Only one person can get you out of depression, and that is you. It's all in your head. It's all in your head. Oh no, I'm holding you accountable for your own feelings. Oh, why do I do this to myself?  What's up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And today's problem is Nicole Arbor. I saw this video getting shared in one of my mental health support groups that I'm a part of. They kind of, you know, do the things I do on the Rewired Soul, but I help give other people suggestions who are struggling with anxiety and depression and other symptoms of mental illness. Somebody shared this and this depression shaming just blew my mind. But I'm actually not all that surprised because some of you might think that she looks familiar like I did. And not long ago, she blew up because she made a fat shaming video. All right, now I want to make very clear. I want to make very clear just in case of Nicole Arbor's fans show up on here. Like I think she's on to something, but she's doing it in a very poor way. And it's because she's not educated very well. All right. So the first thing that we have to do, the first thing that we have to do when we're receiving any type of information is check in with the source. Who is the source who is relaying this information?   I think this person's on to something. All right, like we're seeing it. We're seeing it right now in politics. You know, Donald Trump's the president. We've heard of people like Mark Zuckerberg and The Rock saying that they're going to run for president.  Like just because a lot of people are hearing you doesn't mean that you're saying the proper information. All right. But anyways, Oprah's kind of dope over 2020. Anyways, let's jump into this. So first, first, let's do this. When Nicole Arbor is talking about how depression is all in your head, which no duh, let's take a look at Nicole Arbor's credentials real quick. So what I've done is I have pulled up Nicole Arbor's Facebook page her Facebook fan page. All right. So first off, and no, this isn't any kind of shaming or anything. But first, I'm going to take a look at this and say, is this just looking at the picture? Is this somebody who I want to get my mental health advice from? Right. Like, let's let's put it in these terms. Am I going to go to the grocery store and ask the person in the produce aisle how to fix my car? Probably not. I got to check the source of why I'm getting this information. But maybe I'm wrong. Let's check in. Let's see what kind of credentials Miss Nicole Arbor has. So here is her biography. Now, let's see. I'm a comedian because people laugh at me.  I'm a writer because words fall out. I'm a model because I find it hilarious and absurd. Beauty is subjective. Yo, I'm a choreographer because I see music. I'm a dancer because music and so because music said so. I'm your new best friend because we're both awesome. I'm a YouTuber because I love making things and I'm a cheerleader for life because it's the best way to be hashtag go team. So looking at her credentials, I don't see anything, anything that says that she has any kind of health professional. Depression is a chemical imbalance in your head. You can't just fix it. So the fact that her video is getting millions of views and a ton of shares is kind of strange. Like why is anybody taking mental health advice from this woman? I went, I did some digging. I did some investigation and it looks like Nicole Arbor struggled with depression and I feel for this time. About three years ago, I sat trying to figure out how to commit suicide in a way that it would least affect my family and friends. Moving forward, that was my plan. I was done and anyone who's ever been in chronic pain understands that you get to a point where it's not even you anymore. You just want to make it stop. Now, her depression came from a car accident that gave her chronic pain, chronic pain, and that can put you into a depression. OK, and that's for different reasons.  Agreed. But her depression was not a biological issue. It's it's almost like when I've talked about the different risk factors for addiction, some people are genetically predisposed and other people develop an addiction. Same thing with depression. Some people are genetically predisposed to depression and other people develop a depression. Nicole Arbor's depression developed because of a car accident. And I get it. Like she got out of her depression and she tries to motivate people and like, trust me, you can check out the other video I did when I was reviewing Neil Brennan's comedy special where he talks about depression. And I even tried to hold all of you accountable out there, too. Like you have to put in work. The problem is, is the way that Nicole Arbor is portraying that message is depression, shaming. It is shaming people with mental illness. It is not just a button that people can flip and quit being depressed. OK, one of the biggest issues with people with depression that is the is the hardest, hardest hurdle to overcome is motivation. Exercise.  I swear you will feel happier. Like I get it. Yeah, get up, go out, go for a walk, do these activities that increase dopamine and serotonin and all these other neurotransmitters in your brain. Go do those. But it's it's getting that engine started. OK. She has this to say about antidepressants. When I was on antidepressants, I just felt like a robot who was now functioning versus a robot that was frozen. OK, Nicole, if you see this, let me explain this to you. OK, different medications have different side effects. Not only do different medications have different side effects, but different people react to medications differently. So I'm not sure what they put you on that made you zombied out, but for many people, these antidepressants do not do that. They might have put you on something really strong. They might have even put you on some kind of tranquilizer, too. So that's something that you have to take into consideration. Not only does it depend on the medication, which are dozens of antidepressants, but it also depends on how your body reacts to them. I know plenty of people who take antidepressants regularly. I'm one of them. And do I look like I'm a zombie? No, I don't. Do you see the smile on my face? Something's working. All right. And the other thing is she mentions like these these pills aren't just happy pills. I've done another video about antidepressants, and that's a common misconception about these medications is that they are happy pills. That's not how they work. These medications work in a couple of different ways. So when she keeps saying it's all in your head, I know it's all in your head. But some brains have a problem creating certain neurotransmitters. So some of these medications actually help the brain to produce these neurotransmitters. In other cases, these neurotransmitters have to attach to each other to create more. And if you're familiar with neuroscience, I've heard neurons that fire together wire together. So when they wire together, people, some people with depression do not have the neurotransmitters that stick to each other. So there are certain medications that make these neurotransmitters stickier so they can stick together and reproduce more. So what these medications are trying to do is get you to a base level to increase that motivation so you can start doing more work on your own. So these medications may not fix you, but they're a good starting point just to get you out of bed in the morning, just to get you to take a shower, just to give you the motivation to go to the gym, to go live your life and create more neurotransmitters. That's what these are there for. I have a lot to say about this, but here's the problem with the world today. Here's the problem with living in a time where the internet is so easily accessed. OK, and Neil deGrasse Tyson actually said it best. This clip that you're about to watch is from one of my favorite YouTube series called Hot Ones. The internet has turned turned the world into a place where you can do a quick Google search and you can find at least one other person on the planet to agree with the insane idea you have that has absolutely no scientific backing. And Nicole, I'm very sorry, but you're not allowed to just use the words like scientific studies say it was proven at Harvard that only 10 percent of our long term happiness has anything to do with external factors that only this much of your happiness is based on this. You can't just say that without providing sources. Like I talked about this in my Prince E.A. versus boy in a band video, like you can't just go around saying that scientific studies say certain things without providing sources, because after she said that, I spent about an hour researching this and I couldn't find one study that said that. So that's the problem with all of this stuff going viral and spreading is that ignorance breeds more ignorance. And then people think that it's the word of truth when there's actually no backing for it. All right. So I know Nicole Arbor is trying to come from a motivational good place, but she did a very, very, very poor job of it. All right.  But while you're here, leave a comment down below. I want to hear what your thoughts were on the Nicole Arbor depression video. OK, but anyways, thank you so much for watching. If you're new here, I'm always doing videos about mental health. So make sure that you click the little round subscribe button. And if you want to check out some of the other videos on my channel, check out the info card, but also click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there, a ton of good stuff. All right. But again, thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.


Thank you so much Catherine and thank you so much to the organizers of the Cambridge conference as well as to my fellow speakers whom I really enjoyed listening to and thank you for the invitation to present my research on states due diligence obligations in the practice of international courts and tribunals. Now it is a common knowledge that there is in fact no uniform interpretation of due diligence which as we have heard from the keynote speaker today and several of my fellow speakers have alluded to is essentially context, harm and actor specific which is very much in line with the ILA study group findings on the subject. Now I would like to submit to you that despite the infinite variety of the terms of the obligations of conduct that require states to exercise their due diligence in other words best efforts to avert a particular result. International courts and tribunals do seem to employ similar yardsticks when analyzing when how and what states are required to do to comply with their due diligence obligation in order to achieve that particular result. So basically a very simple analytical decomposure of the existing practice of international courts and tribunals into the trigger of due diligence obligation in other words when does it kick in the scope of its application in other words how does it apply both spatially and temporally and finally the material content of due diligence in other words what does the state have to do in order to actually discharge its obligation. Turning to the trigger of due diligence the so-called when here I think we can analytically decompose into two aspects which recurrently come up in the analysis of international courts and tribunals. First there is the risk of harm and second the knowledge of the risk. In relation to the risk of harm we could think about three really sort of three benchmarks. First does the risk need to be qualified and the answer given by most international courts and tribunals yes there must be a real and imminent risk as opposed to hypothetical risk that could occur. The court for example in the genocide case spoke of the serious risk of genocide. More generally that is related also to whether there has to be some level of qualification of the harm itself and again here across the board we see references to significant harm in other words something which is more than detectable but need not be at the level of serious or substantial as a harm. The second aspect is does the harm need to be certain and the overarching answer of international courts and tribunals is that while the harm needs to be foreseeable on the basis of the best information available to the state whether it is technical or scientific it may also in certain circumstances entail the adoption of a precautionary approach for example in cases of scientific uncertainty as it was highlighted in the seabed advisory opinion or the inter-american court and its advisory opinion to which my colleagues have just referred. The final aspect in relation to this analysis the risk of harm is do the origins of the harm matter and again the answer here is overarchingly no in the sense that it doesn't depend whether the origins of the risk lie with another state non-state actors conduct or natural hazard. The second aspect as I mentioned as going to the trigger of due diligence obligation is the knowledge of the risk and here essentially the big question hanging out there is what is the standard of knowledge that is required of the state. Courts seem to align in the perception that it's either actual or constructive knowledge which are sufficient to satisfy threshold regardless really of the area of law or the nature of the harm compared cases such as Bosnia genocide of the ICJ or Osman Buk before the European Court of Human Rights. However importantly there is no automatic presumption that control as such over the territory means that the state should have known of the harm and we have seen that in cases such as Corfu or Nicaragua but as the court noted in Corfu channel the mere fact that the state exercises exclusive control over its territory does not in fact result in prima facie responsibility nor shifts the burden of proof but at the same time importantly the state that territorial state may up to a certain point be bound to supply particulars of the use made by it of the means of information and inquiry at its disposal. Similarly courts and tribunal appear to be much more willing to take into account circumstantial evidence when analyzing questions relating to knowledge in such cases. The second aspect to which we can turn in the analysis of the practice of courts and tribunals is what is the scope of application of due diligence obligation and here the again two subsets of considerations first the spatial consideration as we all know physical control of a territory and I'm quoting here is the basis of state responsibility for acts affecting other states I'm quoting from Namibia advisory opinion. Now that control however need not be construed necessarily as an effective control in the way that we have conceptualized it for the purposes of attribution of conduct nor it seems according to quite a few quotes and tribunals that a temporary absence of an effective control over a particular portion of territory necessarily relieve a state from its due diligence obligation as we have seen for example in the Alaska decision of the European Court of Human Rights or the Bosnia genocide case. In fact the quote in the letter found that it was necessary to examine a state's capacity to prevent genocide in terms of and I quote the geographical distance of the state concerned from the scene of the events and on the strength of political links as well as other links between the authorities of that state and the main actors in the events. In fact a trend seems to be occurring in the in the practice of international courts and tribunals towards focusing much more on the on the control over the activities that may cause a particular harm rather than necessarily only over the person or the territory where that may be occurring. As to the second aspect the temporal aspect of the scope of application of due diligence the court seemed to emphasize that we are talking about essentially an ex-anti-evaluation of the risk but that the obligation of due diligence applies throughout the entire period of the activities that pose the risk of harm. Again pulp mills or kishenganga ward may be referred to and that implies the monitoring obligations of the effects of the activity posing the risk of harm. Turning to my third and final sort of analytical constellation which goes to the material content of due diligence the ward here essentially the existing output can be decomposed into two main aspects. One is the means that are reasonably available and of course while we don't have a single formula there are several indicia to verify whether the obligation of due diligence has been discharged. These are the monitoring and the supervision the risk assessment in various context notification and consultation and good faith with other potentially effective states the inaction of legislation and administrative policy and regulations. Importantly however it is not sufficient to adopt regulatory or administrative measures but also as the court has emphasized in the pulp mills case as well as it was in fisheries advisory opinion or the Philippines China Tribunal a certain level of vigilance in their enforcement and the exercise of administrative control. Moreover the means that can effectively be employed to discharge such due diligence obligations need to be updated and may in fact change with the passage of time as was underscored in the CBAT advisory opinion paragraph 117. The second important component going to that material content of due diligence is the gravity of the risk. The principle is that the graver the risk of harm the greater the means the state has to employ in order to discharge its obligation and here courts have further helped us in our understanding of that relationship by indicating that the question of whether the underlying activities are a one-off conduct or a recurrent systematic activity is immaterial in fact to assessing whether the breach of an obligation of due diligence has occurred. Finally what we gather from the practice of international courts and tribunals that it is no defense for a state to argue that even if it had taken all measures reasonably available to it the harm would still have occurred as the court emphasized in its Bosnia genocide case it is irrelevant whether the state claims or even proves that even if it had employed all means reasonably at its disposal they would not have suffice to prevent the commission of genocide. In conclusion I would submit to you that the output of output of courts and tribunals and respect of when how and what in respect of due diligence seems to point in the direction of many more common features of analysis underlying whether due diligence has been actually fulfilled then being here in differences there from one area of public international law to another thank you.


Hey everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat. I'm talking today with Denny. Hello. Hey Christian, great to be here. Thanks for having me. So for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you, and what do you do? So I am Denny Cherry. I am based out of San Diego, California. I started as a database administrator back in the day. So I'm the enemy of basically everybody in IT. And I've gone on from there and I obviously do a bunch of database stuff still, but I've also been doing a ton of migrations up to the cloud, either AWS, GCP, or Azure, mostly Azure to be perfectly honest. I'm a Microsoft MVP both in data platform and in Microsoft Azure. So I've got a wide variety of knowledge and I spend an awful lot of time talking to people about this stuff. That was very cool. I run a small consulting company. There are nine of us total, seven consultants, five MVPs. And that's Denny Cherry. Well, what are those other two doing? Are they just slacking off or what? Well, one of them is new. He's been in IT for about a year and a half. Okay. So he's got a valid reason. The other guy, yeah, he's been too busy working. So he hasn't been able to focus on the community stuff. Yeah, it certainly changed things around for a lot of people. Like I was doing that monogany. We're talking about that interview. So one of one of his team members as well. We're talking about this international events as events are starting to come back online and more popping up. I was traveling. I was doing, you know, one or two events a month for years. It was like that.  I was writing more, creating more videos, just doing more virtual stuff like everybody. It went immediately from a lot of stuff to, oh, what are we all going to do? Because we're all just kind of stuck at home at this point. And I'm worried about this new variant that's come out. Well, a couple of weeks ago that that's running around the UK right now. Like that may cause a lot of headaches as well. Yeah. Yeah. I've got international travel scheduled this fall. So, you know, thinking about that as well, but same. I've got a trip to Italy scheduled for November. So I'm not worried about that as well. Yeah. Well, it hopefully the, the, the inconvenience will, it won't be more than having to wear a mask on the flight over that. It doesn't shut things down again. But yeah. Well, so, so I know it's been, you've been an MVP for what 15, 16 years now. Long time. What was, so I always like to ask, like what was your journey to becoming an MVP? I know it was, how different was it 15 years ago, trying to become an MVP from what you see in the community now? Well, I mean, there are a lot less. In person events to start with. So I, I became an MVP through a lot of presenting in conferences. So, but there were a lot less conferences back in the day. So I'm from the sequel server world, early starts where I started from. So pre-pandemic, we'd have things like sequel Saturdays, which would literally be every single weekend. Oh yeah. Even the weekend, like between Christmas and New Year's would typically have one who would just be in another part of the world.  Christian. Right. So like doing conferences was relatively easy. We're four years ago. 15 years ago, that was not the case. So I did my local code camps. I'm in Southern California. So basically we have four years. Three of three code camps a year at the time. One at San Diego, one in Orange County and one Los Angeles. So basically the bang with banged out. And so those would be every three or four months. So that gave me a decent introduction to speaking and, and seeing folks in the community and stuff like that. And then after that is just basically, you went straight from there. Kind of said the, the big national international conferences. So the, the stepping stones of. All right. I actually want to get in front of an audience and getting in front of the audience of 20 local people. Didn't give the happen. It was regional events, national events. And that was it. And then I was doing some stuff online and some of the forums. And then I was doing some stuff online. And then I was doing some stuff online. And then I was doing some stuff online and some of the forms. But even there, there were a lot less. I mean, 15 years ago, there was no stack overflow. Yep. Which is where 95% of IT people can be found. So you have to find the forms that you want to talk on and, and, and talk on them and get well known, relatively well known on them. If you get the attention of somebody at the MVP program to add you. Well, that's that what I always tell you, you get those questions a lot. I'm sure you hear from people too kind of, you know, what, what's that path? And, you know, like I, I'm mentoring people that are asking that question. And one of the, I said, look, there's no set path that can be different. There's different people that are covered with different things. But one of the easiest, lowest barriers of entry. Is going to, as you said, stack overflow. Out on the Microsoft tech community. Places where people are asking questions. And share your answers. Or, you know, or, or even just. Even if all you're doing is commenting on an adding to where people have already answered questions. And a seconding, you know, saying, Hey, I've tried the same thing. Yes. This is what works. For me. But, or connecting people like, Hey, this person over here might be able to answer doing something like that. There are plenty of people that started their MVP. You know, Paths by doing that. Oh, yeah. Most definitely. I mean, one of the things I, I know that that has frustrated a lot of people that are trying to become an MVP. Is the one that they'll ask, well, What do I need to do to beat MVP? And the problem there is, well, there is no set list. Like. It's, it's a bell curve. So, you know, you're, you're. Effectively going against a, the people that are currently in BPs, as well as all the other people that are not currently on BPs.  So it, it, it can get frustrating. I'm sure right now. I know a game that kind of, you know, I've played the game back, back before I was an MVP. And yeah, I mean, it can certainly be frustrating to have to deal with this to try to figure out what to do. If you want to really want to become an MVP. I mean, I mean, it can certainly be frustrating to have to deal with this to try to figure out what to do. If you want to really want to become an MVP. Yeah, that's, I was, I just simply described it as a black box. Yeah. It really is. And, and depending on the area, the focus area, the technology area, because Microsoft even, I wouldn't say lower the bar, but there are certainly areas where they say, you know, we need, we need to have more community people. We need to have more MVPs. And so we're going to expand the net. And to that we can build up in certain areas. And then of course, you know, as you said, it's the part of the competition is people who are MVPs. We're looking every year at the renewal process and Microsoft has, they've been talking about it for a couple of years, but it seems like they're finally starting to tighten the belt a little bit around that to make sure that the MVPs that are in there that it's not just a rubber stamp for a renewal, that they're actually contributing, continuing to contribute to. Yeah. I think that's something that a lot of people think happens is that MVPs are just rubber stamp to be back at the burger man next year. And like, that's not the case. Like I, a couple of years ago, there were a couple of sequels of R&B fees that listed nothing in their MVP profile. And I assume they were expecting to just get renewed. And they got me very different email on July 1st saying, you are no longer an MVP. You didn't tell us anything. Right. So as far as we know, you did nothing. So bye. Yeah, it's, well, that's why it's, again, when I talk to people that are interested in the path, I say, well, it's not so much about trying to become an MVP, but if you're already contributing to the community, if you're already doing things, things that you would do regardless of the award or not, are you surfacing that? Is it visible to the right, are the right people seeing it? That can sometimes be the hardest part. Yeah, you do want to look that because I, we've all known there's MVPs or I fought for who were just very, they were quietly in the background doing tons of stuff, but just not bringing attention to themselves. They're supporting the community, supporting events, supporting other speakers and events. You know, and so it's kind of how much, what do you do to ring your own bell?  Like I jokingly, I have on my blog, when I promote stuff that I'm doing, I have a tag called blatant self promotion. So, you know, where I'm just like, look, I just want to get the word out that I'm doing this, but it's like, look, I realized that it, it's not a great look to be like, you know, hey, hey, take a look. Yeah, you're going to find that happy balance between self, crazy self promotion and looking like a jerk because of it. And, you know, not doing anything and not saying anything. You've got to find that, that balance to, to that, because if nobody knows you're doing stuff, I mean, that's fine. But you can't, you're not going to get rewarded for it. And which is the MVP award is an award. Yeah. So it's a Microsoft's way of saying, thank you for doing this stuff. So, so how do you overcome that? Like, what do you do? How do you do that, that self promotion? I have a very large mouth. And because of that, lots of people at Microsoft know me, whether they like to or not. And that helps a lot. So I, because of that, I've been able to, you know, I get the ear of people and internally, as an MVP, there's lots of distribution lists that we can be on with various members of the product group. There are various product groups. So I'm on a dozen of those. So I talk to those people on a fairly regular basis. And I talk to my MVP to get on a fairly regular basis. You know, I also speak at large conferences. So that helps just people to know me and know who I am and know what I do. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, that, that is the thing. If you, if you have, you build up a following to a blog, to, to YouTube channel, to TikTok channel, whatever it is, where you're creating content, you're going to naturally get some of that, that visibility. Yeah. Any recommendations for somebody that doesn't have the visibility? How do you start that? I'm the worst person after that, just because I didn't be so long that I've forgotten how to do a lot of that stuff. Just because I, I'm friends with 80 people on the product team. So I have questions I can just ask them. And that gives that, that makes me visible to the people in the MVP program because of that. But that's a great example of that. I think it's a great recommendations to say that, no matter where you are in the world, you know, who are your closest Microsoft personnel? Find out who they are. Like I got where, where I am, it's actually just a sales office here.  I think there's 80 or 100 Microsoft employees that live in the area, but it's all sales. It's, you know, people that they don't, they don't do anything in Utah or not a whole lot. They don't, they don't go into the office every day kind of thing. Yeah. But still knowing who they are and invite them to stuff or offer to help with different things, but you'll get to know them. That's a place to start. Yeah, definitely. And if you're not in the US, a lot of people outside of US get to search because Microsoft is a US company. So they assume they need to know people in the US at corporate to become an MVP or to work in the community programs. And that's not necessarily the case. So for everybody outside the US, every country has a Microsoft office and they've got a local Microsoft subsidiary. And they're the ones that nominate and manage the MVPs in that local country. So you don't necessarily have to worry about the folks in Redmond. If you're not in the US. Yeah. Or then Redmond is, you know, the, a lot of the folks that you're going to deal with are going to be here or going to be up there. But yeah, if you're outside of the US, know your local people at your local subset. That's going to be the key to, to get a good, that insight and that access to Microsoft. Another great way to find out is, is if there is an event where there are Microsoft speakers that are in the topic, the area that you focus on. So they may not be from your country, but if they're in that region, they may be the spokesperson for power platform, for example, and doing a lot of different events. And, and usually the Microsoft people that are actively speaking at these different events and conferences, they're a bit more social and connected. And so they're going to be more apt to connect with you and, and somebody could develop a relationship as well. Yeah, that's fine. Well, very cool. So, so what kind of topics like, what are you writing about talking about right now? What are the, what are your hot topics? Hot topics recently. Southwest Airlines and their technical debt screw up. Where they basically shut themselves down for a couple of days because they couldn't get pilots on airplanes. I wrote about that for you to magazine. I wrote for, I wrote a couple of things under conditional access and as your active directory back before it was renamed like a month ago. So I need to write new articles with the new names. Yeah. So I'm like, cool, great. Everything's been rebranded. Awesome. I can sell all new articles with basically the same content. Awesome. Just fixing all the names. So those are kind of the big things I've written recently. Yeah, I'm looking at your most recent techie gurus stuff. Top five reasons companies should move workloads to the cloud. Yeah. It's always a popular more of a business topic. I asked. Yeah. So pass or SAS, which platform is the prex solution for a workload? Yeah, I've been writing a lot on Azure specifically recently, just because a lot of our customers are either in Azure or moving towards Azure. And so they have lots of questions. So when the, when they bring up questions, I'll typically write an article about it for somebody and post it out there. I've taken the last few weeks off as I had shoulder surgery a few weeks ago.  I just got the sling off like two days ago. Yeah. So once, once that's done recovering, I'll probably go back to writing, writing a couple of articles and sending some stuff back out. But yeah, that's, that's pretty much just been the stuff that people want is what I try to write about. My writing process is always, I never know what to write about. If you, if somebody gives me a topic, have it right now. It's the coming up with topics that I am awful at. Well, that's something too. And this is kind of a word of advice for anybody. If you're, if you've written for other sources or if you're interested in, if you go to talk to CMS wire or techie gurus or I'm sure your editor at Inc. And say, it's like, you know, they've got their one, they're, they're kind of their editorial focus, usually a monthly or quarterly basis, but they usually are pretty good at tracking. Like what are the keywords? Like what are people searching for over content that we don't have, that they're not finding and give you suggestions. So people just need to ask. So that's something of course there are tools that are out there that you can go and do that kind of research on your own as well.  Yeah. What I always like, what I love doing is it's funny. Bing doesn't do it. Google does it. But much better job of it, but is so you enter in your search for whatever topic you're interested in writing about. And you see like other questions that people are asking about that topic. If you, you find the most relevant ones open and close them. And what it does is it adds to that list of other questions people are asking. You can then go search on those questions for content. Yeah. So here this is the editor in me that is, you know, has these suggestions because I do get that question a lot. Like, well, what are you looking for in that? It's just, you know, like, like there's constantly new projects that are out there. You can just go do and do any Bing Google search on tech news and see all like the announcements for the month from the variety of different companies, things and, and get ideas for articles on that. But yeah. One other thing I just added to get my final, then I'll, I'll step off the editor soapbox, but is love it when there's cross product integration stuff where when you talk about like the business application of something, there's one thing to go in there and say, let me describe what, you know, this Azure, what, what is Azure? And, and right about that kind of thing. No, but if you go in and talk about like here, I'm, you know, migrating a customer from Amazon to Azure in this, in this specific example, and then walk through that people love that real world experience. Yeah. Look at, you know, maybe a mix of different technologies. Then not necessarily the nuts and bolts and details of the article, because those are going to apply to seven people. Right. What I think a lot of people like to read or at least what I like to read is something more mid level, not, not super high level, not super in depth, but that mid level of this is all the stuff we had to pick up and move from point A to point B. And this is the rough idea of how we got from point A to point B. And then throw some business stuff in there about how much money we save and that keeps the, that keeps the CFO happy. Right. No, that's a, that's why the majority of content, the most popular content is, is I'd say kind of like 60, 40, 200 level, 300 level. So you got like solution architects or somebody that's knowledgeable about the topic, but that has a business focus, gets out of the technology. And then you get into more of 300 level, which is like the administrative and it's scripting and how, you know, here's how you fine tune this thing to get there. So it's not just going to point out of the box, but here's the things that you've taken into consideration as you're doing a deployment that more on the admin side of that. Yeah. People just love that kind of content. Yeah. Yeah. The 400 level where you go in down to the code and you're going to build something like right there. Like, Hey, that's great for engineers and, you know, that, that side of things, but you're going to lose the vast majority of the audience there. Yeah. No, yeah. I've presented at conferences where they, they tell the speakers when they're submitting, we only want 400 to 500 level content. No, you don't. You want to say that you'd have, you want that, but what you want is 200 to 300 level content because that's what we'll sell. Yeah. So if you're running a conference, your job is to sell seats to sell, sell tickets. So, you know, it's great to say all our content 400. And I'm happy to do a 500 level topic on indexes. It will be useful to absolutely nobody. Yeah. Because it's not real world stuff, but then that's the, that's the stuff where after you're done with your 300 level topic where you're going through the architectural level of that. Yeah. Some detail there. And then people come up and ask those questions. You get the three people that come up at the end and asked for those granular engineering discussion, you know, questions. Yeah. And that's, that's when as the marketing guy, and that's what I say, let me introduce you to this Steve from my engineering team. Yeah, exactly. Well, cool stuff. Well, so anything else going on community wise, you know, anything that you're involved in coming up here soon. So I know the past summit live 360 and ignite are all happening in November or conveniently the exact same week. Where's the past happening. The same week as a night. It didn't know where, where is it happening? So convention center. Same building. Well, that's convenient. Right. So one of them is on one side of Pike Street. The other ones on the other side. Okay. I don't know which is on which side. But yeah, that's, that's how they're splitting it up this year. Yeah, so they're both in the same place. I will not be at any of those conferences for the first time in 12 or 13 years now. I will be on a cruise ship from Italy to get to Florida. We booked a cruise two years ago and it happens to be the exact same time as past. Of course. Of course. And there will be other some major life event happening when MVP summit, when they finally announced the dates on that. Yeah, it's just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think. I don't know when that is. Yeah, they've not announced it yet. No, it's all my international MVP friends are fuming. There's like, you know, I'm like, I'm booking travel already for events. Like I'm already submitting abstracts for conferences. And we don't know when these events are going to be like Microsoft needs to get back on the ball and announce this stuff early. They're really, really bad about announcing dates, especially things like MVP summit that aren't customer based and that you don't have the right tickets to and that sort of thing. Well, they're waiting too long and ignite, build and inspire as well. We don't find out details until like 30, 40 days in advance. It's just crazy. So inspire for the last five or 60 years has been easy to figure out. Look at when to see comic con in San Diego is it's the same week. Oh, okay. All right. It was extremely convenient for me as I go to comic con. Yeah. So I've gone to one inspire event. I think I was left first one or first or second one after it was rebranded. Yeah. But after that, it's been the same week as comic con. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to that instead of inspire. Yeah. Well, that's so ignite it with that overlap. Like I'll be at, I'll be at life 360 in Orlando. So that's just another event happening that same week. So yeah, three of them the same week. Like I've, I've thought about how to do passing life through 60. Cause they've been the same week for a couple of years now. Yeah. But unfortunately the Seattle tour Orlando track is really hard. Yeah. There's a number of there's some nonstop flights, but you know, November summer. And so there are new nonstop. So basically it's a red eye. It's not a red eye. It's a layover. Probably with a red eye, which is really hard to do.  Yeah. No. Hey, I know I, so I'm in Salt Lake. So I mean, go going East that time to get to Florida. It's hard to do. So I'm going to be going through probably Dallas or Houston or Atlanta. Yeah. To get down there. So yeah, I can't, can't avoid it. I was there for the hurricane last November in Florida. So. Yeah. It's a, I'm hoping to repeat that experience. Yeah. Hopefully. Can you hit there will be as mild as the one that came through San Diego. Yeah, there you go. I'm far enough on the coast that the entire hurricane went east of me. I know it caused a lot of problems. Yeah. Outly in the vampire. But my house, we got like some rain in a slight bit of wind. I don't think any of my chairs outside moved. Yeah. Hey, we saw some rain out of that system as well. So it was big enough that it reached this far. East of California as well. So. Yeah. So I know my sales guys up in. Marietta, California up in the, in the empire. And he said he got drenched. They were closing roads.  Those are flooding out. I'm like, yeah, dude. We got, we got, we got like some rain. Everybody always laughs about that Los Angeles river, which is that little stream that's down in there. And it's like, well, that's, there's a reason why they built that system the way they did. It was for that. That, that lot of the El Nino storm system like this. It's there's a reason it's like 20 feet wide and like 15 feet deep. It usually has nothing in it, but, you know, people and cars for movies. Yep. But when it, when they need to put water in it, it can hold a lot of water and it can move a lot of water. And yeah, it's there for a reason. I mean, it's, it keeps L a county from flooding. Yep. Well, hey, Denny. So close things out. If people want to reach out, connect with you. What are the best places to find you? Where are you most active and social? Well, this is where to find me. It's our website. www.dcac.com. You can find me on Twitter. Blue sky, master on Mr. Denny. Companies got Twitter. On Twitter were DCAC CO. Massadon blue sky. You can find us at DCAC. And so we're trying to stay active pretty much everywhere. There's just a lot of social media to look at right now. Yeah, there are. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time. And we'll make sure we'll have the links, of course, for everything out on the blog. It'll be out on YouTube and on the podcast as well. So you can find all the links there. And, and it's great to maybe I'll see it. One of these, maybe the latter half this year. I don't know. I'm going to be going to like six or seven more this year. So maybe we'll cross paths. Let's say hopefully we will. If not, that's always going to make sure it's for. Yep. Hey, we'll talk to you soon.


Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Here's the News, but before I jump into that news, as we got I think 5 big stories for you today, including a really sick deal that if you're a Nintendo Switch owner, you might want to pay attention to, I gotta remind you that we are giving away a copy of Monster Hunter Rise, which we have some news on Monster Hunter Rise, so that's really cool, we're also giving away a $100 Nintendo Switch PlayStation or Xbox Gift Card, also a $220 Nintendo Switch Xbox or PlayStation Gift Cards to enter head down to the description, I wish all of you guys luck, it literally ends this week because the winner will be drawn on April 1st, so still some time to enter, let's just see who ends up winning. Alright, let's get into the news and our first story is actually about Monster Hunter Rise, so you might have seen some headlines by now, but if not, they did ship 4 million units. We don't have any digital sales numbers per se, but we now know they shipped 4 million units on launch weekend over the first 3 days. This actually makes it the second largest launch for, well, Capcom, but also the second largest launch for Monster Hunter because Monster Hunter World shipped 5 million units and that was on 2 systems, so 4 million shipped for just a single platform is an insane amount of units, but we have additional information beyond that because David Gibson came out and said hey, 2 million of those shipments were just to Japan and assuming that it's sold out because right now physical copies are sold out in Japan, guess what, that's 2 million in sales just physically in Japan that beats out Animal Crossing New Horizons launch that was at 1.6-1.7 million, that means that Monster Hunter Rise will be the biggest launch game on Switch in the history of the platform in Japan for a platform that's already doing record numbers in Japan. That's insane, that's just Japan, it also turns out physical copies are sold out in China as well for, you know, the markets that do have it in China and also physical copies are becoming extremely hard to find here in the United States as well. You can still find it at a few places, it's not like it's rare, but it definitely over the weekend became really hard to find a physical copy of the game, hence I ended up buying it digitally. Now in addition to that, GameIndustry.biz gave us some details on the sales in the UK and it is now the second largest launch for the Monster Hunter series in the UK, obviously trailing Monster Hunter World. And it seems a little bit rough at first because the sales are 43% below the sales of World, which technically means that Nintendo Switch as a solo platform was able to sell 57% of the kind of sales that World could do on PlayStation 4 and Xbox combined, kind of impressive in the end, but if you're worried about those sales being lower than World, which I don't know why you would because Capcom is the one making bank right now, don't worry because it's twice the sales of Monster Hunter 4. So yeah, when I come to Monster Hunter 4 launch, it was one of the best launches in Monster Hunter history, it's twice that. So yeah, a lot of analysts including David Gibson are projecting that you know what, by years then this thing is clearly going to sell at least 8 million units, it might have sold 4 during launch plus digital could have pushed it up to 5 or 6, so it might already hit it by this summer at some point depending on where sales end up in week 2 and week 3, we don't really know when sales are going to slow down significantly for this game, it's hard to predict when that's going to happen, it is exclusive to Switch and Switch exclusives tend to have a longer tail of sales, so while Animal Crossing blew up to 30 million worldwide, it's possible that this could end up crossing 10, maybe 12. Remember, Monster Hunter World is the best selling Capcom game, let alone the best selling Monster Hunter game at 16.8 million, you include the Iceborn DLC and it technically crosses 20, however you can argue that's just the same game but DLC wise, expansion pack wise. So yeah, it's crazy to me when you think that this game alone on Switch could sell at least, it seems like the bare minimum projection is half the sales of Monster Hunter World on a single platform in Switch and this isn't even, come to the fact, it's going to come to PC in 2022, so there's going to be like a second wind of sales next year, so this game is just doing incredibly well, I think we always knew it was going to do incredibly well but what's even crazier is that it seems to also be really well received, it's not just, oh it's a Switch exclusive so it's going to sell well, it's not just because it's coming off of Monster Hunter World, it's also legitimately a good game, there are a lot of people, myself included a little bit, that weren't really big fans of Monster Hunter that have been trying this game out and coming to realize it's actually really really good, it's a very good entry point for new players and its gameplay mechanics are fun and engaging and well there's actually technically more complexities than say in Monster Hunter 4, it's brought to you in a way that makes a lot more sense to the player rather than prior Monster Hunter games kind of get good unless you were a veteran, it was really hard to get into it, World kind of opened things up more in a different sort of gameplay style, sort of different gameplay style and here we have Monster Hunter Rise taking notes from World and being like hey let's go back to that traditional Monster Hunter gameplay but let's actually make it more user friendly and they did that and this game is blowing up, they have a major content patch coming starting at the end of April and then a month after that they're adding a new dragon and all that, it's going to be great, Monster Hunter Rise, more power to you, good job Capcom, not just for making a good game but having a successful launch, I can't wait to see what the actual sales figures are going to be when you get to the end of the next fiscal quarter so then Capcom can tell us hey this is what this thing really sold just on Switch, incredible, the game runs really well, it looks really good, it clearly was made for Switch first, PC version second, so sorry PC users if you feel a little bit like the games held back a bit graphically or whatever but I'm telling you right now gameplay wise, this game is great. So the second story is about golf, now I actually like to play golf in real life, fun story I don't know how many people actually know that I play golf in real life, I don't play it as often as I used to since I had children but I still like to get out there for a few rounds every single year I'd like to go out a bit more often, maybe I will this summer we'll see but right now we're talking about golf because EA and the PGA Tour have announced a partnership, a long term partnership that they didn't really give specific details on how long that partnership is they just said long term so I don't know is it ten years is it five years I don't know what they consider to be a long term but it's an it's a exclusivity partnership where they will be making PGA Tour games and this is very interesting because 2K recently bought the studio that was making PGA Tour games, 2K 21 PGA Tour used to be called Tiger Woods, what's also interesting is that 2K signed a new deal with Tiger Woods maybe because they knew this deal was in the works where they were going to lose the PGA Tour license now the big thing that's included in the PGA Tour license is the PGA Tour championship and the FedEx Cup now these are obviously big events in the golf world for those who don't know but they're not as well known as say the four majors you know when you hear the masters some of you guys have probably heard of that the US Open some of you guys have heard of that so there are bigger events out there that aren't necessarily exclusive in this deal because the PGA Tour company doesn't own these events so it's possible that 2K is going to have their Tiger Woods golf because they're clearly going to put Tiger Woods back on the cover and you know because they can't be using the PGA Tour name the PGA Tour brand needs going to go over to EA which again this could create brand confusion in the marketplace for people who don't pay attention because if you bought 2K 21 PGA Tour and all of a sudden the next PGA Tour is by EA you might assume it's the same game but it's not and then obviously the majors could end up in both games there's no real reason they can't be there's no exclusivity deals in place right now with the majors so they could both end up being really viable games it is kind of strange a CPGA Tour being made by a 2K company now going over to EA but yeah both are going to continue to make golf games it's going to be interesting it could crash and burn NBA live when they brought that back despite actually making some great progress didn't exactly ever catch on not in the way 2K did maybe if NBA live never went away in the first place it might have had a better chance of staying relevant but it vanished for a while just like you know MLB 2K you guys remember the 2K baseball game it used to actually be a really really good baseball game and then MLB the show came in and just did everything better and then 2K just eventually gave up which kind of sucks because now if like it comes back well it's going to be fighting a big uphill battle but MLB the show has at least gone multi-platform I mean it's not really exclusive you know RBI baseball you know it has the stadiums the teams the players the likenesses the coaches so anyways it is what it is um good luck to EA good luck to 2K it's always nice to see competition with games anyways because that technically breeds excellence from at least one of the companies and I think most of us think it'll be 2K but hey you never know maybe EA is exactly what golf fans needed maybe it's hard to give EA credit for anything oh by the way curiously they're they're they're trying to advertise this as a next gen golf game you know using the frostbite engine the same engine that they were using on last gen yeah marketing speak is fun our next story is just a brief one on cyberpunk 2077 yes the game that is still to this day not back on the PlayStation Store yeah guys we're like what five six months out from when the game launched it's still not back on PlayStation Store ouch like they really messed up with this game I almost feel bad for CD Projekt Red how bad they messed up but they did this to themselves especially the higher ups uh so today they announced a patch that is coming soon to both console and pc patch 1.2 and I would love to cover everything in this patch but it would take its own 30 minute video just to get through the patch notes I'm not kidding take a look this is the longest patch notes I have seen in the history of video games I'm not even kidding it just keeps going and going and going and going clearly showing how fundamentally broken cyberpunk is at every level on all platforms both visually quest wise uh performance wise AI wise everything about cyberpunk is basically rushed out the door and not fundamentally working as intended um this patch maybe makes the game good I don't know there's so much being patched and fixed I'm not really sure if this makes the game good we'll have to find out when the patch hits maybe it might be finally time to say the game's good after this patch I don't know this seems like a pretty fundamental patch with how much is being fixed I am just it is what it is I don't really know what else to say other than let's just hope that this is the patch the game needed because as it stands cyberpunk is still pretty much a broken mess especially in Xbox and PlayStation 4 but just in general AI wise quest wise there's a lot of things just don't work that well cyberpunk is kind of a bad game but maybe just maybe there's enough there to be fixed and patched over time kind of like with Sea of Thieves that it could end up eventually becoming a great game so we'll see see if these turned it around so maybe cyberpunk can as well we'll see so our next story is uh kind of an update on a rumor that's been floating out around there about the PlayStation 3 PSP and PS Vita losing its digital games there have been a rumor floating out there that we didn't really talk about about how uh these digital stores are going away and this has obviously made people deathly afraid of a future that is all digital we did a video on that previously and we touched upon this rumor but now we actually have some evidence behind the rumor so last year technically Sony removed access publicly on their official store website to PlayStation 3 PSP and Vita so there's a web store you can access and they removed the public access but technically the web store wasn't actually taken down if you had direct region links so the direct us link to the direct uk link to the direct Australia Japan whatever you could still access the web stores and buy games and tell your systems to download games and all that so the web stores just existed still they just removed uh they basically just stopped advertising the systems is what happened on the web store uh so it was it people were fine with that for the most part because it's like look hey at least the web store still exists and if the web store exists that means the storefronts on the systems themselves still exists and you can still download your games still buy games all that jazz well those web stores have now been nuked you cannot access the web store anymore now no the online servers are not nuked for these platforms you can still access the stores on the platforms but the rumor was in the next few months access to those stores would be removed and the stores would close down seeing the web store go down is kind of the first domino really last year when they removed it off the website but now the web store is actually gone and actually nuked from uh browsers that's really the first domino to fall to kind of confirm that yeah sony is going to end all of this now there has been other rumors floating out there that sony has some plans potentially for place station 3 specifically i think if you're a vita or psv owner you're just kind of boned um sorry that's just is it is what it is i don't think sony really cares that much about you and that sucks but if you're a playstation 3 fan and you really enjoy that playstation 3 library and you're worried about losing it it does look like sony is attempting at least to try to add playstation 3 backwards compatibility to a playstation 5 now if you're a physical owner that's great news because it means a lot of at least the i would say exclusive games anyways should eventually be playable on playstation 5 assuming that sony is truly working on this we have heard this from some reputable sources that yeah sony is actually trying to get playstation 3 games to run which is very difficult to do of course because that cell architecture they used you know that cell processor and all that they used on playstation 3 not very friendly with modern technology but if they could find a way you know whether it's emulation or whatever because the current systems are so powerful it's possible they could emulate you know basically run emulators for the games it's possible then that they could include backwards compatibility so that is something sony is looking into and that would be maybe why that you know if they announce hey the store is closing but you can bring your playstation 3 library over to playstation 5 that would be a rather big announcement and maybe alleviate some of those all digital future concerns now the thing is that's great for physical if you could stick the disc in and install but what about digital now in my humble opinion if they are looking to bring playstation 3 games over to playstation 5 they would just make those playstation 3 games downloadable through the current store so i honestly think they would just patch those games into the store as they become compatible because i think there's going to be minor patches or minor tweaks to an emulator or whatever they use i think the game is around on playstation 5 so i think despite the fact that this is kind of shitty news there's sort of a bright light at the end of the tunnel that potentially sony isn't going to fully shut down those stores until until they actually add playstation 3 backwards compatibility because there is actually a massive feature you know difference between playstation and xbox right now xbox series x has backwards compatibility for some games going all the way back to the original xbox playstation 5 just has playstation 4 now that's huge to have but hey like what about the rest of your ancient library do we really have to pay a subscription fee to access some of those games because after all not all those games are on your subscription service we'll have to wait and see but uh for now it's kind of scary but also there's hope so go whichever way you like so our last story is about a sale happening on amazon so uh if you're a switch owner and like me i have a 512 gigabyte uh micro sd card but you're looking to maybe upgrade because hey you're filling it up you're ready for something bigger well the one terabyte cards are now the cheapest they have ever been so the sand disc xc ultra micro cards are on sale right now for 139.99 so basically 140 bucks this is the cheapest these cards have ever been and that's because it is the deal of the day on amazon so really you got to take advantage of that today um probably gone tomorrow because it's you know deal of the day not deal of the week now these have dropped to 180 in the past uh but this is the cheapest they have ever been and i would argue that it starts to become pretty affordable to just buy one terabyte of storage so we're going to include an affiliate link down in the description for you guys to buy that also they do have like the faster version of it as well on sale uh but that's for 180 and i gotta say having played around with the faster micro sd cards versus the slower micro sd cards on the switch there really isn't a load time difference um that's noticeable because i don't think the controller on switch uh really cares which one you use so yeah just just get the just get the cheaper one it's still a really high quality card you're still gonna get good speeds out of it you're still not going to notice you know any much difference from that versus the internal storage so enjoy get your one terabyte of storage if you need it because some of us have had switched for four plus years and definitely are filling up those cards so thank you guys so much for tuning in i am the tinder over just from the internal prime what an exciting batch of stuff we had for you today i hope that you really enjoy here's the news i know last week uh let's just a bit rough for videos let's just be honest i obviously was not um feeling all of myself now last week was technically my spring break so i'm i'm back in college as of this week so it's kind of funny that as my life gets busier suddenly i'm more inspired to do youtube work but maybe it's because youtube is kind of a respite from everyday life and when everyday life was easier i didn't need that respite i have no idea i can't explain it i really was in a weird state of mind if you follow me on twitter you'd probably notice that i was you know i don't want to say tweeting strange things but kind of you know conversing and and responding and tweeting things about stuff that normally i just wouldn't tweet about you know even if i have a personal opinion on it and maybe some of that's what got me down sometimes you know social media can have a negative impact on you mentally but i don't really think it was that i think that was more a symptom of the grandeur my mind's not in the right place but i feel great today i'm back i got i got my zelda sweatshirt on that i haven't worn in ages i love this bad boy if i can find it online maybe i'll link you guys through the buy for yourself down below if you want you know if you're interested in that i don't know if i could find it i've had this thing for a while so anyways thank you guys so much for tuning in um i have a lot of fun making these these episodes i swear man they're one of my favorite things i do on the channel so look forward to more of them also i have another video coming later today and hey by the way if you check out nintendoprime.com i post a lot of the nintendo news uh before i even make videos or news i don't even cover in videos right there on uh that website also i've been writing some original editorial work but yes all my original editorials on that website will eventually become videos uh but basically a lot of my discussion slash editorial videos are gonna end up over there on the website as written work before they get turned into a video because it takes obviously a lot more effort um and editing and stuff to get it turned into a video so if you want early access basically to some of the videos that you might see here hey check out the website at nintendoprime.com all right folks i'll catch you guys in the next video


Hi everyone, Shawn with jaspyscasebrakes.com here doing 2019-2020 panini prism retail one-pack break random team number 268 where We're giving away three spots in the mama mixer three five hundred dollar spots the way this works one-pack break prism retail Randomized lists customer names break end of the break take all 30 customers names randomize them That's the typical process today a little bit different Jeff got all the spots so he gets all the teams plus he gets all three filler spots Or all three pack spots. So we're literally gonna open up a personal pack for him right now he's gonna get everything from it and We're gonna send all he gets all three spots Super simple. So thank you very much Jeff and good luck in the mixer. So here is just packed. Oh We've got a red wave. Come on big name Trevor reason That's it. I don't even have to do a randomizer give away the spots It's Jeff Jeff and Jeff. So there you go That was it that was 2019-2020 if you need a prism retail one-pack break 268. I'm Sean Jaspies case breaks calm. Thanks for hanging out. See you next time


Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Anne Muir and I'm Colin Lover. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live. Of man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe with loss of Eden till one greater man restore us and regain the blissful seat. Today we look at the life and work of John Milton. John Milton wrote one of the most famous poems in the English language. Many experts consider him to be the most important English poet after William Shakespeare. John Milton was born in 1600 and eight. He lived through a very difficult period of English history. Members of the government rebelled against the king and cut off his head. Milton worked for the government and for a time his life was in danger. He also had many troubles in his private life. His first two wives died and he became blind when he was only 43 years old. But he continued writing until he died at the age of 65. Milton had weak eyes even as a child but he loved to learn and he spent much of his time reading and studying. In his working life he wrote important letters for the government. He also translated letters and documents going to and coming from foreign governments. Milton spoke seven languages and could write poetry in four of them. But it would be wrong to imagine that he spent all his time studying and working. Milton had a great sense of humour and he enjoyed having many friends. He had a good singing voice too and he played music on the organ very well. But he often worked late into the night and so in time years of reading damaged his weak eyes. At the age of 43 he became completely blind. This did not stop him working for the government or from writing poetry. He prepared in his mind what he wanted to say. Then a helper wrote it down for him. This was the method he used to write his most famous poem. Milton got up at 4 o'clock every morning. He prepared 50 lines of his poem in his mind. His helper came at 11 o'clock and wrote the lines down for him. The poem is called Paradise Lost. We read the beginning of Paradise Lost at the start of this programme. Most English speaking people have heard of Paradise Lost but very few have read it. One reason for this is that it is a very long poem. It is divided into 12 books. All together there are more than 10 and a half thousand lines. Another reason is that the poem uses some words that are no longer part of normal English speech. It is not easy for people to understand it today. Milton was born in London and lived most of his life there. But in 1665 there was a terrible disease in London. About 75,000 people died from the disease. Milton and his family moved away from London to a village in the country. Milton finished writing Paradise Lost while he was living in the village. Now people travel from all over the world to see the house where he stayed. It still looks the same as it did almost 400 years ago. Today the house is full of his books and papers. It is the perfect place to study his work and to see paintings of Milton. The disease in London stopped spreading when a great fire broke out. The fire was the worst in the whole history of London. It burned a large part of the city but it stopped the disease and the Milton family moved back to London. The great poem Paradise Lost was published the year after Milton returned to London. It tells the story of a perfect world and how it came to be ruined. There was no disease, hunger, pain or death in this world. And there were only two people, Adam and Eve. They lived in a beautiful garden where they looked after the plants and animals. God had made just one rule for their lives. They were not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were very happy. But best of all they were friends with God. But the poem does not begin by describing the paradise where Adam and Eve lived. It starts with Satan. It tells how he rebelled against God and how God banned him from heaven. Satan was very angry. He looked for ways to ruin the perfect world God had made. Satan discovered Adam and Eve living in the garden. He persuaded Eve to disobey that one rule that God had made. Eve persuaded Adam to do the same. This caused them to lose the special friendship they had with God. It also opened the door for sin to enter their perfect world. The punishment for this act was death. But the Son of God felt very sad for them. He offered to die in their place. God accepted his offer. God let Adam and Eve live. But he sent them away from the beautiful garden. Their lives became difficult. Sin brought with it disease, hunger and pain. Adam and Eve knew they had let all these bad things into the world. They knew that every person living after them would suffer because of what they had done. The poem ends at the time when Adam and Eve left the garden. But it is not a completely sad ending. Before they left, an angel told Adam what would happen in the future. The Son of God would come to earth. He would be called Jesus. He would be born as a human being so that he could die. He would suffer the punishment of death instead of Adam and Eve. But the angel said that after Jesus was killed, he would rise again to life. His sacrifice would make it possible for Adam and Eve and all people on earth to be friends with God again. John Milton was a Christian. He said his reason for writing Paradise Lost was to explain the ways of God to man. The main idea for his poem came from the Bible. It tells what Christians believe about God and the results of sin. Paradise Lost ends with what Christians believe is good news. Jesus took the punishment for sin in his own body. People everywhere can be friends with God again because of what Jesus did. The writer of this program was Joy Smith. The producer was Mark Drenth. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom. You can listen to this program again and read it on the internet at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called John Milton Writing of Paradise. We hope you can join us again for the next spotlight program. Goodbye. You can read the whole text of Paradise Lost at Dartmouth College's website.