Hey everybody, my name is Jared Dillon today. We're talking about a little bit about messaging patterns and Ruby As I said, my name is Jared. I work with quick left. I'm a software engineer there and you can find me on Twitter at Justice Fries So we'll start off with welcoming you to the enterprise world and that big move dot Is the money it's enterprise So when we look at this enterprise we talk about a whole bunch of things things we typically don't want to necessarily interact with and These things we interact with is actually a modest mass of many many many parts Who here is dealt with? Something like this this huge huge mass Well, great. I'm sorry. I have to it's not not not the best thing in the world But for the purposes of this talk, we are going to treat it as a single mass And we're gonna have a lot of things up here. So I decided to label them. I stole that from Jeff So thanks Jeff so We we want to integrate with this system and for many many whatever reasons we can't integrate in directly with it for political code whatever reasons we are actually operating outside of the sphere and That little sphere is our application Here, let's just say it's a rails application and we're going to run with that and What we want to do is actually start integrating with this system. So we start looking at okay What's the best way to integrate multiple systems here? Well, we can start off and say oh, let's make an API between the two We need some information. We need to consume something. So let's make a request out So we make a request out And we make another request out Not so bad. We're okay We make some more requests out more and You know, that's not the end of it The everything inside of there also will need to consume information from us so We don't care about our quest. We now start to make endpoints. We have an endpoint We have another one things are getting a little ugly and We have some more endpoints that we all want to work with here kind of an ugly mess who wants to deal with this I Sure as held out and Remember We're dealing with a whole mass of different things in here. It's not just one big homogenous mass We're just subtracting it away. So we're actually dealing with this It doesn't sound like fun at all and we may have a public API We also want to deal with so we're also facing the world and now we have up here 17 things We need to manage and scale and not only do I have to do that our APIs by definition are very unreliable and We have to get into the into the habit of error checking all of these things and making sure that nothing fails It's also synchronous all these things that we do block either within the bigger system or on our Ruby app So it's pretty obvious. We need another way They might ask yourself. Okay. What's that way? What can we do in order to fix this? And there's a couple things we can do to fix it Looking at our problems where I know we're synchronous We're blocking our main application We have a lot to maintain and scale and play around with So what if we started talking about an intermediary broker here something that would Deal with all these interactions for us and let us consume at a rate that we want to effectively making us asynchronous in nature and We can do that These things communicate with each other And we do that with something called a message queue and for the purpose of this talk we're going to talk about RabbitMQ and RabbitMQ is a Messaging queue built out of the AMQP standard developed by JP Morgan Chase in 2005 To solve this very need to solve the need of integrating lots and lots of systems with lots of different code bases in an asynchronous way And we can do this and it's battle tested and battle worn and we know it works pretty well now And it's all built in Erlong and it's extensible through Erlong So assuming we've done this We now only care about our Rails app and our messaging server We don't care about the wild world beyond we can interact with whatever we want past that And that was a weird magic move So these things only talk to each other now the Rails server and the messaging server and We do this through the notion of queuing information up We can start to let things work together Queue all this up and actually start to somehow process it But we need to process it and our Ruby server or in and we go from this convoluted nasty mess to something more like this and Much like the enterprise we haven't told the whole story yet The bigger story we're telling here is not only now do we have our Ruby server? We have something else. We have our web server and now we're letting our web server doing what's good at serving requests Handling our business logic and generally being a Rails app But we've added something else into the mix. We've added workers and workers are little processes that can spin up and Really do whatever we want and we we what we're doing here is actually yanking things out of this queue and Doing something with it Doesn't matter what it is. No, and here's the most trivial example of that This is some code running in an event machine loop with the Ruby aim QP gem And I have all the resources available at this at the end of this talk if you want to go check it out but the Ruby aim QP gem runs on top of event machine and who here's familiar with the vent machine for those of you who aren't aim the event machine gem is a Fairly sophisticated gem that embodies the reactor pattern and enables some concurrency through event registration So that's what we're doing with the real aim QP gem here and all we need to do is subscribe to the channel we want Which in this case will be some transactions and We have a direct exchange to that transactions queue from our application that it subscribes to We receive a message. We put it out. We're good to go It's about as simple as you can get for a worker but of course you can integrate this more into your application and now we're looking at actually scaling horizontally and Okay, what do I mean by scaling horizontally? Well, we have three workers. They work three messages Okay, well what happens when these three workers start to get overwhelmed We're passing we're processing too many messages from this side to really handle it and we start to see bottlenecks We can add five six ten workers We can keep spinning up processes in order to take the load off of our application and so we're looking at scaling in a very very interesting way in that Everything happens asynchronously and you have to think in a little bit of an asynchronous environment because nothing happening is happening directly We're having a direct effect on the application So we solved a problem. We've added this messaging queue in between This large homogenous system that we don't care about and our Ruby application or Rails application and remember our application Since we now have multiple processes running in there And we start to see the same problem Yeah, the within our applications this thing keeps growing We start to see in some bottlenecks that are not only in the not only in our app. We start to see intra app bottlenecks so Typically the way you would solve that of course is go back look at your bottlenecks and start to solve them That's a great thing to do but This asynchronous pattern. We've just talked about in our app and it's a fairly common pattern We can actually apply into our application I'm gonna pose the question. What if we made our controller actions asynchronous What if we're generating data? We don't actually provide a response at that point But we pass it off to something else to handle that and actually add the data into our database and do really the work for us and once again We're letting the web application do what it's good at and we're creating other things to let them do what they're good at So we don't care about this anymore for the rest of this talk We just care about the rails application so Once again We're not telling the whole story here. We have our rails application. We have some workers in there They're doing their thing. Everything's going happy. Everything's working but we also have a database server and This database server is handling our requests and Doing things that you need to do and generally interacting with our application and of course you can see a performance bottleneck here and We'll talk about that in a moment, but it scales dependent on our application So here's a what a controller might look like I abstract a lot. It's basically a pseudo code, but You know, we we create a new object in memory and we check if it saves if it saves We will do something Probably redirect to an index page if you're going off scaffolding or whatever if not render out But the key here to think about is this is a blocking operation this will wait until the request of the database server is made is finished and Is complete before we continue with life cycle of the application and If you're if you're seeing these bottlenecks and you're in a position where you have these problems They that that can be a pretty huge bottleneck where milliseconds can matter So we're starting to talk about some sort of worker again okay and We have multiple options. We're not going to use a MQP for interact or intra app communication just because We have a bunch of options in the Ruby world. Some of you may have heard of them Who's heard of delayed job? Who likes delayed job? great So the first thing we could talk about is delayed job and on the plus side. It's very simple this dot delay dot method It enqueues it into a into a database table Adds a row has that has some locking mechanisms built into the late job We have a problem right Because you're still dependent on your databases performance You're not adding a new piece to your component here Well, you are with workers. You're adding new processes, but you're not adding any new servers to run This could be great For the purpose of this though, we're saying that our database is already constrained We're working under real life constraints. And so adding delayed job and processing tons and tons and tons of jobs when we make everything asynchronous Might not be an acceptable option Okay, so who's used or heard of Q classic? Very few yeah, Wayne sort of it. Okay, great. So Q classic is this awesome thing made by Ryan Smith of Heroku and What it does is it actually uses features in Postgres SQL a Published description model that is in there to actually Act as a queue and act as a queue without being fully burdened by all the things requiring relational database So this is pretty awesome. It's new it works pretty well But we're still talking about database constraints and it'll still add some sort of constraint on our server So we'll leave that as out as an option for now and kind of go back to the drawing board with that The last option we can talk about is Actually one of my favorites who here has used rescue Cool. Okay. So rescue is a is a queue system built on top of the key value store Redis I hope everyone here has used Redis there anyone here in truth does not know what Redis is Okay, so Redis is a very fast lightweight key value store that Has some set algebra capabilities and so you can do some pretty powerful things But including building an entire worker queue system on top of it You can also use as a memcache replacement and it's good at that Yes, and it will persist to this that is the difference between Redis it big difference between Redis and memcached so Okay So we're talking about adding another piece to our system as I just mentioned This is the very easy to set up extra piece to our system So of course we have to think about these trade-offs. Yeah, and that's really what we do, right? We're making a whole bunch of conscious decisions driven by the trade-offs We have to make and in this case maybe adding a red a server is an acceptable trade-off it's fairly low cost as far as Complexity and it's pretty quick to get running so we're looking at a example of a Model that has an asynchronous create that we can start to enqueue things into we can start to run jobs on top of Up in our transaction We specify the queue we want and we have a self-dopper form method that the worker We're actually run and do what we wanted to do And in our model, I've added a an async create method. I'm missing the self it should be deaf self async create but Other than that, I mean, we're in pretty good shape here. So all of a sudden our controller Looks like this now We're creating our our object in memory But we're not actually saving it we make sure it's a valid object and So we know that it passes all of our tests all of our validations and it's something safe We can do do something with and now we pass it off to Redis. We say async create and We now will enqueue that and It'll be worked at a later time This requires a pretty major shift in the way you think about applications The reason I say that is because you're not doing anything here except rendering a Successful response and I left out that piece of that code because that doesn't matter But you do not do any data manipulation within your app server itself. You're passing it off onto something else Now if you're obviously if you're requesting data, this may not be the model to choose But for creation of data if they don't need it immediately You can start to look at something like this and you can also start to look at tools such as real-time services web sockets or Other Interval polling and other methods in order to start to get this data out You can get you can have the data push the page We're ready and this is a pretty fundamental shift in the way we think of web applications and offers a new way to scale The reason I say that is because now of course as our application starts to get loaded We can fire up more and more workers to work on the rescue queues and we've shifted the problem We've shifted the problem in the user's favor in that when the user is operating with the application They're not bound by everything. We're doing in the background But they are now operating on what they can see and what they can work with and When you're ready for them to work with new pieces of information You'll give it to them. So We've done something major here. We've taken a very synchronous system. We've taken a system that was a Problem that we were looking at that it was just the blue and the red in our enterprise massive scale area and our our rails Ruby app We've done two things We've abstracted the problem of Synchronity and blocking away from our inter app communications away from our apis that communicate outside of the context of public apis and public apis are a whole different matter, but The ones between the two api the two Systems we've now alleviated And we've enabled a new way of scaling We've also done the same thing within our application We've considered the lay job. We've considered things that may hurt harm our database But we've instead gone with a worker system that adds a little bit of complexity But overall helps our application in a lot of ways and More moral moral we've made a fundamental shift in the way we think about web applications this model I'll I'll hammer it again is not a synchronous model. You cannot Host out with this model create something and get it back immediately It'll be available when the workers are processed it but you're trading Availability for a lot more speed and a lot more of a distributed system So I've left some time for questions My name is Jared Dillon. I'm at justice fries like freedom fries, but better and There's some resources here These are all resources. We've discussed in this talk on over briefly But and these are all great gems, but more all focus on the architecture decisions We've made here and how it benefits your app. Thanks so much Mike sure You still have that constraint yes, yes, and and I deliberately avoided that because that database concerns are a Oh, I'm sorry So Mike's question was so we we've abstracted everything out and made it so everything's a synchronous Well, how do you deal with database issues that you're still blocked by the database and how do you deal with that? Right you have more people trying to put information into the database all at once And My response to that of course, you know, I looked at that that out of this talk deliberately database scaling is a huge huge topic that a lot of people have thought much more deeply about I have a course you get once you have that constraint you're starting to talk about Finding ways in order to to scale that database and that really becomes a bottleneck at that point beyond a security Yes, that's a very good point The follow-up was if I ask for something valid if I create an object in memory and check if it's valid now When I do it And if I do a deploy something else I change validation rules while sitting in the queue grab along that may be that couldn't cause problems later down the road when it tends to create and feel validation and So of course when you're building the worker you would have to build an error checks against that you may want to check It's valid Again, or actually be able to kick it into a failure queue to be able to be handled and and send off the proper Notification sending email, you know this order failed Here's why to the user and so that at that point you have to really decide how you want to interact with the people Using the system. That's a great question. So the question was if since because I'm just checking something's valid And you're queuing it do you run the risk of losing something if if the queuing server or reddit were to crash In the case of reddit you can make it persistent and right after this and so you're protected You still have those objects in the queue ready to go in the case of random queue you can also make your Queues become persistent and so the right after this will reconstruct when they are when they're restarted The downside of that would grab in queue is it's much slower than then when it's just operating in memory And so if it's it really goes down to what you're doing if you're doing something critical like a transaction I just showed there absolutely you want to use a persistent queue if you're processing analytics data Okay, you miss a you miss a point here and there you probably don't care so much You probably care more about being the bulk data that you can aggregate over So the question was what if you're queuing servers down when the when the job is pushed in the first place? In I mean in that case the flat I answer nothing happens. They can't make the connection. You can't put the job in there That that gets a lot more into developer operations as far as what you do on the server side If if you can't do it At that point you do have to have some exception handling around that and say Take it back. You can't do it or another option is to of course have synchronous fallbacks and I wouldn't necessarily recommend that but you can As what It's all new version does okay, Josh was saying the new version of Rather than here is active AJ which Okay, yeah, so you can have so for with Robin q you you had much of a Master slide set up and so now you can have two masters as well to help insulate you against that You know you are talking about one of the trade-offs we did We do have to think about is now we're trading for a single point of failure and how do you insulate against that? So it's about insulating it's failure at that point. So I prefer Ruby a MVP. Oh Yeah, yeah, so the question was do I prefer Bunny and or which which in QP gems would prefer and why I prefer Ruby and QP first because The I like the DSL around it and it does run async in a vending machine Bunny and Karen are great. They are they are synchronous options So if you need to do things in your controller in in rails itself with the cues you can use those I prefer Karen. I like the DSL better But buddy and Karen are both good jobs Any other questions and asked how do you handle having a whole bunch of moving parts in your system now that you've started to make it more complicated and How do you make it easy to develop in that environment? Okay, so the way I've done it is When setting up these systems, of course, you know, you have to make the hard decision Okay, do I want to add this moving part of the system and the One way I might do it and I've done it once With mix success is set up a chef solo Script in order to get everybody set up and running with the same environment And then using gems like foreman to do process management and run all my things all at once Have really helped that process. It can be a nightmare when you have to say okay You have to boot up 10 processes to really develop on this thing that can get ugly But if you want a great job to start looking at that start leaving in that problem Foreman is an excellent process manager that by declaring a proc file and Saying form and start it'll start everything in your application all at once together and keep you running and maintain a single log to see what's going on So Mike was saying there is a great job with chef solo upon soloist and pivotal. I should use it to set up their workstation I'll check that out. Be sure to check that out as well. Thank you so much. Thank you


Dinner will be ready in half an hour. Lasagna, your favorite. Aren't you going to practice your tuba before dinner? I'm not going to practice. You're not, but honey, you always practice an hour a night. Is something wrong? Nothing's wrong. I just don't feel like it, okay? Well, you've been practicing pretty hard. I'm sure it's okay if you take a night off.  I don't want to play the tuba anymore at all.  Hey, Josh. Yo, Josh. I heard you're going to make the track team. Uh, yeah. I'm out for track two. Maybe we'll have a good team this year. Yeah, see you around, man. Hey, what gives? What do you mean? I mean, you guys used to totally pick on me. Oh, you know, that was mostly Thor. Thor was always just looking for someone to pick on. He moved to a new school now. And since we're going to be on the same track team together, I hope you can kind of forget about us picking on you. Okay. What do those two want? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Weird, huh?


Over a month ago I started this, Hilvers Delta 100 in 35mm, it's time for another adventures in film. I put aside that video to work on a couple more videos and my plan was to pick up where I left off. I only made a few exposures, but between then and now I got this, a different 35mm camera. I have this and this, so instead of continuing on with that initial video where I was testing out a roll of Elford's Delta 100, because I'd never shot it in 35mm, I decided since I have another camera body now, why don't I just shoot T-Max 100 in the new camera body and I can do a comparison. You might be thinking, why does he need another 35mm film camera? Well, it's quite simple. My older camera, this is a Nikon N90, it works fine on lenses with aperture rings. Unfortunately, most of my lenses are more modern G-type lenses that don't have the aperture ring.  It's just that simple. So why am I shooting 35mm? I do have a large format camera, it's 4x5 and I don't plan on getting rid of that, I plan on keeping using that. If you've seen my videos over the last year, we had some struggles, but I don't see any reason to get rid of that camera, I still enjoy using it, but what I really would like to do with 35mm is just be a little more playful, be a little more experimental. The cost of the film is just so much cheaper. On my 4x5 when I'm spending $3 or $4 per click, you can't really do a lot of photography for that. This last roll T-Max 100 I just bought, it was $7 for 24 exposures, it's going to cost me $1 to develop, so I'm going to have less than $10 into this roll of film. That's basically 2 or 3 frames of 4x5 sheet film, so that's one of the biggest reasons I'd like to just play with a little bit with 35mm film. So now I need to get back to the task at hand. I need to find some compositions to shoot this Delta 100 and T-Max 100 on. I've already made my first composition on this little creek, I'm just going to walk around this area in this section of woods and see if I can find something. I'd like to find a variety of shots, get an idea of what I can expect from this film. This will probably be one of those things where I don't finish today, hopefully it doesn't take me another month to get it done. We'll have it done in a few days and then we'll get it processed and see what we've got. Finished scanning and editing the negatives, did a quick edit, didn't want to spend too much time on them. What I did notice is my scan was really bad and that's another reason I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on these negatives. I spent about the same amount of time on each image for each roll, didn't do anything fancy, just kind of made it presentable. Just something to get an idea of what the characteristics of the film were and kind of compare the grain and stuff like that. This exercise really pointed out to me that I really need a better scanner or a better way of scanning the negatives. So that's going to be my focus here in the future. And another point is, this by no means a scientific comparison, there's just too many variables. There are two different cameras, the lights changing. In my results, maybe way different than somebody else's results based on the developer I use, how I expose the film. There's really no definitive answer when it comes to this kind of thing. I'm just doing this to kind of get a general idea of what I can expect from these films. And if somebody ever tells you, oh, so-and-so film does this, this is how it works, well it maybe works that way on their way they shoot, the way they process the film. But somebody else can use the exact same film to come up with completely different results. So you've got to really take that with a grain of salt. The only way to find out if this film or a certain developer is going to work for you is by shooting the film and processing it in that developer. One more thing, this new camera, my new camera, well about halfway through this role I realized that it wasn't quite latched correctly. And it looked kind of odd to me. It did have a little bit of a light leak on one frame, and what was happening was half the latch was broke and only the bottom part was catching. So I've got to send the camera back and get a refund. So I'm back to the old camera, I don't have two cameras anymore. So this will be the last film comparison for a while. So let's get back to the video. I've got to say before doing this comparison, I had a lot of preconceived ideas on how these films would compare. I think a lot of that came from reading photography forums, and I just kind of got this general idea of how Delta 100 would compare to T-Max 100. What I expected from Delta 100 was a nice tonal range, but something that was grainier than T-Max 100. I do think the tonality of Delta 100 is a little bit different than T-Max 100. Not drastically. To me it feels just a little punchier, maybe a little bit more contrast. They both scan very well. Where I thought I would see the biggest difference was in the grain. In this comparison I was really surprised at how well Delta 100 stood up against T-Max 100. In fact, some of the frames I felt like Delta 100 might have had a slightly finer grain than the T-Max 100. That's something I really did not expect. I used a yellow filter on this image of this covered bridge. And it looks to me like the Delta 100 showed the effects of the yellow filter just a little bit more. I mean, we're talking slightly. And once again, there are a lot of variables that could play into that. But for this one image, it did look like the blues in the sky was slightly darker with the Delta 100. It really doesn't do me that good to analyze every exposure, every frame in this comparison because they're so similar. And I don't think you're going to see that much difference on YouTube. You're going to just have to trust my eyes when I say I see a slight difference. Although this is pretty anti-climatic, this comparison has helped me decide what film I'm going to be using. And I'm happy to say I would use either one of these films. A lot of it will be just what's available to me, what's the most affordable. It feels good to know that no matter which one I pick, I'm going to be able to use it and get excellent results from it. If a picture doesn't turn out, it's not going to be because of the film. I could scroll through and point out different aspects of these images. But there's really nothing in them that I couldn't change. It's just very workable film. It's very manageable. When I scan a negative, I don't expect to get the final image in the scan. I expect to get a working file. Kind of like a raw image. I want to make sure it has enough detail in the highlights and in the shadows. And then once I get it into my editor, I make the fine adjustments. So often photographers or people want you to pick a side. It's always got to be a side. Canon versus Nikon or PC versus Mac. Well, Delta 100 versus T-Max 100, it's kind of a draw, you know? It's just whatever you like. A lot of it just depends on your shooting style and how you develop your film. So with that being said, until next time, thanks for coming along for the ride.


Welcome to digital asset news to get top stories and cryptocurrency and digital assets and break them out in bite-sized pieces. Today, we have conflicting reports from two different agencies. First up, the IRS commissioner is saying they are probing into the dark web for sales of NFTs and illicit cryptocurrency activities. And what they're pretty much saying is that they're having a very hard time tracking all the disturbing instances of cryptocurrency foul play, which goes in direct opposition to what a former CIA director report puts out and says, look, we need to get on blockchain and cryptocurrency. It's actually a very good thing and it's very easy to use and track. And these are the types of things we need to find out exactly what is going on because there's conflicting reports. And this, my friends, is where the battle is won or lost in regulation. So we'll take a look at what those two things are going on a little bit deep dive. But first take a look, let's go on the market. So today it is Thursday, April 15th. Congratulations. We're almost towards the end of the week. And the market is very healthy. Actually, maybe a little bit overbought, but I'm not going to tell you that market cap right now is $2.24 trillion. So not too shabby. Some of the hottest things that we're talking about right now on Twitter is band maker balance. They're in classic. Sure. Curve, iOS Tzen and the pirate chain, which is R. That's pretty funny. And that is form trade the chain, which is all sentiment analysis. Let's just take a look at the price itself. Bitcoin $63,000. So great. Can't beat that. Ethereum up 20% for seven days, 2,500 almost, Binance coin. Everything's pretty much up or maybe down a little bit with Binance coin, but all for seven days. I mean, just fantastic results. And this is all leading up our was really a culmination of the thing that happened with Coinbase, with their direct listing or IPO where it started off at around 350, 380 jumped out to 423 and then took a little bit of a dive, a little whipsaw. And now I think we're trading around 330, 340. We expect to see a lot of big things with that, but that really just does bring legitimacy and it was good to see. So that's pretty much gone in the market. I mean, really, everybody's in profit. Let's just be honest. It's a great day. Enjoy the day. Look, you did the hard work.  That's really all you have to do today. And real quick, let's take a look at any kind of our inside traders. If you're a trader, this is all sentiment analysis. You can find a link in the description for trade the chain. If you want to check it out, you're looking in between, not too much 1% gains from Harvest Finance, Aave, Audius, which I really got to take a look at. Looks like a great project. Make your Troy and cover protocol. And yeah, that's what's going on the market. Let's just jump into today's top story because I think this is the most interesting thing. And actually, before we get to that, let me make mention of, there's like three different things I want to cover. First of all, over on Alex Mascioli's show, we had Steven Erlich, the CEO of Voyager, sit down and give us an in-depth detail of what is going on because people are really complaining and upset about deposits and withdrawals. That is the big thing. And then, of course, some people are talking about wait lists and they can't get in. So Steve Pomer says down and said, look, this is what's going on. And it's about 30 minutes long. I'm going to link at the very end. I highly recommend you watch it because he just says, look, it's not like we're doing anything nefarious. The problem is we're having problems with fraudsters. People are trying to gain access and they're trying to steal your money. And we have to do a lot of different things to really clamp down that right now as we put in new protocols and different things. So they're bringing a whole new team to help them out with this. And I, for one, am like, when I hear these things, I'm like, Steve, just do what you got to do. Just keep my money safe. Keep my crypto safe because there's all these things going on.  So there's that. And he's also talking about some of the banks that they're working with are really not as careful as they should be. He goes, you know, they're all FDIC insured.  So they're like, we're going to shut some things down. It's going to take a little bit longer. We've hired a lot more customer service reps. And it just goes over the whole thing. So just watch the video and you'll probably get a whole better understanding of what's going on. On top of the fraudsters, we also got this kind of garbage going around. So Celsius is coming out with their web-based application instead of just on the phone. And this is an email that went out that almost fooled me. It said, hey, have you heard the news? And this looks exactly like it's from Celsius. We're thrilled to share that the Celsius web wallet is officially live. And then we're going to give you away 500 bucks. Hint, no one's given away free money. So just connect your wallet and we'll be good. And people have been falling for this. So there was a post put out, Celsius dropped an email. They put everything out on Twitter. They put everything on, especially this blog post. And the big thing is that your funds are safe. Just don't fall for this. So this is really important that on this channel, I talk about these things to make you aware. You're not special. No one's given you free money.  Be super careful. And that's the big thing. So those two things, that's one of the bigger stuff. And then lastly, to finish up, I thought it was just really funny, is that CZ Binance, he said, hey, I know that really, if you know, there's a rivalry between Binance and Coinbase, especially when Coinbase pretty much walked out of a regulation group that was working with Congress and different lobbyists because Binance was added to the group.  We still love you guys. And we'll even list your coin or the Binance or the Coinbase coin on our platform so you can trade it as like a synthetic stock. I thought it was pretty funny, but it's pretty like just a little subtle jab. Nice to see a little passive aggressiveness. And then finally, just so you know, there is the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami June 4th to 5th. I will link this in the description below. There's going to be a lot of cool people there. Let's see who else. Tony Hawk and some other people. And yeah, that'll be cool. And I don't know if I'm going to go. Maybe just to sit around and watch just what's going on in the world of crypto. That'd be awesome. So I'll link that below and you can check that out. All right. So let's jump in today's top story. So first up, this was interesting to me because to me, I always feel like everybody's trying to pull the wool over our eyes, or they're trying to do a little bit something for their own purposes. And I'm going to explain this in a bit. So the IRS is probing the dark web to look for crypto and NFT tax evasion, says IRS commissioner. So first of all, taxes are coming up and you might want to definitely think about filing because of this reason. This is just for Americans, you know, wherever else you are. But this was interesting because it just talks about the things that they're doing. So IRS commissioner Charles Redig in a testimony before the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday, the US fails to collect as much as a trillion dollars in taxes owed each year in part due to the explosion in crypto, which are difficult for the agency to track and tax. First of all, let me just say this.  That's why there's an AML and KYC. If you're going to sit here and tell a committee that you're messing out on a trillion dollars in taxes, there's a reason for that. And the reason is because when you go through a committee for Congress, you're trying to tell them like the worst case scenario that's really going on, because guess what?  And if you can tell them just how awful it is and how much you need help and what else is going on, all of a sudden your division gets a ton of money. So I would not be surprised because the IRS has been been pretty much shortchanged over the last so many years. And they're looking to say, hey, we need a lot of help and we're missing out on a trillion dollars in taxes we can get, so just help us out and we can do it. There is no reason why they can't find people who are avoiding taxes. I mean, yes, they can use Monero and things like that. Yes, they can do some kind of mixer, but for the majority, come on, trillion, get out of here. So this is just something like to me, it just feels like they're like, hey, there's a boogeyman out there and we got to really control this. All right, so yeah, he talks about, so now we have these non-fungible tokens, which are essentially collectibles in the crypto world. Yes, these are not visible by design. The crypto world is not visible. Again, it is a public ledger. It's the same thing the banks talk about, they're full of it. And you can find a lot of great information. Actually, I can find out more information about you watching this video right now, especially for wallets and what's in your wallet that I ever can for your bank account unless I'm a great hacker. So really, wallets are very open. Take a look at Ethereum scan, Theta scan, Bitcoin scanner, all those different things you could find every wallet out there. Now, you can't say who it is attached to, but if you have access to an exchange and a KYC and AML and stuff that they have, I guarantee you can find a bunch of information. In the criminal context, the IRS criminal investigations, cybercrime unit has been spectacular operating in the dark web, engaging with crypto related transactions and some other stuff when I pretty much just bypassed it because it was boring. So that's really what's going on here. And again, the big thing is it's all a pony show, dog and pony show in my opinion. Like they're like, oh, we just can't do it. It's just really tough, which is weird because here's a nice little report from my friend, Ryan Gorman, where he talks about what's this from the Forbes article where the former CIA director just says, look, I did an in-depth report and it's very easy to track things. And all this less than activities you guys are talking about. That's not the case. So what's going on here? So Bitcoin just received a strong load of confidence from an unlikely source, a former acting director of the CIA. And doing so, you put government officials on notice, such as Janet Yellen, all the rest of the people were like, this is just awful. We're not going to go with this. Michael Morel, a 33 year veteran of the agency, published an independent paper commissioned by the newly formed lobbying group, Crypto Council for Innovation. Members include Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Square, No Binance. Directly refuting this well-traveled narrative in an expansive study, Morel came to two key conclusions. One, the broad generalizations about the use of Bitcoin and illicit finances are significantly overstated. Shocker and blockchain analysis is a highly effective crime-fighting and intelligence-gathering tool, which is true. You can find a lot of different things about different wallets and everything else. Just pretty track things from one to the other together. Very simple. Again, if you use other options, maybe you can get away with it, but that's not the majority. Morel made it clear that there will also be severe geopolitical repercussions for the US versus China if it wastes energy and resources chasing a ghost as opposed to leveraging blockchain. He states, we need to make sure that the conventional wisdom that is wrong about the illicit use of Bitcoin doesn't hold us back from pushing forward the technological changes that we're going to keep pace with China because they are blowing right past the United States. Well, in all honesty, every country is, so it's not surprising right now. If you don't like that comment, it's the truth. Sorry. One of his key assumptions was that people like Secretary Yellen and Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, were some of the most informed people on the planet, which is what I would think too, because you have access to all this information. So they probably speak the truth, right? However, in doing his analysis, he discovered just the opposite that Bitcoin and crypto weren't rife with illicit activity. In fact, there was probably less illicit activity in the Bitcoin ecosystem than there is in the traditional banking system. Shocker. Who are some of the biggest lobbyists in Congress? Well, it's some of the people with the most amount of money. And who is that? The banks and all the different people. Health insurance also too. So when you hear about these people going up in arms about these things, well, of course, because they don't want this to happen. It only makes sense. Thanks for getting a blockbuster. That's just how it is. So what did he find? He found that less than 1% are illicit activity. This is from on-chain analysis. And this is a nice little graph where he just talks about, look, in 2013, there was a lot more with Silk Road, but that got shut down. And then in July 2017, Alpha Bay shut down, whatever that was. And in 2019, there's a little bit of an uptick with the plus token Ponzi scheme, but that's already gone. So we're looking at less than 1%. And as far as like banking and other types of things, it's more than 2%. In fact, he said he was literally blown away by how they find illicit activity. Oops, sorry. Perhaps even more interesting to Morell was how analytic firms such as Chainalysis, Cypher, Trace, and Elliptic can employ forensic and artificial intelligence to find illicit actors and activity on blockchains. And he was blown away by this. So again, what they just talked about with the IRS was like, we can't find anybody. And this guy's like, we can find everybody. So it's just kind of weird. And then he talks about how, yeah, you can bypass the whole thing if you want to use some type of privacy coin, like a Zcash, like a Monero or something like that. And that was pretty much it. So again, I'm just going to leave this up to you for you to decide and don't let me sway you in my opinion. But that's just how I see things. I just see a lot of dog and pony shows and people are coming out and talking about how awful it is so they can do whatever for their own purposes. But in all honesty, if you just take a look at it, like again, I can find a lot of information for a lot of different people just by looking at wallets and especially with Chainalysis and all the things that are really just open.  So let me just take the comment section. Maybe I'm incorrect. And that is pretty much it. There's a couple of things I want to make mention that is that if the IRS really is looking in the dark web and the NFTs, and we know that they're knocking out the doors and they're talking to the exchanges they're doing John Doe summons, you really want to think about filing taxes.  And of course, I'm going to use crypto trader dot tax, super simple as soon as you open it up. So I show I did this when I opened it up, got it all in, sent it over my CPA to me 30 minutes. This year to me a little bit longer, excited away from Voyager CSV file. I think we all know that I've been talking about it, but it's very simple. So there's two options here in the link in the description. I'm going to actually end this at the very top. You can go to this web address and you can enter to win for a free $300 unlimited report. And they'll draw a winner every week. If you want to get things done right now, all Dan looked in the description, there is a 20% discount for Dan users. Just click on that very easy peasy and off you go. On top of that, if you don't like paying taxes at all, I would definitely recommend using my trust IRA. That's a crypto IRA. I have that now for two years. I've maxed out. And just so you know, before May 15th, for tax time in America, you can actually retro add in funds for 2020 until May 15th. And then after that, you can actually max out 2021. They'll talk all about that. Again, if you have a traditional IRA, you want to roll it over to 401k, 403b, TSP, if you're retiring, tax and penalty free, then check these guys out. I've got a Roth IRA. It's all cryptocurrency. Actually, I have Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, get some of the things in there too. And you can trade in there tax free as well. And there's no charges. So that's pretty cool. And then just lastly, just so you know, they also just added Cardano to that mixed. So Polkadot, Ethereum and now Cardano, if you have that in your Roth IRA, I think in Q2, I'm pretty sure, they're going to allow you to stake it within your IRA, get those rewards, and also not pay taxes. So again, link in the description to get 30 days for free just to check it out. And you can also schedule a call right here in the upper right end corner says schedule call. That's why I did sit also down with you 30 minutes and explain what the heck this all is. And also, I did a video on how this all works in the description. Alright, so I know it was a little bit long, and I was rambling a little bit, I apologize, but a lot of good information. So if you made this far, first of all, thanks. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming by. Give it a thumbs up if you liked it. You found some value. Also consider subscribing. A lot of things we talk about very time sensitive, like obviously, and that is it for today. So thanks so much. I appreciate it. And we'll see you on the next


A very good Tuesday entrepreneur shape morning to you. You are watching Why in the Morning only on Y245 TV. I hope you did catch that interview with one by Moses and now it's about time we bring the information technology gurus to studio from Axelis Tech to come and let us know just a little bit about what they do and why you should procure IT services just in case you've always wondered. Anyway, so do remember that this weekend we have a very special function here at Y254 with Katika Namash Outer. So make sure you do slide into our DM or go to our social media handles and make sure you participate in the competition. There's up to 60,000 shillings to be won. So make sure you do catch up with us this particular Saturday to win the road trip to Kedogo and make sure you do upload your videos and be part of us. But it's about time I introduced the Young Men in Studio with me today from Axelis Tech. I have one Derrick Siri and one Joseph Ikito, the programmer and the quality assurance manager. Say good morning to the Y in the morning family for the very first time. Good morning. Good morning. Yes, Karibuni Sana. Thank you. Axelis Tech, let's talk a little bit. What is the background towards this particular business venture? Axelis Tech is an IT company. So we cover all things, telecommunication, information, technology, connectivity, IT as you know it in whatever layman's language you understand it to be. That's what we do. Where did the passion to do this come from? Well, I studied IT in campus. So just followed the career. Yes. You followed whatever you studied, that's what you pursued. It is my passion. So when I went for it, I decided this is what I'm going to do until I die. Until you die? Yes. You are that passionate? Yes. Okay. Okay. Let me understand from Derrick as the programmer. Why did you express interest in this particular industry? And what gap is this that you had identified that you thought that people do need assistance when it comes to design, when it comes to connectivity? What gap had you identified in the Kenyan market? Well, the gap is that when I was in campus, there was this hotel that was around our institution. They were having an issue with their management systems and the funds were disappearing. So for my projects in campus, I did the hotel management system for them. And actually they accepted it and they paid me, it was back then it was an okay amount of money before I knew the value that I had created. So when I decided to venture out fully after employment, that is when I decided then we put the skills that I have into good use. Yes. Yes. Derrick, what's your story? I am Derrick. Oh, sorry, what's your story? Yes. I'm so sorry. Just say what's your story? For me, I have always been an entrepreneur before doing tech or whatever I'm doing now. I've always done a few businesses here and there, always looking for change, extra cash. So when I was in campus, I happened to get a job before. I had not studied computer science. Oh, you had not studied it? No. I was moving into accounting, same aspect, money, profit, all that. And then initially I came to realize that I had a skill in networking and development. And then someone just said to me, I've seen what you do and most of the people that we work with in the office are not even articulate as you are in tech. So probably should pursue the passion. Then I realized if this person can see that as a talent, let me let me try it out. And I did and I found out it was an easier way. I have the talent and the business skills and I can combine both and then I found out it was a passion I had. So yeah, I studied graphic design, started from there, development online. Here I am. And here you are today. Yes. Well, I've seen that you guys also design apps. Sorry, you create apps. And what's interesting about apps is I'd like to understand what kind of apps is this that you tend to lean towards? You tend to lean towards? What type of apps? What are those apps that as axelistic you like them or you lean towards that kind of nature of an app? Well, I wouldn't say they are types of apps. What I would say is an app is basically just what you already know. It's something a tool that you use on the phone. For us, what we do is we've centered on SMEs, SMEs and medium sized companies. So what we do, they have an idea, they have a solution, they have something they need that needs to be put on phone, iOS or Android, mostly Android, because that's a platform people use because of the costs and balance of everything. So what you do is we take the idea, we develop, we know how it's done, and then we do it for you. We help your company. You know, for there are two ways you can do an app. Either you have the idea, you can develop or you can develop, but you don't have an idea. So when we develop, we go find ideas, they pay us, we help them come into the app stores. Interesting. You know, I'm not very tech savvy, but I'd like to understand from you, especially someone who mentioned about having a passion for entrepreneurship. How did your business plan look like originally? What factors did you put into consideration? Because you know, it's entrepreneurship Tuesday and we're here to let the young people know how we ended up at this particular point. Initially, yeah, that's an interesting one. Initially, you always have the idea. You course it down half costs.  That's what we all taught in school. That's a funny thing.  My profit is 20. So that's the same thing. I sat down. I saw I had a skill. I would cut down on so many people, including myself. You know, Derek is is someone who's already tech savvy. I am. So that's quite the introvert. He's like a geek. So anyway, we go put out all those other elements of hiring guys. So all I'm worried about is just finding the money. What tools do I need? So when did you find the money? Because that's another question people usually say. They have the idea. They have the structure. They have a very good plan set up, but I couldn't have a say. So what did you guys do to get some money? In my case, I jumped all that because I was already having a laptop that I require. Most people right now young guys. Oh, so you just need a laptop? Yes. I just need a laptop and a good phone and bundles, which if I wasn't using for chatting, I would, that's what I'm using for. That's how I started because either way, I would be chatting. Most people chat a lot. Make sure you hold the microphone up. Most guys chat a lot. So I was just inspired. Let me just use this tool. I started with web and graphic design tutorials. So what I would do is I would use all the bundles I would use by tutorials offline.  You also didn't study the computer science. Yes. That actually came in for the money aspect. I had to eliminate that with that. But I saved up a little bit of money for the extras when a client calls, use your own fare instead of just going hanging out on Fridays. Yes, start out like that. Yeah. And then I ended up lucky for me because I'm the skill set. I don't need to hire a lot. So I didn't have to spend as much. I see. I'd like to understand Derek now. Am I correct? Yes. How was the experience like when you first ventured into the business world? Well, I was employed actually for about five years before I decided to venture out full time for my household. Well, while I was employed, I got two clients. Two clients? Still employed. Yes. They needed IT support and somebody referred me to them. So when I went and I provided my services, they were quite happy and decided to retain my services. And that is how I started off. Interesting. So I didn't hustle as much. Yes, because I had the skills and the resources. You had the skills and the very few resources required. Yes. I think also maybe if you imagine in tech, it's a bit different. So says are more what you know. It's a solution I can offer. If the money went down, if there was no connectivity, I don't need to get a lot of money to get the solution. I like that. It's the skills that you have. So this money thing is just an attitude. It's just a skill. It depends. Different fields. Different fields. Different strokes for different folks. Yes. Okay. Okay. Let me understand. What was the highlight of Axelis Tech? What has been the highlight so far? I know this is probably the first time that you're here on Y254.  What keeps you guys going? For me, I'd say the inspiration of sharing what the ideas that I have, you see tech is not just a business. It's also innovation, creativity. And that creativity, sometimes guys won't fly us. They won't post us. They want mini animations. So for me also, it's something I already have inside of me. I am looking for someone I can showcase to. So having that platform where I can do that, maybe sometimes like Derek being the geek in the cables. He can flex his skills. He sees something going down. He's like, no, no, no. Let's just sort this out. Let's find out where the package issue is coming from. It's the inspiration of what you really know. I want to share it out. Okay. So for you, it's about the sharing.  Derek, what is it about for you? Well, I enjoy how amazing it is when you solve an issue that somebody is having with their computer. And they look at you with a lot of surprise as like you are performing some magic trick there. You see that, that gratitude that you get from my client is what inspires me to keep on going. Okay. Yes. So can let's talk about global trends. You know, this is the time when technology keeps changing and advancing and diversing. And I'd like to understand here in this country, what are some of the tech, the trends that you have noticed that are affecting your particular industry, especially when it comes to tech and new apps and new phones and new softwares. I'd like to understand what the experience is like for someone who is green in this new market. What's the technological field looking like right now? Well, technology is changing big time. Yes. Like Google the other day just said that they're going to close down some of their affiliate accounts, the likes of Google Plus. Oh, which are the ones that do? They're closing Google Plus page. They're also charging. They're closing out Google Maps for free. So they're going to charge it. Those are changes. And also if you look at the Kenyan terrain, so many people are accessing devices like you said, using apps. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. About apps. Now they are also now charging guys using apps. We are way behind that part of using the apps. And already the network is catching up. Everyone is catching up with what is there already in the market. Now there's farmers who are already doing agribis and they want a platform where they can sell. They can get money in a remote village. That's connectivity using an app and finding out on web and internet technology. Some farmers are developing websites. I have a couple of friends. Are you developing any for any farmer? Yes. Yes. Yeah. So what they do is they develop it's Oonga. They come package. Of course they have done everything nicely. They want to be on online platform. They want to teach people how to use Oonga. It's cassava. After they teach people how to use a cassava, they want to go and okay, find a customer base. They want to inspire their clientele by assuring them that we actually are available anytime you need us where we are. We have flyers for marketing and they also want to do social media marketing and online advertising so that they can reach themselves because it's another alternative to having flyers and sales guys. Interesting. So what can the Kenyan government do? Because now I'm hearing a lot of agribusiness is going tech. It's going what can I call it soft. It's going soft. A lot of the agriculture of business here in Kenya. I like the fact that you talked about that. What can the government do better when it comes to improving your industry? Well, the main challenge that we are currently facing is, you see for those people, yes, they agree. The farmers who want to use technology, they have one limitation, connectivity. That is to the internet. In those multiple places, you get the connection is very slow. Mostly it's edge or it's not even there. So you see that limits the farmer to the use of technology. So they have to use now a medium, a broker and they end up losing more instead of earning more from their business now. So there's a broker issue and connectivity issue as well? Yes, mostly the connectivity. Yes, the connectivity is the root of this which causes now for the farmers to look for a broker to sell. And this is expensive? Yes. Okay, thank you for mentioning that Derek, what are some of the challenges that you have observed in your particular line of duty? I would say subsidizing the cost for young guys. Like you said, how did we start up? For us, we didn't spend a lot of money just because of our industry. Maybe we were lucky you had a laptop you're already using, converted it to something that's equivalent to capital. But if you think about it right now, someone who is out there in a remote place, that's still Kenya, they want a laptop. They have to go buy a laptop. Where do they get money from? No one considers giving young guys subsidies. No one thinks about. So you wanted to subsidize the cost of electronics? No, no, no. Actually, the government can say like they're already saying they can use funds and all that. They can partner with, let's say Dell and say anyone who's between this age and younger, they can get maybe a certain percentage of discount or payment platform. They will not say we are used to handouts and we want them to make our life easy. Because the government has at least, it's the same way they were giving out laptops to the schools. That's an outreach which can help that young person jump a hurdle by the time they want to become an entrepreneur, other than they start it by themselves. Because they will have to start way back in other countries like Europe. A nine-year-old is already developing and programming. Why? Because they have access to these facilities. As a third world country, we are limited. So someone has to go through uni and then now after you finish, then you're told, okay, I've already paid fees.  Not so many people have that capacity. But here in Kenya, I don't think they recognize talent.  If you give them 20K, and it's a talent, talent will sell itself. Okay, talent will sell itself. I like that way of thinking. So let's talk about diversification. When it comes to diversifying, in the future, what other services is Axelistic be offering? I said from this web design, graphic design, do you plan to diversify or do anything aside from what you're doing, maybe in the next two years or so? Already we are looking to do virtualization. Virtualization? Yes. Virtualization of already if you have space, online space, and you don't need to buy extra. So in this case, talk about servers and extra equipment. Servers. Yeah, instead of buying the servers. Yeah, that's the name I think of IBC. Exactly. If IBC, instead of buying huge gadgets, I keep talking about expensive budgets all the time. They can virtualize the system and utilize mini compartments. I'm trying to explain it as simple as I can. Yes, please. In the layman's language. Yes, please. Yes, that's one. And also we are looking to train younger people. Like we said in our area. Are you looking to train like that? Yes, because young people are not accessible. There are kids out there. I have nephews and nieces. So you can see this one really loves tech gadgets.  You can spot the talent. Yes. So in guiding and leading them and also partnering with, you know, online, there are also platforms like MIT. MIT. They have development, developers platform. What's MIT? Say it again in full. MIT. Massachusetts. Oh, Massachusetts. They are already encouraging everyone to be a developer because you have ideas. As you sit down, you have ideas that I will never know unless you code yourself. Code. So everyone is unique. Yes, develop and code. Even the times being used here. So for that in that essence, if you start now helping and nurturing these kids, whatever talent they will have afterwards, they will come and showcase it now. We can reach out to schools. Yeah. I like that. What's your plan? What's your individual plan when it comes to diversification? Yeah, you see as a company, we cannot have an individual plan. We have a company plan. Yeah. Okay. Because we want to grow as a company, not as an individual. Yes. Okay, I like that answer very quick and very simple. So I'm not going to tell you anything. Okay, so where can people find you on your social media handles? At social media, we are at Axelis Tech. Everywhere. On Facebook, Instagram, Klamal. Axelis. Don't confuse Alexis. Guy, by the way, yeah. Axelis.th. At Axelis Tech, Facebook, everywhere. Being tech, we are we are in all these places. Okay, so let's go to our parting shots. Let me make sure this time that it says something for an entrepreneur outside there who is interested in joining the world of technology. What words of advice have you collected over the years that you can give them at home? Well, the thing about tech is very diverse. So just find that one feel that you're good at and keep at it. Find that one feel that you're good at and keep at it. Yes. Plus, it feels good to be the magician in the room. Yes. Thank you guys for coming to studio today. Thank you very much. I hope to see you again here on Y-254. But this time now, taking us deeper through these particular things. Anyway, my name is Hilda Wadidi. Please do not go anywhere. Please remember Katika Namash Auto is still on this Saturday. In case you're wondering what that is, slide into our social media. I try to Y-254 channel on Twitter. The hashtag is by in the morning. Hashtag entrepreneurship Tuesday. Please do not go anywhere. Joy Muchacha is coming up next.


Amen. Joshua chapter 7. So here we are, we're after the great battle of Jericho, the victory of Jericho is over and now the Israelites are continuing to press forward into the Promised Land. They've come across the Jordan River in Joshua chapter 5 and Joshua stood before the Lord and the Lord basically said, you know, I am the captain of the Lord's host and I am not. He didn't answer and say I'm with you or for you. It depended on what they did and we talked about that last week and of course they did what the Lord told them to do and they won the battle of Jericho. However, at the end of that situation something went wrong and we see that situation play out in Joshua chapter 7. Now there's so many lessons in Joshua chapter 7. It could probably be a sermon series in itself but what I'll try to do is I'll just explain through the chapter real quickly and then we'll go and we'll apply and look at all the, I'm going to kind of shotgun a bunch of lessons at you from Joshua chapter 7 this evening. Let's go ahead and just make sure we understand exactly the mechanics of what's happening in the chapter. Look at Joshua chapter 7 verse 1. It says, but the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing. For Achan, the son of Carmel, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zarah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel. So first of all we start to see a philosophy here and some one person messed up and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the whole nation for it. So that's an interesting thing that we'll talk about in detail this evening but basically someone took of the accursed thing. We're going to talk about in detail what the accursed thing is in a few minutes. Let's go through, somebody didn't listen to what God said that they were supposed to do in the exact way that God said they were supposed to do it. Joshua not knowing this continues into battle in AI and Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI which is beside Bethhaven on the east side of Bethel and spake unto them saying go up and view the country and the men went up and viewed AI and they returned to Joshua and said unto him let all the people go up, let about two or three thousand men go up and smite AI. He basically said send three thousand men, there's not that many people there, this is going to be easy. They're on a bit of a high, they just took a whole city by yelling at the wall and the wall fell down and then they basically destroyed the whole city and they're just saying just send a couple thousand people, we've got this. Look at verse five. And the men of AI smote of them about thirty and six men for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shabarim and smote them in the going down where for the hearts of the people melted and became his water so they went in and they lost the battle. And Joshua rent his clothes and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eventide. He and the elders of Israel put dust upon their heads and Joshua said alas oh Lord God wherefore hest thou at all brought us to the people over brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us with the God that we've been content and just dwelt on the other side of Jordan. So first of all they lose this battle and they're all very surprised and you can about imagine.  But it's interesting that Joshua, Joshua I mean is Joshua unspiritual? Is Joshua an ungodly person? I mean Joshua is a godly man in the Bible and he's godly and he's a good leader. I mean he is a very spiritual person but it's interesting that when things go wrong and we'll talk about this in a little bit more detail but I want to point it out in this verse right here. When things go wrong and we're the same way. Okay you're not more spiritual than Joshua and neither am I. When things go wrong people rarely self-reflect. That's one interesting thing.  You know when things go wrong in our life that's what we tend to see. God why are you doing this to me? People rarely look first at themselves. That's the first thing. Okay things in your family are falling apart. Things in your marriage are falling apart. Things in your life in general are falling apart and the first thing that we tend to go to is God why are you doing this to me? Instead of looking you know hey do I have something to do with what's happening here? You know is something in this house wrong? Is something in this group of people wrong? So that's just an interesting point that even Joshua failed to self-reflect right away. Look at verse number eight. Oh Lord what shall I say? When Israel turned their backs before their enemies he says we're running away from them. We're turning our backs to our enemies for the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it. He's saying everyone's going to hear what happened here and they're all going to come after us.  Look at verse number ten. And the Lord said unto Joshua get thee up wherefore byest thou thus upon thy face. Israel has sinned. God tells them what happened here. They have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them for they have taken of the accursed things. So there's two things they did wrong here first of all. We talk about the accursed thing and we're going to talk about the accursed thing but there's two things listed here. So they took of the accursed thing and have also stolen. So they took of the accursed thing and we'll talk about what that is but then they stole from the Lord is what the Bible says and dissembled also and they have put it even among their own stuff. Look back at Joshua chapter six and verse number seventeen. The accursed thing. So the city the reason that it's an accursed thing it's even called that in the first place is because of Joshua six and verse number seventeen. The Bible says and the city shall be accursed. Even it and all that are there in to the Lord. Only Rahab the harlot shall live. She and all that are within her house because she hid the messengers that we sent. So the thing the people and the things other than a few things are all accursed in the city. So if anybody took any of that that's the accursed thing. Okay look back at Joshua chapter seven and verse number twelve. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies but turn their backs before their enemies because they were accursed. So they took of the accursed thing and they themselves became accursed. Interesting to note there too.  Up sanctify the people and say sanctify yourselves against tomorrow. So I'm not going to read through all these other verses but basically he tells them go find out who did it go find out who took the accursed thing who broke the rules and down in verse number eighteen. So Joshua basically in the next few verses he starts going through the families and saying did you do it what did you do what did you take and when he gets to Akin this man Akin he confesses in verse eighteen and he brought out his household man by man and Akin the son of Carmai the son of Zabbi the son of Zara of the tribe of Judah was taken and Joshua said to Akin my son give I pray the glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession unto him and tell me now what thou has done hide it not from me. An interesting point there in verse number nineteen is that did you know that confessing your sins to God glorifies God. That's an interesting point that Joshua just made right there. He's like he doesn't know he's saying this to everybody he doesn't know who did it. He's just saying hey look you know confess what you've done confess your sins and give glory to God because when you cover your sins you're trying to glorify yourself but confessing your sins to God is glorifying to God. It's a humbling thing. Look at verse twenty. An Akin answered Joshua and said indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel and thus and thus have I done. When I saw the spoils a goodly Babylon Babylonish garment and two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight then I coveted them and I took them and I behold they are hidden the earth in the midst of my tent and the silver under it. He said I wanted coveted them. He's he's like I wanted them and I took them. So Joshua sent messengers they ran unto the tent behold it was hidden his tent and the silver under it.  The Lord shall trouble thee this day and Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones and they raised over him a great heap of stones under this day so the Lord turned the turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the name that the place was called the valley of Acor unto this day. So another interesting point is that when you know wrongdoing is punished and justice is carried out you know the Lord's anger is taken away. But look this is a pretty serious consequence this guy went through with his entire family here so let's look at what the accursed thing is. There's basically two categories of things that Akin took if you look back at verse twenty one it says I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and two hundred shekels of silver a wedge of gold fifty shekels weight then I coveted them and took them so first of all he took some clothing he took some clothing but the clothing was amongst the things that should have been destroyed God says so it was accursed it was one of the things that was accursed he didn't listen he just kept it for himself so these are you know these are things that you know he should have left those things behind but he thought you know what I'll just take some of these nice things with me and I'll just hang on to these things you know you ever felt like that in your life that maybe there's some things that you should leave behind but you're like you know what I'll just hang on to these things even though I know I'm not supposed to have them I'll just hang on to these things and but look here's the thing Akin paid for it Akin paid for what he did here the second thing he took what's the second thing look back at verse number eleven look back at verse number eleven look at what God says here says Israel has sinned they transgress my covenant they have taken of the accursed thing and also stolen look back at Joshua chapter six and verse number 19 not everything in Jericho was accursed not everything was to be just destroyed so yes he took some things that were supposed to be destroyed and he kept them for himself okay but not everything was to be destroyed look at Joshua 6 19 Joshua 6 19 look what the Bible says but all the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron are concentrated onto the Lord they shall come into the treasury of the Lord so look it says that not everything was accursed some of it literally belonged to God some of it literally belonged to God so Akin stole from the Lord he stole from God I mean this is a big no no turn to Malachi chapter three turn to Malachi chapter three look you don't want to be stealing from the Lord and that's exactly what Akin did because God claimed these things in Jericho as his own and Akin took them for himself he stole from God look at Malachi chapter three look at verse number go back to verse number eight this is a common verse you know we don't talk a lot about you know money and giving here this is a common verse used to prove that the Bible teaches that you should tide you should give a 10% of you know your wages to the Lord says but wherein have you robbed me in ties and offerings and you know typically if people you hear a sermon on giving at church you know giving 10% of your income to the church they'll read that verse but it's really interesting when you read the verses right after this as compared to the story of Akin look what the Bible says in verse nine so what happened to Akin he took of the accursed thing he robbed God and he himself became accursed he and his family became accursed and look at nine verse number nine it says ye are cursed with a curse it says poor ye have robbed me even this whole nation then look at verse number 10 so we see here we're going to see a a dichotomy we're going to see two sides of this coin here you're cursed with a curse in verse number nine or verse number 10 bringing all the ties into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now here with say at the Lord of hosts if I will not open your windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it so here God is saying you know what why don't you just not steal from me why don't you just bring your ties in and why don't you just see if I will not bless you for that instead of you know verse number nine look tithing is an act of faith I would be like it would be like from a personal perspective from a personal perspective it would be really easy for me like from a personal perspective to look at the tithe that I give to this ministry every single month and look at that and just be like oh man I could buy some stuff with that you know I mean because look I mean 10 percent of your income if you're working hard I mean that may seem like a few bucks and it may be but look what in the world would you be thinking if you did that I mean you're robbing God God says he's like why don't you just have a little bit of faith why don't you do what you're supposed to do look here's the thing that 10 percent of your income it's not yours it's God's whether whatever you do with it is up to you but it's God's and look at what happened to achin look at what malachi chapter three says here look I'm just giving you a personal testimony you know I tithe because I don't want you know that cursed 10 percent sitting in my treasury that's why you know that's why you're like like I've said before I round up I don't want to miss anything you know so look not doing so is robbing God and it will be you you know it will become a cursed thing when you rob God's very serious okay so that's you know kind of what the accursed thing is why achin was in so much trouble why it was you know taken so seriously but there's a lot of lessons here folks there's a lot of lessons that we can learn from what achin did here's some additional lessons for you I'm just gonna shotgun about four or five lessons for you this evening from this story first of all go back you know actually turn to psalm chapter 119 psalm chapter 119 and I'm going to read for you lamentations 340 where the Bible says let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord people rarely rarely really self reflect as much as they should people should self reflect more look at Psalm 119 verse 59 the Bible says I thought on my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies because here's the thing in lamentations 340 it says something very similar it says let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord self reflecting is going to cause you to turn again to the Lord that's what it's going to cause you to do so instead of just sitting there in your life and saying you know what look it will alleviate a lot of confusion for you too because look if next time you think God why is this happening to me why are you doing this to me just why are you allowing this to happen God just check your own house self reflect maybe there is a reason for it now I'm saying self reflect don't be Job's friends we're not to go and like see somebody like a brother who's just going through a really hard time and be Job's friends and be like brother you know are you a mess of sin you know maybe you're you must be sinning against the Lord I mean don't be Job's friends this is something we're to do ourselves to self reflect and then look you will you if you'll find stuff is what will happen and then you will take care of those things and you will turn again to the Lord that's what the Bible is telling us in Psalm 119 and Lamentations 3 it says self reflect and you will turn to the Lord so I mean when Joshua finally figured out God gave him the answer here you know Joshua had the advantage of God just verbally talking to him we have Psalm 119 and Lamentations 3 self reflect find it turn to the Lord that's what we're supposed to do okay so look just consider this a possibility when things are going south in your life okay that's lesson number one self reflect more lesson number two is this sin sin many times most of the time I hate to say all the time but a lot of the time sin leads to bigger sin you say you say what in the world you know this seems very harsh this seems very harsh that Achan he took some silver and he took some gold and you know but look back at verse um look back at verse number five it's actually a little bit more serious than you probably realize because he actually murdered 36 people is what Achan did you know here he went and he did what he wanted to do just so he could have some stuff and he could steal from the Lord and he got 36 men killed in verse number five it says that 36 men were killed in that first battle where the Lord had left them those men didn't know those men didn't know they were walking into a battle and the Lord wasn't with them it was a big secret so look sin will always lead to bigger sin you think you know what I'm just going to do this one thing in my life I'm just going to hang on to this one thing and I'm just going to it's no big deal it's not hurting anybody look it's going to it's going to lead to bigger things it's going to lead to bigger things all these people living under bridges don't tell me they didn't start you know drinking and having fun at a party in high school you know they're living under a bridge they're literally digging in trash cans and eating out of garbage I mean it started somewhere you know it wasn't some teenager that's like you know what I want to be a loser it just started eating out of a trash can that's not how it happened it started with something small maybe it seemed like something fun this is sin it gets its hooks in you and and some people just can't get some people will just never get out of it but sin will always lead to bigger sin turn to Luke chapter 8 verse number 17 what's the next lesson what's the next lesson like I said sermon series for five weeks we can have here but what's the next lesson I'm just going to shotgun a bunch of stuff out at you write it down write it down if you want to remember it look at Luke chapter 8 and verse number 17 here's the next here's the next lesson from Joshua chapter 7 look at verse 17 from the words of Jesus you have a red letter bible these words are read for nothing is secret that should be made manifest neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad here's another thing about sin sin in your life especially saved person sin in your life will be found out so when you get into sin even if it's the smallest thing just imagine people finding out about it because that's what the bible says is going to happen it's going to be found out sin will not remain secret that should deter you because a lot of people think you know no one will ever know about this but that's not the rules that you're operating under folks it will be found out big sins little sins and you know everyone's going to see it third lesson and this is a really big one this is a really big one sin will not just affect you this is why this is why this is why people they think that they can hang on to something or maybe not separate from something or maybe like they know what's right and they know what's wrong that's the disadvantage that you have coming here is you know what's right and you know what's wrong and if you just do it anyway you do it anyway the price is always going to be higher than what you think you're willing to pay and please do not misunderstand what i'm saying here you can think and you can think in your head what's the worst thing that could happen you have no idea the price will always be higher first of all you're going to drag others in just as akon did and down with you look at verse number five again look at joshua seven verse five and the men of a i smote about 30 30 and six men he drugged these men in and got them killed akon and his sin and look it wasn't just akon's family that suffered so you know a lot of people think well what about akon's family you know you shouldn't be punished for the sins of the father well here's the thing either they the children of israel went overboard and maybe shouldn't have executed them or they were in on it one of those two things i bet that they were probably all partaking in that sin they were probably all helping cover up that sin that's my opinion the bible doesn't tell us but i mean he dragged them in too and he got all of them killed look it was it was i mean 36 families without a father now is what akon sin did the sad thing about people raising their kids wrong you think well they can just raise their kids wrong and there's no problem i'll just raise my kids right but these kids end up ruining other people's lives too that's the problem you think of the you know i always think of the the the school shooter you know the the the crazy kid that went and shot up a school whether it be combine or whatever you know school shooting or whatever you know these crazy you know parents that had no business even having children in the first place that messed up their kids their kids turned into a bunch of devil worshiping whatever and they went and murdered other children look their sins affected others they turn their children they turn the lives of their family into a train of destruction that drove through other people's lives that's what akon did here it seems with i mean you know akon i mean here they are they're just having this big successful campaign and they could have just went along but look it just seems like with every group of people it seems like just in my experience of my short life it seems like with every group of people you're always going to have at least one person that just is just going the wrong way i don't know why that is but it would be nice in those cases if that person just paid the price but it never works that way they drag in others and everyone pays i mean i don't know akon akon knew god laid down these rules just one chapter ago and he delivered the victory that he said that he would victory but yet get people people will find out people know that too and they do it anyway they think they can get away with it or the price that they have to pay will be worth it i think is what people think this is why it's so important to separate as we constantly talk about in this church you know you talk about we talk about separating from family that's trying to derail you in your christian life we talk about you know how about this old friends how about old worldly friends how about this old ways that you used to do things i mean i can tell you i mean just god god told him one chapter ago i can sit up here and i can tell you again and again and again but look if you don't listen you and those around you will pay but people still think i can hang on to this one thing i'll just tuck this one thing away i'll just tuck this one thing away or this person i shouldn't be around or this lifestyle or this piece of my culture that i grew up with i'll just hide it in the earth and no one will ever know look it doesn't work that way for you some of you need to realize that if every single sermon that is preached up here is different than the way that you are used to doing things maybe you just need to realize that everything that you've been brought up to believe is wrong maybe you just need to peel that bandaid off just throw it all off it's why it's why you know i didn't have this in my notes but i was talking to brother matt and i'm sorry i didn't ask him if i could say this but i'm gonna say it anyway this is why we're typically we're typically churches like this are going to tend to not have like a lot of 70 plus year old people in it and thank god we do have some of those people i'm thankful for that i mean i love you know our older church members here don't get me wrong but typically a church that just preaches hard against sin is going to be difficult it's going to be a typically a younger church because and look i try to soften the blow when it comes to preaching against things that i know people have messed up on in their lives because that's not really the point sins that they you know committed in their past because look it's all under the blood it's all under the blood but i'm not going to soften the message on things because it's it's literally not about you looking back it's about the people you know it's about the next generation looking forward i mean in just just in general if you think you know in general if you if you come to church and you think man every sermon's about me look there's no pastor that is sitting there writing a sermon every single week about you it's it's not happening okay it's not happening no pastor does that first of all you know you just the you know that's why we're just going to be younger brother matt said that he went he visited a church it was more of a uh you know he said like everybody was over 70 and sure enough it was just a super light message just this super you know easy to take message no mention of of sin or hard preaching from the bible of course because you can't get up and preach on fornication and divorce and all these things that people have actually you know they've made these mistakes in their lives and they sit there like oh every sermon's about me you know no it's about the next gen can hey can we can the next generation do it different please that's what it's about look and and or you have a guilty conscience and that's a good thing that's a good thing if you hear preaching you have a guilty conscience look get it right fix it that's what the preaching is for people all the time come up to me and pastor used to say this and i never really understood it but people cut all the time come up to me and they're like man i was really convicted from that sermon and i'm just like i had no idea you were that that person was struggling with that i had no idea but back to the sermon maybe you're just this unique person who can just who can just listen to preaching about sin that you're in maybe you can just listen to preaching about sin that you're in sin that you're just going to commit anyway i mean that's maddening first of all personally that's maddening i'm gonna sit up here and i preach out of the bible and i see just like just do the do just commit the sin anyway just ignore everything do it the world way worldly way just keep coming to church that preaches against this stuff but here's the thing here's the thing you can do that if you're this if you're this strange person that can sit there and have just take preaching in the face and be like yeah yeah and then just go do it tomorrow you're still going to pay you're still going to pay the consequences that's not me i'm just trying to help you i'm just trying to look achin confessed achin's like i did it he confessed he got right he's still paid and the price will be more than you're willing to pay it's like going to buy refrigerator on craigslist and you and you see it and it's two hundred dollars and you're like two hundred bucks that's a good deal and you show up with two hundred dollars in your pocket and the guy says no it's five thousand dollars and you have to pay that's what it is that's the analogy and you have to pay it you can't walk away and say no no no deal no you're paying the five thousand you have to buy it that's what sin's going to get you into and you know what reputations are they're hard to build and they're easy to destroy that's another thing when these things are found out and then you do the damage to the other people like achin did and and you're just like you know i i didn't mean for that to happen like i didn't mean for that to happen i bet achin thought that same thing as this whole family was being executed so look i mean it it really takes a humble person that's why that's why we're a younger church we're always going to be a younger church probably that's why churches that preach hard on sin tend to be younger churches because really to be somebody who's made a lot of mistakes in your life to listen to that preaching and to just be like you know what yeah i did do that wrong i did do that wrong and this is right these kids need to hear this we have some of those people and thank god for those people but you know what that takes a that takes a tremendous amount of humility to be that type of person you know to just be able to just take that preaching and just say you know what i've made mistakes but it's about looking forward now so look what have we learned from from achin here we learned that look you can't you can't hide things folks it's not going to work that way for you sin is going to come out he he he couldn't hide this what was he going to do just keep sitting on the stuff in his tent and just watch hundreds and hundreds and maybe even thousands of people of his nation just get slaughtered because the lord had left them so he confessed it so you can't hide things we know that it's going to cost you more than you think it's going to cost you can go ahead and you can rationalize we're rationalizing creatures we try to rationalize everything in our lives like i'll just do it this way this way in this way and then it'll be okay and you can even rationalize to the point where if you think it's not even sin anymore but you you know you have a conscience that's telling you you know what sin is but these people you know listening to the preaching of the bible achin knew what sin was he knew he had done wrong it's going to cost you more than you want to pay and the biggest thing is you're going to hurt the people around you you're going to and that's that's the price that nobody would want to pay i think i think when you think of sin when you think you know what i'm just gonna i'm just going to continue to you know be in this sin and i know that it's wrong and i've heard preaching on it but when you think about the fact that you could literally be destroying your children what will be wrecking your children and and their ability to you know maybe even get saved or maybe even raise up and marry and have a good marriage and and move forward and raise their children i guarantee this is why i think by the way this is why that i think in my life that i look at people that have been divorced maybe 30 years and i bet you if you go up and you would ask those people that got divorced i bet you the vast majority of those people if you say you know what knowing what you know now knowing what you know now that you went through over the last 30 years seeing how your kids are now seeing how your kids are you know maybe they're drunks or whatever i mean these are all things i've seen divorce kids with divorce kids and i'm not saying that divorce kids can't you know turn out and and you know things can't be with the grace of god everything's possible but when they look at you know a broken family and the consequences of their sin then they look back at the price that they actually paid i bet you i bet you 99% of them would say you know what i should have tried harder to make that work i should have tried harder because when i got divorced i was thinking about the consequences i would have to pay and i know people that have said this i was thinking you know what it's going to cost me some money but you know what i'm going to be able to have a nice life i'm going to be able to you know i'll maybe find somebody else to get married which is against what the bible says i'll be able to find somebody else and maybe i'll have a happy marriage but they turn out and they 30 years later when they look at the train of destruction that has run through their lives the vast majority of people i know i guarantee you would say you know what we should have worked harder we should have worked harder look marriage is forever god meant marriage to be forever and when you break that god hates that god hates that and the consequences are just i mean they're unbearable for people they're unbearable for the children first of all you know the children don't want that they didn't sign up for that so what people need to and the last thing is people just need to self reflect more you need to look at yourself more do you know men go through your house what are you letting into your house what are you what are you letting inside the walls of your house because if something is inside if there's an accursed thing inside the walls of your house it's your fault it's not your wife's fault because you're in charge you're the guardian you're the guard dog of that house self reflect and say you know what it is maybe your family's perfect your marriage is perfect and your children are perfect but i bet they're not so just take some time you know every week to self reflect to see what is the state of my home what is the state of my leadership here what's the state of this ship that i'm driving and you know what go around and find those accursed things and get them out get them out of your house go and look you know at that computer in your house go and look at that cell phone that everybody in your house is walking around with make sure that you get these accursed things out of your house self reflect and then you know what maybe some curses of god will be removed maybe some curses of god will be removed we all need to self reflect more look aiken committed a serious sin here and his whole family and people in the nation paid for it i mean the bottom line is i said this to the guys earlier play stupid games win stupid prizes let's bow our heads and have a word