So, now you see that this quantity what I have done is basically I have expressed it like some quantity here. So, what is this? This quantity if you look at this, this finally this just needs a vector right. So, this is a matrix product, this is a matrix and now this is a vector, this product gives you a vector and this denominator is some constant. So, this quantity is a vector and now you are looking at it is in a product with this quantity. Then it is like similar to what I was basically doing it here right, but instead of d I have replaced it by this entire quantity. Instead of this vector d I have another quantity here. So, if I want to now apply some bound probability bound on this like in this fashion the way I did, I need to just then consider this and then use whatever I have done here, but there is an issue here when I did take this inner product here right. This d is a particular arm and I took the inner product on this error term here, but now here this quantity whatever which I want to treat it as a d it is not a fixed quantity, it is a random quantity. Why is that? Because theta hat has come into picture. So, now if I want to apply any tail bound on this like I want to consider what is the probability that this guy is going to be greater than or less than or equals to beta something of that sort. I cannot directly use what I have done here because here to do this I have to deal the projection of a random arm on my error term. So, how to now account for the randomness in this quantity ok. So, for that we have to do some more applied some more tricks and that trick comes something called scouring argument. This quantity here is random and this will lead to a column vector which could be any it can take any possible value in my i d space right. Because this 3 t hat is a random quantity because of this this quantity can be anywhere in my i d space I do not know what is this value is it depends on the value of theta t hat and also other quantities theta star and what was the matrix V t at that time. So, to do this it can take all possible values many possible values in the space i d we are going to first discretize this possible values and now try to focus on the discrete possible values. So, this is this can be any value in i d space which could be like countably uncountably large. So, what we are going to do is when we have such a situation right we usually go for and apply the union bound right we consider. So, right now this quantity has become a random quantity for us because of this estimated term here. Whenever we have a randomness quantity if you remember when we did it in the multi-amp banded. So, you remember in the multi-amp banded the number of the times are pulled is a random quantity right. How did we and when we wanted to apply half-ding similarity how did we do it? We consider all possible values of the number of pulls and then took a union bound on that. So, but there applying a union bound was okay because the values taken by the number of pulls was only finite that is 1 2 all the way up to t, but here this quantity can take uncountably many values. So, first what we are going to do is we are going to discretize it and then we are going to see that whatever possible value it can take we will we are going to say that there exist a point in my discretized space which is going to be arbitrarily close to this. So, we will make that notion precise and now once we have discretized we have only finitely many points in that set and then we apply a union bound on that. So, what we mean by? So, we identify finite set C epsilon belonging to R D such that. So, let me call this entire quantity y for whatever value y takes there exist some y belongs to C epsilon that is epsilon close. So, what I mean by this for whatever value of y there exist some y such that this holds where y belongs to my C epsilon. So, understand this what I mean by covering this I am basically saying that see my set of points that is the possible values y can take it could be uncountably many. Now, I want to make an approximation of this by a finite points such that whatever value this guy takes there exist a point in my set such that that is going to be epsilon close to that value y that is whatever value capital y has taken there exists a small y from my set C epsilon such that this difference is going to be less than epsilon this is what basically I have done the discretization right. Now, the question is whether such a C epsilon exist and if at all it exist and of course, that C epsilon I have denoted as this is a substitute epsilon to mean that that depends on the size of epsilon. So, naturally if you are expecting a small epsilon what do you expect the size of C epsilon to be? It is going to be large right ok. Here is a lemma which says existence of such a covering set. So, I am going to denote a set first S of D to be such of it is x such that what is this set SD is saying SD is such of all x such that their norm is less than or equals to 1. I mean basically it is a unit ball in my dimension D ok. So, now, there exists a set C epsilon cardinality of C epsilon per bounded by 3 epsilon to the power D such that for all x belongs to SD there exist y belong to C epsilon such that you follow what is this lemma is telling? It is telling that if you have a unit ball then that point that has that can have uncountably many points in that right. Now, we are saying that I can come up with the discretized version of that set which will have at most 3 by epsilon to the power D point such that if you give me any point x in my in this unit ball then I will have a corresponding y in my set C such that their difference is no more going to be epsilon. So, that is basically you have. So, this is your ball let us say now you have discretized it with some final number of points. Now, we are saying that if you give me any point let us say this is the point you have given I will be able to come up with some point which is going to be within epsilon distance from that point. So, I should be able to do it for any point given in my ball I should be able to come up with some point from my discrete set such that this quantity happens ok. So, this is true and we are just going to take this lemma we are not going to prove this ok. So, this is a and this is a pretty handy lemma to know you can use it elsewhere also like whenever you want to do a discretization and by the laws we are going to incur by doing a discretization will be at most epsilon if your number of elements in your discretization is going to be this much, but one has to be also careful that how where this discrete point are going to lie. You cannot assume that in this all my discretized point only lying some small region then if I choose a point here I will not be able to find a good approximation to that point ok. So, of naturally this discretized points has to kind of cover this entire region. So, that is why we are looking for a cover for this set, but that consists of only discrete, finitely many points in it ok fine. So, now the question is this lemma holds only for the case where my points I can cover points which are coming from a unit ball right, but now this set y whatever this y does this come from a unit ball that is whether this y belongs to the set Sd it just let us just compute just compute let us see what this gives you. So, this should be what is this? This will give you mu. So, what is this? This is nothing but y with y itself right and of course, there is a square term here. So, if you just look into this you will see that theta hat minus theta star into V g divided by theta t minus theta star whole divided by norm of V t square root right it is let us see I only want to take this part x. So, let us leave this one V t to the power half ok. Now, just take this x. So, now, let us see whether my x what is this x is this x going to lie in my unit ball. So, just check that this guy x transpose x is going to be 1 ok and now x entire thing ok then I want you to check what is this quantity half of this x V t inverse can you check what is this quantity is going to look like. So, this is nothing nothing nothing but the norm of x right this is again going to be 1 ok fine. So, let us have this let us see ok. So, I have this this properties. So, now, let us come back to this. So, if I am going to denote this quantity as x is that clear that this quantity is x transpose x is 1 and then V t the norm of this quantity is 1 yeah. I do not do V t transpose ok let us do this right what is this quantity this quantity is x transpose V t half transpose yeah this is the numerator right V t inverse V t also there in in in this half yeah may not be similar. Just see what is the meaning of V t half means every element is just been taken square root. That is the basically V t your V t. So, this is right x t V t to the power half V t inverse V t to the power half V t minus half I can again split as V t to the power minus half and V t to the power minus half right. That is fine yeah, but this transpose V t half transpose is it equal to V t. Yeah is that true or not. So, if original V t is symmetric. Yes. If you are going to and every element is that in that positive or not not necessarily. So, suppose let us say first consider the case when every element is positive and then I am going to define V t to the power square root t then this is the same thing right this is again going to be symmetric. Positive definite. Yeah. Let me split it up into 2 meters. The question is if V t is symmetric yeah right it is any V t is positive definite for us we already know that. So, we do not need to worry about it and now the question is what about V t half is it the same ok. I mean just if you confuse just work it out right yourself ok. So, right now let us take this is true and that is why this holds for us ok. So, let us continue now I want to use this after doing this now our goal is what our still goal is to still find out whether if I can bound such a probability ok if I have to use some some beta there. Now, I am going to show that if I have to define a set we will see that there exist c belongs to c epsilon such that now I want to do this set. Now see what I am basically doing is now I am looking for an event where I am looking for a presence of an x in the set C. C is now a finite set for me which violates this condition which in which this inner product is going to be larger than this ok. So, this if I want to look at the probability of this event what is this can I write it as or x coming from c epsilon probability that v t half x theta t hat minus theta star being greater than or equals to true log epsilon by delta is this correct ok. So, I am interested in this event where I am looking for their existence of an x for which this condition holds then I can always this upper bounded by this quantity right. Now, everything x is deterministic I am looking for one possible element in this discretized version. Now, I already now I also know that this v t to the power half into x where x is of this form I already know this is as a norm of 1 ok. That means, this guy is this this points here they are already coming from a unit ball the same v t I am taking there also right. v t to the power to the half to the power half. The norm is with respect to v t inverse x that is right. So, earlier when we applied this result right what would we say we took it any. So, when we started with we just started with saying that d inner product with some quantity right. So, d inner product with some quantity and on so that was like projection of my arm d on the error I was trying to bounded. So, now this is now whatever this quantity is let us say this is now a vector I am trying to project it on this ok. And we had in the first step we have demonstrated this, this can be written as a linear combination of my noise and then I had applied a result to this quantity right. So, what would I show for this? So, now this all these quantities is deterministic there is nothing randomness about this quantity x ok. So, now what is this probability is I have shown you that if we have this quantity we had earlier I had 1 by delta here, but now I have cardinality of C epsilon upon delta. So, if you just go and work this is going to be like x belongs to C epsilon this is now nothing but delta upon 1 upon C epsilon this probability is going to look like this. So, I erased it, but whatever the bound we have earlier if I am just going to look into that we will have this quantity and now this is nothing but equals to delta. So, what now we have basically done is suppose if I restrict take a set C which is like a discrete version of all the points that could have arise from points like y here. So, on that even if I have to remove the randomness here how I am going to remove the randomness here by considering all possible x's that are coming from my discrete set C which has only finitely many elements. Even if I do that that quantity that this probability of error is going to be still delta only and now I have to now translate fine this probability is above bounded by delta, but there was an error when I went from points here to a discretized points in this set right. Now, we have to worry about that part as well. So, now you will see that fine. So, at this point I have not actually used that this guy has to be this norm of this vector has to be 1. It can be any vector here V2 to the power half x can be any vector. Now, for that we know this upper bound holds. So, now let us see where I am going to use the error part theta hat minus theta star. So, this is another result I am going to write which you need to verify. So, this equality holds. So, I am just writing this right away, but you can verify this I am just saying that norm can be written as. So, this is going to be Vt here. This matrix norm can be written as a maximization problem over unit ball. So, how is this please check yes. So, in the root 2 log log c epsilon by delta A. Yeah. There should be some factor of it relates the norm of. Okay. So, fine. If we call this d this Vt half this Vt to the power half and if we call it d. Yes. So, only on the other side. Yeah. So, there is some term which involves. So, that term earlier came because we are dealing with the summation there. Now, that sum is not there on this part. If you now just carefully look into we were there looking at summation for S1 to t. S is 1 here. Just one S1 term here. Yes. So, that is why this summation term has not appeared here. To become like Vt inverse dS whole square. That is what I am saying. So, that was coming because it was making it not one sub Gaussian noise, but that was the sub Gaussian noise that was getting multiplied. The sub Gaussian was getting amplified by that factor and we had such many sum. Now, there was we had a sum of that but now you see that in that I am only dealing with one term here and there is no summation. So, that is why I have to only deal with this. So, whatever you are saying the factor that was coming after 2 that term is not there. So, it is just the same thing, but instead of the summation I am only looking at one term here. Just work it out. So, that is why it is still going to be lambda here and now I am saying that take this inequality for granted. So, notice that we had this state result and this result we are just stating this. So, we just take it for granted them. Now, I am going to do quick manipulations. Why is this almost done? So, now with this half I am just going to do quantity plus then I am going to do it as V t half times y theta hat theta. So, what I have done here I have simply this minimization is an artificial here because I have just subtracted y from x and added y quantity here. So, this y has actually has no effect on this, but I am just introduced it and trying to minimize it over this quantity. So, these are the manipulations I need.  Can I just quickly check this? This quantity if I am going to apply Cauchy Schott's inequality, I am just going to get this inequality here and then whatever the quantity that remains here, we already know that this quantity being greater than this quantity is very upper bounded by a small probability delta. So, we are going to with high probability we are going to replace this quantity by this upper bound which is now let us see this. What I will do is now this quantity x here we know that they were falling in a unit ball, right. So, I know this y's we have chosen they are coming from a unit, a discretized version of this the corresponding value of y and see I am taking a minimum here. So, I know that if I am going to the minimum value I am going to get on this is going to be at most epsilon. So, now if I do this, this quantity is nothing but norm of theta t hat theta star V t this is going to be epsilon and then this is going to be 2 times log epsilon by delta and now just get rid of this maximum because now there is no more x here. And now let us try to plug in the quantity C of epsilon what is the size of the C of epsilon? We know that the C of epsilon is at most upper bounded by 3 by epsilon to the power d. So, this quantity is. So, what we have finally gotten is theta t hat minus theta t star of V t is upper bounded by this. So, if I am going to further simplify this quantity what I will finally end up with theta t minus theta star is V t. So, there is an epsilon here if I take it on the other side I am going to get 1 minus epsilon I will simplify that that I am going to end up with 2 log going to get this quantity whole quantity it is 2 d 3 by epsilon plus 2 and this is true for any epsilon I am going to choose right. So, you see that I have an upper bound on the difference between these two quantity and this is going to hold with probability of at least 1 minus delta because I have used this fact that this quantity being larger than this lower bounded this quantity is delta. So, this quantity being upper bounded is going to be at most 1 minus delta. So, that is what I have done here. So, this quantity holds with probability at least 1 minus delta. And now this epsilon is what I have chosen epsilon just told how I discretized my unit ball right. So, if I am going to choose epsilon small what is this quantity it is going to be like it is going to be large right, but whereas this quantity if I choose epsilon small this epsilon comes in the denominator. So, this can shoot up ok. So, we have to choose epsilon appropriately because one term there is a tension between these two terms here right in terms of epsilon one guy is increasing and other guy is decreasing . So, how to choose epsilon appropriately you can tune it up appropriately, but let us say for time being we are going to just set epsilon equals to half then we will see that yeah this is one upper bound delta. We will now see that this is upper bounded by we just do this simplifications then just replace this we are going to get it as something half this is going to be 2 is going to be 2 d log 6 plus 2 log of 1 by delta. So, now you see that if my beta t is or beta capital T like has to has been chosen like this then I know that my theta star is going to be satisfying this inequality ok. That means, my theta star is the the norm of this difference with respect to beta t is bounded by this the probability at least 1 minus delta. Now, what we have basically demonstrated is if I am going to choose a beta in such factor I can and look for a set C t. So, how was my C t let us say if I just do this and this quantity same thing here which I am going to call it as some beta I know that. So, this is just theta the theta star is going to line this set with probability at least 1 minus delta right. So, what we have basically demonstrated is through the sequence of steps and as some assumptions may be very restrictive as of now we will be able to come up with some beta t such that if I am going to look at this confidence ellipsoids it is going to contain my true parameter theta star with high probability and this is true for any t. Now, the assumptions I made they were mostly non-practical right like I mean they are not plausible in the sense that I am not going to select an arm in a deterministic fashion without ignoring what has been observed. But if I am going to select an arm in each round observing what has been offered the things are more complicated. There is more coupling that is going to happen because all the action you are going to choose it has been based on all what has been observed and further there is a coupling through this theta star which is common for every reward or that has to be taken into care. But once you have to take into all those coupling you have to still go and use some still sophisticated machinery. This machinery to use this we are mostly used only simple linear algebra and then we have exploited subversionality trail behavior right. But now once we have bit more coupling of the rewards we have to use I mean the analysis that has been shown in the book that uses martingale properties and mixture methods and then you can able to show that indeed even if you relax all the assumptions you made it is still possible to come up with such a beta t here which will guarantee that you can come up with an ellipsoid which contains theta star in in every round with high probability. And once that happens we already know how to analyze right in the first class when we started this stochastic linear bandit I already give a recipe how to get the regret bound if once we can construct this confidence ellipsoids.  Now we just demonstrated under restricted assumptions that yes such a confidence ellipsoid indeed exist. But we can go further and say even under if you remove all the assumptions we have made in this not all but few we are still able to come up with confidence ellipsoid and then once we have that we also have the regret bounds ok. So, I will leave you to read into that that is bit more mathematical I mean we will get easily lost with that. So, just read how to apply the martingale properties you need to have at least basic no need to know what is a basic martingale is that should be enough I think rest is all algebra just try to go into that. So, this study of stochastic linear bandits will stop here, but now what we do is from the next class is we will continue to study linear bandits, but now we will go with the reverse gear and we will go back to adversarial setting. So, you remember we started studying adversarial bandits then we have shift to stochastic bandits. Now we continued study of stochastic bandits for the linear setting, but now we will go back to study this linear bandits for the adversarial case in the next class ok. Yeah, let us stop here.


under all the highway overpasses. There were 10 cities of homeless people. This people, this problem is very visible. I remember when I lived in the Bay Area, this is in the 90s, homelessness in San Francisco was awful back then. They would harass you, they were very aggressive homeless. And it was just unpleasant. It was unpleasant to go to San Francisco. Particularly my wife used to go alone and it was particularly unpleasant for her. And so I thought it was bad back in the 70s and it's like 10 times worse. Today I was in San Francisco a few years ago in the Tenderloin District, which is just two blocks away from Union Square. And God, you couldn't walk in the street. There were hundreds of them. Hundreds of homeless people just camped out in the street. So homeless, the homeless...


Cheryl, oh, I got a lead for taking an educational trip to Cuba. Oh, Cheryl, it may have to wait a few years until my son is out of school, but I've been looking for non-ngo leads for what an awesome... Cheryl, you will love the agriculture, lifestyle, food growing, gardening lifestyle in Cuba because in the 1990s, just a quick history, one aspect history of Cuba. When USSR fell, Cuba was the sugar basket of the USSR, right? So they used to grow a lot of sugar canes and stuff like this, provide sugar to US, you know, Eastern Bloc countries, right? When USSR fell, Cuba went through a serious economic crisis, the same way USSR did in the 1990s.  And the Cuban government, you know, tyrannical, centralized, it goes against what I like, right? But one thing they rolled out, right? They built community gardens everywhere so people would be fed, right? So I went to Cuba five times in the 1990s and I saw the progression of the gardening lifestyle, the community farming kick in to Cuba.   So they were controlling pests on their crops in Cuba, like food crops and tobacco and everything with spiders, right? I learned a little bit about this back then, but I've forgotten most of it, right? It was inspiring, inspiring, right? Cheryl says, yeah, that's what I want to see, plus the cars, beaches and food are too shabby. All of those amazing beaches. I met people that had traveled the world back then and they said Cuba has some of the greatest beaches in the world. The cars were magnificent, old school American classics. Everybody's a mechanic in Cuba. Everyone could fix their cars. They would jerry rig it and the car would run. Amazing, right? And the food, as long as you're not eating in, you know, hotel restaurants, some of the hotel restaurants would have been good, but people's homes and stuff like this, so good, so good, so good. I don't know what it's been like now. I haven't been there for 20, 22, 23 years now, I guess, right? But back then, magnificent.


Hey there friends, thanks for checking in. Today we're looking at one of CZ's most premier firearms. It's called the TS2 Racing Green. Single action only. Flat trigger, breaks right around three pounds, 5.23 inch barrel. Hollison 507C on there. And one thing you'll notice is that it has a frame mounted optic mount. It sits the red dot a little bit higher, but once you get that sighted in, it is really nice. It also has a slide wrecker right here to rack the rounds. And that's actually pretty accommodating because you don't have a lot of real estate in the back considering that the mount here takes up quite a bit of real estate, but it is a shooter.  Let me go ahead and take a few shots. It does have a flared mag well, aluminum grips, fiber optic front sight that will not be used with a red dot, but let's see how it goes. Wow, 20 round mags. And there we go. A couple times, if you're used to red dot shooting, you're used to the dot sitting a little lower on the pistol. And so that one time I paused, I had to find the dot because my eyes were attracted to a lower angle, if you will. But 20 round mags and the racing green has the racing green color on there. I think it looks beautiful. Now, many people say that the Shadow 2 is the premier handgun. And I have one and I think it's a premier handgun. This also is a premier handgun. A lot of people will say the single action is nice. The profile with the slim aluminum grips, the oversized magazine release, and the ambi thumb safety, all of which makes for an excellent race gun. A lot of people will compete with this all day long. Took me a little bit to have confidence in the red dot, but after my first couple shots, I have to say I'm very confident. I've got a mag here, not sure how many rounds are in it, but I'm gonna try it again with one hand, see if I can do a little bit better. Let's start with the one on top here. See, now right now, I had to take a look and find that dot. So it's a little bit of a learning curve. That one there got away from me. That one got away from me. Perhaps I should take this glove off. Let me put it on safe. Maybe that was an excuse or maybe legitimate, not sure. But I have a better feel for the gun. Where's that dot? There it is. Yeah, it takes a little bit of adjustment to focus the eyes a little bit higher and that's a bit of a learning curve. But it also has a big gas pedal right here. And that's nice for the off hand to rest that thumb. But complete control of the all steel frame, 5.23 inch TS2, racing green. People love CZ and I am pretty astounded because CZ keeps coming out with newer and newer models that a lot of people are taking notice and they're competing with and they're doing very well. I just need to back up a little bit because this thing is instilling quite a bit of confidence when I get my focal point centered. All right, let's see how I do from this distance. We'll start on the right with the tonnage. Wow, this thing is sweet. Really like it. Huge fan of CZ's and this is my first time out with this. The side charger is actually pretty beneficial. If you look, you don't have a lot of space there to charge and being that the slide is so thin that it's hard enough to get a good grasp on the slide when charging. Check out that hammer and then that flat trigger is pretty nice. So right there, well, the mag's in there. Drop the mag, here's the reset. Wow, a three pound trigger pull, by the way. I'm not sure I mentioned that, but here it is, the CZ TS2 racing green. Very nice handgun. It's not mine, belongs to Smash Time and I'm thinking, I don't, I need this. I don't think I can live the rest of my life without this because it is, I'm impressed. Okay, little adjustment finding the dot, but once that's down, you're good to go and it is accurate with that 5.23 inch barrel. If you like videos like this, please subscribe and share. I always appreciate thumbs up button. Thanks for watching and you guys be safe.


The Scottish Parliament has announced the dates of the next three Parliament dates in Dumfries, in Levenmouth and in Kirkwall. Parliament days are an opportunity for the Parliament to get out of Edinburgh to take with us some of the committees, to get an opportunity to meet with local people so that they and you can tell us about the issues that concern you. So come along, get involved and meet with all of the local MSPs and let us have a conversation. You can find out more by contacting us through our Parliament Days webpage or via social media.


All right. So how do the world everyone? Thank you for coming to my word camp talk. It's not a Ted talk We're gonna talk today a little bit about your oppress success stories And what success means and what it means to you and what it means to me and and each of us I have a few Just a few quotes to start us off with this is Thelma. She's from Zimbabwe and She came up to me at word camp Europe in Porto and said writing my hero process. They changed everything. I Said to a Tommy war. She said that she ended up being a release cohort a coordinator cohort for WordPress 5.6 She got a job with automatic. She everything changed after that. This is Leo. He's from South Africa um Sometime after writing is your press essay. He decided that he needed to be done on this earth and Other people decided otherwise and brought him back and he attributes his return to The world and life and family to the WordPress community His friends around the world gather around him and said we need you to stay with us But first some of you may be wondering what is hero press? Your press is a blog and It's most fundamental. It's just a blog But we collect stories from people all over the world About how they've leveraged WordPress to make their lives better and there's a wide variety of ways of people have done that There are single mothers working at home and not putting their kids in daycare older folks on their fourth career People in repressed economies making much more money than they used to There are just a thousand different ways people have used WordPress to make their lives better We have nearly 250 essays now it's eight years this month that Hero press has been around We have 27 languages and I've only been doing more than English for two years So there's a lot more than that We have equal numbers men and women right now. It's it's 50 50 exactly With a few others as they choose and we have essays from 59 different countries Check out that map That makes me happy Anybody knows anybody in Algeria? Cuz that Kazakhstan or Mongolia. I'd like to hear about it But how do we define success this talk has caused me more Time-awake at night thinking about it than any other talk I've ever given Because what is success this I mean this is success stories of hero press Is it the success of hero press? Is it the success of the people? Is it what is it? And I I Thought long and hard about how we define success One of them is making our own lives better. This is Tremy Tremy are you here right there? That's Tremy. It's from Meghalaya, India When I met him he was a school teacher And he said how do I become a web developer and I said, what do you know? He said HTML and CSS and I said you should pick up a little JavaScript and And now he is a full-time web developer Because that's what he wanted to do Making others lives better. This is Mark Andrew you'll note that his Place of residence is a skateboard You see that board in his hand? That's where he lives He has a 30-liter backpack and he skated fifty-three 5300 kilometers across the United States living out of a little backpack a tent and traveling on a skateboard As he traveled he would meet good people People who took care of him took care of others Just just good people and he said Do you have a website? No, I don't have a website. I'll build you a website and I will host it for you for free and so now he hosts several dozen websites for people all across the United States and You may notice a little 30-liter backpack isn't gonna hold a lot of equipment. He doesn't own a laptop He builds all those websites on his pixel 6 phone. So if you ever use Gutenberg on a phone That's what he does and he doesn't like he's never used WordPress on a laptop Finding joy in the journey This is Jitendra. He grew up in India went to New York for school and Enjoyed it and thought you know what I need to get back home. I want to go and Chose to use WordPress to get started a new career in India I think he was doing law in New York and he said I don't want to do that So he went back to WordPress and WordPress allowed him to move anywhere. He wanted and he went home So those three things finding joy in the journey doing making our own lives better and making other lives better. I think those are some of the successes of Your press WordPress. I don't know people It's our all of our successes But there's some common ground amongst all of them One of them is self-determination Each of these people decided they wanted something different than they had Whether it's to live somewhere else do something else Be anything else. It's just the decision. I don't like what I have now. I want something else. I'm gonna try free software This is word camp. It's about word press but quite honestly They could have done this with any free software Drupal Joomla php react All of the free softwares the the ability to download something from the internet and change it and build it and And do what you need to with it is one of the fundamental elements of this success of our modern society and then remote work the ability to work from where you are and Make wages from someplace else is world-changing I I work where I work at home in my at my desk in my apartment, but my employers I haven't worked for an employer in my own city in 13 years Trummy lives in Northern India and but his employers in Pune That you the the ability to have remote work is common amongst all of these abilities to change your own lives Change others lives, etc so Originally this talk was just gonna be a bunch of stories because I have stories all day long I could talk into the night. I only have 30 minutes so I have a couple of great stories and then a couple of More foundational stories, I think I Want to talk to you about work camp crazy as a see here No, okay, I see set word camp. He's out there somewhere That's a see if they're on the right left That's Muhammad and non so a see if it's from Bangladesh Muhammad is from Pakistan and they met I think at word camp, San Francisco 2014 and Aseef was quite wary because I Assume most of you know the history of Pakistan and Bangladesh Well, I see was very surprised to learn that Adnan did not know the history of Pakistan and Bangladesh They don't teach it in Pakistan because they don't want that memory and so they They talked they talked long and deep and they learned about each other's culture They learned about each other's history and they became very good friends and they started a company together and And then they started going to word camps together and then bringing friends along So before too long, it's a Facebook camp a group called work camp crazy before too long There's this group of Pakistanis Bangladesh and some Indians all traveling together in a group going to word camps around the world and just growing and learning together and becoming friends and erasing generations of of yuck and At some point a see his father said I'd like to meet your Pakistani friends and It was a big deal because he was there at 71 when everything was horrible and Just the idea of that growth that reaching out that stretching Now Europe I said nothing to do with this I just happen to know these men. They're both done essays. They're both on here of us calm and you can read about that But it was wordpress that made this happen Is anybody here ever contributed to wordpress? Yeah, so He asked me was there gonna be tears I Said yes, so This all happened because wordpress exists wordpress exists because you made it You did this And I thank you so now I'm gonna talk about that guy from Bangladesh, and that's how you're gonna get to know him I was told this story by a friend of mine This young man grew up became a wordpress or a web developer and Got married had some children lived in a very small village in Bangladesh and was not making enough money to survive He couldn't feed his family so he moved to Dhaka alone and Left his wife and children Back home and he worked All the time and sent all the money home and lived as poor as he could so that he could send more money home and Then he got a job with a wordpress company an SEO company. I Will not tell you their name, but it runs with toast and They have a policy of paying positions the same no matter where they are in the world and So very suddenly he was making Dutch city wages in Bangladesh and so he was able to move home and Now he supports most of his extended family in his village because of wordpress because of remote work because of free software because of good people making good companies with good policies and But those stories are rare. I mean the great stories. That's one of the things that makes them great They're kind of rare and special the most frequent stories are much more common in their foundation. Are they the ones that really? build everything So I have some quotes here There's power in the asking. I Said to my friend Allie who's right there. I Said what was what what are writing and I say do for you what changed and she said I made me feel like someone cared about my story Like I mattered a little bit more in the grand scheme of things It helped me re-evaluate where I came from and where I was going and it helped a lot with the feeling of gratitude Now Allie was already using wordpress. I met her at a word camp. She was speaking She was in the community But after writing an essay because someone cared someone reached out and said hi Welcome to wordcamp. Thanks for coming She became part of us a part of the family Michelle for shut Michelle here Nope, she's out there Power in the asking I said I said Michelle what changed for you She said it made me feel like a greater part of the community accepted Seen I wrote it before I was widely known in the community many of you probably know Michelle. She's she does a lot I didn't know her when I reached out It I think it made me feel more legitimate and less like I was outside Looking in It's the power in the asking when you say to someone hi Tell me your story. I want to know who you are. I want to know where you live. I Want to know how you feel It matters Leo Remember Leo he attempted suicide When I asked him he sent me this out of the blue. I didn't even ask him He said I remember when you first got in contact He says you talked me out of her. I felt unqualified and confused as to why anyone who want to know my little story everyone says that 100% of the people I've ever asked her at a story said oh, I don't have a fun story. I don't have a good story Nobody cares about me and they always do People who fall in love with the community build more community. I Reach out to you You reach out to someone else and it spreads it grows This love is not limited to wordpress That helps us raise our children treat our spouse and love our neighbors Wordpress helped me raise my children. It taught helped me teach my children To love all other people to love all of you to go out and reach out their hand and say hi I want to know you and That extended community builds more community changing the world.  Where are you from? What do you do and really listen? Don't say anything. Just listen. Don't comment. Don't advise. Don't suggest Little questions to probe and help them move on it's good and Then let them know you appreciate them Trusting you with their story. So thank you Thank you so far um the links We have we can you you can be found at hero press network and here press calm. Are you on social media as well? Yes At your oppress pretty much everywhere. Also at toe for one Kenobi pretty much everywhere You know, I actually thought your name was tow for Kenobi for quite a long time. Yeah, my last name is not Kenobi No, I don't mind. Well, it's a very fine as this So we have a little time now for some questions from the floor if anyone has a question for tofa Quick show of hands and I'll be able to get a microphone over tea. Yes, madam over there Hi tofer. I'm Cal. My question is if you're collecting all the stories of others What is your story? How did you get inspired and getting started with hero press and curating all the stories of the people from the community? I will try my hardest to tell it quickly because it's a long great story I was working for a company called xwp and the owner of the company came to me and said I want you to do something special for wordpress And that's all he said That's I wrote back. I said what is that? He said that's your journey to discover and so he He gave me a budget and told me to come up with something great and hero press There's a different idea. We're here press was going to be on television It's gonna be all video and we did a Kickstarter and it failed and it crashed and I thought that was the end of it and I rebooted it as a blog and At that point I was unemployed and it was just a mission of love. I said I just I want to I want to do this I want these stories to go out so we turned it into a blog and After a while Dave the guy from xwp wrote to me and said hey I like what you're doing keep it up and and just been Been a labor of love ever since Another question. Yes, madam. Hi tofer. My name is Ali What is next for hero press do you have any plans to do to build upon it or to do anything different with it in the future? Yeah About a year and a half ago my wife and I decided to grow it beyond Just hero press calm and make a whole network of sites and so we have a site called WV Podcasts, which is all a wordpress podcasting We have a podcast called hero hallway chats We have about eight sites now and in December. I lost my job and The dream is to try to turn your press into a job somehow So I'm building a lot of content getting a lot of trying to raise traffic and at some point in the future I'll start asking the world corporations for money and Get some sponsorship And then do it forever till I die Hey, tofer. Hello. It's Naisha. I am on the podcast with tofer. Oh, yes, she's on how I chanced my covo I wanted to know so I know we can contribute to hero press by writing and you know speaking on the Podcast, what are some other ways that people can contribute to help grow your mission and grow your dream for hero press? There are several things you can do Gain help gain attention talk about it on social Things like that My love language is comments you want to comment on posts. I love that it's rare people don't usually comment on the essays But that's good There's an email list you can sign up for If I get a suitably large email list then I can attract corporate sponsorship and potentially go on doing that forever But yeah, just attention is one of the best ways highlighting it tweet about it blog about it anything Do you have any more questions from the floor? Ah Well, actually, I had a question. Yes, sir. This was so you showed towards the beginning of your Your presentation a great world map with stories from all over the place Yeah, I wonder what sort of elements of the stories Do you think very most from place to place and what strands are the most common because I think one one of their Really interesting things about these regional word camps is that we do get to see things from we get to step back From our own world you a bit and and see my night I imagine this This great map of all these stories must give you a very privileged position to see the way that Wordpress and people are the same and maybe different all over the world. Yeah, I Have I feel like I have a lot of special insight into the community It's I feel tremendously blessed that there is no one on earth more blessed right here of us than me I hands down Things that have surprised me are I like people to speak to their peers and So I'll come to you with my perspective of who you are and say I think they're probably going to write To this other group of people and they pick a completely different group I have several from people who have physical Disabilities whether they're blind or wheelchairs or whatever and I'm like Oh, the blind person's probably gonna write some other blind people about being in tech They're like no, why would I do that? I was gonna write about being a parent in tech Oh, okay, and So I think one of the things that surprised me is how how often I'm wrong About who people want to write to and about Everybody's like it's so Random so interesting that one of the reasons I keep doing it. I guess it never gets boring Everyone is fascinating All of you you're all fascinating Thank you I would commend a good long deep dive into the archives of hero press every story is a surprise Yeah, and there are very many of them there and in a way They kind of chart some of the history of the WordPress community over the years as it's changing. Yes I have some sequel essays and I have several people who say to me, you know I should I should do another one because things are so different now. Yeah. Yeah Something that has surprised me is I it posts every week and I used to think everybody read Every week it's a new issue. Let's go read it and I was I Almost depressed to find out how few people read it every week People who love your oppressor like now. I don't really read it every week Then why do I do this? But then People would come to me and say, you know, I don't read every week But every now and again a couple times a year I get a little down about the world I get depressed people are yelling at each other. Everything's ugly and I just could read 10 stories everything's better Somebody from automatic who's in a position of authority said to me I'm kind of the mom of automatic people come to me all the time say, oh, I had a terrible day at work I don't like my boss. I'm on support. Everybody yells at me Thanks for listening. I'm gonna go read hero press now And and everything's better. And so I'm looking at it more now as a library an archive of our stories and less as a Journalistic publication that you need to rush out and read every week and I'm okay with that Your press is there for you anytime you need it. And like I said, there's almost 250 stories You can just you can read for a long time before you run out Thank you Tofa. Thank you for your presentation today and thank you for hero press. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed


Big arenas, big trendy glasses, Yeezys, t-shirts that go down to your knees, skinny jeans, life lessons instead of sermons, pastors as Christian celebrities instead of servants. Talk about how God wants to bless you, but no mention of his judgment. Everyone gathers to be entertained, but there's no true fruit of real life change. A church more concerned with relevance than with God's revelation. A church more concerned with relatability than their accountability to God. This is celebrity church culture, and it needs to change. In this video, I'm going to share with you the problem with celebrity church culture and what we need to do to change it. Buffers, I want to give a huge shout out to our patrons on Patreon. Thank you to all our gospel partners on Patreon. Your support means that I can continue to make authentic, inspiring, and gospel-centered content.  Join their link in bio. Thanks so much. And back to the show. My name is Isaac, and this is the daily disciple where I help you follow Jesus daily. Okay, another video means another story time with Isaac story time. Okay, so we're talking all about celebrity church culture today. So I want to share a story about a time that I went to not only a big church because I'm not, you know, hidden on big churches just because they're big. That's not what we're talking about. But I went to what some would call, you know, a trendy hip, relevant church. Okay, I just want to let you know that I don't my intention of making this video is not for you to feel attacked in any way. If your church has any one of these qualities. What I want to really do is stir up a conversation about discernment and how we go about our, you know, living within a church, living within a community, how that looks, and how we can be Christ focused. So that's my intention here. Okay, so I went to this church with my younger brother. We weren't looking for a new church necessarily, but we were just kind of checking it out. We thought it would be interesting. So we walk in and immediately we notice in this massive room. There's what he called atmospheric mist. So you have this atmospheric mist and it's very, you know, it's a cool thing.  All of a sudden, the lights go dark back on. The light strobe lights are gone. You're blinded for a second. You regain your focus. And all of a sudden you see the people on the stage. All of a sudden they're doing covers of, you know, popular songs.  I'm not ready for this. After the opening rock set that opened it up, you have the trendy pastor that walks out, you know, skinny jeans, the cool glasses. He's got a v-neck tee. Hey, everyone, welcome to Thrive Church. Yeah, you know what? That was just a little set piece that we had that we love to have fun at Thrive Church. We're all about having a good time.  But overall, the sense when I left was, that was cool. That was cool. Yeah, that was pretty cool. But I thought a little bit more about it and I thought of what I wanted to get out of the church or what maybe we should be wanting to get out of the church. And I think it's less of, and this is what I'm just kind of, you know, digging through and figuring out, I think it's less of that was cool and more of I want to, like I'm looking to Jesus. I'm renewed in my faith and in my sense of trust in God or my repentance towards him or my convictions to stand on my convictions in this world. But was I built up in my faith? Was I actually given the meat? And I don't really think it was there. What is the goal of church? Is it to entertain or is it to point people to Jesus towards repentance, towards faith, towards, you know, reading God's word and being built up in his word and being able to help and encourage others? Like this is what I'm talking about. I want to bring some scripture for you today. Romans 12 to do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. My concern with all this entertainment focus is because not only do we shift our focus off of Jesus in order to just purely entertain in order to just purely focus on the numbers and bringing people in is that we're looking as a church, we're looking more and more like the world. That's something interesting is when you can go into a church and you can see it looks exactly like the world, the way people talk, the way people act. If that, if we're going to continue to be conformed to the world and I see it, I see it because we're more and more pulled towards the, the, you know, implementing these trends or, you know, being the most relevant church or being the most entertaining church, getting the best, you know, musical acts or just making it like a, you know, a light show. All that is making us look that much more like the world and I'm not saying that we can't do that in appropriate the right context kind of way in order to bring glory to God in the right context. But oftentimes it is the focus. It is the focus of the mission of the church and the church is not here to entertain. It is to make disciples. We're looking more and more like the world and the Bible talks about being salt and light. We're actually losing a lot of our saltiness and light. We're becoming dim because we're looking like everything else in the world. When a church can look distinctly different from the world, that gives a great opening and opportunity to really show the people that are coming in. Hey, this is why we're different. It's about Jesus here. It's not about entertainment or trends or being relevant. It's about Jesus. Okay. I'm getting word that we actually have a sponsor for today's episode. So we're going to roll that clip now. Hey, what's up guys? My name is Greg and I'm from Relevant Church. I just want to share with you a little bit about Relevant Church today. Here at Relevant Church, we put the lit into liturgy. When people come to our services, they're surprised at how dope they are. So many of our teens have testified that Jesus used to be famed to them, but now he's Bae. Last week's sermon by our youth pastor, Fanden, definitely passed the vibe check. Yo, last week at our potluck, we had gluten-free vegetarian and vegan options for all the people that actually care about the planet. Our senior pastor, Daryl, just launched a new sermon series called Spilling the Tea About Jesus. Yo, and if you ever get shook, no worries, homie, because we got boomer-free zones on each end of the campus. Yo, we look forward to chilling with you this Sunday at Relevant Church. Okay, I don't know if I approve of that ad, but you know what, whatever. Okay, so my point number two is that Christian leaders are being put on pedestals like celebrities. I want to bring some relevant scripture to this issue of putting Christian leaders on pedestals here from 1 Corinthians 3, 4 to 5. For when one says, I follow Paul and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants, though, from whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. So in this passage, just talking about the fact that people in that day were putting these different leaders. So, you know, Paul or Apollos or, you know, Peter, putting these Christian leaders on pedestals and I follow this person, what this person said, that's gospel to me and they're my favorite, this kind of thing. When we're doing that, we're actually taking the authority away from the scripture and from God and we're putting it on another person to guide us to where we need to go. It's like if you're walking down the road with a map and all of a sudden, you know, you're kind of looking and you're like, okay, this is good. I know where I'm going. I'm like, I got to get to my destination days and I'm just kind of following the little direction and all of a sudden, oh, hello, that we fellow. I noticed you had a map. I would love that map. I can take you to the destination. No problem whatsoever. I'm okay. I guess that's okay. If you can get me to the destination. I've been down this road many a time, you know, just give me the map and it's a wonderful thing. Just follow me and you'll be getting to where you need. When you give that stranger your map and you decide to follow him, what in fact you're doing is you're placing your trust in him. You're not placing your trust in the map anymore because you don't have the map. You gave the map to him and you're trusting in him to make sure he reads the map and gets you to where you need to go. This is kind of an analogy for us putting our trust in specific Christian leaders and there needs to be a certain level of trust obviously just for some people in order to learn and grow and that kind of thing. But like I said before, when you put your total trust in them to guide you where you need to go when you give them in a sense your Bible and you expect them to, you know, teach you what it means, you're really taking the authority away from the Bible and giving it to the other person and you're putting your trust totally in them instead of Jesus. And so I'm not advocating for some kind of nomadic. Oh, everyone just needs a Bible and you don't listen to anybody else and you just only pray and all this kind of thing. No, obviously we need other people in our lives, shepherds, pastors, mentors that can help us. But the difference is in this case I'm actually keeping my own map and I'm actually following along somebody else that has a map too. And maybe at points they're like, oh yeah, go this way. This is what the map means and that can be helpful. I'm not giving the map or my Bible to this person expecting them to tell me where I need to go by keeping the map in your hand, by keeping your Bible in your hand. You're in fact keeping the power to where it belongs with God. Oh my goodness, there's an announcement. But what could it be? I love announcements, announcements for you and me. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Where did this go? Oh, it's upside down. You can get my new book for free. I want to give it to you. You just got to sign up and become a gold or silver gospel partner on Patreon. If you sign up there, I will send you a book as a gift and I'm excited for you to read this book. I tell a lot of personal stories that I think you'll enjoy as well as verbalizing a lot of the doubts, struggles and questions that young men have and really giving fathers and just parents in general a real understanding of what their child is going through and biblical principles that help guide and really help develop an authentic relationship between parents and kids. So get your free book today. Okay, my third point here is discernment is key. The question to ask ourselves is this, what does it mean to make church about God and not about us? That may seem counterintuitive to some of you. Like, wait, I thought church was about me. I thought it was about getting me what I wanted and myself fulfilled. No, it's actually to worship God and we do that through community. Yeah, there's different benefits of that. You know, we're getting built up. We're getting encouraged. We're growing in our faith. But ultimately all of that is for God and it's directed at God. We trust God. We have faith in God. We worship God. We repent towards God. We have a new vigor and courage that we're going to go out and serve God. It's all about God. So the question that we're asking is, how do we make church and how do we approach church with that attitude of making it about God? Not about entertainment.  This guy's my favorite art. I really like their entertainment. It really makes me feel good. Instead, how can we glorify God the most? How can we worship God the best? How can we teach God's word and receive it, you know, humbly and preach it boldly and having good solid truth but also preaching in love and receiving and loving honor to people? All these questions, it all comes down to at the end of the day, we're reading God's word. We're discerning what it says to us and we're continuing to conform our lives and our communities into the image of Christ. The church is Christ's bride and what God is doing is he's continuing to move the church, His true church to look more and more like Jesus. The church is made up of individuals. So yes, there's never going to be a perfect church. Churches always are going to be struggling and changing because there's always going to be sin presence because there's always going to be people present. But as somebody once said about repentance, this idea of a lifestyle of repentance towards God and worship towards Him, it's not about perfection. It's about direction. So as we're seeing this problem of celebrity church culture, we're seeing this, yeah, the entertainment is, yeah, we're too focused on entertainment. We're too focused on, you know, specific people that are celebrities. Yeah, we need to cut that out and focus more about Jesus, His word, worshiping Him. This is what it's all about. A verse for you here from Psalm 29-2. Ascribe to the Lord the glory He is due to His name. Worship the Lord in holy array. And Psalm 34-3 says, Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name forever. My encouragement for you is this. Look, you're only one person. You're not, you're watching this video now about the problem with, you know, celebrity church culture. Like, how can I fix anything? What's going on? Well, we started ourselves. You know, we start at our hearts. And so if you've been feeling like you've been swayed towards this, oh man, I really like this kind of person and I've been kind of putting my faith in their teaching only and maybe that I've been putting them on a pedestal or maybe I've been too attracted to just pure entertainment and I've grown bored with God's word. Those are some things that we should go towards God with. Hey, God, this is what I'm feeling. This is where my heart is strayed from you. I've lost focus of you and I really want to focus on you in this. And look, we're all growing.   No, what this, I want this to be is just kind of a loving correction just to say, hey, admonition to say, hey, look, this is where we've strayed. Let's go back to where we once were. Let's go back to our first love. Thanks so much for watching, guys. If you enjoyed this video, give it a like down below. Please share this video with your friends and family if you think they need to see it because I think this is a message that should get out there. I leave a comment down below with some of your thoughts. Once again, this is not attack on any specific person necessarily. I want you to be discerning. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, you can do that at Daily Disciple Ministry. I post there pretty much every day. So you probably want to check it out. Thanks so much for watching, guys. And I'll see you next time. See ya.


What's going on everybody welcome back to a very special video today. We have Kenji on here Kenji is a youtuber extraordinaire data scientist entrepreneur inspire and a close personal friend He's one of the first content creators in this niche a pioneer in the space a potential America's next top model Everybody please welcome Kenji. Thank you for being here Thank you for having me Alex.  I mean, I was just really excited to have you on I have a lot of I would say unique questions because I feel like most people know who you are most people have seen your channel. I Sent people to your channel as well. And so I feel like on the data side most people know who you are, right? But hopefully in this interview, I want to ask some more like personal very personal questions And just see what see where it goes see where it leads us If we only answer one question that leads us down a great rabbit hole. I'm ready to go for that journey Sounds great. I am hopefully an open book. So let's do it to it. Awesome So before we get started for anybody who does not know who Kenji is he's a great youtuber I'll let you speak to yourself for just a little you know a minute if you want to and then we'll get going Yeah, sure. So my name is Kenji I make data science related content on YouTube on LinkedIn on medium on across a bunch of these platforms My mission is to help make data science more accessible to everyone Whether that's through a talking head video through tutorial or through any type of fun goofy type of skit or other type of content like that Awesome. Yeah, and go check out his YouTube channel. It's fantastic. I'm sure you guys have already done that But if you haven't go check them out You know, I've seen so many of your videos I've seen videos with you with a lot of different people your dad like all these other people And so I'm I'm curious, you know, who has inspired you the most just like in your career and just in your life in general I'd have to say myself Okay, this is taking taking your turn, you know, it's interesting. I draw inspiration from Everyone that I interact with on a day-to-day basis so I see a lot of content like the like the content you produce like Tina produces like Forrest Knight over here produces and I think to me seeing what everyone else is doing helps me to innovate helps me to get up each day and want to Build and create more interesting stuff and educational stuff I also draw quite a lot of inspiration from the people who are tuning into my content Whether it's the podcast or whether it's my YouTube channel because they're the best feedback mechanism that I could possibly have They're telling me Essentially if the things that I'm doing are working if they're good If they're not so good if I'm making like a cringy thumbnail face and it's not a brand Yeah, they'll let me know and I've gotten really I'd like to think really good over time at Looking at all feedback whether it's criticism or whether it's praise and looking at it fairly objectively Yeah, and trying to integrate that into everything I do and saying is this something that would make the quality of What I produce better would it create more value for people and if not maybe I should stop doing some things and start doing others Sure. Well, okay, so like that's how you know, you find some inspiration through YouTube What about like outside of YouTube?  I've read quite a few books And I think if you're talking about like mentorship or individual inspiration you can get the Condensed work of someone's essentially entire life in a book that you can read in a couple hours and to me That's so powerful. So a couple that have been really valuable for me one I find really inspiring is Awaken the giant within by Tony Robbins. That was one that made a really big impact on my life Essentially, it makes you go through and audit your value system audit a lot of the the ways you approach things and it helps you to Reconcile any conflicts that you have between your values and so an example that would be I might value Freedom but I might also value family quite a bit right and those two in some sense are a little bit conflicting Right if I want ultimate freedom a family means you probably can't travel as much means you can't do some of these other things Right, but but you know like if I want both of those things I have to figure out how to work those together And if I don't think about how those things work together in my life that causes stress or conflict or some of those other things Yep Some other books. I thought really interesting or other I guess like people or figures. I thought really interesting so I went to the University of Virginia and Thomas Jefferson is like quite Quite relevant there he founded the school and I read his one of his biographies and I found it fascinating How well read ever like essentially the elites of that time period where they're always like Working on things. They knew so many different languages They had all these things and that was largely because there was absolutely nothing else to do aside from learn and read and think right and to me That's really inspiring. We're such a consumption culture where it's just like I'm gonna browse Instagram I'm gonna have all these things like talking at me It would be really cool to tap into that sort of like boredom that they used to have that would inspire you to be to like read or to learn or consume information because I feel like that's something we're like we're losing a little bit and I want to try to Steal back a little bit of that in my life. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, when you're talking about Tony Robbins The first thing that came to my mind is like he's he's it one.  You know like two week long camps that he has Probably not no One of my friends did and he said it was like an awesome Life-changing everyone like the energy in the room those types of things. Yeah, my Personal development journey is a little bit more like private to me. I got I share the things I'm working I share what my aspirations and goals are but I really enjoy the process of introspection just like reading and thinking and journaling and going through and sort of Creating that map for myself, right? I don't I'm like very motivated to begin with I think and me being around other people isn't going to make me more likely to make a Change if I want to make a change. It's like I'm doing it today, right going at it Hardcore no that makes perfect sense Tony Robbins is definitely like it's an energy thing like you know He's like if you're around people and you motivate yourself and you make it happen like it's definitely I totally understand that The next one is a little slightly different which is You know who knows you the best out of anybody that you know and and how would they describe you? Who knows me the best I probably say my dad knows me the best. I talk with him quite a bit. He shares like Some sense of philosophy. I mean he's sort of beat into me from a young age that You want to work for yourself, right? I mean he was a he was a doctor or he's an oral surgeon I guess but he owned his own practice and that was like very freeing for him Right and that's something that for some reason always stuck with me with everything I do and in some sense I work for myself now. Yeah What would he say about me? Yeah, how would he how would he describe you? I know I'm trying to think I how he described me to my face for how he described me to totally different Totally different. I believe that because I've seen some of the videos that he's been on and he's got he's a personality I like him a lot. Yeah, my dad is a character Um, he'd probably say that I have Big dreams and I'm a little bit rash Um to my face in terms of like like fatherly judgment, right? I think to his friends he'd say that In some sense, he's proud of what I've created and that I'm very like I'm very much an independent thinker And if there's something I want I am very willing to go after it. Yeah Um, he'd also say that he would always tell me this like he's like When I would do something like dad, I want to get a tattoo, which I never did. He's like, I don't have to wear it And that's his philosophy and all these things like you can do it like it's not my life Yeah, it's your life, but I'm gonna make fun of you if it goes south That's that's a wise advice right there. Yeah, I always think it's interesting because the people who know you like the best You know, you can be a hundred people out there who are like watching it like I don't like Kenji I was one of those people But no, like the person knows you the best, you know, how they describe you That usually has like the biggest meaning or like has the most truth to it Yeah, but I mean that's great that you are an independent thinker and do that stuff because I mean It's hard to do that in today's world. Yeah, I can also go sometimes Yeah, well, you have to be very self-motivated for sure absolutely My next question and this is One that I've I I thought about myself a lot Because you know people watch our content, but that doesn't mean they necessarily know who we are And so what do you think is the thing that people misunderstand about you the most? I think Maybe it's around my content a lot of things I produce I do all these things because I enjoy them Right. I mean, yes, there is some some income and those types of things that come from it But I don't do anything that I don't have full interest in and full passion for So you think people think they have a misunderstanding that you're doing it for like either Money or fame or whatever. No, I think they might have a misconception that I'm doing it because I like have to do it Oh, right, right. Like I'm doing it because you reached a certain point. Yeah, this is a creative endeavor for me This is something where I want to experiment. I want to explore Um, and you know, there's some things that people ask me to do that. I just simply don't want to do and I'm not going to do it It's like, hey, make this type of video. I'm like, ah, it's like really boring for me. I'm not going to do that I'm not going to put it out there. I also do get immense joy out of creating value for people So there is that trade-off like I'll sometimes make a video or that I'm like, I'm okay excited about this But everyone else is super excited about this and I want to jump on that um And so I think that that's that's maybe something that Is a misconception about a lot of creators because I think everyone views it a little bit differently Yeah, yeah, I've gotten the same feedback of you know, people are like You know, he's just doing it now for this. I'm like, yeah, that's not true. So I've I've I've I can understand that Then you know that thought it kind of it sucks because you know, you don't want to go and make a video about it Like a post about it because nobody cares like nobody's gonna care about it. But um, yeah, super interesting All right next question Your channel has grown incredibly fast and people obviously like you and your content. Why do you think You've grown faster than other channels who create similar content So something I started out with when I was like really early in my youtube journey was that every video I would Try to work on one specific thing to improve upon so maybe it was When I would stop speaking I would just like cut and like I needed to add a little pause after to Make sure that there's like a gap in the video, right? Right, and so it doesn't it looks like a clean cut rather than a messy cut Or maybe I'd try a different camera angle or I'd try to like set up the background differently Or I would try to say um one last time when I'm talking something things only those There's a steady Improvement cycle that I would try to make and I think that that paid dividends early on I would also say that not that many people were making the style of content that I was making early on And I had a massive advantage then so I mean now everyone's making really good content There's a lot of people in the space. Yeah, and I think it's a lot harder to break in with the content that I was making back then Like it just wouldn't cut it. It's just not good compared to what other people are doing, right? Yeah, I hear you For sure. And so I think that that's something that you know a combination of luck and and some some good things um I would also say that I really enjoy community. I enjoy collaboration I've I work really hard to bring people together and try and work with as many people in the space as possible Yeah, and I think that that That helps perpetuate any of the things that I produce. Yeah, I don't do it because of that But it's a really nice positive Outcome from connecting with people and and helping like promote their content and getting them out there as well Yeah, I I see this domain of content or or any business really In the digital space I don't look at as cannibalistic, right? If if my name is on someone else's show and their name is on my show We both reach each other's audience and it's like one plus one equals three Rather than just like, you know, I'm not taking anything from them It's an additive space and I think that that's like one of the coolest things and that's one of the reasons why You know, we started these trips We started the learn media agencies because we can bring people together Together we have sort of collecting collective bargaining power to work with sponsors. We also have this sort of Like launchpad to to come together and work on ideas work on content work on a lot of these other things And to me, that's that's something that Like that's unbelievably rewarding I gotta be a part of all this other content even if i'm not directly involved That makes me really happy. Yeah, you were like one of the first people that I ever connected with my channel is really small like 30,000 40,000 subscribers So I remember that was like two years ago when we probably like connected and so Yeah, I mean the community aspects. I totally agree with I also think that, you know, what you were saying about making improvements That's well, that's one area I need to work on but I think, you know, it's an area that A lot of people Don't take as much time in they're like, hey, I'm doing it. I'm at least putting something out there But yeah, it's to kind of scale it and make it better and make those those steady improvements You know, you kind of have to do if you want to excel and continue to get better Yeah, oh, I think something that was really valuable to me was those small incremental ones It's like I'm gonna work on one thing this video. Yeah, and I'm trying to get better at that I see a lot of people they spend so much time just like Absolutely working so hard on everything on a video trying to make it perfect And like the fact of the matter is, you know, I have what like 200 videos on youtube more than that If I put like that much stress on myself on each video, I probably wouldn't have that many And that's okay. I mean some people make a video a month and absolutely crush it That's not, you know, I guess I made one video in the last month But you know, that wasn't how I really used to like to do things Now I'm kind of really trying to hone in on making the highest quality content possible and sort of Focus on just like making fewer videos that are a little bit more meaningful to me But, you know, everyone has to find their own their own Their own mode of operation So Something I think a lot of people have asked me. I'm sure have asked you is Are you considering or thought about quitting your like full-time job because you still have a full-time job Like I do have you thought about quitting and doing youtube or content full-time and or like starting your own Business or something surrounding like the data world So I've never been asked that you've never been I was I was like, come on So honestly, no, I love my like more full-time work minutes in sports I get an unprecedented level of access and just really cool experiences from that And it's something I think I'll always do. I mean to be honest. I don't always work like full full time doing that It's something that Fortunately, I have a ton of flexibility Sometimes of the year it's really busy. Sometimes of the year it's fairly light right now It's very busy and that's why I haven't been producing a ton of content But at the same time I also think it helps me keep Sharp and helps me to have some additional credibility when I do produce content Like I don't have any vision or dreams of being a youtuber. Right. I think that that's a part of what I do It's a part of the portfolio of things that that I have out there but I would like youtube to be a fundamental component of Being like a entrepreneur or a business person. Yeah that is putting stuff out there And I you know, I've started a couple of businesses related to you know, I have some courses I obviously have just normal youtube content taking sponsors We've started learn media, which is where we have brought a lot of these creators together and we're able to serve them A lot of sponsorship opportunities. Yeah, we're looking to get into events. We're also hosting things like this and I'd like to see that Continue to grow to be honest though I've been off more than I could chew this year and I'm trying to dial it back a little bit next year trying to catch up Yeah, I'm next year. I would really like to start to like dial it back. I really want to focus on the podcast That's one of my favorite things to do I get to have an hour hour and a half long conversation with an incredibly interesting person every week sometimes more than one person each week, right And I would do that even if I wasn't recording it But the nice thing is I get to record it and other people can listen to it and I can also In some sense make a little bit of income from that And I like what more would you want like connecting with people Like learning something asking people who are interesting really specific questions that you care about Um, I went down that rabbit hole a long way, but obviously I'm pretty passionate about it. No, that's great. I I feel like And maybe you don't have the exact same viewpoint for me It's like if I quit and I don't if I do youtube full-time I kind of would feel somewhat out of touch if I didn't have I need I need something to like root me a little bit in The data world in some way whether I quit my full-time job or I stay in it Like I need something to root me in that world because if I get out of it and just do youtube It would be like I'd fall behind. I feel like I'd fall behind Yeah, I I think it can be done And I have a couple friends who have 100% done that And I think the way to to stay rooted is to work on things to have projects to do part-time work I mean, you know, I look at my main work, you know, it's full-time part-time And so if I need to dial it back, I can if I need to start Um You know picking up more of that I can as well And so I like I don't look at it as like a real job because I have a lot of control over my hours And the stuff that I work on. Yeah And I think a situation like that is kind of ideal Yeah, that's super nice though because the flexibility is if you don't have that type of flexibility You can't really do this type of stuff. Yeah, like it's super important. All right. So I only have two more questions And the last one's really serious Kind of and then the other one's not so serious. Okay. The first one, which is more serious one is in 10 years you look back and you know You've seen everything that you've created in the next 10 years even on top of what you've already done What do you want people to remember you by what do you want people to see you as at that time? So I'd like people to see me as someone who created value in a community And Created much more value than I actually got out of it. I would like to get a lot of value out of it but I would still like to Be able to produce so much more than than any of those things I mean I started all of this on youtube, which is completely free platform I've worked really hard for any of the educational content that I produce that's paid To be at a price point that it should be accessible to almost anyone. I also give away a ton of those things I have the podcast where people are coming in and Talking about their experience giving these really unique case studies about their work or their life experience To help people maybe digest some of the things they're going through Whether it's with happiness, whether it's with their job, whether it's if they want to break into a career like this And so to me a lot of that is focused on like free or low cost education On the other side of that. I obviously want to live comfortably. There are things I want I don't have any like super lavish taste. I don't really like my car.  Sure. I'd love to have like maybe like a Farm or orchard somewhere. Yeah, so I'll be sipping Some tea at my orchard looking back thinking about wow, I hope You know people gotten to data through some of the things that I've created. Yeah, and they've made incredible advancements that I wasn't capable of Right, I mean I'll be the first to tell you I'm not like the greatest data scientist in the world Like maybe like 75th percentile at best But hopefully, you know, there's a possibility that some of the things that I produce Inspire someone who might be that like 99th percentile data scientist So it's like advancing advancing data science as a whole Helping people get into it who maybe wouldn't have had had access to it without or might not even known about it Or any of those types of things and you know, to me, I think data and and this This space is going to be something that transforms the world In the short term, it's kind of been negatively with a bunch of social media stuff But in the long term, I think it is something that can have a tremendous positive effect And if I can play a small role through the education process of that, that would be very meaningful to me Or a big process I mean a big part of it because who knows in like 10 years in the history books will be like, you know This guy named Kenji like sparked this fight You know, you never know, right? But in 10 years, you know, that's I think that's a really good Outlook to have right just giving back to the community so that the community can grow And be better through your content and and your community that you've built I like that. You know, one thing I want to say is I'm pretty clear about this Um, a lot of people are like, oh, I'm doing this just for the good of people and whatever Like it's selfish like like it makes me feel good To know that that might be a possibility, right?  I mean, obviously I like I want to create value and do those other things But why do I want to do that? It's not because I inherently care about all this humanity It's because Like me contributing You know, it scratches the edge inside of me and and like that's an okay motivation for a lot of these things Yeah, I'm on the same boat. It's like it just feels good to make the content and and help You know, it definitely feels good for for me. I mean, that's not a bad thing, right?  What's what's the word for? for charity they're so giving giving or they're so Um, I can't remember philanthropic philanthropic. That's the one I was looking for And I don't think that that has to be the case for you to create value or to do good things in the world And you know, people get wrapped in this this trap of like am I a good person or am I a bad person? because I don't have these motives um and You know, it's just not how the world works like inherently It bothers me when people are just like, I'm doing it for the good of the world. Like, I mean nothing I will sacrifice the least things Like you're doing it because it makes you feel good and you're not talking about that. Um, and so I don't know why I went on that No, I mean, it's good. I mean that that is as a on a broader sense very true because You know for most people It's a good thing to feel good when you're doing something good for other people Because then it motivates you to do it more and and it gives you a drive and a passion to do more of it Because if it was always for other people and then you felt like empty inside, I mean, they would not be fun. Yeah Why would you continue to do it? so my very last question and If you haven't seen ken's channel, you should check it out, but there's There's something that I always see on the channel. I'm always I To be honest, I'm confused by it because I don't know the background I haven't seen the episode where you talked about it. But like What's with the papayas? Like, is there a backstory to this? What papaya?  I live in hawaii. They're papayas everywhere. They're delicious Well, yes, that's and that's it. No all this so the hawaii uh The hawaii sunrise papaya Is significantly better than any other papaya like in in like the continental us Yeah, so most of the papayas in the continental us come from mexico or the mexican red papaya. Okay, and they're sort of like They're not good. They have sort of like a funky smell and taste. Okay. The the hawaii sunrise papaya Has it's like very sweet. There's no like funkiness. It's almost Similar to like a cantaloupe almost but a little bit more tender a little bit more sweet It's quite delicious. Okay, so you like you like the fruit, but why why isn't on the channel all the time? Oh, you have to spread awareness It's like a really important thing. It's just it's just um, you know, you're putting it out there for people to learn about Yeah, I mean it's it's a very important thing that no one is talking about. Is it like an endangered? Are you doing like donations to like charities for papayas? I think that that's part of the fun though, right? Like I make these videos I get a half creative control. I get to put like every warm in it, right? Yeah, papayas Why not and so like it's also I mean if you think about it It also has some like subculture It also adds like this weird context that people like asking about it like me and yeah, if people know they know, right? and so it's it's like You know a fun way to to create a more tight-knit community and and to like To inspire people to ask or to be confused or you know, it's a little it's a little mysterious almost exactly What is he doing? Why is he doing this? See? I need something like that on my channel I just I don't have anything like that. I need like something I eat. I'm just gonna take um an orange And then you'll have to watch this exactly eat it with the peel on just Well, so you know kiwis with the peel on messes with people and the thing is That it's actually healthier to eat kiwis with the peel on. I've never done it. It's a little bit sour The texture is good. You think it's going to be fuzzy and weird, but it's not interesting I in grad school. I would just sit in the front row of class and just Like I don't know why I thought it's funny to like intimidate the professors Because I was also that's a power trip right now. Yeah, one of like I was like one of the best students in the class I don't know.  Like I don't get it Like what is going on? Oh now it makes sense. Yeah, all right. I I for the lower Yeah, exactly. We need we need to other people outside of just your channel need to learn the context of this and then they get Invested in it and then when they watch it, they're like, I know what that's from I'm one of the few Well, thank you so much for doing this of you super appreciate you are just a huge inspiration to a lot of people out there Including myself like when I was first starting I I tried to mimic some of your like style But uh, now I have my own style. I don't need your inspiration to me too. Yeah So I mean, I guess the takeaway from this is I just don't need you anymore Later All right guys. Well, thank you guys so much for watching go and check out ken's channel he has tons of videos and interviews on his KNN podcast as well as just kenji on his youtube channel, so Go and check him out. Thank you guys so much for watching Ken, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. All right Bright data