Welcome, everybody, to the Private Property Farming Podcast. My name is Marlene Walker, and thank you so much for joining us this evening. I'm your host every Tuesdays and Thursdays, 8 PM, right here at the Private Property Channel. This is the Farming Podcast once again. But don't forget that we do have other podcasts related to property, buying a first home, and beautiful luxury houses that are on show across the South African region. So be sure to follow all our podcasts, which air during the week and on weekends, to get all your property information and have all your questions around property answered. And most importantly, get some time to browse through the available properties that are up for sale or up for rent. And also visit our website for any more additional information. But specifically on the Farming Podcast, if it is your first time watching the podcast, thank you. We've just tuned into the right podcast related to agri, food, and farming needs. We do have our YouTube channel under the Private Property Platform, and you could go on to the Farming Podcast playlist to also watch all the other 80-plus videos that we've done so far since the season started. Today, I'm quite excited because I'm joined by two females in the food and agriculture space. It is woman's month after all, and we're taking full advantage of this beautiful month that we have dedicated to us woman. And we need to constantly encourage women to always partake and have an active role in the food and agriculture sector. So they're not strangers to the show. We've previously had them both on their each individual episodes. Again, you could go on to YouTube and Google Monday, my Friday, or Dominika Alberts, who are our guests this evening. And just to update yourself on the conversations we've previously had with them on their own individual episodes. So tonight is more of a panel, and our topic is all about the benefits of growing your own food. And we've got the right experts. And I'm joined by Mandy, my Friday, from Naledi Farm. And I'm also joined by Dominika Alberts. But I want both of these ladies to introduce themselves. Ladies, Mandy, Dominika, thank you so much for joining us this evening. How are you doing? Thank you, Mali. Thank you for inviting us. We are doing wonderful. Likewise. Thank you. I just want to start off by asking Mandy, if you could please introduce yourself. Tell us about Naledi Farm and what it does. OK, so we are an agritourism space, right? The way I define agritourism simply is where agriculture meets tourism. So we take people that come from the city, give them a chance to come and walk with bare feet and touch the soil, come and see how things grow, where the food comes from, just to get away from the city bus. So that is in a nutshell. We have various programs and things that we run from our Sunday lunches to kiddies' camps and garden workshops. We are instanturian, not very far away from fallways, a stone throw away from the CBD, Pretoria, and Johannesburg. But really in a nutshell, we are in agritourism space. If I could just quickly add on this space. Naledi Farm was born out of a children's book that I wrote in 2010. The book is called Simonyame Roholy Naledi, which means In the Vegetable Garden with Naledi. That was in 2010. We now wanted to create a physical space where people could walk into this vegetable garden. So we're all about growing our own food. We're about working with our hands and getting that so much needed vitamin D and exercise out in the fresh air. Yeah. Wow, sounds exciting, Mandien. Obviously, combining tourism and agriculture I think that is so beneficial because not so many people are exposed to own food gardens or how the agritourism space works.  Maybe just introduce yourself and what does a herb enthusiast mean? Well, basically, I live in the city. I don't have a lot of space. I wanted to grow vegetables, but I don't have a lot of space for that. So I decided to go into the herbs. And it's easy to grow. It's interesting. There's so many things you can do with it, medicinal properties, insect repellents, et cetera. So I've got a passion to do that. I've also got a general passion for gardening. And yes. Right, that's fantastic. So let's get on to the show without further ado. And I will oppose this question. And either of you are more than welcome to answer. So the topic is about the benefits of growing your own food. And we live in such a fast-paced life, especially for us residing in the urban areas, where we can just simply download an app. We have Uber Eats. We have Mr. Delivery. All the retailers now have their own apps where we can just order food online at the top of your button. So why do we need to grow our own food? OK, let me go first. I think, really, for me, it is about the peace of mind that comes with knowing what's on your plate, because you know exactly what you have put in the soil. You know that your food has no chemicals, so you know that it's good for your children. It's loaded with nutrients. Most of the food that we buy in the supermarkets and big retail stores, some of them come from faraway countries, like I always say. Places that we have never even visited before. They travel miles and miles on helicopters and ships.  So it's about the peace of mind, of knowing exactly that what you're eating is good for your body and it's good for your children's bodies. Absolutely. Dominika, do you want to add there? Yes, I have to say I agree with her, because these days whatever you grow need to feed your body. And the way in which they grow the vegetables these days in bulk and different techniques they use that's unhealthy for our bodies, obviously it's better to know what goes onto your plate, as she said. I truly agree with that. And also to get a love with the kids, to teach them to grow, to take the responsibility to grow their own food.  So they get that whole experience with sowing the seed and planting their own plants, seeing it come up, and then it nourishes their body and just that whole love for that, yes. So I think it's important. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. Just to add, and it's also about convenience. I know we talk a lot about convenience stores, but there's nothing more convenient than going to your backyard and picking just what you need. Now, if it's five leaves of spinach that you need, you pick those five leaves of spinach and there is no waste. So there is no better convenience for me than that. Yeah, and you don't need an app and data to download that, you know. It's just a few steps away and then you've got your spinach. Exactly. And another thing that I also want to add is that when I started growing my own herbs and a few lettuce and things that I would use every day, that feeling of growing out in your garden, picking your own things and putting it in the salad bowl and you're so proud of your hard work that went into growing that, that feeling of satisfaction. Yeah, so I think, yeah, that's also, and me being a teacher, there's something I focus on a lot is creating that sense of responsibility in the children. I'm talking to them about it every day. Grow your own food so that you can learn responsibility. You can learn patience. And then when you harvest it, that feeling of I have achieved it. I've grown my own food and it's just more delicious because you've grown it yourself. So, yes, definitely that as well.  The person who puts food on your table controls you. So it is that sense of being independent, being able to do things for yourself. You're not dependent on somebody to provide a meal for you, but this is things that you're able to do for yourself. So breaking away from that chain that binds all of us. Wow, that is quite profound. He who feeds you controls you. Absolutely. I've never heard of that before, but yeah, that's quite profound. Dominika, we have a question here actually from one of our guests that asked, and her name is Colleen Janssen. And they would like to know, the comment is, or question is, would love to have my own herb garden. Any advice, please. But before you answer that, which pretty much ties into the question that I wanted to know is that, you know, you said your herb enthusiast, you started growing herbs in your own garden, you know, living in the city. Tying it to Colleen's question is that, what are the basics around herb gardening? If you could please share. Okay, I would say the first thing is that you, you need to know that most herbs need, at least, you know, the majority of herbs needs at least six to eight hours of sun a day. Like your rosemary needs a lot of sun, your thyme needs a lot of sun, your mint can go with semi shade. So the point that I want to make is you need a spot where it's going to suit that specific herb that you want to grow. And so the basic is first this positioning where you're going to place it. If you do not have a lot of space and you've got a balcony that has direct sun, you know, six hours minimum, then that's perfect. So all you need is a container, literally. I love growing herbs in containers because herbs can sometimes take over the garden. Like you should never plant mint in your beddings because it just takes over, literally. It comes out everywhere. So it's good to actually start with containers. Then rosemary, for instance, then most herbs needs very good draining. So to combine your soil, your potting soil, you can use, for instance, I'm a fan of the Melancian's potting soil because it has a lot of nutrients in, but I mean any potting soil that you are comfortable with using. You mix it with a little bit of compost. You mix it with sand to get better drainage. And then it's literally just placing it in the correct spot where there's enough sun or maybe enough shade if it needs a little bit more shade than sun. So yeah, and then fertilization. And that's it. It's really, really the most easiest thing in this world to grow is a herb. Right, so the biggest takeaway is there's good drainage and enough sunlight. Manti, can you come into this one as well in terms of what are the basics of starting a vegetable garden? Like how do you know which vegetables to pair with? Can I just start off with beetroot and potatoes and onions at the same time? Can I farm tomatoes and maybe carrots? What are the basics around starting a vegetable garden? So like with Dominica, the first thing is sunlight. Most people have, I don't, I think it's just a misconception that veggies don't like the sun. Vegetables love the sun. So six hours minimum to eight hours, if you can get more, you know, the better the yield. So sunlight is number one. Number two, and most importantly, is the soil. There's nothing that you can do on bed soil. So make sure that you prepare your soil very well with good calm manure or compost. You can even do your own compost at home. You don't even need to buy it. So sunlight, good soil, and then knowing what to plant when. Like now we are in summer. So we're looking, summer is easy because summer we have a whole variety of things that we can plant, you know, from your beans to your melons, if you have space and maize and potatoes. But when we go to the winter, that's when we look at things like your leafy greens, your spinach, your broccoli, your cabbages, which are more cold resistant. But those three things, the sunlight, the soil, and knowing what to plant when. Because most times people fail in their gardens because they plant, you know, a certain veggie at the wrong time of the year. And then they wonder why their tomatoes didn't grow until they planted them in the middle of winter and tomatoes don't like frost. So it's knowing when, yeah, knowing when to plant what. Yeah, and sticking on to the basic ladies, Dominique and Manti, you know, for anybody that's listening to both of you ladies with giving, you know, such practical advice. And one is thinking, hmm, I've never started my own vegetable herb garden before. I hear you saying sunlight. So now maybe I need to go out and figure out, you know, where's the best place for my potential crops to get sunlight, but sticking on the basics really. You mentioned sunlight, water and the soil.  Like what are the basics that one can just start with in their house to just start growing their own food? Let me quickly go. I think number one, you don't need a lot of space. So, you know, we don't need hectares and hectares of land. Really vegetables like spinach, tomatoes and lettuces and all your salad leaves can easily grow in containers. So don't think, okay, I'm in a small place or I'm in a flat, I don't have enough space. So space issues, we deal with them by introducing containers, you know, you can use tires, you know, all tires from cars, you could use shoe.  And then what is it that I wanted to say? And then number two is time, right? A lot of us think that we don't have enough time. What I always say is you must look at how much time you have and then center your garden around that. So if you have 15 minutes in a week to spare, look at what you can plant, you know, that only needs 15 minutes care. I have about, let's say I have about four hours a week so I'm able to grow a whole lot more. So look at the amount of time that you have and then plan your garden around that. So it's not really time consuming, you don't need fancy equipment, you don't need a lot of space, but it really is using what you have, your own space, your own time, and your own resources, you know, and making the most of them. Dominika, thank you for that, Manti. Dominika, what are some of the basics with regards to herb farming? You know, when you speak about herbs and we hear rosemary, mint, et cetera, and you mentioned that mints just run, mint runs quite wild, you know, and people could be thinking, oh my gosh, it could be growing on my wall. But what are some of the basics? Should just start herb farming, that can be used ice cream containers like Manti was saying, be creative, tires, you know, in containers. So what, do herbs take a lot of space? What are some of just the basic stuff that you don't have to step out of your house, go to the shop and buy, but just start planting. Yes, now herbs absolutely, it does not take a lot of space. Obviously rosemary can become a very large bush, lavender can become a very large bush, but you can contain it, but obviously I'm cutting off some of the pods, you know, if you want to just maintain the growth of the herbs. So it does not take a lot of space and you can literally grow it in your windowsills. You don't even need to grow it outside. And again, I've actually read that they say that it's better to grow herbs in plastic containers rather than terracotta pots. And we know terracotta pots are extremely expensive these days. And but the soil dries out very, very quickly. Whereas in plastic containers, it's as if, you know, the soil lasts a bit longer. And you can go to any shop, even at pick and pay and checkers, you'll see that the plastic containers aren't that expensive. And a small, let's say 15 by 15 centimeter plastic container is enough for one season to grow your mint in or your thyme or your rosemary would need a little bit more space. But mint and thyme and oregano and those herbs actually doesn't need very large containers. So as I said, if you don't have time to look after them or you feel that your garden is not the great place to grow them, then start with small plastic containers. I think they cost like 7.99 for a 15 centimeter one or at maximum 20 Rand. And you fill them with soil and you make sure you add some bone meal to it and yeah, and compost. And to them, yeah, you can grow it in your windowsill. You don't need a lot of space or even on your balcony, on a little table and it's easy to get. Wow, great. Mindy, I have a question here from one of our viewers. Her name is Queen Taco and she asks, my plants are getting eaten by insects. How can I prevent this? Q, okay. We live with insects. They're part of the environment, they're part of nature and not all insects are bad, right? You know, I always say that if you go to a store and you find a perfect tomato with no spots or anything on it, you must worry because yeah, it means if insects, you know, didn't way way way too afraid to eat it, you should also be afraid. Why is it that it is spotless? So our insects are actually our standard of approval that the food is good for us. Obviously, if the infestation gets too big then you have to deal with it. But what we do is that we always say we confuse the enemy. So we don't just plant a whole row of spinach but we mix in marigolds and nastachiums and lavender, you know, all sorts of herbs in between the veggies so that, you know, that insect if it smells that wild garlic there's like, okay, I'm not going there, I'll rather go there. So we confuse the enemy. Plus it also looks beautiful, you know, to add flowers and herbs in between your cabbages and your spinach. I mean, imagine if we have a whole field of cabbages and they just get wiped out, you know, once by whatever insects, but if they have those flowers and herbs in between, you know, they help. That's what we call companion planting. Yeah. And I know, Manti, you're an advocate for organic farming using minimal or no pesticides at all, just maybe to sum up what you just said, just to answer, Queen, you mentioned that, you know, you do companion planting, et cetera. Are there any also, any DIY or home remedies sprays that we could spray on our plants that could give up a pungent smell to maybe this beetroot or onions or potatoes that we're farming? Do you have some home remedies that one could use? What I normally do, if you know marigolds, marigolds have that very, very pungent, strong smell. So marigolds, chili, garlic, and like a teaspoon of your liquid soap, you mix that up in water and you leave it there for about a day or two. The longer it stays, the more potent it becomes.  Yeah, fantastic, thank you so much. And Dominica, you know, my dimension, like when you start to grow your own food, you need to know which vegetables to plant in which season. Now that we're going into the summer slash spring slash summer season, what are some of the best herbs to grow in these new upcoming seasons? Well, in spring the best time, it's actually the best time for all your, most of your herbs, especially your rosemary, which I'm very fond of because it's very easy to grow. And I use it because I love lamb and it's amazing to cook with lamb, et cetera. So rosemary is one that you can start growing now. And also mint, it's the season now to plant them. September is the month to plant your mint. And that is an awesome time also to plant. And yeah, then just your basic herbs like your oregano, your thyme. And you have different types of thyme. There's actually four types of thyme that you can get. And some of them are very beautiful, they creep. So you can even use them as a ground cover. And so yeah, September is the month. You can start planting most of the herbs. Wow, I've got a challenging question for both of you ladies, you know. And this is coming from me being typical and trippinier. And maybe people who are, we have retailers or greengrocers selling maybe organic vegetables and herbs or are living within the communities and are looking for business.  So if I run a small store right now and I'm listening to you two beautiful ladies telling everybody to grow their own herbs, what do you say to people would say, I think I don't wanna grow my own food because I rather support X and Y greengrocer in my community, you know, buying vegetables and so forth. What would you say to someone who has that type of thinking? Let's start with you, Dominika.  So I've got, you know, I feel I wanna just inspire everyone to start their own vegetable gardens and start growing their own food. And I know, you know, you get the people that are just not into gardening. They just not, they don't wanna get their hands dirty. They just not into it. And, but I have to start again with a previous podcast. I also told you where my love for gardening started. And it was actually at a point where I realized I need to get something that takes me away from the hustle and the bustle and the whatever the movement of the city and just get into a quiet space. And I think if you, you might feel intimidated by the whole idea and that might cause you not to want to start because it's just like it's not, you're not interested in it. It looks difficult and it intimidates you. So I think just to start with herbs, because we all cook and we all, and it's lovely to use fresh herbs rather than dried herbs that's old, you know. And it's nice to use fresh herbs that you got out of your own garden. So just start with that. And if you truly not into gardening, by all means support the people that are farming. But I think that as South Africans, we need to start advocating agriculture growing because I think it's our strength as a country. Most of the food that we create are being sent overseas. And we have a wonderful opportunity for employment creation. So I think if the people start realizing that this holds, it's a key for the youth of our country, then and start supporting that cause. I think at least do that. If you don't want to start growing your own vegetables, at least support the fact that the youth must get a real awakening of agriculture and growing things because they've got such a, you know, they have a lot of knowledge that their grandparents can carry over to them. Self-subsistence communities or self-subsistence communities that learn to grow their own food for generations. And the youth need to learn from them, because it's basic practices to grow healthy food. And yeah, I think just start advocating that. Start supporting that. Then already you are doing a great thing. So yes, that's my heart. Mandi, do you want to add anything there to that question? And I think just to agree with Dominica, yes. I think the only reason why you'd be like, I don't want to grow my own vegetables is because perhaps you don't know where to start. You feel intimidated and you think it's just this overwhelming thing.  And soon, trust me, you'll be addicted. The benefits of growing your food are just, you know, yeah, you can talk until the sun shines, you know? From just a health point of view, from the therapy that you get, yeah, it's just a very long list. So get a mentor, get somebody to take you along. There's always room for your local grocery stores, because it's not all of us that have space to grow pumpkins or to grow maize. So there's always room for us. But to agree with Dominica, yes, let's encourage young people to get their hands there and to be independent, like I said, and to be able to provide food for themselves.  It's because you mentioned so many critical, yet also technical aspects around growing your own food. And I like what you say, Mandi, is that some people just say, I'd rather go buy at the store because I just don't know where to start. But going into the technical stuff, like we've had our audience asking, how do I start? What are the basics? Where do I go if my plants get eaten by insects? Like, what is the best way for someone to start researching their information? Are there any online platforms that either of you have maybe always followed in just to assist you from Dominica I, growing your own herbs, Mandi, understanding and knowing how to do crop rotation or companion planting? So, you know, other than just going on to Google, what's the typical search methods one could start learning the technicalities around growing your own food and also are nursery supportive when you're buying your seeds or your plants, et cetera? Do they give some technical advice to make sure that at the end of the day, you have a successful crop to harvest? Maybe we could start with you, Mandi. I would say consult with the elders, hey? I mean, that's what I do. I have a grand, he's 10 and 90 this year, but he's passionate about growing his own food, you know? He's the one that I go to when I have big infestation of insects or when I just don't know what to do and he's, you know, he's like my garden advisor. So those people are there, they're in our communities, in our circle of friends, there is somebody who will know and who will be able to help you rather than going on to Google and you'll be bombarded with pictures and beautiful pictures and you'll want your garden to look like that, you know? Instant key. And you'll be so frustrated when that doesn't happen. So get a friend, somebody who can take you along step by step. We also have that offer that service at Naledi Farm where we take people step by step and help them establish their own gardens. That is what I would recommend. Dominika, I know you have a YouTube channel. Where can people go for technical advice or information around herb farming? Yes, I know that Google is not, it's not the place to go because you are bombarded with a lot of information and it confuses you. But I think I have to agree that, you know, going to elders and asking them because they have been around before all these fancy things and before potting soil and compost and all that stuff, they've always used car manure and things like that when they grew their own gardens. And I mean, even stuff like that grass that they feed the horses, I can't remember what you call it. I think you would know, but anyway, people use that as mulch for instance. Lucerne, yes, that's the one, Lucerne. They use that as mulch, you know. Basic stuff that is, when you are farming or you have animals or chickens, you use what you've got and they've got that wisdom. So I think definitely elders, I have to agree.  And that has honestly helped me a lot as well with a lot of information. I've used that. And then Instagram page where I give advice, solely because I was struggling to get advice. So I've decided that I'm gonna share what I know as I learn, I share. And you will be surprised how many people need advice, how many people desire to get advice, basic advice, not paragraphs and paragraphs of information that they need to read. Literally just one basic information on how to grow. And I must tell you that to learn from trial and error is also the best thing. It's almost like when you get married, you cannot cook or you feel you cannot think. And then you take a few recipes, you master them and you've got the basics. So now you can make anything out of anything because you've got the basic. And I think it's the same with gardening.  Obviously, certain plants need shade, certain plants needs sun, but they all need nitrogen, they all need phosphorus, they all need potassium and it comes in the same forms in nature. So, and I think we've been given everything. And we've been given herbs to aid us in best control. We've been given herbs, the push and pull technique that the farmers use with different plants. They don't even need any chemicals. They don't even need anything more than just nature. I just wanted to quickly add to what Dominika was saying, you'll be surprised how many real life people with real gardens you'll find on Instagram. I'm part of now a big community of really life people who just readily offer advice and help. So, check who you follow on Instagram and that's how that's one way of learning and growing. Absolutely, community, community, community, that's the best place you could obviously get the information. And I like what you said, Dominika, as well, trial and error. It's not about getting a perfect first time round, it's just about testing and testing. And what you also said, Mindy, is also very, very profound because when you Google, you get to see so many information, so many pictures, you want your garden to look perfect and there's absolutely nothing wrong if you have a tomato with a slight blemish there. I really, really love this conversation, ladies, but just to some of the podcast this evening, I just wanna find out from both of you ladies, since that we are in Women's Month, what message would you give to women, to young girls, to young teenagers in the food and agriculture space? What last or final words would you give to people in the food and agriculture space or sector, specifically women? Dominika, maybe you could go first. All right, now, I think that women specifically need to get involved in agriculture. We have this idea amongst the women in the world, not just in South Africa or in Africa, that agriculture is a man's thing. Forming is a man's thing. I think we've got very few women farmers in our country and I really think that women need to start standing up in that industry, get involved and then I've just read a few facts that I wanna share and something that I was thinking about. They say that there's 62% of the country's youth aged 15 to 35 is currently unemployed and a lot of women are single moms, they don't have any support and I think that this can bring in income to them. There's a lot of opportunities involved in farming and it's not just with regards to so I mean, hydroponic farming is becoming a big thing these days and new technology that's being developed. So I think that there's so many opportunities for women out there to help them, to support their own families, to get an income and yeah, so I wanna truly inspire, not inspire, motivate the women of our country to get their hands dirty, start growing their own food, teaching their children because it comes from the mother's side. We are the teachers mostly, the teachers are children to be healthy, to eat healthy and to just recognize that in yourself and to start with teaching the youth also, the young people to fall in love with gardening again, fall in love with growing herbs, fall in love and also the medicinal properties of herbs that you can use to make your own products one day maybe. So yeah, that is my heart. I think they say that by 2050, 70% there will be a 70% increase in need for food because of other population in our country. So the future of South Africa is really, I think our country can move forward quicker when we get more involved in agriculture because it is an industry that is being underdeveloped currently and there's so much potential for that. Manti, your advice for women in food and agriculture? Okay, I'll talk to women in homes and communities. I mean, I think there is no reason why children should go to bed hungry, you know? Every home should be able to grow tomato, onions, spinach, you know, those basic things so that every child, when they sleep, they are fed. It doesn't take a lot. You don't need hectares and hectares of land. One or two rows of spinach will feed you for a very long time. A packet of seeds, I think cost about between 19 and 30 rent and those seeds could last you for generations to come. So there's really no reason why we are struggling with poverty, you know, when we have land in South Africa, when we have the sun and we have good rainfall.  Wow, thank you, ladies, for that. And my message to both of you, Mindy and Dominika, first I just want to thank you for your time this evening and for just being women who are teaching us about food, the importance of growing your own food, starting your own gardens and the many, many benefits that we have, you know. I don't see, like we mentioned social media, I don't see men teaching us about herbs, about, you know, companion planting, Mindy. Thank God it's women and it's true what they say, you know, you empower a woman, you empower a community and you've definitely empowered us as a private property farming podcast community about growing your own food. Thank you so much for your time this evening and I wish you a lovely Thursday evening and a great weekend ahead. Thank you, Mindy, thank you so much for having us. Thank you, it was lovely, yeah. It was absolutely lovely indeed. Thank you so much for watching the farming podcast this evening. We were joined by Mindy Mai Fahdi from Naleri Farm and Dominika Albers, a herb enthusiast. Mindy is based in Centurion, Dominika is based in Pretoria and today's topic was all about growing your own food, the benefits of growing your own food and we explored many, many things, you know, how to start your own food garden or herb garden using the basic stuff, you know. I think the biggest takeaway here is about sunlight, having good soil and making sure that your plants get enough water as well and what Mindy also said, it's about time, you know. If you have 15 minutes throughout the day, use that 15 minutes to go out to your food garden and just start something. Dominika mentioned that herbs don't take any space, you know, you could use small containers, use what you have in your kitchen and just start your herb garden, you know, you get many, many benefits out of that, you get to de-stress, you get to be art in nature, vitamin D and, you know, just starts to learn so many things about yourself whilst you're growing your own food but thank you so much to Colleen, to Queen, to every one of you that maybe has dropped in questions that have also watched this live, we truly appreciate your support. Happy Women's Month to all the women viewers and yeah, I'll catch you next Tuesday, eight o'clock same time, thank you. That's me signing out.


Years ago, on the far away island of Kyushu in Japan, a little boy sat on a beach. Junichi Masuda came on holiday many times to the peaceful shores of this island, spending time with relatives who lived there. There were many mountains to explore, and the seas and rivers were cool and very clean. Junichi would dive into the sea and catch fish with spears, collect shellfish and crabs, and go fishing with rods or with a net. He would go to the river to catch crabs and shrimps, catch sleeping fish in the river with his hands at night, and go hunting for beetles. He didn't know it yet, but these memories of going out to explore the world, to catch wild things, would go on to define his life. The memories he made here would one day be shared with the world. This is the story of Junichi Masuda, and of two decades of Pokemon games, culminating in Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, the tale of a little boy who became an accomplished musician, before bringing joy to generations of children. As a teenager, Junichi Masuda's great love was music. He played the trombone in the school brass band, although this did little to kindle his love of classical music. Then, one day, he discovered Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and The Firebird. He was hooked. He began collecting music from all the great composers, and reading their biographies, learning everything he could about them. He dreamed of what their lives must have been like. He only hoped that one day, his attempts at music could be considered this important. But classical compositions were only one element of Junichi's passion for music. He loved Slipknot and Lincoln Park, Underground and the Prodigy. He'd listened to whatever he could find from all around the world, and he saw merit in so many different genres. Yet, in spite of this, Junichi doubted that he could ever have a meaningful career as a musician. Instead, he studied computer graphics and programming at Japan Electronics College. This developing field would surely be a better place to find a lucrative profession. Imagine Junichi's surprise then, when he was hired not just for his programming skills, but also for his musical abilities. A small, fledgling studio, Game Freak, was in need of a composer. Junichi was hired with the understanding that his skill set would be useful in many ways. But first and foremost, he needed to create chiptune music for the studio's very first game, Quinty, also known as Mendel Palace. Junichi leapt at the chance, and very soon cemented himself as an important member of Game Freak's development team. Following Junichi's work on Mario and Yoshi, also known as Yoshi's Egg or simply Yoshi, the head of Game Freak, Satoshi Tajiri, decided to dust off an older game idea that had been put on hiatus. Pokemon Red and Green had been Satoshi's passion project for years, but it was ambitious, and the company simply didn't have the funding to complete his vision. But with the success of their latest game, they had enough money to finish the project. Junichi had a big role in making Pokemon Red and Green shine. While he did help with programming, his main responsibility was creating the sounds for the game, both the music and the sound effects, including the cries of all 150 Pokemon that were present in the game during development. When composing music, he needed to be in the right frame of mind. He'd isolate himself from everyone, as if he was with others, he'd end up getting distracted by chatting. It needed to be quiet. In a peaceful environment, Junichi could hum to himself as he came up with melodies. A more versatile musician might play notes on the piano, but Junichi preferred to keep things in his head, coming up with the melody first, followed by the drums and the bass. Oftentimes, he'd end up with the entire song composed solely in his head, carrying it around for a day or so to finesse it, before actually committing any of it to the computer. Perhaps this was because his memory was more reliable than the old computer equipment that Game Freak used while making their first Pokemon games. The machines were unreliable to say the least, and it wasn't uncommon for them to crash, deleting days worth of work in a single instant. Sometimes, the computers would break so spectacularly that they couldn't be used at all. Junichi would spend hours frustratedly trying to fix the machine so that he could salvage his work. By the end of the development on Pokemon Red and Green, Junichi had burned through three or four computers. But all of this hard work had paid off when, finally, the games became an incredible pop culture sensation. Children around the world were falling in love with Pokemon, embracing this little game that had been made by a handful of earnest game developers. Junichi was astounded to see just how far his work travelled as the entire planet gave in to Pokemonia. Junichi's favourite Pokemon was Psyduck. He liked ducks. He thought they were cool. He even had a picture of Psyduck printed on his business card so that everyone could very clearly tell what he did for a living. As the Pokemon boom continued to grip an entire generation of gamers, Junichi and his colleagues worked hard to complete a follow up title. Pokemon Gold and Silver were designed as an attempt to perfect the shortcomings of the original games, adding in even more creatures to be captured and fixing a lot of the gameplay problems and bugs that had held back the original titles. Satoshi Tajiri, who had directed the original Pokemon games, returned to direct Gold and Silver. But this time, he didn't work alone. Junichi was given the role of sub director, helping Satoshi with decisions and doing far more of the creative heavy lifting than he'd done before. Junichi still created the music for the games, attempting to one up his own musical creations from the first Pokemon titles. Some music was composed on an Amiga computer before converting them to midi data so that they could be imported into the Game Boy. Other tracks would be composed directly onto the Game Boy, a decision that made archiving and recreating the music very difficult years later. Gold and Silver were initially intended as the culmination of the Pokemon series, and it was expected that, after this, Game Freak would move on to something else. But these titles, yet again, went on to phenomenal critical acclaim and commercial success. It wasn't long before Game Freak began considering what to do next. But Satoshi Tajiri was finished with his story. He'd created the Pokemon games that he'd wanted to make, and he felt that it was best for him to hand the reins over to someone else. The torch was passed. Having already been involved in a directorial capacity on Gold and Silver, Junichi was the ideal choice to help lead the Pokemon series going forward. Now, Junichi had an unexpected opportunity. He was free to make whatever Pokemon game he wanted, focusing on whatever he felt was best. The big question was what exactly did Junichi Masuda want to make? As he pondered the opportunity that lay before him, Junichi decided that his own unique spin on the Pokemon world needed to come from the same place of childhood wonder as the original games. Pokemon Red and Green had been inspired by Satoshi Tajiri's memories of catching bugs when he was younger. So what similar memories could Junichi bring to the game? As he thought, Junichi remembered his time in Kyushu. He remembered hiking up tall mountains and relaxing by rivers and on sandy beaches. Junichi remembered hunting for fish and crabs and exploring the wonders of the ocean and a hidden undersea world. Yes, this would do. If Pokemon Red and Green had been a reflection of Satoshi Tajiri's adventures in rural Tokyo, then Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire would similarly pay tribute to Junichi's more oceanic adventures upon a small island. Ruby and Sapphire's version of Kyushu would be a little different. He turned the island on its side to create the basis for the game's world map, in the hopes that even those who were familiar with the geography wouldn't recognise too much of the island's landscape. He named the region Hoenn, which in Japanese kanji means rich and green. The game focused on exploring the seas, both on the surface and deep underground. Junichi hoped that this focus would help bring his own childhood adventures to generations of new children. Junichi really wanted to add an element of mystery and exploration to the games. One of the things that had made the original Pokemon games so successful had been the inclusion of Mew, a seemingly impossible to catch creature that became the basis of a thousand playground whispers. Junichi wanted to see how far this idea could be taken, and his team of developers were allowed free reign to come up with bizarre, unusual methods for catching Pokemon and unlocking new content within the game. The Pokemon Phoebus hides within a single lake in the game, its location shifting periodically based on a trendy phrase that is popular on the other side of the map. Legendary Pokemon Regis, Registeel and Regirock can only be accessed if the player pays attention to clues hidden in certain caves, written in braille, just to make things even more complicated. Some trainer battles and Pokemon catching events can only be unlocked if the player has access to an E-reader peripheral and a second Game Boy, and also requires very rare physical cards that were only ever released in very limited numbers. The rarest of these, the Eon ticket, sells for around $100 if unused. Perhaps the most obscure element from all of Ruby and Sapphire is Mirage Island. The odds of finding this island are 1 in 10,000, and of course, even if it does appear, it'll fade away 24 hours later. Despite Game Freak having once assumed that Pokemon was finished, Ruby and Sapphire kicked off a new wave of excitement surrounding the games. With Junichi at the helm, the Pokemon series thundered onwards, bringing joy to gamers of all ages. Junichi served as the director for Diamond and Pearl, followed by Black and White, and finally X and Y. He continued to oversee the music of all these games, even as Game Freak's staff grew larger. Junichi also enjoyed interacting with fans of the series and adding in little easter eggs and tricks. These often produce extra wrinkles to the mysterious algorithms that underpin a lot of the game's secrets, making it even more difficult to understand what makes the game tick. Pokemon fans first began to really sit up and pay attention to Junichi when they learned about the so-called Masuda method, a process for hatching special shiny Pokemon eggs. Shiny Pokemon are incredibly rare and are desirable because they have a slightly different color than most in their species. In a post on his blog, Junichi revealed that Pokemon parents who come from different parts of the globe and whose data is recorded in different languages are more likely to produce shiny Pokemon eggs. This was done in an effort to increase the use of the online global trading function that debuted in Diamond and Pearl. The Masuda method for hatching eggs quickly brought Junichi a lot more attention from fans around the world and he relished it, doing his best to stay in contact online and sharing thoughts and notes from his game design experience. For years, Junichi spearheaded the Pokemon game series. Finally, when Pokemon Sun and Moon came around, he stepped to the side, allowing a new director, Shigeru Omori, to take charge, although he still stayed involved as a producer on the games. Even as he relinquished control of the main Pokemon games to younger members of Game Freak, Junichi continued to innovate. He was involved from an early stage with the development of Pokemon Go and was even the person to originally suggest introducing brand new Pokemon through mobile games. But there was one more pair of Pokemon games that Junichi would direct. In what he decided would probably be his final turn in the director's chair, Junichi took charge of Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee. It felt fitting, to a certain extent, for his last time directing Pokemon games, Junichi was going back to where things all began. The goal behind Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee was to create something for younger fans. Pokemon Go had taken the world by storm, bringing many, many new players to the series for the first time. But not everyone could play the smartphone game. Junichi knew that many children were kept away from the experience because they didn't actually own a smartphone.  Junichi imagined this as the defining modern living room Pokemon RPG. Where the majority of Game Freak's previous games in the series had all been handheld and personal, this game would use the Nintendo Switch's docked mode to allow an entire family to play together. This meant including multiplayer modes. It meant creating a new way of throwing Pokeballs to catch Pokemon so that all members of the family, of any age or skill, could participate. It also meant simplifying the Pokemon experience as much as possible, removing a lot of the complexities that the series had picked up over the years. Junichi knew that many gamers spent hours hatching eggs to create the perfect Pokemon, but he didn't want this game to be that complex. This new project needed to be as simple and easy to understand as possible. As such, it was decided to remake Pokemon Yellow version, a tie-in to the early episodes of the Pokemon cartoon series. This game would be soft and light, matching the bright and friendly tone of the anime. It would feature characters and Pokemon that young audiences would be familiar with, and it would build on the simplest generation of Pokemon games. Only after committing to this game did the team realise that Let's Go Pikachu would be released exactly 20 years after Pokemon Yellow. This seemed like the perfect happy accident. Returning to the land of Kanto meant revisiting Satoshi Tajiri's original view of the Pokemon world. Junichi had done this before, but this time he wanted to bring a little of his own childhood experience, paying tribute to long summers spent playing in the countryside. The Let's Go games were designed to feel like they took place in the perfect, warm, sunny summer of adventure, yet again bringing youthful joy and wonder to the series. If this was to be the home console version of a smartphone title, Junichi wanted to approach the Let's Go games with a mobile attitude. The game was designed for a pick-up-and-play mentality. Instead of spending hours hacking through a puzzle in the overworld, players should be able to instinctively know where to go. This was easier said than done. Junichi felt that the original Game Boy games with their blocky pixels and monochrome color palette were so simple as to be fantastically clear. If there was something on screen, the player could probably interact with it. Not so with the new games and their pretty, detailed artwork. So the team worked hard to make the game's artwork carefully lead the player by the hand, making sure that younger players would never get lost. This improvement in graphical fidelity also meant coming up with a definitive answer to how Pokemon should move. Junichi wanted each of the game's 151 pocket monsters to have their own distinctive gate. He came up with his basic ideas for how each Pokemon would walk.  Then, he handed his ideas to the animation team and let them use some imagination to flesh out his initial thoughts. One that really caught his eye was Nidoran. The animator used reference footage of rabbits hopping around to create a natural movement animation for these Pokemon, and it fitted absolutely perfectly. In this way, the team hoped that their movement animations would feel rooted in the real world, even though the pocket monsters were inherently fantastical. Junichi's career as a director of main series Pokemon games might be drawing to a close, but his legacy was far from over. He had a lot of work still ahead of him. There was plenty more to do, and make, and see, and learn. As he handed the reins of Game Freak over to the next generation of developers, he left behind a lasting legacy of fantastic Pokemon games. His work had inspired millions of children of all ages around the world. The moral of the story is that you should never let go of your childlike sense of wonder and imagination. Junichi Masuda's early, formative experiences while on holiday in rural Kyushu created the basis for his entire career. He drew from these memories time and time again in order to build games that have won a special place in the hearts of gamers of all ages. Junichi never lost his spirit of adventure, the same spirit that burns within each one of us. Find your passion, whatever it may be, work towards your goals, and have fun while doing so. Your very own legend is about to unfold. A world of dreams and adventures awaits. Let's go.


What's going on everyone? Sam here with late sports cards. We are ripping 22, 23, pretty mosaic basketball, fast break, 5 box break, number 6, random team style. So look again at your random results. As always, you can find those on the website under the results tab, as well as a link in the chat. So good luck everybody. Let's go. They're a little behind everybody. So you know, Steph Curry Disco, Hardy and Disco of Anthony Davis. There's Grayson Allen Disco, Janus, a Ryan Rollins Disco rookie, and a couple of rookies on the back as well. That is Brance McGowan's mosaic rookie auto. Congrats to the Hornets. This is our only throw slider. Could be. All he's throwing. Again, guys, not going to do a recap on this one. Robert Williams, who are a little behind. So Jay Neive on the variation Disco. This isn't going to be that long of a break either. Got these done fairly quickly. Disco, Bulbul, Matherin, Gillian Williams notoriety. You miss Bulbul? Bulbul. You miss him? Sure. Marjan Pochamp. Chat or other play anyway, so mine's going to lead. Mosaic, Benedict Matherin, rookie. Keegan Murray rookie. Like Hwetzli. Kalkuzma Disco. Paolo rookie. That's the iron fox. Pretty much, chaos. Pretty much. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, like a two-week span. Yeah, there's Tramon Green. Paolo breakaway rookie. Yes, he was for a small bit of time. A pink, what a great time it was. Shosh Green to 20. Nice one there. Sohan rookie. Parry easy. Blue, Tyler Hero. Consider yourself Jingle to 85. You already did get Jingle just by joining the stream, Steve. That was Jabari, Jaylin Williams, and Walker Kessler all in one pack, not two. That. Diego with a spot in both of the iMac breaks. Chris S with an iMac spot. So thank you guys there. Got to get legacy filled up as well. That's coming up relatively soon. That is a six-box of legacy random team style. Yeah, you can throw the ball. Everything's a slider, dude, it's great. And a green. And Keegan Murray montage. This is a slider. Disco, Dorian Finney-Smith. DFS, aka Dillie Finney-Smith. Dorian Finney-Smith. Well, Bull does have a one-on-one logo man, rookie. Yep. Kevin Herter. Nice one there for the Kings. I, god, I miss this guy on the Hawks, dude. Red Velvet. Disco, Mark Williams. Chet Hongrin rookie. Disco, Victor Oladipo. And Benedict Matherin on the variation. Disco, Mo Bamba. Hallow rookie. Kyrie. Dyson Daniels. Disco. Shade-on. KCP Silver. Sohan rookie. Let's go, Coral. I need the Falcons or Texans, please. There's James Wiseman. Oshai Gvaji. The best I could do is the Cleveland Browns. Take it or leave it. What's up? DTO. True. That's Williams. Raven made him look silly. That is a bloop of Jalen McDaniels to the Sixers to 85. And the last pack of Box 2. It's easy. I didn't take much pressure there. Cat to 50 on the Purple Disco. Ivy rookie, McClung and Kennedy Chandler. Is it Mack McClung of Orlando Magic? Remember that as well? Wow. It's Magic McClung. Sold. $8. Magic Mack. That'll be a Lakeland Magic Legend paper. Soon to be Kissimmee Magic, I think. Oh, God. Chris Paul Disco. Jabari Walker-Kessler. Josh Giddy. Disco is Josh Giddy again. Wendel Moore, Jalen Durin and Damien Lillard break away. It's Jabari Walker on the pink to 20. Nice one there for the Blazers. As I can do as New England Patriots for you, Carl. We've got a redemption coming up. Oh, no, we don't have a redemption. It's upside down. Tyrese Halliburton, Red Audit. Brats on that one. They're Pacers. Nice one. Indiana. Jaden Hardy-Rookin. Jordan Goodwin and Max Christie. Yes, sir. That is a Gordon Hayward. Jeremy Sohan, variation. It's true. Carl, the Browns do hit. No, they really do. I like trolling the Browns, but that's actually legit. Damn, out of bio, Disco. Bear. Got any Terrell Pryor's form? Trade him to Caleb. Big Terrell Pryor, big OBJ guy. Yep. God, the miserable must that be. Just keep Cunningham to 85. Jeez. Why do you do that to himself? There's Chet Holmgren. No, no. Jabari Smith, Silver. Matherin, Fontecchio, and Taitai. Could use some more Christian Gonzalez. That's too bad he's out, man. We dig into a few, Carl. Yeah. Pat Conniton, Disco. Palo, Matherin Bracole. Disco, Grant Williams. Keegan Murray, Diabatte, and Matherin Intros. White Bull. Nice. Jalen Durin. Brats on that there. Pistons to 50. Is Jodan done for the year, Sohan? Is it confirmed he's done for the year? I guess Torn by Seth, so you probably don't come back from that. Jalen Durin, Disco, and J-Dub. All right, two boxes left, everybody. Good luck. Got select H2 coming up. Then we got 10 box Tuesday, and then we're in football. We also have a couple breaks at the end of the night. Two night with a couple of spots left. A piece. Yeah, right kicker, chaos is pretty much right. They're going to be expensive. There's Jalen Brunson, and you got Drake May and Ewers as well. And there's Travis. Yep, George. There's Laurie Markin, and that's a little generous of you. You agreed. You agreed immediately. It's a little generous of you. You agreed immediately. We've got Austin Reeves. Nice one there for the Lakers. Congrats, L.A. Clon Kennedy-Chan, let me drop you guys a link to Legacy really quick. Thank you for trying. D-back's up now, 4-3. Legacy at 14 to go, everybody. Yeah, Claypool is...  Claypool is not strong this time. That was such a waste of a trade. That is a... Jeremy Solon to 85. Nice one, Spurs. Chat Holmgren-Rookie. John Collins. Jaden Hardy. Let's go. Markel Fultz. Hello, Rookie. And Kai Reed. Warby Flat. Yes, sir. And Bloften to 85. There's more rookies coming out of this. Good to see the rookie color. Making an appearance. Of course, Bloften is A. Mathis Grizzly. Love that guy. Makes the big boys look good. Sean G with the Immaculate Luminosity Patches. Sean, appreciate that, buddy. James Wiseman-Silver. Sohan and Ivy. Yeah, those are slowly disappearing as well. I'm Axe under 10. That one's going to be very close to being under 10. Just 14 left now on Legacy Six Box. There's Bobby Portis Disco. Shade on Sharp Rookie. And all basketball is sold out outside of Contender's Optic Tiered. So we'll be going toward the end of the night, Josh Christopher. And base. Got some good teams still available in NT as well there. I'll mark down NT is heavily on sale. Purple, Benedict Matherin. 250. Congrats, Pacers. O'Shaig Bhaji and Mark Williams. And last pack here, David Roddy. Much on Bo-Champ? Much on Bo-Champ. Jake loves that. It's been the bucket to you. What's up? It's been the bucket to you. Oh, Matherin. It's been the bucket and the baller. It's been the baller's kind of taken, though. Yeah, you kind of sound whack if you do that. Joshua Kay with a spot in. I'm at collegiate. Jason H with a spot in. Contender's tiered. Thank you very much. That is down to five. I did, actually. Yes, I did. Oh, God. I did. Well, I saw the entire video. Tyrese Maxie. Oh, God. No, he kind of cleared his name, to be honest. Really? Because it's the first time he can legally talk about it now. Joellen Bied. Interesting. Barry Smith. Usually I hear about, I suppose some. Yeah, to 49, Jaden Hardy. Nice one there, too. The Mavericks on the rookie auto. Still don't like the guy. Because fans are hard-o's. Jason with a contender. Yes, sir. Jalen Dern. Thanks, Jason. Appreciate you, buddy. Jason H. There's a blue Siddiq Bay. 285. Jaden Ivy. McClung and Chandler. Disco Roy. And Chet. So, preacher. Preacher. What up, buddy? Loving the dynamic. He was on the mic. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh, yes. You know it. Bogdanovich, Klokko, Envy. Three teams also left in flawless football at the end of the night. PYT style. Kelly Ubrey on the gold. Going to the Hornets. The 10. Nathan has won their Hornets. Nathan, yep, with that spot. Timothy A with a spot in. I looked at it and I was in the middle of saying it and I just completely forgot. Happens to me very often. Marty Bush playing for the Philly. Two to the left. Benedict Matherin. Kessler. Haven't said that nearly. Yeah, I know. God, dude. Marty Bush. Jeez. Zion, Mosaic. Everybody's freaking out because you look like he's in shape now. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I think Lane's going to be at one in Orlando this week in a drive shack. It's one of the, one of those like golf, big, even Adams. Big golf drive places and yep. There's a show set up there. It's downtown Orlando. I think Lane said he might be going to Shantilly and Dallas as well. Yeah. He mentioned that in his live. Yes. And if there's a Tampa show, he usually goes like, Collecticon is there usually. There's a Tampa for that. The 10. Nice one there. Four of them. Yeah, he's almost always at Collecticon. Yeah, that's usually Lane traveling with the... Yeah. I'll hit a few stuff this year for sure. Oh, yeah. Definitely in Florida. There's Disco, Christian Brown, Rookie. And Shade on Sharp. That'll do it for the break, guys. Thanks again for the fill. Up next, select H2.


I am Harshad and today I am going to talk about designing XMPP for mobile as many of you may have used XMPP for chat apps or any real-time communication like cab apps or anything. So yeah, let me just give you a question. So currently I am working on draws. So it's a search engine where I am actually, just a minute, yeah. So currently I am working on draws. It's a search engine. So where I am actually indexing all the users, bots and you can talk to them in real time. Previously I was at Amazon and before that I was at Kiwi mostly working on Android and some web related stuff. So in this talk we are going to look at ways how we can optimize XMPP, how we can optimize it for 2G. Mostly there are timeout at different stages such as when you connect to your XMPP server it times out very frequently. So we are going to fix that. We chose XMPP because of few reasons. It's still used by Gtalk, Nimbus, it's used by GCM. Hangouts video chat uses it. I mean I have added links to all code and relevant document everywhere in the presentation. So and the reason we chose XMPP was that we wanted to do many things like we wanted to have presence so that if user is online offline or if to get the chat states like if the user is typing or not. So XMPP have an XCP or a module for almost everything. Something for pub subsystems, VoIP, Hangouts is using it and then for file transfer, we are using it for file transfer. For gaming, Chess Park uses it for real time chess moves, sending notification. So one of the best parts is since it contains module for almost everything like there are 350 modules overall.  One more good thing about XMPP is that if you are using a normal long live service, anything, MQTT, WebSocket or any other protocol, I just know these three. So usually all these protocols works by maintaining a duplex connection from server to client and then if you want to send a packet from client A to client B then you send that packet from client A to server stream that packet and then that's our send set packet server outside packet from its stream to client B. So this is how most of these things work. But part about XMPP it's very modular like if you have two clients on different servers, they can still talk. Your server maintains a connection in between them.  I mean you can always send your, from your client to a Gtalk client the packet. So many of you, I mean many of us can use it for growth hacking like Slack provides XMPP external interface. So if you want to write something against Slack you can do that. Gtalk provides, you just need to know the client's ID. That's it. So here I'm just going to talk about the issues with XMPP. You can see the packets, message, presence, IQ. These are all XMLs. So it's streaming XML. The packets are huge. You can see like the packet on the top is around 300 bytes. So it and compared to some other protocols it's really verbose. But there are ways to fix it which we are going to talk of course. Also we opened the Duplex Stream. Before opening the stream we need to do something called session establishment. This is huge. Kind of you are getting your friend list before that which it can be like 1000 friends at once. Then you are getting your presence information. Probably 500, 500 friends are online. You are getting all those status who are online, who are changing status. You are doing authentication. It's huge. It frequently times out on 2G. So this is something we are going to optimize. So yeah. The main constraints on while designing are low memory. The biggest problem is low memory, slow processor, deep sleep mode. You certainly can't keep a wake lock on. I did once and I drained 50% of my battery just using my app. Network connectivity change. Like if network connectivity changes, if you are maintaining a Duplex long lift service, long lift connection, it will not work. So you need to design mostly against these constraints. So what I'm going to do is that I'm going to club the first three in a section called designing for 2G. And then I'm going to keep the last point going to take the take up the last point before so as to mention serious problem. So every time your connectivity actually change, you are switching from Wi-Fi to 2G, 2G to 3G, 3G to 4G, anything. Your connection actually closes, but it's not marked as closed or it's not cleanly closed by smack or like whatever library you are using client library. So the thing is you have to reconnect again. You have to close your connection using instant shutdown and then use connect to reconnect again. The biggest problem is every two minutes you have a Wi-Fi switch in India. If you are designing it for 2G, it will go down. It will come up again. And if you are going to reconnect, you are going to get 500 friends again, 100 online offline messages again. So imagine how much is it going to drain your battery? So there are few ways to fix it. Yeah. So here are few optimizations, some tips. Don't fetch all your friend roster is your friend list. So don't fetch all your friend list when you reconnect. Save it locally since you are using mobile. There is a technique called versioning. Implement stream resumption and TLS resumption. That means instead of reestablishing the entire stream, just reuse the previous stream and also you can bypass the SSL handshake. That's very expensive. If you're talking to Gtalk, Gtalk supports a very old version of XMPP. So you need to see if the feature you support, let's say roster or presence, if it's supported by Gtalk or not. So for that, you need to fetch something called entity capabilities. That is what are the capabilities supported by that server? So if you have 500 friends and each have different capabilities, let's say each of them are running different version of client, your client, and you have upgraded something in one particular version. So to support against different versions, you need to get the entity capabilities. It's a good idea to cash it. You can use client state indication if your app is in background.  It becomes super useful here because XML is very verbose. And when you send streaming XML, your packets are so similar that your size will be much smaller than that. So yeah, the first time you connect to your server, use roster versioning, send version equal to zero, get all your friends, save it locally. The next time you send that request, either you send it manually or it's sent due to change in connectivity, send the version, get only two new friends. It's going to save a lot of your battery. Also, every time you reconnect, you have 14 to 18 steps for minor 2G flick switch. You reconnect again. So make sure that you can use the same stream instead of establishing a new stream. It's true for any TCP, like long-lived TCP service. You can design it that way. And in that case, you just need to make sure that your server stores your stream and thus you can bypass the entire session establishment. The only bad thing about this is that you have incorrect presence. So you are actually online for... So since you're using session assumption, your server stores the stream. So you are actually online for next 24 hours, even though you were offline. So you are basically... Virtually you would never offline. So your friend may think you are offline, but you are actually online. So there's a possibility of incorrect presence. So you need to get it fixed yourself. One more thing, if you are using session assumption, if you are reusing the same session, make sure to reuse TLS resumption. We did the same. We tried using it on 2G, like TLS. It times out very frequently 2KB of certificates transfer every time you reconnect. So, but yeah, so you can use these two mechanisms, but yeah, not implemented anywhere. So it's a good idea to maybe just bypass TLS on XMPP and use some client to client protocol, OTR4j or anything else. Cool. So we already talked about entity capabilities. Gtalk does not... So Gtalk is XMPP and it does not support client state indication, vcard and stream resumption. So vcard, if you want to see the visiting card of your client to, you're talking to client to, maybe Gtalk does not support it and you don't know. If you ask it without checking support, it's going to throw an exception. So it's good idea to check for every client in server what I think they support and for 500 clients is going to probably kill your user's network bandwidth. So it's a good idea to store it locally and add a local receiver to make sure that you clear your data once you are running low on storage, because it's huge. You have 500 friends for every 500 friends, you are storing that much of data. Few more optimizations, true for any TCP connection. If you are running your app in background and if you have many friends, one of them is typing, one of them is sending you an actual message, hey, and few friends are sending you online offline their status. You really don't care if they are typing. So you can just drop that packet. You also, you are okay with getting late presents, like if your friends are online offline or they late or you can get their status late. So you can just bundle them. But real time just so you can tell your server that hey, club divide my messages into three categories, discard one of discard one of them, bundle one of them and the last one send it in real time. So this is something very specific to XMPP, but yeah, you can use it anywhere like for any other protocol. Yeah, again, this packet IQ is huge to 52 bytes, enable Zlib and TLS 202 bytes, send the same packet again 90 bytes. So XMPP one, good thing is XML is verbose, very, very big. But if you use Zlib and TLS properly, your, since it's a stream, your packet size are going to be very small. So just make sure to enable Zlib. Don't enable TLS unless you are sure you will be able to fix resumption. Finally, enable privacy list. As we talk XMPP supports server to server communication. So if a bot is sending you 1000 messages, and if the other server does not support rate control, you will get all those 1000 messages your battery will train your network will train. So that's true for any actual long live connection. Your battery is not dependent or your network usage is not dependent on just you is dependent on whom you are talking to or your peers. So make sure that for any long live service, you block all the services and then selectively white list only few, like in case in this case, we have selectively white listed only server one, client and server three's client. And you need to be sure the server three supports rate control. So if someone is sending me 1000 messages, server three will block on client. You certainly can't block on server to server rate controls. So yeah. So there are a few things we talked about optimizations still not perfect. Still does not work 100% on 2g few things is 357 push notifications. So in Android M you can't keep your service running forever. So you need to use push notification to wake up your app. And then they have something called stream resumption for push notification. So you can use that. But yeah, none of these are implemented. So you have to implement it yourself. And suddenly we need a newer protocol for the system for the design we have discussed here with largest time. By this only we can actually make it work on 2g. Some code pointers. Maxes. I have code pointers at every slides, whatever I have talked about. But so you can have a look at Maxes code. Chat Secure is a very popular app. You can use it to talk to G Talk or you can connect to your G Talk and see how it federates with G Talk server. Then yeah, you can also use conversations to talk to G Talk. So that will be great. And then flow stock. It's the same version of this top except more technical. So yeah, if you want to, if you're looking for implementation, you can look there. That's it. Choose QTT and over XMPP or which one to use when? So actually MQTT is much lighter weight than I mean it's much smaller than like overhead than XMPP. But if you want to build an app where you need more functionalities, like if you want to build an app like Uber, where you need driver's profile or you want PubSub also, you need search also, Jabber search. So XMPP is kind of more complete solution. So if you want, there are 350 or 36 XCPs there. So for almost all your use case, you'll find one XCP. So if you're just trying to build something later to PubSub, I think you should use MQTT. That's much lighter weight. And if you want to do like more search or anything else, then you can use XMPP. Hi. For compression, what other options do we have other than ZLIP? I have used only ZLIP until now. But I am not exactly sure. I need to check but I can tell you after the talk. Thanks.


Hey guys, this is Rich from Rich TV Live. We are 16 days 3 hours 26 minutes and 45 seconds away from history and There's some news here about a company that I've been watching very closely Planet 13 to light up Las Vegas with a new cannabis retail experience Let's take a look at Planet 13 exclusive interview with co CEO Larry Schaeffler and CFO Dennis Logan of Planet 13 holdings on November 1st Vertically integrated cannabis company Planet 13 holdings under the symbol on the CSE PLTH on the OTC under the symbol PLNHF will open its Superstore right off of the Las Vegas strip. I say pardon Now guys remember Rich TV Live is strictly for education entertainment purposes Always do your due diligence always do your research before you invest in anything that we talk about here on Rich TV Live now When we talk about companies we want you to We want you we want you to like know We want you to know companies that we want to know we want you to know why we like companies We want to know why you don't like companies. There's always a reason why a company is successful or it isn't okay and It's important It's very important for everyone to be able to do the due diligence It's very important for everyone to be able to do the research You want to know why you like a stock or why you don't like a stock or why you're going to buy a stock Why you're not gonna buy a stock. Well, look at this This is one that has been climbing on August 18th. It was at 59 cents. Look at the way it has grown I'm gonna mark it here 59 cents. I mean what a jump All the way from 59 cents to a high of it's been as high of 230 Unbelievable and right now it's back down to around $1.94. So it's gone up Dramatically here over the last little while and if you look at bar chart calm You can see just in the last month alone. It is up 110% so please guys put PLNHF on your watch list put it on your radar It could be a big winner and let's find out a little bit more why Taking a note from the city's grand hotels everything about the massive retail store will be over the top Co-CEO Larry Scheffler and CFO Dennis Logan gave new cannabis ventures details on the new retail location The company's Nevada footprint and where they see future growth Scheffler and his co-CEO Robert Grozbeck met through the Henderson City Council in the 1990s and did land deals together with Grozbeck serving as Scheffler's attorney when it became apparent cannabis was moving away from prohibition the co-CEO's leapt at the opportunity Logan spent years in investment banking before being approached by a number of Canadian cannabis companies But he was intrigued by the capital markets and the size of opportunity in the US Planet 13's vertically integrated vision for Nevada appealed to him. So he came on board as CFO The opportunity in America is great. This is what I've been really telling everybody Canada is a great opportunity, but America is ten times bigger This has the chance to be enormous if you like this video smash the like button comment down below Share the video everywhere. I'd like to know your opinion about this And if you want to learn where I get all these tools, you just got to go to www.richtvlive.com Go to our website hover over stocks all the tools you need are right there if you're looking for news We got all the top news right there if you're looking for crypto We got everything there travel sports if you want to contact us or join our secret Groups where we're giving you picks 24 hours a day seven days a week You can join our secret groups of the top three groups right under contact if you click on a link And you're not able to actually get in the link. It's because you need to download the app So you actually have to go and download the amino app on your computer and on your phone And then you can click on the link and then you can join amino Same thing goes with slack and discord. You have to be a part of these apps So you can join these groups and then you can follow us on all other social media platforms So thank you for all of your support and we really appreciate it now Let's get a little bit more into this the Nevada footprint right now Planet 13 has two dispensary licenses one medical and one recreational and Grow and production licenses in Clark County, Nevada in Nye County located approximately 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas the company owns 80 acres of land zoned for up to 2.4 million square feet of grow while the company does have a medical product line Medicine that will continue to serve patients the main focus will be on the recreational side of the business This is the photo of the Planet 13 dispensary open in Nevada looks very high-end Not the average dispensary Approximately 55 million visitors flock to Las Vegas every year and Planet 13 intends to capture their business According to Schaeffler the company's Superstore is set to open in a 112,000 square foot building that used to be a Coors distribution location After the initial opening the store will still have 75,000 square feet available for expansion in subsequent phases beautiful the Superstore has a prime location just 2,500 feet From the front door of the wind hotel and on the only pedestrian walkway off the strip to any cannabis retail Location what a beautiful location a Rendering of the Planet 13 Superstore interior it looks Wonderful Planet 13's existing dispensary is located 6.5 miles off the strip and attracts 720 to 740 people a day the new Superstore located within walking distance of the strip could conservatively pull in 2,000 people or more with an average daily spend of $75 per person according to Schaeffler Wow, I mean let's just do some quick math So if you've got 2,000 people and they're spending an average of a hundred a day that would be $200,000 a day of revenue that the dispensary would be bringing in That is incredible. So I'd even at $75 per person. That'd be a hundred fifty thousand dollars a day that the dispensary is making unbelievable When it comes to competition, there's just one other dispensary close to the strip the other 45 dispensaries in the state are located well away from that central entertainment destination According to Schaeffler. Can you just imagine? cannabis Superpower on the strip Vegas people from all over the world just walking in getting their cannabis and going on with their day I just think this is going to be a monster The company is betting big on a Las Vegas style experience when it comes to attracting people to the store Did I just say that? Planet 13 is spending more than one million on special interactive experiences People can enjoy whether they are buying or not for example a control panel Outside the store will allow people to change the lights and music that go with the 15 foot lotus flower sitting on top of the store That's pretty cool. See those types of ideas love it Planet 13 beyond Las Vegas Schaeffler and his team are confident in the company's growth in Nevada, but they are looking to set up shop across the country Canada Royalty CRZ OTC CNNRF look to acquire the company about a year ago according to Schaeffler But Planet 13 did not want to sell a majority stake instead Canada Royalty CEO Mark Lustig and Greg Wilson a founding director of Canada Royalty join the company's board of directors and Guided Planet 13 through the process of going public Schaeffler also sees their expertise as a valuable asset as the company grows outside of Nevada While the Superstore the size of Planet 13's Las Vegas location isn't possible in every market The company sees taking a version of it across the country The company could bring five to seven thousand square foot mini superstores to places like Reno, Los Angeles San Diego Miami and Boston Schaeffler envisions building a brand similar to the Hard Rock cafe Every location will have an experience that appeals to its market and sets it apart from the competition I love that they're being unique Planet 13 is attracting both retail and institutional investors from Canada and the US According to Logan the company has had a strong first half of the year with 8 million in revenue and Logan expects the third quarter to Exceed second quarter revenue the fourth quarter which includes the opening of the company Superstore Could mean a particularly strong close to the year all depending on how long it takes the store to ramp up I love this company put on your watch list put on your radar I do not own it yet But it is one that I'm watching very carefully and it is one that I would love to own in the future if I buy it I will let you know please let me know what you guys think Planet 13 the light up Las Vegas With a new cannabis retail experience. It has been a big winner up dramatically dramatically in the last month and a half alone, it's up 200 percent This is your boy rich, and we are only 16 days 3 hours 16 minutes and 40 seven seconds away from history It's true. If you're not winning you're not watching Planet 13. What do you think big winner? PLNHF in America Planet 13. What do you think? Smash that like button If I win and you win We all win on the Canadian securities exchange under the symbol PLTH on the OTC PLNHF I'm out Peace


Hello there, it's Sandy Alnock and today I'll show you how to shape a life preserver or a donut, anything that's that kind of shape of the hole in the middle. And I'm going to be using this stamp set that's a limited release from Ellen Hudson and Pretty Pink Posh. And you can see there is a die set that you can get it with or without the dies. And cut that, cut the circles out, there's also a sunshine shape around the edge. And I originally had an idea to keep a very white front for my card by saving all of this nice space, keeping stray marks away from the rest of the paper by using the die and some masking paper. And that didn't work out, I'll explain why later. But I left it there anyway. I went to pick colors. And you can see my hex chart is colored using blending solution. So those colors are really dense. And my swatch cards that I keep in a book with pockets, little coin pockets, is not. So you can see the type of texture and the type of color that you get when you don't use blending solution. If I were to choose my colors for this, when I'm not going to use blending solution, if I were to choose it looking at colors that use blending solutions, I would have a totally different color choice. But I'm going to be using no blending solution on this. So I went with my little swatch cards instead. You can pick your colors any way you would like. But I am choosing a couple colors for the Life Preserver. These sand colors in the middle, I decided to use browns and grays, because a lot of beaches I've been on have gray sections on them as well. And then I've got the trios of colors that are going to be for the Life Preserver and then some for the water. To begin with, I'm going to put down the lightest of the three reds. And I chose a very warm one and then the mid-tone is not going to be as warm of a red. And I'm just going to fill in these areas. The first layer, you don't have to be super, super hyper careful about trying to make sure you get in every square inch of the coloring in here. But I'm going to fill these sections in, I'll do the others in yellow. And one of the things to notice is that dye that I put around it has a little gap there. It's the gap that you always get when you dye cut anything, any stamped image. They always have it a little bit outside of the image. Well, frankly, I would have a really hard time lining it up if it was any tighter than that. But one of the things I realized is if I go outside the lines at all, I'm going to end up getting myself in trouble. So I was pondering this whole time, what I'm going to do with that outside edge. I want to take advantage of it by taking a pencil and going around that and creating a color band around it. I eventually did and I hated it. So all of this is for naught. I could have just gone outside the lines and not worried about it. But anyway, let's get back to the shading. The shading on this, if the light is coming from the upper right hand side, then I'm going to first imagine this whole left bottom side is a circle like you would normally shade. The top section, imagine that being a whole separate shape as well. Pretend the bottom half doesn't exist. The shadow is going to be on the bottom left side of both of these shapes. It's going to be on the inside as well as the outside. But the inside of the whole place where it goes down in, there's going to be more darks in the center on both sides of the donut shape. There's just going to be more of it, more real estate covered by that shadow on the higher side, the side that goes more toward the sun. And you'll see this appear a little bit better when we get to doing the shading on the reds too. But I wanted to finish all the yellows first before we get to that. The dark shadow color that I used was a purple and it's a warm purple, so it's more of a pinky purple than a bluish purple. And then I can go over it with either a yellow or an orange. I'm using an orange for the mid-tone so that I can go over it and it takes away the sting of some of that purple. I did the same thing on flesh tones, not with as bright of colors of course, but I used purples for my flesh tones because purples are the complement to a lot of the colors that appear in skin. So we're getting some nice roundness here. I wanted to soften the highlight on the top of this. I didn't want it to be super shiny bright. Some people like to leave a white highlight on the whole thing or you could use a white pen to go back and do that, but not necessary, I don't think. Now I'm using a green because it's the complement to red as the shadows here. I'm doing the same thing. I'm carrying the shadow on that top side higher on the side that's toward the sun because that's where the shadow is. And then same thing down here on the bottom left. You want to treat both halves almost as separate, but then have them transition in the middle so that you don't get like a stripe of shadows on one side and the other. But just remember that the principles of shadow and light that fall on the bottom side are going to be the same principles that fall on the top side. It's just a matter of the transition in the middle. If you really need help with that kind of a thing, go look at a picture of a donut and or go get a donut. How about that? Put a donut and put it on the table and shine a really strong flashlight on one side and really examine where the shadows and highlights are. And you'll see that there's shadows on all sides of that donut because it goes in. It has dimension and goes down toward the water, but it also has highlights that are consistent because the sun is still going to shine on that upper right side of both the top half and the bottom half of the life preserver or the donut or whatever other shape you're coloring. So that is the main part of this tutorial. I'm going to zip through the coloring of the rest of this. I had decided, as I said, to use some grays and browns for the sand because that's the kind of colors that you'll see in sand a lot. So I wanted to layer those colors in here. I'm an old time illustrator. I did children's books, that kind of thing. That was a long time ago, a land far, far away. There's not money to be made unless you're lucky and you get really famous. And I was not lucky, so that did not pay. But I do love doing pencil illustration and I just would sit there for hours. I'd spend 40 hours on a drawing and layer in color after color after color because look at the richness you get in the sand here as opposed to just let me color it all brown. It's the difference in the kinds of colors that happen when you start layering things on top of each other. So I'm going to keep the water a little bit on the simple side. I was considering trying to make it look like there was stuff under the water and have some sand show through. And then I decided that was just too complex because it's such a tiny image and it's a card, so I'm not going to worry about it. But I started just layering the colors over top of each other. I didn't start with the lightest in the blues, I started with the mid-tone because I didn't want this to get too pale because it's water and it's not going to be a super bright color. And then just a little tidying up. Now I ended up, instead of leaving that nice white background because I had a few stray marks that went outside my circle, I decided instead to die cut a circle in a black piece of cardstock so I could layer it on top and made it just slightly smaller than the image so then all the places where I went out of the lines didn't actually end up being a problem. Wrapped the sentiment inside the edge of that circle and still had a clean and simple card. It was just very different than what was in my head at first. So if you're interested in this stamp set, you might want to pick it up soon because it's limited availability as soon as summer of stamping is over and all these stamp sets are gone, it will be gone too. There's also a hop on Instagram with these stamp sets so you might want to go see that if you want more ideas on what you could do with it and I will see you again next time. Take care.


Everyone and welcome. This is Melissa Arma with the Stock Swoosh and I'm reviewing NVIDIA, which is pretty much the gap of the month here, the gap of the week for sure. And looking at this today, it fell again today and I'm not even surprised. So what occurred in this, let's just review it here because there's so much to be learned from this, so much to be learned from this as a trader. So the stock gap down and it was a short on this day, but if you didn't stay with the trade, you might have lost, got stopped on this and had to retake it or did nothing with it. It did go over 170, only by 66 cents, which I really didn't have a serious problem with, but the main issue I had was that it was taking so long to set up, but I still like this lower and called the put that day and it was a huge call and it fell off the planet here. I mean, if you look at this bar here and I'm just rounding it out, 162 to 164, that's just shy of a $20 move in a stock on a day, it's about $18. So that was just a huge profitable day, whether you day traded it, we're in the put that I called here, I actually called a second put in this. Then that put was extremely profitable here. Then did the open, the stock open and 134 fell, dropped almost a buck and flipped around and people bought this, the craziest thing in the world to do and people bought this on here. So I'm not even surprised that this fell in this day and actually people are still in this long for the previous day, which is crazy. So three huge short calls in this, two puts in a day trade and actually two day trades and two puts and then I mean, this just has a huge target. I mean, I can't even talk enough about this, but at this point now after the last one, two, three, four days of trading and going to the holiday week, I'd leave it. I mean, I think everyone should be out of the puts because it's fell in here and then the huge gap down in this one here. But if you're on the option letter, I'd keep an eye out, I may call another trade in this soon. If you're not, you should sign up for it before I do. This stock is, was really just so, there was so much profit in this, if you played it right. And a lot of people, I think I'd heard in it. Why? Because they did it in the wrong direction. They went long the day of the gap down here in the earnings and they went long yesterday. Wrong thing to do. So one of the things that I teach in the golden gap course is the 26 points and what does it tell you? It tells you whether or not the stock is, is along or short to take it in what direction so you make money. You're not going to make any money if you're in the stock in the wrong direction. In fact, you'll lose. So the idea is to win, period end of story. So NVIDIA was an extremely good gap. So much to be learned from this and I'm probably going to add it to the next class because it's just, this is, this is just such a good example. And to me, it was easy to say, to send people that was hard because of the way that it's had the pushback, but I'm telling you, this took conviction and it was so good. So congratulations to everyone that made money in this. I think everyone made money in it. If you didn't make money in four of the trades, you at least made money in one or two, I would think for the people in the options letter in the trading room, but NVIDIA is the gap of the week and possibly the gap in the month. The month isn't over, but it's probably going to be. Have a great holiday week, everyone. And if you're interested in the golden gap course, email me at melissa at thestockswitch.com. Next class is December 15th and 16th.