Hey everyone, today we're gonna be talking about NFTs, non-fungible tokens that exist on the blockchain, what they are, why it's basically a scam, and what's happening to some of my acquaintances out there, from Dreamcast guy, Nintendo-like, Stephanie Sterling, a lot of peers. Probably gonna happen to this YouTube channel eventually, and many others as apparently channels are being sold as NFTs, which is really, really hilarious because it kinda highlights the fact that NFTs are a scam, but why are gaming companies a konami for the 35th anniversary of Castlevania jumping in and doing them as well? Why are other companies doing them too? I'm really confused on why they're getting in on this because it turns out NFTs are actually the biggest reason for money laundering at the moment, money laundering is happening like crazy through NFTs, and there's a reason for that. There's a reason that NFTs are a scam. I'm gonna explain what NFTs are in as simple as terms as I can. I've done a lot of research into this. I've looked into the markets, I've looked at people who support and don't support NFTs, and I've come to some interesting finds and conclusions. So before I do that, though all of a reminder, we do have some giveaways going on right now. If you'd like to enter them, we got some stuff for new subscribers, some stuff from people who've always been here, et cetera, head down to the pinned comment or the description and find out the details on our giveaways. Yeah, they're pretty fun. We're giving away like almost $300 worth of stuff, so pretty cool. That being said, let's talk about what happened. So I was browsing the net over the weekend and a video popped up from my acquaintance Dreamcast guy and he pointed out how his likeness, his image as YouTube channel was sold as an NFT and he went on a bit of a rant about why this is dumb and this was happening on an open NFT market called Open Seas, I believe. And that's also where NFTs for Alana Pierce, Stephanie Jim Sterling and obviously, or Jim Stephanie Sterling, I forget which way she prefers her name to be said. And then obviously, on Nintendo Live, the website actually put up an article how they too have been sold on this market as that Open Seas has come out to say that, hey, we don't believe in selling NFTs of copyrighted material and so they've gone ahead and banned one of the accounts that was doing this, but new accounts are popping up and it's very hard to police. So what is an NFT? This is really the biggest question I think at the center of this because I don't know that everyone really understands and you're gonna find people heavily supporting NFTs for very specified reasons. So let's explain what an NFT is. An NFT is called a non-fungible token. What an NFT is, is really a spot in a database. It is a ones and zeros in a database. This database typically almost exclusively exists in what's called known as a blockchain, which is basically a group of computers or servers as they were that are chained together in different locations so that nobody actually owns full control over the chain. It makes the chain thus ungovernable and some people hate government and hate taxes and hate this and hate that so having a way to have an ungovernable chain of servers really feels like a good thing in some cases and basically how a database works fundamentally is it's a way to store data hence being called database and it's usually done in a list form. So let's say as an example I create a list that can forever be added onto. Let's say we start with 100 entries but it can always be added to 101, 102, 103, 104. It can even be automatically done hence user generated NFTs on websites such as OpenSeas. Someone can generate NFTs, it creates a new list on there. So what the token is is actually the ID of that spot on the list. So when you're buying an NFT, you're not actually buying what you're seeing as a visual representation. So you're buying that spot on the list. That spot on the list has intrinsically zero value. It's literally a free database list made on a blockchain. Anyone can make this list, literally anyone. If you know what you're doing, I've been in database, I've taken courses, I know how this works. Anyone can make it. However, what gives that space value? Let's attach a digital item to that space. So let's say you're standing in line, right? Say you got, I don't know, 100 people standing in line, right? And you wanna buy that spot in line. You're not standing in line for any particular reason. There's no difference in being first in line or being last in line. Nothing actually happens when you're in this line. But you want people to find this line valuable and the spot's in that line valuable. So we need you to attach something to it. Well, we are a visual species. So we will attach a video clip that hangs on the wall and plays on loop. We will attach a moving image, a GIF. We will attach a piece of art or something that's next to that spot. And if you own that spot in the line, you're able to look at that video, watch that video on loop or whatever, but you don't actually own it.  Non-fungible tokens are not you buying YouTube channels.  They're not you buying stolen art assets or video clips. Non-fungible tokens have nothing to do with ownership of any of these digital goods, whether they're digital or real goods that you see. You are buying simply a row in a database that says I own this row. And you might even get fancy receipts in there that will go, you own the Mona Lisa. But that's not really what it is. You own a spot in a line that lets you look at a digital copy of Mona Lisa. But you don't actually own that digital copy either. Nor do you own the Mona Lisa. You own a spot in a database that intrinsically has zero value, but we as humans are attaching value to those spots to create this open marketplace. And it's being heavily scammed. As an example, you buy an NFT. Let's say you buy an NFT for a design for a tattoo. So you feel like you own the design for that tattoo. You really don't. You have no copyright, no ownership over that tattoo design. In fact, it might even be stolen. Doesn't really matter. You don't own it. You own a spot in a database. And I decide, you know what? What's the best way I can get someone to give me money? Let me create a second account for that NFT. Let me create a second account and I'm gonna buy the NFT from myself. And then I'm gonna buy it back. I'm gonna buy, buy, buy, keep buying back and forth, increasing the value, the perceived value of that NFT. And there's nothing in the government stopping this because, again, this is ungoverned and exists in the blockchain. There is no way to police what I'm doing right now. I am artificially inflating the price, which is illegal in auction houses and other places, not illegal in the blockchain because it can't be monitored by the government. Okay, so we're trading back and forth. And all of a sudden you pop in and you go, man, this thing keeps going up in price. I better step in and buy that thing for, once it hit 500, I better step in and buy it for 600. And I just laughed for the bank as I just made $600 off of you and don't buy that thing back. That digital spot in line has no value, but because of you, I just made $600. Because I was just trading with myself. I wasn't actually losing money.  So I make a little percentage of a tax that I put on that NFT back on every sale. And this is how video game companies are hoping to use NFTs. It's not that initial sale, which yeah, they're gonna make some money off that initial sale. They're looking to double, triple, quadruple dip on every time someone resells their spot in the line. When they resell that spot, they make a small little tax on that because they created the NFT in the first place. Now you might go, but doesn't that sound amazing? Let's, if you buy a skin in Fortnite, we could bring it all the way over to Call of Duty Wars for starters. That's not how video game companies work. They don't work together that nicely. They're completely different development studios and completely different companies. That's not really how it works. So let's say you're staying within the same company and we're talking about taking the skin from Spyro, the dragon for some reason, bringing it into Crash Bandicoot, but also bringing it into Call of Duty, also bringing it into World of Warcraft or something, like all those games are under the same company. So you could argue that's theoretically possible, but here's the problem. You don't actually own that digital asset. When you get that skin, you're getting it probably through the same methods you already were, besides maybe buying it on an NFT market now. You're getting it from Gotcha Mechanics and Micro Transactions. You're buying that and then thinking you own it. When you really, when they start putting it as an NFT, you don't actually own, you're just buying a bunch of ones and zeros in a database. You don't actually own the art. You have no copyright ownership over it. No legal ownership over it. And as soon as people stop caring, there's no value. See, this is why you'll see people that are deeply ingrained in NFTs, trying to tell you how valuable NFTs are and how NFTs are the future. And you just don't understand how NFTs work and NFT this and NFT that because they have a high investment in NFTs to keep them valuable because NFTs only hold their value so long as people perceive them to actually be valuable. There's nothing tangible attached to NFTs. You don't actually own anything other than a little spot in a database. You don't own the items. Even if game companies let you trade items through NFTs, you still don't own it and that item can vanish at any point. The servers can go down at any point and you have zero control because you have zero ownership. You own a spot in a database table. Wow, congratulations. And think about it like this. There are roughly 2.7 million NFTs, although new ones are being made every single day. 360,000 people own it out of 300 and million people who participate in cryptocurrency because cryptocurrencies also ran on the blockchain. As I said, the blockchain itself isn't inherent in the evil, NFTs are. So most of the blockchain community, most of the digital currency community isn't even participating in it. And you know what's crazy? 10% of that 360,000 people own 80% of all the NFTs. Why? Think about it. What could the advantage be there? Oh, to artificially drive up prices, to launder money through the process. And by the way, all of this is extremely hard for any government to ever tax and for all the illegalities you might hear about, good luck at actually, who do you go after? Do you go after every single person who has a computer or thing as part of that blockchain network? Do you go after the creator of the individual NFT database and what country they're in or where they're hosting it? Where do you, how do you go after? It's extremely hard for governments to do anything about. In short, NFTs are a scam. You're buying a row in a database that holds no intrinsic value, except for the perceived value you put on it because of whatever digital item, whatever piece of art, whatever video, they're putting next to it. You're not actually buying, like Dreamcast guys, YouTube channel and like to support them. You're not actually buying this YouTube channel. You're not even buying the rights to the little image, the little thumbnail image. You're not buying the rights to the Nintendo life or Alana Pierce or Jim Sterling, Jim Stephanie Sterling. You're not buying the rights to any of these people. You're not buying the rights to any of the art assets on you. You're not even buying the rights to that card. That is just a visual representation that stands next to you in a database. You don't actually own that. It's a scam. It's always been a scam. It's been a scam since day one and it's gonna continue to be a scam. There's no way to monitor it. There's no way to police it. There's no way to stop money laundering going through it. Literally, it's basically a crime syndicate's wet dream. It's a way for rich people to take advantage of people looking to make a quick buck. Oh, I gotta get in on this hot ticket thing because, well, hey, other people are doing it. Clearly if the rich people are into it, it must be worth doing. Look at all the people that are in NFTs are touting how wonderful NFTs are because if they don't, if they tell you the truth, they lose money because NFTs have no value. They're aligned in a database. I could show you how to make one yourself on your own computer. You can make your own NFT system right there on a virtual machine on your computer and congratulations, you now have a database and thus you have something you can sell, slots in a database. Congratulations. They have no value. You can attach images and say, oh, you're buying this image, but you're not.  It's insane to me that people are actually attaching real world value to this. Anyways, folks, I end with Andy Rebeljance from Nintendo Prime. Let me know your thoughts on this down in the comments below. I'm gonna link as well to a couple really good video resources out there for other content creators. You should watch that really go in depth on this even further than me and do a much better job going into each individual reasoning. You might go, oh, well, what about this? Oh, but what about that? That's all covered by them. This is more like a, I'm just really upset to see my friends and colleagues getting affected by this and obviously some of them getting really upset about it. When reality is, it's not really worth being upset about.  So it doesn't actually hurt you, but it can hurt a fan who thinks they might be getting something tangible and then they're actually getting scammed.  You know, these spots in a database that have no value. You're not supposed to know they have no value. The moment you do, it's when the market crashes. All right, folks, I'm Nathaniel Robachance from Nintendo Prime. Go have a good day.


The FTC makes a lot of claims about different types of different types of activities of Amazon Basically exclusion of competition by monopoly However, many of them lacks facts Okay, so there is a huge difference between How we as people perceive powerful companies and what it takes to win in court To me they might have a few points there that can be good Some of the points I think just lack any factual Substantiation including market definition and I think at the court will They're going to have the first outcome will be a blow in the mind of Luna Khan Amazon Prime is a crime and it is really important to understand how these Digital ecosystems operate what digital ecosystems do is they try to capture us in to concentrate menu for activities in it within the ecosystem and They have to have some kind of temptation to get us in in Amazon Prime in Amazon Amazon Prime is the glue that we are attracted to prime and it works well now You could say well, that's really unfair for Amazon competitor because we go to the ecosystem in which state We went between and we choose to stay in But the question is is it bad for us? And it would be really difficult to say that our choices to get into the ecosystems are bad I look every year when I every in January I look how many transactions Amazon transactions our household has had over the past year and In recent years has been over 300 a year which you know, we have a line basically and And It has been working for us really well And now what harm Amazon has caused do they now the prices are low. This is why we are with them so if the traditional monopoly was bad service high prices low quality products and As you know as a loyal customer you actually you are loyal because of the convenience and prices So there is something highly patronistic or highly condescending in the claim that The FTC a few bureaucrats this side tell us that what we we are victims and They might have a good theory, but they should persuade us first that we are victims If we had the options, but we feel that we get the convenience and low price the gist of the argument is the convenience and low prices are wrong and That's we'll conflict with the public sentiments. I think we like we like low prices and convenience They are not going to win with this. They might be winning on some points. They have a lot of work ahead of them Okay, and I think that the well the points where they can win is that the Amazon probably engage in some practices that a Suppressed competition in the marketplace This identified those you can win. Okay, so for example the DOJ action against Google had a very interesting point They found out that Google pays Apple 18 billion dollars a year to have Google as The default search engine that you have a fact you have a legal claim exclusion of competition Amazon will probably allege there is no distinct market for the online sale of goods It's just an overall market for the sale of goods and the same thing for about Services for the sale of online goods. They'll say even if there is a distinct market for online goods It shouldn't be just platforms like Amazon that should be in this market Should be any seller of online goods and and finally they'll say even if there is such a market as Platforms for the online sale of goods and services. They have no monopoly power in this market Going back to the moon to visit we're going back to the moon to stay Some people called Microsoft World War three and I don't know maybe Google is World War four And if that's true, then this is World War five the other events who are just little skirmishes This is the big one. This is the one we'll be talking about for years


Team keeping clean freelancer in the building. What's up, baby? Welcome to another episode of question from self This is seriously you can ask any question you want to and we answer in a video like this We want to be part of it for the team keeping clean patrons You can see your questions directly on patreon if you want to sign up to go on team keeping clean patron You can go to patreon comm slash and great and visit if not you can see your questions to team keep it clean at gmail.com And we'll hopefully answer in the video like this. I love y'all. I appreciate y'all I went to sleep early last night because I thought I was feeling like a little bit sick Well, I thought I was telling my wife and I don't think I'm getting sick I think I'm just tired man. I'm tired because as y'all know my sleep schedule is all over the place It's all kinds of messed up So I took some night quill so I could get some good sleep because if I don't like take anything which I'd never do Then my sleep is like I'll go to sleep but then I always end up waking up like 3 4 in the morning and Sleep my sleep be just all messed up if I drink some tea or something that helps sometimes But a lot of times it just it won't even help But anyway, I did take the night quill last night and I got some good sleep But I woke up early and I was like, you know what I'm up early Let's just do some questions. Well, why not? But anyway, I love y'all now Of course Lamar Jackson Future was down here last night. Future was down here last night and I know DJ Khaled was a meek meal and a bunch of them city girls and whatnot and Lamar Jackson was there and I saw I saw some Ravens fans.   I think that's his name but anyway He was there. He was next to Lamar Jackson and Lamar Had his Ravens chain on and I know every time any Ravens fans see Lamar with his Ravens chain on they start going crazy What happens when he takes it? Look, man, I know like a lot of us We want something to let it be known to to make it be known that Lamar Jackson is staying But look, I can't get hype off of no Instagram video where he holding his chain. It's a chain You know where is it? That's this chain so anyway, I Know a fat boy asked me if he asked Lamar Lamar was staying if oh no If Lamar was coming back and Lamar says something then Lamar was like it's happening something But to me I didn't I didn't really feel like Lamar's really answer. You know Lamar be trolling You know he'd be trolling but well, what are you gonna say? No? He gonna say oh no I ain't going back on the Instagram video and he know that the video is gonna get posted He know people are gonna check for it.  No, I ain't going back But anyway, I just thought it was funny He said draft an office sheet Indianapolis Wave Matt Ryan and traded Stefan Gilmore to clear plenty of cap space Now, I know they signed a Gardner men's shoe to a one-year three million deal Which I believe is as a backup QB If any nevelers was to make a move to give an office sheet to Lamar before the draft if you were GM Would you take their number four pic? Oh? You or if I was a GM now, I would have had Lamar locked up a long time ago If I was GM, but that's me anyway He said rarely has Baltimore had an opportunity with a draft pick that high because they never Tank where ADC would have the opportunity to trade back a few spots for an extra second round pick Then draft one of the top cornerbacks Gonzalez or from Oregon Oh with a spoon from Illinois and then at 22 take a receiver. Hopefully someone like Quentin Johnson from TCU JSN from Ohio State or flowers from BC or Jordan Addison from USC then in the second or third round Take a quarterback like hooker from Tennessee Stesson Bennett from Georgia. Look, let me tell you about Stesson Bennett It's like I feel like all Ravens fans should know he's going to the Ravens one way or another whether it's drafted undrafted Whatever, he's gonna make it way to the Ravens. It's happening. Like it just it's gonna happen So anyway, he said or dug in from TCU. What do you think take care and later? All right. What a way to get us started So No, I would not take it because again, I would have a lot locked up This thing would have been taken care of if I was GM but if they decide not to Lock them all up then I mean Yeah, but see the thing is safe instance coach were to sign him to an office sheet And Ravens didn't match just a scenario He would obviously go to the Colts Ravens will get the Colts first round pick this year in the first round pick next year as well Now, let me tell you if Lamar goes to the Colts that first round pick next year is gonna be a lot lower Still be a first round pick, but it'll be a way lower. But anyway, um With if the Ravens has a number four pick like you mentioned Yeah, they would have a high pick and they could trade back to still keep a first round pick and get some additional picks as well EDC would have to hit on those Ravens will have to hit on those picks Because in my opinion, there's nothing that's worth trading Lamar But if you end up trading Lamar your drafts better be perfect They have to be They have to be Perfect, you cannot miss on anything We talked about this before that with um, excuse me With even if they keep Lamar The the drafts they just need to be better need to be more impactful But especially if you decide, all right, somebody signed to office.  You better hit on it. You better knock the draft way out the park past the park You better you got to knock it out because If you trade away Lamar, it's like, okay, what what you're gonna do now and it better be on point kick the season already Next question came from boy Rodeo. He said my guy glad to see you doing better This situation will not only work itself out, but bigger and better things are coming your way as well Now only if this other situation could work itself out I hope so I I really do hope so. Um, and yeah, we'll see in Well today the 18th, so we'll see in like five days We'll see five days and change or whatnot. It's depend on how long they take with that So we'll see man. I do. I obviously hoping for the best and um, We'll see how it goes and I'll of course let y'all know I said, so as you know, being a Ravens fan is truly weird. It's like going into a season uh going into a season They won't uh, you know, they won't hit rock bottom, but they won't be sky high either They were literally coast in the middle They may look like a below average team for half the season and they'll have the season top caliber But where I'm getting that is should we kick this upcoming season already Since our bingos playoffs has been absolute chaos like this feels like unfamiliar territory with all these abnormal headlines we are making. Yeah, it's crazy. It's been something and A lot of it hasn't been good Like even even yesterday Yesterday, um, I saw a video somebody recorded a screen recorded it from a twitter space I and and I sent it to my boy. Meach.  And she was like we won't when when you hear something that's when we hear something We don't hear anything till you hear anything And he was like all my season ticket holder and it's just joking. There was nothing malicious anything like that But then he was like, um, when when they before before she even picked up though What what the saddest part was and I was like, whoa, hold up Something needs to be updated, baby But before she even picked up the the whole music the the um Not the whole music but the uh the automated message when they put you on hold It was uh mink talking about the upcoming playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals And I said they really ain't update that from way back then that was over a month ago. That's like more than a half ago Hold up. That was in january. We we didn't we had to end the march. That was two months ago That was two months ago I said yikes, what's going on here? But um, anyway, she she was really really nice, uh really really nice receptionist But I said man, they they they gotta fix that. But anyway, um He said uh all these abnormal headlines. We are making jk publicly coming out Yeah, and and a running back being upset with a running scheme with a team that runs the ball You know, that's a problem then. Um, Bateman. Oh, yeah, baby Yeah, we gotta get to it Uh, Lamar with the direct indirect so tweets Yes, it's been a little bit of both Especially them direct was uh, not only does the locker room feel lost and is lacking a leader But the organization feels unbalanced and out of whack. Oh, yeah, because they going through it They going through it Anyway, he said edc saying one thing harps ain't another ozzy assuring another and bishadi out of sight Our division is no longer a guarantee to win in the afc as a whole just got a lot tougher Yeah And errod just one day any day now and rod just coming to town um So, yeah Patrick my home's obviously still there Josh Allen still there too. It could be healthy. He he gonna be there um, we uh, yeah, joe burrow obviously there The shine watson, um, he should be better this season So, yeah, ravens got yeah Anyway, um us barely making a wild card seed and losing his failure A divisional round playoff loss will be failure. Heck. I feel a afc championship loss would be failure So obviously I feel like it's super bowl or buzz. However, I don't feel like we are close to being that team Yeah, I I I can agree right now. Um The off season still got a while to go They could still obviously make some moves a lot could change between now and september is march It's march. It's six months left till wow hold up I'm chipping. Yeah. Yeah six months left. Um till september. Um, so It's early, but I know um, it's funny because every off season Uh, especially recently if ravens are slow to do something slow to make moves a lot of people say, oh, it's it's early It's early in the season Um, ravens look like they're struggling they they're struggling with a certain aspect of their game People will say it's it's early. It's early and I've said to myself too I'll be like it's early. There's no reason to trip yet. But then as it goes late into the season It ain't as early no more But anyway, um continuing he said the obvious downfall is our offense and the only cure that will make me change my mind Is a catastrophic fairy tale fix So right now it is technically still early. Um, but obviously so much is centered and the focus point is Lamar Jackson and and what's gonna happen with him Until the resolution is reached with that I I can't expect nothing to happen Can't expect no like significant moves to be made. I can't expect No catastrophic seismic moves to happen or anything like that. So i'm chilling too, man I mean and right now my expectations are low um, but it's like i'm So i'm chilling i'm chilling like, oh, hey ravens make a move raven do something here there. Okay, cool. Let's let's let's see Let's see so far.  I was cool with that Um brought back gino stars cool with that recent long snapper nick more. Okay, cool. No problem And oh, yeah, they uh brought back. Well brought back brought in uh, trayvon mullin. Okay depth corner back. Okay, cool So nothing crazy Not no expensive move. I know some people were tripping off the justice hill moved it like hey wire We don't even got our quarterback back and we resigning the backup running back while we're putting money into that It is a backup running back. It's also a special team. It's a gun. It's a return man. Um One of those all of the above type of things anyway, he said um The obvious downfall is our offense and the only cure that will make me change my mind is the catastrophic fairytale fix Which is trade for one of mike evans or nuke hopkins sign Odell beckham jr. Or adam feeling Oh and draft the wide receiver round one. Okay, so you see above Uh for me, I I would I would take out the adam feeling poor. I'm I don't know. I just If they signed them, all right cool. Whatever. I just I just Know I don't I don't know. It just wouldn't move me like that Maybe it's just me, but if they sign the adam feeling. Okay, cool I mean, he's better than a lot of what we have but that could not be it But but you're saying All three of these I like that thinking Uh, so he said trade for mike evans or de andre hopkins Plus signed odell beckham jr. Or adam feeling and draft the wide receiver round one See, he put and in all caps to make sure that I knew when I was reading this that that and the the commas The commas um, they make a list and the and it adds to that list So he wanted to make sure that he was listing all these things to happen not one or the other So I appreciate that he said that is what I call a wide receiver room makeover And while I would believe we would become a totally different threat A super bowl still isn't guaranteed I mean, we've seen mike mcdonald's up and downs in his rookie debut as a defensive coordinator a complete Leave rebuilt wide receiver room with a first year oc going to the super bowl seems unlikely as the team currently stands today March 17th It's not super bowl ready. Oh no. I yeah, I don't think anybody Thinks this team is super bowl ready right now. I don't think anybody realistically thinks that obviously we would hope it But I don't think anybody realistically thinks that this ravens team right now Is a super bowl team, but again There's still a lot of time it's time to change that so ravens have a lot of opportunity to change that So he said I'm almost 100% sure we will not make enough moves to ensure a super bowl caliber team Remember, we will absolutely compete. We will not contend. Oof So, um And again, we'll see We'll see we got to uh, wait it out and see how the remainder of this offseason goes next question came from my guy kimpachi He said lemar jackson's contract ain't great And I got a question that I like your opinion on now that this john watson has restructured his contract Do you think that will affect the dollar amount that lemar is asking for or maybe the ravens will use that as leverage to keep number crunching these offers um Do I think that'll affect the What lemar's asking for no I I don't um I don't Because lemar could still be like hey, I want this much guaranteed upfront Like straight up not injury guaranteed not if i'm on a roster on the third day of the league year in 2026 no not I want to guarantee straight up Straight up now, um granted. I was talking to my boy kev about this Uh, a couple days ago with uh, apparently what some of these contracts were that lemar jackson was offered He was more than likely to hit Some of the guarantees that were in them, but they weren't guaranteed from jump like there was some Like I think what was it 175 mil guaranteed for injury? It was something like that So i'm over here getting lend off the microphone in the middle of the video, but you know anyway, anyway, um I uh, I think that was one of them one of them was a guarantee if he was on the roster on I think the third day of the fifth day of the league year in Oh, you're in 2023 so three four five So yeah, I think in 2026 if he would be on a roster on a certain day of the league year Then another guarantee would kick in um, so Apparently, uh, it will still be those and like with those those are um They're not fully guarantees if you get what i'm saying. They're likely guarantees, but they're not fully Because I think we're fully it's like a this is what it is Regardless from jump. This is what it is. Now while those are likely guarantees that he most likely would get Like um, especially being on the roster on a certain day of the league year It's not fully guarantee Now I know it's been said. Oh, yeah, if ravens were to cut them then they would have a massive, uh They would have massive dead money and whatnot so that like most likely he would be there But still it's not fully guarantee It's most likely to get that guarantee, but it ain't fully. I I think that is what has been a big part of this whole hold up um But yeah, it's just it's it's been something we well a lot of us are learning we learning more and more every day About contracts man. I love it though. I appreciate I appreciate the uh the insight the knowledge because Everything that we're learning from this whole ordeal That'll help us in the future for for any other contracts that we may talk about Or if if somebody signs a deal, then we we can understand better How good or bad that deal is equipped when it comes to guaranteed money and da da da da So yeah, this this is a learning process for all of us So i'm appreciating this right and the last question came from my guy one g who's been a patron for six months So appreciate you on he said is there just a purple cloud over baltimore right now engraving just left and right I never read anything good lately. Ravens are broke means saying the ravens are signing nobody The same kind of offseason we've been experiencing the last few years just silent at the beginning with good players being released Whatever players are you signing? I wouldn't say over the past couple years. I mean remember last year Remember last year marcus williams that was big like and I was proud of the ravens for that because they signed An outside free agent going into his prime not coming out of his prime, but going into his prime They signed somebody on the outside of the front from the outside of ravens organization Going into his prime and I was just like wow, I can't believe this This is so not raven But I loved it um, and last last offseason with this recent para card that was like when they did that it was like Okay, jero's gonna be back and that same offense gonna be back morgan moses Who else did they bring I I can't remember who else on the top of my head, but anyway um They said the same kind of offseason we've been experiencing the last few years just silent at the beginning with good players being released Whatever players resigning not even really major signing just kind of getting the leftovers a free agency like what is going on I'm hoping I'm not jinxing it, but is the rebuild. Is it rebuild time in Baltimore? You're not jinxing anything because jinxing isn't real. So you ain't got to worry about that. Um, but then What's going on is again the limo hold the the limo contract. That's just that's the hold up right now. That's it That's that's the big hold up even though like Again, ravens don't ever go crazy in free agency that data. They don't do that regardless if limo was signed or not signed They don't ever go crazy in free agency Um, but that's what everything is like so much is waiting on um He said uh lose our quarterback No money to sign anyone and be in the quarterback market again and be forced to change the philosophy because it's apparent It's not working Oh, and we'll see how top monkey does on offense. We'll see how that that offense does for the ravens since 2012 It's declined. I had one major spike in 2019 and now kind of on the downslope again. I don't know man I'm worried give us some reassurance. Please. I feel like I'm speaking for the fan base because there definitely Is a blue feeling going around as we're watching everything unfold powerful message right there from my guy Juan Um, we don't know we don't know what it's gonna be.  We're just waiting All of us are just waiting Just waiting to see what's next waiting for the next big announcement the next big domino to fall And it's a possibility that with the limo thing because again, that's obviously the biggest thing that we're waiting on It's a possibility that he Could play out on the tag That's real possible He could play out this season on the tag on a non-inclusive franchise tag um I don't anticipate him doing that. I don't think he would do that, but it's a possibility Uh, so it's just so much that we don't know Could the ravens going to rebuild mode? They could without obviously be if they traded them all away Um, which would be unfortunate, but it would be a reality. They would go into rebuild mode Start over at quarterback. Um, and whether they just decided to go roll with Tyler Hunley for this year And then next year they drafted somebody they really liked or if they were able to get somebody this year that they really liked Obviously, you know, you know, they've looked at all of that You know, they've looked at all the quarterbacks coming out this year and thought about all the possibilities and whatnot um So, let's see I mean the flag that I'm with y'all And great for lock you up and play football I'm a fanatic you see we got the magic and you and my boys are savages and open challenge It matters. Let's go Making rage quit exit out the door Use his favorite team with up all the more Don't get mad


We don't take care of our marriage until we start having some issues in our marriage. Then we run for counseling. No, it's all good. I'm all for it. But when times are good, we're vacationing everywhere, having good times, but you won't see them in a marriage seminar or listening to marriage podcasts and books, reading books and actually taking and applying it because you build your marriage not when things are bad, but when things are good. When things are bad, you are in surviving mode. You use different tactics. You do use different things. You go to marriage counseling. You go to deliverance. You go to inner healing. You go, you use other various tools, but that's a moment of survival, not a moment of building. You're actually not building during that time. You're just surviving.


5. From San Francisco. Extracting the signal from the noise. It's the Cube. Covering Oracle Open World 2015. Brought to you by Oracle. Now your hosts, John Furrier and George Gilbert. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live at Oracle Open World 2015. Also Java 1 happening today on Sunday on Howard Street in the middle of the road. This is the Cube. SiliconANGLE's flagship program where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE. George Gilbert, our Big Data Analyst at Wikibon Research. Part of SiliconANGLE. Our next guest is Neil Mendelson, Vice President of Big Data at Oracle. Cube alumni, great to see you again. Welcome back. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to be here. So obviously integrated cloud. Cloud is everything. End of the client server era. Welcome to the cloud era. We're here now. Last time we chatted, Big Data is pretty hot still. They don't have things. It's the hottest thing in the world right now. So they're interrelated. Continuing on the momentum of what customers are transforming to. The database is at the heart of all this. So we were talking to Tim earlier. What's your take on this? You've got the Big Data view inside Oracle. What's going on inside and what's presenting here at Oracle Open World? From a data point of view, data is expanding. The definition of data management has expanded beyond the database to include things like Hadoop and NoSQL. And we're embracing those things. And at the same time, we're talking a little earlier about how we're building a Big Data platform to allow people not only to ingest their data, but how they can run ETL on it, how they can visualize it, how they can get value out of it, run algorithms on it, and so forth. That's fun. So platform is a service for Big Data hot thing, you guys are talking about. But the number one question we get from customers that come on theCUBE is, look at bottom line, I need scale, I need speed, I need reliability, and it's got to be easy to operationalize. I need all those. What's your answer to that? What are you guys proposing? What are you guys seeing as successes? Can you share some insight? Yeah, I mean, the ease of operationalizing this kind of Hadoop stuff is really key to anything, right? I mean, it's key on the cloud, but it's also key on premises. And what we've been trying to do over the last few years is to really take all these disparate open source platforms, merge them together, put Oracle security on top, manageability on top, build products on top to really make it fundamentally much more straightforward for customers to essentially get value right away. So, Neil, if we talk about this Big Data platform, let's take the perspective that we're going to need packaged applications or at least semi-packaged applications for this to scale, because not everyone has the skills to build it. So, how would you define the extent of a Big Data platform? So, you know, we are starting to see third-party companies building applications on, you know, Hadoop, NoSQL, the database, the combination there is, right? We're beginning to see that in areas of customer 360, where apps are emerging there. We're starting to see it related to cybersecurity and other areas like that. So, the beginnings are starting, right, from that point of view. And along those lines, what assumptions do the developers make about what platform they're on? Do they say, oh, I just need to know that, you know, I have MapReduce or I have Spark and then I have, you know, Oracle for my operational data, you know, what are the components? So, you know, developers as well as customers are certainly free to operate at the lowest level. So, if they want to operate and write code on, you know, at the very low level, whether they're writing it in Spark or they're writing it in MapReduce, they certainly are free to do that. What we're trying to do is to up-level that, right, so that we can allow application developers, whether they're going through REST APIs or whether they're going through scripting languages, you know, it's always a question of, you know, if that consider programming or not, it doesn't matter, right? Or they can go through SQL and we're providing those data visualization layer, or data virtualization layer that allows them to abstract themselves from those direct technologies and allow them to be able to get one fast query over any of the data. So, just in terms of that data virtualization, you had talked about previously like polyglot approach, so that means you could take SQL and talk to the different capabilities underneath, whether it was, you know, machine learning or just executing a transaction and calling a propensity, say, to buy for a personalizing offer. That would be one way or all the interfaces supported in the Oracle Database, all the different ways someone might want to go. Yeah, so in the Oracle Database today, you know, we talk about either interfacing through SQL, right, interfacing through APIs, right, REST-based APIs, or accessing via scripting languages. Whether you access directly the Oracle Database or you have some data that exists in Hadoop. So let's take the example where you have web traffic data that's pooling into Hadoop. And then inside of the Oracle Database, you've got customer information. And the idea is you want to join those two together because there's nothing that says, what about the customer in terms of the clicks that are going on, right? And with Big Data SQL, the product that provides this virtualization, you're able to essentially perform that whether you go through SQL and API or REST-based interface. Yeah, talk about the competition for a second. Oh, that's up level, I'm a customer.  I'm really interested in an Oracle customer or I may not be an Oracle customer. I see Amazon's promoting a bunch of stuff. Azure's got a bunch of stuff. Now Hadoop, SQL on Hadoop, all this stuff's great. Bottom line, how do you compare versus Azure and Amazon specifically? So, you know, Amazon's got a great infrastructure from a hardware point of view, right? But beyond the infrastructure, they're not doing a whole lot, right? We talked about a moment ago, the ability to access across multiple independent data stores of different types, right? Not a capability that we have, right? You talk about, or not a capability that they have. Talk about other really strong capabilities. One of the ones that we recently started talking about was Big Data Discovery. This is a tremendous capability that allows you to visually see what's going on on your Hadoop system. So, when SQL's arrive on Hadoop, it synthesizes that metadata where no metadata exists and allows you to begin having literally a visual experience where traditionally that would have been writing code. So, if you're on Azure or for that matter on AWS, you're going to be writing code to find out what's on Hadoop. In our case, you're going to be using a search and a faceted navigation approach to be able to see the data rather than code. So, you have pre-existing software. Well, not just the developers, right? We're talking about business people, right? I mean, why should only developers have access to this stuff? So, I got to ask you. Last time we talked, you know, you have a history in the data warehousing business. It's well-documented in Oracle, billions and billions of dollars.  But that's one of the things that Amazon has actually highlighted with Redshift, that they're going after the low-hanging fruit with data warehouses. Now, the word Aurora comes out, that's the database piece. So, Amazon is going after Oracle, which is kind of like their early strikes, we bomb, we're still far behind Oracle. But what does that tell you about the customer environment? Data warehousing has got to be faster, smaller, cheaper. Kind of a Moore's law, if you will, or Allison's law from an Oracle standpoint. And now, Aurora, the database. Now, databases and big data obviously make sense coming together. What's your take on all of this and how you slice and dice that trend? First of all, when you look at the data warehousing market Oracle still has a commanding lead, continues to have that lead in the data warehousing space. But there's a lot of vendors that have essentially are zombies that are out there. IBM has done a good job of essentially assembling the zombies together. And they have Informix, they have Redbrick, they have Natesa, DB2 itself, largely given way to what they're doing with Watson. So I think that we're certainly picking up customers that are running on those zombie data-marts coming over to Oracle and perhaps Amazon will be able to do the same thing. But the likelihood that they're going to... That's not an innovation strategy. That's kind of keep the the zombies together, if you will. That's not real innovation. Well, I don't know, ask Amazon what they're... I don't particularly think migrating an old data-mart up to the cloud as being an innovation strategy, right? So what's your take on innovation? For the customer, hey, if thinking about the data warehouse of the future in an integrated cloud stack model, what is the nirvana for the future of data warehouses? Well, I think the data warehouse is now part of what we think of when we think of in terms of a big data platform. The data warehouse is an essential part along with the data lake and no sequel. So you're seeing those three environments essentially collapsing together to be able to provide a spectrum of capability. So this is key, though. Where... Who drives? Is it the transaction system that then, you know, calls to the analytics system to say, okay, tell me, you know, what I should offer? Tell me what I should do? Is there, like, with Oracle 12C, is that the layer that sort of orchestrates everything? Yeah, I mean, I think you're seeing kind of interesting mix-ups, you know, it's not only...  And today, what we're seeing is the needs are driving customers toward wanting to have kind of a real-time basis, right? They want to be able to interact with the customer in real time, give them an offer, right, influenced by what they just did a few minutes ago. So, as an example, in the old world, you might have scored that customer giving them potentially an offer should they be interested in a credit card, right, and you've already determined what the risk profile of them based on their credit history and so forth. But maybe what you want to do today is you've got clicks streaming into Hadoop, and you want to influence that algorithm in real-time based upon perhaps the fact that they were on your website and then they left going to a competitor. You want to know that in real-time, right? So, the algorithm may suggest something different given a competitive situation than otherwise. So, we're seeing things kind of merge together and less separation between these systems and more of a need to act in real-time. Okay, so in Oracle's view, who's the main brain that's orchestrating that? Is it Oracle 12C? Or, you know, can it be Oracle sort of configured, you know, not as a transactional system but, you know, as a data warehouse where it could be either way? Yeah, I mean the orchestrator is always the developer, right, who puts the system together or the customer themselves and, you know, that might be coming from the Hadoop side, accessing Oracle, could be coming from a NoSQL perspective. It really shouldn't make any difference. So, what we're looking for then is, I mean, all the vendors are trying to bring that sort of the latency together, the speed, you know, accelerate what's coming in, making a decision, and then what's going out. So, as a result, what you're seeing is that, you know, in the old days what you had was these very, very, you know, I mean, Teradata was, you know, before that, Britain League, these systems that were really very batch-oriented that were intended for, you know, updates every quarter or every, you know, half year or something like that. And now what you see is the need for much more real-time support than you had before. Neil, open source communities have been a big part of the web. I'll say Tier 1, Resource Now, it's free, free software. I'll say Java 1's coming on. It says open source. How has Oracle embraced open source and share some specifics, but also share some insights as an industry vet around this disruption and this opportunity, because now you have internally Oracle, but your ecosystem is also embracing open source. Where do they come together? You know, we try to embrace it up and down the stack. So earlier I mentioned a new product called Big Data Discovery. Big Data Discovery is a native Hadoop tool, right? So it sits on top of Hadoop, right? In some cases it allows customers to very easily, as I've mentioned before, using machine learning algorithms to troll through the data, looking for the metadata and then being able to present it on the screen. And it's leveraging things like Spark and other technologies that are available from the open source community and doing that. So we're building production products based on open source stack while contributing to those stacks at the same time. What production products are they? All of them? Or pretty much all the ones in the Big Data stack, so whether it's Big Data Discovery or Golden Gate for Big Data, Golden Gate can now replicate in real time to do our Oracle Data Integrator product. At one point the Integrator would only be able to use the Oracle database to generate SQL or PL SQL to do the transformations. Now it generates Spark code, right? And you can run the transformations in Hadoop in addition or instead of running them on a more expensive machine. What are we expecting to hear this week at Oracle Open World for Big Data? What some of the highlights you could share now without kind of, you know, spilling the marbles in the lobby if you will share a little bit of color. I think that for me the most fun I think is really listening to customers tell their stories, right? So we've had a number of customers working on the cloud for some time on the Big Data space and we're going to be able to hear them talk about it in their sessions, right? One last question on this because the Oracle Cloud it works you know seamlessly replicates what you can do on premise but for customers who've made investments in, you know, Amazon and Azure when will sort of Oracle 12C running in a cluster working with Big Data appliance and Data Discovery, when will customers be able to, you know build their applications around that anchor on those other clouds? Well, I mean today Oracle is available on Amazon as well, right? Not really you can't really run it as a cluster it's true, there are different, yeah. I mean I think the, you know, the reality of it is that, you know, the world always looks simple, right? And you can just simply kind of plug all these pieces together, right? But things are not that simple, right? Things can be quite complex so, you know, within our own cloud what we're trying to do is to make it as seamless as possible and then to enable customers to be able to reach data from other clouds as an input or from an output as well and I think you'll see more of that. Talking, we were talking earlier about, you know, the Big Data sort of platform theme and many customers today who are grappling with that, the sort of build it yourself, they have a rich skill set in-house to do it. As it goes more mainstream should we expect to see more and more of these implementations to do for, you know, Oracle-led platforms for Big Data? Should we expect them to be more in the cloud? Well, we're certainly seeing, you know, and the DIY movement is really started at the whole beginning of this kind of open source to do kind of era and what we're seeing is customers that have large implementations, you know, over a thousand nodes, not in a single cluster now have whole hodgepodge of different clusters with different, you know, distributions with different tuned to different ways distributed in different ways and they're looking to standardize, right? We're also seeing small customers or smaller customers that are interested in getting into this, but they don't have those resources that you're talking about. What they want is to be able to take advantage of these technologies without having to figure out, number one, how to acquire all those people which are hard to come by, number one, and expensive number two, they just want to run the software, right? Or take advantage of it rather than put all the stuff together and I think that's what the cloud's all about. You know, here's some internal mantra that you guys are putting forth to your teams of big data. I see it's critical. Internet of things. I'm sure we're going to hear huge announcement around Internet of Things, big part of the big, big trend. Larry Ellison is no longer the CEO. He's the CTO, so I got to ask you, does he call you up and say, hey, we talk about this? I mean, how involved is Larry in a lot of these conversations? Can you share a little bit of color without getting bothered, without getting in trouble? I think Larry is as involved as he ever was, right? I mean, Larry was always... He gets down on the weeds, doesn't he? Larry was always keenly interested in the technology and he was and continues to be our visionary and I don't think that's changed, right? I mean, titles aside, right?  I mean, he's still very much involved in what we do on a strategic level and sometimes on a tactical level too. Nice smirk there. I said, I said two years ago when he shifted from CEO to CTO when he brought Mark Herden and software, CACB CEO. I said to Dave Vellante, I said, Dave, you watch. He's going to get down and the boat's going to get retooled. Now we're seeing some of the fruits of that labor. We saw last year's announcements. We saw the big data. We saw the cloud announcement that Larry gave the keynote where we interviewed you last. A lot's happening super fast. This is the boat race. This is Larry's boat race. How fast is it moving in your mind right now? I mean, obviously you're seeing Dell Oracle directly. It's exciting. I'm sure Larry's getting down there. How fast is it moving? There's nothing new with companies going after Oracle directly. We've had that nearly for the beginning. People love to do that and often they just bounce off or they kill themselves in the process somehow. I think software talked about that just the other day when being interviewed. There's nothing new there. The more the market gets, the more innovations coming from different places, the more it really invigorates the culture of Oracle to do more, to do faster and to do better. In a hyper-competitive environment is the environment where we absolutely thrive. People bring their A-game. People always brought their A-game. First day at Oracle, revelation of myself was like holy crap, everybody here is the smartest guy in the world. That part hasn't changed. We love talking to you guys. I got to ask the final question. We're going to have John Falleron later today at 3 o'clock. Unix is back. It never left. Same with Java. Steve Jobs did this in the industry when he took over the Mac. Next in became the bulletproof operating system. I got to ask you in the big data world where cloud and performance are powering analytics. All kinds of analytics from a wide range of variables. How important now are the engineering systems? Specifically, what are you most excited about that's coming out that's going to give major lift to the big data space? Well, the engineering systems are important to us. Both in terms of being able to achieve very high performance, but also high availability. The fact that it's a standardized platform means that whatever issues that we come across we come across them in thousands of customers. We can get that value from an availability point of view across that and the speed that comes with it. We're looking at all kinds of different things coming down the pike, some of which from Intel, some of which innovations coming on our own side, so it's an exciting time. Neil, always pleasure to have you on theCUBE.  We love having you. You're so smart and great, good color. Final question, final, final question. Put the bumper sticker on this show early. I know there's a lot coming, but Sunday people want to taste what's the say on the bumper sticker for Oracle Open World this year? Wow. That's it. Big fun? Yeah, it's a big fun. Neil Mendelsohn, Vice President of Big Data Group here at Oracle Open World. This is theCUBE, live on Howard Street, and we've got more guests coming. John Fowler, the top executives. We're going to do 40 interviews throughout Wednesday, a few live here on Howard Street, Oracle Open World 2015. We'll be right back with more after this short break.


Today's unconventional warfare demands some of the most unusual skills in military history. For today's warfare, more than in any previous wars, highly specialized training is an absolute requirement. One significant part of military success in combat, whether in Vietnam or elsewhere around the world, is the mission of the recon patrol. And both the mission and lives of patrol members depend on how much confidence, skill, and qualities of leadership each man brings to his job. At a number of installations throughout the country, a special kind of training, intensive training, is going on right now. To give men of our army the confidence and know-how to fulfill the patrol mission and, above all, minimize risk of life. This training is called recondo training. A man gets 21 days up and knows it. As we will see, it makes a better man out of him and prepares him for the challenge of living and winning in combat. Offer power at condo! Gordon Garber, I'm one of the patrolling instructors here, and as you know, we have the patrolling phase of the recondo center here in the last part of the cycle. And some of the things that we'll tell you about is some of the things you'll be confronted with while you're on patrol here. We're looking in on a group of recondo instructors at a recondo training camp near Fort Carson, Colorado. One of the new cadre is preparing for his recondo instructor's examination. At the core of this training's effect is one crucial element, the caliber and dedication of the cadre, the men who actually conduct the training. All of them have served in Vietnam. They know the training must be tough and concentrated to ready the men for what may face them later. Sergeant, you're going to be in a world of hurt if you don't get your ambush plans squared away well in advance. That's right, because a lot of... James Griffith, Sergeant First Class Instructor at Recondo School. Through his eyes, his feelings, we can best come away with an understanding of what recondo is all about. That's how trying to get in here is much impossible. 28 years old, married, two children. Griffith returned from Vietnam just a few months ago. He knows what recondo should be all about. He's a man dedicated to his job and to his students because he's been where it's at. You try to reach that young man in there and try to get everything at one time. I think about how it was over there every now and then. The other instructors do too. That's part of the reason why we're willing to put in many extra hours a day to make sure this training is what the man needs to keep alive. When you have an idea of what he may come up against later in Vietnam or some other place, it makes you want to pump a little bit more into getting them prepared. Ben, hut! Early in the first week of the cycle, the commandant at Recondo talks to the men. Take the seats! Good morning, man. Welcome to Count Red Devil, home of the 5th Infantry Division Mechanized Recondo School. During the next 21 days, you will receive some of the roughest but the best training that this army has to offer. You will be coming in contact with some of the best instructors. They are here because they have had the experience in Vietnam out in the field. During this training, some of you will not make it, but for those of you that do make it, you will be proud to wear the patch of a Recondo. This is when you must draw upon your reserve energy. This is when you must exert your leadership principles because in order to complete this course, you must put forth all that you can muster.  It will provide you with guidance that you can apply to your leadership position. You must then take what you have learned during the classroom instruction, apply this in practical work. 85% of your training here is practical work. This includes patrolling, survival, land navigation, and mountaineering. So I put it to you as a challenge for the next 21 days. You must muster everything to include physical, mental, and courage to complete this course. From this point forward during Recondo training, these men will sweat, learn, suffer, gain courage and confidence, meet fear and conquer it, learn skills, learn how to survive in war, and become better men. On the second day of training, we start trying to build confidence into each man and start of acquainting him with how to conquer a mountain. It starts with what is under described as a mountain walk. Confidence is a very individual thing. I doubt if anyone's born with it. It comes through good old solid experience, doing something that maybe you didn't think you could do until you do it. Okay, one man at a time, get your left foot up.  Close your foothold. Reach up above your frame.  Keep your mud off your feet there so you won't slip on it when you start up. Get your hand holds up there. Okay. And just when you feel like you've accomplished more than anyone on earth could expect, something new comes up for you to achieve. Our Recondo we're going to repel from right down here. Let's go. Morning, Pop. Good morning, Sergeant. Pretty good. Got you another group of Recondos here for a little bit of repel training. Haven't been over a clip yet, so they're going to be a little bit skittish maybe on the first try. Hello, sir. Are you scared or high? A little, sir. Quite a... quite a... quite a steepness there. Quite a way down there, isn't it? Yes, sir.  You're going to teach you how how to go down and safe way and how to get to where you're going to like it. Okay? Now, we had... we had been mountain walking, and we started climbing, and we had a lot of trouble, didn't we? We started climbing. Today, you have no trouble, have you? Huh? No, we're going sideways up here. This is Pop Sorensen, civilian instructor for Recondo Mountain Training, one of the leading ski jumpers in the world. He was U.S. Olympic ski coach in 1936 and 1952. He's an expert mountain climber. So, we're going to start in on this particular clip. Very steep. You're going to use steep hip rappel. Okay? Another step of rope happens a while later the same day. For me, I learned how to prepare for rappelling down a cliff. Okay, now lean back a little bit. Okay, now take short steps. Start moving your feet down one at a time. There you go. Keep your hand down close to your snap length. Keep your hand as small as you back. So, your shoulders back a little bit. So, you pull your weight in against the rope. Keep your knees straight. Don't bend them so much. Keep your feet pointing straight uphill. Sure, there are some that are awkward, nervous, scared. Call it what you want. But let's not forget, they do go over the edge. And when they do, they grow some more. And your shoulders back a little bit. Don't grip your left hand so much in your right hand. You're told your right hand is like under the rope. That's because all it is, you're balancing it. It's not a breaking hand. Give them all it's like you can, our safety man. Well, your shoulders back a little bit, just getting the hump forward. You don't have to watch your feet, Dale. They'll pick their own foothold. All right, Rikondo, when you get off of this rope down there, I want you to shake this rope out. Let it fall against the cliff. And then give me a good lap off of this hill. Rikondo. Rikondo! You begin to see the real uniqueness of Rikondo here. It's a sort of emotional growth that lasts. And materialing that helps prepare a man for a lot of things in life. Offer pelt. Offer power, Rikondo! A man that takes Rikondo may never use mountain training itself in combat. The discipline and confidence he experiences during this stage of training may see him through a lot of things. Oh, no, physical training is a big thing in army training. Tense of the left. Arms downward. There's a high jumper. At Rikondo, it starts before the roosters get up. After they get through with their regular exercises, we'll gradually have them running several miles at a time. High jumper. Starting position. Move! Exercise. Want, hope, hate. What? Want, hope, hate. What? Want, hope, hate. What? And sooner or later, they may learn there's a real value to building stamina. One, two. One, two. You want to finish this course? There! One, two, three. Want, hope, hate. Rikondos, some of the different types of guerrilla warfare would be to attack a vulnerable target with superior strength. Gentlemen, in patrolling, crossing a danger area is a technique all of its own. Some of the principles of evasion. The most important principle of evasion is prepare a detailed plan. Observe the rules of movement, camouflage, and concealment. Patience and perseverance. Good morning, Rikondos. For the next 50 minutes, I'm going to explain, and we're going to discuss, the lensetic compass that the point man will halt a patrol prior to entering the danger area and call a patrol leader forward to make what we call a patrol leader's recon of the danger area. Conserve your food. Conserve your strength. You must have the will to survive. Once the recon is completed, primarily, we'll call the compass man back to the patrol leader and tell him the area is secure and he can move the rest of the troops across. The stronger helps the weaker. The man becomes disabled, help him along. Don't leave him at the rear or behind to die. Man, you want a world of hurt? Just forget to spread out while traveling on a patrol. What is an asthma? Rikondo 1-1. An asthma is the direction given in a clockwise manner. Very good, very good. So spread out. Maybe that way they'll only get one. Check the danger better, Ned.  That's the organization you've created at the University of Med. All right, on your feet. Move out. Before I can even lay down. How many more days of this stuff do we have left anyway? Two minutes for me. I'm afraid to count. Okay, you guys. Just because you volunteer for Rikondo doesn't mean you have to like it all the time. It is tough. Damn it if I could sleep nights if it weren't. Small wonder that in 21 days we cover seven to eight weeks of normal training. When you really stop and think, it's quite possible a lot of these men are going to reach combat. They'll have a world of hurt if they don't come away from here with a heaven's plenty more than just words and a book. It's all geared toward building leadership, one way or another. If a man can't control his patrol under the stress and harass of training, how can you expect him to handle actual conditions of combat? It's better to have confusion here in training and correct it. So next time when it really matters, the response is more positive. Come on, come on. Use a little teamwork. Help your buddy up that obstacle. Let's go. Right, Timmy. Come on. Okay, man. Make sure with your hand, help up over the bank. Don't leave your CIDs. Use this method.  Now, let's go. Damn it, let's try it. 21 days isn't much time for trying to build skilled, confident leaders up patrols. But we hear back from the units our little crash course is doing okay, making better soldiers and men. In the final week of recondo training, the students go through a 96-hour patrolling exercise. We're picking them up here at dawn, second day. The mission is to plan, prepare, and execute the complete disruption of the enemy supply column. Not long after successful ambush, the patrol is given the order to establish a patrol base for contact with friendly partisans in the area for resupply. This is a free-range pickup of limited supplies, including some sea rations and live, unprepared food, meaning pheasants. Later in the day, the men will have to prepare and eat the birds as part of their survival training. It's next morning. Prior to this, patrols have successfully conducted raids and other missions. They've been ordered by higher headquarters to form a company conducting the economy of force mission, which is a consolidated mass attack on the enemy headquarters. In order to break up into teams and return to base camp, attempting to evade the 150-man enemy force between them and base camp, the point is quite clear. Any recondo captured will be returned to the starting point of the exercise. Recondos know that means miles of extra walking before they can get back, so they are motivated to evade the enemy. It's fair to say, by the end of the 96-hour exercise of patrolling, the men feel they've earned the right to be called recondo. They're given some coffee and food that are permitted to get some well-deserved rest before preparing for graduation. It gives me great pleasure to present to you Colonel Gordon. Thank you, Major Hester. General Broadenthal, distinguished guests, families, and graduates. I'll add my congratulations to those I know you'll receive from many friends today. You do deserve them most heartily. There isn't any question in my mind of the kind of weather that you encountered out there.  You came out of this bad weather and this very tough course, very confident that you can handle yourselves in any environment and under any conditions at all. With this confidence, you can go a long way. The confidence that you now have in yourselves is the same kind of confidence that a man gains in combat when he knows that he has referred successfully around, fired at him in anger and behaved himself as a properly disciplined soldier. I see that many of you have been in combat and I need not explain it further to you. The second best possible way to get through that unscathed is to go through the recondo course. The confidence that you gain there will serve you the rest of your lives and the rest of your careers in the Army. So let me again congratulate you on having performed exceedingly well under exceedingly difficult conditions, on having graduated from a very tough course and having learned lessons that will serve you well the rest of your lives and hopefully will contribute to the performance in the units that you'll be returning to today. Thank you very much. They've been through enough to feel deserved pride in themselves. They now know a little better the feeling of wanting to achieve new and greater levels of excellence. Growth won't stop here, that's a fact because they have experienced the glow of succeeding at something hard and that's a contagious experience. Sure, we feel pride too in helping this man, this group to rise above their own expectations of themselves. The transformation in each individual is a lasting one. One that may well see him through missions of a Vietnam or other global point of conflict. Should that happen, these men will be ready prepared to assume the role of leadership in war with confidence and knowledge.


I wanted to walk through an example problem for coil springs. So in the diagram I have shown here in this example, we have two springs. So an inner spring and an outer spring, which I'm sure you can tell by my array of dots on the screen, array of little circles. And we're going to assume they're both made out of steel. They're both the same length. One is just nested inside the other, so the smaller one is nested inside the larger. And we have the criteria given there that the outer diameter, major diameter is 50 millimeters, wire diameter of the outer spring is 9 millimeters, and there are five turns of the spring. For the inner spring, its major diameter is 30 millimeters, wire diameter is 5 millimeters, and it has 10 turns in this case. So we're going to assume that, again, they're the same length, both made out of steel. The end plates on them that the support would be set on and that rest on the table or whatever it is, are fully in contact, so there's no weird stresses going on. And we want to figure out how much deflection we're going to get by setting a weight on this pair of springs together. And that weight that we're going to apply up here is going to be three kilonewtons. And how much stress we could expect to find in the springs when we do that. And we can't necessarily assume that those are the same. The same. So first step might be to go ahead and find the spring constant for each of these. So we have an equation for the spring constant that looks something like this, d to the fourth g over 8 d to the third n. And if we take g for just a generic steel, we can look up in the book or we can look up online, but a good number that we might use would be 79 giga pass scales, which would be 79 times 10 to the ninth pass scales. And then we can calculate our spring constant. Now, because we have the diameters in here and the number of turns, we can see that the spring constant isn't going to be the same for each one. So we need to calculate the spring constant or spring rate for them individually. So starting with the outer, we have nine millimeters to the fourth times, let's see, units we need to. So I've got this one in millimeters. We can do giga pass scales in millimeters if we want to, just recognizing that basically one mega pass scale is a Newton per millimeter squared. So converting that to giga pass scales, we'd have 79,000 Newtons per millimeter squared. Let's see, divided by 8 times 50 millimeters to the third times five turns. And if we calculate this out, we get 103.66 Newtons per millimeter. Great. So that effectively means that to compress this spring by one millimeter, it would take 103 and two thirds Newtons to do that. And we can do the same thing to the inner spring. So these are basically treating the springs independently. Sorry, I'm writing my units a little sloppy here that squiggly line is millimeters. And I get a spring rate of 22.86 Newtons per millimeter. So our smaller inner spring, we can see has a lower spring rate. We would probably expect that, right? The larger size, larger wire diameter of the outer spring would lead us to expect that the outer larger spring is going to be stiffer. All right. So so far, we know four supplied and we know spring rate. And that kind of leads us to use the calculation, which we know f equals k delta, which is to say that given a spring rate of Newtons per millimeter times some deflection millimeters, we get force, which of course, we could rearrange this since we know k and we know f. We rearrange this to solve for delta as f over k. Now, what do we do with the fact that we have two different values of k? Well, we need to kind of think about what's happening, right? We have these two springs acting together, right? And if I apply a load uniformly to the two of them, I don't have a way to represent two springs, but if I apply a load uniformly to the two of them, they're both going to push back, right, with some force in opposition to the force we apply. And the amount at which they push back is going to be proportional to their spring rate. So we can assume that they will both contribute to that force pushing back, such that we get this force of 3000 Newtons divided by two forces pushing back due to that spring rate. So 103.66 plus 22.86 since they're both contributing to that. And that's in Newtons per millimeter. Newtons over Newtons cancel. One over millimeters becomes millimeters or one over one over millimeters becomes just millimeters. And we get a deflection of 23.71 millimeters. Great. So we know, you know, applying this load of three kilonewtons, we're going to compress this by 23.7 millimeters in theory. Now, this is an overall force applied to the whole thing. And something that might be a little confusing, but if you think about, let me kind of backtrack a little bit here. If I pull this, this, I just drew this top plate as a line, right? But let's pretend it's, you know, more of an actual plate. And I have on one side, my three kilonewton load. On the other side, I have, and you know, I'd normally apply my spring loads right in the middle, assuming uniformity. But let's say I have one fo and an fi both applied at the same, more or less the same point. And both of those forces are opposing this opposite this 3000 kilonewtons. So they're not necessarily equal, right? They don't have to be equal. And we actually wouldn't expect them to be equal, right? Because we know our deflection. And we can see that the spring rates are different for each spring. And therefore, we'd expect this load to be taken up proportional to their stiffness, right? So what that means is we can calculate fo and fi now using this same equation, but now saying ko, delta, and ki, delta. So where before, we were putting the k's together into a cumulative stiffness of the two springs together. Now we're separating them out and saying, well, how much force does each spring contribute? So if I start with ko, I have 103.66 newtons per millimeter times 23.71 millimeters equals 2458 newtons. And for the inner spring, I have 22.86 and I get 542. And as we would expect, these two add together to balance that 3000 kilonewtons, right? It's just a proportionality. How much of that 3000 newton applied load needs to be taken up by each spring. Great. So scroll down so we can keep moving. We've got these forces. And now the next thing we want to know is, well, what kind of stress can we expect from this? And we had an equation for stress. And that is tau equals 8 fd over pi d cubed and times some k value, different k than what we were just talking about. This is the correction factor because of the torsional stress. And we're using the static form for that that we talked about before, rather than the dynamic because we're assuming the load is just applied statically. And therefore, we can substitute what we know into that equation in order to solve. Now, first we need to grab the equation for ks.  So for the inner and the outer, where did my pen go? There we are. c outer equals 50 over 9, which equals 5.56. c inner equals 30 over 5, which equals 6. So that's our spring index.  And k, oops, this is s outer ks inner equals 1 plus 0.5 over 6, which equals roughly 1.08. Great. So I've got those values. Now plug everything in. tau outer equals 8 times the force taken up by that spring times the diameter pi times 9 cubed times 1.09 equals 467.94 megapascals. And do the same thing for the inner. And I get 8 times 542 times 30 over pi times 5 cubed times 1.08, 357.75 megapascals. So I get stresses in each of those springs. And great. That's what the problem looked for. If we were to keep going with this, what we would do is take those stresses and compare them against our stress limits. Typically, we might compare them against our yield strength or our ultimate strength, allowing for a clash limit. So trying to avoid, you know, spring solid situation and what that would, the failure that that would cause. But this is where we're taking this problem is basically how much stress we expect to find. So I'll stop there. Thanks.


Now, I have International Finance and Economic Analyst, Mokhtar. Mohammad, joining me now to look at the latest of the nation's economic situation. Good morning to you, Mokhtar. Many thanks for joining me on Business Insights on Plus TV, Africa. Thank you, Justin, for always having me. Thank you. All right, let's start this way, Mokhtar. You have been following what's been going on, and recently, Oyeh Dili, was in the news, the interview that he had with Tim Blumberg, and he talked about the federal government looking at getting the nitrogen between 657 and 50 at the end of the year. What do you really think? Well, I don't share any optimism, but I know that that should be the true value of the nitrogen, but how soon we get it at December, I'm not to share about that. But I think, I would say the value of the nitrogen between 650 to 700, I totally agree with him. But getting it in December, especially with the parity between the official market and the government on the parallel market, it's something that the gap is very wide to be able to achieve that in December. But again, like you say in the economy, anything is possible if you press the right buttons. And the right button, as it is nice, to make sure we have liquidity in the system. And he has assured that liquidity is coming out also with a new way, a fixed policy that have to do with technology. And also, they will also be run, will I say, a rest of black market operators, and we get every period of change where we can stay. So if you do all that, and definitely think it depends on how liquidity comes in the market and how they are able to implement the other policies, especially the one that has to do with technology. So definitely it's possible that the real value of the knowledge should be between 600 and between that 650 to 700. But achieving that in December is an uphill task. Okay. That's a whole lot that was said. But let me just analyze some of the issues that he mentioned. He said the official market will be expanded. And of course, all legitimate transactions will be done. But they will ensure that the illicit black market do not get supply. I don't know how we are going to achieve that. But I just want you to react towards that. And besides, the Naira has lost around 40% of its value since the central bank devalued it in June, through the unification of the foreign exchange market. While the policy was geared towards attracting more liquidity, things haven't gone on as planned. So what exactly is government telling us? Well, just into attract liquidity, there must be stability. And once there's no stability, there won't be liquidity. And when you're talking about liquidity, you are saying you want to attract foreign direct investors, you want to attract portfolio investors. You came up with some policy to attract this liquidity. But once there's no stability and what you have is volatility. Nobody wants to come to a market of volatility. And remember, there's a fundamental issue, the two-way exchange system.  That has not happened to the airline company. That has not happened for foreign investors either that have been in the equity market, they've not been able to repatriate their fund for a while now. So definitely, those are fundamental issues that cannot just be wiped away for it to record this liquidity immediately. And I think they are working on those policies. And that's what they are saying, that we need to be patient with them. And definitely, I still see light at the end of the tunnel. But again, dealing with what we call a little black market, I wonder how it's going to do that. I mean, that's going to cover in big, big, big, big operation and how much that we have impact on the economy is yet to be seen. But we see this black market going on that if you have liquidity in the system, then you see a lot of people who want to come to the official market to get liquidity. But if the black market people are still the one that own liquidity, that could be another trigger of a crisis that could see the naira go higher and higher again. So they need to get their strategy right, especially bringing up liquidity into the system. When they do that, definitely, ordinarily, ordinarily, this black market would just naturally go under. So you don't need to, you don't need to struggle with them. Because like we say in economy, once demand, the normal supply is met, then when demand is met, then you have price condoms. When supply is not met, demand is high, supply is not met, then you have price go up. So they just need to do what they have to do. And people begin to have confidence to patronize the official market and the black market. And you don't need to arrest anybody. Naturally, the black market will just go under. All right. I know you said you don't share the optimism of the federal government because as it is right now, the current reality is that the naira traded at around $990 trillion to the U.S. dollar and nothing about 24 hours ago. And in the past week, it has traded at almost 1,300 naira in the power market. This gap is about 40% between the official window and the power market. Just when are we going to get back to winning ways as it were? I think the first quarter of next year, that's what I'm optimistic about, that we might get to winning ways. We might begin to see a little bit of those liquidity is being managed sometime in December to January, especially if we have Nigerians in the diaspora coming home. Most of them will be sending FX home. And if we have made the official window attractive, then you see those liquidity that find their way into other space, begin to find their way into the official window. So that is where I think we'll begin to see the stability. But for me, for complete stability for a very long time, we should be looking between January, February, and March next year. Speaking about inflows, during the Nigerian economic summit last week, the finance minister, Wally Edun said the federal government is expecting around $10 billion in foreign inflows in a few weeks. And the president will also tie into executive orders aimed at reversing the flow of FX from the official window to the parallel market. What do you actually make out of all of that? It's a foreign buffet that says if you're inside a hole, you don't keep digging the hole. You try to come out of the hole. And I think a lot of people say that if you keep doing things the same and you think you have a different result, you are more insane. So then I think the Nigerian government is beginning to look to how to do things differently. We're already in the hope. So what we need to do is how are we going to come out of the hole? We don't have to dig ourselves into a hole. But in this case now, the $10 billion that we are expecting, we need to know where it's coming from. Is it loaned? Is it forward loans again? So Wally Edun is not clear about that yet. I think by the time those $10 billion come in, remember I already have a forward issue, a forward payment of about $6.5 billion. So we are able to clear that backlog of $6.5 billion that we have about, we still have about $3.5 billion. Then again, we have NNPC, Naxan Bank of $3 billion. So we have another $6 billion. And so we have six billion to be able to protect the world and not to forget that again. The central bank said that our production map increase NNPC has promised that it will have more effects into the central bank. So when you look at all those things that he's saying, what we have, what we were all expecting and not saying what we have expectation, then it's high to say by December. By December, we see the cruising of the cabot are more optimistic by the first quarter of next year. We have stability in exchange rate. Moqta, we'll keep our fingers crossed as regards all of that and see if the federal government will actually do its bidding and see if we'll get that by December or the first quarter of next year, as you have said. But let's leave Forex now for a moment and talk about the 2023 supplementary budget of 2.1 trillion Naira. Do you in any way have reservations as to why we always have to supplement more so the item that they've been budgeted for? What are your thoughts really? Justin, I've no surprise here. If you're a student of history in Nigeria, then you need to know that every new administration that comes in in the final year, the outgoing administration always come to the National Assembly for supplementary budget. That for me is the only new thing is that the president is doing it a little bit late. I expect by now they should be submitting the 2024 budget, not the same for supplementary budget in November and the speed in which the National Assembly passed the budget evens. I mean, secondly, by the end of today, I'm sure that Hodyan will be passed into law and the president will sign it into law. So this kind of speech should be extended to other area of Nigerian economy. And let's see that if we begin to see speed, nature, it is like that then. We begin to see how economy begin to take another new turn. Now secondly, am I excited what is in the supplementary, not at all, not at all. All what you have in the supplementary budgetary current expenditure, 2.1 trillion in current expenditure. There's nothing in that budget that has been for capital project, nothing, nothing, no one is going for that project that we create employment. What we see there, we see 2.1, almost 2.5 billion for their, for class, for the for the office of the first lady. We also see a lot of worker salary, as you said, many Nigerians who benefit from that, and you see the presidency, the renovation of the presidential bill and renovation of the bill. So it's all about pleasure as far as I'm concerned. All about the current expenditure, the current expenditure. There's no one that is going into the productive sector of the Nigerian economy. So for me, I'm not excited about that, but I wasn't, I was expecting a supplementary budget, but I thought the supplementary budget would have to do with, we have to do with capital expenditure, no reported expenditure. Okay, finally, as we wrap all of this up now, what are your thoughts concerning the proposed amendment of the CBN Act? I'm sure you followed that story. And just, it's not supposed to be talked, it's not supposed to even come up to the coming years. I thought that is already there, and that's why we have the independence of the CBN. Remember, the CBN Act was implemented by President Orishago Vasanjo, just because he wants the CBN to be independent of the presidency. And so the only place that the CBN is not independent of the presidency is when it comes to currency, currency printing, or even, I mean, re-termination of currency or printing of currency, that's when you need to approve of the presidency. But in other areas, I don't think we need it because he wanted to make the CBN governor to be a political, not a belong to a political party, but you and I know why we are coming to this is because the former CBN governor, at a point, wanted to become the president of Nigeria and see the CBN governor. That's why we are coming to this point. There have never been any CBN governor that has power for a political office when they were in CBN. The former governor was the first that did it. So when the National Assembly say we are going back, we are making sure that I just feel that they should take their time to do better things for Nigeria and not waste our precious time trying to amend an act that right there is already clearly that you are the CBN governor, you are not supposed to be political. Well, thank you so much for all of your thoughts on the show today. We do appreciate it. Thank you, Justin, for having me. Welcome. Mokhtar Muhammad is an international finance and economic analyst. As we go on the show, empowering Nigerians for the demand of workplace and self-reliance will reduce the unemployment rate, especially among the youth. This was the position of a group at its one-day works, queues, employability, and entrepreneurship program. I'll leave you with the details of that report. I am Justin Akademi. Many thanks for being there.


Don't be shy, I'm always attacking. And we're gonna fist pump on the haze. Yeah, okay? Yeah. I can't even know it.