minority why finish books that are not as good as the next book you could be reading in expected value terms? yeah but I can't think of any I don't think there are probably some long books which I haven't made my way entirely through but which I return like let's say Richardson's Clarissa which is a huge book which I've never sat down to read from beginning to end so perhaps something like that but nothing really strikes me is because a good book I want to finish that book I really so it would have been a not very memorable book in any case of the so called great books what's the one that disappointed you most? of the so called great ones I don't well it's difficult knowing what that canon is like Harold Bloom's list in the back of his book something like that I have difficulty with some of the especially the verse epics so I've never finished the NEID for example or something like that and I've difficulty getting into some of those I think of the great authors the one I have most difficulty with is probably Dostoevsky so I've read most of those I think the prince is probably my favorite or the idiot is sometimes translated but I'm not a big fan of Dostoevsky so Tom G wrote this question into me Marginal Revolution quote which are the first three books that come to mind and answer to the question what books made him feel really good after finishing them or desired again this is the kind of question I have great difficulty with because I don't know what made me feel happiest right I don't know that the immediate satisfaction I couldn't even think of one off the top of my head now my theory of you as a reviewer and reader is that you love highly complex books that are long and very puzzling to work out what's going on I do enjoy those very much yes so I mean it's bring up two or three of those and you can tell us what's in them for you or why we should care so here's volume one of a Chinese book used to be known as dream of the red chamber now it's more often called story of the stone penguin translation you're an advocate of this book very long this is only one volume what's in here it's basically it's a family saga and basically a love story of the main character and the two women girls when it starts out when he's young boy and it's basically a novel which has everything it's sort of a comprehensive it's such a sweeping it's really one that you can get lost in over a long period of time it's a book that is very easy to return to because there's so much in it even though on the Wikipedia page 40 main characters are listed plus minor characters so that's going to be tough going right even with a good translation well it depends well I think conveniently it probably has the list of characters but even with the cheat sheet 40's are but they're the main characters again it's as a book to return there really are the central characters and the more incidental characters and the story focuses on groups of characters at a time they're not 40 people on stage all the time so that makes it somewhat simpler it is initially perhaps if you haven't read much Chinese fiction the Chinese names alone can be confusing but I don't think that's the least of the hurdles to the book I think but it's also very accessible it's just a compelling story it really describes these characters and their feelings very well and a wonderful picture also of the China of the Times which is a totally different world an author you're a big advocate of Arno Schmidt you've written a book on him it's the book here and his masterwork is coming out in English actually translated for the first time this September is that correct? and the German title is Settles Traum what's the English title? Bottom's Dream and most people have never heard of Arno Schmidt regrettably but we have a chance now to read his masterwork some of his others are in English already tell us why we should care well the bottom's dream I don't know how many people will actually read that that is a very complicated piece of work Arno Schmidt is a fast reader and you love it right? you've written a book on Schmidt but again it's on Schmidt as a whole and Schmidt has written in several different categories so he's also written short novels and stories which are much more accessible but you giggled when you read Bottom's Dream right? you giggled a lot well this is the English edition I think is just under 1500 pages it's going to be about this big and it's written in three columns per page so this is the main story and then you have the commentary and not quite the footnotes but sort of the elaborations on the side talk us into the work now well it's it's a work it covers a seven day span and basically it's a story of translation it's basically some translators come to an expert on Poe and ask his advice about translating Poe as the title Bottom's Dream also suggests there's a Shakespearean aspect to it as well and I don't even know if Schmidt's greatest work in some ways because it is such a you know beyond almost anyone else has ever tried to write it is an immense accomplishment it's probably it's not the first Schmidt work you want to and what's the first Schmidt work you want to read? well if you eventually want to read Bottom's Dream then The School for Atheists is the one to read and that's in English now that's being in English now interestingly the person who translated all these books is John E. Woods who is famous for his translations of Thomas Mann he did the definitive Magic Mountain and Bullenbox and but he's always been translating Arno Schmidt for decades now and he likes the translations yes and Schmidt again is one of these writers who you really it's difficult to translate him just literally in the case of Bottom's Dream and The School for Atheists which are these he called them as typo script books because they were written on larger than normal pieces of paper and allowed not just writing line by line as we're used to but the playing with the text and so for example one of his favorite things to do was with words where you can change the beginning of the word so you have both school bus and school child and so you would have school and one were in the bus and child on top of each other so you could have both meanings of the word and but he would take this to the nth degree and so Bottom's Dream and also The School for Atheists allow for incredible literary play and Schmidt is also I mean I read a fair amount I read probably more than most people probably Anno Schmidt is an order or two above me as a reader really that is he wrote a lot but basically he's one of the great readers of all times and one of the reasons I also appreciate him so much is because he's directed me to so much more reading and there are a couple of he's like you right well on some level yes here's your book out not too long ago The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction another author you promote in this book and elsewhere Luis Guaitisolo one one Guaitisolo Luis is the brother but both of them you like right well unfortunately Luis nothing of his has been translated yet although his major work the title of which escapes me is Antagonia is coming out from Daltke Archive as well the same same publishers who are publishing Bottom's Dream okay it strikes me as a book you would love it does it does and but unfortunately I have not read that yet but brother Juan why is he special because he also his he writes in so many different registers he's not satisfied with simple even when he's successful with one way of storytelling he tries out different things new things he tells stories in new ways and also he's been a wonderful chronicler of Spain and especially the Spanish conflict with the Islamic world which goes back to when part of Spain was Islamic and so that's been a tension that has been in the culture for well over a thousand years and he he's writing he's written several works which I find really superior and he's one of those authors where you won't get the same book you got last time you'll get something completely different when you pick up the next one and he's one of those authors who also manages to do he's not going to fail at these attempts they are going to be if they are failures they're interesting failures and so that that appeals to me greatly so he's one of those authors where if something new of his is coming out I'm going to make a beeline for it now there's a segment of these chats you may have heard of it it's called overrated or underrated so I'm going to call out a few names books whatever you're free to decline if you don't want to offend anyone or other reasons that will try just a few and you tell us overrated or underrated J.K. Rowling as a writer I feel perhaps overrated but as a cultural phenomenon I think perfectly fine I mean it's hard to say underrated because she is for the Naples Ultra of children's writing Gerta overrated or underrated especially in English absolutely underrated Gerta is a far more significant author than anybody here seems to realize and the TLS just has a review of a New Princeton anthology of the essential Gerta at a thousand pages and you can't stuff him into a thousand pages because there is so much there and so much variety too which is also one of the astonishing things he's the greatest poet of the times the greatest dramatist of his times and he was an astounding novelist as well and a scientist, a good scientist Yes, yes and the conversations with Eckermann and so on you know you have all these different things which are just superior literature so in English he's vastly underrated in Germany I think they get it Angela Merkel underrated or overrated I actually have not ever read anything by Angela Merkel No, not as a writer as a political leader Again it probably depends I admire her I think among the political leaders currently operating in Europe and especially since we're speaking shortly after the whole Brexit vote and the turn over that happened in England there I think she's probably underrated Herman Melville Probably also underrated I We're agreeing on Albie so far if you're curious Yeah, I think people don't also range far enough with Melville I always when the argument of the great American novel comes up I always make a plug for the Confidence Man which I think is sort of representative it says so much about America that I think that would be my choice for the American novel and especially from Melville but yeah, I think he's also underrated Thomas Bernhardt Well, he's very fashionable but also I don't think he can be underrated I'm also completely behind him I think he was a remarkable author I've always enjoyed even though there's a droning similarity to much of his bitter ranting it completely wins me over and I don't think I've been disappointed by any Bernhardt Wittgenstein's nephew is my favorite and then the loser Der Untergeier but all of them I think are fantastic for me very underrated another Austrian Friedrich A. Hayek The Economist Again, you're free to pass Well he's I don't like what he his arguments are always employed for I mean currently he's obviously a very popular economist to rely on and I think it gets dangerous with you know the interpretation of the philosophies so I'm a bit more livery of too much enthusiasm for him but again obviously such a significant figure that's very difficult to underrate him I think fiction what would be the country or region now what's the country what's the region it's even up for grabs but that is really underappreciated relative to what it has done so if you say oh classic Russian fiction even if people haven't read it people know there's a lot there right probably wouldn't pick that so what's the counterintuitive pick for a most underrated region or country for a wonderful fiction under I would absolutely think the regional language literature of India I think surprisingly even though India is perhaps the main literary English is the main literary language of India and a great deal is locally translated even there much of the vernacular literature still isn't available in English and what one can see of it and also in part hear about it we're missing an awful lot I mean there really there is a literary culture there especially for example in Bengali but we've had that since Tagore and one of the remarkable things is even Tagore won his Nobel Prize over a hundred years ago and there's still novels by him which haven't been translated into English and he's really a very good novelist and it's I guess truly worthwhile and this goes for many regions of the southern region of Kerala where they write in Malayalam Malayalam it's there's a remarkable literary production there and we just see so little of it and so and it's also what is available because a fair amount is it tends to be underappreciated especially in American so it hasn't really reached these shores and would you pick any part of the world as overrated for literature in a way I know you think it's all underrated but in relative terms I think the American dominance is still too overbearing worldwide. So we agree on this too I'm happy to hear you say that but go on yeah no I think it just it's American literature is too often given a free pass especially abroad because you know we're so used to it being so dominant and so I really think if any it's overrated it is American fiction most of it bores me and like one of my pieces of advice for people going to a bookstore I would just say don't buy an American novel all other things equal because they're fairly likely to do so they're more likely to have heard of it without any kind of bias necessarily operating just refuse to buy American novels for a year I think it's a good piece of advice that is probably yes it probably is yeah if you think of all of your beliefs about literature books fiction or you can go more broadly if you'd like but what's the belief you hold that other smart people you respect would find the most absurd so if someone said oh I think Robert Heinlein is the greatest author ever to have walked on earth that would be considered absurd not my belief probably not yours but what's your like craziest view relative to the other people you think are smart in respect in a literary sense or you can go broader if you want start with literary I don't know I don't think see I'm so my opinions are so firmly held I believe them to be so obvious and you may still think you're right other people don't agree but well I don't get those disagreements they don't dare disagree to my face apparently I really don't know nothing comes obviously to mind and more generally also not I mean just more more general I guess the standout beliefs is I don't see myself having the concern for mortality which most other people seem to have that seems to be a very popular thing reading as well that there's this obsession with mortality which I find a bit odd so you think we fear death too much yes I think it's it's and many people seem to really obsess about it in a certain sense and so that's something I mean I don't think necessarily my opinion is strange it's something so foreign to me and the other thing is also I have great difficulty with religion the god concept is just I can't I really don't know what to how to regard that it is when I can't fit into my world view when any of my actions and so even though I read a great deal which also again is based on this of course that part of it always remains foreign to me but when it comes to death would you say death is underrated or life is overrated well you can't overate life I mean it's all we got again because I don't believe in the religion aspect of it too I don't believe in the afterlife so I definitely think life is underrated but death is it's an inevitability so you take it as it comes because there's no other way to take it now let me tell you about one of the things I find most charming about your site and your reviews there's this unusual mix between extreme passion for the subject and curiosity and drive to get the books and track what's coming out and reading them and then a lot about how other people are reviewing the books so if one reads your site they don't just get you you get a whole broad panoply of other reviews it's one of the most valuable things but then on the other hand you're very hard to impress as a reader so just to you give these short capsules of your reviews here are three of your more recent ones and I quote passable ultra light fare here's another one typical Carlotto tale of justice in a flawed world so there's something reductionist or here's one you are very enthusiastic quote nicely done now I know those are shorter capsules for broader more detailed reviews but this mix between like the the blasé and the enthusiasm and how willing you are to just retreat into like and then that's what I find so intriguing about literary saloon is there anything you would say to that well I hope people use the site in that way in a way my reviews presuppose familiarity with the site I assume that people you know they look up a couple of reviews and they get an idea of what this person is doing and the capsule reviews I think are a sort of counterbalance also to the longer reviews in which often I will be more enthusiastic or I mean this ultra light novel I gave it a B because it's it's perfectly competently done but it's just a vacuous problematic you know there's so little to it but it's still it's perfectly readable and I hope I explain that fully in the review itself. No you did. But one of the things which I also I mean the original idea behind the site was to be able to link to other reviews and also I have the review quotes from the major review publications where there are review quotes available which I actually did sort of as a counter measure to because I was so irritated by the blurbs you find on the back of like the paperback edition which are not at all representative of the reviews of the book so I wanted to give an honest I wanted to give the honest blurbs of the reviews but it's always been important to me that you know my opinion is my opinion and you really should seek out as many as different ones as possible and to be able to give access to all these different reviews to point readers to because readers some readers rely on a certain reviewer and so if I can give them the link to that for this book so that they will get an opinion which perhaps is more informative to them than mine can be because they don't see eye to eye with me I think that's a very important thing and having as many different opinions as possible to me that always seems beneficial I realize now we have this issue of whether the wisdom of crowds really is wisdom and whether it doesn't just over complicate matters as well but it's always been important to me that I have very strongly held opinions but please also consider the other opinions because Other reviews and here I mean media not say bloggers but how corrupt are they? Corrupt in what sense? That there's something in the process which is favoritism and maybe there's an incentive for excess enthusiasm because if your book review section reviews 13 books and says they're all mediocre well people won't buy the books but more importantly they'll stop buying your book review section right? Yes. So do you think there's for instance an incentive to be too positive or some other skew? I think I don't know that it's as blatant as that I definitely think it is editors certainly prefer positive reviews and there's some newspapers which basically won't print negative reviews I think that's always an issue and I mean they can say that well we you know we pre-select so that's are the way we do it but that's I mean one of the things I love about how I'm able to review books is that I just you know I'll review almost anything and I will actually review it even if I do not enjoy the book even if I have immense problems with the book because I think that's just... You don't put them down like I do it. Take New York Times or Amazon I know there's both but if you had to choose which do you trust more? I I don't know if I can I like Amazon because I can get a lot of information about out of Amazon they're really the way the information is presented and in part with the reviews depending on how widely it's been reviewed part of the problem with the New York Times of course is that they can only review so few books and so you have really so little information or information about so few titles whereas Amazon you have at least some information about practically everything in that sense good reads is perhaps you know even more useful because usually with the foreign language books they'll usually at least be people who have already reviewed the foreign language edition and that's helpful one of the things I find remarkable about my site is I try to link to big media reviews and an extraordinary number of the books which I cover basically go unreviewed in the major media often even publishes weekly and which I find kind of shocking because I mean I do review obscure books but it's not that obscure the I'm fascinated the literary hub is a very good website now which collects a lot of literary information and they've also now started a review aggregating part of the site called bookmarks and basically what they do is when they find reviews in three of the publications they monitor which are basically all American major publications and a few internet sites if they have three reviews for a book then they'll put that on bookmarks with the summaries and links to the reviews so sort of what I do and I find maybe one out of ten of the books I cover qualify and I find that shocking that's so we know you can read in a lot of different languages we know you read a lot of books close what are three other things about yourself you might want to tell us not to do with books I don't know that anyone would find anything interesting about me I don't I don't know what I sculpture perhaps there I mention it you're a big fan of doing ice sculpture I am I find the I just build a snowman but I will try to sculpt as much as I can out of the snow and I enjoy doing that because the snow is always different the conditions are always different what you can make out of it is different and it's also completely transitory it's gone usually in a short time sometimes a few weeks or month and it's sort of the ending goal where these sculptures in nature take into the more extreme because the snow is obviously really very short lasting and it also shape shifts as it collapses as it falls apart and you were born in Graz Austria right? I was yes you have a background in law is that correct? I do I have a degree in law I'm a New York State lawyer and you were put off by the academic nature of formal literary study because it involved so little reading of books and too much theory very much so yes I was disappointed that at university basically you could study literature without reading basically without reading fiction especially and more importantly without really engaging in fiction I think literature can lend itself to theory you can build theory around it but I don't find that a useful way of dealing with literature thank you very much Michael again this is Michael's book University Press The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction Michael Orthofer in my opinion still vastly underrated thank you so much


Well, everyone, welcome back to another Photoshop tutorial. In this one, I'm going to show you how to make a person look older or prematurely age them in about 60 seconds at most. Let's get started like I've got here. All right, first step, load your image up like this.  When you do that, you want to open up the one called Smart Portrait. Now, underneath Smart Portrait, under Featured, you're going to see Facial Age. I'm going to move this all the way to the right and then it'll come back when it's done. All right, I'm back. As you can see, it's made her hair like whiter. She's got some crow's feet and some wrinkles. It's not quite where we want it. I'm going to go ahead and reduce her hair thickness as well. Just keep that in mind that as you get older, your hair tends to get a little bit thinner. And then you can go in and add in some adjustments. I think I'll add in a little bit of anger. You don't just wake up 50 years older when not being a little bit upset. But anyways, you get the point here. This is how you do it. Then you click on OK, create a new layer out of it. Click OK. That's it, guys. She's now a little bit older. Thanks for watching.


I love looking at the night sky. It's not just planets and stars, it's also satellites that we've put up there. And orbiting the Earth right now is the Hubble Space Telescope. And it's made what I think is one of the most profound, beautiful and exciting images I've ever seen in astronomy. What it says to me is how distant galaxies are warped and stretched into thin arcs. It sheds light on one of the strangest invisible aspects of the universe. It's dark matter. And with my research, I'm on a journey to discover where the dark matter is in the universe and how it's shaped galaxies like our Milky Way. Here are lots of distant galaxies. But one of them looks much brighter. Why is it brighter? It's because of the effect of another, closer galaxy. Here is a far away galaxy. Here's us. And let's put a galaxy in the foreground. This foreground galaxy, like all matter in the universe, is warping the space around it so it distorts our view of the background galaxy, making it seem bigger and brighter. We call the effect of the foreground galaxy a gravitational lens. And there's more foreground warping if there's more foreground matter. And there's so much warping that there has to be lots of extra matter, invisible matter, which we call dark matter. Here at the Open University, we led an international team that pioneered a spectacularly fast and efficient way of finding these gravitational lenses. With gravitational lensing, you get two things for the price of one. You get a beautifully bright image of the background galaxy and you get to find out where the foreground dark matter is. There really is no other way of finding this foreground dark matter. This is one of the first gravitational lenses we discovered with the Herschel Space Observatory. To Herschel, it's just a fuzzy blob. So we followed it up with ground-based telescopes in Hawaii and we discovered a foreground galaxy, that's in blue, warping a background galaxy around it, which is pink. Using this technique, we've roughly doubled the number of strong gravitational lenses that are known. And I found that using the Euclid Space Telescope from about 2020, we'll be able to discover strong gravitational lenses in far greater numbers. Having lots of gravitational lenses means we can track the evolution of dark matter through the universe. And dark matter is most of the matter in the universe, so it profoundly changes how galaxies like our Milky Way evolve. And that's why I find the hunt for dark matter so important.


Here we see two interacting galaxies, collectively called ARP 143. Astronomers suggest that the galaxies pass through each other, igniting the uniquely shaped star formation in NGC 2445, where there are thousands of new stars. Galaxy NGC 2444 is pulling gas from 2445. This is forming the unusual triangle shape. Stars no older than 1 million to 2 million years are forming closer to the center of 2445. Hubble reveals some individual stars. They are the brightest and most massive in the galaxy. Most of the brilliant blue clumps are groupings of stars. The pink blobs are giant, young star clusters, still enshrouded in dust and gas.


Okay thank you and well thank you for the speak of Andrea and it's very actually I heard Andrea said that every it's not a technical talk actually I heard a lot including myself from the morning to now everybody is not taking your talk so I have to say that yes this is a technical talk and I'm glad to see that there are so so few people here so little people here okay and and before I stop if you you can also refer to the you can also refer to the sorry the sorry and sorry the here and you can get the presentation here and also you can get the down to the link to so to a source okay now we go back to the talk hello this is in my cat and I some people has already stay here in the mall from the morning so I'm from the Taiwan open office liberal community and I'm one a member of the open office PMC project manager committee and also a member of Women's Enforcement in Taiwan and I believe that I heard a lot of talk about today about the basic overall basic development and I'm very glad that since last time I attend such a such a conference as mostly mostly about the are about the office source itself but less about the but very rare about the extensions and basic and yeah it's very cool actually it connects it connects programming with everybody stated you can and I create I create basic toolkit application for all kinds of all kinds of job for example the county sheet I use I say that the county sheet actually including the county sheet for my for our for my trip trip here and also need a sign up book for example the inside of sign book for this time work I use basic to create for this attendees this I use basic to create a sign book yes I use ready to create sign book also mmm I use it to create more that sweatshirt and yeah I use it could be able to express it and I used it to create actually I used to create could be a magical painting this is some work I attend I attend to a contest of design contest to create some more some graphic using this is basic image and I use I use basic use macros who create this and yeah you can see that it's actually screw screw screwing around with these with its head yeah and also I create piano for example piano with piano no it's too big I create piano and sent to send to my friends our local community say that this piano is broken and can anyone fix it welcome means that it can be played and it can even face it fix it and it's in it's in the Christmas time so the actually it's a quest and the answer is would be that oh sorry the song is small yeah and afterwards I can I can just yeah and afterwards I can just play yeah and then it like unlock this unlock this piano hey sorry and also I create Christmas cards yeah I create Christmas cards yes actually it's you can say it's a routine work it's not a routine works yeah basically it's cool but actually in the meanwhile and also the Pokemon Pokemon go IV calculator as I talked about this morning but I still basic is suck basic sucks since for example if I restore my system and I forgot to explore that if all it's board this basic macros and I lost everything because it really is sits inside some hidden directory in your hard disk also I can so if I really cannot synchronize my basic macro between my laptop my office PC and my home PC unless I keep it's exporting in supporting everything every day so this sucks and suddenly the ID is still sucks and the microsoft is supported as XML so I cannot do things through completed things that ID does not support for example regular expression search and replace yeah or using grid or awk to do some core refactoring and many more you know so I start to wonder is it possible that I can write basic macros outside of basic ID and what would I need what would I need if I want to do this if I want to do right basic macros outside of basic ID first the first off is that I can keep a source directory of a directory of source files whenever I update my source then I copy and paste by hand manually into the basic ID but this will actually won't work because it really this is really sucks so the other the other solution would be is it possible if I can create a tool to do this today the robot to do it whenever I update my very my macro source is a copy and pasted into the basic ID and to do this I have to be able to read and update basic macros with basic macros with UNO so you know so this remind me of something I similar I've done before just cock more sake let's see cock more sake yes this is I create my my purchase cock more sake and sorry in my project common side I created more sake of each frame in a video is frame in a video and after I inserted injected a piece of macro into the system into a document so that I can play it so in common why I did is to find a for a document there's a property basic libraries and I find out a basic libraries and then I can to manage the macro things in the document now I'm working on the system source system system storage for system and user basic macro storage they are stored together in a different location the application script library container service and I can use surface manager to create it the below the code below is Python and then this container has has has XM X name SS interface so I can use his by name or get by man to test and obtain the library a basic library and then come for basic library the basic library is X name container I can use all this thing get by name replace by name insert by name and remove by name to match the to match the models inside obtain model with get by name it's actually only a string text string and the content contains one or more my basic macros as sub routines so the logic is logic is actually very simple simple synchronized between files and the files and the basic storage when update when I want to update the basic math modules that's the most thing I do if I found missing basic modules and I added and replace the updated basic macros and delete the deleted the obssulated micro modules and when I want to update the source files this is real but I do it more I also do it often I add a missing source files and replace updated source files and delete obssulated source files yeah so actually this is quite simple directly here and I wanted to put in a test library okay it says added the four modules are added so if I go to the tools macros organize organize macros tools macros over a mass basic you can actually as a test is added here yeah the test the four modules is added once you get I play it again first I remove the test library and then I run it again so it is added yeah so now if I want to delete I want to so if I want to for example I come out this line okay then you'll tell you just tell you update the updated part okay or if I remove this okay you also add a missing part and get the I remove the load and remove the obssulated part and also I can I can also download this this take these sources yes so with this tool I can simply I can simply work with among different computers and what's a good what a good of using this what's a good of synchronizing the working out of also with this I can work with different text editors for example I can even use napkins or xclips to do to develop my macros and what's a good of it first of all I since I know I can now I can put it on me in my home on dirty I can store my source file in whatever my what I want for example the cloud storage the directory and use cloud since services and assess your source code everywhere and secondly I can apply so and version control system for demo CVS subversion git or miracle okay and I can yeah I can use it to match my source code and then I can develop developer can host your service on the pop on all kinds of popular whole source hosting website serve service for example we have or source watch or copies my console copies or for example launch power load elite or seven not yes and also another benefit is that I can apply I can apply your tools to auto main extension building mostly I believe mostly people are still and mostly people are building extension with the background tools and that that was actually great but it it takes time and if you are really doing very intense development it's up it kills you so we build tools I can for example use make or use and attach and or use see make and you can open this process for intense development and then additionally you see we can the dead beach project layout rules or temporary and templates to simplify automotive project management for example for my Pokemon or go IV calculator it is it is entirely in my dropbox so I can assess it everywhere in my home office in my office PC my home PC and in my laptop and also I don't have to worry about if my heart is dice it's still there also I use keep to for version control and I host my project and g-hop and also I use anti-apache and I choose and because and course platform and I choose and to to build and release my project so this is the project this is the project rule project structure of my Pokemon goal IV calculator the OST directory is just the director just the same directly as the as when you unzip the unzip the intake extension and also there's the Pokemon goal IV that's a main source and also I can have a build XML I can have the Remy I can have very urgent and I can host it on github so you are welcome to try it yes and it's on p github and also on PYPI and you can just find all BA all bed all of its basic sink and you are welcome to try it thank you do you have any question question I welcome I hate no question you know any question oh I hate it okay thank you


One of the things I encourage men to do is actually talk to women and listen to some of their stories. Because what you will hear is I was touched when I was five and because of that it led to this type of behavior and this type of stuff that happened in my life. Now, unfortunately, a lot of boys have those same experiences. We don't frame it that way though. We say, oh, he liked it.  But those same results come from the boys. So these men who are promiscuous, we call them drug boys. It's the same trauma. It's expressed differently. But we don't empathize with men. We only empathize with women. And that was the whole point I was making about if we're really going to see a community with better men and better women, the equity of empathy has to be there. But we can't just focus on all the things that because, a lot of dudes are suffering for sure. They're going through it. But we don't think about it like that. And unfortunately, the messed up part about it, we reward them for being more damaged. We don't reward healthy men. We don't reward healthy masculinity. We just complain about it. Because a healthy man is everything to me nowadays. And I have to say for me, I learned to value men more and not look at them as like this thing or like this. Because for me, a man was always like a mission, a toy, something to play with. And so this year, I literally have to say this year, I really took the time to value men, listen to them and be their friend more than just like, what can you do for me? And I'm not even a, what can you do for me financially, Saffa girl? I'm just like, I want you to come over here. I want to see you like, what can you do for me? What what you mean? Like what triggered that change for you? My breakup. I had a breakup last year. And so I felt like we fast forwarded that relationship. And I never learned how to be a friend to a man before, never. And I feel like if I, I wasn't a real friend to me ever, I don't think, I don't think I was to say how I'm a friend because I love a girl. Like I love my girlfriends, you know what I'm saying? I didn't value men in the same way because like I said, I look at them as toys, right? So with my ex, that's good. That's powerful. That's good. I'm just saying that's good. So with my ex, I really wanted to be serious with him, but we were moving like super fast. And then like, he abandoned a relationship. So then I had to take a look with him like, okay, so ain't no man going to stop talking to you for no reason. You get what I'm saying? Sometimes yes. But then at the same time, I can't sit up here and be like, I didn't do anything at all. So I had to retrait like accountability. What do I do? What could I have done? And not saying that it's completely my fault. However, I play a part because everybody play a part when you're in a relationship. So what part did I play? What could I have done that I probably feel like if it was the other way around, I wouldn't have wanted them to do that to me. And so it took me a little minute. It took me a little while to get it together. But I figured out what it was and I apologize. He never responded to me apologizing, but I did it for me because I felt like I needed to free myself from, if I hurt you, I need to apologize and say that I hurt you. And regardless, if you accept my apology or not, I know that I did that for me. And so I can give what I'm saying. I want to throw this question to the both of y'all. Who wants to go first? It doesn't matter. Okay. Porky, you go first. All right. Why do you think it is so difficult for most women baseline to empathize with men? Take your time, man. Yeah, I got to think. I expect something good from you because you got time now. Honestly, because kind of like what did you say, we don't take the time to get to know men as people. A lot of times it's get to know a man to see where we could go. A lot of that male and female friendship thing, more so in this day and age, to me, it's more so non-existent than it used to be. Because some of my best friends in this world are men. And I talk to them like I talk to my homegirls, sometimes to their chagrin. But they call me bro sometimes too just because we have that relationship. But when you take the time to get to know men as people, you have a new respect for them. But in the same token, when a man takes the time to get to know a woman as a person, you're able to let down those walls that otherwise, and bear that wouldn't be there. Like you're not so focused on she wants me to have this, this, this. I want to look like this, this, this. No, I can see you at your worst. I've seen you broke it. And I'm okay with that. And a lot of times we're putting on airs, we're putting on these facades and these shows, so you don't get to know the real person as a person. It's more so for the, I guess for the hunt, I guess I'll say, rather than for that relationship. So maybe if we start working on getting relationships with men and women downpacked, then we could have less, you know, space. I think it's, we don't, we don't take that time to get to know them as people rather than just male, female. Right. Right. Then when I agree, but I definitely agree and it all comes down to, I think a lot of times too, we have this idea of what a man should be, whether it's planning in us as a young girl, what our mothers told us with other women and said what a man should be. So we dehumanized them and we look at them as this robot. And I can say for myself, I've had somebody tell me, you act like I'm a robot, like I don't have feelings. Well, I didn't think you did really. You're strong. You're supposed to be strong. You're supposed to show up. I'm the one that's supposed to show the emotions, but when you get to know a man and the makeup of a man, they can be just as vulnerable as us. They're just as broken as us, just as traumatized as us. They just internalize a lot because men don't speak. When a man gets quiet, he's thinking. We do a lot of talking because we're emotional. And so men, they do a lot of thinking. And so I think it's just, we don't get to know them and say, okay, who are you? Not what can you be to me as a woman? Can you be a husband? Can you be a provider? Can you be a father? Can you be XYZ? But who are you as a man? Let me get to know you and be a friend and see how we can come together as one. And I can be of support to you to undergird you because I'm the helpmate. So therefore I'm going to help you be all that you can be is the army say, but I got to get to know who you are as a man and the makeup of you opposed to what everybody has told me what a man should be. A husband should be this. And so now I got this game plan in this rulebook and this list of what my husband should be.  And celebrate the beauty and the vulnerability of a man. You have to encourage that vulnerability. And that's the biggest compliment as a woman you can get from man to open up to you and be vulnerable. That means he sees you as a safe place. And a lot of times as women, we want that safe space, but we don't provide that safe space. But when a man can say, oh, I can come and talk to you about my day or what I'm dealing with or that I'm emotionally just all over the place, that's a compliment. But a lot of men don't feel safe enough to do so. So it's hard to get to know him because we don't give him a safe enough space to be who he is. So we meet the representative because they're under so much pressure to make us feel like I'm this man that she wants me to be opposed to this is who I am taking to leave it. My take on it would be, I feel like the world has blinded women in a sense of looking at men as a masculine power. So consistently we'll look at masculine so we can deal with everything. So we'll constantly look to deal and accept everything that comes our way and not have an opinion about it.  If you complain about your feelings and emotions to me, right? If I'm trying to express myself, the woman is going to say I'm weak. So a lot of times the man is going to go back into a place of not feeling like he can express himself because it is power in his expression. But if he can't express it because the woman don't allow him to, then it's never an export for him. He's never going to export how he's feeling. So then he keeps that in because the world says he has to be masculine. No lie. I saw this. Well, I was, I don't know who did it, but there was some rapper or somebody famous who his girlfriend bought him a car or something recently. And he's like a rapper, hard damn, he's been in prison, all this stuff. And he cried. He was like nobody's ever done this for me before. And I was sitting in this room with people and a young lady was talking about it. And her reaction to it was, I was like, ew, you know, I'm in a prison.  And in my head, I said, this is why we have a problem because he said, the man said that no one has ever done something of this nature to him before.   What are we doing? If we, if we can't have that, what are we doing? And most men are raised that way. Brothers that have sons in there. That's the sun ain't allowed to cry. You're not allowed man up, man up. So that's burning their brain already. So you kind of have to help deprogram them as their woman, as their partner to say, it's okay. It's all right. I ain't gonna tell nobody.     You just, no, now he's retreated. So now you've used it as leverage and as ammunition. He never trusts you again. Never part. And he's going to find somebody else. For sure. Period. I don't want to put all the blame on women. I think. Oh, we're not doing that. But that's true.  When you study history, masculinity is about dying well. Masculinity and death are kind of correlated, right? He died a hero. Exactly. But it's whether you died marching into a coal mine and an oil rig, marching into battle, whether you killed your dreams to protect or provide for you. A lot of dudes wouldn't go to school because they had to work the field to, you know what I'm saying? So masculinity is about, in some sense, dying well and how you're remembered.  He didn't do this enough, did this enough. If he died to tomorrow, man, you see what I'm saying? So with that being said, there's never been an incentive for men to be emotionally expressive. There's more of an incentive for us to be callous, for us to be rough and rigid enough to be able to bear whatever pains come with battle or work or politics or whatever the case may be, from the villages of Africa all the way to the United States. So with that being said, I think we need to be careful about that there seems to be like a growing condescension amongst women. And you kind of alluded to it, episode one, when you said men need to tap into their femininity. There's this sense of a healed man or an ideal man is a man who is relative to women, who is closer to femininity, without acknowledging all the reasons why your brother's son can't cry. Like it's nice for him to cry, but in the real world, he can't cry. And his ability to compartmentalize things and be able to act accordingly is more valuable than his ability to cry. And we need to be honest about that, because unfortunately, especially a lot of young boys, whether it's from women or whether it's from the world, just like media generally right now, they're getting mixed messages.  I want you to be communicative and emotionally intelligent, but the guy who had me bent over is none of those things.  We're talking out both sides of your neck because your words and your idealism are advocating for one kind of masculinity while simultaneously rewarding a different type of more traditional type of masculine thing. Because y'all not going, if you saying we're going to be with the F boys, but we want our husband to be the good guy. Yeah, you want T.D. Jason and the young girl soon. Not T.D. Jason, but I don't want me to wonder them because I'm close to the Bible, but I'm a little far removed from over this time. T.D. maybe Dr. Darius, is that what goes out of it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. T.D. Lowell. T.O. That's Uncle T.D. Child Listing. So, but men don't necessarily take the whole series either. You get what I'm saying? But y'all don't want y'all wives to be, y'all want y'all wives to be a certain type of way or different than what the whole is.