This talk is based on a series of articles for a list of part eponymously named, which is the sort of collection of ideas and techniques about getting JavaScript performance under control, but it's wrapped in a philosophy. And the philosophy is, let's just try to use JavaScript a little bit more responsibly with a little more thoughtfully. So if you like this talk, you might like these articles. There's two parts. I wanna get two more parts done this year. So if you wanna find them, links will be in the slide deck and it will be posted to noticed when I'm done noticed, which is an awesome speaker tool. So I'll post it to Twitter. Okay, so to start this off, I wanna talk about a word that I stumbled on years ago called speciousness, which is an unusual word that has some relevance to our work. And to be specious means to exhibit these sort of deterministic or pre-programmed behaviors. Think of like things that aren't willful behaviors. They're kind of just automatic things that are done, right? And so the root word spex is a name for a genus of solitary wasps. And I promise you that the organizers didn't stick an entomology talk in the middle of a JavaScript conference. We'll get to the JavaScript. Don't worry, it's a whole thing. So these wasps don't just act in a pre-programmed fashion. They're also really easily manipulated and that's part of what makes them specious. And the way that they're specious is, is when wasps provision their larva, which they usually give them crickets, they'll bring the prey back to the nest and they begin this routine. And then before dragging the cricket into the nest, the wasp will leave it outside and then it will go back in to inspect the nest. And this behavior seems thoughtful, but it really isn't because if an observer moves the cricket, it will set the, if before, if the observer removes, moves the cricket before the wasp reemerges, it will set the cricket back to where it was before and then go back in and inspect the nest again. And you literally can do this endlessly. You can just do this over and over and over again and the wasp will never catch on.  We're thoughtful, web developers are thoughtful people, but there are some decisions involved in our work and I'm guilty of this too, that we make without question. And for example, or an example of this, when we begin a new project, we open a terminal window and we install a familiar framework and then possibly a client side router for the framework and then possibly a state management library for the framework, of course. And all the while we're kind of unaware or have even made peace with the overhead that these conveniences bring. They're conveniences that help us to do our work, but they have a direct and felt impact. This matters because the amount of JavaScript that we serve has steadily increased over the years to the point where it has become, in my opinion, probably the top performance concern in most websites. Certainly something my clients run into. And half the sites you visit will send 375K or less of JavaScript. The 75th percentile will send at least 650 and the 90th percentile, meaning 10% of websites out there will send at least one megabyte of JavaScript. And these graphs are generated from the HTTP archive, which among other things tracks the transfer size transfer size of JavaScript, which is often compressed. While compression is essential to loading performance, it doesn't change the fact that when a megabyte of compressed JavaScript is sent over the wire, the browser decompresses it to probably three times as much, depending on your compression ratio. And that is a significantly large bundle that browsers must parse, compile and execute and that takes time. And if you're using a high-end device on a fast network, you probably won't feel how slow this can be, but on less capable hardware, such as this affordable, but much, much slower Moto G4 Android phone chewing through tons of JavaScript is a real slog. And that's worth paying attention to because when devices or networks or both are slow, using the web becomes more difficult. And at the bottom of this webpage test timeline is a main thread activity indicator. And when it's red, the browser can't do anything else, just can't do anything else. And when it's green, it can like take on other tasks. And you can see here for two, four, sometimes six seconds at a time, the main thread is blocked with all this scripting activity which is indicated in yellow. There is some render stuff in there, but it's mostly scripts. You pair this with a slow network on a slow device and you can imagine how tiresome the web really can be for a lot of people. And so understanding constraints is a key to writing good software. The best video games ever made were a megabyte under that usually, sometimes far less. Some video games were like within a megabit 128K. Game developers of the time not only had vision but they also understood the constraints on their work. But their constraints were fixed to the hardware that they produced systems for. If you made a Super Nintendo game, your constraints were so static, it was anyone who has a Super Nintendo, that was it. But our constraints are far from fixed. They're very different from person to person. And in some ways that makes our job much more difficult than theirs. But that doesn't mean that we can't make great experiences in the web that work for everyone everywhere or even make them without JavaScript. Like we can use JavaScript, but we just have to think a little bit more about what we can do to get just a little bit faster. So let's talk about how we can turn that speciousness into anti-speciousness for the good of the web and for all who use it. So there's this cool phrase I came across recently. It goes, paint the picture, not the frame. And it comes from an article by Eric Bailey on a list of part about accessibility in UX. And it's a clever way of saying that we really shouldn't reinvent things that the browser already does well, like buttons and forms and all this other stuff that we rely on, that we often paper over with JavaScript sometimes. And Eric in his article advises us that we should not subvert a person's expectations by changing externally consistent behaviors. Examples of external consistency might be default behaviors of HTML elements or the appearance of a scroll bar even because when we disrupt these things, when we disrupt external consistency, we may impede people in ways we didn't expect or they didn't expect. And one way we do this is when we fail to use semantic HTML and instead rely on JavaScript to re-implement or approximate those behaviors. And this can result in websites which are harder to use for those who rely on assistive technology. Let's take this example react component which is a newsletter subscription form. And this component has an input field, a corresponding label and a submit button and it's all in a single div. And you may have some opinions on what's wrong here but the solution doesn't require more JavaScript. It actually requires less. So let's dive into this JSX real quick. There are three things wrong here. One, a form isn't a form unless it's in a form tag. And tips are not intrinsically flawed. They lack semantic meaning by design but this is a form. A form should always use a form tag because that has meaning to those on assistive technology. And two, when we label inputs, a label element should be used with a for attribute that corresponds to an ID on the input. And this lets assistive technology know that a given input has an associated label. And that's not just for people who are less able. They actually make forms easier to interact with for everybody because you can click on the label and it will focus the field. And three, while divs can be coded to behave and look like buttons, doing so robs the button of any semantic meaning it would otherwise have if it was just a button, a button element. Think of that, huh? And plus a button elements default behavior within a form is to submit that form. That means it's more resilient for when not if JavaScript fails because your JavaScript's gonna fail to run somewhere. So here's the refactored markup with all of that advice of which every part now has semantic meaning that assistive technologies can use and assuming the component is server rendered, it will also continue to work if the scripts fail to run. And now note that the submit event handler has moved from the buttons on click event to the forms on submit event. This is helpful for when we wanna intercept a forms submit event, if we wanna enhance this forms behavior with client side scripts later on. Now here's the final component code. Additionally, because the email validation is now handled through HTML, we can remove the email validation script entirely because we're using an email input type with a required attribute. So we're relying on the browser to validate those things for us. But of course, you should always sanitize your inputs in the server, but this is an opportunity to send less client side code.  If you don't like it, throw it away. So external consistency isn't limited to HTML and CSS and JavaScript. We expect browsers themselves to behave in a predictable way. And one of the most common subversions of this predictability is the SPA or the single page application. Don't throw things at me yet. I don't hate SPAs, but the navigation behavior they replace is one that browsers already do very well, even if it's synchronous. And so when we embrace client side routing, we take on a whole host of new responsibilities that we didn't have to think about before because the browser managed it for us. History must be managed. You have to account for scrolling position and tab index, navigation canceling can fail. There's just a whole bunch of stuff that is specified behavior that you have to think about. And even if we get client side routing perfect, performance is affected if that content is not server rendered. And furthermore, when we fail to send contentful markup from the server, the pages contents will be inaccessible if JavaScript fails somehow. And so when we rely on standard synchronous navigation behavior, we do lose a degree of snappiness, but we retain that external consistency that people have come to expect. That's not to say that client side routers are always bad, dirty, dirty, filthy things, but using them requires extra care on your part. And for example, you'll need to provide server side equivalence to all of your client side routes so that people have a way to reliably access that content from any context, whether it's from within your site or from Google or like a site link from somewhere else.  So, sorry. If you want to avoid SPAs but want to make navigation snappier and you want to rely on a sort of platform provided solution, link prefetching may fit the bill for you. It can seriously boost loading performance by fetching page HTML in advance of the user requesting it. It's not perfect. You could potentially waste data if it's not done carefully, but to address these potential shortcomings, the Google Chrome team offers a very small link prefetching script like teeny tiny. It will only prefetch links as they appear in the viewport using an intersection observer when the main thread is idle and if the network isn't slow. So I know I'm getting my prattling on about all the free stuff the browser gives us but the point remains, the browser gives us a lot for free. So let's use that stuff whenever possible so we can focus on the harder problems of web development. Another tenet of my responsible JavaScript philosophy consists of what I consider to be a fundamental truth that we need to acknowledge, which is that the tools are not infallible. A hammer can help you build something or it can break all of your fingers. You have to understand how the tools work and knowing that is a part of creating fast and accessible websites. You can't just assume that the tools do the hard work for you or do everything optimally for you. And one tool many of us use that when we need the JavaScript we write to work everywhere is Babel. Babel is valuable, but we tend not to see how it can harm performance. We would all benefit if we could transpile less because the way Babel transforms our code can add a lot to our production volumes. And it helps to know how Babel transforms the code we write so we can compensate for its inefficiencies. So here's an example of a, it's just sort of a very simple example of an example like kind of console logging wrapper function which accepts message and level parameters. And the second parameter is the log level which has a default of log. So like, you know, that's the console method log, warn, error. Default parameters are nice, but Babel transforms them very inefficiently. And worse yet, it repeats that inefficient transform every time the default parameter is used just to accommodate that developer experience that you wanted to use that gets passed on to the user. So if we can't avoid Babel altogether we should try to compensate for this stuff. So in this particular case we can avoid this specific transform by replacing the default parameter with an OR check. And when we want to assign a default to an optional parameter we can perform a check where the left side of the OR is the parameter itself that's provided by the user or by us rather. And the right side is the default. And if the level parameter is omitted the right side of the OR condition is used and Babel will not touch this. They won't transform it. But that's not the only thing Babel transforms. Default parameters are just one such feature. Let's take ES6 classes as another example. I like them, they're nice. They kind of make classes as you know they resemble like classes that we've seen in other languages but the way Babel transforms them is really expensive just to get this to work everywhere. And if you can't read it, that's fine. That's kind of the point. It's a lot of extra code. You can mitigate this cost in one of a few ways. You could use the prototype pattern and avoid ES6 classes altogether for those platforms that need this transform. You could use Babel plugin transform runtime to deduplicate this helper that Babel uses to reduce the impact across an entire project. Or three, if you only need to support modern browsers you could drop Babel altogether. If you can do this, it's your best bet. But if you're using like something like JSX you're probably never gonna be able to drop it. How we write JavaScript though is isn't the only thing to consider when we're using Babel. We also need to configure Babel as well like configure it itself. And so here's an example webpack bundle analysis for an example app which uses a Babel configuration that isn't finely tuned and it sits at about 117 kilobytes. And you'll notice most of it is comprised of polyfills. Polyfilling is something we use Babel a lot for. It's useful. It helps us to kind of like fill in those missing gaps for a lot of the things that we write for older browsers. And if you're familiar with Babel preset M this configuration code may look a little familiar but it is worth taking a second look at that use built-ins option which uses core JS to polyfill features. So when use built-ins is set to entry core JS itself must be added as an entry point to the project which adds more polyfills than we might need. But if we change the value of use built-ins from entry to usage we can remove core JS as an entry point in the app and Babel will only polyfill the features that are actually used in our code that are appropriate for the specified platforms. This can seriously reduce how many polyfills get used. And while we're here there's another option I think that deserves some attention which toggles something called loose mode which is when Babel transforms your code loosely this means that Babel's output it hears less strictly to the ECMAScript standard. Loose transforms are a bit smaller and or quite a bit I've seen projects reduced by 10% simply by enabling this and they can be enabled by setting the loose option to true and Babel preset M but it's not bulletproof you could have issues if you move from transpiled ES6 to untranspiled ES6 later on if you remove Babel but if the savings are worth it you can always address this in a sprint if the problem comes up so you can retain your gains. And after making these two quick configuration changes we reduce the size of this bundle by 52% and that's a big deal. With half as much code this app will be faster especially for devices with limited processing power and less memory. In addition to all these little configuration tips and hacks a novel way of serving less JavaScript today is a hobby horse of mine but it's been a thing for about the last year it's called differential serving which involves serving one of two bundles to users based on the capability of their browser and what this means is that legacy browsers will get bundles like we generate them today with more transforms and polyfills while modern browsers will get smaller bundles with little to none of those things. And the outcome is that an app functions identically in either case but for modern browsers it involves substantially less code. So of course we need a way to load these bundles properly and what you see here is how we've always loaded JavaScript pretty straightforward. The pattern shown here is how we can differentially serve scripts and so in here the first script tag loads a bundle for modern browsers by adding a type equals module attribute which ensures that this script gets picked up by those browsers. The second script element loads a bundle for the legacy browsers. No module ensures that modern browsers will decline to download the legacy script it just goes, no, I'm not gonna touch that. But legacy browsers don't understand no module so they will download this script anyway. Configuring your tool chain to do this is involved but it is doable. It's kind of like you have to fork your configurations from the same entry point. And so that starts with creating two different Babel configurations. First, this configuration is sort of typical of what you'd see in a lot of projects which transform code that's compatible everywhere including old browsers. But now this is a configuration for generating bundles for modern browsers and you'll notice that use built-ins is gone and the reason for that is because in this particular example app we didn't need any of the polyfills for CoreJS because we're using stuff that the modern platform provides. But depending on the language features or other features you use you may need to retain use built-ins. Instead of a browser's list query we've supplied an option named ESModulesSetToTrue which under the hood this translates to a browser's list query for browsers that support ES6 modules. And what's great about this is that if a browser supports ES6 modules we can infer about a lot of other things that it supports like async of weight, lat and const, arrow functions, all that stuff and so forth. So we can group these configs together under an ENV object in our Babel config. And so client legacy is the config for legacy browsers while client modern is a config for modern ones. And then on our bundler config we can point to these separate configurations. And in Webpack this is a typical example of how Babel loader ensures that scripts get processed by Babel. Now note the ENV name option which points to the Babel configs that we've specified in the previous slide. And by creating a separate Webpack config and pointing to the client modern Babel config you can generate a smaller bundle of your code for modern browsers with identical functionality. And that's important because you don't sacrifice any features for this. It's all gain from here, it's all gains. And so the size reduction between these bundles really depends. Sometimes you might only get five to 10% but some projects could see more. I've seen some components for clients that can be reduced as much as 40% in some cases. And so this is a bundle analysis of the same example app legacy bundle which is pretty small around 68K. But with differential serving we can go from small to nano and deliver this app to modern browsers and 40% of the size of its legacy counterpart without sacrificing anything. It works identically. But beware some browsers may have issues with this platform provided pattern. Remember type equals module and no module. There's a lot about it and I can't cover it in this talk but I have an article here on my website at Jeremy.codes that kind of explains it and it gives a workaround that I've been able to use in production for a fairly prominent electronics retailer. And so it's been battle tested and it is working and it doesn't have any of the issues described in the article. Finally, this leads us into a discussion about what it means to be accommodating. And this is sort of my favorite part of the talk because it gets away from like the real techie parts of JavaScript that can be kind of fatiguing and talks a little bit more about adapting to people which is something that I really is really kind of a hobby horse of mine. Because I feel that when we deploy something to the web we have to kind of be a steward of that thing, right? Like we kind of have to be the gatekeeper to like say this is how this should be maintained and we should keep our users at the top of mine. So in the US, and this is relevant because in the US many people live in large cities which are typically well served by fast broadband and mobile internet connections. Yet this article by the MIT Technology Review revealed that 58% of households in the Cleveland metropolitan area with yearly incomes under $20,000 had no broadband internet access. These are people who rely on mobile internet connections to do that work and those usually come with data caps and some of them come with overages not all of them are unlimited. It just depends on your provider. And more striking to me is this passage in which Pew Research found that one third of Americans do not have an internet connection in their homes that's faster than dial up. I doubt, I sincerely doubt since this article was written in 2016 that the picture has really gotten much better. And the reason why is because the economic and infrastructure challenges that people face and that we all face have not been sufficiently addressed to broaden broadband access for everyone. So if you're serving a lot of assets high latency or low bandwidth can make your site functionally inaccessible to a large group of people. And thankfully a technology called client hints which is supported in Chrome and derived browsers edges chromium now and basically anything that's blink derived which is a huge chunk of the web will support this can help us bridge this divide. So client hints help help developers to understand the characteristics or at least the approximate characteristics of a person's device and the network it's connected to. There's a lot of client hints. There's probably at least 10 of them but I don't have time for all that. I did do a talk about it last year and I wrote a big article which I'll show you or link in here. But here are three that I feel are the most useful. The first is RTT or round trip time which is the approximate latency of a user's connection in milliseconds. Downlink is the approximate downstream bandwidth in kilobits per second. And the next is ECT or effective connection type which is an enumerated string that categorizes the user's connection based on both the RTT and downlink hints. It sort of tries to coarsely categorize a user's connection to like in a very like course buckets 4G, 3G, 2G that sort of thing. These hints really help us to understand people and what their situation is like. And that can help us tailor experiences so that we send less stuff to those on slow connections. We can opt into these hints with the accept CH request header. You could set that in like a meta HTTP equiv or on the server in whatever function you use in a language to set request headers. And we can also tell the client how long we want those hints to persist with the accept CH lifetime header. It's sort of like how long they should be available sort of like a caching directive but for these hints it doesn't catch the value of those hints just the hints that we want. So in this above example the RTT downlink and ECT hints will persist on the client for one day. Then you can access these hints as request headers via a server side language. So here for example in PHP don't throw things at me. That's the one I use. We initialize a variable with the default effective connection type of 4G because not all browsers support client hints. So we want to assume the ideal experience. We want to assume a fast connection. But if client hints are available we can check for that ECT header and if it's been set and we can read it we can overwrite that variable with that value so then we can get an idea of what the user's connection is if they support client hints. And so with that information we can create lighter experiences for those who need it most. For example we can decide that a person will only see a carousel if they're on a fast connection. Otherwise we compensate by sending them only what they really need like the critical core content that people actually need. And I call this adaptive performance. And it's a way to create experiences that I feel are not just more adaptable but more inclusive. Like it gets people, like it bronze access for people a little bit by being aware of the shifting network conditions that people run into. And not just shifting network conditions could be device conditions. There's a hint for example for how much memory a device has which we can use and decide well if it's a low power device maybe we should try cutting a little bit of script because that's memory intensive. And it works. Here are two versions of the same site. The left is the unclient hintified version and the right is with client hints applied. Like we're on a slow connection and we're applying this philosophy to a site. So there's a lot of web fonts, a carousel, accordions and JavaScript to run it all which is functionally inaccessible on 2G taking 90 seconds to load like 740 ish K. But with client hints we can boil this experience down to its core when networks are slow or devices are slow. And for our trouble affected users will have something that they can access more quickly than the ideal experience we had in mind. It's like a compromise. All right, there's a potential you'll still get this ideal experience but otherwise if you can't accommodate that we're gonna boil this down for you. And if you wanna learn more about client hints you can check out this guide I wrote for Google Web Fundamentals called Adapting to Users with Client Hints. I also did a talk version of this last year at Fullstack Fest that just kind of goes it's the play-by-play of this article you can check it out if it's something you're into. The links will be embedded in the slides when I post them. And so I'd like to close this talk on what I think is a very important point which is that we first need to figure out what people want from what we built for the web. And by that I mean like what purpose are we trying to serve? What task are we trying to enable people to accomplish? And then we need to work backward from there and build something which serves that purpose with precision and care. That's really important. Don't try to get in people's way when they need to do something simple. They need to like wire money to a friend. They need to apply for public assistance or what if it's somebody who has been tossed out of their home by an abusive partner and needs to like turn to the web to find a place to find shelter. Those are the moments where we just need to get out of our own way and stop prioritizing our developer experience and help people because that's what partly that's what the web's for.  It's for helping people too. So regardless of our profession, craftspeople love their tools and as developers we're really no different. We take pride in building great things with the tools that we have. But unlike say the mechanic who fixes your car the tools we use can have a direct and felt impact. When a mechanic fixes your car he doesn't throw all of his tools in your trunk and you're carrying that weight around. But when we do the work a lot of times the tools we use can kind of just end up as baggage on the user experience that they kind of have to carry around. We don't need to burden people with the entire toolbox or even the entire tool shed in some cases. Sometimes it makes more sense to use these smaller tools which are more focused on the actual work. Think alternatives like preact instead of react which is a 10th of the size but does pretty much the same thing with the same API. Alternatives to moment JS or really anything that you've used probably has an alternative if it's popular enough. Your experience, I'll acknowledge this, your experience as a developer is important. But it is never more important than the user's experience. And if you're excitement for a certain set of tools causes you to build things that no longer efficiently serve the purpose you've set out to achieve it's time to reevaluate them. And it's my hope that eventually we can come to find our own ways of serving our collective purpose with utilitarian precision for the benefit of all who use the web. Even, and this might be a little unpopular even if that sometimes that to get there we don't always need JavaScript. Thank you.


So it was just announced a couple of days ago that HBO is adapting this popular video game series into a TV series. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the game it's an action adventure survivor horror game. So it's four genres all mashed together from Naughty Dog about humans that are transformed into vicious cannibalistic creatures called the infected. And I'm not much of a gamer but I think both of you are Alon, Vince. Yeah for sure. So let me know if I missed anything important here in the in the premise. But basically in this post-apocalyptic world we focus on a man named Joel escorting a younger female character named Ellie across the United States. And he sort of becomes a father figure for her right? Yeah that's after his own daughter passed away. That's right. So it's even more emotional for him. And that's one of the big things with this game. It's not just a great game but the story is fantastic right? I mean you can watch the cut scenes for this game and it's the caliber of an HBO series. Yeah and the voice acting in the game is spot on. And if you like the writing in the game the good news is that they're actually bringing the writer and co-director from the game Neil Druckmann to co-produce and co-write the series with Craig Mason. Now did either of you watch the HBO limited series Chernobyl? No. No but I did want to check it out. Yeah same here. I haven't seen the series but I've heard nothing but great things. I heard that after Game of Thrones that was satisfying to have something good afterward. That was don't worry HBO still can make good content. And also from what I understand Chernobyl is an incredibly bleak and dark show which fits the last of us right? Fits the tone of that game. So you've got a great writer. You've got the writer from the original video game so they get shaping up to be a pretty awesome adaptation. So it's going to cover the events of the original game plus there is the potential for additional content from the last of us to the sequel which is finally coming out this May. Now are you guys excited for this adaptation? No doubt for me. I can't wait. Yeah I mean you're bringing my hopes up with these talented individuals. Yeah normally we hear something get announced and the first thing we do is we check out who's writing it, who's directing it, who's making it and a lot of times we're disappointed. But sometimes it feels like the network or the production company just decides you know what let's make this good. Let's get a great writer. Let's get the person who made the original series to come on and make an awesome show. Now any particular things you want to see out of this show. I mean I haven't played the game so I don't know if there's certain things where you say oh that's got to be in the show for this to be a faithful adaptation. It'd be a great show. I can't really think of anything specific but one thing I do think is would be cool. So last of us part one, Ellie's a little kid, part two we come back and she's much older. So I would be interested in seeing this kind of time lapse or time jump in the show as well. I'd like to see it take place over a long period of time. If we're lucky I hope they come out to multiple seasons. If it catches on well. When did the first game come out? I think it was almost 10 years ago right? Yeah five to ten years at least at least five. Any preferences on who they cast in this show? Dream casting for Joel or Ellie? Well I'm not going to say Ellen Page for Ellie. So if you're unfamiliar in the in the original game the character Ellie looks suspiciously like Ellen Page and she was actually unhappy about that right? She was like I hadn't really given them permission to do that so it's not very cool and there was another game at the same time or around the same time that was based on her appearance and she voiced the character. Yeah and she did the motion capture and everything. Right. Yeah kind of a competing title around the same time. Yeah so not Ellen Page and she's probably also aged out of the role at this point. I would say for Joel I don't know why this was the first actor that popped into my head but what's the name of the guy from Dredd? Carl Urban. Oh. He's in Dredd.  Yes. Yeah I feel I don't know why I feel like he would fit the Joel character. I think he could. Yeah it's a good choice. All right they should bring me on to this show. Neil Druckmann, Craig Maison and Gil from One Take. Okay last question. Do you want this to be a straight adaptation where they follow the events of the game closely or would you rather see them stray? I would rather see them stray because the game was already done so well. Let it be its own universe. We can have something a little different or maybe it can be the same but they're focusing on different parts we didn't see in the game. Or maybe like Walking Dead where I mean this would be the only similarity I'd want between this show and Walking Dead but where it follows it pretty faithfully but strays here and there so it appeals to people that haven't played the game and it appeals to people who have played it where there's still some surprises in store for them. Well I certainly I don't want them to change any like the core parts of the story but there you know there's things here and there in the game that I don't necessarily need to see replicated exactly the same in the show. Right.  Every time he heals we don't need to see him wrapping his arm with the whatever it's called the wrap. Bandage? Bandage. Which I know all too well because right before we recorded this I stubbed my pinky tail so it's bandaged up pretty good. Sorry about that. Yeah it's because I was getting orange news for Vince so. All right well any final thoughts on The Last of Us. Oh by the way they were for years talking about turning this into a movie and at one point Macy Williams played Arias Stark in Game of Thrones was supposed to portray Ellie but I think she also has probably aged out of the role at this point because in the first game Ellie was I think 14 years old. Yeah. Yeah So do you think a TV series is a better fit than a movie would have been? I mean how large in scope is the game? I think it needs a series. I don't think you could tell the whole story in a in a movie to be honest and I think you can dive in deeper on these characters. Right. And especially on the different types of zombies or you know that creatures. Creatures whatever you want to call them. The infected. The infected yes. I think Vince brought up something that I was going to say which is this in this game you know it's not that original in terms of oh there's an infection people are zombies it really is about the character development. Right. So I don't feel like you can necessarily fit all that in one movie. I mean and even if you can I'd rather see it spread out over time in a series. Like one thing was the beginning of that game was so like intense and like I don't know you just felt for the characters you felt for Ellie being alone and trying to find her way out of the house and ends up with Joel with Joel. Yeah I haven't seen much of the game but what struck me about the game was the fact that when I saw the cut scenes they were shockingly emotional and well done for a video game. I mean from the writing to the acting so it seems like this is a game which is ripe for an adaptation and I know people keep asking have we broken the video game curse yet because every movie adaptation of a video game has been terrible Sonic up until Detective Pikachu got pretty good reviews and Sonic is getting pretty good reviews. Well is Detective Pikachu really a video game movie. He's not just Pikachu. Well he's detective. I think in Japan he was a detective in one of the video games. Oh okay so it is a video game movie then. Yeah and also I would say even though Castlevania is not a movie it's a TV show but the line is so blurred these days and that show is excellent. Yeah. So I think the curse is broken and I think this Last of Us series is set up for success and this is going to take that broken curse and completely obliterated. I hope so. So it's over. Now we can make room for other video game adaptations. So Naughty Dog made Last of Us. Didn't they also make Crash Bandicoot. Yeah. I want to see that. And they did Uncharted right. Yeah Uncharted would be great. Oh yeah that sounds well that one's not. Yeah we're gonna have a good feelings about this one. Yeah so that's coming from Rubin Fletcher who created a Zombieland. Great. Love Zombieland but he also made Venom and a few other things that weren't great. It's also being written by I forget their names but they were writers on Men in Black International and yeah I'm not feeling great about Uncharted. So anyway any final thoughts on Last of Us. The last word on Last of Us. Well I love the game. I have high hopes for the second one and if there's that person involved in the game is also going to be involved in the movie. Neil Druckmann. Neil Druckmann. Right. I've got I've got hope for this one. I just can't wait you know. All right that's the first time on any episode of One Take where I've seen a glimmer of hope in a one's eyes. So that's great.


Hello and welcome to Around the World in 8 Minutes, a show by People's Dispatch, where we bring you news from working class and popular movements across the world. In this episode, we take you to protest across the world, in solidarity with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the people of the country. Also, we look into the resistance by the Canadian Indigenous community against state repression. We also examine the results of elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the brutal regime of President Joseph Cabela has been overthrown. First of all, let's look at Venezuela. On January 10th, Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as the President of Venezuela. Across the world, mobilizations were held outside the embassies of the country to show support and solidarity with Maduro and the Venezuelan people against the threat of intervention in the affairs of the Bolivarian Republic. Maduro, who rose from humble beginnings as a bus driver, was also a student activist and a close associate of former President Hugo Chavez. He won the presidential elections held in May 2018, with 67.84% of the votes. His term of office will end in 2025. Mobilizations in support of Maduro were held in Argentina, El Salvador, Peru, Catalonia, Chile, Puerto Rico and Honduras, among other countries. Hundreds of organizations worldwide have released declarations in support of Maduro and calling for respect for the sovereignty of Venezuela. Ahead of the swearing-in, tensions were high in the region as the United States and conservative Latin American governments, who were part of the Lima group, declared that they would not recognize Maduro's second term. Nicolas Maduro had also strongly warned that the Curita was being planned against him, directed by the US and executed with the support from these conservative governments. During the swearing-in, Maduro reiterated that Venezuela is at the center of a global war waged by the US imperialism and the satellite states. In August last year, an assassination attempt was made against President Maduro, using drones that were laden with explosives. The drones were successfully shot down by the members of the Venezuelan security forces and the presidential guards. The US has been carrying out a fierce campaign against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on different fronts, since the inauguration of the socialist government in the country under the leadership of the late Hugo Chavez. The attacks continued against his successor Maduro, and the campaign was intensified in 2015, when the former president Barack Obama issued a decree declaring Venezuela a threat to US national security. Obama also imposed harsh economic sanctions. His successor Donald Trump has also made repeated threats of intervention in Venezuela. Despite the economic and diplomatic war against the governments of Chavez and Maduro and the Venezuelan people, the country's socialist system has made great strides in giving power to the poorest of people. The Bolivarian Republic continues to help the working class lead a better life. In the housing sector, for instance, the public housing program has built 1,400,000 homes for Venezuelans across the country, either free of cost or only at a very small price. Only 6.68% of Venezuela's population is homeless today. More than 73% of the population has access to secondary education. The country has also successfully built independent institutions of integrity. And its electoral process has been described by observers, as among the fairest in the world. We next take you to Canada, where protests are being organized against the just-introduced Canadian government's violent repression of the First Nation communities. Last week, at the base of the oil pipeline company, Coastal Gas Link, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested 14 activists and violently evicted many more to make way for a 670 kilometer long pipeline. Indigenous activists haven't fighting a long drawn legal battle to prevent the pipeline, planned over the traditional Vetsuitan lands in British Columbia, Canada. Solidarity protests are also happening in United States and other parts of the world. The pipeline, estimated to cost over US dollars 4.8 billion, is being executed by Coastal Gas Link, a subsidiary of the TransCanada Corp, which is infamous for its involvement in the Keystone XL project. The violent breach of the checkpoint set up by the community and the arrest of the activists has attracted condemnation and protests from across the country. In Toronto, hundreds of protesters took to the streets under the banner of shut down Canada in a demonstration of solidarity. The attack on Indigenous activists has shed light on the precarious relationship between Indigenous land and the historically colonial settler Canadian state. On December 14th, 2018, the British Columbia Supreme Court passed an injunction allowing Coastal Gas Link access to the land that belongs to the Vetsuitan tribes. The legal dispute has been going on since over a decade. The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs strongly opposes the use of Indigenous land without permission from traditional leaders. The checkpoints in the camps were built and organized mostly by the members of the Unistodden and the Gidimton clans of the Vetsuitan tribe. Protesters have camped in these spots since 2010, day and night, even in the freezing winters that the region is famous for. After the court injunction, the Unistodden protesters stated that any attempt at forcibly removing them would be an act of war. The activists have vowed to continue the legal and on-the-ground resistance against the repressive attempts to take over their lands. Our last story is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the controversial elections threw up a surprise when Felix Chesekedi was elected the new president. Chesekedi won nearly 38% of the vote, far more than his nearest rival, Martin Filu, who had a lead over him in most opinion polls. The presidential elections were held amid much chaos. The polls were initially scheduled for December 23rd, but postponed to December 30th due to technical issues. Emmanuel Shadari, the candidate endorsed by outgoing president Joseph Kabila came third. Filu rejected the results and called it an electoral coup. The results produced a variety of reactions. On the one hand, there was widespread relief and joy at the defeat of Kabila's candidate. Kabila was supposed to step down in 2016, but had held on to power. It was only after a series of sustained protests by the Congolese, especially the youth, along with international pressure that forced him to call elections. Speaking about the results to people's dispatch, Kambale Musahuli, the national spokesperson for the Friends of Congo, noted that it was a partial victory for the people of Congo, as they had successfully managed to defeat the Kabila regime. He said that it was the sacrifices of the people during the course of their committed organizing that had led to this moment. He also noted that this was the first peaceful transfer of power, since Patris Lumumba became prime minister in 1960. Lumumba was later overthrown in a CIA sponsored coup and brutally executed. At the same time, Musahuli pointed out to the doubts that had been raised following the elections. An election observer coalition led by the Catholic Church, which had deployed nearly 40,000 observers, said that the conclusions of the observers did not match the results. He also noted that the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo would have to continue organizing to ensure the safety of the democratic process. Congo's mineral resources, especially cobalt and coltan, have made it a target of foreign multinationals who have been aided by the Kabila regime. Kabila and his family are believed to have benefited on a massive scale from the loot of the country's mineral resources, even as the workers suffered. All these factors were catalyst for the wave of protests that broke out, as Kabila refused to step down despite his term ending in 2016. His regime responded brutally to these protests, shooting down and even jailing protesters. However, popular protests were underlending, and Kabila finally announced that elections would be held in December 2018. That's all for this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. For more stories and videos about people's movements, please check out our website, peoplesdispatch.org, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.


Hey guys, alright. I just went to get the mail and I literally got this box just today in the mail and I usually, honestly I'm usually really busy so sometimes the happy mail sits a couple of days but in this case I just have to open it today. So it's from Connie Kruger. Connie I hope that's the right way to pronounce your last name. I think it is. And I'm assuming it's happy mail because it says this on the top, Summer Spring Cleaning LOL. I don't know what that means Connie but I think that kind of scares me. I don't know what this is and I'm not remembering that I was expecting anything. It doesn't really mean anything because I forget stuff all the time but I don't think I was so let's open it. I have no idea what's in here. Holy cow. Okay first I'm gonna put this this way. So first of all I know this is just like packing or filler but what a pretty color of burgundy tissue this is. Really pretty. So I'm gonna put that aside. Get my scissors out of the way. Alright. This says handmade pots for air ferns and my brush lost its hair so I replaced it with my own. I don't know what that means. I guess it's find out the containers interesting. Does the bottom come off? It looks like it might. I'm distracted by the container. If the bottom comes out it might work for um this might work for acrylic pouring. Sorry I know. Screw. Holy cow this box is really full.  She sent me an artist's trading brush and that's literally her own hair. That's so precious. Look at that. And then look at these little pot hanging pots. You know I bet Connie I could put some cotton balls in there and put my favorite essential oils in there and hang them around my house. Those are super cute. I love them. Look at the pink one. Alright there is a ton of stuff in here. There are some die cuts right here on top so I'm gonna pull them out.  It looks like they're cute. And there's a note I think. Oh Connie you're so welcome. I'm not gonna read the whole note word for word because it's a little private but these are things that she can't use anymore and she wants them to go to a good home. Connie thank you so much. They definitely are going to one. I'm gonna save your two notes. I have a box in here in the office where I put all of your little notes that you sent me. And there is some treats in here too so here is some trident gum. My husband loves gum and mints. You guys didn't know that but and these are neck away first which are really cool. They're good. Tea lemon. Okay you guys are listening to my in the my video to have I mentioned lemon zinger is my husband's favorite tea. He's gonna be so jazzed. This is his favorite tea. I have to tell him some of the boxes for him. These pipettes. I love these and you really they're kind of disposable so you can really only get like one or two uses out of them so they're always handy to have a whole bunch of them around. There's a bunch of stuff that's wrapped and those snowflakes are everywhere. Holy cow. So this is wrapped in some beautiful blue ribbon and some snow white fabric. You know put the food things over that way by my phone. I think I need to sit down for this. Alright. I love the fabric. It reminds me of making things for my daughter when she was little. Something in a Walmart bag. This is so cool. I love this. I can't remember the last time I got such an interesting unexpected box of happy mail.  This is a huge box. Alright. So there are different sorts of papers. Some found distressed papers. This looks like wrapping paper or origami paper. I bet you it's wrapping paper. Found papers like chip bags or in this case a cracker jack bag. This is a stitch in color chart for Holly Hobby. And you know what? I'm a big Holly Hobby fan. She's a little bit after my time because she wasn't she like a 1970s 80s. I was born in 63 but I like Holly Hobby. Ghirardelli chocolate dropper. Different thing. These are fun. Some cards. I should say card fronts. Oh look at this. Fun watercolor paper with paint on it. There's two of them like those. They would actually be. They look like they're card blanks and they would be good cards. But I'm also thinking they would be interesting start to a journal. They would make good signatures. More paper. Old paper. Some interesting wrapping paper I think. I like it. I don't know what it is exactly. More watercolor paper. Something in a envelope. Keep calm and color on. I'll try. I don't always do it successfully. They're little small coloring images. I can sit and color on the couch. Those are cool. All right. Let's see what else is in this bag. I mean box. It's not a bag. All right. I use these for many uses such as a pallet, coaster, frame for ornaments, holder on a desk for small things, circles. These are great. Just lids.  They're good for a lot of things. Look at these bottles. These are cool. You can feel these like I have a giant like gallon sized bottle of pouring medium. So these kind of bottles are great so that you can decant some of it into a little little or bottle like this. It makes it easier to use. All right. Look at all these medicine bottles. They all have stuff in them. Every single one. There's another snowflake on coated wire. That's going to be interesting to play with. Look at that. That might be fun to spray through. Hmm. Here's another one. More medicine bottles. No weird little bottle. Weird isn't unusual. Not weird as bad. All right. So these little wood wedges. These are actually for tightening a stretch canvas frame. They actually go in the corners of the frame. But these are also good if you don't use them for that to just use them as, you know, just random little pieces of wood in mixed media. Okay. This one looks like it's full of, I was going to say, split rings. But there are is some jewelry pieces in there. Look at that. So there's some random jewelry pieces in there. Oh, they're not split rings. They're these things. I don't have any of those. Well, I do now. There's another thing with a bead in there. These jewelry parts. Those are cool. I don't know what these are supposed to be for, but they already give me some ideas. All right. This one has, I don't know what that is. Earring backs? Yep. Earing backs. Oh, clip-on earring. The clip part. Let's see if I can get one out to show you.  But there we go. When I was still working in a medical office, even though I have pierced ears, I used to wear clip-ons because it was easier to yank one off when you needed to answer the phone back in the day. All right. This is something sparkly. Look at that. I don't know what it is. Chain. Wow. That's some really nice chain, too. That's beautiful stuff. More of those ring things and other jewelry parts, including a little miniature dream catcher. I like these little metal dream catchers. These are cool. I think one of these needs to be on the front of a journal page, and that's what you made with those rings. You made little dream catchers. I'm going to have to see if I can do that. And there is this piece of resin in here, and it looks like it has flowers in between the layers. That's pretty cool, too, because I toss them everywhere. I even got one on the floor. Holy cow. Let's put them back in here before I lose one. Oh, you know what? This is the little water dispenser thing for a iron. We actually have one of these in the laundry room for my husband's iron, and I kind of wanted one for in here. Now I have one. I think that might be so far my favorite thing. I know that's ridiculous, but all right. Oh, some beads. Handmade polymer clay beads it looks like. They're pretty. Something in an Altoid tin. Oh, it's a mini watercolor palette. That's cute. I like that. And this is another clay piece, handmade sculpey book. Oh, it's a book. Okay, wait, now I have to open this. And you know what? The box is full. It's really full. All right, hang on. I might have to do this like in two parts or three parts. All right. So it says, oh, it is. It's a cover. So it's a front and back cover of a miniature book covers. How cute is that? They're made out of polymer clay. So cute. I might have to make a mini blue book out of those. Another medicine bottle with more jewelry parts in it. More snowflakes. They're stuck to everything. Okay. More of those dream catchers. I love these. I really do love these. I think these are cool.  They're going to make some interesting future mixed media projects. Something already put together, it looks like, or partially put together. Oh, it's a necklace or at least the start of one. That's cool. More of the silver chain. Beautiful. It's a gorgeous shiny color. These are more clip-on earring bases. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's for clip-on earring. All right. What's up? What else is in here? There's some packages like this. More snowflakes. Okay.  There's also some suspender clips here in the bag, which I love, love, love. Look at all this great stuff. All right. And then this one, it's got more snowflakes inside the bag. See? Snowflakes. There's something in there, I think. This is interfacing, it feels like. It could just be a wad of interfacing. That's very possible. Yep, that's all it is. But that looks like interfacing, like the sew-in kind. You know what? I should jelly print with this. I could make some jelly printed trim, some painted trim. Okay, I just got an idea, Connie. Big idea. Oh, wire. I just started playing with wire again and so I don't have any of the brass color and I'm running out of some other one, so this is great. I bet. Is it a peanut can? It's kind of interesting. There's some can lids in here. These are cool. I always, I actually have a drawer of these that I keep because they're interesting to do stuff with. And then I'm thinking this is a peanut jar that she's taken the hard cardboard off of, which has made it collapsible. And then there is a little bit of trim on a card, some more. That looks like eyelash yarn, which I actually don't have any of anymore because I got rid of all my yarn. So I appreciate that. Another snowflake. All right, some more jewelry pieces. These are hoop earrings, gold hoop earrings. Those will be fun to play with. Advanced tape glider refill rolls. Oh, I have an ATG gun. Very cool. Glass. This says glass. What does that mean? Dropper bottle. I love these. They're great for using with alcohol or any of those kind of things that you just need to drop off in your work or to make the paint move around. I love these and I love the blue glass. I'm going to keep that out because I think I have a use for it. There's another one of those containers. I don't know what this is from. Was handmade to bring hope and growth hugs. Okay, I need that note. There's another one of these containers. I really want to see if I can get the bottom off. I think that's just filler. Wrapped in paper towels. Oh, I'm getting excited. This looks so pretty. I didn't see the whole thing yet. Oh, look at that. He's so cute. He has to go on my desk. I love him. Oh, he's so cute. I'm not done yet. There's still more in the box. There's a zipper. You know, I use these. I don't use them in sewing anymore, but I use them in this video. Okay, I can put the box on the floor. Okay, so here's this one. It's wrapped with some more ribbon in a bag. It says something apron. It says, oh, is it a plastic disposable apron? Oh, this might be nice when I'm working with pouring acrylics because, you know, it's very messy. Very cool.  I love that idea. Oops.  Some bandana pattern duct tape. And it was around in this package. Oh, stencils. So we have this one with Asian characters for peace, energy, happiness, and love. And there's a bamboo shoot in the middle. And then we have this one IV-1. Actually, you know what? I think I've used this in my house before. I used to have the front room stenciled around the top of the wall. It might have been with this stencil, at which I don't have any. Well, now I have it. And then there here's a fan one. This is actually a quilter's stencil, but you can paint with them. No problem. So cool. All right. We have one more package. I can't believe you went to all this trouble, Connie. This is wonderful. I love my little guy. He's so cute. Look at this stack of fabric wrapped in some more interesting yarn. There's this pink one. A tie-dye. I love me some tie-dye. There's this blue one with a leaf. It looks like a leaf print. Oh, I'm sorry. It's a flower print. Here's in white some green and then this brown and pink flower. This is wonderful, Connie. Thank you so much. If any of the rest of you out there want to send me happy mail, maybe join one of my Facebook groups, check out my website. Support me by shopping in my Etsy shop and buying some of my stamps or stencils or original artwork or digital downloads, something like that. Or maybe you just want to support my channel by sending money to my tip jar. The links for all of that are in the description. You don't have to send me happy mail, but I sure do appreciate when you do. And this is wonderful. Thank you so much, Connie. It will definitely be used and used well. I appreciate all of you very much. Don't forget to go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. And I'll see you later. Bye, guys.


Estonia to send sniper weapons and special equipment to Ukraine. Estonian government officials supported Defence Minister Hano Pevkur's proposal to send another package of military assistance to Ukraine, in particular sniper weapons and equipment for special forces. Together with our allies, we discuss the current state of assistance to Ukraine at Ramstein. Additional time to back Ukraine is nowhere to be found. Our big initiative is aimed at the joint purchase by the European Union of one million artillery rounds, said Defence Minister Hano Pevkur, who added that smaller and more targeted assistance packages should also continue to be sent. According to him, this results from the decision made to send an additional assistance package in addition to the previous one specifically for equipping special forces and snipers. Estonia's latest package covers semi-automatic rifles, sniper rifles, optical sights, binoculars, ammunition, personal and special equipment, patrol boats and thermal imaging cameras. Medical equipment will also be handed over. The total cost of military aid is worth €494,300. Donating equipment does not affect the capabilities of the Defence forces. Estonia has provided military assistance to Ukraine worth about €400 million or more than 1% of its GDP. The Government of Finland approved the permission for Estonia to re-export its military equipment to Ukraine.


I can't carry it on my own.


Hello, my people. Welcome back to the Score Channel. Last week we showed you the first half of how to study in the United States, and this week we're finishing it off. If you haven't seen the first half of the video, then go back, check it out, and then when you're done, come here. Let's get started. I guess we do have to talk about the elephant, don't we? So, okay. Everything about the United States is great, except in this one little detail.  It's actually the most expensive country on the planet to study, and that makes it tough. Now, there are ways for you to save money on studies in the United States. I made a video a little while back about seven ways that you can save money on studying, and I talked about some of those ways which specifically apply to the United States. None of you people watched it, so I assume you're all super rich, in which case I'm probably going to be opening a Patreon soon. So, how bad is it? The most expensive universities cost $78,000 a year, including room and board, and for that price, considering a four-year plan for university, you could easily buy a Ferrari and simply drive around and pretend like you graduated from university, and people would probably believe you. Education in the United States can cost more than a Ferrari, but it doesn't have to. There are ways for you to save money in the United States, and very few people actually pay the full price. It's kind of like buying a car. There's a sticker price on the window, but then there's what you actually pay after you negotiate and haggle and bring your used car in for some trade-in value. You're going to see a big inflated price, but the truth is 90% of students do not pay that price. Most people get some kind of financial aid. That financial aid can come in two forms, merit-based scholarships and need-based scholarships. Need-based scholarships are, as they sound like, scholarships based on your economic need. If you can show that your family doesn't have the money to pay for this ridiculously expensive education, they might be able to help you.  If you're interested in getting a scholarship as a student-athlete, it's a wildly different process and you need to be prepared far in advance, so we're going to have another video on that coming up soon as well. Here's the thing. The dirty little secret of studying in the United States is that if you can pay the full price, you're more likely to get in. The university system in the U.S. is kind of pay-to-win and the reason for it is simple. What's happened over the years is that burden of paying for college has shifted from state taxpayers to the families themselves. Public universities are underfunded and don't get enough support from their state governments, so they don't have enough space for most people and that means that private universities have an advantage. They know that there's not enough space in public schools, so they take advantage of that and charge higher prices. Just this last year, Columbia students refused to pay their tuition because of the outrageous prices. It's starting to reach a point where a bubble might burst. Will it get cheaper in the future? It's hard to say. At the moment, if we're being honest, the United States is not the best value. There are other places where you can study and get a high quality education for less. Having said that, if you can't afford it, give it a shot because it's one of the best systems in the world in terms of individual freedom, flexibility, and the opportunity to, you know, practice shooting guns. And this is my baron arms with bear arms. Merrick, if you can pay for it and money's not an obstacle, go for it. Enjoy yourself. If you need some financial aid, then ask the universities, but understand that when you ask for that money, your chances of getting admitted go down. Don't be surprised if you get rejected because you asked for a full ride scholarship. They just don't give those out that much anymore. What we generally do at SCORE is that we recommend that you put your United States universities on your list, but you have your plan B. If money's an obstacle, make plan B somewhere in Europe. So if you get admitted and you got the cash, time to get a visa. The U.S. has three different visa types for educational purposes. Those are the J visa for exchange students, the M visa for vocational studies, and the F visa for university students. You're not allowed to accumulate university credits on any other kind of non-immigrant visa, so don't even try as a tourist. We've talked about the visa process in other countries and usually you need an acceptance letter to get your visa. In the United States, we go a step further.  You'll then be able to pay the I-901 fee, which is $350. Go to FMJfee.com to pay the $350 fee to SEVIS, the student exchange visitor's information system. Once you have your I-20 form and your I-901 receipt for your payment, then you can pay the MRV, which is the non-resident visa fee. Yes, two fees. That visa fee is $160. Then finally, you can fill out your DS-160 form and schedule your appointment at the embassy. Now to fill out your DS-160, you're going to want to have your passport handy because they typically ask you questions about your recent travel or travel to the United States as well as some basic information that's on your passport. So the form takes about an hour to fill out and it's okay for you to get some additional help. If you need that help, you know where to go. Once your form is filled out, you can schedule your interview at the embassy. A lot of the other countries we've covered are pretty much a guarantee for you to get the visa. Like you show up, you've got your papers, they look at the papers, they look at you, they say, okay, here's your visa. Not so easy in the United States. There's no clear information on what percentage of F visas get rejected, but some sources say it's about a third of them. Now not all of those are just because the admission officer was in a bad mood. Most of the time it's because of an error on the application itself, but sometimes it can also be because the officer thinks that you want to stay in the country. Just like we talked about in the Australia video, you need to make it really clear that while you love the United States, you don't love it that much.  Most students do. If you get rejected, make sure you do ask for a specific reason why you were rejected because if it was a clerical error with your forms, you can usually fix that. But there are no appeals if they decide that they think you're going to stay in the country. So if you've made it this far, congratulations! That is everything you need to know to study in the United States. Oh, it's a long process.  But if you need some help and you want someone to walk you through the process from start to finish, then you know where to go. prepwithscore.com Check us out on Instagram at prepwithscore and let us know how we can help you. We've helped a bunch of people get admitted to great universities in the United States and we're only seeing even better results going into this year. Now that we've finished this last admission cycle, it's time to start again. If you're thinking about studying in the United States, you need to start now. It's never too early to start, but it definitely can be too late. Thanks to a bunch of people clamoring for the United States, this video exists. So if you want to make a video exist, let me know in the comments below. I'll see you next week.


My beloved brothers and sisters, as we welcome you to this historic April 2020 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For reasons you know, I stand before you in an empty auditorium. Little did I know when I promised you at the October 2019 General Conference that this April conference would be memorable and unforgettable. Speaking to a visible congregation of fewer than 10 people would make this conference so memorable and unforgettable for me. Yet the knowledge that you are participating by electronic transmission and acquires beautiful rendition of it is well with my soul. Bring great comfort to my soul. As you know, attendance at this General Conference has been strictly limited as part of our efforts to be good global citizens and do all we can to limit the spread of COVID-19. This virus has had a major impact throughout the world. It has also altered our church meetings, missionary service, and temple work for a while. Though today's restrictions relate to a virulent virus, life's personal trials stretch far beyond this pandemic. Future trials could result from an accident, a natural disaster, or an unexpected personal heartache. How can we endure such trials? The Lord has told us that if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. Of course, we can store our own reserves of food, water, and savings. But equally crucial is our need to fill our personal spiritual storehouses with faith, truth, and testimony. Our ultimate quest in life is to prepare to meet our maker. We do this by striving daily to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we do that as we repent daily and receive His cleansing, healing, and strengthening power. Then we can feel enduring peace and joy even during turbulent times. This is exactly why the Lord has implored us to stand in holy places and be not moved. This year, we commemorate the 200th anniversary of one of the most significant events in the history of the world, namely the appearance of God the Father and His beloved Son Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith. During that singular vision, God the Father pointed at Jesus Christ and said, This is my beloved Son. Hear Him. That admonition given to Joseph is for each of us. We are to seek in every way we can to hear Jesus Christ who speaks to us through the power and ministering of the Holy Ghost. The purpose of this and every General Conference is to help us to hear Him. We have prayed and invite you to pray that the Spirit of the Lord will be with us in such rich abundance that you can hear the messages that the Savior has especially for you. Messages that will bring peace to your soul, messages that will heal your broken heart, messages that will illuminate your mind, messages that will help you know what to do as you move ahead through times of turmoil and trial. We pray that this conference will be memorable and unforgettable because of the messages you will hear, the unique announcements which will be made, and the experiences in which you will be invited to participate. For example, at the conclusion of the Sunday morning session we will convene a worldwide solemn assembly when I will lead you in the sacred Hosanna shout. We pray that this will be a spiritual highlight for you as we express in global unison our profound gratitude to God the Father and His beloved Son by praising them in this unique way. For this sacred experience we use clean white handkerchiefs but if you do not have one you may simply wave your hand. At the conclusion of the Hosanna shout the congregation will join with the choir in singing The Spirit of God. My dear brothers and sisters this conference will be magnificent. This year will be extraordinary as we focus intently on the Savior and His restored gospel. The most important lasting effects of this historic conference will be as our hearts change and we commence a lifelong quest to hear Him. Welcome to April 2020 General Conference. I know that God our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ are mindful of us. They will be with us throughout the proceedings of these two glorious days as we seek to draw closer to them and honor them in the sacred name of Jesus Christ. Amen.


Today, I wanted to open up a way that you can practice self-tape auditions, because if you guys didn't see, I recently took a self-tape audition workshop with Ranjeev from the Meisner Center in Burbank, and it just brought up a lot of ideas for me and ways that I could help other people. And the biggest way that I know I could help other people is by helping you practice. So even if you don't get feedback from anybody else, just giving you a task so that you can practice, because I can tell you just go and practice in your room, choose a random monologue from online, or a random question online, and just film this self-tape. You're not going to go do it because nobody's giving you specific instructions. Some of you might, you know, be practicing this already. Some of you guys might actually do this without needing this. But I thought it would be fun for me to do this as a practice for you. So I don't know how many people are going to enter, but just in case, I'm going to put a deadline to when I'm going to give you feedback. And I want to give you the disclaimer that I am not a professional acting coach. I'm not an acting coach, period. But let's treat this as if you were my friend in real life. And if you are my friend in real life, feel free to send it in as well. But when somebody, let's say my best friend Jasmine, let's say she has an audition, and she asked me to take a look at something, I am of course going to give her genuine feedback.   So you can take this advice if you want, or you cannot if you don't want to, I just want to give you a way that you can practice a self tape. This one, I'm going to make really easy because it's not going to be something that you're going to quote unquote perform, you're not going to have to memorize anything. So I want you to treat this as if it was a real audition so that you can actually practice for what an audition might look like a self tape audition. Not all auditions are the same. In most auditions, they will send you a very specific set of instructions. And I'm going to tell you which ones, what are the instructions for this video. And I'm also going to put them in the description. And I'm going to put my playlist on self tapes, because I do have a playlist that with this video will be 25 video songs. So there's just there's so many videos on that playlist, because there's a lot that goes into self tapes. But once you really practice and you have it down, and you have a setup that you can just, you know, go and turn on the lights and put your phone where it's supposed to go your camera, it's really easy to do once you have a setup and once you have practice, as far as the technical side, that gets so easy. Then what you focus most of your time on is the actual text, what you're actually auditioning for with. So for this one, I'm going to give feedback to the first 25 people and they have to be turned in by February 17th, 2021. If I receive anything after that, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to reply. Just because I want this to be for this video, I want to give you feedback around this time, because I don't know if I have a bunch of auditions that come up, or if I have, you know, if I'm busy, I don't want to have you think that I am going to give you feedback. But with these videos, I hope that I am helping you and that you are learning through these videos and there are going to be more opportunities in the future. I'm working on a really fun collaboration with a subscriber of mine that is now, you know, my online friend and I'm really excited to bring that to you guys soon. But this is going to be a practice of self tapes. So for this audition, it has to be 90 seconds or less. And I want you to start by slating in a full body shot so that you can learn how to do a full body shot. And I want you to say your name, first and last name and the city or country that you're from in case you're not comfortable with the city, you can just say the country that you're from. And then after that, you're going to answer two different questions. What is your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and why? And of course for the section where you are telling me what your favorite non-alcoholic drink is and why you want it to be horizontal like this, because this is how self tape auditions are shot unless otherwise noted. So for the practice audition, it is very, very simple. You're not going to have to memorize anything. This is something that you would get if for some reason a set wants to get to know your personality. Very, very likely this would be something that you would get for a commercial audition. I'm just going to give you the tiniest bit of acting feedback, but mostly I'm going to give you feedback on your setup. How's your sound, your the lighting, the framing, that kind of thing. So in hopes that you can improve the technical side of your self tape audition and be able to more successfully do future auditions. In case you've never done a self tape audition, I wanted to give you a quick description and show you what it should look like in general. So starting off with the slate, I did ask for a full body slate. So this is going to be vertical because it's pretty hard to get a good full body shot horizontally, especially because you're filming this on home at home. And I wanted you to practice full body shots because they can be tricky if the camera is at a weird angle, your body will be distorted and you want to give the best representation of what your body actually looks like when you are submitting an audition. And I do have a whole video on full body slates. If you want to see that, make sure your background is also a solid color or something that's not distracting. Just try and find a wall that is clear and you can film your audition in front of I'm using a gray savage paper.  That's an option that you can consider for the future if you want to make, you know, your backdrop a little bit nicer. Then for answering the questions, you're going to flip the camera so that it is horizontal and your framing should be around your waist to mid chest area as a bottom of the shot. And then above your head, you just want to leave a tiny bit of space. Again, you can be distorted and look strange. And this is just the best and most common framing I have seen. As far as editing this self-departition, you can use any free software that is out there. A lot of phones already allow you to edit within your phone. If you're an Apple user like a laptop or a desktop, iMovie usually comes free with that or you can purchase it for $15, but please don't spend any money in doing this practice audition. I really want you guys to be able to practice this with whatever you have and work out the kinks in your self-departition process so that when you do get an audition, you are better prepared and have worked out through all of the, how can I edit this? How do I upload it to YouTube as an unlisted link? All of that. And this should go without saying, but make sure you are lit well. Natural light is the best and that I can actually hear you and look straight into the camera when you are answering the questions. Try and put as much personality as you can in both the slate and answering the question. This is still something I struggle with because sometimes I'm in my head too much or you do too many takes and I just don't have as much me in this as possible. So it's something else that I'm trying to practice, trying to do a little dance before I do this or sing, some kind of show tunes. But in this particular example, I am not looking at the camera because it was for a scene, a scene audition. Anybody can do this if you're an absolute beginner, if you're advanced, if you just want feedback from me. And of course, if you are under 18, please make sure your parents know that you are doing this and have them either submitted or having and writing that you did get permission from your parents to be able to submit to this. Thank you so much for watching. At the end of every video, I feature another channel. This is today's feature. If you would like to be featured on my next video, make sure you're subscribed, like this video and leave me a comment.


by saying that I hated English when I was an undergraduate. I now make a living writing papers and grants. And I watched the History Channel every night. As for chemistry, it'll become obvious in my opinion remarks. Before the term biological science was ever used, humans practiced biology to learn about themselves and the living organisms around them. The knowledge obtained from the myriad of animal plants and microorganisms studied is what has allowed these organisms to serve as the sources of our food, the sources of our materials that clothe us and house us, and the sources of medicines that can heal us when we're sick and protect us from becoming sick. As a biologist, I've studied the chemical and physical processes that enable humans and other living organisms to acquire nourishment, grow, reproduce, adapt to change in physical surroundings, and even repair damage. It is this knowledge about living organisms and its use that is the basis for modern plant and animal agriculture, for the practice of modern medical treatment and pharmaceutical discovery, and for microbial fermentation technologies that provide our side with everything from the flavorings for chocolate to the medication production for treatment of disease, for bioplastics to detergents, from biofuels to cheese and other dairy products. I think the question, can you reestablish society without the knowledge that I agree as a biologist? Let me wing it for a little. And do I have a timer? Yeah, you've got another minute. That's all I need. Knowledge from biological science is just critical. If we want to create the ability to diagnose health problems and disease that range from bacterial to viral infection to develop medications from plants where the first medications came from, and antibiotics which came from living organisms, the ability to use genetics to establish robust plant and animal agricultural systems through breeding, cultivating plants and animals for clothing and shelter from bacteria, how are we going to create vaccines to protect ourselves, our pets if they survive this apocalypse, and our livestock if they are alive too. Communicating science and applications of this knowledge to future generations, if I can't do it, if I can't get on that vote to do it, we're going to go back to the Stone Age. These capabilities go away if I'm not on that vote. Any questions? Dr. Sookie? I have a question for the audience. And I want you to answer it with all honesty. So I don't care if you brought a sign that says whatever. I want you to answer this question honestly.  Friend and son. Oh, yeah. Here we go. What that means for all of you. Actually, put your hands back up, you're reaching out. How many of you have ever read Mary Shelley's novel? Bunch of hands right now. OK. That was my point too. All right. So why is it that back in 1816, this young teenage girl decided to write a story for ghost story competition that turned into a novel. And 200 years later in Arkansas, a bunch of 19, 20, 21-year-olds recognized the name or the title of that novel. And the reason is because Mary Shelley, when she wrote that novel, touched on every single topic that you're going to hear discussed today. The foundation of civilization and society, science is important, history is important, biology and science. We have two sciences to show up of how extra important it is. But what's at the core of all society, of all civilization is storytelling. Every single society, no matter what language they speak, no matter how technologically advanced they are, all societies emerge from common shared narratives, from stories that explore who we are as individuals, who we are as society, what the problems are with our society, and who we wish to become. What do you think? Yeah. That was just the thing. The other part of it, right? And this will be a narrative for you today. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein touches on the political issues of her day through revolution, the ethical questions in a secular space that's not tied necessarily to any one religion. And it also specifically asks us to investigate emerging technologies and what we are to do. What's the ethical thing to do with those technologies? So a humanist and specifically someone who's well versed in storytelling and those narratives is going to be someone who you want around to ask, hey, do we really, really need to save chocolate? Or do we really, really, really need to save our humanity? Well, back to Dr. Adams from chemistry. So I think it's important that we understand the historical perspective of the work of Charles Rue, who learned and developed a way to stabilize blood plasma some seven to eight years ago. We've been talking about these stories significantly, subpoena, blacks, and the ability to over-sales the energy they have around to sense their research. We would not know about these stories. We would not feel the ability to communicate and find parts of the black print from the ancient black standpoint. And while it is absolutely necessary to understand the biological significance of organisms as it relates to our health and our environment, however, none of these are more relevant, have a relevance as it relates to understanding what's going on with the smallest level. We are in the middle of a popular phase. We don't know if we have drinking water. We don't know if the air around us is readable. The abilities and the skill sets that come from learning chemistry and biochemistry can help us take very good water and make our own people. Therefore, I am not going to give you a dramatic rendition. I am not going to talk about the significance of the systems that I say. I can tell you right now, we are in the middle of a populace. Half of us have lost our cell phones. Without the technological advances made by banal technology, which has fundamental comfort from chemistry, how are you going to protect us through the mother and father to tell them you are OK? That's a great answer for this question. It doesn't aren't as followable, but we are facing the future and I guess you don't want to hear about the past. But let me tell you, history is about the future. Disasters are human made. Humans deprived of memory become visor-oriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going. So I could choose the easy route.  That's how they've got to become cliché. How many times have you heard the phrase that those who do not learn from history have been to repeat it? And yes, on this note, and on what is left about the love of the planet, we would repeat all the mistakes that have played the world to date, including the mistakes that they managed to destroy the world. So let me elaborate on that cliché. Karl Marx said that history repeats itself versus tragedy said it as farce. George Bernard Shaw, if history repeats itself and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must that be of learning from experience? And Hannibal said, every time history repeats itself, the price goes up. Thought be more realistic and humble, and use Mark Quinn instead, who said, history does not repeat itself, but does rhyme. Or Sidney Harris, a famous Chicago colonist, who said, history repeats itself by such cutting disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done. And he said, it's guidance that you will be equipped to unveil. History gives you the ability to find what is left, which matters enormously, because nothing is built from scratch. You will learn how to frame the questions we need, how to research the few best documents left, and above all, make sense of them. Because they speak so loud about where we are now and where we should go from. They will also teach you how to do it practically with an argument about love of the planet. How many of you have seen all red in the time machine, a fan of a science figure, okay, a little breeze of hands, but I assume that some of you will have read it. And the protagonist lands with his contraction into the very distant future populated by the haptus illoids and the brutal warlocks. He asks them, where is your library? He's looking for traces of what happened, how has the world become this way? And he goes to that library, writes a book, and he crumbles in his hands. And then they offer him this recording from this advanced technology that they had that finally shows him what actually happened. He becomes the connection between the beautiful illoids and the past, is their time machine, helping them not to turn the clock back, but to save humanity from itself. Let me go show him to you. In my office, I have this poster, I don't know if you can see it from the distance, but it shows three individuals. First, the FDR, it's from a local bar, and it says Booze. Second, with the Churchill, Booze. Third, out of fever, no. And then it says since 1989, sorry, since 1989, we are shared. Okay, so Booze and smoking, out of fever had no vice other than being a genocidal in being a. In smoke, in a drink, and he did not read history. He decided to invade Russia, and he did not ask Napoleon, and that's how he had done it. I have to say, okay. FDR was a history major. Winston Churchill was a historian himself. And FDR did not just do that as you know, he took us out of a great disaster called the Great Depression. When he was a presidential candidate since we have so many now, that famous commentary described that he was a pleasant man who without any important qualifications for the office would very much like to be president. Well, his qualifications was to be a student of history, and he didn't help not only save this country, but perhaps save the world. And he's in good company. Some of our best leaders are actually major in history. And wouldn't you want them to lead us again? I would be glad to. His cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, was a historian. They made American global power. Woodrow Wilson took us out of a disaster called World War I history. Why, as an hour, he also helped us bring victory in the beaches of Normandy. Richard Nixon, now we're going to miss him again. Richard Nixon, now we're going to miss him again. But another historian called Harry Kessinger, he did start a nuclear disarmament, and George W. Bush, which is an amazing history again, plus the general election. History made another reconstruction possible through historians like me, I, and Papa. 15 seconds. 15 seconds. And then there are also those who made history fun, like Steve Correll and Ronald Wright, Sacha Baron Cohen, they're all historians. So do you remember? Yes, remember that the key to our future is in the past. The skills to reveal the mysteries of human psyche that brought us to this art and history. And above all, as one of the giant historians of DHR, one said, history is for optimists. Optimists because historians should imagine a way to produce peace, prosperity, and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you.


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