Good morning. Welcome to Lightning Talks on Sunday. The Herald notifice hasn't been updated, so I assume we need volunteers for AV as we just learned when we didn't have AV. Okay, and so we're going to do Lightning Talks. And each speaker I will introduce and I will set them off. And I will set a timer on my timing device. And so what we will do is we'll let the timer run. And if the speaker is still speaking when the timer ends, we'll cut them off with a loud round of applause. And so we could just try our ability to do loud rounds of applause in the morning. So I'm the count of three. One, two, three. Well, okay, that was really good. So we could just start. Hi, my name is Liz Eden, otherwise known as Altsomber. Spoiler alert, we're all going to die. And everyone's going to have their own ideas about what might or might not happen next. One of the things that might happen is somebody might dedicate a bench to your memory. It might be your family, your friends, or your colleagues, people who are connected to you during your life and who want to honor that connection. Quite possibly this bench will be somewhere that was meaningful to you and meaningful to your loved ones. It might be along the coastal path where you used to walk your dog. It might be at the beach where you went on your first date with the love of your life. It might be in the park where you would look at the trees. It might be in the gardens where you rejoiced in the beauty around you. About a year ago, the lovely Ateedin tonight decided to build something to celebrate these human connections that give our lives shape and meaning even after death. And so, openbenches.org was born. Because we like to do things digitally, some of the inscriptions we've seen are so old they're barely legible, so part of our mission is to preserve these data. By uploading a memorial bench to our site, we can safeguard these commemorations from the future, away from weather and pollution and pigeons. But it's also a way to help share that love more widely with people who might not be able to see the bench in person and with the wider digital community. At its heart, we simply wanted to engage with the way people remember each other. In just a few words, we get a tiny snapshot of a life lived and loved, of pleasures and treasures, of the moments that make life precious, however fleeting. We've seen messages of humour, shout out to the great Terry Pratchett there, messages of gratitude, and messages of appreciation, not only for the person who's left us, but also for the world around us. In brief lines of text, there are songs to the value of tranquility, poems to the importance of rest, stay for a while they implore, take in your surroundings. And to our great surprise and delight, those surroundings are from all around the globe. What started as a homegrown project in Oxford has developed into a truly international venture. We have ventures from Canada, the US, across Europe, in Africa, Asia and Australasia. We built this word cloud showing the most common words that come up, no surprise that loving a memory feature heavily. So hopefully at this point you're all thinking, oh, that sounds lovely, I wonder how I could get involved? Well, I'm glad you asked.  All you need is a smartphone which can take geotact photos and an internet connection. If you see a memorial bench while you're out and about, snap a photo and upload it to the site. You can see from the interactive map where we've already got lots of ventures recorded. If you aren't sure if the bench is on the site already, you can search for it by the inscription. When you upload your photo, there's some text detection software running on the site, so the inscription should appear as if by magic. And for those of you that like to gamify your bench finding, if you log in using Twitter, you can track how many benches you have uploaded. We even have a leaderboard, but competitive benching is not mandatory. If you prefer to be an anonymous benefactor to our great library of benches, that is absolutely fine with us. We really hope that this will encourage people to engage with their local area and their local history. We found benches in cemeteries, shopping centres, and we even have one in a service station. Currently, we've got over 8,600 benches on the site, and it will be wonderful to get more. And the other way is on trusty GitHub. We're always tinkering around with the site, so if you have any suggestions for enhancements or solutions to bugs, then get coding, raise an issue, and send us a pull request. We'd love to hear your ideas for improving the bench recording experience. So, search for openbenches at github.com and get stuck in. Thanks very much for your attention and happy benching. Okay, that was great. Thank you. Next up, and smuggling photos out of Russia. No? Okay. Benjamin Bondel. Maybe they're easy to smuggle if you can't remember you have them. Hello, good morning everybody. So, I've been busy most of the weekend with the sidebar at the far end. I'm absolutely knackered, but I thought I'd like to do a quick little lightning tour because I moved to Washington DC for a bit, and I had this very strange moment where I had an email from someone in Russia, and I thought, yeah, this doesn't sound particularly legitimate. So, I had this email from this lady who said, hello, dear Benjamin, my name is Tatiana, I'm the picture editor, Esquire Russia. We like your amazing project and we want to publish it in our magazine, in our next issue. Looking forward to see your answer. It seems legit. So, I've looked up this person, tried to find out who they were, had a lot of email back and forth, but I was a little bit concerned because I'd never heard of this person before. They came completely out of the blue. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Russia and what it's been doing recently, particularly from what I read in the Cardin report, which you can Google. It's about a 50-60 page PDF, and it essentially talks about what parts of the Russian state have been up to with regards to countries in Europe, in the US, and what have you, with essentially what you might call cyber warfare and other sort of things they've been up to. So, I was a little bit like, I was kind of worried at this point. I thought, I've never had someone contact me like this before. And so, I thought I'd just ignore it. But I spoke to my wife about it, and she's a lady from Yorkshire, and she basically turned around and says, no, no, no, all you have to do is charge them all the monies. So, I sort of went, okay, yeah, we'll go with that. Why not? It'll be a giggle. So, I'll go back one. The photos in question, why they were so interested, was basically, I'd been on the Trans-Siberian railway journey for about five or six years ago. And what we did is we had a little technical project that we wanted to do, which was essentially a slit scan. So, if you're not familiar with a slit scan, what you do is you take a normal photo and then take either a single or a set number of pixels from the middle. And over time, you slice them and add them together. And what you get is an image that is at a glance, you can see what has changed. And it brings out very interesting sort of view on the landscape and what's passing. And it works for something that's essentially linear. So, you can still see it. It's up there on that particular URL. And so, you get something a little bit like this. So, zoomed all the way out, you get these really interesting strips of areas. So, for instance, there's a bit where we're traveling during the night, there's an awful lot of blue sky and one awful lot of snow. But then as the further you get along, you get the landscape changes. And so, you end up with really interesting photos like this. So, you get this appearance of this train here that's just stretched out.  There's an image in there somewhere of someone standing on a platform where they're perfectly shot, but the actual platform just extends on almost forever. So, within it, there's quite a few interesting images. They actually sent me a copy of the magazine. It turns out they were writing for, there was a particular author, a famous poet, I can't remember his name. He was a Russian who went on this journey.  And so, they ended up using some of the images as parts of the spread. So, in the end, it was, at first, it seemed like quite a scary thing with everything that sort of heard in the news. But in the end, it turned out to be reasonably legit. So, there I was, sitting in my little office in Washington, D.C., going, well, I can probably write this down as something else that I can do better than the current U.S. president. So, thank you very much. Okay, next up, we have the electric unicycles. Good morning. Okay, off you go. Thank you.  Does that work? Cool. So, my name's Simon. You want me to... No, it's fine. I can ride around him. It's fine. Yeah. So, my name's Simon. I am an electric unicycle enthusiast. I brought one. Who seemed to be riding around EMF camp this weekend? Cool. So, I'm going to try and convince you in the next five minutes that electric unicycles are the future of transportation. I've been riding them now for eight months, every single day of my life. I live and work in Central London and East London, near the old London Hackspace. And I commute to and from work on this electric unicycle. It cost me £1,500. It has a 42-mile range. It has a top speed of 30 miles an hour. I have been riding here all weekend. I have not actually charged it, and I still have more than 60% of the battery.  He's like, it's going to change cities. It's going to change how we work. And it was the Segway. And Segways didn't really change much except tourism in places where you can go on Segway tours. And the reason it didn't really work was you can't take a Segway and keep it in your hall. It takes up too much space. And you can't lift a Segway up even one step. But electric unicycles, sort of 20 years later, I think finally actually fulfill the promise of hypermobile urban transportation.  You can ride it to work without getting hot and sweaty. You can store it under your desk at work. You only have to charge it once a week, basically, for me, because I do about three and a half miles to work on it. And it has a 40-mile range. So I charge it on Sunday night. And then I don't charge it again until Monday morning. It can go anywhere. And quick show of hands. Who skis here? Okay. So imagine for a moment that you could ski anywhere. Like, the entire world was covered in like six-inch deep powder. And everywhere was downhill. And there's no lift passes. And you can do it anytime you want. Like that's basically what an electric unicycle is. You can jump on this thing and just... Oh, it's also got Bluetooth speaker in it.  And it's like skiing the whole time. It's pretty cool. So I'm going to show you a little bit about this particular one. This is the Ninebot Z10. So Ninebot is a Chinese company that bought the Segway brand. So the original Segway is now owned by this company Ninebot. This is the Z10 that came out last week. This is the first one in the UK. There's now two more that I know of. So there's three Z10s in the UK. It has a 18-inch wheel, 18 by 4.5-inch wheel. To get on it, you basically do something like this. Pretty simple. Yeah. I don't know what... Does anyone have any questions? So it doesn't care about hills. Basically, the unicycle has a 2,000-watt motor, a one kilowatt hour battery. And the only thing that the CPU of this unicycle is doing is trying to stay under you and upright. That's all it's doing. It has 2,000 watts of power. And all it really wants to do is stay level. So when you hit a hill, it doesn't slow down. And it's quite a strange experience, because when you learn to ride one of these, on a bicycle, you subconsciously...  So you'll have a little bit of momentum to go up a hill. And on a unicycle, you don't need to do that, because the unicycle just doesn't notice. It goes uphill as quickly as it goes downhill. It doesn't even know it's on a hill, except that the load on the battery goes up a little bit. So I've been using this to basically run shuffle beer back and forwards from our car, because it makes no difference to the unicycle whether it's going up or down. It's as easy to ride up a hill as it is to ride downhill. Cool. Does anyone have any more questions? No? There's no seat. This is a handle, so you can flip it out. You can push it backwards like this. It looks rather dapper, I think. What else do you want to know about the unicycle? No. So that's the question I get all the time. Are unicycles legal anywhere? And the answer is absolutely categorically they are not currently legal. There was a law in 1835 that says no powered vehicles are allowed on the pavement. So that sort of rules out riding on the pavement. And you can't ride any powered vehicle on the road unless you have insurance, MOT, or it is categorized as an E-PACE vehicle, which is the electric bicycle, electric powered electric power assisted transport regulations. But basically those say that you have to have a limit of 15 miles an hour and you have to have two redundant mechanical brakes. Now, I don't know if you know much about mechanics, but if you attempted to attach a mechanical brake to this, you would just go splat. There's no actual way you can mechanically brake one of these, and even if you could it would be kind of pointless. So they're not currently legal under UK legislation, but the police think it's funny, so they don't really care. Cool. Anyone else have any more questions? You. Can I? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  When I got this, I've been riding unicycles for eight months, but I've been riding a different unicycle. This one has a much heavier wheel. So because the way you steer a unicycle is you lean over a little bit and the centrifugal force basically turns your leaning action into a turning action. But the different weight of the wheel mean like a heavier wheel basically means that a smaller amount of lean produces a larger, like your larger torque. And it takes about 70 miles of riding before your brain like adjusts to the new shape of the wheel. But my friends really, really, really wanted to get video of the first Z10 in the UK. So they kind of like pressured me into riding at full speed and I kind of knew I was going to wipe out, but it's still a pretty funny video. So yeah, look it up on YouTube. Any more questions? Cool. All right. Hands up if you're going to buy one of them. Yay. Thanks for coming to my talk. Okay, next up we have automated fact checking. One of these Simon automated fact checking. No. Okay. Next up I have David Carboni. Morning. Cool. So honestly, I are on a Sunday morning, but it's great to see you all here. So I'm David. I do a lot of work with technology. I've built a few things like nationalrail.co.uk with some friends over there. And if you've heard of the Office for National Statistics, I did all the technology design behind that. And I've really found that the best way to do technology is to think about people, which is probably obvious until you think about, until you actually try and do it.  So this is one of my favorite quotes. We actually like what we do. We generally like the people we do it with. But there's something about the way that there's a particular form of leadership that just repels people. And it's usually called best practice. And that really upsets me because I quite like people. So I thought, you know, can we do something different? And this to me is the best piece of evidence that we have that best practice is absolutely devastating to actually just enjoying what we do because we like doing what we do. And to me, this says that almost all of the value in your company, your team, your organization, wherever you're working is left on the table. Nobody's interested. The way we manage, the way we deal with teams and people actually destroys 85% of the value in your company. And why would you do that? Right? There's got to be a better way. So I've probably been spending probably over 10 years now just thinking about, could we do this better? It all came from a particularly bad project experience back in 2001. And I just thought, okay, I'm not going to complain about this. I mean, I was a programmer at the time. I'm not going to complain about this. My only license to complain is if one day I do something better. So I think that kind of sort of became my mission. And I've gradually, I think I'm gradually figuring it out. So there's another one of my favorite quotes, people are not resources. It's sort of a, if you've ever heard an HR department talking about people, even though they call themselves human resources, they tend to talk about resources. And it's not always very human. And this lady called Margaret Heffernan. Some of you may have seen her TED talk, she talks about super chickens. And there's a really interesting piece in that where she's saying that if you take the best people you can to make the best team you can, what you'll end up with is conflict. You won't end up with a good team. So you can assemble a group of the best resources you can find. And what will happen is probably nothing terribly good. So simply finding a superstar team is not the way to actually create a good team. So some of you may have heard of Esther Perrell. I think she does absolutely fantastic work in a completely different sphere. But this I think is fundamental. So this is one of my reasons why I think Geeks particularly would make really good leaders. And that's because many of us have this idea of systems thinking. We know that no matter the quality of the parts in the system, the value reduces to zero if the interactions between them don't work. And so if you focus on the interactions more than the individuals, you've got a far higher chance of producing something useful. So this is the hard part. So this is what I've kind of had to learn over the last 10 years. So I'm a big fan of Brene Brown, if anyone's heard of her. She does a lot of work on vulnerability, but vulnerability is kind of a bit of a tainted word. So she's kind of trying to make the point that vulnerability is kind of having the courage to show up. So it takes quite a level of personal commitment and inner work, emotional intelligence, all these kind of things that perhaps as a geek, certainly I wasn't terribly into. I wasn't terribly good at. But I've sort of managed to train myself over the last 10 years to get better at this stuff. And it really does pay off because because you've got the systems thinking piece, if you can bring in the human side, which and let's be honest, this is hard work for everyone all the way through our lives. So this is just this is just the work of living. But the more you focus on it, the better you can create groups that work. And so Brene's put together a kind of a manifesto for leadership. And this is just sort of some of the first few lines out of it. But I think there's something really inspiring about this that you want to be doing work that's interesting. You want to be doing it with people you like doing it with. And wouldn't it be nice to be able to show up at work as a whole person know that you're welcome to feel safe, to feel part of the group. That's something really powerful about that. And there's a level of kind of something amazing that happens when that kind of team comes together. So if anyone's ever had the experience of working on a team that looks like this, and you probably know it's two, five, 10 times more powerful and 10 times more enjoyable, then you know, probably anything else you've worked on it'll probably really stand out in your memory. I know I've had a couple of experiences like this and really something special. So I just believe that this will be a really good way to live and a really good thing for human beings in general. So I love this picture. You know, the best received wisdom that we have is killing our companies. And lots of companies will say, you know, they'll they'll whinge about productivity or they'll whinge about millennials. They'll say, you know, why are our people so lazy? And it's like, well, maybe it's not that your people are lazy. Maybe it's just that what you think is right turns out to be wrong. And that's what's destroying your company. So. So this is what I think geek leadership looks like. And I love that this is like several thousand years old. So, you know, there's nothing new here. But it's just recognizing that perhaps leadership isn't what we traditionally think of.  I think that's the opposite of leadership. I think leadership is disappearing. It's everybody feeling like this works. We work creating that creating that climate as just as such an achievement. And I do think geeks are good at this because we tend to be introverts and introverts are much better at disappearing. So this is this is the phrase I put on my blog recently and I realized I quite like this one.   Just everything's better. And it's not just work because if you're enjoying what you do and you feel like you're in a good place, you're going to go home, you're going to be happier with your family, you're going to pass on to your community. This is this is almost kind of a humanitarian mission to, you know, this is how we live better as human beings work is a big part of our lives. And if it's not nice, we're just not going to have nice lives.  Life is always going to be hard, but it can be enjoyable. So I cheekily came up with my own quote last night to add in here.  Because I think Geeks can do this really well. And you know, and it's hard, right? You have to you have to learn the human side, the emotional intelligence, the connection. That's never going to go away. But actually, I think, you know, there are so many people who are really good leaders who don't call themselves that. And I would really encourage you to think of yourself that way. And that's me done. Thank you very much. Okay, do we have automated fact checking? Okay, then so bikes are dope. Okay, when you're ready. Hello morning. So my name is Ben, and I'm going to talk to you about bicycles for a little while. Apologies, I have not given this talk without notes before. So let's see how it goes. So like the first thing is that bicycles are great. This is actually a fact, not just my opinion. And I think one of the reasons why bicycles are spectacular things is because you can do so much with them. So they're really, they're good for lots of different things. Getting around, having fun, cargo, transporting other people besides the people pedaling, transporting other bicycles. You know, you can do nearly anything with a bicycle at a scale that is somewhere between walking and driving around with a car. And that makes it really nice. This talk, though, is about one specific sort of cycling, the kind of cycling that's done by people who are paid some money to go a bit faster than most of us can go on a bicycle. And in particular, we're interested in the kind of lengths that those cyclists might take to go just a bit faster than everyone around them. So let's like back up a second and look at what doping is, right? So I don't know if this is going to work. Sorry, contrast. So I'll just read it. So it says, administer drugs to a racehorse, greyhound, or athlete in order to inhibit or enhance sporting performance. So this is from WADA, which is the organization that does international regulation of doping in athletics and cycling and other professional sports, or professional and Olympic level sports. And there's a couple of things that I think are interesting about this definition. One of them is that there's this inhibit piece, which is not something we're going to talk about much more in this talk, but there is a sort of light history of people giving performance, decreasing drugs to their competition, which is probably not what people sort of think about when they think about doping, but it is something that does occur. So doping and cycling specifically is in general focused on things that you can do to your body with chemicals to make yourself go faster for longer. And this means that it is a different sort of drugs than the kind of drugs that you think of when you think of doping in your head, which is probably steroids and you probably have this kind of image, right? So people think about doping, especially before Lance Armstrong, and they think, let's take some steroids, let's get very large. And that's not the kind of nature of doping and cycling. So doping and cycling looks more like this. It tends to be super macabre and involve a lot of blood because the way that you go faster for longer in cycling is by having more red blood cells than your competition. So the goal generally for endurance cycling, which is not the cycling that happens on a track so much, but the cycling that happens on the road is to get the oxygen to your muscles efficiently and to clear the waste products your muscles produce because then your muscles can just pedal harder longer. And then you can go up hills for six hours for 21 days straight. So, okay, so let's talk about doping through history. So to kind of, so for my day job, I count things, which I guess means I'm a data scientist. And so I like to put things on charts, it's like a good way to work through stuff. So we have two different metrics here. One of them is toxicity, which in a lot of pharmaceuticals is measured in something called TD50. So that's the point where the median person in the population will die. And then we have something called effectiveness, which is ED50, which is how effective a drug is for the median population. So you're dealing with medians on both sides. So we're going to put some, put some chemicals on this chart. So we're going to start with something called stric9. So has anyone heard of stric9? It's a pretty, pretty, so typically it comes up as a poison, but it turns out it's quite useful in, in endurance athletics if you don't really care about your life. So here, here for effect is a picture of stric9 doing what it does. So, so stric9 causes your muscles to tense. And so if you have just the right dosage, it will keep your muscles from fatiguing.  So it was actually pretty popular and totally legal in the early history of cycling for maybe the first half century of cycling was still in reasonably wide use in the 60s. And so, you know, this is just, it's a good example of the kind of very narrow effect window, but did do something well if you hit the dosage. There's a really good story of the first person to die during the tour de France in 1898, I think it was, who had a cocktail of stric9 and cocaine about midway through. And that was how this particular cyclist was managing to pedal like 2,000 miles into this race. So post World War II, doping just got much better in a kind of effectiveness sense. And that gets us to amphetamines. So amphetamines, for those who don't know, are a drug that just basically is meant to keep your alertness going a bit more. It's also a bit of a party drug these days, but it was designed to keep soldiers fighting for longer during World War II and got quickly adopted in the endurance athletics community post World War II. So the best example I think of amphetamine usage in cycling is this man. So for those of you who are of a certain age and fans of cycling, you will recognize this is Eddie Merckx. Merckx perhaps the sort of most well-known cyclist of all time. Merckx definitely used amphetamines before the band came into effect of amphetamines during his career. I know he used them afterwards because he had a two-year band for amphetamines twice during his career. A thing that's fun is that people still talk about Eddie Merckx as like the greatest cyclist ever, but he definitely cheated using amphetamines. I will say it again, Eddie Merckx is a cheat. So this is Eddie Merckx getting the World Hour record, which he held for many, many years. He was an incredibly good cyclist. He took a lot of performance enhancers of the sort that amphetamines represent. So if we go forward a couple more decades, we get to the practice known as blood doping. So blood doping was done because all these chemicals, they were developing very good tests for. So they could either check the urine or a small blood sample and work out that you had amphetamines in your system, for example. So blood doping is the, I think, rather goth practice of getting more red blood cells in your system rather directly. So this involves a transfusion either from someone else to you or from yourself like six months ago back into you. So you have another extra leader of blood in your system, and that means the density of red blood cells is significantly higher. It's very effective. It's also really dangerous. So you're bypassing the body's own ability to regulate how dense your blood is, and this is a really good way to give yourself a heart attack. But if you don't do that, it's a great way to pedal harder, faster, longer. So here is a guy named Francisco Moser. He broke the hour record from Eddie Merckx. He did that in 1984. In 1999, he admitted that he did it through illegal at the time blood doping. Again, themes. His name is still on bicycle frames. He is a cheat. So this sort of doping when became illegal in the early 80s was clearly used by the Peloton for a decade after that until they figured out how they could test for it, which is effectively by monitoring the density of your blood over time. If you hear something called blood passports, that's what this is in reference to. So that gives us the modern world. So the modern world is all about EPO. So EPO is something called erythropotene. EPO, in short, is a chemical that's used in your body to trigger the production of red blood cells. So this bypasses the transfusion part, but has a similar effect. It's safer and about as effective as blood doping. It's safer because the body can shut down the red blood cell production if it's really dangerous. EPO made famous by Lance Armstrong. So this is Lance Armstrong and another cyclist, Basso, who was his competition when he was good. Both of them were on EPO. Lance Armstrong famously said that he was just better at doping than everyone else, and that's probably true. There's pretty good evidence that basically the whole of the 90s and aughts was just a bunch of people on EPO in the entire professional peloton. So, okay, fine. So this is the kind of spread of doping through the years. So what do we mean when we say better doping? When we say better doping, we really mean this idea of lower toxicity, higher range of effectiveness. I, as an athlete who doesn't have sort of cheating ethics, want to take something that makes me better than my competition and probably not kill me because that will make it hard for me to enjoy the spoils of winning. So let's talk about this. This is an electric motor that drops down into your seat tube and sits on top of the bottom bracket next to your cranks and drives the bike for you. Here's a slightly different design that it's rumored has been used in the professional world tour peloton, although there's never been any proof of that. It's a really quite fascinating design that I need to talk about very quickly. So it's a bunch of magnets in the rim of a bicycle and basically you have a pulsing electromagnet in the fork. Thanks very much. Do we have automated fact checking? No? Okay. And we might be able to manage one more after this. So if you have slides and you have five minutes, we'll try when this talk is done. Thank you. So just to show how much I disrespect EMF, I'm going to show you the slides that we presented in Bornhack last year. I haven't bothered to change them. This is sorry, last week. This is a presentation that my 10-year old son and I gave. He's not here today, so I'm going to do my best to give the presentation in his absence. We're trying to get interest in the AI and bot community in a game called Diplomacy. So AIs and bots can now largely beat humans at two-player games of perfect information. So for chess this has been solved 20 years ago. Go in the past couple of years or so. Poker progress is being made. These are games of incomplete information so they're a bit more difficult but the best bots are beating poker players. Dota 2 we've seen progress both last year in one-on-one mode with specific characters against top humans and then this year in five on five mode with a wider subset of characters. So for two-player games the bots beat us. Diplomacy is a board game. The easiest way to think about it is think of it as like risk. It's risk set in the early 20th century in Europe. There are seven players so that already makes it a bit more interesting than a two-player game. Also more interesting, well, different from risk, there's no randomness whatsoever. So conflict is determined by just counting the number of units that one force can bring to bear against another force and then here's where it becomes really interesting. My units are fully interoperable with anyone else's unit so an important part of the game is negotiating privately with other players in the game. If I'm playing England for example and if I'm able to get a French navy in support of a move that I'm trying to make against Germany, if the French fleet does support my move that would count as two units against the German one unit. So core to the game is negotiation. Negotiation is private. It's unstructured and it's uncontractable or verifiable. So this makes for great fun gameplay because in the gameplay it means that you spend a lot of the game communicating privately in private rooms or wandering off to a distant corner of the field and discussing what I might do if you did this for me. Now from a point of view of bots this becomes very difficult to model properly and to learn properly and I think this is what makes this an interesting target game. There is currently an annual diplomacy competition held at the automated negotiating agents competition every year. There have been two years in which the diplomacy has run. Last year it was won by a bot called Frigate out of one of the Tokyo universities. This year interestingly they were going to have a two-stage qualification procedure. So in the first stage a bot would have to statistically outperform a random bot and then all of the bots that qualified that first stage would run against each other and a winner would be declared among those second stage qualifying bots. This year actually what happened is that only one bot statistically outperformed the random bot and so they ran the second stage with the full range of submitted bots and the bot that had outperformed the random bot in the first stage didn't do terribly well. So no winner was declared this year. These bots, the state of the art of these bots, they're hard-coded, they're not doing any sort of learning, they're myopic, they're really dumb in a number of respects. So I think that insofar as the AI community is looking for new target applications and as games are an interesting class of target applications, I think the level of technology is very low here and I think that there's some interesting challenges in diplomacy as well. Currently the bots don't play against humans and so insofar as that's another benchmark of progress, you're beating top humans, we're nowhere near that at this point. So what we'd like to see, we'd like to see an AI that outperforms humans in online diplomacy games. If anyone's interested I'd love to talk to you about that. Thank you. Okay, do we have automated fact-checking? No. And does anybody else have five minutes? Hello, my name is Talis, my name is Talis Kimberly Fairbourn, this is very ad hoc on the fly. I'm going to talk to you about permaculture, magic you can eat. I'm new to it, I've only got five minutes so how bad can it get? Magic you can eat. Potatoes, let me talk potatoes, potatoes are wonderful. Ask Sam Gandhi, ask Mark Watkins, you know you've got a potato, you've got a meal. Now you don't need much of a garden, you can do it in a dustbin, you can do it in a little bit of scrubs somewhere, you can gorilla garden potatoes. This year I got very excited because my permaculture magazine, permaculture is one of those things where since I found it I thought my people, like you folk, you are also my people and there are other people who are my people. We can have many people and we can have potatoes back on the point house. Right, so little bit of ground, I had a little patch of garden about 70 centimetres by 140, patch of grass that wasn't doing anything between this and that, cardboard box, something arrived from the internet, slap it down on the grass, seed potatoes, don't just get the manky ones at the bottom of the drawer that you didn't eat that are sprouting tentacles, get seed potatoes, give yourself the chance, every chance of success. Stick down maybe four seed potatoes on the cardboard, okay, and then on top of that you pile stuff that would go in the compost, clippings, grass clippings. If you don't have those, you go wandering up and down your street and you find somebody mowing the lawn and you say, you got any plans for those grass clippings and they'll say, yeah, I stick them in the green bin but the council never gives us enough bins, you know, and you just say, I'd love some and then you trade them a bit of rhubarb or a bit of help with their computer or a bit of something because we all need those local community social capital connections where you need them more than ever. So anyway, back to the potatoes, cardboard, seed potatoes, load of clippings and stuff, not soil. A few weeks later, up come the little potato plants, that's great, okay, and then when the potato plants are about, I don't know, maybe about that tall, you pile on more clippings and stuff, these potatoes are not going to grow in soil but they will grow, they'll grow, they'll flower. When the flowers drop, you've got potatoes, you don't dig, you don't dig, you never dig the potatoes because your fork will go straight through the only potato that wasn't eaten by slugs, I tell you, and it'll be mud and slicey bits and you will cry. So anyway, no digging potatoes, you get down on your hands and knees, you part the compost with your hands and there's the potatoes, like eggs in a nest, clean, not slug eating, beautifully formed and bigger because they didn't have to fight the clay soil, okay, so you pull out the potatoes you want and you cover the rest over and they're there for the next time, you don't have to dig them all up, pull them all up at once, you just leave them there in their little potato larder so the light doesn't get to them because the light will turn them green and green potatoes are bad and should not be eaten. Okay, so that's magic you can eat, permaculture, no dig potatoes, it's great fun, it's easy, it's magic and it's edible, I commend you. Okay, thank you and that is all we have time for this morning, so one final round of applause for all the speakers.


Luckily we didn't drink it, because when we put it under a microscope, hell, well, there was something on the Petri dish, it's like a glass thing, and then you put this little bit of drop of water on it, just put a drop of water in it, just a drop, just a drop. And then we put another glass thing on top of it, this was kind of complicated stuff that people do in the labs. But then when we looked in the microscope, say enough, what, what, tell me, saw bugs? Bugs! Yuck!  Well, there's some water in there. Yeah, it looks like water. Yeah, it looked just like water. But when we put it under the microscope, holy macaroni, they were moving around and there were different types of bugs and we were able to study what kind of bugs were in the water, because in water there are things that you can't see. In food there's like bacteria, the virus that's in the air, the things we can't see, but they're there. Is this the scary talk we're having right now? It's not scary, I'm just saying, there are things you can't see with the naked eye. With that, it's a scientific term. The naked eye can't see things, but when you put it under a microscope. And there are also things in the air that we can't see. You mean like bugs? Viruses? Well, those too, but inshallah there's none in this room, alhamdulillah. Do you know also that you cannot see electronic waves in the air? Waves? Yes. So when we are on our cell phones, how do we get data? How do we get resection? How do we make phone calls? We will use Wi-Fi, exactly. So when there's Wi-Fi, or as my friends in France used to call them, Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi? Yeah, yeah. The French would say, do you have the Wi-Fi? Can you call it Wi-Fi? I don't know, maybe it's a French thing. They pronounce it Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi, yeah. And that is how you know when your phone starts to work that there's Wi-Fi in the air. So what I'm trying to say, Zainab, is there are often things that are right in the house. For example, people in other rooms. There are also things in the air that we can't see. There are things microscopically small that you can't see unless you have a certain special, the way of looking at them, like a microscope, or even X-rays, right? These are able to look right beyond and see things that we can't see unless we have that special X-ray. So there are many things that we can't see, but they are there. You know, for example, right now with the virus, I mean, people tell us don't leave the house, right? Because it's dangerous. It's in the air. But we can't really see it, but yet we're being very careful. We're hiding in our homes because nobody wants to get sick. I know it's so bad. We must pray for all the people who are sick because it's so, so scary. What's happening out there? Absolutely. And the thing is that when we have faith, when the scientists tell us that, look, there's something up in the air. You've got to be careful. You've got to stay at least six feet away from someone because that's how close their germs can hit you. That tells you that you have to listen to the experts. The experts know. True. The experts know. We've got to listen. And we've got to be careful. Otherwise, we're going to get sick. Absolutely. But that's talking about germs and stuff. But there's also wonderful things that are in the air that we can't see. Wonderful things. Like angels. Angels. Yeah, they're angels in the world. I forgot about the angels. Angels, can you see me? Angels can see us. We can see them.  We have been told in hadith that there are special angels that get to come. So when you're in a Majlis and you are sitting there with all the people crying and stuff around you, for a minute, Zainab, think about all the angels in the air who are also there. They're special angels. They have been selected to come to Majlisah Hussain. That is cool. Yeah. And they all wait for this honor to be invited. Imagine. I want to thank all the children who are joining us from all over. We've got kids from Manchester. But if you're joining us from other places around the world, please let us know. We've got Rubab and Hussain. Okay, from Manchester. And Noshin Zahra, she likes your scarf. And so sorry if I'm mentioning your parents' names, because if that's their account, you can put your own name there too. Muhammad from Manchester. Six years old. Oh, I think I'm six too. How old am I? I don't know. You'll have to ask your mom. But you're kind of tiny. So that's why it's so nice to talk to you, because I can tell you things you don't know. See, all some of these kids there, they know everything. You guys know everything? Not everything. But they know a lot more than you. Come on. I think I can teach you guys a few things. Inshallah. Let's do that. We've got Zaynab. And oh, you're also Zaynab. This is from the account of your father, mama, the boss. And then we've got Haider Abbas. Haider is saying, Salam. I'm Haider. And then we've got Ali Mehdi from Manchester. And mashallah, all the Madrasa students today have really tuned in. I think we need to thank you, Zaynab, for bringing all these people on today. Oh, thank you.  Yeah, that's true. Well, it's a holiday. Masumah age nine from Manchester. Haider Shake. Subhanallah. You know, oh, we've got somebody from Dubai, Ilan, and Bahjat from Manchester. Keep writing so we can say hello to you. And you know what? All these JTM students. Sorry if I don't say my address is named properly. You can put it in the comment section. But I know we call it JTM when I was there in Manchester. That Madrasa, we all did visit them, right, Zaynab? Or there was a competition. Everybody had made all this baked stuff. And then it was a birthday. What birthday was it? I can't remember. But there were so many of you. And it was such a wonderful day. And I had so much fun. You guys were so nice to me. And we had a puppet show.  And it was a lot of fun. It was a full crowd. That's so much fun. Yes, yes, yes. It was a great, great time. And I want to thank all the kids from Manchester who were so hospitable. They gave us so much warmth, hospitality.  One of the reciders had come also.  It was a great day. Yeah, it really was. And today, inshallah, we'll have a great day. Right. So today we're talking about things, well, things that we can't see. And you know, there's one thing that we can't see. Like we said, love. God. Angels. Mm-hmm. We can't see God. But God is everywhere, right? Oh, yeah. God is everywhere. Mm-hmm. So we know He's there, but we can't see Him.  Oh, come on. I just can't see everything empty, like all panoramic. Yeah, it's true.  But Allah, it's just too great for us to see. You know, there's a story of Habnab-e-Musa was trying to, like, want it to see, but it was so bright. So bright that He couldn't. And that was just the creation of God. The creations of God are sometimes like, so big.   He's just everywhere. So you can't even see Him. He's beyond us. So there are things that we can't see. And today, when we are celebrating the birthday of... Please, please, please. I know, okay. Mm-hmm. It's the birthday of... Jesus? No. It's not the birthday of Jesus. Astaghfirullah. Sorry. I am six years old. What do I know? It's Imam. Imam, come on. Tell me in the comments section. Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Well, we've got somebody from Pakistan joining us. We've got... Let me see. I see some comments. Oh, yes. We had Ali Safdar. Thank you, Amina Sheikh. Yes, at JTM. We had Ali Safdar, not Ali Warris. Oops. Yes. Yes. It is. Thank you, Nushin Zahra. It is the birthday of Imam Mahdi. Adjalalahu ta'ala Farajahum Sharif. Allahumma salli ala Muhammad wa ani Muhammad. Do you know, whenever you hear the name of Imam Mahdi, what do you have to do?  Yes. Also, it's recommended, if you can, to stand up. It is like hearing the name of a king. Mm-hmm. He is a king. He is our Imam. He is the Imam of our time. He is the one with the power to say, do something, and we would do it, because he is our leader. So, absolutely. It's the birthday of Imam Zamanah. Adjalalahu ta'ala Farajahum Sharif. And say, Nub. Also, you did mention Nabi Isa A.S. Yeah. All right. So, it's not his birthday, but the Christians believe that it is the day that Nabi Isa A.S. actually was taken back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You mean he died? We believe that Nabi Isa A.S. did not die. Alhamdulillah. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Holy Quran that, oh, Isa, all the miracles that you did were done because we allowed it by my leave, Allah says.   How did Allah protect him? I mean, from what I've seen, he was put on the cross and then they crucified him, and that was really sad, right? Well, that is what the people thought and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us that they thought it was Nabi Isa on that cross, but it wasn't. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala took him away and put somebody else in the place of him so that people thought that they saw Nabi Isa A.S. being crucified, being marchered.  You say they were marchered, right? It's the word Shahid. It's a very dignified and respectful way of saying that somebody didn't just pass away. It wasn't a natural death. It was a Shahadah. A person was Shahid. So Nabi Isa A.S., the people tried. The people tried, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did this miracle. They thought he was getting crucified, but Allah took him into the heavens. Do Christians believe that? They do. They believe. Well, they say he died. We know he didn't die, but they believe that he came back and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala took him away and he is alive right now. Oh, they believe that Nabi Isa A.S. is alive like Imam Mahdi. You got it. You got it. Nabi Isa A.S. and Imam Mahdi. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Farah Jahum Sharif are both alive. Well, so it's not just us who believe this. Exactly. They too believe that their prophet is alive like we believe our Imam is alive. And what's really incredible, Zaynah, is when they come back, it's together and they're going to come and fix all the problems in the world. Why don't they come already then? Well, they should be coming, inshallah. But the thing is we got to be ready and we're not ready. No, I'm ready. I always say Allah, Jal, Allah, Jal. Ya Imam, Allah, Jal. Come, come, come. So I'm ready. Well, it's one thing to say you're ready and it's another to be really ready, right? You know, sometimes when you're getting ready for school and you're like, I'm ready and then the bus comes and you're not really at the door. Yeah. Mmm. You haven't got your shoes on.  I'm ready, but you're not. So that's what it is. We're not really ready. Imam knows we're not ready. And so when we are ready why do we have to get our like shoes on and stuff to make Imam think we're ready? No, we don't have to wear shoes but what Imam is waiting is for our hearts to be ready. But I said Allah, Jal. Well, it's not just saying Allah, Jal. It's about saying Imam, whatever you tell me, I will listen. I will be obedient. Mmm. That's a problem. I don't think I'm very obedient. Yeah. Obedience is a problem. And also, we have to be good people because if you're bad begin this army. But what if I'm really good at like killing and like doing like getting rid of the enemy? Then I'm ready for the army, right? No. To get into Imam's army, you don't have to know how to kill and you don't have to know how to use arrows and stuff. It's an army of good people because Imam's work will be to fix all the bad things that are happening to teach and to teach by example. So Imam wants everyone to be good and Nabi Isa A.S. will come with him to get rid of all the people that are really, really, really bad. The enemies, then there will be a fight. Then there will be, but it won't be for people like you and I, inshallah. We're going to be helping Imam and we're going to be good people, yeah? Yeah, we're going to be good, yeah. So our job will be to support Imam and to be by his side and to say, Imam, whatever you say we're ready to do that. And that means no lying, no cheating, no plotting, no being mean and cruel, no bullying. I'm like bullying. Astaghfirullah, you like bullying? Yeah, it's kind of nice to be like saying na, na, na, na, na, you're so bad. I'm so good.   So it's kind of fun to, hello Zaynab. You do all that? Not really, but sometimes I feel like being a bully is not bad. It's very bad. You don't do that. I think it's terrible. Don't do it, don't do it. Imam doesn't like it when we make fun of people and we laugh at them and we're like hurting feelings. No way, we can't be the lovers of Imam if we act like that. You should be sorry. And say to Imam, Imam, from now on I promise I'm going to be good. Imam, I promise, I promise I'm going to be good. Did you write an Areza? Yeah, I wrote a letter to Imam Zaman. It's a beautiful letter. It's called an Areza. Yeah, so in your Areza you got to say such things and say, Imam I'm sorry, I've made mistakes and I've been a sinner. But now I promise Imam I'm going to be good. I promise Imam, now I'm going to be good. Good, Alhamdulillah. So, Nabi Isa A.S. is alive just like Imam Zamanah. Do you know Nabi Idris is alive? I mean, there are some personalities the people of the cave, the Ashabic Gulf are alive in Europe, yeah? Yes, can be pretty cloudy over in England, right, in Manchester and in London, etc. And so Imam, the prophet says that just like, sorry, I'm trying to make sure you get in on the screen here too. Yeah, so the prophet says that just like on a cloudy day it's still bright, right? Yeah, I mean it's dark but it's still like we can still see exactly. So you know when it's night, you know when it's day, even though you can't see the sun, right? Yeah, sometimes we have really cloudy days. So it means that you know there's, if there's a day there's got to be the sun. Yes, so the prophet says just like you can know that there is a sun behind those clouds and when the clouds part suddenly what happens? Oh, we see it there and go and we say does the world come out? Well, it is quite of exciting when we see the sun when you see the sun come out, right? And it's like wow it was there all along we know, but when it comes out you're like yes, now it's really really here, we can see it and the world is bright and sunny, right? So the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam explains that the Mahdi the Imam of the time Imam Zamana is like the sun behind the clouds So even though you can't see him you know he's there, yeah you know he's there and that's the whole beauty of it all By the way, I want to say a special salam to all our viewers on Qaim TV What?  Yeah, Zaynab you are So Qaim TV is having us live and Thaqalain Islamic Reminders page on Facebook has us live right now and JTM in Manchester has us live right now and Zakira Sharla's Jaffer Dalla's page also has us live right now So we've got thousands of people watching us right now Zaynab Oh my God, yeah and we are here to talk about Imam Zamanah and and Nabi Isa I mean, it's a holiday today excuse me it's holidays for days we're in like lockdown we can't even go anywhere Yeah, it is kind of sad but on the other hand even though it's not a fun thing but it is still nice to be with our family safe, you know there's so many people who are not well right now true, you know there's so many people we need to pray for they're in the hospital we need to pray for all the uncles and aunties who have the virus and their children and people of all ages who are sick right now also we need to pray for all the doctors and the nurses and all the frontline workers who are working so hard to make sure that you and I don't get sick we need to say yeah Imam please help us Allah Jal please help us you've got it Zainab asking Imam is what we need to do right now because do you know when Imam Zamanah comes he will have access to all the things that have been hidden in the world like for example cures to diseases really? yeah Imam Zamanah when he comes will have all the things that are hidden in the earth that I've been especially waiting for him he has all these hadiths this is a very special book that has all these hadiths and he says that when Imam comes he will first of all help all those people who are oppressed he will judge with justice and he will come and make sure that there are no poor people anymore that people are not stealing from others is he going to school everybody and beat them? he will teach he will say no don't do that did the prophet hit people did he scold them? no he was very nice he was yes means that he was the mercy upon mankind and so Imam Zamanah also will be a mercy Imam Zamanah is not going to be cruel and do all that that's for the true enemies who will remain at the end who will say no we don't want to be good we want to blow up people and be cruel and hurt those people are the ones that Imam will have to get rid of but good people Imam Zamanah is going to tell them look this is not good don't do these bad things just like the holy prophet did so he will judge with justice all forms of tyranny will all be removed oh that's so nice it will be safe people will be able to go out at night they will not have to lock their doors no all my arms no they won't need to it will be so safe because everybody they won't be afraid of the police they'll be afraid of Allah and that's what we really need to be afraid of sometimes I think oh there's no police here let me just take this candy no that's bad but people do that they're like oh nobody's looking to steal this candy from a shop but when you know Allah is watching and Allah is you don't care if the camera is looking or if the shopkeeper or if the police is there you should care that Allah is watching true true true true exactly so that time because Imam will be our leader and we will be accountable to him and to God people will be safe people will be able to leave their doors unlocked people will be able to go out at night have you been to Karbala oh yeah I wish I could be in Karbala right now that was so beautiful have you seen how safe it is when we're in Karbala true true true true we go to the Haram at night all alone my mommy and me and there's nobody with us but we know nobody's going to do anything bad to us because we're in Imam Hussein's land right yeah and we feel this way we learn Madina, we walk at night we go to the Haram we know that we are safe so that's how it will be it will be the land of Imam Zaman and we will all be safe and at that time the earth will bring forth all the blessings and that and the cures to all the diseases including you know coronavirus you mean we have to wait this long well inshallah the cure will be found there are many things like cancer and all these awful diseases that kill people yeah it's so sad so Imam will come and bring all the cures to all the diseases he will have all the access to the minerals and the things that nobody has right now he will have access to them and the rights of all the people will be given to them everyone will feel like okay all my all the things that were done cruelly to me now have been given back to me but what about things that happened even before Imam Hussein was hurt Ali Asker was killed he was martyred Bibi Fatima's grave is all broken what about all those things that's so long ago now it's not too late when Imam Zaman A.J. Sharif comes he's gonna make sure that he explains to the world how cruel he was and all the rights of the Imam will be given back to them including revenge for what happened in Karbala and when Imam Zaman A.J. comes the grave of Bibi Fatima will be fixed again really yes and then inshallah we can all go and say our Salam to our Bibi in Jannah so amazing things are going to happen and you know what it is hard because we can't see our Imam definitely but you've gotta remember there were many people in the time before us who couldn't see their Imam as well remember when people in Karbala for example or in Sham when they saw Bibi Zainab they didn't recognize her they didn't know she was the daughter of Imam Ali the sister of Imam Hussein because they had never seen her before right the people of that time also did not know until they said I am Zainullah Bidin or Imam on that spear so there were people always in time who haven't been really able to see the Imam of their time and yet they believed in him yet they obeyed him you don't always have to see somebody I mean most people are doing online schooling right now no fun yeah no fun gotta do homework but we gotta do homework because that's how we're gonna learn how to read and write and gain knowledge need all this it's fun to have the weekend forever after a while it's kinda boring right yeah boring so when you're doing online schooling you know your teacher is not like there but you know that the teacher is waiting for the work right true so just like that we can't see our Imam but we know Imam is waiting for us to behave Imam is waiting for our work and our results right so there have been stories like that and you know what another example is when Nabi Yusuf Allah do you know the story of Nabi Yusuf Allah yeah yeah yeah his brothers right his brothers were so mean they were like bullies yeah and you know this is something to learn about the story of Nabi Yusuf Allah in your time at home so Nabi Yusuf Allah when he became like the king yeah his brothers came right his brothers came his brothers couldn't recognize him yeah exactly Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was able to sort of put a veil over their eyes that they didn't recognize their brother can you imagine maybe he got like his face changed Allah by a miracle made it so that they couldn't see him and this is exactly what it is that Nabi Yusuf Allah was with his brothers and nobody recognized him he was pretty good looking right he was beautiful I mean they would have at least got to be Yusuf but no they didn't know and that's exactly what how our Imam is amidst us he's right here but we don't recognize him and often he comes to help us he comes and he's right there and people say you know what a man came and he took care of everything and we were lost and he took us to our destination we don't know who that was and he was gone maybe that was our Imam and Imam sends people to help us Imam comes with a different face Imam comes and he's right amidst us and we don't see each other they're much like the clouds the sun and the clouds they are the sun is behind the clouds but we know it's there our Imam is also there another thing when Nabi Yusuf was talking about he thought that they were looking at him but Allah put somebody else in his place yeah I don't get that exactly this is what I wanted to tell you about this Zaynab that you know the story of Hazret Ismail and how his father Nabi Ibrahim had to take him and to sacrifice him because that was the command that Allah had given him yeah that's what we do in Eid that he was like father he will find me and his father was about to kill him because Allah wanted that and then what happened that's why we sacrificed we do that in Eid right yeah we do this is called the Bakra Eid we do it became it became an animal so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can do that he can change things and if we believe that that happened we can surely believe that Nabi Isa a.s looked like he was on the cross and Allah put something else someone else in his place just so that the people thought oh Isa is killed he is martyred but he is alive and so that Allah would keep him safe and safety is the reason why Imam Mahdi a.s cannot be amongst us right now because if the people knew where he is the evil people they would kill him before he can actually gum and do all the things that he needs to do but do you know at least 30 people in the world at any given time who are able to meet Imam Zamanah regularly yeah yeah and is Haq bin Yaqub and Sheikh Mufi than many scholars have received letters by Imam they have received you know commands and things to say to go and tell my Shias tell my believers really? yeah Imam Zamanah is alive Zainab you know there are 3 places that he is promised that he is definitely going to come when I want him to come I want to see him well you might not be able to see him but he promises he will come number one is at the time of trouble and when you are lost and you are stuck and you are crying and especially when you feel like no one can save you you have to say Ya Imam Zamanah come now help me help me help me and Imam says when you call out to me like that I will come why Zainab? why? because he is our Imam he has to come it's his job he has to be there for us and we should never feel alone we should never think oh I can't see him where is he? some people are far away from us but we know some people are in another country but we know Imam is maybe not right here in this room but he is definitely as soon as you call him he will come that's cool and another place where he always promises that he will come from and Ali Shayan and Famiah from Pakistan thank you for joining us and masha Allah we have many many people writing in from all over the world and someone says you look beautiful Zainab thank you you're great for TV and someone says masha Allah thanks sister Sharers you're doing a brilliant job for the children when they're locked down hey who locked me down I ain't no lock I am free yeah who can lock you kids down you're all over the place making the place all wild and crazy but yeah the door the front door is closed but we're all Alhamdulillah so safe and so happy and so able to do whatever we need to and we are so blessed our house is given as a shelter is given as food there's so many kids out there saying that they have no money and you know they're poor as it is and then down there in lockdown so their parents who used to work at people's homes can't work in those homes anymore and so they're you know we have to feel sorry for them and if we can we should tell our parents to give money to give sadhaka to give money to these children all over the world who are so poor they don't have the wonderful food and are you making cookies and cakes at home? yeah we're baking my mommy and I yeah see we're getting to do fun things they're kids who don't have fun things like that they don't get to make cake stuff we have that we're enjoying so much but let's remember those poor children right now and tell our key parents I want to send money to the poor and you know if you've got a piggy bank or something then say I want to send five dollars five pounds or whatever that you have because our money is a lot of money in some countries so even though it feels like just five pounds to us it's a lot of money in Pakistan it's a lot of money in India so definitely you know do that and if you've got relatives in those countries first of all who are needy make sure you send it to your relatives but you can say to your relatives I will send you money in your account you please give it to the poor in your country right right we can do that yeah you're right auntie that's a great idea exactly so the second okay can everybody remember number one was oh guys can you remember please write in the comments number one where does he mom come when we number one he's promised number one yes at the time of trouble and number two he's present at every Hajj Imam has promised that at every Hajj he also comes this is especially you know she teaches us that when you are in Hajj and stuff be nice to everyone you don't know if Imam is in your midst you don't know this person that you are treating kindly is actually the Imam of your time and what if you're treating them unkindly yikes terrible so if you're being bad God forbid Imam is watching and he will tell everything to Allah you know he reports and that's why on the night of 15 Shaban we call out to our Imam when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is writing our destiny that yeah Imam tell Allah that I'm going to be good from now on and Imam does wasila for us he tells Allah he says please Allah forgive these people they told me they've promised me that they're going to be good and I'm the Imam of their time and I vouch for them I know they're good people Imam will say I know Zainab Imam knows me he knows everybody Imam knows everyone who loves him and everyone who sends anything in his name Imam gets that Imam will say Allah look Zainab's a good kid I know and she's pledged she's going to be good from now on she's not going to be a bully and she said I'll be good from now on and that is what I am telling you Allah please forgive her wow that's wasila he speaks on our behalf and he begs Allah to forgive us number three very interesting thing Imam attends the funeral of every believer every believer who had done all their wajibat which means they did all their namaz, they did all their fasting and also they give their homes if they had any to give and so that means that good people Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sends Imam to them to be there and right now in this terrible days when often funerals people can attend because we're all in lockdown and we often feel so sad that you know that grave was all alone nobody could be there the problem is of Imam Zamanah is that he comes to the funeral of every loved one and of course we know Imam Ali aley salam, Imam Rida aley salam all these imams have promised that you know we will come Imam Zamanah says I will come to you when you are passing away inshallah Nusheen Zahra is asking we have regular shows with Zainab please I hope we can too and I've received so many requests from all over the world especially for Mahir Ramadan that we can have Zainab and you know we have Ali as well right we have other family members and friends that we can also bring up yeah these boys like us puppets are you a puppet no no no I'm real I'm real yeah yeah like just like Pinocchio was real right exactly so inshallah what you can do is pray for me that I have the strength the energy and the good mood to do this because it is exhausting no doubt I'm gonna get completely drained but I'm doing a lot of live shows lately and it's wonderful to have so many people all over the world joining me but I will confess it is exhausting you'll get tired what sort of puppet show hmm it is tiring especially when I've got all that stuff in the kitchen waiting for me to do so there's a lot of work and that's another thing help your parents because that way then they don't get all tired we have to be there for each other so another thing is Imam Zaman al-Ajjalallahu ala farah jahum sharif also promises that whenever you remember him he comes so even if in difficulty but even if you're not in difficulty every morning make this habit of saying salam to him As-salamu alaika ya Imam Zaman al-Ajalallahu ala farah jahum sharif o Imam I send you my salam and when you do that Imam it's wajib to say walaikum salam so he will also reply and also another thing to know is that whenever you have any gatherings for example do I not bow or any gatherings for example the gathering we're having right now where we're remembering Imam Zaman al-Ajjalallahu ala farah jahum sharif that Imam says when you mentioned me I come to that gathering you mean Imam with us right now absolutely we've got kids from Pakistan kids from from Dubai from all over the world we're writing in and sing there with us if they can be with us can't Imam be with us true true true true true true and what we need to do in this time Zainab and you know maybe we do need to have another program because I wanted to tell you the story of how Imam Zaman was born what do you mean I want to tell you about the story of his mother who was a princess and how Imam Hassan the father of Imam Zaman was joined in marriage to this princess a princess yes she is a princess our Imam is the daughter is the son of a princess but he himself is a king you know I mean he has Imam Ali as his great grandfather he's from the project of the holy prophet his mom was the daughter of our Roman king seriously yes when we have another program we'll talk about this whole thing and it's a really fantastic story and you think this is not true it can't be but it is true the mother of Imam Zaman was having dreams Imam Hassan was saying to her you are going to marry me so I can't wait to see you and she was like I'm already my heart is already with this person I need to be with him and she came looking for him and she came all the way to Medina so that she could marry him isn't that amazing that is amazing yeah she came looking for him and Subhanallah we are so blessed that our our Imam got such a wonderful wife who was so pious she was from the progeny of Nabi Isa alaihi salam not the progeny meaning Nabi Isa alaihi salam you know did not have a wife or children but from his disciples there was one called Simon and Simon was a very noble man and it is his daughter and his great great great granddaughter that is Nabi Nurgis Khaton who then marries from the progeny of the holy prophets and that is how Nabi Isa's people and the prophets people join and we have a son named Mahdi and that is why Jesus Hazrat Isa alaihi salam will come to join Imam Mahdi because they are from the same family they come from the same belief in the same plan and the same the whole mission is the same so what we can do in this time is we can be loyal to our alive Imam and that means that we need to share his story like we are doing today Zainab we need to send our salam we need to express our love to our Imam write him a letter and you know your Ariza you can write it at any time of the year you can write a letter to your Imam anytime and then all you need to do is put it in your holy Quran what? I thought you have to put it in the water or you have to put it like you have to bury it sure you can do all that and you should but right now because we can't really leave our homes you can put it in your Quran and it will get to Imam alright and we can prepare we can prepare by also improving our character our attitude our lives right we have to stop doing all these sins we have to get ready for Imam and have our heart with him and our actions need to be completely good Zainab we have to do everything to prepare our community we have to clean ourselves our sins, our whole community we have to improve relationships with each other we can't be fighting how can Imam like us when we fight with each other we have to fight the enemy we could be in an army where the people are fighting with each other that would be silly because we have to be one army and the bad guys over there are what we have to fight absolutely but if we're fighting with each other the bad guys will come and kill us we'll be like ok this is a great chance they're all busy fighting so let's kill them so we have to be strong we have to say we are one and I'm sorry we're fighting let's just not fight anymore and so we have to improve our relationships improve how we treat each other and our family you shouldn't be fighting with your brothers and sisters because Imam is looking for communities and families that are united, that are good that way he'll say these are my people and we have to be totally focused on preparing ourselves in being good and doing La Baik to Allah SWT and doing La Baik to our Imam waiting for us to behave and you know us who are behaving and acting when we're acting really good you know what's happening our Imams are proud of us you know the fourth Imam Imam Zayn al-Abdina AS he said that the people of the time of Imam Mahdi that's us, you and I right and it's been like 1380 years is it since our time has been gone in in occultation and he says that all those people who have been waiting for Imam the fourth Imam talks about this he says they're better than even the people of the time of our time the fourth Imam says the people who can actually see their Imam their their Imam is not as great as the people who are not seeing their Imam in front of them because they are believing in an Imam they can't see, they can't speak to him you all can talk to us you all can ask us questions our Shia of the Imam of the time they won't be able to see us they'll be all alone but they'll know that he's there just like the sun behind the clouds that yakin, that faith is awesome and the fourth Imam says a true understanding they are the smart ones they know my Imam is there I don't need to see him, I don't need to hear his voice I will listen to him even though he is not in front of me and he said that those people who wait like this for their Imam that's you and me, we're waiting right yeah we're waiting he said that is a jihad that is a sacrifice, the suburb that they're doing they're saying oh these people are being so cruel but you know what Imam I'm waiting, I'll do suburb because I know you're there that suburb is a jihad they are sincere Imam says and they are our true Shia and they bring people to the message they bring them openly like we are right now on the internet and we go and give speeches and we say we do Julus et cetera we do our processions, we say openly we are our Imam's followers and then there are also those who are doing it secretly, their lives are in danger they have to do Takia, they can't even say that I'm a Shia and Ali but their hearts are with Imam Ali and that the fourth Imam says that is true jihad, those are the people that are our Shia and the sixth Imam says those people who are waiting like that he says congratulations to them for doing that waiting he's congratulating us for waiting yeah, because he says it's a suburb people who are waiting like that congratulations he says for doing that waiting properly they are doing jihad they are doing jihad and they are following their Imam and when they die even if Imam doesn't come in their lifetime they will get the same suburb as if they were in his army and I have a question from Mahawesh Fatima when you put our Ariza in the gun will it then vanish no, it doesn't need to vanish it will still be there absolutely it will still be there but the message will be gone to him, for example when you send a click with your phone let's say we send a text out send a text you can still see the text on your phone still there and send messages when you send an email still there in your email you see it but it is sent and it says received like in WhatsApp you see those two tick marks and you know that that person has the blue tick mark means they've seen your message well with Imam it's the same the paper is still in your Quran but it doesn't mean the message did not get sent it got sent and it was read and even though we don't see the two blue tick marks we have our faith that says I know my Imam is listening and that is the awesome awesome thing that is about all this that we our Imam is with us thank you so much for being with us today and for such a long long program yeah we thought we were only going to be here for 20 minutes maybe half an hour yeah but you know there's so much to say and there's always so much to say and inshallah we'll keep doing this and you know I just need you guys to pray for me and I sincerely if I have the strength and I have you know I can do this and we can meet all the time like this and Zaynab has always got so much energy yeah yeah I'm full of energy I'm bouncing off the walls yeah that's right so before we end though Zaynab we have some exciting news really really yes really we have some exciting news what we have is thank you so much for all those nice comments that we're seeing here in the we have some exciting news that the madrasa students of JTM Manchester have taken part in an awesome competition a competition yeah all the students were told to draw something to paint something to bake something to make a masterpiece from Lego or Play-Doh or to write a poem or to write a speech oh my god such talented children yeah they're very talented and this was all in the theme of our beloved a weighted savior of mankind Imam Mahdi Yes and they had to you know send in whatever that they did they could send a picture of what they baked and you know they all got this done in the deadline on time and Subhanallah what amazing amazing kids that have done this and you know your prize is going to come in the mail in the post it's coming yeah they're getting prize money these are smart kids and they have and so we are going to right now Zaynab is going to announce we have a drama role please I'd like to open the envelope please and read out the names of all the winners yeah they don't read the wrong answers alright then we get the crowning of the wrong queen or something queen it's okay it's just a joke alright so here we are number one class one the winner is the winner of class one is and then number two the winner of class two is the winner of class two is what I'm going to do is put all the names here as soon as they all are announced and we're going to put them in the in the comment section so what about class three the class three winner is class four are you ready the winner for class four is nice name last name Mahdi wins and I'm sure it's not just his name that got him the blessings of course he worked hard congratulations on having a beautiful name too and then class five the winner is Zaynab are you ready to announce class five the winner is number six are you ready the class six winner is class five the last winner the name is and I'm putting all the names for you here in the comment section hopefully yes there we are oh JTM Manchester has put it up that's us and it says in the class one class two class three number four is number five is number six is number 7 and the has especially told us to mention that the trees were awesome amazing amazing amazing answers for everyone and amazing work we got so many essays and masterpieces of lego and baking and poetry and subhanallah inshallah the school will also share will also share these with them so that with everyone so that we can all see the amazing work that the class did with that Zainab and Zakira Shairo's Jaffer Dalla. We wish you a good, good, good, good, good and a very fabulous 15 Shaban celebration in your home.  Inshallah and with that Zakira Shairo's Jaffer Dalla and Zainab. We say Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh and let's end with a loud salawat, sending our love to our Imam Zatama. Adalallahu ta'ala farajahum. Sherif Allahumma sali ala Muhammad wa alia Muhammad.


I wish you a good trip, dear friends, and good night. Kadyrov's relative to Prigozin, enough of your gloating. Duma deputy, Adam Delimkanov, chairman of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Duadov and commander of the special unit, Akhmat Apti Alodinov, criticised the head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozin, who is in the close circle of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. Delimkanov accused Prigozin of exacerbating the problem of ammunition shortages and said he was personally responsible for the heavy losses in the battles for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Radio Free Europe writes that such sharp reaction of Kadyrov's men was caused by what Prigozin said about the repeated deployment of Chechen units. Delimkanov said that he was particularly angry when Prigozin said, I don't know what the Kadyrovites are doing. He called Prigozin a blogger who tells the whole world about the problems. Delimkanov objected to Prigozin and said that the Russian Ministry of Defense provided the necessary assistance to Wagner's fighters. We all know how many people you sacrificed in the direction of Bakhmut in seven to eight months. We also know how much the Ministry of Defense supported you in these seven to eight months. You were helped more than anyone else. Despite this, how many sacrifices were made? You have celebrated enough. The commander of the Akhmat detachment, Abti Alodinov, also claimed that it helped Prigozin more than his detachment. Chairman of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Dodov, said something like a threat. He appealed to Prigozin and said that if it continues like this, no good result will be obtained. He called the direction of Bakhmut in seven to eight months and said that he was a commander. And we can compare our people, our citizens. Everyone should understand that it was so difficult in the first place.


Now it's time to add some more light to our scene to look like the candles are casting light into the room The first thing I'm going to do then because it's quite difficult to see what I'm doing now that I've turned this transform off It just turn it back on just makes things a bit easier to work with You could also press six on your keyboard to get the more flat light as well And we're going to create so from the create menu We're going to get a light and this time it's going to be a point light and these act as a point in space That light emits from so light shoots out in all directions in some other applications They're known as omnidirectional lights But if you imagine like a light bulb with light going out in every direction It's that kind of light and that's perfect for a candle flame So let's have our point light and then we need to get it in place So this has to be quite precise. So I'm going to do this using my orthographic views So let's just put these into wireframe so I can see what I'm working with And then we're going to move it over here Get it up to about the right height Yeah, that's close and These are just placeholders. So I don't want it to be inside the flame. I'm going to put it just above the flame Okay, which flame is it that one? Okay, so that's positioned I can now go back into my full screen perspective view and we'll turn the lights back on and you can see that Just by default. This is already having an impact on the scene So you can see if I move that around it's doing stuff, which is nice And now we need to make some changes to this light So the first and most obvious one is to make it look sort of candle light colored So I'm going to go into my color here and I'm going to choose somewhere in the sort of orangey spectrum for this That's nice And if you want to see what kind of effect that's having you can just toggle Illuminates by default on and off. So if I give that a click it turns it off Turn it back on and we can see what that light is now doing Then what I want to do is add a decay rate to this light. So candle light tends to fall off it's not going to light things that are way off in the distance and Maya handles this with a decay rate So the one that mimics real light the closest is this quadratic one So if we turn that on you'll then see that this is now doing next to nothing if I just toggle this on enough again It's hard to see what impact it's having and now that means we need to just up the intensity Until it starts having an impact and you see it's just starting to there, which might be quite nice But I want to go a bit stronger Now sometimes people think that when you reach the end of a slider That's as far as you can go so you might think that ten is as high as you can go But if that ever happens to you can just type a number and that will usually let you go high So let's try 20 Yeah, let's go up a bit behind that That's nice. I've gone up to well, let's say 30 And then we'll just toggle that on and off so we can see what's happening. Yep, that's kind of nice Yeah, and when we turn off that you can see that it's kind of hitting the scroll, which is nice So this might well work. Okay. Last thing that I want to do them is just go into Arnold Make sure it's casting shadows So that means that we're ready now to try another test render But we're not going to do it in this step Because I want to show you a different way to render in the next step which is using something called IPR or Interactive photorealistic rendering. So let's check that out in the next step Game Dev Academy is graciously supported by these absolute legends If you'd like to offer your support then check out our patreon page using the link in the description below