Michael Rembus is the director of the Center for Disability Studies and an associate professor in the Department of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research interests include the history of institutionalization, mad people's history, the history of disability, and the history of eugenics. He is currently working on a book entitled Writing Mad Lives in the Age of the Asylum. In his lecture, accessing the archive, disability, race, and the history of eugenic institutionalization. Professor Rembus will focus on the connections between disability, ableism, institutionalization, and eugenics. You will focus as well on the importance of the archive in recovering the experiences of survivors of eugenics and of institutionalization. Hello and welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this talk, accessing the archive, disability, race, and the history of eugenic institutionalization. My name is Michael Rembus. I am a professor at the University at Buffalo. I want to thank the NIH and the NHGRI for sponsoring this conference and for inviting me to speak with you today. I'd like to begin my talk accessing the archive with a personal story. When I began my research for what became my first book in 1996, I was interested in the history of eugenics and in the history of institutionalization of people considered feebleminded. I knew that I wanted as much as possible to tell the story from the perspective of people considered feebleminded. And so I decided to focus my study primarily on two institutions in Illinois. The State Training School for Girls in Geneva, Illinois, and the Lincoln State School in Colony for the feebleminded also in Illinois. This is a picture that I found during my research. It's a black and white sort of CPF photo of young women at Geneva in one of its classrooms. All of them are looking at the camera. As I said, it was my intent and my goal to try to tell the story of eugenics and the history of eugenics in the United States as much as I could from the perspective of these young women. So why did I choose these institutions? And why did I choose Illinois? Illinois offered many ways from my perspective in the 1990s to nuance what was then an as yet rather undeveloped history of eugenics, a historiography of eugenics. Illinois was an interesting case because many progressives and women reformers were involved in eugenics in Illinois. And Illinois, unlike other states, never passed a sterilization law. The Illinois legislature created, I'm sorry, eugenicists in Illinois created a model sterilization law, but it never came up for consideration in the state legislature. While educated, she has on her cap and gown, most likely a college graduate, if not someone who holds a professional degree or graduate degree. And she has this side here is sickled, and she's weeding the garden of humanity. She's tending to this garden, this flower bed. And as you can see, she's pulling up one here and presumably going to chop it off and cut it off. And you can see in these photos here in the images, I'm sorry, different folks portrayed in various poses. Eugenics in Illinois involved much more than racist reactionary eugenicists such as Madison Grant and Mothrop Stoddard and others who are often associated with eugenics. They didn't involve people who consider themselves to be progressives and reformers, and involved a lot of women reformers in Illinois. And they were interested in using eugenics to improve, from their perspective, improve society and improve the human race. What also really interested me about eugenics in Illinois and is also depicted in this image is that the images of heads, depictions of heads that are supposedly unfit are portrayed as deviant or defective in some way, visibly quote, deformed. You can see one there and there in here. And the other folks are in very romantic poses, which tells us that eugenics was as much about love and marriage and choosing the right mate, as it was about removing these so called defective people from society. And so this really intrigued me in the history of eugenics in Illinois. During the course of my research, I also discovered that there were thousands of unprocessed, which means they had not been archived case files from the state training school in Geneva, which was another reason why I chose to study that institution. The records I was told were being stored on the campus of what is now and what was then the boys correctional facility in St. Charles Illinois, which is considered to be Geneva's quote sister city right across the river from Geneva. I was digging and I talked to folks and I eventually determined that these files did indeed exist, and they were being stored at the St. Charles performatory, and that they had never been processed and never been archived, and no one had ever formerly looked at them. And so I thought this was a wonderful opportunity, because case files can be rich sources. If we read them, if we read them creatively, and we read them critically, some contain letters sent from inmates to their family members and other folks for letters to administrators. Others other files can contain detailed accounts of interactions with physicians and psychiatrists and psychologists, and in the case of Geneva, which was considered an educational institution with teachers. I also knew that these case files could contain academic progress reports, and possibly the results of intelligence tests and psychiatric and psychological evaluations done on the young women incarcerated at Geneva. So as you can well imagine I was very excited when I learned that these files existed and were being stored at St. Charles. I ran into some major problems, however, and this is why I titled my talk today accessing the archive. First of all, as I said no officials would confirm that the files existed I found out through informal channels. I actually a relative of a relative worked at St. Charles, and inform me that the files didn't need exist, but no officials would actually acknowledge their existence. And when I pressed them on this issue, some said that the files had been destroyed, others acted like they knew nothing about the files, and said that even if the files did exist I would not be able to look at them. And this concerned me because as I said I wanted to tell the story of eugenics in Illinois as much as I could from the perspective of the young women who were being targeted by eugenics. So institution administrators at the time, judges and other people at the state archives told me that these files if they did exist would be restricted under Illinois law and later under federal law. The files were closed because they were considered juvenile records and because they were considered medical records. So it was incredibly difficult to gain access to these files. I ultimately did get a court order in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago, and I obtained permission from the warden of St. Charles to go on to the St. Charles campus, and I had several inmates help me access the building and I found the documents there they were. There were dozens of boxes filled with case files, tens of thousands of case files from multiple institutions in Illinois, none of which had been processed or archived in. And they were also when people were also denying that they even existed. So I got access to the records and I looked at the files and I ended up writing, you know, my first, what became my, my first book. The point here is that it's incredibly difficult to access the experiences of people that have become the subjects of eugenics. People like the young women at Geneva and the people institutionalized at the state school and colony in Lincoln, Illinois. It's incredibly to incredibly difficult to access their voices their experiences, because the files are restricted and because people frankly don't want to tell those stories they don't want to hear those stories.  They say that the files have been destroyed, and it's so it's difficult to get at these perspectives. But I, as I said, access the files. And I, so and I wrote the first book, which was about eugenics in Illinois. And, as I said, it was an interesting project because it gave me a chance to think about both race and eugenics and eugenics in what at the time was a different light. The eugenics and eugenicists were not the eugenicists in Illinois at least were not blatantly racist and many of them consider themselves to be progressives. People like Dr. W, W a Evans were involved in eugenics in Illinois. Evans was a physician who had come to Illinois from New Orleans. And he worked as the, as the Chicago's health commissioner. And he was also a eugenicist. And here I think is a really important point that Evans made and that my first study made and I want to share it actually just by sharing some quotations from Evans, who published a weekly column in the Chicago Tribune. It was campaigning for pure milk and crusading against infant mortality as Chicago's health commissioner considered these to be vital reform efforts. But he said that they attacked only part of the problem. We have been so busy with environment Evans asserted that we have forgotten teamwork. Race betterment is loaded in a two horse wagon to which is hitched improved environment and eugenics. Evans and other eugenicists contended that insanity alcoholism drug addiction cancer consumption neurosis hereditary deafness multiple sclerosis and many other quote ailments conditions diseases and handicaps could all be greatly reduced or even eliminated. Only if society worked toward improving the quality of the gene pool as well as the quality of the swimming pool. So in other words, eugenicists in Illinois saw eugenics as a progressive measure, but it was inherently conservative and discriminatory because it focused on eliminating people that were considered to be defective or disabled or quote handicapped in some way. They were considered the unfit members of the race and in order to improve society and improve race and by which people like Evans and others and usually met the human race. They required their elimination from society. So this led to this push to remove so called defective people led to a rise in institutionalization in the United States. Institutions have been around since the early 19th century. There were so called specialized institutions for people who were considered quote deaf and blind and quote dumb. And by the end of the 19th and also a silence for people experiencing mental troubles and people thought to be insane. And by the by the end of the 19th century, they're emerged across the United States, a huge network of state institutions that had become large, essentially custodial institutions. They were crowded, and they were just awful places for people to live. And this this happened this this growing institutionalized population occurred in the early 20th century, as we can see here from these statistics in 1900, there were about 126,000 people who were institutionalized in 131 state institutions. In 1929 that number increased to almost 273,000 by 1940 it increased to almost 420,000 and by the mid 1950s there were more than 560,000 people in institutions in the United States. Large structural shifts in society that contributed to this growing institutionalized population, such as industrialization, urbanization, immigration, internal migration, which made it difficult for people to at least from the perspective of new genesis to live and thrive in a modern society. Also during this time the late 19th century, in early 20th century, we see the rise of medical and professional power in the United States. And the creation or further entrenchment of quote deviant and quote defective bodies and minds recall the images of those heads on the flowers in the flower bed in the earlier slide. Through the tools of modern science and scientific medicines such as labs and statistics and intelligence tests, which were introduced in 1908 to the United States and other evaluations such as psychiatric and psychological evaluations. A range of professionals were defining people as defective as deviant and some eugenicists were arguing that those folks should be removed from society. And as I mentioned many of them were institutionalized during these first five or six decades of the 20th century. So we can see that the rise of eugenics while not solely responsible for the rise of institutionalization in the United States was largely responsible for the massive growth of custodial institutions during the first half of the 20th century. I want to pause for just one second and point out this photo here on the right. This is a typical interviewing room it says at the new Institute for juvenile research. This would be about 1915 or 1920. This is the room where young people like the young women pictured in the first photograph that I showed would come and have psychiatric and psychological evaluations and take intelligence tests and be defined as people minded as mentally defective. And as ultimately people who were in need of incarceration, either in the state training school at Geneva or in the Lincoln School in Colony in Lincoln, Illinois. At the height of this institutionalization of so-called defective and unfit people. Journalists and others and a lot of former inmates of Asylum's drew increased attention to institutions and to conditions with within institutions and this led by the late 1940s and 1950s to people to start talking more and more about de institutionalizing about moving people out of institutions. This however would take decades to achieve and somewhat argue that it's never it hasn't been fully achieved. But here I offered some examples of articles that were published during the 1940s by journalists and some of the congressional measures that were taken to try to to try to shift the locus of what would be considered care at the time away from institutions. In 1946, Albert Maisel published Adlem 1946. Most US hospitals are ashamed and a disgrace in life magazine. This was based on the reports of conscientious objectors to World War two who served, who did their service during wartime at state hospitals and took photographs and took notes and ultimately shared that information with journalists and wrote about it themselves as well. This in part led in to the US Congress passing the Mental Health Act in 1946. And then there were other studies as well Frank writes out of sight out of mind, which was based again on those CEO, those conscientious objector reports of 46 different mental hospitals added further publicity to the just wretched conditions within these institutions. Albert Deutsches The Shame of the States was a book that was published in 1948 that can lead or added to the growing critique of institutions.  And then in 1963. Kennedy signed the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, which was supposed to help to eliminate large state institutions and move the locus of care and intervention out of large state institutions into the community, and into smaller institutions. The legislation did not fund the large state institutions, but it did fund smaller institutions like nursing homes and other facilities. As I said that were meant to get people out of institutions and into into the community. This legislation was underfunded and wasn't all that effective especially initially in emptying institutions. But at the same time, there was a growing movement among disabled people and among the family of people who were institutionalized and people who could potentially become institutionalized to actually keep people out of institutions and move people out of institutions and I have here an example that I want to share with you. It's from the magazine Bound and it says and it centers around a nine year old named Jane or Janie as her mother called her. Janie became the subject of an article written by her mother Violet Ebb Lindquist and published in as I said the magazine Bound, which was quote Iowa's own magazine in 1958. The article was entitled, I'm glad we kept Janie at home. And it begins with the declaration that Janie's quote crudely cut Christmas gift for her parents, which was a calendar strengthened their conviction that they had chosen the right course for their family in spite of advice from specialists to the contrary.  And her parents contrary to both popular and expert opinion that is the opinion of physicians and others chose to keep Janie at home. They were not alone. Although the rate of admission to public institutions for intellectually and developmentally disabled children under six years of age double and children under six went from nine to 19% of all admissions to institutions between 194545 and 1955. There were signs that institutionalization was no longer tolerable for many families. A 1950 study found that 88 local parent groups, most of which have been formed between 1946 and 1950 had 19,300 members in 19 states, and that they were advocating for community living for disabled people. They're mostly they're disabled relatives and children. Also in 1950 local groups came together and formed the National Association for Retarded Children or NARC. By 1960 the NARC had 681 local affiliates and a membership of 62,000 people, which at that time was mostly parents, but with over the decades increasingly come to involve disabled people themselves who like to refer to themselves as self advocates, and use people first language it was sometimes it's called the people first movement. And these folks were dedicated to finding alternative forms of care and education for their children. Although she would not characterize herself in that way Janie's mother was one of those activist parents who would help hasten the institutionalization and promote the public education of intellectually and developmentally disabled children. In addition to people like Janie's parents, there was also a growing disability rights movement in the United States after World War two throughout the oops I'm sorry throughout the 1950s and 1960s. And into the 1970s and continuing through the rest of the 20th century into the 21st century disabled people themselves became more active in advocating for their own rights. People would have been institutionalized during the era of eugenics, like this gentleman here holding the disabled and proud sign, and other disabled people would have been institutionalized during the height of eugenics movement came out onto the streets, and into the state legislative houses and into Washington DC, and increasingly advocated for their rights, the right to live independently in the community, and the right to have their, their legal civil rights, respected and honored. And this movement grew, especially during the 1960s and 1970s became known as the independent living movement. Within the midst of this mounting disability rights movement and in the midst of increasing government actions such as the Kennedy administration's passing of the Community Mental Health Centers Act. These large institutions, many of which were created during the height of eugenics or just before the rise of eugenics and became filled to overcrowding. During the first 50 years of the 20th century during the eugenics era became the target of investigations, further investigations by people. One of the most infamous to come under scrutiny was the Willowbrook asylum on Staten Island in New York City. It opened in 18 or I'm sorry 1947. So toward the end of that 50 year period of eugenics sort of the height of eugenics, and it remained open until 1987. Designed to accommodate 4000 people. Imagine housing 4000 people under one roof. I think you can, you can get a sense of what life in that institution might have been like. At its peak in 1965, it held 6000 inmates 6000 people. So an institution that was already meant to be incredibly large was over was overcrowded. It held primarily people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Those people who were considered unfit those people represented in that flowerbed by those quote defective and deformed skulls that the woman with her cap and gown was attempting to remove from the flowerbed. Those are the folks that were housed in the Willard institution on Staten Island. When Robert Kennedy visited the institution he referred to it as a quote snake pit, referring to the 1940s novel written by a woman who had survived institutionalization in New York State. And also to the film that that the film of the same name that was based on the novel that won an Academy Award in 1948. The Willard book institution came under further scrutiny in the early 1970s. Haroldo Rivera, who at the time was considered was a much more seriously minded journalist. For those of you who are old enough to remember this was the pre Al Capone's vault years of Haroldo Rivera. This was before he went on live television claiming to open her old open Al Capone's vault in front of the world, which kind of led to the downfall of his journalistic career. Haroldo Rivera in the early 1970s went into Willowbrook with cameras recorded what life was like, which was tragically isolating and debilitating as you can see here from this photograph for inmates at Willowbrook. This resulted to a in a class action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York State in March 1972. The case went to trial and was finally settled on April 30 1975 when judge when the judge signed the Willowbrook Consent Judgment, which became known popularly as the Willowbrook Consent Decree. It established the guidelines and requirements for operating the institution and set the goal of reducing the number of inmates at Willowbrook to no more than 250 by 1981. So in six years the institution would have to go from over 6000 inmates to 250. So as you can see here the point is that there was legislation that was being passed to try to dismantle the institutions created largely by the eugenics movement, but it was happening slowly and in some cases was not receiving the funding required to effectively eliminate institutions and the public became involved, especially disabled people and their allies and forced the government to act through the legislature and through the courts and ultimately resulted in cases like that of Willowbrook, which resulted into the consent decree and other cases as well throughout the throughout the country, less well known cases. This hastened the de institutionalization of people during the late 20th century, but still did not eliminate it and did not eliminate the legacies of that eugenics movement centered around institutionalization in the early 20th century. The United the the census of state institutions found that there were the institutionalized populations down to 132,000 for more than 559,000 in 1955 by 1980, but people were still being institutionalized, and people were still not able to to exercise their civil rights and their human rights were being violated sometimes in the way that they were being treated. Despite the passage of more legislation, including the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, which was meant to secure the rights of disabled people. So in 1999, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Olmsted VLC that unjustified segregation of persons with disabilities constitutes discrimination under the ADA, under Title II of the ADA, and it ruled that people with disabilities had to live in the community with all the supports necessary to ensure that they had a meaningful life in the community. That was in 1999 and still over the next 20 years in the early 21st century people were still fighting to enforce that ruling and to provide people with disabilities in the community and still so in a sense grappling with the legacies of eugenics that defined race in ways that made it difficult if not impossible for people who were different differently embodied and who thought in different ways to live in society. People who had been institutionalized. And so this brings us back to our original point that I was making in the beginning of the talk. And that is accessing the archive. By the 1990s accessing the archive and become a political story. And so it was it was a political story that was my own personal story. I working in the 1990s was attempting to access the documents that would enable me to tell the stories of people like Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson pictured here, one African American woman, white one white woman, who were institutionalized and who were the subjects of the Olmsted case. They had been committed to a Georgia institution. They were held against their will, and they were held longer than was deemed appropriate. And ultimately, as I said, led to the ruling in the Olmsted case. So in, you know, in the 1990s people became increasingly concerned like me with telling their stories and trying to get out their experiences with eugenics. This became this was and still is incredibly difficult. But there have been advancements that have been made people are increasingly and have been in the last 10 or 15 years or so increasingly digitizing institutional records, which as I said in the very beginning of the talk can lead to some interesting insights into the experiences of disabled people. They're also, you know, just finding and unearthing these records, much like, you know, the way that I did back in the 1990s when I first went about writing my story of the history of eugenics in Illinois. And I would argue that we need to tell these stories of people like Lois and Elaine that the history of eugenics and the history of race and eugenics and the legacies of eugenics are not complete and will not be complete until we tell their stories. And so it's critically important that we interview people that are still alive. And then we work as much as we can to try to gather first person accounts of institutionalization or accounts from family and friends of people who are institutionalized. And I want to just end here with an example of how this actually works in practice. And this is a Canadian example of the Canadians are a bit ahead of us. I think in this, although there are some really excellent efforts being made in places like North Carolina and Texas and California and other places to archive and access these stories. In Canada, in Alberta, one of the western provinces, a group of scholars received federal money from their research council to create a eugenics archive. And I'm going to click on this and I hope it works. This is the website, which is the eugenics archive in Canada. And as you can see here, it offers a number of ways to interact with the website it's written in plain language for people of any reading level to engage with. It actually situates eugenics in a global perspective through this interactive website. And it features I think the most important thing from my perspective and the most relevant thing to this talk is that it features here. Our stories here eugenics survivors share their lives and so people can access this archive and listen and watch people tell their own stories. People like Lois and Elaine and others who were institutionalized, many of which who were sterilized, many of which in Canada who were met with First Nations peoples tell their stories, tell their stories of institutionalization and for some stories of sterilization. And I think capturing these stories and archiving them and documenting them is incredibly important. It adds such a rich layer to an already rich history of eugenics that people have written using institutional documents and government documents and court records and other things. I think until we tell the story of the people who experienced eugenics and the legacies of eugenics, the history of eugenics will not be complete. So I want to thank you for sharing your time with me here today. If you have any questions or if you'd like to continue this conversation outside the framework of this conference, feel free to email me at my email here. marembusatbuffalo.edu. Thank you.


So I say, you know, back this is with us. Hi, you know, welcome. I'm not joining the committee from inside the committee room today and talking through a mask. So, try to see if you can hear me clearly enough. It is so interesting sitting here with all of us wearing masks watching people who are maskless. I'm feeling jealous. Yes, highly, highly jealous at this point. Yeah. So, So welcome. Our hope is for you to walk us through the governor's recommended initiatives around healthcare workforce development. I'm not going to talk about healthcare workforce development generally, perhaps, but healthcare workforce is of course what we're particularly interested in, and I'm going to turn it over to you to help us with that. We'll entertain questions along the way. Thank you very much for the record in a back as director of health reform in the agency of human services. This presentation is certainly a follow along to the overview that I provided for the healthcare workforce development strategic plan earlier on in the session. I am very happy to have the opportunity to share with you. How the governor's budget proposals on a number of areas create a comprehensive approach to improving nursing healthcare workforce in our state so if I could I'll go ahead and share my screen. That'd be fine. And let me know if you can see the presentation. Oh, okay. Yes. Okay. You can take it to full screen.  Yeah, that's good. Thank you. Great. Thank you. So consistent with the. Sorry, I'll just go back here. It really wanted me to give subtitles a try which was making it so I couldn't see my screen. Consistent with the healthcare workforce development strategic plan. The governor has proposed an initiative specific to recruitment retention and training. And the governor proposed a total of 33 million in the FY 22 budget adjustment to support a program of recruitment retention and training for nurses as well as the health and human services providers. In this program, we propose would be a needs based program and would allow employers flexibility and how to propose and allocate funding within the terms and conditions of the program. And that would allow for recruitment or retention bonuses funds to be utilized for training needs to include potentially utilize utilizing funds to support international nurse recruitment or other creative employer identified incentives for recruiting and retaining the workforce. We propose that there would be a program limits so as to so as to provide for a service agreement for those staff who would be receiving retention or recruitment bonuses, and thereby create consistency across the system and minimize system to provide inequities in equities. And this could be for a limited period of time that the service agreement would be in place. Further the governor proposed in the FY 23 budget, $3 million to continue and expand existing scholarships for Vermonters and out of state individuals to attend nursing programs at Vermont colleges and universities would include Norwich University that's been a question that we've heard a number of times, and would this would include students that are pursuing practical nursing certificates associates degrees in nursing or bachelor of science degree in nursing. And students would similarly here agree to work as a nurse in Vermont for a minimum of one year following licensure for each year of the scholarship awarded. And as you're likely familiar this is how the nurse scholarship program does operate today. This is a scholarship program that was established in, I believe, through Act 155 of 2020. And again, this is an expansion of that program with the additional and investment of funds. The governor also proposed an additional $2 million to expand loan repayment for nurses who live in Vermont and are permanently employed by Vermont health care providers and employers. And with this proposal that nurses again would agree to service obligation to live and work in Vermont for each year of loan payment provided. This is certainly a theme in the in the proposal and in the package overall that there is a service component to the programs that are offered or in the case of tax incentives. There is a residency component and a Vermont employer component to that proposal. And here further, the governor's budget proposes a $1,000 refundable income tax credit for nurses as well as nurse educators. And this in total was a $15.4 million estimated investment. The tax credit is available to those nurses and nurse educators that will be living and working as permanent employees for Vermont health provider employers and would include registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, licensed nurse assistants and nurse educators as well. And can we interrupt you with a question. Yeah, I think representative. I have several questions. Yeah, she also she actually just answered it I had never seen anywhere. Because it's not on the slide and hadn't thought to ask but you just now said that the cost of that tax expenditure would be 15.4 million in terms of the budget right set correct. That is my understanding of the estimated the estimated budget impact. Yes. Okay, thank you represent court. Thank you. Can you hear me, you know, I can. Okay. And noticing that we're not talking about advanced practice nurses here. It looks like they're not included in scholarships loan repayment tax incentives. And I think in one of the, I don't have the bill number. I didn't get another program. They were left out of something that was supporting primary care providers. Was there any discussion about including advanced practice nurses and any of these. Let me, let me go back to the team before I answered definitively but in advanced practice nurses, advanced practice registered nurses correct. Yes, advanced, but they're nurse practitioners they. You know, they're, we all know of the primary care providers shortage crisis, in addition to the nurses that we're talking about now so I just want to make sure that advanced practice nurses have opportunity as well. Thank you. I'll, I'll follow up on that point to be sure that I'm clear on on how that is being handled. Thank you. The, we are also promoting Vermont as the best place place to live and work as a nurse and through this is through collaboration between the agency of human services and the agency of commerce and community development. The focus here is to leverage existing platforms and to establish new marketing campaigns that can draw nurses from other states, as well as internationally amplify the full range of incentives for living and working as a nurse in Vermont, including those incentives that I've just provided an overview about the certainly bringing those into the program as well. Scholarships loan repayment tax incentives, further amplifying the fast track to licensure which I believe you had discussion about with the office of professional regulation which does speed path to licensure for nurses coming to work in the state of Vermont and and also utilizes relocation programs to support nurses and and family members coming to live and work in the state of Vermont. So this is very much a cross department and agency initiative to utilize existing resources and expertise and to create a specific a specific campaign directed again at nurses and nurses who would be interested in living and working in our state. Representative just a question. Yes, can you go back to the previous slide and can you explain what the $1,000 refundable income tax credit is is that after you submit your tax information is this for this is for itemizing or how does that actually work. It's, it's a refundable income tax credit for nurses and nurse educators. I'm sure that the, if you're interested in having a deep dive on how it works. I know that the tax department tax department would be happy to do that. But I mean, do you just, is there something that you have to apply for is it is it mean, is it going to be easy for a nurse to apply for $1,000 refund. I mean, like so many of these things. You know, they're not the top of your tax. Is that how it's going to work. I think that's liability. I think comes up 1500 in taxes, I think the thousand go to a CEO 500. I think I have to answer all those questions when you're talking about your taxes, you know, did you do this. So you're, you're itemizing your tax. I think we should probably ask someone who actually understands this answer the question. I guess what I'm asking is something that's really going to work. Well I don't know. And it would be something that would absolutely be evaluated by the means committee who are familiar with refundable tax credits and, you know, it's not a great deal of money but well the total amount that the budget would impact it's estimated $15,000 per person is the amount of money that's being recommended to everybody. Anyways. Okay. Well, I mean, let's let's continue here in this presentation. He got me to it. We're also through this comprehensive initiative to promote nursing in the state of Vermont, launching a marketing campaign to promote enrollment in career and technical education programs. And this campaign would can include an emphasis on health care careers specifically and the trades. Further the budget proposal does does propose continued investment in the successful Vermont housing improvement program, which does help private owners of vacant rental properties to bring units back on to online for housing, and to increase the housing available in the state. We've certainly heard regularly from health care employers that housing is is a is a key barrier for people looking to live and work in Vermont in the health care system. We also propose the, the, the, the governor also proposes investing in a new private home builder program which is focused on creating missing middle housing for moderate income home buyers specifically. And childcare is another area that I know that the committee is familiar with that poses barriers to recruiting and retaining Vermonters to work in the health care workforce. The administration has proposed a comprehensive package of investments to continue investing in the accessibility and affordability of early care and learning pre kindergarten in a mixed delivery system, as well as to enrich after school and summer programs for youth in pre K through grades 12. So that's that is a high level overview of the package of initiatives that do come together through the budget proposal as well as the budget adjustment specifically coming together through those avenues to support the health care workforce in the state of Vermont and as you again are also familiar the health care workforce development strategic plan has a number of initiatives and recommendations within it that are also in play today. So I'm going to give you an update from the Office of Professional Regulation pertaining to the work that they are convening around increasing nurse educators in the state of Vermont increasing the number of slots available for persons to pursue education and training to be nurses and work in the state of Vermont. So I think we have some more questions, if you don't, if you're, yeah, this question is good. Hi, thank you for that. So I have a question. Was the 5 million for the two scholarship program or the scholarship and loan forgiveness it was 15 million for the tax incentives, which I think gets me to 20 million so can you tell me how the rest of the 13 million is split out between the marketing campaign and the other options. The other recommendations. Oh, I want I want to clarify that the 33 million dollars is was was proposed only for the recruitment retention and training initiatives. So, the 33 million that is only for those initiatives, the nurse scholarships loan repayment tax incentives are all additive to the 33 million. And then the dollars proposed, you know, for investing in supporting the agency of commerce and community development in marketing activities are additive to those as well and I don't have. I don't have that number off the top of my head in terms of any investments in the marketing campaign specifically. So if you get that for us or have someone get it to us, that'd be great. Thank you. So, just for my application the 33 million for retention, recruitment and retention that is in the BAA. Is that right. That's correct. Yep. And the others the other, the other dollar amounts are in the FY 23 budget. And the distinction. Yeah. Yeah. So is there. And I apologize. I, it says right here fiscal year 2022. So you know this weekend I made the same mistake and was emailing. Sorry about that. We should read a little bit better. So is there any money in the fiscal year 23 budget for recruitment retention and training. No, the recruitment retention and training is proposed in the FY 22 budget adjustment. Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you. Maybe take down your slides so we can see that would be wonderful. Oh, are they not down. I'm sorry. I thought I took them down. Stop. There you go. There you go. Thank you. That's great. Thank you so much. I have two questions. My first question is sort of taking off where Mari went. Is there anything in the governor's budget about primary care workforce. So beyond just nurses. What are the options. Can we practice stocks. APRNs to do primary care specifically. The recruitment and retention proposal is a broader proposal than for, for just nurses and that those, that $33 million investment that was proposed is, is broader than for just the nurse workforce and could include. It could include a broader workforce. Certainly there are areas of the system where there is a particular need in terms of home health care skill nursing facility care. Certainly rise to the top as examples of that additional where there could be additional investment in recruitment and retention. So I'm hearing you say that it's, it's really still for nursing and not necessarily it could include primary care but might not. Or I'm just wondering if the governor and you have thought about primary care specifically. It is, it is not exclusive to nursing. It certainly could include mental health substance use disorder home health care providers home independent support providers are some key examples there. And, and so it was, it was not envisioned as a specific program to support primary care. However, it could, it could provide for some primary care support. Great, thank you. And I was also wondering on your slides eight and nine. When you were talking about broader strategies that seemed more general to the workforce and not necessarily focused on nursing if I interpret it right I just wanted to make sure those. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yes, I think I saw those. Yes, the, as we experienced workforce shortage certainly across sectors in the state there are a number of strategies and initiatives that apply and can be applied across sectors and, and we can use our current workforce development tools and expertise, both to support the nurse workforce specifically but also to support workforce development in those other sectors. I think childcare housing are key issues across sectors and are not, and are not separate and distinct, for instance for healthcare workers specifically for for nurses even more specifically. I think that those investments are important for workforce development on the whole. Thank you. You know I have a specific question I think it's in line, maybe with what I was asking but more specific, we, we created and funded, I believe was five primary care scholarships for primary care positions at the learner School of Medicine. I think they're just now. We have three years ago or something along that line and is that so that funding is now we were reported that that there are new medical students receiving that funding is that is that embedded in the base budget somewhere, or is that not get refunded. So I'm confused about whether that's already in place and separate from what we're talking about here today or if it's. I can come back to you with with that information I believe that that was that that scholarship program was also started through or was established through Act 155 of 2020. And that it is. I see Jen, Jen has is shaking your head and she can probably clarify that how the program is ongoing or not. I don't have any problems with that if you have any information or Jennifer Carby Legislative Council, I don't think I can answer whether it's fun I think the funding question would need to be answered, either by the administration or by the appropriations folks, but this was a program that was created in Act 155 is in statute it was amended fairly significantly last year, and scholarships are for up to 10 student medical students annually who commit to practicing in a medical specialty area, and with some other for which for the moment at least is focused on primary care. But the program is, I mean, you've, you've appropriated funds for it in each of the last two budget years so I don't know if it is now somehow embedded in the health department statute or a budget request or if it would need to be a new appropriation. And do you have the figure that was what what the figure was that was appropriated in each of the two years when we did appropriate funds. I can look it up fairly easily but I don't know offhand, searching in last years. Okay, so I, yeah, I can forward Nolan I asked this question over the weekend Nolan sent me the language. Okay, from last year. And you know the, so for last year it was, it was one point a little over 1.2 million and global commitment funds so that's the state federal, you know, combined amounts. And I can look at the year before it happened in the budget each year. Okay. So if, if there's any way to determine whether that's somehow in base budgeting for the Department of Health, or somewhere else, apart from the initiatives that you've outlined that would be very helpful to understand, or if it's not, we have to understand. There may be confusion as to whether because it was put into statute that it actually therefore became part of a base funding, or whether it has to be separately authorized in each fiscal year. Yeah, the, the, the amount that Jen just referenced last year, it actually says that amount is transferred to the sec in fiscal year 2022. So, my understanding is that was like, that was the carry over that's so that 2022 maybe funded already through that we did need to verify that. But that's the language, the language says fiscal year 2022. Right it was in the FY 22 budget act. This year. Yes, that is the current that is the end in June. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah, for the record no language joint fiscal office represent Donnie is correct I sent there the numbers yesterday. So Jen's correct is 2.2 gross million and global commitment. And there was language in the house past BAA that basic that said this funding shall remain available to be second till expended, and if needed, physically neutral adjustments to spending authority shall be included in future budget legislation. I don't know if that translates to base or not. But it's definitely sounds like intent. So I'm still left a little confused. I don't know what the others are not but I am as to, can you translate what you said to, is there money in this in this upcoming, did the BAA put money into the upcoming fiscal year or is that simply to authorize money for the current fiscal year. The BAA money was to authorize that if it's not spent that it doesn't go away that it just keeps carrying forward. So it doesn't get scooped up and use for something else. That's an example of when people ask about carry forward and spend the money what happens so that that creates it as a carry forward, but it doesn't. But it doesn't appropriate new dollars. The BAA isn't appropriating new dollars. So if that was to be, if there was money needed in addition to whatever is carried forward there would that would require an additional appropriation I assume. Yeah, I was getting I asked this question yesterday of some other folks and I was getting mixed signals about whether this was base going forward, or if it's just a single appropriation so I will get clarification for you on that. Okay, so that's that's the question I think we were asking as well whether there was somehow it was in the base and we're not just seeing it. I think that would be very helpful to understand. Yeah. Okay. Yes, I have several questions here. Relocation programs for nurses. What are they are they moving nurses from out of state to Vermont. Are we paying for their moves. Could you explain a little bit about that how much is that has been allocated there. That's specifically that's the relocation program in the agency of commerce and community development that supports relocation for workers coming to Vermont. We would like to see, you know, certainly that program be able to accommodate and include persons who are working in Vermont, or coming to work in Vermont as, as you know, in the in the healthcare field and with healthcare employers. Okay, so it's in the big. It's a broader picture I guess that's not just nurses it's a lot of others okay. And the housing issue. What are the incentives for nurses to get housing. Are we providing some sort of loans for for nurses to purchase homes, and I see where invest in a new private home builder program. Are we subsidizing builders who then sell these homes that are at a lower cost and what they're being paid for you have any information on that and how it affects our nurses are nursing and contracting nurses here, or keeping him here. Again, it certainly is, it is a broader issue but one that is also true for the nurse workforce that housing in in Vermont can be difficult to find. So housing in Vermont can be difficult to find and so these two programs are not exclusive at all for nurses but they are programs that can increase the housing available in the state of Vermont. And certainly nurses could take advantage of those programs, you know, take advantage of the additional housing created by those programs as could any, any other Vermont or take advantage of the additional housing created by those programs. The strategy is certainly to acknowledge or more than acknowledge but to address what is a shortage of available housing, which is certainly a recruitment barrier when when looking to bring more people into the workforce here in the state of Vermont. People are looking, certainly to establish housing as a part of being in the workforce. There are not. There are no specific dollars for nurses to support nurses at housing specifically. It is a broader strategy. This is another, this is one of the broader initiatives rather than a nursing specific initiative, but it certainly could include nurses but it's not, they're not targeted to nurses at this point. But I mean if we're trying to attract nurses chair with, and I'm not arguing with you but I'm just saying I'm just trying to describe what I think he said here. Yeah, yeah, but that'll be our discussion tomorrow. You paint a picture that you know all these incentives for nurses and yet it's, it's broader. It's not specifically designed for the nursing school that I think that's accurate and I think that's what we're hearing. Okay, and then do we know where these, where these homes will be built. Do we have an idea do we have any home builders that we've, you know, started asking for information on designs and qualifications things like that. Those are really good questions. I don't have those answers for you today I can, I can look into that, you know those the details of the, of the program and how, how far in the planning. It is, but certainly the proposal is, is to support those is to support the creation of new housing for moderate income individuals but I can, I can definitely get back to you with some more information about that program. And do we have loan guarantees for nurses, you know want to buy their home and settle in Vermont I mean, here again. Can we say, I mean, your title of your slides here, recruitment retention and training. Healthcare workforce development strategic plan implementation. It just seems very broad and it doesn't really seem to me anyways, to be addressing the issue of trying to get nurses into Vermont and keep them here. We have we have what we have in front of us is what's being proposed by the administration. We are also looking at other initiatives that we may add to this or review these proposals and and see which ones we want to prioritize and support. I have another question, because I, in the, in the healthcare workforce development plan. There was a proposal I believe, specifically to, and I'm not going to get the language quite right because I'm remembering it to house to put a position within the agency human services to help coordinate and have folks access supports through the healthcare workforce. That's the liaison. Yeah, yeah, yeah, is that what that is that that's that's re recommended in the healthcare workforce strategic plan. And my question is, is that position anticipated to be created in the government budget. I think I need to clarify that there is not a position proposed in the in the healthcare workforce development strategic plan to sit within the agency of human services. We did not. Maybe I misunderstood stuff. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, thanks chair. You know, I see as a retention item with retention bonuses. Is there any plan of foot to to for a broad increase so that someone coming in could see that, you know, we're going to be in a nurse can can make me a little bit of money above what they get now. So just a bonus is maybe a one year shot versus a substantial increase in salary that has a longer lasting. I know it's a bunch of item but to two. We can look at this is saying, you know, this is a very significant rising pay for nursing. We, you're correct that the retention bonus is not a is is not a proposal for an increase in in base pay for nurses the intent of the program is certainly to acknowledge that I given the current workforce challenges and that there is a very, you know, near term need to do what we can certainly promote nurses and others working in the health and human services in Vermont to remain in their positions to incentivize them in the near term to continue on in the workforce, recognizing that longer term strategies likely will also need to be employed for recruitment and retention initiatives. When you develop a plan like this, you have a number in mind of nurses that you hope to attract I mean is there any sort of. I know that's probably very difficult to do but I didn't know if there was any ballpark figure that you maybe would be able to so for intact. What would they be the impact. I think that's a that's a really excellent question in in putting together this proposal certainly there are key objectives to try to again retain those nurses already working in the workforce so that the workforce does not experience additional attrition so to do to provide funding for employers to innovate around retaining employees to reduce additional attrition. And I certainly we propose something that could be flexible for those employers that may not be most concerned about attrition but could be very concerned about bringing, you know, recruiting additional additional staff into roles. We don't have a specific target there, because we have these kind of multi factors at play, but I do think that that is a good question. Thank you. Okay, I have one other question and then I see representative goldenness question, we're going to suggest we stop minutes five minutes. And, but in the course of your analysis of the workforce strategic plan or these workforce initiatives. One of the things I'm always interested in is that we invest our state dollars in efforts that result in workers being in Vermont, as opposed to training people in nursing programs or other programs. So, our initiative with the larner school of medicine is to have people practice in Vermont after they've, as we probably the scholarships as an incentive to work in primary care, and in exchange they work back in Vermont and I think that's part of this initiative that you've talked about. In terms of just generally at this point in time do we have any sense of whether each of the programs like at UVM at Norwich or Castleton or other places. Do we have any good sense of these exist nurses who are being trained now in trained in Vermont. Are they work or do they end up working in Vermont. I've heard various descriptions and how to measure that. I don't know if you had access to any of that information the course of any, any analysis that you were part of that. That is that's an area that we're actively analyzing and looking into and I don't have that I don't have, you know, analysis for you for you across the board for all the nursing programs in the state of Vermont, again, it's an area we're actively looking into and trying to understand, but I can share that for instance, in the programs offered by the Vermont technical center, what I've understood, and what's been reported to me is that most of the graduates, you know, in that program are already working in Vermont and that that program has an 85 to 90% rate of students who stay and work in Vermont as as nurses. That's a Vermont technical college. As opposed to Vermont, I think it's just a, yeah, yeah, Vermont technical college nursing program. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But that's, that's a really great question and it's one of the pieces that we're certainly exploring with the nursing education programs as we engage with them along with the Office of Professional Regulation around increasing the number of students educated in Vermont. Right, right. Just for my refresh my memory. Where is the nursing program at VTC located currently. Is it only at one site? Williston and Randall. So, so it's at both sites. Okay. Thank you. And I think the Castleton has program in a separate program. Well, yeah. Representative Goldman. Thank you, Ena. I'm wondering what number of the administration is working with to understand the gap in our nursing workforce.  I'll do that in a couple of ways. You know, certainly the workforce development strategic plan does emphasize that we need to bring together different sources of healthcare data to be able to better understand and model. You know, certainly supply and demand and to understand gaps and those pieces of data are coming from different areas of state government, for instance, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health in the survey that the Department of Health. In the, in the information that it collects through the, through the relicensure survey. And so we, we recognize that we need a better way to look at these pieces of information in combination as they obviously do inform one another and would inform and better inform our working understanding of gaps and assessments. And that being said, we also are looking at, you know, key indicators that suggest certainly where there are gaps in the workforce, such as the increasing reliance on traveling staff by facilities in the state of Vermont, including hospitals but not exclusive to hospitals by any means also including traveling staff that are working at skilled nursing facilities and maybe working with health providers. So, those are other areas where we look to understand with, you know, certainly the changes in the composition of the healthcare workforce with respect to the proportion of full time employed staff versus traveling staff and I have some information on that front that I can follow up with you. I'll send it along to the committee. I'll send it along to the committee right after this. If I may follow up. I'm just curious, you know, you talk about a lot of different state government sort of agencies being involved, which I understand is totally complex. So, who do you think understands the whole problem, who has the overarching view of what's going on ground state government and throughout the state in terms of the nursing workforce. Well, I, I think it's a collective point of view I mean I think there's different expertise and pieces of information that are coming from, from, you know, different areas and that together that can create the collective that can create the collective view. Coming to where, when you say coming. I'm just wondering who collects it all in one place. It can't be possible. I don't know. I remember this is my first term so I can be ignorant. Well, I think that's exactly the question that the advisory group and discuss the be so there is an advisory group that was established to advise on the healthcare workforce development strategic plan, and a key area of discussion for this advisory is the data that describes the healthcare workforce does live in different places. And so the committee would recommend that those data be brought together in in a healthcare workforce data hub, which I think is consistent with your with your question which is, well if it's all in different places then how is there any one view of it. So, the report does make that recommendation. And, and I think that there's, you know, further consideration that needs to be. And we need to, you know, further consider how to implement such a recommendation but the advisory group again discussed it repeatedly, and, and put forward that that recommendation. The data hub. That is not a proposal. And no, that is not included in it. No. Thank you. So I, I guess that answer right there maybe answers my because I know that the data hub was sort of one piece of it that then there was also a recommendation around do creating the ability to do supply and demand modeling. And I was going to ask if there were any recommendations from the administration on pursuing that or funding but if the data hub isn't being funded I guess we can assume the supply and demand modeling is also not or is that a consideration. The supply and demand modeling. No is also not included. Okay, thank you. Okay. I think we'll stop there. Thank you for spending time with us and helping us understand what is being proposed in the administration's health care workforce initiatives. And, and, and helping us understand where there are some things that were in the strategic plan but are not not included in the funding recommendations at this point in time. It's actually helpful for us to be able to articulate have you are helpless articulate what's, what's there at this point and what is not. It's helpful for us as we look at what we might want to recommend as well. So, thank you so much. And we'll continue to be in touch in your role, which I would just say, we're asking lots of questions and it's time is frustrating because not everything that is available to us. But I want to just express appreciation for the work that you're doing as the director of health health care reform. So, thank you very much. So no one popped up I don't know if you know where you I'm sorry Nolan was there something further that you were wanting to chime in on. Not, not this time. I'll communicate with various committee members. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


as much. Thank you for coming to RumiConf 2003. It's nice to see a bigger crowd this year. In our first year in 2001, we had only 33 or so and last year maybe 50. Why are we here? We are here because Rumi is good enough for many of our tasks so we do not have to talk about that. So I'm going to talk about how Rumi sucks and how we can make it better. Rumi has these problems. For example, it's slow and inconsistent. How can we fix these? With a major version change from 1.0 to 2.0, this is the opportunity to take one big step and make changes that may not be backwards compatible. But we'll make Rumi better. To clarify, Rumi2 is the next version of the Rumi language and right is the virtual machine for Rumi2. The path we will take to Rumi2 depends on being free of 1.8 maintenance. Hopefully that will be soon. Then in 1.9, we will work on the syntax changes. I do not know what these changes will be yet, but there will be experiments. Once we know what the syntax will be, we can work on the implementation in right. Right will be vaporware for a long time, unfortunately. I am still waiting for Son Chi to finish right for me. So here's the long list of some things we might experiment with for Rumi2. For example, here's a way we could have keyword arguments.  You must use the keyword argument many, in this case b. If you specify it, but it will not, then if not, it will make some kind of error. But I have not decided what kind of error yet. This is the new hash-little syntax that we might have. That would be equivalent to the current syntax below. Maybe we can have method books that will let you add code to arbitrary methods to be run before or after. Death may return an object. I am not sure yet. If you try to add a pre-method to a method that does not exist, that will grow an error. Or maybe not. As you can see, I have undecided about many of these changes. I would like to help from you in the form of Ruby change requests for a time until about March 2004. These would be proposals asking if we could change Ruby in this way or that way. RCR should contain an abstract, motivation, proposal, and rationale. They can be big changes that would not be backwards compatible. I think I would reject most of them. But thinking about how to improve Ruby by many burdens is better than just one small burden. Thank you. Seeing that everything works. The only prerequisite to this is that you have Ruby on Rails and so you know. I can see that they know David Hennemier Hansen, that they want to be him. They want his fine of parenting out in the streets to get here, losing stuff. And there's a science behind this. It's incredibly thought out. I mean, wow. Foxes, you know, of all animals. Foxes that I use in the book I'm working on. And it's sort of reactionary work to try and do something that a technical book shouldn't do. The eyes of the foxes, round and blank. There's nothing there, right? What do you have to hold on to in a technical book, you know? What drives you to read it exactly? Is there personality there? Is there feeling? Is there humanism? Is there humanity in a technical manual? Not really. There shouldn't be. Their eyes should be blank. They shouldn't be staring. This is the one I like. You can't even see anything about him. He's always down there at the bottom. And that's supposed to be sort of frustrating. I know I don't have incredible things to teach in the book. I'm not an incredible programmer or anything like that. But I figure people will keep reading to see a little bit more of the short one. Let's change things around. So let's just talk about BVB or really, let's just talk about testing for us normal people. And the real thing I'm trying to get out to everyone here is that test calls like a tag. So the Bible says in the beginning and the beginning there was what? And after I got good at curl, I learned Java. Then I fell into testing and I thought I was doing real good here. There was a problem. I was running a bad brittle test. So then a couple of years ago, there was this little Danish guy, he looks like a cartoon character, came up with something called Ruby on Rails. And I can't use the logo because he says I can't. So with Ruby on Rails, we've got this whole little test directory. And I was still writing bad tests. But then my evolution began. And then around January of last year, some smart guys came up with ours about it. And I discovered it and was like, wow, this is hot. But I was still writing brutal tests with bumping syntax. And it wasn't helping anyone. So then I decided I wasn't ready to give up on our specs. And I studied and studied and studied. So coding this way isn't going to be, it's going to be uncomfortable. And there aren't instant benefits. But I don't care if you have a deadline. I don't care if it hurts. Write your tests first. TVB is a muscle. You have to exercise it. And really one rule you should get out of the top is, how soft what is that? As the stream moving on. Because every time I give a talk, I'm actually very nervous up here. And a friend of mine told me, when you're on stage, just think about what would frame or review. So I put this up here to mind myself things about that and called down. So today we're going to look at some tips for putting performance into Ruby code. So how did I get started with this? There's a feature I wanted to add to Rails for a very long time. And that is the paired statement caching. And we'll actually have that feature in Rails 3.1. In order to add this, a deeper understanding was required of ActiveRecord. So I started diving in and fixing bugs, going through the Lighthouse ticket tracker and fixing bugs in ActiveRecord. And I ran across one that said ActiveRecord is five times slower than in Rails 235. This is before Rails 3 was released, and you can go read up on the ticket here. And I thought to myself, five times slower? Really? Five times slower? How is that possible?  It really was five times slower. So I thought I was looking at this, and I thought, what could possibly go wrong? So motivation. Why do we care about speed? You all know that Ruby can't scale, and Rails can't scale, and yet we're all Ruby, that's right? As a tangent, I discovered the technique for scaling Ruby, and it goes like this. It's very simple, like this. Is that when you scale Java? It doesn't pixelate like this. You can buy bad code and exist and get rid of it. When should I make my code faster? You can answer this. When it isn't fast enough. Another question is, what is fast enough? Whenever I think about this, I think, well, do people notice it, and what are you comparing it to? In my mind, fast enough means that it finishes in a reasonable amount of time, and that is subjective. And really, I'm telling you all these things, but I don't want you to believe me. I want you to think critically, and go out and hope at the step, and analyze it for yourself. We need to reduce certain things. That they're called branching and looping, and we need to reduce objects. What I think is interesting is that the clean code, the things to reduce are exactly the same. So therefore, clean code equals performance code. The performance are making up much different, but you don't have yet to have the system knowledge to be able to make the difference. I learned, when should I rewrite? I see it like this. The earliest you should rewrite is when Ryan Davis says so, and the latest you should rewrite is when I say so. Arms are hard. Against the backdrop of 5,000 years of the creation of content and the control of information, it's time for your fortune. Brace yourself, because some of it is hard. Everything will change. Everything.   I got my first programming job in the spring of 1978. The first web browser, let's say, had appeared 15 years later, in the tune of 1993, and Ruby 0.9.5, released on December 21st, 1995. Now, a mere 20 years later, the internet is at the center of our lives. We live inside this bubble, so it's hard to remember that the job you have today appeared as suddenly as that of a limotype operator. When phototype setting arrived, these machines became worthless overnight. Newspapers got rid of them by throwing them out upper story windows into parking lots and having them hauled off or scrapped. So there you go. That's your future. It doesn't involve an unexpected inheritance or a tall dark stranger. Those, unfortunately, are edge cases. This is your real fortune, the one you share and comment with everyone in this room. You can think about it as being on the happy path of the app of your life. But here's the deal. In the arc of your life, these are the happy things. These are the things that you can depend on. This is the meta later that stands above everything else. If your life really were an app, you wouldn't ignore the inevitable. You'd be writing code for this right now. Accepting the truth of this fortune makes it clear what's important. The MPPs of the only app that mattered are health, happiness, and the world we leave our children. I want you to start working on this app right now. There's some low-hanging first. Happiness. Live as if you know you'll die. Do real things. Tell everyone you love them today. You might consider getting a little dog. Okay, you don't have to do anything dangerous. It's a rear-guard action. Believe me, I know, but go down fighting.  Believe me, you're going to want your body later. There are some parts of the apps you can work on by yourself, but some parts are better to work on together as a community. Our community is important and your place in it matters. You can contribute to open source, you can teach it that suits you. Showing up in small ways makes a big difference. We are uniquely qualified to do things for others. We're bigger than Rails and we're bigger than Ruby. We're members of the tribe of information and our lineage is that of scribes and type centers and line of type operators. From scrolls to codexes all the way to composing rooms, we carry the mantle of the open sources of information. My dad is now 80 and he happily works four days a week, two of them at the local food bank or he mows the lawn and does the books and stops the shelves and gets temporary loans from people whose electricity has been cut off. He tries to make sure people don't go hungry and despite his efforts they do. If you want to help, you can pitch in literally. I love Habitat for Humanity. They build houses. I am not a bit religious, but I love this mission. We all want to belong and we want to change the world and Habitat lets you do both those things. Why work with dangerous power tools? If you're not the nail-banging and sheet-rock hanging in time, I can tell you from personal experience that Habitat's volunteer management software sucks. As a matter of fact, I'm going to make a sweeping generalization, which I'm hoping you will not tweet. If they didn't make it, or if we didn't make it, it sucks. All these communities need help. I have always tempted to claim a fast, wind-assisted ride as my own accomplishment, as if I am that strong and I did it all myself. But I can't forget it, that if Doppelganger and me were out on the same day riding in the opposite direction, she would work just as hard but accomplish far less. We are here because we have done the work. I know that. We got into this trial by dent of our own efforts, but we also have been blown here by the twin-tail winds of chance and change. Having looked at the past, we can predict the future, change. And by an accident of timing, we stand at the vortex of that change, at the intersection of information and technology. Unlike many others, we are lucky enough to have choices. And the things we choose now will create the world everyone sees next. It challenge you. Choose something big. And I'm here to talk about friendly flying robots in Ruby. First, I want to talk a little bit about terminology. People often talk about these things as drones. I actually dislike that terminology because it breathes these things to mind. So I try not to use that word. So we're going to talk instead about flying robots. But when you program a drone in Ruby, they become friendly flying robots. When Skyman comes, wouldn't you rather it be programmed in Ruby? So I've written this library called Argus. And we're going to use it like creating a drone object here. Tell the drone to start up the background processes. Tell it to take off and hover about one meter, spin right, spin left, hover and land. Just a very simple, simple program. We're controlling the drone and totally not Carol's arm. I'm going to have a take off using a loop two times and make it swing back and forth. Take off, swing back and forth, and land. How about that? Two successful hardware demos. Oh my god, we should submit something. Well, it's even wearing my earrings. And I'm up here with two of my favorite people who are still hiding down here who are also holding puppets of themselves. This is an amazing moment.  I made this happen. For every hour of work I put in, she put in three. So please, everyone, just some thunders of applause for doing this. Some like this one are amazing. And most others are ordinary, measured by volume. But even those ordinary ones are pretty good. This is, as Sandy said, doing real things. It will keep us coming back to the keyboard and the frustration, the endless planning meetings and the ever-changing tech landscape. No, it's going to kill me. Jim, why are we going to pass away early this year as everybody knows and through putting on Steel City Ruby with Carol and a bunch of other people in Pittsburgh, I got to spend some time with Jim that I wouldn't have otherwise. We shared a meal or two. We shared some jokes. And one time we shared a song. Jim loved to play the ukuleles. That was a pretty cool moment in the hallway outside our first Steel City Ruby three years ago. There's a lot we didn't share though. We never shared code. We never shared ideas about code or the projects we were working on. We never shared a long cab ride to an airport or our favorite places to get brunch.  I guess what we're trying to say up here is that we want to share these moments with you. We don't want to miss another opportunity to let someone know the impact they've had on our lives. Maybe making a puppet that looks kind of like Aaron Patterson is kind of a weird way to do it. But we're standing on the shoulders of giants and many of them are pretty weird. So thank you again for giving us a place to hang our hats. Thank you for keeping it weird. Thank you for optimizing for developer happiness and for being nice because wants is nice. Thank you for all the pictures of your cats. Thank you for all the terrible puns.


From Seattle, Washington extracting the signal from the noise. It's the Cube on the ground at Linux con North America 2015 Now here's your host Jeff Frick. Hi Jeff Rick here with the Cube We are on the ground in Seattle Washington at Linux con North America It's a three-day show. There's a lot of stuff going on and obviously with all the stuff going on in an open source Linux is the granddaddy of them all so we're pretty excited to be here And I think Linux was actually here this morning. So we're joined in our next segment by Alan Samuels an engineering fellow and Also software architect enterprise solutions at Sandisk welcome. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here So you're excited to be here. You've had a good couple of days But it's been fabulous here just to see all the different people all the different things that are going on with Linux It's just stunning to me all the different corners of the industry the Linux has gotten into So I don't know that everyone would put the Sandisk together with kind of open-source software So kind of what's the connection? Why are you guys here?  Well, if you look at the way our business is evolving both You know as due to where flash is going these days you see us investing in data center and in the consumer space and in mobile and in actually all of these areas Open-source and Linux are playing increasingly critical roles. So that's what our customers want. That's why we're doing that Right, and it's also the increasing importance of software right software is eating the world software to find everything You guys are making flash components and hardware components But still a software that's kind of driving the functionality of those things. Well, it's a synergy between the two You know hardware as it advances creates new capability, but you need software to unlock it Yeah, now I think you said you had a panel earlier so for the folks that missed the panel that weren't up here in Seattle What did you guys cover? Well, we've had several presentations here at Linux con. I gave a talk on How hard drives and flash are evolving different architectures for the way you store data in a data center We had a couple of our lawyers here talking about the relationships of licensing issues We just gave a keynote on how open-source is building new ecosystems for the industry and how important that is to our business Yeah, it's pretty amazing to saw the software play, but let's also talk about flash I mean we talk about flash all the time we were HP discover all flash arrays You know people are really pumping all flash talk about the impact of moving from disk to flash in the way that Applications operate and how it really unlocks a whole different level of ways to think about application application functionality Well, you know, I think it's really easy for people to understand if you give them a computer with a hard drive And then you give them a computer with flash within one minute. They say God, this is so much better. I'm never going back I want to see a show of hands of people who haven't done that everybody's done that and it's flash that drives that Okay, flash is pervasive in all the storage applications It creates enormous new business value simply by our ability to process data You know thousands of times faster at much larger scales, right? And it seems to me too, you know, I'm not going to put you on the hook to give a financial Anticipated financial results, which I would never do but it does seem like you know at the early days of flash everyone was so concerned about It's got to be a low latency application only it's got to behave this super high value application only But it seems the adoption is really accelerating because as you said once you once you get a taste of it The prices are coming down pretty rapidly. It seems that the Perforation of flash is really accelerating over the last little while. Yes You know in some ways when you know I'm old enough to remember the transition from tape-based computing to hard drive based computing We went through the same exercise the learning curve happens Moore's law is continuing to march on we have 3d flash now Just hitting the market, you know all across the industry There are many years to come of decreasing flash prices and as that happens You're going to see flash increasingly be the center of computing For all the reasons that you mentioned. Okay, so I'm from Palo Alto. You're from San Jose We got to get a little plug out to the Seattle Chamber of Commerce He said something before we went on camera. He toured around in your last couple days. Give us a little What should people see while they're here in Seattle go to the Chihuly Gardens. It's right next to the Space Needle It was one of the most fabulous exhibitions of blown glass that I have ever seen in my life I was completely blown away and that's a bad pun All right, Alan. Well, thanks for taking a few minutes out of your busy day to stop by. It's great to talk to you Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Absolutely Alan Samuels Jeff Frick We are LinuxCon North America in Seattle, Washington. You're watching the Cube. Thanks for watching


So, it's cricket time now on the sportsmax zone. In just over half an hour, Westonese woman will march into battle with host Australia in the second one-day international in Melbourne. The Wendy's will be on the hunt to level the series after suffering a heavy eight-week defeat in the first match on Sunday, without skipper Haley Matthews, whose fitness is still in question. The action will be live on sportsmax immediately after the sportsmax zone and joining us this afternoon to preview this match on his birthday is cricket commentator Nikhil Ohtam-Chandani. Good afternoon and happy, happy birthday. We're sending you a lot of love and good wishes. Thank you so much, Maria. Thank you to the sportsmax zone team. I'm happy to be here. Alright, so let's get to business. Birthday celebrations will be after. The Westonese woman, Nikhil, not a good start to their ODI stint and of course to me, we would have described it as embarrassing because they were unable to battle their 50 overs and of course struggled greatly without skipper Haley Matthews. So first question, since you're around the cricket a lot, any information as to if Haley will play? Well, I know that they've kept it very quiet in terms of her status, rightfully so, illness or not. I haven't heard anything about it. We may have to ask your system or whoever I know is in Australia. But in terms of whether she plays or not, I think I've looked past the results for this series. The way that they battled in the T20 series was remarkable. Obviously Haley Matthews on screen was the key reason for that. But I think I have sort of used this series to look past the results and more and have a look at the exposure that I think a team in transition can gain. I look at that young opening partnership of Zeta James and Janaba Joseph. First time the Westonese have ever opened with two players under 20 years old, I think in the last six years. So it's a big transition, a big step up in Australia. Let's be very frank, are one of the world's best teams in all formats. So I think I look at it from the point of view of the exposure that those two youngsters at the top of the order can get. But also almost an a wake up call for just to show how much the Westonese rely on Haley Matthews. And also that someone else in that top order, whether it's with Shada Williams, whether it's Shemayne Campbell, who's vice captain, Stephanie Taylor still battling her way back from injury. But someone else is going to have to put their hand up. And I think it's a great opportunity if Haley Matthews doesn't play today for someone else to do that. Yeah, you speak about looking at it. I agree it is a reality check and the reality check was extremely bitter because we all saw it on our screens. For me, though, Nikhil, what worries me is that of course these youngsters, despite getting the opportunity, they are supposed to be able to bat. And I think not having Haley Matthews in the set up, of course, intimidated these battles. And for me, it's a cause of concern because when I look at the scores, it's cause of zero single digits, Nikhil. And these as much as they're young, they have been trained and they're professional. And we would expect better figures, at least not zero one, one and two. One of the stats that came out of the first ODI was that the first run actually came after the fifth over. And I think that's a massive cause of concern. People might start asking what really happens in batting practice. Yeah, I actually was watching the game live. I saw that. I think for me, it was a bit understandable, given that the two youngsters were out there, but also facing a really good spell of bowling. Kim Garth shot, was swinging the ball a lot. So it was challenging. But of course, people would like them to see a bit more of that rotation. But you could understand a bit of nerves there, you know, away from home in Australia, things would have been slightly challenging. And actually during this period, Haley Matthews was on the mic doing an interview. And she actually expressed that she didn't mind, they didn't mind their two young openers seeing of that first ball play, seeing off the new ball. Zeta James with a balling effort, but just two from 27, as you mentioned, is kind of disappointing. I think I would look past the two openers. I put the honest on Rashadah Williams, who has shown us time and time again, that she can show up against big opposition in that England series, the T20 international series last year, she was the West Indies best batter. I wonder if they can maybe tinker with moving her up the order from number three to opening the batting in place of one of the teenagers, because Williams has done it 14 times in her one international career, and she's got a half century in that position. So I think maybe it can help with that scoring ability in the power play, which we know is so vital. But of course, the biggest hope is that Haley Matthews can be there just to set the tone, because I think we all have seen the influence that she can have on that entire 11 players in the T20 international series, the West Indies that like a different side to see Stephanie Taylor able to play herself in and be able to start slowly 10 from 20 and then finish with a 60 or 70 from just 50 odd deliveries. It was great to see. But again, we need to find others who can step up and it is a transitionary period and this exposure will be very good for those younger players, especially. Yeah, really a great team when Haley Matthews is able to step up and deliver with the bat. Now about the bowlers, Nikhil, we didn't get to see a lot of them because it wasn't much runs to defend. Do you feel sometimes that the Windy's bowlers are at such a disadvantage when they don't have a proper total to defend? Yes, unfortunately, I would love to see, especially the way Shana Henry began. I think even when back to the CPL, she has made drastic strides in her all-round cricket. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets picked up in these franchise leagues, the women's IPR next year because she really is that X-factor cricketer can come in at the back end, strike the big sixes, but also with the new ball is showing us something else. The way she swung the ball away from the right-handers, both foreovers, three of them were dots, 18 dot balls she bought in that spell. So it is unfortunate they didn't have more runs to play with. Karishma Ramara from the World Cup has been special with her finger spin, especially in tough conditions in Australia. So I think there are a lot of positives to take. As you said, it's unfortunate that they haven't had much to defend, but let's hope today that they can set a good total if they bat first and then we can really see a test for the bowlers. Alia Aline is another young prospect in terms of her scene bowling who has that bit of extra pace that can be an X-factor for the West Indies bowling lineup as well. Nikhil, you touched on it just now because I had some question marks about their decision to use the 18-year-old Zeta James and the 19-year-old Janaba Joseph to open the batting against such a high quality Australian opening attack. At the moment, we aren't sure if Haley will play tonight. Would you be surprised if Haley doesn't play tonight that they go back with the two teenage openers because it was a failed experiment? I understand giving the young players the opportunity, but it just appeared to be too much for them, really. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, Lance, I was quite surprised at first, but again, then I reminded myself, this is a brand new coaching staff for the women, Sean Ditz, I guess maybe wanting to see the right combinations, test his players in different ways. But I think I would agree with you in terms of the fact that you have Rashad Williams in the side who has opened the batting alongside Haley Matthews 14 times. She's shown against South Africa in that series last year that she got a half century and she's capable of batting against the new ball and also maximizing the two fielders outside the circle. I personally would have started with her and you almost ease, even if you want Zeta James to open the batting, you can almost ease the Janaba Joseph in against the spin in the middle overs if the openers get up and it could be a lot better in terms of a transition to this international stage for them because let's be real, the jump from the CPL to the international setup and facing the Australian quality is a huge difference and a huge step up. So I do expect them to make a change if Haley's not available, but I can't understand a new head coach in trying to test his players and see them go about things a bit differently because I think the way that Haley Matthews in that T20 series has come out batting is unlocked a new level. I remember last year and the previous two alleged very cautious trying to bat through the 20 overs because she knows her importance. In those three T20s they're just like she was business from ball one and it worked. Yeah, I mean I know you mentioned Rashadah Williams and I get that and I agree with you, but given the lack of experience of the two teenagers, even Shemain Kamler, Stefano Taylor to me could have been options to open the batting if it is that you're stuck with these inexperienced players to shoulder the responsibility of a fast bowling attack for the Aussies and it's like the best in the world. Yeah and there's even been indications in the past that many believe Lance that Chanel Henry who we've seen strike the ball at the back end of the innings can almost come to the top order and because the West A's have struggled in 50 over cricket in the first 10 overs so badly, you never know if she comes in and gets you a 12 or 15 ball 30 that I could really set the tone striking at 200 so I think there's a few options that they can use. I just find the biggest area of improvement needs to be able to bat that 50 overs and Australia, England, India the best bowling attacks in the world will present the biggest challenge for the West A's women. I think in these two matches whether they bat first or chase I think they should be looking to maximize those 50 overs and at least get to 200 to 20 because let's be real in the one international format it's Haley Matthews or nothing. She averages 40 in wins and just 20 in the games that they've lost so they depend on her so heavily. I hope if she comes back and she gets a total at a ground that she's very familiar at the junction Oval in Melbourne. I hope that others can bat around her and the West A's can base all 300 deliveries. Yeah and remember that the Aussies aren't even using Elise Perry as a bowler because the all-rounder has an injury and she's just playing right now as a batter. But there was a cricket Weston is released today. Nica that I'm pretty sure you would have seen about a Weston is a team to tour Pakistan and Rashadah Williams has been named captain of that team and a lot of the younger players who have made brief appearances for the Weston is team proper are in this setup and this I think is a glorious opportunity to sort of bridge the gap with these A team players to get themselves some international experience and you know some boost in their preparation for the bigger assignments against the best teams in the world. Yeah most definitely Lance I think in both the men's and women's game we've been crying out for more A team tours. I understand the logistical challenge of planning them but to see young Trishan Holder or even a Keanna Joseph who's done well in the T20 circuit in the last two CPLs Ashmini Munisar who obviously led the Weston is in the 19 world cup because they can't get that exposure at the level of international game because you have the Haley Mathews etc. I think this tour not only for the fact that they're playing cricket but I would say playing cricket in foreign conditions will be a huge boost for a lot of those youngsters who have only had the one trip to South Africa for that on a 19 world cup. And you never know it's another opportunity as well to discover a few gems. I think Keanna Joseph is one to watch. She continues to work on her fitness and she's continuing to boil well and offer something different with her left arm spin. I'll be very eager to see how she goes in subcontinent conditions. Spin friendly Trishan Holder seems like a good player of spin. She uses her feet well. Again good test for her and also good that the coaching staff is the international coaching staff. So they'll bring that experience but also be able to keep a close eye on those young prospects and see who is that next 2024-2025 group that can carry us into those workouts because it is a changing of the guard and it is a transitionary period for the West Indies women. Yeah and as we get ready to wrap this segment Nikhil just a quick comment on what you saw from Natasha McLean at the CPL and are you surprised that she has not been included at all. Well obviously the CPL is a very small size Maria but I think what she did was impressive. We can't make any mistake about that. The way that she came in and struck the ball you don't tend to see that often in the women's game and a few of like Sophie Devine and a few of the overseas players actually continue to talk about her skill set. So I definitely think that performance has put her sort of in the reckoning of the selectors. The only issue is that we don't have that much domestic cricket but when we do have the regional T20 blades or the regional 50 of a competition for the women that is a perfect opportunity for Natasha McLean to work hard on her game now and then come there and show that she has the consistency and also repetition. But if I look across the 20 players in that West Indies women's side I don't see anyone that offers a skill set maybe a Chanel Henry and obviously Haley Matthews but someone that comes in and can go from ball one. It's such a desperate need in T20 cricket when you look around the world in both the men's and women's games at the best teams in the world as well. Alright Nikhil well we have to wrap this one now I want to thank you so much for joining us on the Sportsmax and it's even special that you took time out of your specialty to be with us. Thanks again. Best gift ever thank you very much guys for having me. Alright Nikhil Udham Chandan the day of course our cricket commentator cricket analyst anything you want to know about cricket Nikhil is the man let's take a break


Crypto actually went down 30% today. Actually crypto did a nice bounce, or Bitcoin did a nice bounce from 30,000, which was a good support level. And it did a nice bounce to around 41,000 right now, right? My opinion is that was the bounce that you should have been. If you bought it at 30, you should be cashing out possibly. Does it take it with a grain of salt? Is it not financial advice? My guess is it's going to continue to hit the next support level on the way down, okay? I don't want, I want crypto to be currency. If you're investing in crypto, then it's an asset class, right? I already have an asset class that I invest in, which is comic books. I'm not interested in investing in another asset class, right? It's a digital collectible. Bitcoin is a digital collectible. There are other cryptos out there which aren't digital collectibles. Like for example, I acquire cryptos off mines, off library when I'm loading stuff on, right? That's one way I'm acquiring crypto as well. But I'm not actively buying and selling crypto. I'm not into that game. I don't want crypto to become a collectible, a commodity. I want crypto to become a currency, okay?