All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I think we're ready to go. Everybody's finished checking the email, Twitter, and so thanks for coming out. We're really excited to be able to talk to you guys about improving your new engagement and some of the tips and tips that we can help you guys. I'm Katherine McNally, and this is Dave Espire from Phase 2. I just kind of want to get out there that we showed up individually this morning, wearing pretty much the exact same thing. And we were deposed to wear Phase 2 t-shirts, but we were like, no, we got to roll with it. So they're just not intentional. So thanks again. We've got a lot to cover. We're really excited. And as I mentioned, I'm Katherine. I lost my hearing to meningitis when I was eight months old. And I was one of the first recipients of the cochlear implant, which is a technological implantable device. So I've been a technology pioneer my whole life. So it's been really cool. So I've grown up and I've lived computers, and I'm really excited to talk about how we can have a technology to bridge communities and equal the playing field for everybody. Hi, I'm David Spire. My background in accessibility started when I was 16 years old, when I volunteered to build a computer lab at a retirement home and teach the people living there how to use them and got an immediate and startling crash course on accessibility. We both work for Phase 2. We're a digital agency. We design, develop, and do a whole bunch of awesome things for various web properties. We're hiring. We have a really interesting booth downstairs, so you should definitely come check it out. Let's dive on in. The elderly are going to outnumber those under the age of five by 2020. This is a thing that hasn't happened before in history. So while they aren't making new ones, the baby boomers are the largest segment and the elderly are the fastest growing segment in America at the moment. And this is happening throughout the Western world. They make up 15% of the population. And this is a group that you cannot afford to ignore. Because 68% of baby boomers, and please, folks, come on in. There's plenty of seating up front, if you want. 68% of baby boomers have multiple devices. These are folks over the age of 55, and they're used to using them. As they start to age, they are not like their parents' generation who generally didn't care about use of technology. These are people who are expecting to use technology until they're gone. So don't treat them like you, you know, from a web design standpoint, like the previous elderly generation who genuinely didn't care. So on top of that, you have this group of one in five Americans who have a disability. Now, this map that you're seeing here doesn't mean much for accessibility, but just to give you a frame of reference, this is each state redrawn according to its population. And if we were to go and take a look at the population of people in America with disabilities, it's seven times the population of the state of New York. So this is a large amount of people. One in five Americans have a disability, and half of them need some kind of assistance navigating a website. So that's 10% of the population, essentially. Do you want to ignore 10% of the population? And then on top of that, you have temporary disabilities. A friend of mine went snowboarding, had a very interesting fall, and left the hospital with both of his hands and casts. These things happen. People have strokes, people encounter all sorts of unexpected elements that change the way that they see and hear and interact with the world. So this is not just for some niche group of people. We're talking, when we talk about accessibility, we're talking about everybody. We're talking about the elderly.  And we're talking about people who are living functional lives without any impairments who suddenly find themselves in need of accessibility. This is truly for everyone. So let's talk a little bit about colorblindness. And if you've ever attended one of our talks, one of the things that we really focus on is reframing disability and helping people find an empathic connection to these problems. So colorblindness affects half a percent of women. Colorblindness is genetic. But it affects approximately 8% of men. So that's an important thing to note. If you operate a website that is targeting men, you're talking about 8% of your audience is colorblind. The cobblest colorblindness simulator is a thing I'm a really big fan of. Because what it does is it allows you to upload images and then simulate most of the different types of colorblindness that are out there and see what your designs look like through the eyes of someone else, literally. So on the left you're going to see a normal image. On the right you're going to see a different type of colorblindness. It's worth noting there are lots of different types of colorblindness. So red week. This is what red blind looks like. Blue blind. And then black and white, which is the stereotypical but incredibly rare colorblindness that most people, I think, think of when people talk about colorblindness. This isn't actually a very common form of it. Let's see if it's going. Okay. So this is the cobblest colorblindness simulator. So you can just upload an image. This is Humanitarian ID, an app that I worked on for about a year. And this is what it's looking like through different types of colorblindness. You can very quickly, easily, and for absolutely no money, upload screenshots of your designs, of your existing websites, and run them through and see what they look like for different types of colorblindness. And what you're looking for is not this mythic perfect brand experience for the colorblind. You're not going to achieve that. But what you are looking for is making sure that you can actually read and see everything that's relevant on the page. So really the great thing about technology is that it can enable independent living. People who have a wheelchair, or who are blind, or who have hair loss, can use technology to get what they need. If you think about somebody who's blind, they can use Alexa at home to call Uber, where they're having to rely on somebody else to drive them somewhere. So they can lever technology to advance to make their data lives easier. One thing that I just kind of want to talk about a very ironic experience, when you're thinking about your website and who you're serving, and who's your audience, and thinking about that, you would be amazed at what kind of sites I encounter in the customer service that I experience. I just want to talk to you about the experience I had a year ago when my cochlear implants broke.  I can't come to work, I can't talk to my family, I can't talk to my friends, but I can't hear them. So it's a very distressing experience. So I have a little turning map of what was going on when my process was broken. I was in a really low emotional state, like, shoot. I can't function. I can't be productive. My project is broken. So I'm going to go to their company's website and say, hey, they're to contact us for them, good, but I can't call them. So I'm able to go on the website and say, hey, my project is broken. I need a replacement. I can't submit. You know, the response I got was, hey, call us. Really?  And the response was, get me a call. You clearly do not know your audience. You do not know who you're serving. And it was kind of a bummer moment because I had to call mom. I had to text my mom and be like, mom, keep this for me. I'm 33 years old and I still need help. And that was kind of a bummer and that really negatively impacted me as a person. And it made me feel like I still needed somebody to help me. I couldn't do this alone. I can't adult by myself. But now let's look at the ideal experience and what the ultimate experience could have been. So as we can see, my project is broken and I'm waiting. I'm anxious. So in the response I get is, hey, sorry, it's broken. Here are several ways that you can contact us. You can text, you can need to chat with it on our website. You can also email us. You will get to a replacement, ASAP. Usually they overnight a device. And in the meanwhile, I still need to go to my clinic to literally get my hearing reprogrammed. They put me up to a computer and then I get a new program for my processors. So I had to go to my audiologist's website. Remember, I can't hear anything. Thankfully, Johns Hopkins, who's just down the road, said, hey, use an online booking calendar to book an appointment with a doctor. And that was great because I could see all the available times. Then my doctor could see me as well as mine. So that created a much more permanent experience. And the great thing was they didn't call me to confirm. They confirmed me in the same way I reached out to them by text means. So they texted me to, hey, an appointment's been confirmed or seen on Thursday. That was good because they didn't call me, which would have gone unanswered. So, and you know, and the great thing is my doctor saw me and then she sent me a follow-up email to say, hey, hope it's working out great. So this is a really important experience for you to think about in the audience who are serving and think about the response and how are you receiving that audience? Are you able to access them? Are you able to give them the means to get in touch with you? And so I really want to talk here about, like, teacher-proofing your digital experience. What are those temporarily disabling conditions? Are they going to be able to do to site if they don't know how to use a screen reader? Or if they don't know the keyboard shortcuts? Are those click targets easy to find? Easy to understand the web experience? Thinking about those experiences because not everybody's going to know how to use a screen reader right off the back. Now, I kind of want to go through some experiences that emulate what it's like for somebody who can't see a screen. And so we're going to go through a quick exercise. I'm going to be playing an audio description of an image, and I want you to try to visualize what that image is. So. Image, man washing hands. Oh, dear. Image, man washing hands. I'll come to mind. What do you think about when you hear man washing hands? It could be a lot of different images, right? Did it look something like this? I doubt it. She thought of a search and washed his hands. Let me see your hands. I didn't think so. Now, let's talk about writing a good alt text description. Now, one thing I love to do is think about alt text like a tweet. Swirl succinct into the point. Now, in that image I just showed you how about something like mere doctor inscribes, surgical cap, and masks looks on as you lather up to elbows with soap to prepare for surgery. That's more descriptive than man washing hands. You mean to say? Good. I'm going to agree. So consider thinking about why was that image chosen? What was the context of that image? Why did someone on the content marketing team say there's just an important image? What does it communicate? What does it convey? And so we're going to be, what is the emotional context of this? Only you are carrying a website. Do you want to show the hospital patients that you care in Hytenic? So we've got mere doctor inscribes, surgical cap, and masks. So surgical cap indicates standard of care. It's not really a baseball cap going to surgery. So it's important to say it's a surgical cap, looks on, meaning he's observant, he's alert. You know, he's ready to prepare for surgery. Lathers up to soap and elbows, meaning that he's Hytenic. Another important thing in preparation for surgery indicates purpose. So these are very important qualities of an image that you want to be able to communicate to a user for screen reader. And it's not just for screen readers. It's great for SEO. So you're going to be getting these to help your website search. Now, let's do an exercise together. Let's write our text together. So now the context of this is the Red Cross Disaster Relief. And there's a disaster going on. So if you would go to Twitter and you go to see McNally, I have a link, then you all can go to and click on from your mobile phone and describe this image together. So let's take a few minutes and describe that image. So if you have a hard time finding the link, please let me know. And it's also under David's Twitter handle. So literally it's going to your URL, type twitter.com, see McNally. There will be a link. It's my first tweet, my most recent tweet that is a sent out. And Andrew will take you to this forum. Let's see if it came in. Don't be shy. I'm going to zoom in, if I can. So we have two now. Anyone need more time? I'm going to start reading out some of the responses that came in. Now we've got, I'm going to refresh this. Okay, great.  That's pretty good. But we're missing the context of the America Red Cross. These could be two friends. It's missing the context of an aid worker. We've got American Red Cross, aid worker hiking, devastated woman surrounded by home workers under abuse guy. That's very good. That indicates the disaster already happened and there's a recovery process. There's a rebuilding process. So that's definitely a good description.  Volunteer hikes flooding victim. Could be a little bit more descriptive because is the flood still going on? You know, we can't quite tell. And then let's see what else is there. Anybody else want to chime in from the audience if you want to say if you have any other suggestions? But I think it's really about context and the context matters. Thanks for participating there. I think the link is live if you ever want to keep trying it and you can see what people wrote for reference. So again, as you mentioned, these guys, the home is destroyed. There's women embracing a disaster aid relief worker. This shows, hey, we're here for you. This could be on the American Red Cross homepage to show, hey, we care. We're first to respond with their ASAP. So that is the context of our text. Links is another thing that is very challenging. And oftentimes missing context. A lot of times we see links that are more click here, contact us, but doesn't have the context that we need to understand what the link is saying or what it means. So how many of you have ever heard a screen reader before? Oh, that's a good number of you. So I'm going to play a series of videos that emulate what the screen reader is saying. And again, this is not the one-to-one experience of somebody who uses a screen reader. They may have their own shortcuts. So, yeah. Link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link. First steps at link, learn more. Link, link, link, learn more. Link, link, link, link, learn more. Communications in the arts, web content. You are currently on web content. To enter the link, learn more. Main 26 items. You are currently on a link. To click link, image, link. All right. Did you know what to click on? Did you know when you clicked on learn more? So there's better ways to do it. You can actually make the links more relevant. You can add hidden elements that a screen reader can pick up on, like the blog title. So this is actually a good compromise. So as you can see on this website, it still says more, but the screen reader is getting given more context. So hopefully I can get this video to play. Did that make a little bit more sense? Yeah. So you could actually have a little bit of no stop. Thanks. So you can have, dang it. Okay. Let's just stay there. So it's really great if you have a website like app identity, which it appears. As you can see, is the header, the main image is national save day and month. Find out how to win $811 in April. That's more descriptive than learn more. So if you can add in that context, it helps everybody, not just screen readers. Having that context is really helpful. So the next one I want to show is navigation from a keyboard user. All right. Now, when you're using a keyboard, in a tab or through a menu, you may add a keyboard user. You may not always know if something is dropping down. So you got to make sure that we do tab to send an element to the menu that the turd and items appear. And then also for the screen reader, where the screen be to know that there's children menus that drop down. We need to add in those elements to educate the user. You can't see the screen. Search, search, edit text, search, search one item, search button and the search and the banner navigation one item. You are currently on a navigation inside of web content list six items. You are visited link home one of six, visited link information and services two of six, link about government three of six, link news and social media four of six, link about Australia five of six, link my governor six of six. You are currently on a link to click this link, press control option space. So we're going to follow one. So one of six is helpful. So I can see like when I go over one of six, two of six, three of six, that helps them understand the context of where they are in that experience. So there's another one. So thankfully, all of this is achievable. If you know what those standards are, and you can actually implement them into a website to make it easier for everybody. It's going to be great for mobile tablets. It's going to be great for down the road when we start to implement the voice automated technologies like Siri and Echo and it's a lot of really exciting stuff. So really, where do you begin? Not here. Don't don't worry about it. It's okay. Just take a deep breath because it is not as overwhelming as it may seem. Really, just take a step back and think about a site. Identify the main purpose of a site. What are you doing for the audience and start there? Don't think about every single thing they need to be fixed right now. It's just say to e-commerce site. If it's an e-commerce site, make sure that the shopping experience for somebody usually a screen read or a keyboard is on track. The forms are accessible. The submit button are accessible. And what are those touch points? What is the user going to be doing in order to purchase those items? They're going to be filling the fields. They're going to be selecting a shopping credit and then consider those accessibility elements. Will the user understand the field in the label relationship? Will they understand how to check out? Will they understand where to put the credit card information and think about those interactions and how can you achieve those accessibility purposes? And then from there, what is it going to look like when you have 10% increase in accessibility of a site? Are we looking at 10% increase revenue? Are we looking at 10% increase memberships? The opportunities are really there for you to be able to make a business case, to talk with the product teams, to talk with somebody who is in charge of the spending for the site to say look, we have the opportunity to increase our revenue by making this accessible. So that is our bottom line right there. And so from there really is categorizing by the interaction. Okay, amenities are not accessible. Okay, what do we need to do about it? And you just kind of go from there and track them. Who is responsible for this? The content editor is responsible for quality or text. The developer is responsible for making sure that the field is there for the content editor to fill in. Now in Drupal 8, the art text field is required by default. So that's taken care of for us in Drupal. But we need to identify who is responsible for work so that we can communicate in the backlog and prioritize what needs to happen. And so from there, you've done audit about prioritizing what other must have elements. Who must? One must be fixed at the top of the backlog in order to improve the experience. And that's what you should focus on first. And then once you've done that, you can take a step back. Okay, now we've done that, we've released it. Now our customers can purchase things. Now stage two is kind of making sure that they're up to compliance. Whether or not they're part of a federal funding site, how many of you are familiar with Section 508? A good handful. How about web content accessibility guidelines? Very cool. About equal number. How many of you know that the web content accessibility guidelines are now the new to be standard for Section 508? That's pretty cool. So it's really exciting. So literally just a few weeks ago, the access board said, hey, Section 508 after 10 years is finally being updated. Section 508 was written in 1988. And they're just way before modern web technologies happened. So the web content accessibility guidelines is made up of thought leaders who are as a, hey, these are the best practices that we should be doing for the websites today. And they kind of cut things up to date. So people kind of starting going to work out for best practices. Section 508 in the meanwhile kind of became outdated. But it's still the federal standard. But now the Section 508 is kind of saying, look, we recognize what our date. So let's look at RCAG 2.0, because I thought it would be the new standard. And that actually went into back March 22nd. And by January 18th, 2018, federal sites must be in conformance with RCAG 2.0 level A and AA. So it's a lot of, a lot of really exciting stuff on the accessibility front, because we are bringing these websites up to relevance and accessibility in the modern technologies, not just the outdated levels. And so it's a great opportunity. And so, yeah. Okay, so I want to talk about some tools that can help you along. The first one is, I don't actually know how they pronounce it, whether it's totally or toe to ally, either way, it's a great tool. What this is, is it was made by the Khan Academy, and it is both a Chrome extension and a Drupal module. And it basically is like accessibility vision. When you use it, when you turn it on, you get this little menu on the left side that gives you a number of different ways to scan the site for accessibility. Now, this is not perfect. This is not, you know, if you need to do a proper accessibility audit, you know, this is not really going to help you. You're going to need to bring someone on who actually knows what they're doing. And that's a thing we can help you out with. But if you are looking for spot checks of content, spot checks of your site, this is great. It will allow you to view the alt text. It will allow you to, you know, check color contrast. It just starts to overlay it. Bear in mind that this has been, they've been iterating on this. It is a little bit quirky at times. Like right now, you'll notice in the middle that it's reading the background, the contrast on that button against the background color, not against the, of the site, that blue area, not against the white button background color. So it can be fooled. But you can take a look at the notes that it brings up and you'll be able to identify that it just doesn't know what it's talking about. But that's just, those are few and far between. You know, it's also useful for spotting when you're not using proper semantic structure. It's useful for reading your site back to you or sections of your site back to you as a screen reader would. This is great because as you heard before, many, many, many websites torture people who use screen readers. So this is a great way for you to do quick spot checks and make sure that a screen reader user won't hate you. Another tool is CK editor, which is baked into Drupal 8. It is currently not enabled because there are some security issues that still need to be ironed out. If anyone is in the room who could have an effect on that, you know, maybe bump that up the backlog. The CK editor is mind bogglingly useful because as a designer for accessibility and someone, and our developers who handle it, we can design and build for accessibility and then it is entirely upon the content manager to actually see this through. So a site that is perfectly designed for accessibility and perfectly built for accessibility will completely collapse if you don't have a content management team that is on top of it every single day with every single word that they drop on the site with every single image that they put on the site. CK editor can really, truly help do this by putting in browser, you know, in WYSIWYG tools to scan this. So you hit a button, it brings up this, and right now the first thing that it has spotted is that this image doesn't have an alt text. You'll notice that it's got a quick fix field right in the middle of, you know, right there. You can type in your alt text, hit quick fix, and it will apply it. You don't have to go back and make any changes. It's literally there for you. The next one, this is, having a hard time seeing on that angle, this one is identifying the paragraphs module is being used to drop headers instead of an H1, H2, H3. So that's going to baffle a screen reader that is trying to skim the site and provide an overview. You can do a quick fix right there. It's giving you a drop-down asking you which H you want. You select the one you want. Quick fix, done. The next one is, has noticed, this is my favorite, it noticed that the editor didn't use proper markup to insert numbers. They typed them in, and it's just flagging it, say, hey, fix this. Delete those numbers, lasso it all, and then just hit numbers and it's fixed. That one, there is no quick fix because it's a little bit more nuanced. The next one, this is noticing that there was not proper semantic structure used. Someone jumped from an H1 to an H3, skipping H2, it's telling you what to do, provides a quick fix, done. And then this last one is noticing, this is my second favorite, that the content editor has copied and pasted the image name into the alt text field, which is awful. It is worse than having no alt text because now a screen reader is getting some, you know, screen reader user is getting some gibberish that provides no context to them.  And then the last one is tables. Oh, yes, tables. This one is noticing that the tables don't have proper headings. It allows you to select whether you want horizontal or vertical. Quick fix, done. And last but not least, we have another, this is adjacent links, this one's really cool. It picked up that there are two links beside one another that are pointing at the same place. So a screen reader user would end up hearing that URL twice. In this case, if you hit quick fix, it will just merge those hyperlinks together so it removes the redundancy, which is great. So again, when you are auditing your site, when you're reviewing your site, as Catherine was saying, what you want to be doing is prioritizing. You have to figure out what makes your software, what makes your website important, why are people going to it and focus your accessibility efforts on that because accessibility, as we said in our talk last year, it's a journey, not a destination. You are not going to achieve some level, some imaginary perfect accessibility that you never have to focus on it again. But you should always keep in mind your core functionality, your core goals, and your user's core goals. Prioritize what you need to make your experience work at stage one. The next is figuring out what you need to achieve from a regulatory standpoint. And if you don't have a regulatory standing that you need to achieve, it's good to know what status you're striving for, single A, double A, triple A. Because if you're really putting the effort into accessibility, you should make sure that your user base is aware of it. If you do all of this and nobody knows it, then you've also kind of failed. And then the last is figuring out where you're going to iterate. And again, you should be looking towards your core functionality to figure out where it makes most sense for you to put the effort in. Um, you know, focus on this and do it, start now, if you haven't already, because it's a long road and it's, but it's a road worth walking. You need to do this, you know, for your users.  In order to show this, you want to make sure that you're doing things like providing tons of ways, as many ways as you possibly can, and as many ways as makes sense for your user to communicate with you. Don't choose for your user how they have to communicate. Let them choose for themselves how they're going to interact with you. Um, you know, as with Catherine's, you know, setup, you've, you know, don't just provide a phone because there's going to be someone who literally cannot do that.  Make sure that your core functionality is front and center. There's no reason to bury your core functionality. Make it easy. Use closed captions. Um, and this is, you know, closed captions are great now, not just for people who need it because they can't hear the content.  If you've been sucked into a video, you would have otherwise ignored because you saw some closed caption text. Yeah, me too. Um, it's useful. It's also, again, good for SEO. You don't need to put in a ton of effort to close caption. You don't need to go and sit there typing this up all by yourself. We showed this last year. We have a blog post up on our site that walks you through step by step, but YouTube has a freely available automatic closed captioning system. You upload a video. Even if you upload it privately, YouTube's bots will go and analyze the audio, add the closed captions, and it's crazy accurate. All you have to do is then watch it through once, identify where it messed up, and just change the word. And it's, it's easy to do because it's adding all of the timing. So you don't have to go back and do that. That was the brutal part of closed captioning before this. So anyone can do this. There are zero excuses for having videos without closed caption because you can then export them back out and upload them elsewhere. You don't even need to keep it on YouTube. Um, when you're displaying error text, don't just use color to indicate that something is wrong. You know, because color is not going to be helpful for your colorblind users, and it's not going to be particularly useful for your screen reader users.  Make it clear. Use text, use imagery. The more, the more that you use, the better. Optimize around touch and keyboard and mouse interactions. If you are, if you think that touch and mouse interactions are the same thing, come find me at the phase two booths. I will happily educate. Um, all text your images and do it properly. Really figure out why you put your, that image on the site in the first place. What was it that you intended to convey? If a blind user can hear your description of the image and move on having understood what a sighted user would, you have achieved your goal. If they cannot, you've fallen short. Um, you know, set up, use, just use proper semantic structures. Don't jump between your H's, um, and don't use, um, don't use your H's specifically for styling. Um, I know that that is, you know, depending upon how you've set up your site, that might require a refactor in either technology or how you are, um, using it. But this is an important thing. Drupal 8 is a really great base to start with, um, if you're looking to build an accessible site, um, the way that handle skip links forms, alt text is now required, error messaging, all, you know, an SEO, all of this is out of the box. You have a much stronger experience. Um, our whole talk last year was on this. So there's a video of that if you are interested in more of the nuance. Um, we also have an accessibility playbook that we put together. Um, this is a lot of the things we've talked about and some more, um, that can be used to help kickstart your team. Um, you can, uh, I think Katherine has tweeted this out. Give it two minutes. She will be tweeting it out. I'll be retweeting it. Um, but you can get that from us and, um, you know, feel free to reach out if you have follow-up questions on it. So to wrap up, when you are designing for accessibility, you are designing for the lowest common denominator. Um, we're talking about in terms of senses and, uh, and, and mobility and use of their, use of their hands. This means that you are trying to build something that is as universal as you can possibly get it. What I'm asking everyone to do here is to fight for accessibility, not just push, suggest, I mean, you should absolutely be fighting for it. You should be fighting for it because it's the right thing to do. You disenfranchising users is, you know, not something that should be happening at this point. Do it because it's the selfish thing to do. Do it because one day you're going to need it. If you live long enough, you are going to reach a point where you are going to say, man, I really wish I fought harder for accessibility because the web sucks. I can't see this. I can't read this. Why is it this way? And the reason that it, that you would be looking back and saying that is because not enough people were fighting for it. Some other quick selfish reasons to do this is that it's good for SEO. That will boost your site. It's also opens you up to new markets. It opens up people who otherwise would not be able to purchase from you or take in your content. If you are doing a new site build, if you are looking out over the horizon, then there is one coming. Make sure that accessibility is a core part of your goals because it is far easier to build fresh accessibility than it is to start from scratch on a, sorry, than it is to bolt it on. It is absolutely doable. It's, you know, you have to focus on incremental iteration. And it is important if you don't have a site redesign coming up to start figuring out how you could make those incremental improvements. But if you have a redesign coming, think about what you're going to do to make sure that you are coming into compliance because you will thank yourself later on if you do it. So, last recap. Do this for yourself. You're going to want this one day. Do it for your users because they are going to want it. Designed accessibility for your lawyer because they are going to love you for it. And you should love your lawyer. They are looking out for you. Do it for usability. A site that is built with good accessibility principles is a usable site. Do it for SEO. A site that is built with good accessibility practices is usually pretty search engine optimized. Do it because it is the right thing to do. One minute. I think we have to give up the room. But please, if anybody has any questions, I think they are to make it in the middle of the room. Don't be shy. Oh, yeah. I'm not shy. So, I just wanted some clarification on alt text. So, are there any guidelines as far as assuming the gender or race or anything like that of the person or people in the picture because I feel like that could potentially be touchy. And also just the length of the alt text. So, some of the examples that you gave are a little bit longer than I've been guided to use in the past. So, in terms of race, ethnicity, and other identifying characteristics, my suggestion would be to think about, again, the context. Is the fact that the person a woman relevant? If you are building a site that is encouraging girls to code, absolutely. It is completely relevant. If your site is pushing a pharmaceutical product that is gender neutral, maybe not. In terms of length, we recommend shooting for the length of a tweet. And use the length that makes the most sense to convey the meaning that you need to convey. If you've got 500 characters, you're too long. If you've hit 100, 110, you're fine. The key is to make sure that you're conveying the meaning. Yeah, can you speak to some of the newer technologies like AngularJS and accessibility or basically things where you're using JavaScript to draw the screen and how screen readers handle that? That is a technical area that I'm not super familiar with. But we've got some great experts in the room. We've got somebody right next to you. Right there. Yeah, so there's a lot of accessibility in JavaScript that is improving. It's definitely being watched upon. And I've seen some JavaScripts implement in Angular. Even go ahead. Just to say that the screen readers work on the DOM. So you can build a nice framework with JavaScript that is accessible. But it comes down to if the community has enough people and if there's enough motivation to go up and see that the central library is being maintained and tested for accessibility. And I've heard some mixed results. And so it really depends on the library and checking to see how viable that is. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Oh, this is a suggestion. If you're going to tell people to use YouTube automated capturing, tell them to make sure that they go through and correct the captions. Because the automated captioning doesn't work in most conditions. Yeah, definitely. That's definitely something that we do. We do the automatic transcription that we go through doing manually. I did this talk last year. YouTube understand David perfectly. Didn't understand me. I hurt my feelings. But that's so I had to go and we changed my talk. So I definitely agree. Go ahead. Well, to continue the conversation off of what you just said, if you work in the public sector, you're actually required to have broadcast quality captioning. So just for any other public sector folks in the room, I thought I would share that. And then for color contrast, I actually really like the Possello groups color contrast analyzer, because not only does it check for different forms of color blindness or cataracts, but also lets you select it give you color options for your palette. So it's actually a really strong tool. That's great. Yeah, thank you. I've seen a contrast analyzer is by the Possello group who works with WC three. I'll treat that. I've seen that tool. So I'll definitely treat that out after this for you guys. It's definitely great. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, everybody. We'll be around. We'll be in the booth. Come find us at booth 404. I promise it's there.


Welcome back to Kids Fun Science. My name is Ken and today's experiment is the magic marbles. As always, adult supervision is required. What you need for this experiment is two rulers, tape, and marbles. To set up this experiment, you're going to take two rulers down on a table about a half inch apart, 1.5 centimeters, and then you're going to place the marbles about an inch apart. Now gently hit the first marble and it'll hit to the second marble. What happened was the marble that was rolling stops and the one that was still now rolls. The force of the rolling marble transfers to the other. It stops the first and sets the second one in motion. Inertia is the way the object sets another object in motion. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object that is moving tends to keep moving in the same direction. An object that stays in rest or keeps moving unless there's an internal force that acts upon it. Here we're seeing again in slow motion that the first marble that was rolling comes in contact with the second marble and it comes to a stop and the second marble continues to move. Now I'm putting two marbles on the stick so they touch and the third marble about a centimeter or an inch away and gently tap it again and the single marble into the other two. As you notice the rolling marble stops and the single one stays in the middle and the third one rolls. Which really cool here is the momentum went through the second marble into the third. So you could try other combinations by adding three, four marbles and see how many times it goes to see if all the middle marbles or the second marble here in this case like here actually stays still and only transfers the momentum from the first to the second where the second stays still and then moves the third one which is pretty cool. Let me know in the comments below how many marbles you were able to use and what the results were. I'd like to hear that. I hope you enjoyed this video. Remember to click thumbs up and to subscribe as we do a new video every day. Thanks for watching.


Mae'r cyddysgu'r cyddiogel? Fy gydigodd yn gallu gwirioneddau ar y cerdd, the third meeting of the standards procedures and public appointments committee for 2022. Before we move to our first agenda item, I'd like to welcome our newest member, Colette Stevenson. Welcome to the committee, Colette. I would like to give you this opportunity to declare any relevant interests that you may have. Thank you, convener, and good morning to all the members and the clerks here today. I will make you aware that I am currently a setting councillor in South Lanarkshire Council. Thank you. Thank you very much and welcome to the committee. Collette Stevens is joining us to replace Elena Whitham and I would like to put on record my thanks for the work that Elena has done with this committee and seek the committee's approval to write to her to thank her for her time spent with us. Are we in agreement with that? Excellent, thank you very much. We now move to agenda item 1. Mae ystafell unig oid i gilydd y cyd-dweud o amser i gyd o ddoeithio ymweld Nghymru, cyd-dweud o ddoeithio cyd-dweud o'r cyfgaredd cyd-dweud o'r ffordd o gyd yn ffwylio'r rwyngoedd yn grwysig i ffwylio a'r cyd-dweud iawn. Sw HIV, ynw'n ddod writerthau cychydig ac yn gyffredig. Mae'n ddysgu ymlaen nhw. Felly,'r rwy'n cael ei chynnig o'r grwysig, a wnaeth ni nhw eu gwirionedd a'r plwyddedig Rwy'n mwy ffawr yr edrych CPC G i'n ymwylo sy'n iawn i'Svals, ac rwy'n meddwl i'r ぜerfodraeth Serf Genial Crowe Johnson MSP, gan ddarlwg yn ddiwedd ac yn ddiwedd i'ch gwneud i fynd arall. Yr gael yn exec, Jamie. Rydw i'n ddarlwg yn ddiwedd ac yn ddarlwg yn ddiwedd i'r llwyth mewn teimlo o defnydd. Diolch yn ddim yn ddylayr. Thank you, convener. Can I take this opportunity to thank Sam Currie and the clacking team for all her support in getting the proposed CPG on islands to this stage? In an area of considerable interest for the Parliament in recent years and for those of us who were here in the last session, the islands Act was a significant step forward with its aim of re-establishing the relationship between Scotland-wide public bodies and island communities. The legislation was part of a broader recognition of the distinctive status, challenges and opportunities that our island communities have within Scotland. There is certainly a great deal of diversity between these areas, some are represented by island authorities, some are connected with mainland local authorities, some have considered really better links to mainland Scotland than others, some have benefited from growth in recent decades while others have faced problems around depopulation. However, what seems clear to me is that there is a great deal to be gained through collaboration, sharing of experiences and working to make this Parliament better aware of the island perspective. The CPCG would seek to be a forum for discussion of issues relevant to those islands and to improve their links to the Scottish Parliament. An initial meeting was held on 14 December, with five MSPs in attendance and representatives sent by a number of others. We have had an interest expressed from parties across the Parliament. I was also keen to ensure that it was not focused just on the highlands and islands, as a number of important island communities exist in other regions too. Discussion was held during that meeting in December on potential areas of work, highlighting island transport, particularly ferries, energy and wider issues of depopulation and impact on island economies. There was broad agreement that a future policy, at least hybrid meetings, would be beneficial with the aim of increasing participation for those organisations and individuals that are distant from Edinburgh. There is an existing all-party parliamentary group on the islands that a number of MSPs with Scotland's constituencies are involved in. It would be my hope that some of the collaboration could be explored as we go forward, potentially with meetings with that UK group. There will naturally be some areas of overlap. Issues such as sustainable transport and energy will be areas of interest across Scotland. It is my hope that the proposed CPCG will bring a uniquely islands-based perspective on those matters. Thank you very much, Jamie. Can I now open up to the committee if any members have any questions for Jamie? Over to you, Bob. Thank you very much, Mr Johnson. I'm just looking at the Perth to Cross Party group. As a city MSP, quite far away from islands, I thought what might interest in myself being relation to the Perth to Cross Party group. I thought about the vital aspects of tourism for many island communities. I'm just wondering if that idea of sustainable tourism but also responsible tourism for which everyone in Scotland and beyond has a responsibility to be aware of and make sure that when we visit island communities that we are respectful of that tourism, sustainable, might that be something that the Cross Party group may consider at some point in the future? That's a very good question. There are a number of examples across the Highlands and Islands region in particular where island communities face real pressure from the impact of a very successful tourism offerings, but that creates uniquely island issues. For example, capacity on ferries being stretched and sometimes the case of local people and local businesses don't have access, but it is a wider issue than that. As I say, I think that there will be overlap in other Cross Party groups. I would certainly hope to work with other Cross Party groups where we think that there are areas of potential collaboration, but our approach is looking at those from a distinctly islands perspective because often those solutions are different for us in the island communities than perhaps they are in other parts of Scotland. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Jamie. Can I just ask about the organisations that were listed in your application? The application came in before Christmas and there is a substantial list of interested bodies, but it states that at that moment none were formally intending to affiliate to the CPG. Has that position changed in the interim or are you still waiting to hear because I know there are a lot of bodies that clearly have been invited? Yes, we have obviously. There are some areas where the interest has been discussed but not formalised yet. I think that the key thing for us was to be able to go through the process and make sure that, albeit and hopeful, the Cross Party group will get the approval today that we can go with a clear agenda and timelines and also help some of those bodies to be part of that development certainly in terms of some of the policy areas that we cover. This has been quite a long process over the period. It has not just been from this parliamentary session at the back of conversations with different groups in my previous four years as an MSP. It is also going even beyond that as a candidate and somebody just lives in the island. We know that the interests there, firming it up as it were, will be the next process and making sure that those organisations that want to take part can do. That list is not exhausted if there are other organisations from the Highlands and Islands particularly that want to be involved that they are given the opportunity to as well. Excellent. Thank you for attending today, Jamie. The committee will formally consider whether to approve the application for recognition at agenda item 3 and the clerks will be in touch with you after that decision. I thank you for attending the committee this morning. Many thanks. The next group we will consider is a proposed CPG on rugby development in Scotland. I welcome Douglas Lumsden MSP, who is the proposed convener of the proposed group to the meeting. I confess as a new member of Parliament that I was surprised to discover that this Parliament did not have a cross-party group focusing on rugby. Scotland has such a long history with the game, some years better than others. I always like to point out that we are still the holders of the five nations tournament back in 1999. I am sure that I always will be. It should be important for that contribution to our cultural history and our future development that this should be recognised by a cross-party group in this Parliament. Rugby is changing. I looked back. The first ever international rugby match was played on 27 March 1871 at Rayburn Place in Edinburgh. Scotland beat England that day, and it was amazing the scope was 1-0. It shows you how much the game has changed. That was in front of 4,000 people, and hopefully that is something that could be replicated again in a couple of weeks' time. As I said, the game has changed completely since then. The game is now a game for everyone. We have seen the incredible emergence of women's rugby and clan rugby, and we have seen safety standards increase. The professionalism of the game is there now, but it is still important that the grass-suit game is protected and evolves. The cross-party group invites the Parliament to consider that development and how we can go further and make the game more inclusive and make sure that it is as safe as possible in the years to come. I am pleased to have two key partners on board with this group, the Scottish Rugby Union, who is providing secretariat support to the group and the School of Hard Knocks. There is a fantastic charity that uses rugby to support young people in Scotland. I thank you again for the committee's time this morning, and I am happy to answer any questions that the committee has. Excellent. Thank you very much, Douglas. Does any members of the committee have any questions for Douglas? Bob, pass over to you. Just a brief question, convener. I should point out that my first ever engagement with the cross-party groups in this Parliament was sporting-related, because the first ever email I received as an MSP in 2007 was from the late David McLeach for a cross-party group in Golff. There is a long tradition in this Parliament of sporting cross-party groups. My interest in this cross-party group is the involvement of the School of Hard Knocks, because I have seen first hand in my constituency in Maryhill and Springburn, how they have worked with local partners to get not just young people but various sections of society that otherwise would not think about rugby as a sport for them, to use it as a way of doing team building, team bonding, learning skills and even sign posting to college for further education opportunities. It would just be an appeal that should this cross-party group receive recognition if you do any work in relation to work in deprived communities and vulnerable groups, I think that there is a wider range of MSPs would be interested in following that, even for not-to-formal members of the cross-party group, because the School of Hard Knocks comes with a really strong reputation. No, I absolutely agree and I am delighted to have them on board. As I say, the key intention for this group is to get more and more people involved with rugby. The School of Hard Knocks is probably using rugby as a medium to engage more with different people that might not think about rugby in that way and really trying to improve their lives and try to improve their outcomes. I mentioned clan rugby as well and that was something that I was not aware of before I became a member of Parliament. That is really trying to involve people with disabilities, whether that is physical disability or learning disability, trying to engage with them, to try and get them involved in clubs and mixing with people without disabilities and just the whole camaraderie together. I think that the work that they are doing as well is really key. As a cross-party group, we can engage a lot more with the School of Hard Knocks. I think that that is good and engaging with the clan rugby side as well, just to make sure that we can get everyone working together just to try and improve outcomes. You touched a bit on inclusive. I looked at the members list, and I note that it is all males. I was just wondering what you are doing along with the fellow members on there to attract more female members into the group to increase inclusivity in that. You are right, and it occurred to me at the time when I put that application in. I am happy to report that I have recruited another member to the CPG. Jackie Dunbar has agreed to join us as well. I managed to rope Jackie in. That is something that I am aware of. Looking at the groups that are involved, there has been, from our initial meeting that we had before, the group is formalised. There are suggestions about whether there are women's rugby clubs that we can try and get involved as well. That will be addressed. Thank you Douglas for picking up on the gender issue. I am a bit more of a hockey player, which probably detracts me a little bit from joining the rugby. I am very aware of the benefits of team sport and how that can be a great leveler and tackling the qualities. With all the connections that I have, even with rugby clubs in Edinburgh, I would be delighted, because Cury Chieftons have a great women's set-up, and I know that women's rugby in the city is thriving, and Spartans all sorts of things. That is good to hear. Maybe I have a new member already, convener. I will dip in and out, Douglas. Careful who you poach. I suppose just to follow up on both of that. Obviously, School of Hard Knocks, which rightly has been spoken of very favourably this morning, and SRU are the two organisations that are named. I am assuming that you would be looking to other organisations, and I was thinking particularly at club level for input on that. Yes, that is something that we spoke about as well. It is not all about the international game, it is about the grass-suits, and we are talking to local clubs as well to get them involved. That is very helpful. I thank you for attending this morning, Douglas. The committee will consider whether to approve the application for recognition of agenda item 3, and the clubs will be in touch after that time to inform you. I am now going to have a short suspension for a changeover of witnesses. Thank you. The next group that we are going to consider today is a proposed CPG on sustainable transport, and I would like to invite Graeme Simpson, MSP, who is the proposed convener of this group to the meeting. Welcome this morning, and in person this time, rather than the IT problems that we had last. Graeme, would you like to just explain again the intentions of the group, please? Thank you very much again, convener. I thought that it would be much safer to turn up in person rather than rely on technology. For the new member of the committee two weeks ago, I tried to make this pitch and my parliamentary service device decided to turn itself off as I was in mid-flow about to get into the meat of the issue. If I can just go over some old ground, the history behind this is that in the last session two cross-party groups, which relate to what this one is proposed to do, there was a cross-party group on cycling, walking and buses, which I was co-convener of, and there was a separate one on railways, which John Mason was a convener of. A group of us who were involved in these groups got together and we thought, well, maybe it makes sense to merge those groups in the next session. Those talks started in the last session and have continued. We decided that it made far more sense just to have one group. Part of the reason behind that is that, as you will be aware, convener, there is a problem and we will probably face this problem as we go through this session of MSPs attending cross-party groups. There is a rush of enthusiasm at the start and then numbers start to tail off. I think that that is an issue. It is maybe something that this committee could monitor because it is actually not fair, I think, on the various groups that turn up, particularly if it is in person. If we turn to what this particular group is intending to do, my view is that cross-party groups have in the past tended to become talking shops, people who agree to each other, talking to each other, going away, everybody is happy and then nothing happens. My view is that, to make it worthwhile, a cross-party group should actually do something, do some work, do some research, produce reports. That is why I want to be involved in this one because everybody agrees with that. We have a programme for the initial year and the first bit of work that we would like to do if we are given approval is to look at traffic reduction policy. The Scottish Government produced a paper last week spelling out how they would like to see car miles reduced over the next few years. We will be drilling down into that. If we are given approval this morning, we will be meeting at lunchtime and will have a presentation from a Scottish Government official, somebody from Transport Scotland, just to get that ball rolling. Probably what we would like to do is meet every month for quite a programme and produce reports with recommendations. We would also look at traffic demand management, how to get the modal shift to get people walking and cycling and using public transport. I know that there are at least one member who has strong views on that of the committee. To me, that is really important. Whatever you think of cars, it is a positive thing to get people more active. That is what this group will be looking at. Not just more active, but the whole public transport aspect of things is absolutely vital. We look at ways to help public transport to build back better, if I can borrow a phrase, to get more people on to buses and trains. It is not going to be a talking shop, it is going to be a working group, so I am happy to take any questions. Does anyone from the committee have questions? Perhaps you have portrayed me as some anti-sustainable transport guru, and I am not. I am very much a believer in public transport and I am making that accessible to all, which is where my challenge does come. In terms of the active travel agenda, I am very passionate about ecoabilism, and I have grave concerns that many active travel policies discriminate against disabled people and those that have mobility issues. The sweeping statements that you watched on Tuesday when people talk about going from walking to wheeling, there is a whole lot in that range of mobility from walking to wheeling. Are there groups that you are involving in the CPG that will help the voice of those with mobility issues, disabled, blind, hearing and mobility impairments? Are they going to be represented on the CPG? Without their voices, it does not matter what reports are presented, you are creating more inequalities in society. You are absolutely right. We need to cover all sectors of society, people who are disabled, elderly people, young people. I am just looking at the extensive list of organisations that we have, our initial group of members, and there have been more since who want to join. I do not see any specific disabled groups in there. You have the Midlothian Disability Access Panel, who are phenomenal. That is encouraging, but there are groups in there who speak up for disabled people, even if they are not specifically disability groups. I am just concerned that the voice of the cycling body will be overrepresented, and I want to make sure that there is balance. I have had that challenge in the city of Edinburgh, and we continue to have that challenge in the city of Edinburgh, with the 40 kilometres of cycle lanes that have created 40 kilometres of road space that people with disabled bodies can no longer access. I am gravely concerned if that membership does not reflect a more balanced view on those with mobility issues.  I am a cyclist, but I am not a man in Lycra. I am not somebody who can achieve any great speed and cause alarm while I am cycling about. The name of the group is sustainable transport. It is not cycling, so we are covering ferries, trains, buses, walking and cycling. It is not just about cycling. One of your first submissions was in essence about the bringing together of two former CPGs so that a full and wide voice. I am going to presume rather than even assuming that the organisations that are currently listed are not now a finite list and that other groups, organisations and indeed voices that need to be heard will find favour to be listened to by the CPG in the production of a report. There are a number of questions coming from the committee. You will be glad to know, Graham. Can I pass over to you, Collette? Thank you, convener, and good morning, Graham. I very much welcome your CPG. As somebody who previously worked in outdoor education, I completely understand the benefits that come from outdoor ed in particular, and as a fellow East Kilbridean as well, the cycling and some of the routes that we have got in East Kilbride as well. I am completely for all promoting that. I note from the membership list as well, and I touched upon that as well as having a young person's voice there, because I know, even from my daughter and the young people that I worked with and some of the children's homes that got involved in outdoor ed, that more young people should have a voice in terms of particularly cycling, but even transport links and what not as well, is that something that you would be considering going forward in terms of having a young person come forward on the cross-party group? Yes, I think that that is a really good idea, because I think that one of the challenges that I found particularly when I was a councillor, Collette, is that you find that kids will cycle to school when they are at primary school, and when they get a bit older, it becomes uncool, so you will find that you might have lots of bikes outside primary schools, if you were out of any outside high schools. I think that that is a really good point, and just as you were speaking, it just occurred to me that perhaps it would be an idea for for this cross-party group to reach out to the Scottish Youth Parliament and perhaps ask them to become involved. I do not know if they are involved in any cross-party groups, but it is an idea that has occurred to me. I would also invite you, if we get the go-ahead, to maybe become involved. I had not realised that you had that outdoor education experience, so you would be a very useful voice indeed. The number of potential CPGs is trying to poach members this morning, Tess, I think that you have a question. Thank you. I also welcome this CPG. Just a question on your focus of rural versus cities. You cannot focus on everything, and a lot of people in rural areas have issues that, if they do not have a car in frequent bus travel, you could just focus on cities. Is it 70, 30, 50, 50 or 100 per cent cities? No, it is not 100 per cent cities. I think that one of the issues that I found in the CPG that was all involved in the last session, cycling, walking and buses, was quite Edinburgh centric, so I am keen that that is not the case. I am very alive to that. This is a cross-party group, as they all are for the whole of Scotland, and not just urban Scotland. There are specific issues in rural areas, as you well know, particularly around public transport. I would not want to put a figure on it. We are looking at issues generally, so when we produce a report, it would be reflective of the whole of the country. I was taken by the inclusivity of your approach to the cross-party group about those who might want other voices to be represented in the cross-party group. If your door is open, there will be other third-party groups or other MSPs in that place. I commend you for that. I also commend you for trying to be more efficient and a streamlined approach to cross-party groups in that place. You can make some pretty important points in relation to that. There is a cross-party group in that place, which I am not involved in, but I have to be honest on disability. I was looking at some of the non-MSP membership lists of that cross-party group. Given some of the considerations that were floated today, it might just be worth it while keeping the cross-party group in disability aware of your work. It does not mean that they want to necessarily do work on it, but they have a pretty strong network of groups where they could disseminate information in relation to the work of your cross-party group. It was just a suggestion, Mr Simpson. I think that that is a really good idea. Jamie Halcro Johnston, who you had on earlier, touched on this. The cross-party groups can work together. It has happened in the past, of course. There is a big opportunity. I would just say that my door is always open to you, Mr Doris, if you want to pop in and indeed any other member. Put the kettle on, Mr Simpson. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Graham. If the cross-party nature of this committee is reflected in the potential cross-party group that you are forming, I think it would be very beneficial. I thank you for attending this morning, Graham. The committee will consider whether to approve the application for recognition at agenda item 3, and the clubs will be in touch with you after that, but thank you for coming this morning. There will now be a short suspension while we change over for witnesses. Thank you and welcome back. The final group that we will consider today is a proposed CPG on sustainable uplands management, and I would like to welcome back, but with a slightly different hat, Paul MacLennan MSP, who is the proposed co-convener of the proposed group. Good morning, Paul. Would you like to make a statement about the purpose of the group? Thank you, and it's good to be back and another guy is in the committee this morning. I suppose that a bit background was East Lothian's rural constituency. In the first few months, I was touring some of the groups and there were about seven grouse mirrors, for example, in East Lothian. When I was up speaking to some of the owners and landowners about that and other groups around that, it was very clear to me that there was a need for the cross-party group, because I think that there are different views. The real purpose for me was to try and bring forward and bring together these different views. There's a lot of legislation that's going on in the moment and in that sphere, if you like. We're talking about biodiversity issues that are going through just now, obviously, the climate change issues, grouse mirror management, deer management, and obviously the just transition as well. The purpose of the group was to bring forward or bring together the two—I'm not saying two sides—but there are different opinions, let's say, within that whole debate. For me, I think that it was trying to bring all that together and try to get a reason debate around that and, obviously, inform legislation and inform that debate going on. That was the main thing behind it. The intention when we set up the groups, as you can probably see, there's quite a wide range of organisations that are involved, again, very much with different opinions in that regard. So, as I said, the intention was to bring people together. We're aware, obviously, as well, that there are other groups. Before I done that, obviously, we looked at other groups. I think that it was mentioned in the application form about rural policy, crofting, animal welfare and so on. I think that, as you heard from the previous trailer, it might be an opportunity to work with some of those groups as we develop, I suppose, our work programme, if you like. I think that there was a specific need around about sustainable uplands management, but it was really the real reason for me to try and bring together groups that had a different opinion to try and get that reason discussion. It's been a very emotive issue over a number of months and a number of years, so the purpose was to bring that together and say, right, okay, let's see where we can get some mutual co-operation and mutual understanding for any of the issues that are out there. That was the reasoning behind that, yeah. Thank you, Paul. Does anyone on the committee have any questions of Paul? Let me know if this is in scope or out of scope. I'm not sure. I've got a half's urban and rural constituency in terms of the Pentland Hills, so I have a lot of questions come to me about the balance between the right to access in Rome versus the right to responsible access in Rome. I didn't know if that was something that your group might be considering, just out of curiosity. We've had, you know, the initial discussions that we had was around about that. That has had issues about the right to Rome and the right to access, and there are different opinions from that. Again, this is probably quite, I suppose, an example of the group with different opinions on trying to balance that, so it's trying to get that. That has been discussed, and I've got local issues in my own constituency, and I know there are other issues in other constituencies, so that has been discussed. Part of that, I think, is around about education, engagement with different groups and organisations within that. I'm sure that I shall be raised and going forward. I know from the name of it is Upland. One of the things, as a East Kilbride constituency MSP, I have been looking at is lowland deer management, so you touch upon Upland. It's a different type of deer. It's like every day is a school day. At the moment, you learn something new. Has there been talk about sharing information on that? We have very little in the way of lowland deer management in the central belt of Scotland. Is that something that we're isolating now, if you like? I don't want to be left out, Paul. I get that point, because I think that some of the issues are, we're talking about grassland deer management, which is not exclusively for Upland management, but predominantly for that, but I think that there's an opportunity in that. I think that's a good point to raise. If it's approved at the next meeting to say, look, there's an issue around the way that can be discussed as well. I think that a lot of the groups that are involved would also be involved in lowland management as well. We've tried to be as diverse as possible in terms of the groups that have been included in that. I think that's a really relevant point to take forward, because I think where do you define Upland, and where does lowland become Upland, and where does Upland become lowland? I think that that's an issue that's relevant, because I visited Shelly just a few months ago, and we were talking about that. Where was almost the border in terms of Upland and lowland in terms of deer management there? That was a specific issue. I think that's a relevant point that I would take forward to the next discussion group that we had. I know that we raised that and said, look, can we discuss that issue, because I think that it's very relevant. Where do you define Upland's management, and where does it stop? Does it have to be above a certain height? There's nothing defined as such in that. There's no clear definition of what that is, but by its very nature when it becomes Upland, it then goes on to the issues that are in the bout, which can prove to be good or controversial ones. Raptor protection as well as one that's really relevant, and has been brought up. I'm sure that we've all had correspondence on that one. I think that it's a really relevant point to take forward. Any other questions? I'm sure that the deer aren't concerned whether we define it as Upland or lowland. I think that I just have to food. Bob, very briefly, Paul McClellan, I suppose it just put in some information the public record that's not particularly pertinent across part of Upland with indulgence. However you mentioned raptor persecution, I am the species champion for the Perigun, and I would just note that the Perigun can often be an urban bird as well, quite often having habitats, including high-rise flats and industrial cranes and the like. The whole of Scotland is covered by parts of your work, but I just thought to put that on the record. No, I think that that's an important point. As you know, I mean raptor protection, it's a really emotive issue that's out there. How do you balance, I suppose, if it's across somewhere, how do you balance that? We've got RSPB involved in that as well, so it's trying to get that balanced approach in terms of that. Again, it can be very emotive, and there are two sides of that debate. Again, coming back to the purpose of the groups, to try and bring forward both sides of the debate, if you like, and try and get that informed discussion and moving forward together if we can. If we can, of course. There's always going to be agreement on all those issues, but I think that it's an important group to try and discuss and debate through, because there's a lot of legislation and a lot of things happening in that specific sector, which affects all parts of the universe, beferd from urban or rural, so it affects most constituencies in Scotland. Thank you, Bob. I just, for the record, confirm that it is Scottish land and estates that are providing the secretariat cover. Indeed, Edward Mountain, who's a member of this committee, is one of the deputy conveners, but Edward can't be with us today. The only other point I was going to mention for the record, and this is in no way a criticism, Paul, that the code requires all groups to provide 10 calendar days notice of all meetings, and that that has to be notified to each standards clerk in course, but I know that you, as a former member of this, are very aware of that. Can I thank you for your attendance today? The committee will, as you're aware, consider whether to approve this application for recognition at agenda item 3, and the clerks will inform you of the committee's decision thereafter. Thank you for coming this morning, Paul. We can now move to agenda item 3, which is the cross-party group approval. It is for the committee to consider whether to accord recognition to the proposed cross-party groups for islands, rugby development in Scotland, sustainable transport and sustainable uplands management. Are there any questions or comments from the members before I put it, Sue? I do have issue with the sustainable transport, given that the highway code is changing this week to really reinforce that pedestrians are top of the transport hierarchy, that they are poorly represented in this cross-party group. There are only two organisations balanced off with nine for cyclists and ten for rail, and I think that there needs to be far more representation from pedestrian groups and those with mobility and disabilities. That is my grave concern. Thank you for that, Sue. As far as being the technical side within the committee of the cross-party group, there is cross-party representation. It was an interesting discussion, and I will call it a discussion, between the proposed convener and this group, about what groups are and indeed what individuals are represented and can feed into it. Certainly, it is on the record the view of members of this committee about the people who should be listened to when they come, and there certainly seems to be a very strong workload that they propose to do. I would hope that, as Bob suggested, there are other cross-party groups that can be reached out to for input into evidence. I hope that we should agree the group that they indeed take up that suggestion—in fact, take up all of the suggestions that have been made this morning. Thank you, Sue. Would anyone else like to comment? No, we will see. Fine. I would now like to invite members to a called recognition to the proposed cross-party groups on islands, rugby development in Scotland, sustainable transport and sustainable uplands management. I will now close the public part of this meeting and move into private.


President Mohamed Abu Harim must by now have departed Abuja to honor President Uhuru Kanyata's invitation to participate in the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations environmental program scheduled for 3rd and 4th of this month. The theme of the special session is Strengthening UNEP for the Implementation of the Environmental Dimension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. According to the organizers of the event, for 50 years UNEP has coordinated a worldwide effort with member states to address the world's biggest environmental challenges. A statement by the Special Advisor to the President on Media and Publicity, Fermi Adishino, said President Buhari is expected to deliver the national statement of the country and participate in high-level dialogue sessions on the environment at the event. The statement added that President Buhari would thereafter proceed to London for written medical checks that will last for a maximum of two weeks.


Permutation entropy is a measure of complexity used to analyze time series data. It can be calculated from any time series, regardless of its complexity or structure, and provides a simple way to quantify the amount of information present in the data. This makes it useful for analyzing economic markets and biological systems, where other measures are too complicated or expensive to use. This article was authored by Osvaldo Arasso, David Papo, Luciano Zunino, and others.


I am an immigrant to always mind my own business, keep my head down, and stay out of trouble.  I believe Asian women tend to be more hyper-sexualized in all industries. I'd say my biggest piece of advice is- You would want to enter the top of the pyramid, but I guess statistically, this study is showing that it's unlikely. But how does that make you feel? I feel that for our generation, it's more important to let our assertive personalities shine through and maybe tone down the looks a little bit. They feel like they were put in there, sort as decoration. I was in the South, hated my life there, hated where I was, hated my job. And I was- There's some nice people in the South, by the way. Dang, I can't believe you said there's bottles, bro.