Hello everybody, Andrea here. So let's talk about being a sole proprietor or becoming incorporated. I'm going to explain what my journey was and why I made my decision to become incorporated, but why it's better not to if you're starting off. So let me explain this a little bit. When I first started my mobile dental hygiene practice in 2018, I was a sole proprietor, mainly because I didn't know what else to do.  When I would speak to other hygienists or even my accountant, they would always say the hygienist and the accountant, there's a lot of paperwork. It costs so much more. It's better to just start off small and go from there. So I thought, okay, perfect. But little did I know that year I made too much money where I ended up being taxed at 53%. So when you're a sole proprietor, the main thing is, is your taxed on how much income you make. And I didn't just make income seeing patients. I have a tutoring business where I sell courses throughout the year. I was also doing other things that brought in multiple streams of income. So I falled into a tax bracket where I was taxed at the highest, which was a little over half. So here I was taxed around $40,000. And so here you think you're making great money. And then when my accountant told me how much tax I owed, I even sent them an email and I still have that email. Do you mean 400? 40,000? I was shocked and I was very, very upset. The good news was I followed my accountant's advice at the beginning and I would save a certain amount off of every paycheck that I got off of every income stream. I would always put a certain amount into savings. So that $40,000 was fine to pay off, but was I expecting a $40,000 tax bill? No. So I became incorporated right away. I basically said I want to be incorporated as of yesterday. So this doesn't happen again. The good news is I did become incorporated as soon as possible with all the paperwork, talking to my accountant, you do need a corporation lawyer. Those appointments, okay, it took a couple weeks. I did have to sign a little bit more paperwork, but all in all, worth every penny. The big difference is I used to pay my accountant, let's say $500 to get everything ready. Now I'm paying upwards to $4,000, but that was also my first year of being incorporated. I think the fees were a little bit different, whereas now it's very easy to just maintain where when I was first signing up to become incorporated, my accountant had to file this paperwork, talk to this person, change this, look up this, look up that. So I'm hoping it's going to be less of a accounting fee this year, but that's all a business expense anyway. So I highly recommend becoming incorporated, but it depends on how much money you're making. Talk to your accountant. I now get taxed at 12%. That's a big difference then, 53%, right? Huge difference. In fact, last year, the government owed me money because I had overpaid in my installments. I pay every four months in my business tax installment. So I'm not hit by a big bill at the end of the year, but I had actually overpaid apparently, so I got money back. So that's why I became incorporated, but it might not be best for you. Definitely talk to your accountant. The main thing to ask them is, with my income, the rate at where it's going, how much am I going to be taxed? What tax bracket am I in? If it's a 53% being taxed, I would become incorporated now. If it's anything over like 12%, I would do it honestly, but take my advice with a grain of salt, please. I'm not an accountant. I don't know you. I don't know your business. So there might be different situations where you don't want to become incorporated, but that's just my personal story from a regular person who was just a mobile dental hygienist. This is not me making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year because I owe my own practice and hire many people. I was just a mobile dental hygienist. Very, very simple. Just me. No employees, but I did have other streams of income though with my tutoring, my teaching, but I still wasn't making a million dollars. I'm not making $500,000 and it was still better for me to become incorporated. So let me know if any questions. I'm very happy to help. Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one.


Hello, my name is Manuel Cantone. I'm part of the ST IoT Promotion and Enablement team here in the US region. And today at the ST Developer Conference 2018, I met the Cloud Connectivity Boot. We are showcasing at this boot our STM32 Discovery Kit IoT node and only one starter kit that helps developers jumpstart their design and bring their idea to life. It's a Discovery Kit featuring STM32 L475, a Cortex M4 microcontroller part of our ultra low-power family L4. It's connected to the internet via Inventek Wi-Fi module, ISM43662, and it has other means of connectivity like BLE, sub-gigars, and NFC dynamic tag. The board also sports a full set of sensors, motion sensors, we have a 3D-axcel gyro and a magnetometer, and a 3D magnetometer, a pressure sensor, a microphone for audio awareness, and a time-of-flight sensor for proximity. The board is also expandable. It has two means of expandability, the P-MOD connector and the Arduino connector. This is an excellent starting point to jumpstart your IoT and the node design, and it will be used also during the conference at our STLTCATEM IoT end-zone seminar with a cellular modem connected to Arduino connectors. With this developer kit, today at this boot, we are showing Wi-Fi connectivity directly to cloud, supporting AWS cloud, Microsoft Azure cloud, IBM Watson, and Google cloud. If I go to Amazon Web Services, you will find here a description of the various firmware expansions available for this discovery kit. We have our own XCube AWS available, firmware expansion available from st.com, and a distribution of a firmware implementing Amazon FreeRTOS directly from AWS website. Among the main feature of this device, you have a connection as subscribed to the IoT service via MQTT, and this is expandable to stream live sensor data to the cloud for data analysis, and it's compatible in Amazon FreeRTOS port with both IoT Core and AWS Greengrass. For Microsoft, we have two options of firmware expansion available, the XCube Azure and the Function Pack Cloud Azure One. The Function Pack connects to a dedicated dashboard, STM32 IoT web dashboard that helps developers to, in minutes, bring an IoT node up to life and stream data to the Azure IoT Cloud. For IBM, we support a couple of firmware expansion also, the XCube Watson and Function Pack Watson One. XCube, they were demonstrating today, can connect to quick start and to the Watson Cloud in register mode. The Function Pack will implement advanced function like an FFT transform to do analysis of vibration in the frequency domain.  There's everything you need in it, and we have examples to run it with direct Wi-Fi connectivity to your cloud of choice. For more information, go to www.st.com and in the search bar, put XCube Cloud, and you will find options for AWS connectivity, Microsoft Azure connectivity, IBM, and Google Cloud. Alternatively, Function Pack's FFT Cloud will be your cloud of choice. Thank you very much for your attention and please design with our SD product.


What's going on? How are you guys this week? Welcome back to another Q&A for the month of August. If you guys didn't get the chance to ask your question, definitely check out my channel page around the middle of next month, or just leave it down below and I'll try to get to you. What is your opinion on detox? Clays, zeolite, herbs, etc. You talk about toxins a lot, but I don't think I've heard your views on how to get the toxins out yet. So when your body is toxic, the toxins are stored in your cells, which can take months to years to detox, depending on many factors. You know, taking certain things like activated charcoal or clay may help alleviate symptoms from the liver pushing toxins into the digestive tract for excretion, but aren't practical long-term and herbs and certain things that people are taking for detox are actually harming their body because the liver needs to process them instead of detoxing yourself. So you really need to go on a high-quality diet, drink high-quality water, remove radiation from your environment for months to years to heal from a modern lifestyle. Who, in your opinion, should avoid carbs? What metrics are people used to find out how well they are tolerating carbs? So I believe carbohydrates are necessary in the diet in order to be healthy. You always want to go by how you feel when you consume it. And if you have certain health conditions or you're in a high-radiation environment, you might not feel so good consuming carbohydrates, then you have to take precautions, usually incorporating probiotics. What is the best way to reverse insulin resistance in a healthy way, i.e. not relying on the carnivore diet? Some studies apparently showed people who ate fruit improved metabolic health. So what are some misconceptions regarding this and what would your protocol be if you were insulin resistant? So almost any disease is a result of toxins and radiation in the lifestyle. I would focus on EMF reduction with protective clothing, sleeping in a canopy. We are getting the clothing back on Wi-Fi shielding, but I do have canopies and I can't emphasize this enough. It doesn't matter how good your diet is. It doesn't matter how much you exercise. It doesn't matter what you're supplementing. Reducing radiation usually triumphs over all of those as a level of importance. After you've reduced that radiation, you could increase food quality by going organic, adding more animal foods, only drinking quality water. When that's done, you can address nutrient deficiencies, maybe take supplements here and there. And that answer I just gave applies to just about any health issue someone is experiencing. The basic first step is reduce environmental radiation, wear protective clothing, spend your work day in a bed canopy, sleep in a bed canopy, and then address the diet what you're drinking supplements. I wanted to ask what your thoughts are on enzymes in the form of pancreatin, as well as are the enzymes in B. pollen useful? So when I was sourcing products from my digestive enzymes on organ supplements, I couldn't get a straight answer on what was in pancreatin, but it's very cheap, so I'm assuming the quality of the enzymes in it aren't that great. So I opted for buying the isolated enzymes, and I made the ratio that I wanted. Maybe there's a small amount of amylase in B. pollen, but it's insignificant. Either way, I haven't seen a digestive enzyme on the market, or had one that makes me feel as good as the one I've formulated. I have a friend whose child was diagnosed with phenylketonuria. So I'm not going to read the rest of this. I do have to say that modern medicine seems to have made up a laundry list of mysterious diseases that have no cure other to spend your money going to doctors. If a child is following a healthy diet in a low radiation environment with no nutrient deficiencies, they will not have any problems. But that doesn't make doctors any money. What are your thoughts on airpods? I wore mine for a week thinking it wouldn't have much of an effect, but then I developed somewhat of a painful pimple in my ear. Went away and came back when I continued to use them. Any idea what this could be? So airpods are literally frying your brain. I should have made a video on them already. But people are in such high radiation environments that they don't notice the slight increase in radiation. The average person is on their phone all day, glued to it, or it's in their pocket. If you're able to shield yourself completely at night and reduce EMF substantially throughout the day with canopies, with protective clothing, keeping your phone on airplane mode, you'll be able to notice when you're in that higher EMF environment, especially using airpods. It's like sleeping out in the country in a tent versus sleeping in the middle of New York. There's a reason they call it the city that never sleeps because everyone's getting baked like a chicken. What advice would you give to someone who's reliant on their parents for buying groceries but they aren't willing to buy grass-fed, organic, how to make better food choices in this circumstance? So I would try to get a job or any source of income. If that's not possible, then talk to your parents. If the average person wasn't so brainwashed, they would understand that the thousands of dollars spent on nourishing your child with proper food is not comparable to them being short and ugly. If I could go back in time and give my parents $10,000 an hour, however much money they would have needed to feed me high-quality food as a child, I would have done it. But that's just not how it is. You have to do the best with the situation you're in and if you're still relatively young, like 10, 11, 12, 13, then just try to eat as much animal protein as possible. In a country where meat is pretty expensive, even some vegetables, how do you really stay healthy? I often find myself getting extremely irritated or just moody if I haven't eaten meat or fish in a while. Is that why after people go vegan for months or years, they're just completely unbearable because they need to eat something that's not cardboard? So if you can't get a job, make more money, or raise your own animals, then I mean, I'm thinking in my mind, I would buy a rifle, get a minimal amount of gear that I would need to survive in the forest or whatever, just hunt deer, fish, and then maybe buy some sort of bulk grain or whatever other foods I needed to keep healthy. I mean, that's really how you would spend as little as possible living a healthy lifestyle. You know, harvest the expensive stuff yourself and purchase whatever you can. Why should we eat protein, fat, and carbohydrates in balanced amounts? So the correct ratio is 80% of your energy from carbohydrates and fat, and about 20% protein. That's typically what indigenous people stock by, and then depending on your ancestry, that would kind of dictate what types of protein you're eating, what's the ratio of fats to carbohydrates. But if you get brain fog when you're eating high-quality organic carbohydrates, that means you have a candida overgrowth and likely toxic liver. The candida acts as a vessel for those toxins to leave the body through the digestive tract, but it doesn't feel good because your body is releasing those toxins and some of them are being reabsorbed as the candida passes through. Is ghee healthier than regular butter for someone with a dairy intolerance? Please, thank you, Frank. So for anyone unfamiliar, ghee is clarified butter where they remove what little milk proteins are left. And my suggestion is that if you have any problems with dairy, I would avoid both dairy and eggs for several months, maybe even longer. There are plenty of good cooking alternatives as well as fat sources in the diet, just because what they're feeding, chicken and cattle is so unreliable now that there's a lot of allergens and issues with the end result, the end product in the dairy or the eggs. What age do people stop developing facially or height-wise, or can it always be improved depending on how deficient you are in a nutrient?   Have you ever noticed how old people's faces tend to be like sunken in around the mouth?  It's a combination of nutrition and soft tissue movement. Some people are going to say, oh, it's all about facial posture, but there's definitely a nutritional aspect there with a lack of animal protein in the diet, mainly. My wife is having trouble producing breast milk for our newborn. She is on a lower carb, high omega-3 protein-enriched diet for mostly grass-fed finished meats, some lamb as well, and a DHA supplement. Sounds like too much omega-3, and she's likely deficient in certain minerals as well as vitamin K2. I would supplement the carnivore deficient minerals, copper, selenium, molybdenum, manganese, definitely K2 in the form of Mk4, probably needs vitamin D3 as well, even certain B vitamins, and most importantly, I would add some organic carbohydrates, some macadamia nuts, even some omega-6 sources just to give your wife the energy. You know, you're giving her the nutrients, the animal-based nutrients, but she doesn't have energy that her body can use that well. Is there a natural remedy for gallstones? So I have an in-depth video on the gallbladder that you should definitely check out, but gallstones are from under-use of the gallbladder due to a lack of cholesterol and saturated fat in the diet. It could also be due to toxins in your diet and lifestyle. Hypothetically, if you do follow a high-quality organic diet that has plenty of animal products, they should remove themselves, although I said in that video, I'm not sure in a severe, severe circumstance if the gallbladder can excrete all of those gallstones, but they should be broken down because the bile is acidic and it starts building up again. Do you eat fish or other seafood? Caviar on occasion, but I don't think fish is safe to eat, especially when you compare it to grass-fed beef. Just too many concerns about what's in the ocean. Is homosexuality natural? Technically, no. The hormonal profile during developmental stages, mainly pregnancy, will determine the baby's attraction. High estrogen in our food and water supply lowers testosterone in males and raises testosterone in female babies.  The baby's brain is developing in the womb and the hormones will act on that brain and say, hey, these are your hormones. You're supposed to be attracted to this because normally in the DNA, a man or a woman is supposed to have a certain attraction, but the modern lifestyle factors alter that. And I'm inclined to believe there's a lot more gay men than women because although estrogen in the water is bad for both men and women, it's much more detrimental to men. Why are people always believing doctors? The simple answer is brainwashing, and my grandparents, even great grandparents, never trust the doctors, but they really ingrained it in my parents' generation and my generation that doctors are actually good people. They're simply in positions of authority, molded to be experts at manipulating the average person. Most doctors are simply brainwashed themselves, making money for Big Pharma, and you shouldn't really trust anyone with an MD in their name. They might give you some truth, but then steer you in their interest. That's actually why I have more respect for plastic surgeons than most doctors because at least they're doing something that makes the person happy as opposed to misleading them. Is smoking really as bad as everyone says? Even additive-free organic tobacco? How does nicotine affect the body? So I did cover this in my marijuana video. Most people are unable to remove negative lifestyle factors in order to offset the amount of oxidative stress from smoking. What made you want to help others about health and nutrition? So it's having really severe digestive issues that I didn't realize were from acutane at the time, which is a pharmaceutical drug that destroys your liver. It's supposed to treat acne, which it never really did, I still get acne, but that's besides the point. After researching diet for a couple months, I found out about a meat-only diet piecing things together, and this was way before carnivore was a thing. I felt a lot better once I was kind of fully carnivore keto for a couple of years. I decided to launch my YouTube channel to share the information that I read in several different books and experiments a lot with myself. And that's kind of how it started, and then I kind of just stuck with it for a little while, and now after I developed some health businesses around it, I'm kind of stuck in it, so to speak, but the main thing is realizing that this world isn't run by good people, and most people are just pretending to be like me in the sense that I'm a doctor, I'm going to help you, but all they really care about is making money for themselves. I don't really want to go too in-depth on that and talk too much about that today, maybe I could make a separate video on that. But thank you guys for joining me. If you could please drop a like on the video. As I mentioned earlier, if you have any questions, well, subscribe so that YouTube can unsubscribe you next week, and be sure to check that notification bell so they don't notify you of my videos therefor. You can go to frank-to-found.com to support me through all of my businesses. We mentioned the Wi-Fi shielding has the bed canopies. I should have the t-shirts and shorts back in stock before the end of this week. Many things on Oregon supplements that you guys can check out. Just go to frank-to-found.com, everything's on there. Thanks again guys, and I'll see you for tomorrow. Bye.


We love when new inks arrive and we've been waiting for these for a while. These came all the way from Australia This is a whole new ink collection from Van Diemens This is the Van Diemens birds of a feather ink collection and they're 30 milliliter inks and there's 18 different inks The first one is the European honeybee eater nape ink, and it's the deep burgundy there at the top and the next we have the European honeybee eater wing ink and that is a an interesting color of green I Love that it has the true green color But once it dries you'll see a little bit of mint comes out in that ink, and it's very interesting and cool This next ink is European honeybee eater chin ink and this ink reminds me a little bit of the Monte Grappa Harry Potter Hufflepuff ink Except that it Seems to have more of a pure yellow to me We decided it leans a little bit towards orange once it's dry You'll be able to see it and it is it comes off very mango And then next we're jumping straight over to the European honeybee eater breast ink, and this is a teal color all the inks in this ink collection are inspired by birds native to Australia where Van Diemens is located and I really love seeing the four colors Inspired by the European honeybee eater bird because they're so different. I love that I want to see that bird with all those four colors. Okay, and I'm jumping in the first elegant peacock eye just went down and that was a really deep deep blue and then next we're looking at the elegant peacock train and that's a shimmery green and it's a pretty I want to say wicked green for some reason I think I'm thinking of the wicked witch, but it's a very bright vivid green with a gold shimmer And then next we have the elegant peacock neck and that one has some cool sheening effects that you'll see once it's dry And then this next one is a veering towards another bird. This is Anna's hummingbird wing And it is really beautiful. I'll come back and show you that once it's dry it tries with a really beautiful shimmer and then we have Anna's hummingbird face, which is a Really pretty fuchsia and it tries with a pretty cool sheen that we'll look at once it's settled in Okay, now we're going to move on to Inks inspired by the Mandarin duck. This first one is Mandarin duck breast and it goes down here as a Really solid blue color, but it dries pretty different. So we'll come back and look at that. This next one is Mandarin duck wing And I like the mixture of colors. It's kind of presenting here initially And We're using the J. Herbin glass spiral dip pin In case you're interested in that and then just we're using some random craft brushes to put the thick lines down Okay, next we're looking at Mandarin duck nape and this one is a much darker like a turquoise green and It's got some really cool shading that goes on once You're actually already seeing it as it's drying Next we'll look at the laughing cuckaburra wing Just the most fun to say and this is the One of the lighter inks in this set and I really like it. It's a kind of like it reminds me of crystal clear Sea water and underneath that we have laughing cuckaburra crest followed right after by the laughing cuckaburra tail and the laughing cuckaburra crest and tail inks Once they're dry, they look pretty similar except that the crest has a bit of violet going on while the tail has a more of a brown base Under that neath that we're gonna look at blue J wing Followed by blue J tail and then blue J crown and these three blue J blue inks are so lovely And I love that they're all three blue but they're all so different and here's a look at all of these inks Once they were dry and you'll see some of them really have some great shading and you also have some sheen and some shimmer shop birds of a feather at pinchley.com


Howdy how's it going? My name's Daffy Chappy, and surprise, surprise, it's time for me to finally give the people what they want. Finally, give my long-awaiting viewers my long-awaited guide to everybody's favorite class to ask about, the Mystic! I'm gonna be going over the class, its abilities, and its overly convoluted nature, and I'm finally going to put all your worries to bed so that no one ever asks me to make a video on this non-class ever again ever, because I really don't want to. As always, keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion, so if you feel that my psionic energy isn't strong enough to keep your mind attracted, good luck trying to understand the mystic on your own. But with that out of the way, let's begin. But first, a story. Long ago, a wealthy man had a little boy. For some reason, his first words were ping pong ball. When the boy was old enough to speak and understand birthdays and gifts and such, he asked the boy, so son, what would you like for your birthday this year? The boy said, daddy, I would like a pink ping pong ball. Father said, that's it, no trucks, no trains, no puzzles. The boy said, no, just a pink ping pong ball. So the father gets him the pink ping pong ball and wraps it up. The boy is absolutely delighted. He takes the pink ping pong ball to his room, and the pink ping pong ball is never seen again. A day before his 15th birthday, asked by his father, well my son, what would you like for your birthday? The son hesitated a moment and his father's thoughts leapt ahead to a new computer in similar things. However, his son had a new computer only recently and could have had a new one at any time that he wished. Finally, the son said, father, I have everything a boy could wish for, but there is one thing I would really like. I would love to have five pink ping pong balls.  And so, on the next day, the son was given his birthday presents, five pink ping pong balls.  The father was mildly surprised, but decided not to say anything. The pink ping pong balls, however, were never seen again. The next year, a day before his 16th birthday, the father asked his son what he would like for his birthday. Father, replied the son, I have everything a boy could possibly wish for, but there is one thing I would really, really like. I would love to have a 10 pack of pink ping pong balls. The father was more surprised than the year before, but kept his curiosity at bay, for he knew that his son had a right for privacy.  And so, the next day, the son was given his birthday present, a 10 pack of pink ping pong balls.  The father wondered where 10 ping pong balls might disappear to, but decided not to say anything. The pink ping pong balls, however, were never seen again. The next year, a day before his 17th birthday, the son was asked by his father what he would like for his birthday. Father, said the son to this, I have everything a boy could wish for, but one thing that would make my happiness complete, I would dearly want a carton of pink ping pong balls. The father was beyond surprised, but decided to make sure that he had not misheard. A carton of pink ping pong balls? A carton of pink ping pong balls, the boy confirmed.  And so, the next day, the boy was given as his birthday present a carton of pink ping pong balls. The boy was delighted and took the carton to his room.  Dear son, said the father, I must ask now, what do you do with all these pink ping pong balls? The son, however, was reluctant to tell him. Please humor me, dear father. The carton of pink ping pong balls, however, was never seen again. The next year, it was clear that the son would get a car, but the father felt that perhaps his son had also some other wish apart from the obvious. So, one day before his son's 18th birthday, the father asked him whether he had a special wish for his birthday. Dearest father, the son started, I have everything a young man could possibly want, but there is one craving in me. I would, more than anything, want a warehouse full of pink ping pong balls. One of these years, his father thought, I should get to the bottom of this. However, he decided to humor his son's wish again. At least he had been wise enough to buy shares in a pink ping pong ball factory. The next day, the son was given the address of a warehouse where all his new pink ping pong balls were stored. The son was delighted and decided to spend the next night in the warehouse rather than at home. The following morning, the son stepped out of the warehouse, but it seemed to be empty otherwise. The father had a closer look, and indeed, apart from the empty cardboard boxes, nothing was left inside the warehouse.  The following year, one day before the son's 19th birthday, the father braced himself for another warehouse of pink ping pong balls. He asked his son what his deepest desire was, and he had not been entirely wrong. Father, you have made me very happy these last years, and this year I ask of you, a shipload of pink ping pong balls, if at all possible. It was possible, if only because the father had by now bought each and every factory of pink ping pong balls in the country. The next day, the father took his son to the harbor and showed him a huge tanker and told his son that there were millions, billions, trillions of pink ping pong balls in there. Father, the son said, you have made me very happy yet again. That night, the son spent on board the tanker. The next morning, not a single of the pink ping pong balls could be found, but the son was happy. A few days before his 20th birthday, however, the son had a terrible road accident and was taken to the hospital. His father visited the young man in the hospital.  Weekly, the son sat up in his bed. Father, dearest father, grant me this wish. Just one 10 pack of pink ping pong balls. The father held his son's hand tightly. Whatever you wish, my son, but I have to give you one condition. Even if it may be embarrassing, I must know what you did with all those pink ping pong balls. Very well, father. But please, indulge me first. I will tell you whatever you wish to know after you have gotten me the 10 pink ping pong balls. The father thought that this was fair enough, and the next day he brought his son the 10 asked for pink ping pong balls. The son smiled weakly, but seemed too weak to talk.  The son nodded weakly.  Now, my dearest son, apple of my eye, treasure of my life, please tell me, what did you do with all those pink ping pong balls? The son nodded, and the father gripped his hand tighter. I... The son started and sat up a bit, swallowing a bit of dry mouth. Then he died.


If you're new to the channel, I am blowpony. I do new car truck SUV reviews on YouTube. And today we are in the brand new 2023 Volvo XC40 courtesy of younger Volvo in Hagerstown, Maryland for more information on their inventory. Please feel free to check out the link in the description box below. And so we are in this one today because there is a refreshed look for 2023. Includes new headlights, new front grille, new front fascia, just to name a few. Not only that, the XC40 is an IHS top safety pick plus, which is the very highest designation given by IHS. That pretty much says it all right there. And this is luxury from Sweden. And vehicles from Sweden are kind of rare here in the US. So that makes me excited. But anyways, in this video, we'll be testing out and going over everything about this one from Acceleration, a braking, steering, full ride quality, sound system, exhaust clip, all that fun stuff. So having said all of that, what do you guys say? Let's just go ahead and jump right into it. And as always, let's start with pricing. And so let me first start by saying there are new trim levels for 2023. Core is going to start at $37,640. The plus trim level is the one we are in today, starting at $42,045. And lastly, the ultimate, starting at $45,795. By the way, that was all pricing for the front wheel drive configuration. If you wanted to add all wheel drive, you can do that. Simply add $2,000 then to any of those prices. But so in regard to the sub trim level that you go with, the power plant on the XC40 is going to be the same. However, there are different power numbers. Essentially, the B4 is going to be specific to the front wheel drive variant. And then the B5 is going to be specific to the all wheel drive variant of the XC40. And that is the one we have today. But powering the beast is a two liter turbocharged inline four cylinder for the B4, 194 horsepower for the B5, 247 horsepower. So substantially more there than 221 pound-feet of torque for the B4, 258 pound-feet of torque for the B5. By the way, both configurations coming with mild hybrid drive. So that should help with any turbo lag from the get go. We're going to be testing that out in a second. But power sent to the ground through an eight speed automatic, zero to 60 time, differing quite substantially. 8.1 seconds for the front wheel drive, 6.1 seconds then for the all wheel drive. MPG numbers coming in at 24 in the city, 32 on the highway for the front wheel drive, 23 city, 30 then on the highway for the all wheel drive taking premium unleaded fuel. But so then before we do any kind of fun acceleration test here in the XC40, I did want to mention there are a couple of different configurations where you can alter the driving dynamics a little bit. You do have an off-road driving mode and you can also alter the steering feel. We're actually going to put that on firm right now. So I'm going to go ahead and change that right off the back. Having said that, that's about it for the different modes on this one. So let's go ahead and find a straightaway. Let's put the XC40 here to the test and let's see how quickly we can get our new 2023 Volvo XC40 here up to speed. All right, here's our straightaway. Let's kick it. Yep. Oh my gosh. Dang man, this thing is quick. All right, no turbo lag. Probably thanks to that mild hybrid system on this thing. That was pretty darn good. Let me tell you guys, most vehicles that are turbocharged four cylinders, like I alluded to kind of earlier, you do get some kind of turbo lag, including my own vehicle. But in this thing, there was none of that. So that was wonderful. Instant acceleration, 100% not going to have any issues with merging onto the highway in the new XC40. That was pretty darn good. Anyways, to go along with that acceleration as always, braking is equally important. So upfront, you will find 13.6 inch ventilated front discs. In the back, 11.9 inch solid rear discs. As far as that 60 to zero stopping distance goes, they're just going to come in at 120 feet, which is a very good number on paper, but I will say I'm not a huge fan of the braking feel on the XC40. It's definitely on the softer side of things. I feel like it takes a little more pressure on the brakes to actually bring this thing to a stop. It's not a very natural feeling braking feel. And I don't say that about most vehicles. So I am specifying that in the XC40. You guys, when you test drive it, let me know if you agree or disagree. But then touching on suspension and handling upfront, you're going to get a McPherson strut front suspension in the back, independent multi-link rear suspension. As far as ride quality goes, it's been perfectly fine, actually, my short test drive here today. But perhaps the thing I noticed the most was the lack of cabin noise coming into the cabin. So I'm going 54 miles per hour right now. And when I was going slower, I was getting a lot of echo when I'm just talking right here to the camera. So you guys, and that's because there isn't a whole lot of exterior wind noise or road noise coming into the cabin. So I'm kind of a big fan of that. That was pretty cool. As far as steering feel goes, as I mentioned to you guys earlier, you do have the option to firm up that steering feel, creating a heavier weight to the steering, which is what I just did. Like I said, you can immediately tell the difference between the steering feel. I am a huge fan of this heavier steering feel, having just put it in that mode. So let me go ahead and actually just take it back. Out of that mode, I want to see if it, it still relaxes the steering. Much more loosey-goosey. So let's go back into that firm steering. So huge fan of the steering feel, with it in that firm driving mode. I guess you could call it for the steering. So big fan of that. That's what you're going with visibility. I can see perfectly fine out the back. It's typically with an SUV of this shape, you're not going to have any issues. So 100% on point there. And this second row headrests actually do fold down. I got one of them folded down right now. So that's going to be even better visibility. But anyways, rain-sensing windshield wipers that I did want to mention for forward visibility come standard on every single trim level across the board. So whenever the XC40 detects an account of Mr. Rainfall, it's essentially automatically going to turn on those windshield wipers for you. So it's just one less thing you got to worry about there. So I'm a big fan of that as well. But that pretty much rounds out the performance segment of this review, you guys. Let's now go ahead and take a look at the exterior of our brand new 2023 Volvo XC40. All right, so here she is, you guys. The new 2023 Volvo XC40 finished in crystal white metallic. In case you were curious of our exterior color name, but let's go ahead and start up front because there have been a lot of changes for the 2023 XC40, including a completely redesigned front bumper. So you guys could probably tell there is quite a bit going on up here. Revised front grille, and by the way, when it comes to that front grille, there is now a bright or dark theme. It was called something different previously, but we have the dark theme. So that's going to add gloss black accents as opposed to silver accents everywhere essentially. So keep that in mind throughout the exterior walk around here, but to the sides, these headlights have been reshaped to kind of look more similar to the new Volvo XC40. I'm sure you guys could probably see that. Less boxy, more kind of swoopy on the insides there, but they are LEDs. LEDs do come standard with LED Thor's hammer daytime running lights, of course. Automatic feature coming with that, along with automatic high beams as well. I personally love that feature. Essentially when you have your high beams on at night and it senses a vehicle coming in the opposite direction, it's going to automatically dim those back to low beams. Then when the vehicle is gone, it's going to automatically bump it back up to high beams. So very convenient feature there. Tim would also mention though, pixel LED headlights. That's an option for $350. Essentially each headlight then has 84 pixels of lighting that adjust, for example, if there's a car coming in the opposite direction, it's going to adjust the angle of the low beams if it senses that vehicle coming and then adjust it back when the vehicle is gone. So kind of interesting concept there. Tim would also mention there are two new colors for the XC40 for 2023. For George Blue, essentially like the C40 recharge that I reviewed. And I probably mispronounced that again, but that's okay. And also Sage Green is another new color for the 2023 XC40, but LED fog lights then coming with the plus and ultimate trim levels, meaning you're not going to get them on the core. So do want to emphasize that.  Again, we do have the dark theme.  So anyway, so let me know what you guys think of the new redesigned front end in the comments section below and that about rounds out the front end. So they'll go ahead and make our way to the side of the XC40. All right, and something else since we are around to the side of this one, starting all the way to the top there, you will either find aluminum or gloss black referrals. Again, depended upon the theme that you go with. Chrome or gloss black belt line molding, rear privacy glasses going to come standard across the board, gotta love that. Take a look at the side mirrors. They are body colored power adjustable side mirrors. And they will also be heated.  But anyways, then take a look down at the wheel, set up 18 inch double five spoke diamond cut alloys for the core and the plus. Our wheels look dang good in my personal opinion down there. 19 inch five spoke diamond cut alloys for the ultimate and there are some 20 inch wheel designs available. And actually 19 inch wheel designs available as well. And we actually do have 19 inch wheels on our plus trim level that we have with us here today. But anyways, pretty much rounds out the side profile. Let's now go ahead and make our way to the back. All right, so now since we are around to the back of this one all the way to the top, body colored shark fin antenna, just below that rear spoiler with an integrated brake light just below that rear window wiper affixiated to the rear glass there. Got some Volvo lettering spelled out horizontally. That definitely looks good. You got the B five all wheel drive badging or you're going to get the B four badging if you get the front wheel drive configuration. LED tail lights of course comes standard because this is a Volvo. It has to be extra safe with those LEDs. And all the way down to the bottom you're either going to get aluminum or gloss black trim on the very bottom portion of that rear bumper there. But ultimately down below you will find dual exhaust outlets although they will be tucked away for both configurations there. So having said that, I do believe you guys know what we have to do next as always here is that exhaust clip. All right, so now since we are around to the back of the XC 40 when it comes to opening that rear tailgate it is a height adjustable power tailgate for every single trim level across the board. And by the way, that's newly standard for the 2023 model year as well. So you get another change there as well. Cargo capacity is going to come in at 20.7 cubic feet if that was not enough space. There is a 6040 split bumping that up to 57.5 cubic feet. But there's a lot going on in that cargo area. There is a 12 volt power outlet back there. There's grocery bag hooks. And one of the coolest things is if you lift up the cargo floor you do have a little bit of in-floor storage which is pretty cool in itself. But when you lift up the cargo floor you can kind of lock it in place to have an additional three more grocery bag hooks if you wanted to. I always find that pretty cool with Volvo's. They've done that in some of their other vehicles. You have cargo lighting back there. You got a cargo cover that also comes standard. So overall there is a good bit going on in the cargo area of the XC40. But then making our way up to the rear legroom that is going to come in at 36.1 inches. So for reference I am an even six feet tall. This is how much space I have back there. There is a rear center armrest with cup holders that does come standard. There is a 12 volt power outlet as well. There are dual phone charging ports that come standard back there. Rear ventilation along with that. And if you were to go with a climate package that goes for $550 by the way you can also get heated rear seats which we do have with us here today. So you can spoil the rear passengers here at Western Maryland because we do get a lot of snow here. So that is pretty cool. Then making our way up to the front seats power adjustable driver's seat with power lumbar coming standard. You get memory settings for up to two different drivers. It can be found at the driver's side door there. Also coming standard for all trim levels. Leather seating is going to come standard yet again but you will get a suede leather combination if you go with the ultimate. Heated front seats are going to come standard. I got to love that. And my very favorite part about the seating. You actually have the flag of Sweden found on the passenger seat along with every other vehicle I think that Volvo makes. But still I always liked the little added touches. So about the attention to detail but overall with the lumbar adjustment on this thing especially definitely not going to have any issues finding your perfect driving position. But then taking a look at the steering wheel it is tilt and telescoping. It is leather up for all trim levels and it will be heated with that climate package I was telling you guys about that gave you the heat of rear seats as well. So that is pretty nice. Now let's go ahead and make our way to the startup. Let me start by showing you guys the key here. You do have your Volvo logo on the one side and all of your buttons actually are located on the side of the key. You got lock unlock and the button to pop the rear tailgate there. But do what I also mentioned key one is going to be black but then your key two is going to be orange. And that's the key that I personally like. Anyways it is all keyless entry with a push button start. So all I'm going to do here is simply put my foot on the brake and press that black engine start button located just by the driver's right knee there. And so once started up when it comes to the gauges you will find a full digital gauge cluster that comes standard across the board and you can actually display your navigation up there if you wanted to as well. But by the way the navigation and all of all those are powered by Google so it's Google Maps so that is pretty darn cool. There's your outside temperature how many miles you have left until you hit empty road time recognition. So it's going to tell you the speed limit of any given road. But overall it's a very nice looking gauge cluster. I will definitely say that. Then make your way to overall interior quality if you're looking for a panoramic moon roof that we have today. You're going to go with the plus or the ultimate trim levels. High level LED interior lighting for the plus and the ultimate trim levels yet again. And the coolest thing about those LED interior lights there's really no button form. You just kind of put your finger over them and it's going to turn on and off. Which is pretty darn cool. I don't think I've ever seen it done like that before. By the way to open and close the power moon roof you simply just swipe your finger backwards if you want it open and swipe it forwards if you want it closed. So I like the cool little easy gestures that Volvo has included in this thing. You also do get a crystal gear shift knob by Orphors if you go with the plus trim level that we have with us here today. And that looks dang good. They actually redesigned it for this XC40. So big fan of the look of that thing. That always looks dang good. But universal garage door opener does come standard and that's just underneath of the frameless rear view mirror as well. So that's pretty cool. Aluminum interior accents coming with the ultimate trim level. Driftwood trim coming with the plus and that's found on the doors just above the passenger side glove box as well. And I'm a huge fan of that. Barless fan charger can be found just in front of the shifter there. That is pretty darn cool. And I remember in the past there's actually gonna be a button to open the glove box but it looks like they did away with that because I actually have a handle on the glove box this year. So maybe that's a little bit of a change there.  So just notice that there's actually a little section for you to slide a pen in there right next to that ur-pencil I guess. But that is pretty cool too. I like how Volvo did that. Another thing I wanted to mention on the interior quality is the doors and just around the center console here everything is very soft. I don't know what kind of material this is but it almost feels like carpet. It's just a super soft feeling. And there is a little bit of indented storage right around the center console here as well. So that's pretty cool. Just in front of the shifter you do have a couple phone charging ports. There's a 12 volt power outlet. You got your dual cup holders to the right of the shifter there. Election mechanical parking brake. Decent amount of storage within that center armrest and yet again a removable trash bin in typical Volvo fashion. They always like doing this. They do that with their C40 as well. So I'm a big fan of that too. So a lot of cool little Easter eggs in the Volvo. I'll just put it that way. But now let's go ahead and make our way to the infotainment screen here. Nine inch vertical color touch screen display does come standard Bluetooth and audio streaming Android Auto Apple CarPlay. Climate control settings you can check out up there as well. Heated seat buttons you can check out up there. There's that heated steering wheel button you can find up there as well. But so then of course you can check out your radio information up there as well. And so when it comes to the sound systems there are two of them. First one is going to be an eight speaker sound system with 250 watts. That is what's going to come standard. But then there is the upgraded sound system which is a 13 speaker Harman Kardon sound system. But that is not the one we have today. We actually do have that eight speaker sound system with us here today. So what do you guys say? Let's go ahead and turn on the radio see what we got playing today and let's test out the clarity of this one. All right actually not bad because there was a decent amount of base with that eight speaker sound system. Clarity was pretty darn good as well. And it's not your traditional six speaker sound system which is what you usually will find in base sound systems in SUV. So the fact that you got eight speakers in a vehicle the size of the XC40 it's not even a larger SUV. This is a pretty darn good sound system being honest for the XC40. So I absolutely personally have had no issues there with that sound system. But anyways last thing I wanted to mention to you guys on the infotainment screen is when you do put the XC40 in reverse you will find a review camera coming standard across the board with a 360 degree camera that is gonna be optional. We do have that option. So I wanted to show that to you guys as well giving you that bird's eye view which is always is going to lead us into safety. And so IEHS top safety pick plus to start with which is the very highest rating. Like I said by IEHS that are pretty much as it all right there front side side carrying airbags do come standard drivers knee airbag as well. In the back you're gonna have latch AKA lower anchors and tethers for children for the rear car seats, rear child door locks for a person monitoring system but also coming standard blind spot monitoring system with rear cross traffic alert rear parking sensors lane keep assist lane departure warning and roadside recognition then as well. And if you're ready to go with either the plus or the ultimate terms you're going to add to that front and rear parking sensors. So that is pretty darn cold. But overall when it comes to my final thoughts here of the XC40 brilliant safety in this thing I absolutely love that the flag is sweetened on the passenger seat I always love that. That's a nice functionality in the cargo area with all of those grocery bag hooks. I also like what they did with the passenger side glove box here with the coat hook in there and the little place to put your pen. I don't see that on most vehicles out there the crystal shifter is absolutely amazing. As far as room for improvement goes multicolor ambient lighting would look pretty darn good in this thing. I would definitely add that since this is the luxury SUV a lot of other manufacturers like BMW, Mercedes Benz and even Hyundai and Kia they do multicolor ambient lighting beautifully. So I would love to see that in here and also again with the braking feel it just does not feel natural. It's very weird braking feel in this thing. You really have to stop on it to get it to stop. Anyways, let me know what you guys think of the XC40 and the redesign of the comment section below. That is about it for this one. You guys thank you so much for watching. Feel free to follow me on social media at the bottom of the screen if you want to see what's coming next on the channel before it gets to YouTube. Be sure to hit the subscribe and the bell notification button if you're into new car reviews that is what we do here on this channel after all. Do appreciate you guys watching more than you know when I will see you guys all in the next video. Stay Gold.


Good afternoon Marines. General Neller here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about a document we just published called Messenger of the Force for 2017 Seize the Initiative. Remember last year we published Frago number one, Advanced to Contact. This is a follow-on to that. It's a little different format but it gives kind of six resolutions for the year that we think are going to help us make us better. Help us bring our A-game every day. Make us more mentally prepared, personally ready, physically fit and maybe even have a little more fun out there living the life we live as Marines. We're a special breed. The nation expects us to be ready when the nation is at least ready. The world's a very unstable place and they expect that we're going to be out there to help make them safe. So I'd ask you and all your leadership to read this document and continue to discuss it and as a Sergeant Major and I travel around we're going to talk to you about it and get your feedback. But again I thank you every day for what you do. I appreciate you sticking your hand up in the air to serve Marines.  Summer Fidelis will see you out there in the Op 4.


Hello, hello, writers! I'm Kristen Kiefer, author of fantasy fiction and creative writing resources, and you are listening to the Well-Sturried podcast, where I share insights, encouragement, and actionable advice designed to help you craft sensational novels and build your best writing life, always in 30 minutes or less, so you can get back to writing of course. Ready for the show? Let's get talking! Hello, writers, and welcome or welcome back to another episode of the Well-Sturried podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Kiefer, and today is Friday, February 28th, 2020. Today we are going to break down the question of whether or not we should follow popular writing rules. These sorts of writing rules, such as, write every day, or always replace adverbs with stronger verbs or never use flashbacks, dream sequences, or prologues, often come up in the online writing conversations that I see. So I thought today that it would be worth interrogating whether or not we should follow these rules and whether or not good writing and storytelling are even something that can really be taught in the first place. So without any further ado, let's dive in. If you would like to read along as you listen in, simply head on over to well-sturried.com slash writing rules. Victoria V.E. Schwab is one of my favorite authors. Her Shades of Magic series holds a special place in my heart, being one of the most engrossing fantasy series I've ever read. But beyond the books she writes, I love V.E. Schwab for how vulnerable she discusses her personal creative process and publishing experience online. Her advice to show up, put in the work, let go of the outcome has been a personal mantra of mine since she first tweeted it several years ago. In addition to her creative encouragement and hard-hitting truths about the reality of the writing life, Schwab has also shared her disdain for prescriptive writing advice that is how-to content on social media. As someone who both admires Schwab deeply and happens to write prescriptive advice for a living, I've long struggled to reconcile her belief with my work. Of course, it's okay to disagree with your heroes from time to time, but nevertheless, my mind has returned to the question of why prescriptive writing advice might be problematic time and time again in recent months. After all, writing is both an art and a craft. While language and storytelling serve as forms of self-expression, one can also learn structures and techniques that can help them become a better writer. Such guidance exists in every creative art, from painting to dancing, playing music and beyond. Why then would it be wrong to provide how-to guidance on the writing craft? Or, to flip this question, should we, as writers, forgo following popular writing rules? How about advice offered from other writers, editors, or industry professionals? The answer to this question, in my opinion, is multifaceted and requires us to define the writing craft in greater detail. How I approach the writing craft through my website and resources. Here at Well-Storied, I teach storytelling structures and techniques that can help writers craft sensational novels and build their best writing lives. Though I firmly believe that there's no right way to be a writer or craft a story, I also believe in the power that a strong understanding of the craft can lend to a writer's work. Established structures and techniques exist for a reason. They've aided countless writers in crafting well-developed stories and defining the unique creative processes that work for them. Though every writer internalizes structures and techniques from the stories they consume, an active study of the craft can help a writer hone their skill to a greater degree. To wittingly forgo developing a basic understanding of the craft is, in my opinion, a foolish decision. Understanding the mechanics behind your art form will in no way inhibit your ability to express yourself freely via that medium. Moreover, common storytelling structures and techniques are not rules that must be followed to achieve success. The guidance that works for one writer or one story might not work for another, and that's okay. The purpose of studying the craft is to discover the structures and techniques that can help you write your best story and develop an effective creative process. When does writing advice become problematic? Viewed in the light I just shared, I see no issue in teaching or applying common writing and storytelling principles. Rather, prescriptive writing advice becomes problematic when it's framed as the right or only way to achieve a specific end. You've seen this advice. It says that successful writers write every day. They never use adverbs, prologues, or flashbacks. They always read their work aloud, and they never use five words when three will do. They stick to genre standards, write what they know, and craft stories solely for commercial success or literary merit. And they'll tell you that you have to do the same. These so-called writing rules might work well for some writers in some situations or for some stories, but they're far from a formula for success. As V.E. Schwab says in an interview with Chelsea Pennington of Pen and Paper, I think it's important for aspiring writers to seek out a broad spectrum of resources, but not to take any of them as prescriptive. The only thing that works is whatever works for you. I couldn't agree more with this statement. Every story is unique, as is every writer's creative process. The belief that any piece of writing advice is one size fits all, applicable to every writer's story and situation, is startlingly egotistical. Nevertheless, let's talk about the importance of interrogating prescriptive advice. Though writing advice should never be presented as prescriptive, that is authoritarian, common writing rules are often misconstrued or contain a kernel of truth worth considering. For this reason, it's worth interrogating any piece of writing advice you're presented. Let's break down four common examples together. Example number one, write what you know. This piece of advice is often misunderstood to mean that you shouldn't write about anything you haven't personally experienced, which is frankly impossible when writing fiction. Rather, this advice is meant to encourage writers to tap into the depths of their emotional experiences and interests when putting pen to paper.  Adverbs are often a sign of poor word choice. For example, she ran swiftly or he said awkwardly. Therefore, taking time to question the adverbs in your writing can be a great way to improve the overall quality of your prose. But don't mistake this advice to mean that adverbs are evil by default. They also hold the power to provide clarity in cases where no better word choices exist. Use them wisely. Example number three, flashbacks represent lazy writing. Flashbacks disrupt the pace of a story's narrative, which is why they're often considered to be a sign of poor writing. But when written with purpose and woven into a narrative with care, flashbacks can also deepen characterization and provide a story with necessary context. You can read more about how to use flashbacks well in the link that I've included in today's episode transcript at well-storied.com slash writing rules. Example number four, successful writers write every day. Every writer has a different process and schedule. While a daily writing routine works well for some writers, it won't work well for all. The kernel of truth inside this piece of advice is the power of consistency. Whether you write every day or just one or two times a week, forging a writing practice that's in some way consistent is key to making measurable progress in your journey toward personal writing success. To discover whether a daily writing routine is right for you, make sure to check out the link that I've also included in today's episode transcript. If you're an active member of the online writing community, you're likely bombarded with advice meant to guide you in your writing journey each and every day. Some of these voices will be worth heeding. Others won't. At the end of the day, remember that there is no secret formula for writing growth or success. The right tools and resources can help you become the writer you want to be, but there is no right way to write. No right way to build a writing practice, no right way to develop a story, no right approach to process or publication. Write what you love using the structures and techniques that best enable you to write it and you can't fail to find the creative success you seek. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the podcast writer. I hope you found it helpful to your writing journey. If so, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode and to give the podcast a quick rating and review. Doing so goes a long way toward helping the podcast reach new writers and let's me know that you're enjoying what I'm creating. You can also give me a shout out directly on Twitter at christen underscore keeper for additional guidance as you work to craft sensational novels and build your best writing life. Be sure to head on over to www.well-storied.com where I share blog posts, workbooks, e-courses, and other helpful resources for writers. Again, that's w-e-l-l-s-t-o-r-i-e-d.com. Thank you again for tuning in to today's episode, my friend. Until next time, happy writing!


Hello and welcome to the session. Let's work out the following question. It says that i, b, a, d interval disjoint from minus 1, 1 proves that the function f given by fx is equal to x plus 1 by x is strictly increasing on i. Let's now move on to the solution. The given function is x plus 1 by x. We have to show that this is an increasing function and we know that to prove that a function is increasing, we need to prove that its first order derivative is greater than 0 in the open interval. So, we first need to find the first order derivative of this function. So, f dash x is equal to 1 minus 1 upon x squared derivative of x is 1 and derivative of 1 upon x is minus 1 upon x squared. Now, we have to show that f dash x is greater than 0 in the interval i, which is disjoint from minus 1 and 1. So, for x belonging to i and x does not belong to the open interval minus 1 and 1, x squared will be greater than 1, right? Since x does not belong to the open interval minus 1 and 1, x squared will be greater than 1. You can take any example. Let's say if you take minus 2. So, square would be 4, which is greater than 1. So, x squared would be greater than 1 and in that case, x squared minus 1 will be greater than 0 and from here, we can say f dash x is x squared minus 1 upon x squared and of course, x squared is greater than 0 in the perfect square. Therefore, f dash x, which is x squared minus 1 upon x squared is greater than 0. For x belonging to the interval i and x is not an element of the open interval minus 1, 1. Hence, f is an increasing function. In fact, it is a strictly increasing function. So, this completes the question on the session. Why for now, I think you have a good day.


Good day, fellow investors. A customer from Canada asked me to help her with her pension fund investment strategy. Unfortunately, the options there are very limited, but I thought I'll dig in because I think it will give a lot of value to a lot of viewers. So let's dig into the pension fund investing strategy for those who have a pension fund to invest in. The list of options is very limited. We have cash and cash equivalent funds, fixed income, Canadian equity, US equity, true, free funds, BG, Fidelity, TDAM, international equity, foreign global equity, and then balanced funds with fixed bonds and stocks, depending also on the target date funds. So these options are really limited, but you have to do what you can with what you have. In order to help with the extremely important pension investing strategy, I did some research and the more research I did, the more I got pissed, pissed, outrageously mad. Let me show you what I found. Let's first take a look at this money fund. Sunlife, money market fund, so cash investments that should be very, very low fee. But the management fee here is 1%. The management expense ratio is 0.56% but I didn't dig how they calculate. Both the 0.56% and 1% is extremely high for a fund that has a cash position of 82% and invest mostly in short-term treasury bills. That's crazy high fees with the yields that are around 1.5 now that were extremely lower in the past before interest rates started rising. A year ago they would take everything, all your gains in fees and now it is a little bit less so you still get what 0.4, 0.5% of a yield. Okay, it is something but the fee that they charge is outrageous. Just the money cash fee, so if you have it in a bank, there is no fee. If you have it in a cash fund like this that has only cash, there is a fee of 1%. That's outrageous and if you are a Canadian pension fund investor, if you have a pension fund in Canada this needs government intervention immediately. So call Justin and tell him to lower the fees of your pension funds because your pension, your pension, your retirement, your financial well-being is going to the pension fund managers, not to you because of their huge fees. Perhaps for me I think the best strategy, life strategy would be for me to become a pension fund manager in Canada.  Let's dig deeper. Another fund that I checked is the Fidelity True North Fund. Fidelity famous for extremely low costs. Then I check here the management expense ratio 2.25%. Fidelity is famous for charging fees of 0.04% in the US on an index funds here in Canada for their true north customers. So they charge 2.25%. Similarly the SunLife Milestone 2040 target fund that has an allocation of 70% in bonds and a little bit in global equity has a management expense ratio of 2.28%. So a fund that invests 80% in fixed income has a fee of 2.23%. That's outrageous. So if you don't want to be 70 and waiting tables somewhere at the Vancouver Island, then you should do something about this. So again the second step is call your prime minister and make him do something about those fees. Just an example of what this leads to is I expect long-term average returns from stocks and bonds given the current interest rate environment will be around 4%. So here I have set a portfolio where I invest $3,000 per year for 30 years for my pension fund and the return is 4% per year. Without a fee the return is 174,000. So I invest 3,000 per year for 30 years, thus 90,000 and my return is then 174,000. With a 2% fee that those gentlemen from Canada charge for nothing mostly, the return is 123,000. So 30% of your pension goes to fees. If the fee is a more normal fee like I see in the United States of 0.2%, then the difference is just 5,000, 174,000 in comparison to 169,000. So the gentleman managing your pension fund will get 30% of your pension. 40% of your pension is a big difference is a difference between visiting your grandchildren or rotting in some cheap hospital somewhere in the middle of nowhere. So be sure if you can to share this and really send a message something has to be done here. However, if we can't do anything as it usually is with those political positions, political monopolies, where those with power take advantage of those who haven't power, we have to see what's the smartest strategy to invest. So let's dig into that unfortunately. Now if I invest in an index fund like the TSX Composite Index Fund, I always look at the CAPE ratio, the Psychically Adjusted Price Earnings ratio that tells me what are the average earnings over the last 10 years. And the CAPE ratio for the Canada Composite Index is 24.21. A look at historical returns based on starting CAPE ratios from 1926 to 2012 shows that the expected average 10-year return from the current CAPE will be between 0 and 1%, so almost negative. So I don't expect much from stocks now. Unlikely historically, anything can happen. However, those managers, they charge you a fee whether they perform or not. That doesn't matter for them.  So I'm thinking, okay stocks are very expensive, I have to put my money for tax benefits for whatever the employer benefits they put in the money. So what I can do, I can differentiate between my pension fund and my other investments. I say, okay, now stocks are very expensive. I will keep cash in my pension fund because there is the lowest fee and I get some yield, small below inflation, terrible high fee, but I get some yield and I can keep my cash position in my pension fund. I have to set up a secondary portfolio where I invest, where I take responsibility for my retirement and there I invest in real estate, stocks, businesses, whatever, and here I try to really invest smartly by looking for higher yields and lower risks. So you have to learn about investing and balance that out. When stocks get cheaper, then you take more and more cash from your pension fund and invest it in those funds. A 2% fee is still high, but if the return is 8%, it looks a little bit better. In the meantime, you balance with other investments. So that would be my strategy in this case. Further, if you invest now in stocks, apart from the extremely high valuations, the SAP TSEX composite index is extremely badly diversified. The constituents' top holdings are Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto Dominion Bank, and Bank of Nova Scotia. And then you have Bank of Montreal and then you have the Canada Imperial Bank. So mostly focused on financials, then energy, and those stocks really depend on the economy. So your pension fund depends on the economy, your job depends on the economy, the government depends on the economy, everything depends on the economy. So most then investors in Canada that simply invest in their pension fund, well diversified they think, they own banks, they own their home, they own bonds, Canadian bonds if they hold the cash. So all those things are very, very inter-color related. If real estate goes down, your home, your mortgage, your job, if there is a recession, the bonds, everything crashes. So I really think people should create a separate portfolio that's diversified from what everybody has here. Still do it, but create more, I know you have to put aside more and more thinking, but I think it will be a great benefit in the long term. So to conclude first, call Justin, get to him, send him emails, hands, send him everything. Those fees, those monopolies have to be lowered. 0.2% fee is the maximum you should pay on your pension fund with the opportunities to invest where you want. Today we have so many opportunities, low-cost index funds that you can really make a well-diversified, low-cost portfolio that will be an average 0.2, 0.3%. Everything else is robbery, stealing, outrageous. The second strategy really apply common sense, think for yourself and see, okay, will this lead me to my retirement financial goals, the 4% minus 2.5% fee? If you see that it won't lead you, start diversifying, start looking for other investments, start building your own wealth and there is no other thing than taking responsibility for your finances. Don't put your financial life into the hands of the government. Did you ever see it succeed? I didn't, so really I wouldn't trust that. Diversify, create a life for yourself. Unfortunately I can't do more, that is what I would do, keep the cash there and then balance accordingly. If you still want to be exposed long there, then you can always have, I don't know, now that stocks are expensive, 50% in cash, 50% in stocks, or 50% in bonds, 50% stocks and then depending on what is the yield rebalance accordingly. Unfortunately they will take 1-2% of your retirement funds no matter what in the form of fees. Thank you for watching, looking forward to your comments and I'll see you in the next video.


One of the great 19th-century mathematicians, Niels Henrik Abel, was once asked about how to succeed in mathematics. Study the masters and not the pupils. The story may be apocryphal, but the advice is sound. If you want to become good at mathematics, study the masters. But they were unavailable, so you got me. Hey, now it's not that bad. As we pointed out before, once an algorithm exists, a machine can implement it faster, cheaper, and more accurately than any human. So learning algorithms is not that important. Instead, you should learn how to create algorithms. It's worth remembering creativity is a skill it gets better with practice. So let's try to create an algorithm for matching. We can use our proof of Hall's theorem as a starting point. The proof of Hall's theorem relied on finding some subset, t, where the neighborhood was the same size. We then proved that a matching existed between t and its neighborhood, and a matching existed between the remaining part of x and the remaining part of y. Putting these two matchings together gave us a matching between x and y. And since x minus t and y minus the neighborhood of t are smaller sets than the original x and y, it should be easier to find a matching between them. This suggests a simplification of the problem of finding a matching. If we can find a subset of x where the neighborhood is the same size as the subset, we can look for a matching between the remaining parts of x and y. Now intuitively, if we wanted to find a matching between the jobs x and persons capable of doing the job y, the most problematic situations are those where a job can only be done by one person. But these correspond to vertices of degree 1. So let x1 be the vertices in x with degree 1. Since the vertices have degree 1, the neighborhood is no larger than x itself. And if it is actually smaller, then Hall's theorem guarantees no matching exists. And if it's exactly equal, then we can try to find a matching between the remaining parts of the sets. Let's see how that might work and try to find a matching between the sets shown. So we notice we have a couple of degree 1 vertices, and this set A, D, G has neighbors R, P, and T. So here's a set whose neighbors are the same size. Now there's an obvious matching between them. And by the proof of Hall's theorem, we know that there will also be a matching between the remaining parts of the set. So let's eliminate these vertices. And now we have a new graph. And we have a new set, B, C, and E, all of degree 1, with neighbors M, Q, and N. And again, we know that there is a matching between these two sets. If we eliminate them, there should be a matching between the remaining parts of the sets. And so we can find a matching in our remaining set. We can restore the set we removed. And since these are all degree 1 vertices, they are automatically matched to their neighbors. We'll restore the first set we removed. And again, these are automatically matched to their neighbors. And here's our matching. Now in any creative enterprise, it's important to remember 90% of everything is junk. This is known as Sturgeon's Law after the 20th century science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon. What this means is that most things you create aren't going to be worth anything. In this case, our algorithm simplifies the problem of finding a matching, provided our graph has degree 1 vertices. But most graphs don't have many degree 1 vertices, so our algorithm isn't really practical. But remember, the contra-positive of Sturgeon's Law is that quality work forms only a small portion of any creative corpus. In other words, don't worry about the value of what you've created. Practice creativity, create a lot, and quality will follow. Or not. To log those lines, it's useful to keep in mind Asimov's corollary, also named after another 20th century science fiction author, nothing is ever completely worthless. In other words, we might still be able to make use of our algorithm with some modifications. So let's take a look at our algorithm again. The key feature we utilize was that if the neighborhood of a set is the same size as the set, we can find a matching between the set and its neighborhood, and a matching between the remaining parts of the sets. If x1 was a set of degree 1 vertices, then we were guaranteed that the neighborhood of x1 was no larger than x1 itself, so we could either show that no matching could exist, or partition x and y into smaller sets. But having degree 1 wasn't essential. The key requirement was the neighborhood of a set was the same size as the set. So let xi be the set of vertices in x with degree i. If the neighborhood is the same size, then we can partition x into xi, which has a matching with its neighborhood, and x minus xi, which has a matching with the remaining part of y. So let's try it out. So we see that there's no degree 1 vertices in our set. The degree 2 vertices are a, b, c, and h, and their neighbors are n, o, t, and v, which has the same size, so we remove these vertices and their incident edges. Now there's a degree 1 vertex, so we've removed it and its incident edge. And now there's some degree 2 vertices with neighbors, and again the set is the same size as its neighborhood. We remove it, and now we find a matching. Now remember we still have those other vertices, so let's bring them back. We'll restore the vertices and edges of degree 2, and find a matching. We'll bring back the vertex we got rid of, and find a matching. We'll bring back the vertices we got rid of, then find a matching. And so here's a matching for our graph. While this algorithm gave us a matching, it still relied on good fortune we had to find a set that had the same size as its neighborhood. However, it does give us another starting point for an improved algorithm. In general, if xk are vertices in G of degree k, where the size of xk is the same as the size of its neighborhood, we can remove both xk and its neighborhood. We look for a matching between the remaining parts of x and y. And what this means is that a graph matching algorithm can assume that the size of xk is always smaller than the size of its neighborhood. And so the question you got to ask yourself is, can this be the start of an algorithm? And the answer is, maybe, but that's a full research project.


many months. I've just gotten my canoe back. This is an exciting day because of some important things. This means that my friend is finished building his boat or at least finished enough that he can use his boat. Oh this is good stuff. So this is a friend. I haven't talked about this too much because you know I don't want to invade on other people's privacy stuff but I have two friends, a couple who came, I don't know, sometime last year came to live here and they built a house, bought some land, and now they just finished up making a pedal boat. The guy used the molds that I made to build this pedal boat. So this one this one's mine. He made one kind of like this but actually kind of better. He spent more time on it and did a really really good job on it. Maybe I'll get a video of it because I'm sure he's gonna come over here. But yeah, now they're like, they have a home, they're mobile. I might even be ready to tackle inviting more people. It's a lot of effort weeding through people to find cool people to you know be part of a community. Of course there's also the trickiness of defining what a community is because different people have different ideas of what a community is and you know there are a lot of different kinds of communities. Here he comes now. The zoom is not the best with this camera. It doesn't have the cover on yet. The steering is not finished but totally functional. Enough to return the canoe. Oh man, that was a good looking boat. I like it. Yeah, you like how you get a shower while you're driving?  The steering will go in this tube here then there'll be a cover up and then that's that's pretty much it. I did drive in it. It was excellent. Except it's wider and longer. Yeah, they built it.


One of the things we have to do with Excel is connect to alternate sources of data Because we don't want to have to be the guy who comes in here and types in all this information Notice how it's all blank, but let's say for example. We come down here to fund history Obviously, we're talking about all of the data that this fund has ever received Now I don't want to deal with that. You don't want to deal with that What we can do is we can actually have that information stored to us in another File one of the things we have is say this text file, which has the entire fund history going back from 2013 up to not only today, but actually the future because we like to work with the future So what I can do here is I can actually take this information if you notice it's structured pretty nicely It's pretty Uniform and it's a look and feel what we can do is we can actually take this information and we can do something known as import it into Excel So how do we do that? We start by heading over to our data tab Inside here, you notice immediately that our first section our first section is known as get external data What that'll actually allow us to do is specify where we're getting that information So we were just looking at that text file How would we go about getting that text? From text if we click on this information we get an immediate dialogue box box Asking us where we want to grab that from now It's wherever my other files are that I've downloaded Accordingly in my CH history as I click import I get a nice little wizard that kind of walks me through the process So say for example if we kind of look at our wizard, you see I don't really need rows one two three four or five I actually don't need that information So what I'm able to do is well, I maybe want five But instead of starting my row at or starting my import at row one I could change that to starting at row five start with this being the first thing I get Start with date Now one of the things that we can take note of here is every one of these things is gonna have a sort of Fixed size to it. So here's the start of the low Section and here's the end of it. Here's the start of the close Etc. So what we're able to do is maybe we can use that to our advantage by saying each Field each one of these kind of columns even though they don't exist as columns yet can be its own little thing Now one of the things that happens when I select next is you notice I get a few different arrows here Now what I'm doing is I'm actually specifying that fixed width So say for example, I click and drag this first arrow over a little bit Now I'm saying that that column is gonna be one column going and cutting off right about here Same thing if I bring this over here, I bring this one over here I bring this one over here and now I don't need this guy at all. I actually can I don't need to do this I Can I don't need to what I can do is I can delete that by simply double-clicking on it Now get rid of it. No problem either way now what I can do is I can hit next and it allows me to take what I've seen take what data I'm importing and Give it a little format. So say for example that first section right now It's set to general, but you know the header is telling me it's a date. So why don't I just specify it's a date? Now if we look at it, you know, we're seeing 2013 0401 April Fool's Day Yeah, April Fool's Day. So Instead of it being month day year, it's actually probably more like your month day So that's one thing that we can do if we don't want us particular column to do anything like this one will leave it This one will leave it this one will leave it, but say for example, I don't want open I don't need it. You know, I don't need to know what the the Price was when it opened every day. I don't care about what it was closing that day So what I can actually do is I can come in here and I can say do not include and So what it's gonna do is it's gonna take this and it's gonna skip that column entirely So when I hit finish, I get a final little message asking me where I want it to appear Depending on wherever it appears. I can just specify by clicking on there and when I hit, okay, I Now have all of that information nicely imported into Excel for me Pretty nice


Where have my carowans construction updates been?  I'm so sorry, I thought everyone knew that the construction on carowans copperhead strike was over, it's complete. And when I say it's over, it's complete, I mean the actual iron workers. So the iron workers on site are done erecting the steel for the coaster. I'm not quite sure if that last transfer track piece has been installed, I'm assuming so. Because I'm assuming they would want to get that in and then get the steel workers off site or iron workers off site, there's no reason to keep them there longer, unless they need that off to get the trains on. I don't know, I don't know how mocks are assembled. But yeah, it's looking really great. The buildings are coming up, I mean compared to Yukon Stryker, we don't see formation at all of any buildings whatsoever yet. So this is pretty awesome to see the barn, the launch shed. I think they're even starting the queue line building, if I'm not mistaken. And in this footage, behind the scenes, very shortly you'll see they're doing the actual storage shed itself. It has been erected, which is pretty cool. So thanks to carowans fans only for sending us in some awesome shots of a really awesome behind the scenes tour yesterday. So he was lucky enough to be at the park at the right time and was invited behind the fence to check it out before the season's over. So this is super awesome, you're gonna get some really awesome up close shots. Thanks to carowans fans only. Check them out on Facebook and YouTube. He's done some awesome coverage of Copperhead Strike throughout the season. In fact, we've used his posts and his pictures and videos all a lot this season. So a huge thank you to you, happy new year to you. And thanks so much. So as you can see, Copperhead Strike is complete. This is why there hasn't been any construction updates, but they are hard at work with the theming. So here's an up close shot of the launch with the little bunny hill, which I'm predicting to be a lot of airtime. That's gonna be unique. I've never been on a roller coaster where you launch and then in the launch, you're in an airtime hill. So that'll be a fun experience. I'm looking forward to that as well. I'm trying to see if there's been anything different from when it's been completed. Obviously, electricals being installed at Yukon Striker as well. They're hard at work. It looks like they were able to have the company that installs the theming and the structures on at the same time as the iron workers where that's not the case at Wonderland. So that's been a very big help to carowans as well. We do know that carowans does open a whole month and a half earlier than Canada's Wonderland. So that's probably why they're rushing this a little quicker as well. So it's gonna be awesome to see this coaster wrapped up really quickly. I mean, we should see testing probably in the next 30 days, to be honest. If Yukon Striker is supposed to be testing in the next like two months, I'm predicting Copperhead Strike must be testing in the next 30 days, to be honest. That's a really big estimate and take that with a huge grain of salt. I'm literally just pulling that number out of thin air and basing it off of Yukon Striker's testing schedule. But that's my prediction. I'm gonna stick with it because if Yukon Striker is testing in two months, Copperhead Strike has to be testing soon. So that'll be fun to see. Hopefully someone will be invited to that or if they're doing an event for that. I have no idea if carowans will do an event for that. But that'll be exciting. And as you can see here, the flyers, vertical started on the flyers. I think everyone in the enthusiast community already knows that. But this is just a little flat ride that'll be assembled in the Blue Ridge Junction area along with Copperhead Strike. So that's gone vertical. They'll just assemble that as well. It's been sitting in storage for those of you that don't know. But Hurler, I think this is called Hurler. It's from what I understand, they were both called Hurler. Has some massive retracking going on on it. This is a pretty big portion that they're retracking which you'll see in this video. It leads me to believe that Hurler actually isn't going to be arm seed anytime soon. I know that's a really big statement to make but whenever you see a very large portion of a coaster being retracted, I like to think that it means that it's not going to be receiving a big update anytime soon, whether that be GCI or RMC, just because they wouldn't be spending money on it if it was in the near future unless it was an absolute necessity. So let's say something was wrong with the track work or something was going wrong or they viewed it as unsafe in the next year, then I could see that still being a possibility. But we know that Seed Affair is generally really good at upkeep on their attractions. Anyways, here's a quick update on the dorms. I believe these are the dorms in this video. So that's going to be a great help. I love that Seed Affair is focusing on that. Anyways, there's going to be some really awesome shots from Caroline's fans only at the end of this video showing off Blue Ridge Junction and Copperhead Construction. I hope you guys really enjoyed this video. Give the video a like, subscribe if you haven't and share this video for others to watch. Thanks so much for watching guys. Hopefully this video updated you on all the progress at Copperhead Strike. I don't know if there'll be any more future videos unless there's a behind the scenes construction tour over the winter, like over at some of the other parks. So hopefully you enjoyed this video. I'll keep you posted if I learn anything more in Copperhead Strike. Thanks for being interested in the construction progress of Copperhead Strike on amusement insiders. Thanks for watching guys. Hopefully you had an amazing New Year's. Have a good one guys. Bye.


Alright, so now that the course is over, I just want to say that I am so proud of you. Every time I see your videos come up, whether it's in the group or in the real world on social media when you post it publicly, I'm just so happy that you once again show up even though you can always prepare more, but you decided to show up anyway and then uploaded that video and what I really hope is that this course has given you the encouragement and perhaps even the confidence to continue making videos on a consistent basis going forward and that by doing so, you'll find that year by year, your sense of authentic self-expression blossoms and becomes deeper and becomes more true to your authentically powerful voice and I look for this also of course seeing that you know you come back to me at some point and say, hey, one of my videos went viral instead of getting you know 15 views, it got several hundred views or it got several thousand views, please do let me know that because I would be so gratified to hear about this and over the years you're going to grow an audience that really resonate with the truth of who you are, how you show up on a regular basis on camera and those true audience members of course some of them are going to be your ideal clients, they're going to be your referral sources, some of them may even become lifelong friends. So thank you again for being part of this course, I'm so proud of you and please keep going, keep working that video making muscle on a regular basis, thanks again.