The Roman Empire ended in 476. This started the Dark Ages, a period generally lacking in culture or scientific or technological advances, at least in Europe. Well, Western Europe, if you didn't look too closely. Actually, real historians call this period the Middle Ages. In Latin, this is Medi-Eli, so it's also known as the Medieval Period. An important change that occurred during the Middle Ages was the establishment of a system of primary education. Around 780, the French Emperor Charlemagne, who was actually German, recruited Alcuin of York, an English clergyman, to help create a network of cathedral schools. Alcuin wrote Proposetiones at Acuentes y Ovanes, Problems to Sharpen the Minds of the Young. The book consists of about 50 questions designed to promote critical thinking. Some of the problems are logic puzzles. How many footprints are left in the last furrow plowed by an ox? A man needs to take a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage across a river, but a boat can only carry the man and one of the objects. If left alone, the goat will eat the cabbage and the wolf will eat the goat. How can the man get all three across the river? Then there's this one. A father and son marry a widow and her daughter. The father marrying the daughter and the son marrying the widow. If each couple have a son, what is the relationship between the sons? However, many of the problems in Alcuin are mathematical in nature. Unfortunately, while Alcuin gave solutions, he rarely presented the methods. There are a few exceptions, notably in the geometry questions. For example, a foresighted field is 30 perches along one side, 32 on the opposite, 34 across the top, and 32 across the bottom. How many acres is the field? So one of the features about mathematics is that it has an internal logic. So we can infer that a purge is some unit of length, but what's an acre? Alcuin's computation will tell us. Alcuin's solution is the following. The sum of the two sides is 62, half of which is 31. The sum of the top and bottom is 66, half of which is 33. Multiply 31 by 33 to get 1023, divide by 12, divide by 12 again, so the field has an area of 7 acres. If the sides of the field are A, B, C, and D, Alcuin is using the formula. This is known as the Agromancer's Formula and was used by the Romans, Egyptians, and others to compute areas. This doesn't calculate the area as we know it, but that might not be the point. Instead, the area could be a legal term. In particular, the formula could be computing a cadastral area, an area used to compute the amount of taxes a landowner must pay. Alcuin's mathematical procedure also gives us some insight into medieval culture. The computation should give an area, geometric or cadastral, in square perches. Since Alcuin divides by 12 twice, we can infer that 144 square perches are equal to one acre. So, even if the problem uses archaic or obscure units that no one uses, like perches, acres, feet, or pounds, the mathematics tells us something about the units. Alcuin also computes the area of a circular field 400 perches in circumference. To do that, he divides by 4 to get 100 perches, squares to get 10,000, and again divides by 12 twice to give the number of acres. And we note that in contrast to the Mesopotamian method, it's not clear if the first division is meant to give the diameter. Alcuin also posed to solve the following problem. A staircase has a hundred steps. On the first step is one pigeon, on the second two, on the third, three, and so on. How many pigeons are there all together? To solve this, Alcuin noted that the first and 99th stairs had 100 pigeons. Likewise, the second and 98th, the third and 97th, and so on until the 49th and 51st stairs. These gave 4900 pigeons, and the only pigeons left uncounted are those on the 50th and 100th stairs. Adding those in gave the total 5,050 pigeons.


Hi everyone, Sean with jaspyscasebreaks.com here doing 2017 Panini Don Russ football hangar one-pack break random team number four Where we're giving away four spots in the puppy bowl mixer coming up next for three hundred dollar spots So the way this works 32 spots everyone gets a random team in the NFL No vet common ship end of the break will randomize all 32 customers names top four get a spot in the break Here is the customer list from Simon Meyer for spot purchase down to Christopher Hoyt with the last spot mojo and The teams from the Arizona Cardinals down to the Washington football team Dice rolled randomized both lists and match them up One of the three four times separate dice roll separate randomizer at the end of the break to give away those spots four times on the dice one Three fourth and final time Robert Briggs down to Gregory thing Four times there And four times on the teams from Jaguars down to Four times four times Not gonna read through every one of them, but we'll do some highlights on here Panthers chances at Christian McCaffrey Matt Arnold Saints Alvin Kamara Brian Frank Mitchell Trubisky David Alsop Cooper Cup Oliver Soria Chiefs Nick not Nick Chubb That guy whatever his name is running back Steelers to do Smith Schuster and James Conner David Alsop Texans oh Chiefs also Patrick Malm Houston Texans the Sean Watson Justin Masters Mike Williams for the Chargers So there you go That's the full list Karim Hunt So it's print rip no trade window on that So here's our blaster box or I mean our hanger box finalists definitely tails front parts typically almost all Veteran base after the green it can be most of the rookies Lose I lose Victor It was my best for the night Got Joe Mixon got he's a rookie in this too Cincinnati Bengals Jimmy Cornwall D.D. Westbrook rookie for the Jaguars Robert Briggs Chris Godwin.  No more holes. No Watson, but some really good rookies in there Nice for a filler You got Alvin Kamara Tariq Cohen Chris Godwin Did he go tails David? So let's give away that spot or four spots right top four Here's the list Simon back down to Christopher Hoyt dice roll top four names after One of the one four times or two times. I know one. I know I was on tails one and two From spots five down to 32. Thank you guys very much for getting it on the break and hopefully I can do better for you next time Uh, but special congratulations David Alsop Steve Birch Will Comstock David Alsop David takes two out of the top four. Oh There we go David two times Two times on the dice and there you go. That'll do it That fills up the puppy bowl mixer 2017 Panini Don Russ football hangar one-pack break random team number four from jaskiescasebreaks.com I'm Sean jaskiescasebreaks.com. Thanks for hanging out and I'll see you next time


Now, we will talk about the output characteristic which is lot more interesting, so we will quickly go there, write down output characteristic, so what is the variable as a current, what is the output current here? This IC is the output current, okay, so this is IC which is measured as milliampere and then on the X-axis we have VCE, the output voltage, so output voltage, output current, fine and I am changing the output voltage, this is 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and like that and the current is changed like this, 2, 4, 6, 8, you know like that, now tell me, if you change collector emitter, voltage, what effect the current will have if you are keeping all the input variables constant? Not much, it is like constant, it should be because reverse bias, see here again you referred to input characteristic, input characteristic will tell you how much current should change and that current is a function of what is base emitter voltage, fine, so if you change the output voltage, okay, output voltage will increase the reverse bias, okay, so if you increase the reverse bias, it is favorable for current to flow or not, see refer this, when you have base collector, reverse bias, is it favorable for current to flow or not? Yes sir. It is favorable, right, but then it will not create its own charge, what I am trying to say is that if 5 electron crosses the forward bias, the reverse bias can catch only 5 electrons, no matter how strong the reverse bias is, okay, so initially it will favor and then would get saturated, because if 5 electrons are coming from this side, it will catch only 5 electrons, getting a point, fine, so initially it will try to increase but then quickly it will saturate, fine, here you are keeping the base current constant, you are keeping the base current as 10 micro ampere, let us say, alright, now if I increase the base current, if I increase the base current from 10 micro ampere to 20 micro ampere, what should happen, any guesses? Graph will shift up, graph will shift up, graph will shift up, because there are now more number of electrons but then again it will catch only those many that are coming, it will not catch more than what are coming in, so you will see graph like this, this is for 20 micro ampere base current, this is let us say 30 micro ampere base current, alright, okay, and then you can just keep on plotting like that, now one very, very interesting and important thing, you can notice here is that if you increase the base current by this much, this much is how much, from 10 to 20, how much is the change, change in base current is 10 micro ampere, all of you agree, 20 minus 10 micro ampere, fine, now change in collector voltage is what, roughly 2 milli ampere, yes or no? Yes sir. This is a change in collector current corresponding to change in the base current, okay, now if I do this, change in collector current divided by change in base current, how much you are getting, quickly tell me? 200. 200? Yes sir. What this tells you, if you change the base current by one unit, the collector current changes by 200 units, all of you understand the implication? Yes sir. Now why I am not stressing so much on this fact, is this, this particular thing which you have just learned, that change in collector current divided by change in base current is roughly 200 in this case, this can be utilized as an amplifier, okay, amplifier, level of amplifier is almost every electronic device has an amplifier, okay, like for example your mobile phone, your loud speaker, microphone, TV, radio, everywhere there is an amplifier where what happens you know, when you speak a mechanical wave gets created, okay, let's say this is a mechanical wave, very irregular shape and size, okay, this mechanical wave gets converted into an electrical signal corresponding to this sound wave, an electrical signal gets created, this is your electrical signal, this is, this is a sound and this is corresponding electrical signal, let's say this is, you know, a current gets generated corresponding to your sound, now this current can be fed as base current, you can feed this current as a base current. What happens is when this is fed as base current inside this transistor, what will happen, the base current is changing, right, so this is a change, it increases this much and then it decreases, it remains constant here and then it increases, it decreases suddenly and then it increases suddenly, so there is a continuous variation of the base current, fine, so you can see delta IB is there everywhere, okay, now this, this entire thing, if you pass it as base current then this graph will get amplified, okay, this will get amplified and this will come out as collector current, this base current will get amplified 200 times, okay and you will get it as a collector current, so without changing the shape and without changing the shape of the signal or you are retaining the integrity of the signal but you are just increasing the amplitude out of it, you are getting it, this is possible only when the change is amplified, the change should be amplified, delta should be amplified, okay, it's not same thing as adding 100 ampere on let's say 2 milliampere, okay, it's not like that, if you do that let's say this is your weak signal and if you add let's say 10 ampere onto it, okay, if you add 10 ampere current the signal will just, it will, it was like this, this line correspond to 0 ampere then this entire graph will just shift upwards, okay, this signal was not amplified, it just that it got shifted by 10 ampere supports, okay, and also when the noise or any signal is there, it's not a very nice looking sine curve which you can estimate and then you can do some mathematical analysis and then you amplify by superimposing the sine curve of the current, so it's all the signals are very, very irregular shape and size like this, that so if the change is getting amplified which is the case with the transistor then you don't need to worry about shape of the signal, it will just stretch it and you get an amplified signal, alright, so are you able to appreciate the functioning of the transistor as an amplifier? So, any doubts, anything? Okay, no doubts, alright, so this was just a small glimpse of how useful the transistor can be, okay, so we have still to learn systematically on how it will be getting utilized, okay, now before we get into further discussion about the usefulness of it, we need to define some parameters that will be used to talk in greater detail about the transistor, okay, the first parameter is input resistance, okay, input resistance is small r i, okay, now more or less all the time the transistor is used as an amplifier, okay, so we are more bothered about the resistance against the change rather than resistance for a particular instant what is current and voltage, we are going to estimate how much resistance it offers for the change in voltage, okay, so if that is a case then the way we define input resistance is change in input voltage which is v delta vce divided by change in input current, writing it and this you are keeping the output voltage constant, alright, this is how the input resistance is defined, second parameter is output resistance, so vce is constant and delta vce is 0, yeah, no sorry the output voltage is vce, the input voltage is vbe, sorry, this is vbe, yeah, so input voltage change divided by input current change, now write down output resistance, can you guess what it should be, vce by ic, delta vce by delta ic, correct and what you should take constant, vb, no that's the trick here, now IB, IB you will take constant because IB is, you know, you have to understand that IB has a special place, okay, so when you say something is constant from the input side, the input side is more or less represented by the IB current, so we will mention IB rather than vbe, although there is no great logic behind it, just the notation, this is IB, okay, so this is how you define input voltage, sorry, input resistance and output resistance, okay, now we are going to discuss about the current amplification, the third parameter, current amplification is represented by a letter beta, okay, what do you think beta should be equal to? Delta ic by delta i, correct, anything to be constant, here you will have output voltage constant, fine, so when you are amplifying a signal, you pass the current, okay, you just connect an output source, let's say you connect 100 volt as output source, okay, so it will take power from the output voltage and amplify delta ic, sorry, amplify delta IB, okay, this is by the way beta ac, okay, similar expression for beta dc is defined, beta dc is simply a ratio of ic and ib at a particular instant and what is constant here, nothing needs to be a constant, nothing needs to be a constant over here because it is at a particular instant, you know, it's at a particular instant, okay, so it's not a process that something should be constant and only you will be able to measure it, so there is nothing to worry about here.


We will talk about new labour codes. New labour codes are related to wages, industrial relations, occupational safety, health and working condition and on social security. Before we look at the peculiar features of these codes, we need to understand why these codes are so necessary and why this is an important reform. In 1991, India did the economic reform, but labour reform is still unfinished agenda and these codes seems to be promising in addressing the issues of labour reform. This is very important because otherwise there are 200 state laws and about 50 central laws to govern HRM at workplace. You can understand how complicated this task can be. There are so many provisions related to trade union, working condition, compensation, leave. There is overlap in the several central laws. There is also a overlap on the central laws and the state laws. Some state laws are very peculiar. They were formed at one stage when it was very important for the state to implement that law, but some state government sometime dig out some of these laws and they use those laws to arm test the commercial establishments. So that also happens. There are so many examples like this. So there is a need to have some stability and simplicity and if elegance, if it is possible in the labour laws in India to address this issue, these codes were suggested. So we will look at all these four codes in terms of their special features. So codes on wage, codes on wage says that at least 50% of the wage must be the gross remuneration. Till now what happens many organizations have even up to 60-75% of the wage given as incentives, as performance linked incentive. When the component of the core wage is less, they save on PF and they save on many other benefits which are calculated on the total gross remuneration, on the core wage, core element of the wage. So in the new code it is made mandatory to have at least 50% of the total gross remuneration as a core wage of the employee, fewer minimum wages. Till now minimum wages are set by different states according to the economic condition of the state. That brings lot of complexity because different states have different minimum wage. So floor wage is something which is set by the federal government and state cannot set the minimum wage below this floor wage. So that will ensure some kind of uniformity in the minimum wages across the states. Third is gender neutrality. For the same work, similar wage must be given a respect of the gender and that also includes transgender community. So this is also one code which is implemented to ensure the equality at workplace. The next set of codes are related to industrial relations. Some of the special features of industrial relations codes are hiring fixed term workers. In the current time the proportion of contextual worker in the organization happens to be very high. Even sometime for the core jobs of the organization, organizations hire workers on contract and they do not happen to be on the payroll of the organization but they happen to be on the roles of the contractor. So this new code suggests that organizations must have fixed term workers for their core job and employee benefit like the gradually payment has to be paid to those workers. Standing order is a term and condition of employment that is issued by the government that must be followed by the employer. The new code says that all companies that have more than 300 workers have to follow the standing orders. There are some exceptions also mentioned in the code but the application of the standing order is not going to be much more uniform in the Indian market. New code also suggests to have a grievance redressal committee and in the grievance redressal committee there has to be the representation of the workers as well and that has to be formed even in the companies with minimum 20 workers. So that ensures the fairness of the treatment of the employees. Threshold for terminating worker which till now was 100 that means if we have to wind up the business and as a result if we have to say goodbye to all the workers or all the employees and that can happen that is not an uncommon situation in a capitalist market or when there is a dynamic market is becoming so dynamic these things do occur till now even company has 100 employees they have to take the permission to close down the business and to terminate all the workers in the and they have to take the permission from the government but now that limit is extended to 300. So that is another flexibility or reform being brought in the new proposed codes. There are codes related to occupational safety health and working conditions. So night shift has been the issue of contention night shift for the women was prohibited in some of the laws in some of the state laws as it was permitted. So there was a situation of confusion the code is specify that companies can hire women worker at night between 9 between 7pm to 6am but they have to ensure the safety condition and security of the women and not only at workplace but getting them from their residence from their is where the state to the workplace that responsibility also has to be taken up by the employer. Changing contract labor regime that is like first time federal law now defines the core activity of the organizations and they need to appoint full time workers not the contract labor for the core activities of business. Leave encashment happens at the time of retirement in the current provisions but the new code suggest that leave encashment that is taking money against the leave not being utilized not exhausted that procedure is can be conducted that is permissible year after year in the organization. So this is another code being introduced by the ministry hopefully it will be notified and these codes will be notified soon there is also a code on social security. On the social security front the gig economy and platform worker these are very important of the employees segments of the labor about which there was no law because these are the result of the new technology. So whether Uber drivers or Zomato delivery boys these are not employees in the sense factory workers are employees to their employer but nonetheless they have to be taken care of at least to some extent and some security has to be provided economic security and other form of security has to be provided by the aggregator. So codes are formed about the security norms social security to be provided to the gig economy workers by the aggregator companies of course it is not similar to what is being suggested for the employees of the conventional employers but there has to be some security measures to be offered to the gig workers and those codes are specified in the in the those provisions are also included in the new code. So these two provident fund compliance this is a in a kind of addressing the inspector Raj wherein inspection authorities could come and check the whether employer has deposited the provident fund against for the employees may be many many years ago and if they find one problem in the record that case can go on again for many years that problem is resolved now in the new code it is instructed that authorities can check only the PF related compliance only for the last five years of the employers. So this is again a proposed reform included in the code you can see many of these codes are relevant for the small firms as well these are applicable for the small firms as well as large firms and these codes also specify the number of employees to be considered for any code to be applicable.


It's been a good week's training, the players prepared very well, recovered well after a tough game against Perth and we've got a big one tomorrow night. I think if you just look at their results, you feel that maybe they're not doing well, but if you look at their games closely, they've played well in large parts and controlled a lot of those matches. So we're certainly not taking them lightly, they're up the top of the table for a reason, they're having a very good season and we know what to expect tomorrow, a real difficult match. They're very strong at home, so it will be a very interesting and good match I believe. Yeah, Brendan wasn't involved last week, he's been now for such a long time and Jonathan was unfortunate getting his red card when he did against Wellington, so we've got two players that are fit and fresh and they both put their hand up and they both want to play tomorrow night, so we'll make a decision, but regardless of who plays, we're confident they'll do a good job. I think it's a fantastic venue, stadium up against a very good opponent, should be a good game of football, one that we're looking forward to and we really want to stamp our authority on the game and actually perform very well, that doesn't guarantee you a result but if we can perform the way we have, we give ourselves a chance. For us nothing's changed, we say that many times, we recover from games, we prepare again for our next match, we believe we can beat everyone but we also respect everyone and so far that's working for us, hopefully we can come away with a real positive result against Brisbane.


On the 23rd of September 1974, long before the Internet was a common household item, the UK relied on a primitive text-based service known as CFFEX to deliver information and news to television screens, and then discontinued on the 23rd of October 2012. On the night of the 5th of September 1999, an unsettling anomaly occurred on BBC to CFFEX service that sent chills down the spines of those who witnessed it. It was a typical Saturday evening in a small suburban town where not much ever happened.  As the clock approached midnight, BBC to displayed the usual CFFEX information, news headlines, weather updates, and a schedule of upcoming programming. But at the stroke of midnight, something inexplicable happened. The screen went black for a brief moment, and when it came back, a series of cryptic symbols and distorted text began to crawl across the screen. The message appeared to be incoherent at first, but viewers quickly realized that it was not just random gibberish. The text seemed to be written in a language that no one could recognize, filled with strange symbols and alien characters. As the minute ticked by, the text began to form into a series of haunting and unsettling messages. Sentences like, they are watching, and, beware the 14th of November, flashed on the screen, accompanied by eerie distorted music that played in the background. The text also included references to local landmarks and personal details about the town's residence, which left viewers in a state of sheer panic. Rumors about the anomaly quickly spread throughout the town, and people began to gather in front of their television sets to witness the disturbing event. Some lines to the local police station were jammed with reports of the strange occurrence. The authorities, bewildered by the situation, tried to investigate but could find no reasonable explanation for the anomaly. The bizarre transmission continued for almost an hour, and as the clock struck 1 AM, the messages abruptly stopped. The screen returned to its normal CFX programming, as if nothing had ever happened. The people of the small town were left in a state of shock, trying to make sense of the eerie messages they had witnessed. In the days that followed, local newspapers and news stations covered the incident, but no official explanation was ever provided. Some believed it to be an elaborate coax, while others feared it was a message from another worldly source. Over the years, the unsettling BBC2C fax anomaly on the 5th of September 1999, became the stuff of urban legends in the small town. The event was never fully understood, and the mystery remains unsolved to this day. Some still wonder about the ominous warning, but where the 13th of November, and whether there is some dark significance behind that date that has yet to be revealed.


Hi, kids!  Our story is about a young girl named Trina. This is Trina.   She has two wooden sticks. She makes music on her drum with her two wooden sticks. Come here and help me clean. The floor is so dirty.  She replies, You can play with your drum later. Here is the broom. You have to sweep the floor now. Trina says, Mom, Trina is not glad. She does not want to sweep the floor. She just wants to play with her drum. Did you understand the story? It's time for comprehension check. Answer with a yes or no.  Yes or no? Yes. Trina likes to play all day, right? Does she have a toy doll? No. She has a toy drum. Is there floor dirty? Yes. That's why her mom is calling her. To sweep the floor. Does Trina like to sweep the floor? No.  Is Trina a helpful girl? She just likes to play. She doesn't want to help in the household chores. Kids, there is time for everything. A time to play. A time to help. A time to sleep. A time to study. So you must make use of your time wisely. And you should help your family in the house. That is being a good family member. So when your mom or dad calls you to help them, you should be glad to help them. Remember, a happy family works together.


Okay, here's a few observations for you to maybe write down and pay attention to that will turn up the sensitivity of your gaslighting radar in case someone's gaslighting in your life.  Secondly, you ask yourself, am I too sensitive?   Number four, you make decisions, you make choices in your life with your gaslighter more in mind than yourself being in mind in those choices you're making. Five, you frequently make excuses for your gaslighters behavior to friends and family who watch them gaslighting you. Number six, you withhold information from your family and friends so you don't have to explain your gaslighters behavior, you make excuses for them because they know it's going on in your life. Number seven, you lie about your true feelings for fear of upsetting your gaslighter. Number eight, a sense that you used to be a very different person, you're more confident, more fun, more relaxed, more playful than you were before you got into this gaslighting situation. Number nine, you feel you can't do anything right anymore. And number 10, you feel stuck, joyless and hopeless because being in a gaslighting relationship ultimately eventually can get to a place where you feel stuck and joyless and hopeless. Any of that checklist applied to you, any of that in my camera, in the wind, blew my camera open. Any of that applies to you, then you are possibly in a gaslighting relationship and you need to begin to disentangle from. All right, cheers.


The debt-to-equity ratio tells us the proportional relationship of total liabilities to total equity. This ratio is a variant of the debt ratio. The debt-to-equity ratio is a measure of solvency. The debt-to-equity ratio is calculated as total liabilities divided by total equity. It tells us whether a company's assets are financed more by debt or by equity. When this ratio is greater than one, it means that the assets are financed more with debt. When this asset is less than one, it means the assets are financed more with equity. Here is the liability and equity section of the balance sheet. We'll use the total liabilities and total stockholders' equity to determine the debt-to-equity ratio. For 2015, total liabilities divided by total equity gives us a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.63. For 2016, total liabilities divided by total equity gives us a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. This company has elected to finance more assets with equity rather than debt. Although this is a less risky means of financing, it is more costly.


Hello everyone and good afternoon or good morning depending on where you are or maybe I could I should say loaded in because that that covers the ampm perhaps a little bit better. That is the extent of the Russian I'll be using today because it's extremely rusty, I took it in a previous century studied some Russian, but I am Andres Martinez I'm the editorial director of future tense I'm a professor of practice at our Cronkite School of journalism and mass communication in Arizona State University. Welcome everyone future tense as you may know is a collaboration between Arizona State University, the new America think tank and slate magazine. And we're here to talk about an incredibly important timely topic, and I'm extremely grateful that we have experts who are incredibly busy who have taken the time to talk to us today. We've entitled this the special military operation on Russia's Internet and want really want to talk about, you know the current situation in terms of what is happening with Russians access to information. The state of, you know, Internet is a broad term we're really wanting to talk about how people are engaging with information and news and each other on social media, as well as more traditional media, and looking at this landscape. So we've, there are lots of people in New America doing fascinating work on on cyber warfare and looking at the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere, but today we really wanted to focus in on on what's happening within Russia and how this this this campaign these events are playing out on on the Russian digital space and and what lasting impacts. They might have. And so for that I can't think of a better group of people to talk to today. Taísia Beku Latova is the editor in chief of whole of media. And she also has experience as a correspondent with Medusa, another Russian outlet that some of you might be familiar with. Dana Pacheva is a good friend really I should I should say as a disclaimer for starters because she was a Humphrey fellow at our Cronkite School of journalism in 2020 to 2021 that cohort Humphrey Fellowship is a great program where people and talented journalists come to the Cronkite School from all over the world. And it's fantastic program and our school was was very much enriched by having Yana in our community. So, and Ben Dalton is and I should say Yana is a freelance journalist in Moscow now she's she's returned. Ben Dalton is a fellow at the Future Frontlines program at New America. He's done a lot of interesting work researching what's happening in the in this space and telegram, among other things and Ben also has a very extensive background in Russian studies and in addition to the subject. But I'll let the kind of biographical details come out in the conversation and you all can sort of introduce yourselves. But Taísia, I wanted to start with you. You could just sort of step back and tell us a little bit about colored media, the work that you do. And then also kind of how that fits into the pretty complex landscape of Russian media and and online information sources that you know, if we paint a picture of what that look like on the eve of this special military operation if we're going to call it that. In, you know, in quotation marks but because I think sometimes and we were talking a little bit about this before we came online. Americans might not appreciate the complexity of the sort of Russian information media landscape of recent years. I think we have, we have sort of a caricature notion of what it must have been like during this in this soviet times. Actually, I say caricature might have been pretty accurate. And then we have we know what, you know, our full blown version of Western democratic media ecosystems look like and I think sometimes people don't appreciate the nuance of Russia didn't have like a firewall in the same way that China has on its internet. You know, Russian public was pretty connected to a lot of information. You know that was coming from global sources and some of the tech giants, but obviously a very controlled state media as well and then a lot of, you know what would look like really interesting experiment experiments like Medusa and other forms of independent media. I want to talk a little bit about the tensions there in us in a in a country that might not have been sort of the totalitarian states of old but heavily authoritarian and, you know, so just introduce yourself in terms of your work and just maybe kind of explain this landscape a little bit for those of us on the, who might not be as familiar with the situation in Russia. Yeah, my name is Stacy, I'm a chief editor of whole magazine based in Russia. I started it on like two years ago and initially we were storytelling magazine. We focused on mostly true crime stories from different Russian region. And that was our like know how, because there's not a lot of media outlets in Russia who do this work, because it's like expensive to send genres in different places. And find stories that are like unique in some way. So that was our work. And it was pretty successful because people like stories, you know, they want to read some unique stories. And people in Russia, they often do not know much about their own country, because Russia is so big, you can sometimes only guess what is happening in other regions. So we did the work and collected like some people who enjoy our stories and love them. So that was like what we did. And then a war started. So it was unexpected for us, we didn't believe it. And it was like shock when we woke up and saw news about Russia bombing Ukraine. It was terrible. And the thing is that we didn't have news on our website before the war. And back then it was our concept that we do flow journalism, not news. But when it all started, we realized that people really need a lot of information about what's going on. And not a lot of media outlets that can do this job and tell people about reality because we have a lot of propaganda media outlets in our country and most of publications are controlled by states. People don't get the true information. So we thought that we must do news. And we started news like on that day. And we were working for like 24 hours a day since then. So that's what we're trying to do right now to give people more information about what's going on. Because after the war started, heavy censorship began because we don't have freedom of speech in Russia, but it wasn't like that before war. And now we have like dozens of media outlets which are blocked or they just closed because they can't keep going on like that because of a law on faith, which is focused on journalists who want to call war, actually war, not a special operation. So some media outlets just decided to close and to stop working because they can't risk it because journalists can be put in jail because of it. And some of them decided not much of them decided to leave the country to keep going and keep telling the truth. So we are one of these media outlets. We needed to leave the country. We didn't want to, but that was only one option. And we evacuated our people, our correspondents and editors from Russia and now we don't have people in Russia because it's too dangerous for them. They can be put in jail for 15 years just for calling war. And I mean, it's remarkable this this law was enacted last Friday, right? I realized it was already censorship happening, but this very draconian new law went into effect that has even given pause to Western publications. I think the New York Times I saw had decided to pull people out. So it's quite remarkable. Now, if it can, can readers in Russia still access your, your stories or is, is, is your. Yes, they can because we are like, maybe we're just one or just few media outlets, which are not blocked yet by Russian state, but we can be any moment. So we told our readers that they need to install VPN and maybe we'll create some mirror website when we are blocked, but at least now readers can access us. So just, just, just to give us a flavor of the type of journalism that you're doing if, if I went to your site now, I mean, what are some of the stories that I might see that might be very different from what's coming from the state TV and Russia. Yeah, now we did the true crime stories most of the back then before war but now we are focusing on what is going on in Ukraine and in Russia actually, and some stories that we published are focused on people fleeing Ukraine and people fleeing Russia because it's like two processes going on at the one moment. People from Ukraine are going somewhere else because they can be bombed or something like that and people from Russia are leaving the country because they don't want to go to war with Ukraine. And they are afraid that's where they will be made to go there. And actually it's more about men because young men don't want to fight with Ukraine at all. And it's about independent journalists and activists who are afraid for being jailed. So there are two leading country and there are thousands and thousands of them. So yeah, we are focusing on those problems and there are a lot of them because when war started, a lot of social issues came out because it's not only about bombs, it's also about poor people which will be more poor in coming years. And it's about people who still are coming out to the streets in Moscow, despite that they can be beaten up. And we had a story about girls who were detained after protests in Moscow and there were beaten up in police station and police officers treated them like they were some animals. It was like beaten up and calling names and like trying to, there were mostly women in that police station so they're trying to, tried to humiliate them using some terms and calling names and so on. And that's how the state came out, which were made by one of the girls and it's horrific, it's terrible to listen. So yeah, we are focusing on people who are suffering from this war and it's about Ukrainian people and it's about also Russian people because Putin is bombing Ukraine but he also is beating up his own people in his own country. Right. Thank you. Yeah. Let me let me let me ask let me shift to you and ask you, you know, kind of building on what I was saying. You know, there's this very courageous type of journalism that's still being done under incredibly difficult circumstances. There are, I imagine, you know, international sources of information that are available. So there are a lot of people who, you know, and maybe more educated, more kind of globally connected people in large cities who might, you know, be very familiar with and comfortable using VPNs and are active on telegram. I mean, there are a lot of people who can find this information. But give us a sense of, you know, how deep this this kind of breaks through, because on the other hand, you know, I think, again, for those of us outside of Russia, we're probably probably a hard time understanding how pervasive and the, and maybe effective. I don't know you tell you tell me the official story is that's coming down from from the authorities and that's on my TV and my radio and so if I'm a high school teacher, or you know, a businessman and I, you know, sell electric equipment and a regular size Russian city and I'm you know 24 seven online trying to seek out information from from outside. You know who's kind of winning this contest of, of, you know, to define what's fake news right and what and what the official, you know the story is on the other hand if I'm one of these, you know, people in Russia. I mean, to refer to our are hurting tremendously I mean the, the, this type of war seemed like unfathomable a couple weeks ago, but the reaction to it in terms of the sanctions, and, and sort of the economic coordination among Western countries and and has been pretty breathtaking to and so I'm very mindful that you know what's happening the ruble what's happening to people savings. The pulling out of all these Western brands, you know, we all heard about McDonald's and Coca Cola and, and now suddenly you know Russia can't even compete to play in the in the World Cup and that's a signal I suppose to people about perhaps the judgment that's rendered on this stuff by, by people on the outside but again if I'm getting a different message from the government like just talk a little bit about how you see this, this contest and your sense of whether the, the courageous journalism that's happening that's independent can break through the sort of strong government controlled media. Sure, first of all, I wanted to say that I didn't know that ties here and all the whole of stuff, a way created that's that explains their fearless coverage because me and my friends, we were wondering, how come they're so fearless. Many people really read all it now and they're sharing posts on Instagram from them, talking about other news sources. There have been a lot of state propaganda here and now it is even more dominating because there are less and less sources of information independent sources and people who probably were lazy. I just didn't want to know this other side of propaganda now have even less options to know this site and of course Russian government wins in this situation, because now they can broadcast their official position from everywhere. I watched state TV couple of days ago I forced myself to do this because it is kind of a torture and because of the amount of propaganda there, and it is surprising every time you watch this. And it creativity surprises you. So, for example, we have our first channel, it is one of their major state propaganda channels and just to give the context, all TV is state sponsored in Russia so we don't have any dependent TV channels. This is the most popular source of information for Russians, especially for Russians who live in regions in rural areas. They would broadcast Putin lives, probably like 10 minutes long, without cutting anything. Him saying that everything is going according to a plan, so like this plan was never revealed to the public so at any point you can say that this was the plan. Then they would not mention any disadvantages of sanctions and how Russians suffer from them, but they would tell that Western world, Europe suffers more from sanctions that they imposed rather than Russians. They would not cover any protests against military operation, but they would cover some demonstrations supporting Putin. And I guess these demonstrations, they really take place, but they're probably quite staged and people are I get paid for this and those people will work for states so they're, I guess they are forced to organize some kind of kind of these demonstrations in support of Russian military. Yeah, and they would say that refugees are not grateful, they require swimming pools and free restaurant food. So yeah, and nothing critical about situations in which Russians are appears now. And I guess it might be hard to gauge but do you think that those messages are effective and that people are definitely. Sometimes I think that the situation probably revealed a lot, even for me and for many of my friends who are liberal and progressive. And because we also live in quite a bubble on our Facebook and we think that people are against the military operation and nobody wants like shell and of this residential buildings and people dying. And how anybody can be willing to kill somebody like who's probably your relative here because Russia and Ukraine have so many ties. Then you would go, even on Instagram, and you would think that people there are progressive, but there would be so many hate comments and comments who support Putin and this operation. And it seems that they're brainwashed because they repeat all the arguments they show on TV, like the most popular argument. I would tell you, well, when were you eight years ago when Ukraine started to bomb Donbass? Why were you not worried about those people who were killed and why you shout and now that war is something bad. And we're certainly familiar with that phenomenon of having your own particular bubble on social media and then being surprised or stunned that there are other worlds out there. And Ben, maybe this kind of ties into the work that you do and that your program in New America does. As you're listening to all of this, what are some of your reactions and what do you think are some of the things that we ought to keep an eye on in the coming sort of weeks and months in terms of how this informational contest, if we can call it that, might play out. Yeah, so I work with Candice Rondo on the Future Frontlines program, which really focuses on the intersection of technology and basically like information war, which is what we're talking about. And we really focus on a relatively narrow slice of the Russian media ecosystem, which is telegram channels and VK groups, and in particular those that are associated with these Russian mercenary groups. And people have likely heard of the Wagner group, which is really more so than a single entity it's a collection or a network of, you know, private military contingents that have been a big part of Russia's military strategy for four years now. And, you know, these groups played a key role back when war broke out in 2014. They would create these sort of like homegrown impromptu social channels where they would post things like, you know, their actual atrocities that they were committing. And in the years since then they've evolved into quite large, pretty like professionally run, essentially media sources where they push out, you know, pro-war propaganda essentially. And part of why I think it's worth looking at these is because a lot of the narratives that we're hearing pop up on Russian state media seem to get kind of incubated here. And, you know, oftentimes I will see a narrative, and particularly one that you can on telegram you can see which posts get the most engagement or the most impressions, the ones that are that are more popular often pop up shortly thereafter on more sort of official media. So yeah, I thought I could just sort of talk about some of the sort of hot narratives with the moment that we're seeing on these channels, which I'm sure we're going to hear a lot more of in days to come. The first is just the basically excusing away or explaining away very evident war crimes or crimes against humanity by arguing, either that, you know, actually, they were, it was a strike on fascists like the Isof battalion or, or alternately that the images that we're seeing are like crisis that there are people who were fabricated by the Ukrainian side. And this is very reminiscent of what we saw throughout Syria, where basically any time that there was a strike on civilian infrastructure. It was explained as, you know, there were jihadis hiding there. I'm seeing a lot of rumblings about WMD is in Ukraine so a lot of chatter about, you know, the presence of, you know, US bio weapons facilities as a way of sort of like, you know, retroactively justifying the invasion. One big narrative I'm seeing just in the last three, four days is that Ukraine is like deliberately forcing civilians to stay in harm's way as a way of inflating and inflicting civilian casualties. So, you know, if there's a strike, you know, and this is particularly around Mariupol in the south of Ukraine which is essentially surrounded by Russian forces. And there's, they're arguing that, you know, Ukrainians are not allowing them out of the city. And so therefore it is their fault, once Russia then proceeds to shell the city. So this is the main trend of like fake fact checks. And this reminds me a lot of back in 2016. Once you know there was about there was a media started using this phrase fake news and about like half a second later Donald Trump just sort of like appropriated it and used it for his own purposes. It's like a way of copying what like Oakland source researchers have been doing for a long time on this conflict of right, you know, saying this or that images decontextualized it's, you know, from years earlier it's from an entirely different country in some cases. And now you see a lot of that happening on the Russian side as well. I'm glad you bring up the fact checking and because because this is the, and we're all familiar with this debate in the states to about the, you know, we these the tech platforms. You know, they're, they're, they take it from both sides if they do too much moderate, you know, moderate content moderation if they do too little and it sort of kind of depends who they're moderating, and and who's being you know flagged for for misinformation, you know, platforms kind of stepped up a little bit during the during COVID, because if you know there was sort of a consensus that okay, the hands off approach maybe has a higher cost when you're talking about people's health and obviously around the last couple of cycles. So when you when you when you migrate this, these kind of difficult trade offs that the Twitters and YouTube and Facebook to the world face into this Russian context now, obviously it's the stakes are even higher. And, and the difficulties that these platforms often faces they're trying to have universal standards. And, you know, what's what fast, one of the things that fascinates me in the in the context of Russia. And I'm curious what the three of you think about this is, you know, Facebook has now been blocked right as of last week I take it. And there's, there's been a lot of criticism of YouTube which barely has huge audiences in Russia and the way in which they might kind of just echo some of the state media. You see, like Zelensky in the Ukraine in Ukraine asking a lot of these US and other Western tech companies to pull out, you know, as a way to sanction Russia in the same way that you know there was pressure on McDonald's and Coca Cola to pull out. And I wonder what you all think about. Is it preferable for the Twitter and Instagram. Again, meta has Facebook which has been blocked but apparently people can still access Instagram and what's up. Is it, should we think about these, these companies that are in the communication business as some somehow distinct from the Coca Cola's and McDonald's in other in that like maybe it's better. There's something interesting about both Putin and Zelensky wanting to take them out of Russia for different reasons right I think it's the lens in his mind. It's a sanction just like nobody should be doing business with Russia. But on the other hand, you know, Putin agrees with Zelensky on that if nothing else because he doesn't want this, you know, these potentially more independent sources of information. So that's just something that kind of I've been wrestling with. I don't know and Ben, I mean, John, all of you, I'm just curious how you sort of react to this understanding that, you know, these platforms which are very easy to second guess what they do. They're just also navigating really tough trade offs right. It's a very terrible measure to make Twitter and Facebook and all these companies leave Russia because it's not about giving people like food or, or I don't know clothes. Giving people information and access to free information. And it would be even worse if they less Russia and people will be just left without any access to independent media and independent like sources and people won't be able to express themselves on like more or less safe platforms. And I don't think it is some measure against Putin at all because Putin wants them to leave maybe even more than Zelensky so I don't think it's a better thing to do. Yeah, and I can also add that independent media outlets like all of the media are getting most of their readers from social platforms like Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. And if we are left without these platforms and our readers are left without these platforms, it would be much more difficult for them to get the information from media outlets like us. So, I don't think it's a good thing to do. Ben mentioned vk groups. I just want to make sure like that doesn't get lost and that that's, that's be contact here right it's the, it's a, I mean, maybe describe that it's sort of like the Russian analog to Twitter is that it is essentially an almost direct Facebook clone many years ago but it has kind of evolved into its own thing. And it unlike telegram which has adopted like a pretty significant like broadcasting role almost like you know there are public channels that people will monitor for like cutting edge news a little bit like Twitter I guess in some VK seems to incubate more sort of like a closer more intimate community I would say that you know I would defer to Deanna Tasia for more of the sort of nuances of how it works within the Russian social media ecosystem. Well, I can say that, for example, Facebook has more users that are pro western and that probably like Western culture and they're more liberal and in vk people pro Russian. There are more patriotic people there. And I know that now they have a lot of groups that support Russian military in Ukraine at vk. So, so it isn't necessarily that the, or maybe there's some differences in terms of like the censoring of the platform but you're I think you're suggesting there's also like a certain amount of self selection. That occurs in terms of the people who sign up for the different platforms, right. Yeah, I can also add that we K is actually dangerous for people who uses it, who use it because they state controls and they give out people who like posted something on vk, and they give all the information about the person to say so that they will be profited on it. I see so so yeah. I mean that that's, that's the ideal type of social media for the regime in the sense that it is fully under its control and then that that's why these having these offshore international platforms can be in convenient and I know even when I started this conflict there was, there's been a long standing effort on the part of the government to have the Twitters and Facebook to have more of a physical presence in Russia to be able to have exert that, that pressure. In terms of, you know, we were talking about what's dangerous to people and, you know, in times like this people are courageous in different ways and but also assess risk in different ways and one of the things that I think totally that that that has struck me just watching this from from the US far far away. But being old enough to have, you know, remembered watching the Soviet Union from far away is, you know, we have. We have watched us newscasts like broadcast TV newscasts like NBC nightly news in Moscow and again this is changing in recent days but once you know between the time that the conflict started on February 24 and the the law passing Friday, there was still, you know, this nightly newscast was reporting from Moscow, and they were in someone's kitchen in Moscow and they had a woman and her young child and the Russian woman was telling the American reporter. This war is crazy. Putin should stop it. And again this is not this in a million years you never would have seen this in the Soviet days like there was no TV correspondence getting into someone's home and someone feeling uncomfortable speaking out against the regime right. And again this is a fast changing stories and a lot of people are being arrested protesting this. And so I now I want to talk a little bit about kind of how how is that playing out I know that, you know, I think you launched a social campaign about the I'm a violent campaign that Yana wrote for about for future tense. Thank you, Yana. But you know, we've talked about the courage of journalists but talk a little bit about the ability of people to continue to organize and and engage in these types of protests and how that, you know how that is kind of unfolding as we speak and how that might change a lot. You know I think it's very easy sitting in the states to feel like well, people should come together and and put a stop to this and, you know the regime shouldn't get away with it. If everybody went out into the street, but that, you know, is easier said than done and very easy to save from across the ocean but give us a sense of that dynamic there. Actually, I'm really impressed by people who are still coming out to protest against this war, because it has been, it has been like heavy sort of state in Russia. I'm sorry. But now you can easily call it dictatorship I think because it's like unfolding very, very fast. And people are really risking their health and their life coming out because they can be easily put in jail. And a lot of evidence how people were treated in Russian police stations. It's terrible. And a lot of people are still coming out and it's really impressive. And a lot of these people are very young and a lot of them are women. And that kind of, it's like unusual. And when this war started, a lot of people who were like, I'm not like into politics, they finally realized that politics came into their houses.   And they're like they can't fight. They're like intelligent people who just coming out on the streets to feel like they did something to stop it, but they can't actually do it. So I think people need to understand that there's Russians who are coming out. Okay, they're fearless and they are great and it's very impressive what they are doing but they can stop putting and you can expect them to stop putting so that's all I want to say. Yeah, now we had a we had a question from someone in the audience related to this, asking if, if, if you feel that you put yourself in danger, even by doing things like participating in, in this conversation with us. It's a question that puts you on the spot I know. Well, I think I feel a little bit in danger. But every time I feel this, I am asking myself, what illegal activity I'm doing, I'm just sharing what I see here, what I witness and how can I be punished for this and if I'm just used to live with my hands tight and my mouse, shut. What life is this so I'm trying to continue my normal life. And you have so I'm curious, I'm curious just in terms of like you referenced your, your, your bubble. And, you know, I'm sure you have a lot of, a lot of people you've worked with and and and friends have a similar worldview to to yours as is true for all of us. But I'm just wondering how overlapping these bubbles might be do you have you know I'm thinking back to conversations with like progressive friends in the states who might say like I didn't know anybody. I don't know anybody who voted for Trump or you might have like the reverse right so do you have like relatives who are putting on the denotification of Ukraine and have a completely different view on this than anything we might be reading, you know, outside of Russia or is that kind of bubble just so far removed from from yours like how, how much do people like have different worldviews on this coming into contact with each other on an everyday basis. My family is all against their military operation, but I know there are a lot of cases so when there are fights inside families right now, and between friends and I was very surprised to find even one subscriber on one on my Instagram, who supports military operation, and I caught myself getting really upset and angry with this, and I was like really a little bit ashamed by my reaction, because there was, I was at the school with or to the driving school and yes but she is a student in her twenties at one of the most liberal universities in Russia, high school of economics so I didn't expect something like this from her. And yeah and I was at the protest and I posted videos from the protest but protest here now look just like peaceful walk. People do not chant they do not carry any banners for their own safety, and even these do not help them. And she wrote to me. Oh, so is it really a protest. Yeah, and that's that really made me frustrated and I talked back and I was not proud of myself. Well, sometimes it's hard to hold back. Then we had another question. I do want to be mindful of there was a. Could you speak a question from the audience could you speak a bit more about the role of Wagner slash PMC is in the battle for information dominance on on social media. You, you talked a little bit about this before but can you speak a little bit more and as you said like some in some ways that these have been sort of the leading indicators right of like the larger themes that then get taken up by by social media. I mean do you talk a little bit more about that but also as you look, look ahead. Do you see any way in which the, you know, as much as the Kremlin is trying to assert more and more control. And, you know, there's already a lot of pulling out by other other voices. But do you see any scenarios where the the official control over the messaging might might be weakened. Despite what we're seeing or if you had to kind of play this out. I realize this is very speculative. Yeah well so it's true that these these these PMC social channels really seem to play an outsized role in spreading messaging, especially relative to their actual numbers on the battlefield right so like we've heard reports of Wagner affiliated groups, you know, a few days ago, the Ukrainian government posted a dog tag from from one of these groups, hunting down Zelensky in Kiev, participating in some other fighting around Kharkiv. So, in terms of absolute numbers of people on like the battlefield it's it's you know a fraction of the, you know the regular Russian forces who are in the country. Right, but despite that like, you know they have very consciously built a mystique around themselves. And it's, to some extent become like a popular cultural movement, where you know you can buy t shirts or mugs. You know, and the the telegram channel that is probably most closely associated with with Wagner has hundreds of thousands of subscribers so it's you know, a significant portion I think of how Russian speaking, people are getting their news about this conflict. I love I have to, I love how I can only see the little ears ties yet. Speaking of information wars, you might have to introduce.  Oh sure well as far as the other thing that you mentioned of you know any hope of like breaking this open a little bit or signs of like the criminal I don't really see that if anything so like, you know, part of what we've heard in this conversation is, you know, there was a Russian state media television which is honestly has been dominant, you know that's how a large majority of Russians get their there were these like small and influential and very important independent media Echo of Moscow TV rain. Nobody gets yet to Medusa things like that, which are essential but we're relatively small compared to to the media impact and then there was social media, which despite the Russian Internet being one of the most prevailed in the world for years, you know, there weren't it seemed like there weren't necessarily people didn't have to fear repercussions, just for like commenting, you know, their, their opinion, but now you're hearing reports of like ramping up people being paid to sort of like, you know, report dissenting opinions even in like social media channels so no I if anything I see it all militating in the in the direction of more and more and more control. And a question for all of you do you think that this these changes, including the one that you just mentioned been about like the, the, the shrinking of space for independent thought and expression online, and that had sort of generally been my impression and and there are, there are, you know, not a small number of countries where the, the governments are mostly preoccupied with the old kind of broadcast right that the mass media and often stay controlled, you know, TV and radio that is as you point out you know, going to be the primary source of information for 90 plus percentage of the population. And if there's going to be some, you know, small elite bubble, you know where Yana and habits that, you know, where you know people can can can have independent it's if it's a publication a magazine that's going to be read by, you know, maybe 10s of thousands of people, and it's social media for people very global connected like maybe you know, my regime isn't going to be that obsessed over controlling I really what I care about is what 98% of the people are going to be digesting. And so, in a weird way there's like this, these two coexisting spheres I think that's not there. They're probably quite a number of quite a few countries we could point to where that is sort of the situation. And perhaps Russia had had been one of those. Now, rapidly changing and it turns out that no we're going to exert control and be vigilant across all media, even if it's just a few thousand, you know, cosmopolitan people that we thought before could could not really do much amount to much collectively. But if God willing, the situation comes to an end and the conflict comes to an end and there's some resolution in the short term. Do you think that, you know, do you imagine that six months from now, you know, things could be back to the normal of 2019 2020, which again was not ideal and I realized it was far from from ideal and it was a very difficult environment for people who wanted to do serious hard hitting with them. But the normal where you know, I average Russian citizen might be able to go online and and say whatever I want and access stuff that perhaps people in China can't write there wasn't this all pervasive firewall, or do you think that as a result of this moment and changing laws that even if the conflict gets resolved, it's things are going to be very different permanently and perhaps more like the control of information and China that in some of these more hybrid authoritarian regimes. You know, I won't be surprised if Internet and Russia will be shut down. I don't think that it can be like changed in six months or even maybe six years. I don't know. Because these things that they were happening long before this war started, and people, you said, get back to the times and people can like go to the Internet and why so whatever they want, but that time are long. We didn't have that opportunity for like maybe 10 or more years, like they started to put people in jail for like reports or tweets, tweets or like something like that. Long before this war, as there is a man come demonstration in Moscow who is currently in jail for five years for just posting a one tweet one tweet about policemen or something like that. And I don't think it will be like back to normal ever again with this regime. I don't think so. I think what is happening now is a problem for Putin too, because people are not happy with what is going on. There is a lot of people who still support him, but they will think about what's going on, because they will see that not only they left without like Western brands and like more stable or mobile or something like that but they also will see that this army, which was supposed to get into Kiev, like for five days, didn't manage to do it. And we see like video tapes from Ukraine where Russian soldiers who got nothing to eat or just they seem like not happy at all. And this is not the army that people were expecting to see, even if they even if they are putting supporters. They thought we can like win and we will be like strong country, strong imperialistic regime but what they can see now if they will be a bit hungry for information they can see that the Russian army is not as strong as we were told, because we were told all these years that our army is the strongest in the world and we have like everything that we need to even win the war with the USA if it will be happening, but now we see that it was not true. So, I mean, Putin supporters, they will see one way or another that these all were alive. It will be too late, of course, because something terrible already happened and we can't just stop it, but they will see. So that's what's going on. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I mean that if Putin don't have that if Putin will see that his support is getting less and less and he will need to control media more and more because if something independent comes out, it will be not good for him. So, he will need to create a picture of himself for public. Yeah, yeah. Yana, you get the final word. Anything you want to add a react to that. I wish that ties here was true, but I don't know. I just see that everything is getting worse and worse, and I'm getting disappointed, I think in in Russians as well, and I think that our population is used to tolerate everything and I'm afraid that even seeing prices go up, and all these consequences, they will still justify the violence, and they will still repeat what they see on TV, because Taysia now says that those like things about Russian army, but what I saw from those reports on TV, they take, for example, the interview of an American expert on at Fox News, who probably like the only American who told that Russian army is successful and everything is according to plan. And so they broadcast to this and people believe this and they, I hope that they will understand something, but right now I don't see any signs. Yeah. Well, as both of you were talking about that and how people interpret how the campaign is going. Of course, there's, there's a precedent in terms of, you know, the war in Afghanistan. There's a certain era, but similarly, you know, at a certain point, you can't totally obscure the fact that things might not be going according to plan, I mean, you can only pretend that the plan was to not, you know, need for so long right. And in that context, I mean the legitimacy and the credibility of the then Soviet era government was very much questioned but of course that took that took years, you know, we're, we're week three, but and it's it's not, it's still nothing. There's a lot of optimistic scenario here and that you know that the amount of suffering and tragedy involved in that trend transforming of public opinion, the cost is horrendous but this has been a heavy subject that's a heavy moment. And hopefully that will, there'll be more surprises down the line that that might be positive but for now I just want to really thank the three of you for taking the time and sharing your thoughts and wisdom and, and for all the great work that you're doing and thank you to all of the people who connected with us and we'll keep keep an eye on on the situation and keep reading all of you and, and just thanks a lot for being here. Thank you.


All told, we made about 15 arrests. We made four felonies. We actually caught an auto theft in progress, two suspects in custody there, approximately 12 misdemeanor arrests. Hi, I'm Commander Mike Callow, Denver Police Department District 2. We work primarily in Northeast Denver. We've seen many great successes since July and have realized a reduction in crime over the last three months, substantial reductions, theft from motor vehicles. For example, burglaries this month alone, last 28-day period, we've seen almost a 55% reduction in burglaries. One of the things that we've done is put together a quality of life operation. We'll go out, reasonable suspicion, we'll contact people, have probable cause, interrupt crimes, and the officers are out on foot predominantly, they're on bicycles, they're walking the neighborhoods. We work hand in hand with our neighbors and friends, and we just get out and get to know the people in the community. Yesterday, just another great job by the District 2 SCAT team and Detail 2, they went out into the Curtis Park area specifically because of the grave concern that closing Triangle Park and Sunny Loss would cause an influx of people into the Curtis Park area. It's a big concern to the neighborhood down there. The ultimate goal, obviously, is to prevent crime and to help this neighborhood realize the potential. It is one of the most dynamic parts of the city. We're proud to police it, we're proud to serve the people that live there, and they are truly one of the most knowledgeable community groups that I've ever had an opportunity to work with in 30 years. The best thing is that it will continue and it'll be sustained, and we will continue to see these great successes.


First question is from Donaldson Spencer. What are your thoughts on Mark Rippitow and the starting strength method? Oh love it Let's let's talk first about starting strength. It's great It's one of the I'd say one of the only one of the few programs that will produce Gains and a lot of people and strength in muscle size. It's a they focus. Oh, it's almost entirely focused on compound Effective lifts. It's a lower volume Somewhat program you're training the body a few days a week.  It's not that much different than anabolic. I mean it is and the anabolic includes more accessory work Yeah, we phase the reps. Yeah, there's it's it's even more simple than anabolic, but very Okay, you can see that the things in anabolic that give you the greatest beg for your buck are in Riptoe starting. Yes. In fact when I wrote anabolic Starting strength was definitely one of the influences. It was one of the programs that actually works It actually does work, you know, you have like five by five and starting strength And then there's principles and bodybuilding that tend to work and you know all that kind of was compiled to make maps anabolic But you know starting strength, especially if you're getting into resistance training Now you're not a complete beginner, but you're kind of getting into it or you want to do something that really just focus on building strength and muscle In a consistent, you know fashion It's a great program. It's free go online. You can get it now the I guess there's some downsides, right? The downsides are that it's it's a bit one-dimensional So you can develop some imbalances. There's no rotation typically involved. It's pretty much in the sagittal plane Is that all there is to like so? I know that much about starting strength to know that it's similar to anabolic I've seen kind of the phasing in the exercises. Does he not have Progressions and what he recommends is programs to follow up or is it like this is the program they do but it's really I mean He really hammers like squat deadlift press row and I understand why right for most people That's excellent advice. Well, it's also why almost every one of our programs has those components Yeah, that's why it's called starting strength I mean it's the foundational like meat and potatoes that you need to focus on and I think that's why you know I think it's super effective Now he can be himself. He can be a little abrasive because he's real hardcore about it. I like him.  He did and why haven't we linked with him? Have we not reached out? I haven't reached out personally should he's pretty controversial all the way across That's why he'd be fun to talk to you know what I love to talk to him about because I know he he shits all over the trap bar Yes, so he'd be a fun person to kind of he's controversial about everything. I know you talked about anything. Yeah, he's like He's very opinion. Well, I so it's a good time I so what made me really go down the rabbit hole and stuff So I kind of knew his stuff before but when we had Jordan shallow on the YouTube channel shallow through a shot across the bow at his squat cues Oh, right and and he's got a very Strong following and loyal following of people and like we got a bunch of hate From that, you know why he's got a strong following because a lot of it works a lot of kids went and found starting strength it became really popular early 2000s when you know, you know people were finding it on the internet and Up into that point you had all these kids doing body part splits and those crazy routines and then they're like Oh, I'm doing three exercises today. This is gonna be crazy. I don't know if this is gonna work And then you got all these reports and like, oh my god I've never been so strong. I building on this muscle and so they've got hardcore followers because that's a good point Because the 90s really was the birth of the bodybuilder split kind of or like the really the explosion of that Yeah, that the 90s was was what got everybody doing these body part splits and intensity training and all this accessory work Yeah, and so what a brilliant thing starting strength comes out with something That's totally counterintuitive to what was popular at that time. It's probably what made it blow up Yeah, and in people again, we're just so excited about this actually works and it's so simple and I can't believe it and but again I'd say that the the weaknesses lie in the fact that you can develop some imbalances. You're not working in a lot of different planes It doesn't have it there's you know one principle in starting strength is definitely a true one Which is there are certain lifts you should practice often get good at them And they should always pretty much be in your routine But that doesn't mean there isn't any value to lots of other movements to train the body in different Ways to avoid injury to develop and to develop balance and you need to do that kind of stuff Well, this is why maps performance follows exactly this I mean that was the thought process when we wrote performance when we wrote our programs, right? It wasn't like oh, what's gonna sell the most it was like, okay, we're training someone Yeah, we're training somebody we just took them through maps anabolic. What are they lacking? So even though we believe that that's one of the best programs It is our most sold program and probably the most valuable for the average person to start there We know that once they're there and they've been following that we wouldn't want them to stay there forever We'd have to move them into something else. What would that look like? It would look like maths performance I would think the the main things that people will say about starting strength is that especially their squat Will go through the roof So there's a lot of jokes about starting strength people that they got like big butts and quads and everything else Which is pretty cool, but it's again, it's a it's a solid routine I mean I'll call it out if I need to and I'll be honest and say something's great if it is we have no affiliation We don't make any money off the program with like that. It's a solid routine It's based in solid principles and for a lot of people it definitely will work and make you stronger It is not the be all end all unfortunately, especially if you have a long-term approach to your fitness Nor is any one of our programs correct. I we stand by that too I would never tell anybody that oh maps at a ball is the end all be all programs know with it forever No, no, you need to do different things to really maintain your body and to make sure you're not You know developing particular imbalances or you know aches and pains and injuries and just develop a kind of a whole You know balance physique type of deal. Well, yeah, your body you're strong in multiple directions Yeah, your daily movements. You don't always move in the sagittal plane So your workout should mimic what real life should kind of look like and that's where some of those programs The cool thing about riptoe is he says stuff like strength is the foundational physical pursuit very true Yeah, how strength is so important for pretty much any physical pursuit very true You're weak your stamina means nothing if you're weak your flexibility means nothing in fact It's becomes a liability So he he hits and he's got a he has had a tremendous Impact in the world of resistance training and I would put him up there not as the guy that knows everything I don't think anybody knows everything, but I would put him up there as one of the you know the godfathers of If we were building that's it we should do that sometime like the Rushmore of fitness Yeah, that'd be kind of a cool episode to talk about who's the founder who is the founder? What's that powerlifting club that was breaking record? I can't believe it. I forgot West Side barbell. Yeah Who's the founder of that? I can't think of his name right now.  He's another old dog. Yeah, it's freaking great, right?  How are all three of us drawing a blank on this Louis? So embarrassing like not remembering Arnold's name Paula Quinn was a character. Yeah, these are all people that had tremendous influence right that down there Let's do an episode on that. Let's build. Let's build who we think are like the Mount Rushmore of strength Yeah, yeah, we're just fitness in general We could who I think are some of the pioneers in our space like have really laid the foundation Thomas I mean, I wouldn't even argue Paul check goes in there, dude I would yeah, I think some because especially when you talk about unconventional type stuff like I definitely think that he belongs up there Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe


But it is a cord, and it travels from your sacrum all the way up to your brainstem, and it travels through the trans... I mean the vertebral foramina of your individual vertebra. This cord, if we sliced it at any level, we're going to actually see a similar picture. I have this visual here for you, just so you can appreciate the fact that I'm going to draw this little butterfly for you, and we're going to label parts, but that butterfly, no matter where I take my slice, that butterfly is going to be there.  Are you ready? Don't forget. It's three-dimensional that we're taking a slice of. Let's slice. You may think, dude, when is a rock star? She gave us a picture of a spinal cord to label on our lecture notes. I am not a rock star.  In fact, on your exam, quiz, quiz number one of nervous system fun times, that's one of your tasks.  When I draw my spinal cord, I start with those two little twanging-like ear things. Of course, little ear things, right? And, you know, there's kind of a line that connects them. There's a hole in the middle. I guess what that thing's called. I love it when Anatomy's easy. That's the central canal. There are two little bloopies on the side that may or may not be there. There are two little legs that are there.  Now, that means that everything else that I'm going to draw right now, like this and this, all of that, that's all white matter.  Oh, let me tell you, white matter is mostly myelinated axons. That's what's making up most of this white matter tissue. And so myelin, myelinated axons, remember that myelin was that fatty covering over the axons that formed those kind of bubbly things that was like insulation. So what you'll actually see in the white matter, I'm going to make my myelin like kind of orangey or yellowy. Yeah, that's good. Here's a little bubble of myelin. Kind of looks like a little cinnamon roll. And no, I'm not hungry. And there's a little dot in the middle of it. What's the dot? That's the axon dogs. The axon is this tiny little dot in the middle. The myelin is that lovely orange circle, cinnamon roll, surrounding it. We'll see in a second why it looks like a cinnamon roll. Most of the white matter is made up of axons. If you catch a cross section of an axon, what does that mean about that neuron? Where's it going? Up or down. It's either going up to the brain or it's coming back down to go deliver messages. What are interneurons? Now, gray matter. What is gray matter? It's mostly cell bodies. And I'm going to show you in a second whose cell bodies we're talking about. But first, I'm going to finish drawing my picture for you. I'm feeling a little sad, a little cramped right now. You know, I'm going to have to squeeze some stuff in here. Look, I actually am connecting. Oh my gosh, I'm never going to fit it. We're going to have to scoot on over to fit it. Know that the same thing is happening on the other side. Now this looks like it has to connect here. This has to come down here. Fantastic. Okay, do you see how I connected them? The plot thickens. And now I've got a little weenie pathway that goes off this way. And then I've got a big old pathway that goes this way. Okay, let's label our parts. And then we'll kind of orient ourselves. First of all, let's look at what's going on with the gray matter. We have A. I'm going to label them on this side. What a great idea. This is the anterior gray horn. This looks like a horn, doesn't it, or a butterfly wing. This is the lateral gray horn. Some sections of spinal cord do not have a lateral gray horn. This is a posterior what? Gray horn might as well do my central canal while we're here. The posterior gray horn does its thing and becomes a posterior root. This is a posterior root. And guess what this little blobby thing is that is not down here. This looks like one of those, oh gosh, I'm going to come up with this analogy for you. It may or may not do anything for you. One of those things in like oak trees that where all of a sudden an oak tree starts getting these big old blister looking things, like the wood actually blisters out because I think there's wasps in there or something. That's what this looks like to me. But it isn't that there are no wasps in there. This is called the dorsal, I mean posterior. You can call it dorsal though. Root ganglion. That actually tells you like nine million things right there. Here's the root. It's a ganglion, which means what's in there? Dudes and doodesses of a feather. That means there's cell bodies in there, right? A bundle of cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system is called a ganglion. Does that make you like kind of excited? I love the pieces together, I love it. So the posterior root ganglion is in there and does anybody remember what color I used for my cell bodies? I better stop drawing them or else I'm not going to be able to fit anything else in here. I can't help it. I have to draw them in. Look, they're going out that direction. I mean, they're bringing information in. I should not have drawn it like that.  Look, it's a sensory neuron. And the sensory information comes in through these structures and to the cell body in a posterior root ganglion. What? For real. It's true story. All right, let's label some more parts. We have a really important part right here. What this is that our fibers are passing through, this is my spinal nerve. Is it in the central nervous system or the peripheral nervous system? It's a nerve, dogs, it's in the peripheral nervous system. That means that only stuff in here is included in the central nervous system. All of this stuff is peripheral. Who else is traveling through this? Well, who does this look like? I know it's going to be so exciting to put these pieces together. What? True story. What color is that? Who's being innervated? This is a somatic motor neuron. And it's actually traveling through my spinal nerve as well. The somatic motor cell bodies are found in the anterior gray horn mostly. And what do you notice about the spinal nerve? It contains fibers from both places. Now, we have two more structures that I want to label here. You notice that I split us off. I split off this buddy and this buddy. And these guys are Ramai. This is my posterior ramus. And fibers that are traveling through there are innervating the muscles and stuff going on on your back. And the sensory fibers that come in are from your back. So look how tiny that thing is. Who cares about your back? I mean, let's just not think about that anymore. I mean, I guess we do care. But we have more stuff going through our anterior ramus. It's just a branch of the spinal nerve. The anterior ramus is carrying all the information to anterior body parts and guts. Are there any other structures that I need to label for you? You know, I think that this is relevant. We didn't really label structures in the white matter. But the fact is there are structures in there. And you have like columns or finiculi. This is a finiculus, finiculus, and there's multiple finiculi. And these are basically giant paths, groups, tracts. They're tracts of axons that are traveling up and down, sending information up and down to this spinal cord. So I bring chocolate to lecture and lab on the day that we do this topic. I think so. You're getting a lot of information right now. But that's your spinal cord. I think that's everything that you need to know. Now let's look at the anatomy of a nerve itself.