Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we are going to discuss the following question and the question says that, simplify the following rational expression and the expression given is x raised to the power 4 minus 1 whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole. We know that to simplify our rational expression first we factorize both numerator and denominator completely and then we reduce the expression by cancelling common factors. With this key idea we shall proceed to the solution. Here we are given a rational expression x raised to the power 4 minus 1 whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole. We have to simplify it. From the key idea we know that to simplify our rational expression we first factorize both numerator and denominator completely. Now the given expression can be written as x squared whole squared minus 1 squared whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole. Now we know that a squared minus b squared is equal to a plus b the whole into a minus b the whole. So using the same formula here we get x squared plus 1 the whole into x squared minus 1 the whole whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole. Now again we can rewrite this expression as x squared plus 1 the whole into x squared minus 1 squared the whole whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole and this is equal to x squared plus 1 the whole. Now using the same formula again here we get x plus 1 the whole into x minus 1 the whole whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole and now in the second step we reduce the expression by cancelling common factors. Now here the common factors are x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole so we cancel out the common factors and we get x minus 1. So on simplifying the given expression we get x raised to the power 4 minus 1 whole upon x squared plus 1 the whole into x plus 1 the whole is equal to x minus 1. This is the required answer. This completes our session. Hope you enjoyed this session.


From VOA Learning English, welcome to the health report in special English. The GAVI Alliance is a partnership between public health officials and private industry. The group provides vaccines to developing countries. Recently, the Alliance announced plans for an immunization campaign to protect 180,000 girls from cervical cancer. It has chosen eight countries to start administering the vaccine for human papilloma virus, or HPV. Most cervical cancers result from HPV. The virus is passed through sex. Seth Berkeley is Chief Executive Officer of the GAVI Alliance. He says one woman dies every two minutes from cervical cancer.  Dr. Berkeley says an estimated 275,000 women die from this cancer each year. And 85% of the victims are in the developing world. He warns that without intervention, the estimate would reach 430,000 deaths a year by 2030. The HPV vaccine is given to girls between the ages of 9 and 13. It is only effective before someone is infected with the virus. If infection does take place, the virus may cause extremely small changes at the cellular level. A pap smear test or pap test can find those changes, but the test may not be available to women in developing countries. If the infection is not found, the cancer begins to grow and will spread. There are signs like bleeding. And after the cancer spreads, there is pain. The HPV vaccine will be administered as part of school programs in Laos and seven African countries. The seven are Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. Dr. Berkeley notes that efforts must be made to reach girls who are not in school. For VOA Learning English, I'm Alex Villareal.


and it has the biggest efforts. Qatar is also a large and active funder of terrorism and has been since the days of al-Qaeda and is a home to many of the Hamas leadership. All the political leadership lives in Qatar. So you literally ten years ago you had the situation where American airplanes would take off the bomb ISIS in Iraq and in Syria and money would flow from the same place, Qatar, into the coffers of ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.


Hi, welcome, my name is Dr. Marcy Stone and this is Unit 4 on Brand Strategy of your strategic marketing course. Here is the course layout and Unit 4 is on Brand Strategy. Here are the Unit 4 learning outcomes. So explain the role of brands in creating value for businesses and consumers to find brand equity and the related brand asset evaluator and acre models. Explain the concept of brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty. Evaluate strategies to build a brand, including positioning and differentiation. Compare brand management strategies through the product lifecycle of introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Relate four strategies to managing the brand reputation, including through media platforms. Why are learning outcomes important? Every learning outcome ties back to your course material and your content. This includes assessments and also test preparation. Here are your Unit 4 overview topics. So we're going to talk about creating value for consumers, brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty, strategies to build a brand management strategies and strategies to manage brand reputation. This is the vocabulary for this unit, which we will discuss in this presentation. In marketing, it's important to understand the idea of how to create value for customers and then have the ability to apply that directly to a marketing strategy. So this will create value for the business and the consumer. Creating value may be done in a few different ways. When marketing communication is appropriately created, a brand communicates trust and that they can expect a dependable product. Value can be created by removing barriers, making a customer's life easier or helping to reduce frustration or fear. All of these may create value for a consumer. When a brand is profitable, a brand creates values for shareholders, employees and consumers. And this may also increase their overall reputation in the industry. This is important for repeat business so consumers can support the brand by demonstrating how important the product could be for the consumer value can be created. So this is an important concept to understand in marketing because it not only helps to create value for the consumer but for the brand's overall reputation. Okay, so this slide shows a little bit about brand messaging and then marketing alignment. When we look at things like on the left there, it talks about timeframe. On the right, it kind of your tools and artifacts needed. As we're looking at this from the bottom up, it's important to look at your campaign specific messaging that you might have in your communication strategy. And you wanna make sure that it's aligned with any annual goals or at least quarterly goals that might reflect any evolving priorities. And then also you're looking at your campaign, what tactics are you gonna be using? What kind of messaging? What are your proof points? All of that would be go into your campaign specific marketing. Then we move up to marketing specific positioning and messaging strategy. So this might be refreshed every 12 to 24 months depending on your market dynamics. And then you're looking at things like your target segments, your marketing specific positioning, any key marketing messages would be included in that. And then there at the top, we have your brand strategy. So highly consistent from year to year with periodic refinements. And then on the tools and artifacts side, you're looking at your value proposition core value statement, your mission statement, the voice of the brand, any personality that might be associated with that brand, any brand positioning and then taglines. When a consumer is aware of a brand, then brand equity has been created. And this leads to consumer loyalty. This concept is great for repeating purchases and will help to build the brand. It's important in marketing to assess brand loyalty and ensure that consumers are aware of your brand. Brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty are all related and can build on each other. So for example, when a customer is aware of a brand that creates brand equity, repeat purchases from a consumer will create brand loyalty. Brand recognition occurs when the consumer is aware of the brand or brand related products. The consumer may be aware of other brands, but should be able to distinctly recognize products that belong to the brand for brand recognition to occur. Brand loyalty occurs when the consumer returns to buy products from the brand after an initial purchase. Businesses may create loyalty-based applications and reward programs that allow consumers to return and then they're rewarded for their loyalty. So there are a few models that can help to assess brand awareness and loyalty. First, we have the agar model, which states the awareness of the brand, the loyalty of the consumer and apparent quality are business assets that allow a company to increase their value. And then the brand asset evaluator is a way to measure brand value and the brand's ability to make consumers happy and satisfied. When the brand uses appropriate marketing to promote products, the brand may create value and loyalty with consumers. But I think probably the most common thing that we see with this is really loyalty apps. You can go in, you can order your drink or food or whatever it is, go in and pick it up quickly and then you're also gaining rewards points. So there's more of a loyalty base there because they know that after a few purchases, they're going to get something for free. So that's probably the biggest way to see how brands build their equity, recognition and loyalty. As a marketer, it's important to understand how to build a brand as it relates to creating your marketing strategy. So there's a few ways that a brand can be built and these might include considering the voice and tone of the brand, company core values or brand values and how the brand is positioned. So building a brand creates value for the business and the consumer. The idea of a brand positioning is how the brand is presented to the customer through marketing and this may assist in helping the customer feel more connected to the brand and their products. So this is a marketing strategy to help build the brand's identity. A marketer may want to differentiate a product or brand from others on the market and this is another strategy that can help to build the brand's identity. So product differentiation may occur when marketing focuses on why this product is different from others on the market. So this may be done by focusing on product qualities, features or benefits. Managing a brand appropriately may improve brand recognition, increase sales and meet organizational goals. Understanding brand management strategies is important so you can build brand equity and consumer loyalty. So one strategy would be to follow and document the product lifecycle for each product of a brand. The product lifecycle stages include product development, market introduction, growth, maturity and decline. When a brand is managed appropriately there's no reason why it cannot have a sustainable growth. For example, Nike has been around for several decades and is clearly in the maturity stage of their product lifecycle. Most brands that have been around for that length of time do not usually stay in the maturity phase but Nike's ability to stay relevant has sustained them through a much longer maturity period. So the entire lifecycle process includes the amount of time the product exists. By understanding each of these, the product lifecycle stages and where the product is in these stages, a marketer can better focus on a strategic plan. It is important that marketing considers brand management strategies that will continue to build a product through the entire product lifecycle. These strategies will continue and adjust as the product moves through each stage of the lifecycle. Okay, so for instance, if you see that little curve that's in the kind of background of this slide, it shows you how a product might move through each of these product lifecycle stages. So first you have your introduction. So this is more on you start out with kind of low sales, there might be high costs for customer. You might include financial losses in here. You may have competitors, you may not in this stage. Then you slowly build up into your growth stage. So you're increasing your sales, your cost per customer might fall a little bit, profits will rise, you're increasing the number of customers who are buying your products. You may have at this stage more competition. Then you hit that maturity level, which I was just talking about Nike and how they've extended their maturity level by decades. So you may look at peak sales, you may look at cost per customer. It may be at the lowest at this point, your profits are high, you may be selling to a mass market and you may have a stable number of competitors. And then you move into decline. So the decline lifecycle. And then this might be falling. Usually your first indication is that your sales are falling, your cost per customer is low, your profits start to fall, your customer base kind of contracts a little bit, and then the number of competitors also fall right around the same time. So this just gives you an idea of how a company might move through these. Some companies may move through the entire process in five years. Some companies may take Nike as a great example because it may be decades before they come. And for all we know, they could be around 30 years from now, 40 years from now, 100 years from now. It just depends on how long they can stretch out that maturity level. How competitive are they in the marketplace and are they really good at almost redefining themselves a little bit? It's been interesting to actually watch Nike as they've moved through these stages. Okay, brand reputation is important for a variety of reasons. Brand reputation is the public perception of the brand and it's important to monitor on a consistent basis in order to keep the reputation high. When a brand has a good reputation, customer loyalty can be easier to build. Brand reputation may be built by using open and honest communication with consumers, carefully listening to consumer feedback and immediately acting on any issues that may arise. So by engaging with customers through social media and managing social media pages, a brand can keep an eye on their reputation and maintain it through responding to consumers and accepting consistent feedback. Engaging with customers might include answering questions, creating videos that demonstrate how to use or show features of a product or running contests. Consumers love to engage with brands that they're loyal to and social media platforms are a great way to demonstrate that interaction. Social media has made it possible for companies of any size to immediately connect with and engage with their customers. It's important that marketing take advantage of social media and also manage their reputation through those websites. Okay, in conclusion, so these again are the unit four learning outcomes and the things that we've covered today. So we looked at creating value for businesses and consumers. We looked at defining brand equity and we talked about the different ways that you may be able to measure that. We explained the concepts of brand equity, brand recognition and brand loyalty. We looked at building a brand and then looking at positioning what that is and then how to differentiate your product from others. We also compared brand management strategies and looked at the product lifecycle. And then we related four strategies to maintaining brand reputation, including through media platforms. Okay, what's next? Unit five, the last unit covers marketing communications. My name is Dr. Marcy Stone and I just wanted to say thanks for listening.


Rwy'n meddwl, Steffan, mae'n gweithio ymgylcheddol ymgylchedd a maen nhw'n ei ddweud? Mae'n meddwl o'r cynedigol ar gyfer y Llesin. Mae'n byw'r dda i'r ddweud yn fawr o'r ddechrau. Mae'n edrych yn iawn o'r amser ymgylchedd ymgylchedd, ac mae'n meddwl o'r ddweud yn fawr o'r ddweud, ac mae'r ddweud yn fawr o'r ddweud yn fawr o'r ddweud? Ynny'n gweithio, mae'n ddweud yn fawr yn fawr? Mae'n oes iawn i'r rai was logs yn ddweud i gwn i ddweud ei awr i gweithio. Felly dyna'n ei ddweud i gael chi wnaeth gwaith, mae'n ddweud i gael chi'n ei ddweud i gael chi'n gweithio. Mae'n ddweud i gael chi'n meddwl â awr i'n meddwl â chyctwyd ac unrhyw yn gallu chi. Oes eu hun oedd yna chi gael chi'n meddwl o ddweud ari yn gallu, ac mae'n rhaid i gael chi'n iddynt yn gweithio o'r boblion gyda'r bynnag yn gymorth â'r mhins yw… is one of the major things I'll look after. And your company is obviously an IT company. How does that sort of responsibility do you have to keep kids like we see here today? So within the schools themselves we look after the ICT infrastructure and keeping them safe while they're in school. And as part of that I feel that we have a duty to also help educate for personal use and for home use for the children and for the parents as well. Brilliant, cool. And it must be an extra boost for everybody here that Andrew Simon and Brittany Captains here to talk them through it. Yeah it is. It's really good to be involved. It's good to be here with Andrew today and the children are really enjoying themselves and it's a great way for them to learn. They're really motivated and excited about today. What does it mean to the kids here? Of course you work with them regularly to have Andrew Simon here teaching them about internet safety. Well first and foremost it's great to have AFC Bournemouth here. Part of our partnership is to do things like this, not just with the football but whole school. So for the kids it's amazing to get a positive role model coming in, talking about football, inspiring the kids but also about a subject that is really important and very current in internet safety. How important is it that you must obviously work with these kids every day? How much of a part of their life is the internet these days? It's constant, it's friendship groups, it's past times, it's gaming, it's sharing things with friends and family. So internet safety is really important because it does form a very, very large part of their day and knowing how to handle themselves in line I think is key to their development.


Hey everybody, welcome back to another haul video here on the channel. Today, we're gonna go over all the books I got in January and a little bit of this month, February. Obviously, it's still too early, but you'll see more alls in the future, so don't worry about it. Let's keep going. We begin our journey with Seven Seas Entertainment and the first manga here is Kemonojihen Vol. 9. Looking really cool. Can't wait to dig in. I think I'm three or four volumes behind with my reading, but still this is a fun yokai-inspired battle shonen series that I really enjoy. Next up is a cat from our world and the Forgotten Witch Vol. 1. When I did my anticipated January releases, I had to include it on there. This is a really fun book. I will talk a little bit more about it on my next video, which I am recording as of me making this one. It's another reading blog, so look forward to that. But yeah, love the art and the story for this one. The 100 girlfriends who really, really, really, really love you. Volume 4. Actually, volume 5 and 6, 7. Let's throw volume 8 in there. So I almost have here a complete set. I'm missing the first three volumes. I really enjoyed, which is ironic me saying really, but I really enjoyed the anime adaptation. It was a lot of fun, super funny, really clever with its jokes and humor and the ecchi raunchiness didn't bother me too much and the self-awareness of it all really made me like the story and I thought, okay, I want to read the manga. So as soon as I finished watching the anime, I picked up where the story left off, which would be volume 4 here. So now I'm going to go back and I get the first three volumes for the next halls that I get. One book from Tokyo Pop and it is volume 5 of Sengoku Yoko. I'm currently watching the anime adaptation while I read these volumes as they come out, so it's pretty interesting to see that stuff in the anime and then come back and read a new volume and check it out. So yeah, really excited about this. Satoshi Mizukami, one of my favorite mangaka and this one looks really awesome too. From Yen Press, got my hands on Handyman's Saito in another world, volume 3. I first learned of the series through the anime adaptation and then I went ahead and read the manga. This is the volume that sealed the deal for me on how fantastic this series is. Such high stakes in this particular volume. A lot of shocking twists that I'm not going to reveal just in case you haven't read it, but the outcome of an event with the demon dog is phenomenal and that made me a fan of this one forever. Another Yen Press book, we got Bochi the Rock Volume 2. The 4 coma sensation is back with volume 2 and this looks really funny. I can't wait to dig in. If you haven't checked out Bochi, I do recommend checking out the anime and if you want to grab the source material, well here you go with these Yen Press releases. My one webtoon purchase goes to CU's Tower of God. I really enjoyed the anime adaptation of this back in 2020. It was one of my favorite shows from that year and this is of course the original but what's cool about it is that I got it on sale for eight dollars from the Bezos website. That's pretty awesome. I'm not the biggest fan of the art when this series starts but I do know that it improves significantly. I'm looking forward to reading all of that because I've only seen the show so I've only consumed 13 episodes or I think it was 12 episodes worth of information so I don't know what happens after that but I'm looking forward to reading more. From this media we got a bunch of stuff. Let's start here with Dark Gathering Volume 2. I watched the anime of this which ran for I think it was 24 or 25 episodes, adapting a huge chunk of the manga so you could say I'm up to date with the story. However, the art continues to impress. I love the character designs and the atmosphere and vibes in this book are awesome. If you want a good spooky horrific and sometimes grotesque looking manga from Shonen Jump here you have it with Dark Gathering. Pokemon Adventures Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire Volume 1. Really happy about this. I love to see more Pokemon Adventures manga volumes to come out. I'm pretty sure that after we're done with this with two more books we will get that announcement for Sun and Moon but this looks really awesome. I have fond memories of 10 years ago if you can believe it when these remakes came out for Gen 3 that was so much fun and looking at the drawings here it brings back those memories of those games so I can't wait to dig in and read this book. Record of Ragnarok Volume 9. I always mention it but just in case I like to binge read this series because you can pretty much knock out a book in like 30 minutes because most of these volumes are just the fights drawn out throughout the length of a Tonkobon here and with Record of Ragnarok unfortunately Viz has a very slow release schedule for it so I'm not in any rush to read this so yeah this is Volume 9. I don't know if I should be looking at this stuff here probably spoiling something. I do apologize but it looks really good. I love the art for this series. This one is probably one of my most anticipated releases from January. It is Steel of the Celestial Shadows. I love the amazing artwork with a very distinct character design and of course the story involves this person with a curse who can't come in contact with Steel but is a samurai so a lot of interesting topics here to discuss and do not worry because I do have a video coming up where I will talk about Steel of the Celestial Shadows along with some other cool releases. Last haul video I showed you Zom 100 Volume 11 and mentioned that I had an issue with Volume 10 but here it is. I have Volume 10 and 12 here of the Zombie Comedy series so I am officially up to date with Zom 100 and I'm looking forward to Volume 13 and catching up with everybody else but yeah love the art on this and I like the fresh twist here with the comedy aspect and the zombies. From Taiyo Matsumoto, Tokyo These Days, a meta book about a manga creator who is retiring but he's pulled back in for one final job with some assistance and it's sort of this slice of life story drama looking fantastic as only a master of the craft as Taiyo Matsumoto could handle it. So this is a phenomenal release. I love the textured feel here for this book from Viz so great job on this signature edition. I really enjoy this Volume 1 here. The final manga that we're going to talk about on this video is Cat-Eyed Boy Volume 2 hardcover edition from Kazuo Umez. I am not necessarily the biggest Umez fan but I am a fan of Yokai in anime and manga so I had to have this on my collection. I love the Cat-Eyed Boy series it's so much fun quirky spooky and just fantastically written and drawn. Really recommend checking this out if you are in the spooky creature horror and supernatural stuff and of course Yokai. Again you'll be right at home with this. Kudos to Viz for putting this series together again reprinting it in this awesome hardcover two-pack if you will so yeah Volume 2 here looking really nice. For the anime side of things I got three pickups that I want to highlight. The first one goes to discotheque media for their release of Uru Sayatsura. This is the third of the box sets containing episodes 107 all the way to 149. Whew okay this is a handful. I love Uru Sayatsura but this is a real labor of love trying to collect this series because this is a lengthy show. There are so many episodes not to mention that I don't own the movies so I have to track those down eventually. We have the upcoming OVA collection that got solicited recently from discotheque and I do plan on getting the manga at some point. I just need to make room for it. Not to mention that there's also the 2022 reboot anime which is getting the Sentai Filmworks Blu-ray release. Oh boy. But again labor of love I really enjoy Uru Sayatsura. It is my favorite of Drumiko Takahashi's work. It's so much fun with great characters and a great sense of humor so happy to have this particular set and Volume 4 or box set 4 just came out as of me making this video here so expect to see it in the next haul video because I'm probably gonna pick it up relatively soon to this recording. The next release that I got is Eureka 7 High Evolution the third and final movie of the trilogy. Eureka 7 if you don't know is my all-time favorite anime. I genuinely love that series for a whole bunch of reasons. If I started talking about it it would take up a whole video probably 30 minutes of me ranting about how great it is but I'll just keep it brief. This trilogy the first movie it was alright. As a fan I enjoyed it but I can't honestly recommend it I'd rather you watch the show instead. Movie 2 and Movie 3 really do spice things up by presenting an alternate take, alternate timeline for the original. However I still recommend you watch the original because everything after is subjective.  I happen to enjoy all of it but I do recognize that some of these aren't as good as others. For example the Eureka 7 TV sequel is not as beloved as the original etc etc but this movie is fun it's good I liked it. It's a new twist on my favorite anime so I'm always happy to see that. I love alternate takes on things so I don't mind so if you're a fan of Eureka 7 do pick these up if you can. Finally one DVD we continue my journey of getting all of Tenchi Muiyo that is available officially on DVD Blu-ray whatever it may be and here we have Tenchi Muiyo GXP. I had actually this is a funny story I we're gonna travel back real quick to the year 2006 I think or 2005 I was fresh out of high school I was in college for the first time and it was the first time that I had gotten chickenpox and I was sick from it because I had a fever or something and a friend of mine at the time lent me his copies of Tenchi Muiyo GXP I hadn't watched it yet so I was sick at home watching it covered in blisters so that was fun and I decided to watch it and really enjoyed it it was a wacky mix of Tenchi Muiyo with etchy humor blah blah blah so back then I used to rip dvdr copies of what I watched for my personal collection so technically I did own it yes it was a copy but it was a legitimately made copy for myself I wasn't gonna sell it or anything but when you popped in the disc it played exactly the same fast forward until now and I realized last year that I lost those copies I don't know where they are I looked and looked I cannot find them so instead I found that GXP was easily obtainable online the original complete series box set is really pricey and out of print from Funimation but you can still grab the individual volumes for cheap or you can grab the chipboard box set with like four of the DVDs inside or the third option here is either the save version with the ugly green banner that nobody likes or this version here which you're looking at this is the Viridian set of course because it's made with recyclable material unfortunately that makes it super flimsy and all the offers I saw online were from people selling it in really banged up shape like this one right here but I just wanted it it only cost me like 11 bucks so I was happy to grab it and officially own it so there you go that is the haul for the month of February obviously the month is not over as of posting it there's a bunch of stuff coming out so do expect a video later on with all the crazy purchases that I plan on making thank you everybody for tuning in I do appreciate it let me know in the comment section if you want me to review any of the specific products highlighted here that's gonna be it for now god bless stay safe out there I will catch all of you on our next video


Welcome to the RFLMS unlicensed podcast. I'm Caleb Nour and we're joined here with Toss-O-Sallows. What's happening, brother? What's going on? What's up Caleb? How are you doing? How are you doing today, man? Good man. Good man. I'm excited because I'm a big old boy And we've been working on this menu for the Titan Fest that's coming up here and I am pretty pumped, dude. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm just thinking of all the yum-yums we're gonna have. Like I said, I think we should change it to Wagyu Fest from Titan Fest, but either way, yeah, lots of progress being made on the menu activities and other things to do with the venue in and around that weekend. So hope to see a lot of people out there. Hope to see a lot of new faces this time as well. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. So and again, I like to eat, bring some toms just in case we want to get the meat sweats and stuff, but no, good, good. That's been, it's been a lot of work, you know, when we first started this thing, we're like, oh, how hard could it be? And now we're like, well, we see how hard it is. But yeah, as it grows, obviously, it gets more difficult. But I mean, really, the event itself is is quite chill. It's really geared towards socializing and making relationships with other wisps and stuff like that.   So there's nothing better than hanging around, having a few cocktails with your brother and sister of wisps and talking about those problems and talking through all that stuff. So I really look forward to it. Yeah, I do too. And some of those pain points, actually, I think we'll talk here about a little bit, got a little idea of some fun topics. But things here have been good, you know, with me just working on just normal sort of stuff, had a number of ultra horn conversations this week. Apparently that's the topic of the week from folks. So doing point to point links, you know, and it's that standard sort of how far how fast kind of deals. So and in the end, I mean, it really boils down to throwing everything in a link calculator. But I think what's important to sort of point out there is you really need to understand some of the base things that you're put in. So transmit power. Here's where everyone sort of stumbles up as they're learning how to do this is let's say you've got an airfiber 5xd, 5xhd, yes, that one. So they're like, oh, transmit power on this link calculation. Well, the radio will do 30. So I put in 30 and folks don't realize that, hey, man, like it's not going to push 30db when you're talking about trying to run 10x or 12x. You know, 10x cap is like 20, 12x cap is like 12 or something. So those are the numbers you need to punch in, run through the calculator, get your receive, see what we say for the MCS rates, but also double check it against the spec sheet. Really easy to do, but a lot of folks don't realize that. So luckily, you know, I'll lay it all out and it only takes about once or twice playing around with it. And then once you install it in a real world, then it's just super repeatable for all. So yeah, I get that a lot. I get that a lot too on a day by day basis as well.  It's like, well, that's a pretty generic statement. We make 11 horns. So yeah, if you're talking the ultra horn 24 DBI, that really is a lot of gain, you know, and you're talking about our symmetrical 90 degree horn or something like that, that's only like nine and a half, 10 DBI of gain. So really, I think getting people to understand the differences between all the products that we have, there is no just one horn, right? And there's not just one gain. And then in general too, right, you know, what is high gain, right? You know, high gain compared to what? So yeah, there's a lot of that out there and stuff like that. And, you know, I just, I just love trying to get out there and educate people and show them the ins and outs because it's not just for us. It's for any antenna, right? It's not just our antenna or antennas. Yeah, exactly. And actually that sort of segues in cleanly, segue, not planned, but, you know, I was thinking about topics we can talk about this week. And I think one of the fun things that we could do is talk a bit about what are common sort of mistakes and stumbles and things like that, that the new whisper, you know, a smaller whispers are getting turned up. Where are these sort of common areas where people sort of fall down? You know, we, you and I have never really been full time professional whists, but I've had a baby whist. I know you've had done a ton of projects. I've both been doing this forever. So long time we've committed, committed our own fair share of mistakes. I can guarantee you that we've seen. Oh yeah, yeah, I've done nothing but everything perfect since the beginning. Yeah, some of these examples are totally not for personal experience. So network loops asking for a friend. Yeah, asking for a friend. I had a friend telling me that making a broadcast storm on a flat network was a thing you should have avoid. Yeah, so I've had friends tell me that, you know, RSTP is there on purpose. So that way you can create bridge loops and that way it'll fix it. Yeah, because that never fails. So so we thought it'd be kind of fun to talk about some of these topics. Nothing really in order not calling anybody out or any companies or anything like that.  But I think it'd be cool just to kind of think about on this Friday afternoon here, some of the crazy things we've seen and what we can do to help people get through that. Yeah, definitely, definitely. So I think the first biggest mistake that a new WISP gets into is not understanding base RF principles. Now, I'm not saying you need to have a doctorate level RF engineering degree to get in the start by any means whatsoever. So yeah, yeah, I don't have any sort of RF emphasis at all in my background, you know, from school and stuff. So, you know, you can learn so much of this on your own, but there's a core set of principles that I think you need to understand so that you can look at a system, you can look at a spec sheet and look at an antenna spec sheet and figure out what you need to do.  Gain is the the biggest trip out because they they see it as a binary number and they're like, oh, this gain is X. And that's the only thing that matters about an antenna. And we've we definitely know that is not the case. No, not at all. Not at all. You know, spec sheets are often quite misleading as well because we know specifically on antennas that that gain changes. And, and, you know, a lot of this kind of misunderstanding is really driven by unfortunately, you know, a lot of the manufacturers in the space. Sometimes, you know, they they like to put the fastest speed at the longest distance on the box, let's say for radio. And, you know, so that makes somebody who's new to the industry think, well, I can do one gig at 20 miles or something like that.  It's like you can get the fastest speed at the shortest distance or the longest distance at the slowest speed, right? And those things aren't always explained. And that's what drives a lot of kind of, again, the initial thoughts and things that the Wisps have when they first enter the market in there. I mean, because there's so much equipment to pick from, there's so much information there to kind of bring in, verify and sort through that. It could be quite cumbersome for a newcomer, for sure.  This is definitely not a knock at you. We have all all have been there. Once before, I don't know anybody who who came in, was an expert from day one and continues to be an expert. That's just that's, you know, unheard of in many cases. Yeah.  And they're like, oh, cool, I should believe it. So when you look at this, you know, the website for, I don't know, a 24 gig link that says it'll do 20 K, you're like, sweet. I'm going to shoot this 24 gig link 15 miles and it's going to be great. And then don't understand that, you know, if it thinks about raining outside of the things in the ground, right? So, and then especially sometimes sales reps run into this before. You're like, yeah, I would do that. That's what the spec sheet says. And they show the customer and then you're like, all right. So you're going, I'm going to tell you this once. This is not how this works. So not at all. For an all zone, for an all zone blows up a lot of people because it blows me up. I don't even know how to properly calculate it myself. I know it's there, right? I know that it's the even ones are good and the odd ones are bad or vice versa. I actually have to go look that up to be correct in that. But that's something like I get it all the time. It's like, well, I can see the top of the AP, right? And it's like, that doesn't mean that, you know, that that's clean line of sight. It doesn't work that way. I had a friend jammed himself up real bad a long time ago with a very expensive set of equipment, doing some sort of similar thing and got real good at figuring out how for now zones work. So you're like, oh, I can see over the top of this building, you know, on this 20 mile link. Well, yeah, you could, but not quite enough. It's actually on a low bandwidth or a low frequency link. So yeah, get that first main one. The link calculators that are available now do a lot better job of showing you the for now. It's because then before they wouldn't, so it's real easy to kind of get bound up doing that sort of thing. Yeah, let's see. There's also a lot in the kind of line of sight versus near line of sight versus no line of sight as well. And misconceptions there, especially when you start looking at different frequencies, right, that you can operate in, right? You know, 900 megahertz doesn't work like 2.4 gigahertz. Doesn't work like five gigahertz doesn't work like, you know, all the other frequencies that are out there. Some have better attenuation specs than others. And just because, you know, a particular frequency might have good attenuation specs based on the wavelength, you know, the modulation rate of the radio is really important.  And you can go pretty far and through a lot of things with that, you know, and then all of a sudden 900 megahertz, you know, kind of broadband radios came out, you know, ubiquity came out with the XR9, the SR9 and all that stuff. And now you're talking megabits, right? Higher modulation rates. And these kind of old timers were like, well, geez, you know, I used to 900 megahertz went through all these walls before. No problem. It's like, yeah, because it was doing FSK, you know, for modulation. And now you're at 16 or 64 quam. I was like, you know, things change. So it's not it's not all relative. It's not all the same. You can't really take sometimes your initial experience with something from a while ago and just say, this is the way it works now because frequency equals same. You know, it doesn't work like that. There's 900 serial radios where you configured them with dip switches and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Done that. So then like five years later, you're like, oh, I've got this 900 megahertz logo I could put and he's saying Yagi's and it's going to do the same thing. You're like, oh, wait, that's not how actually any of this works. Not at all. Not at all. It's even even as you go into higher frequencies, right?  So there's there's a lot of a lot of things. You know, the general rule of thumb, though, is the lower the frequency, the more kind of structural or obstacle penetration you get for it. But it's not it's not like a night and day thing. And it really really depends on the radio really depends on the radio what it's trying to do on that particular frequency, right? Like, you know, 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi versus like, you know, 2.4 2.5 LTE totally different things, right?  But, you know, at 2.4, I can only go, you know, through half a tree sometimes, right? So what's the difference? I mean, people don't understand that LTE is a lot more power, right? Than 2.4 Wi-Fi is. So really you have to understand, again, all the inner workings behind these different protocols, different frequencies and different, you know, standards that are out there. Yeah, like ERP, super basic are a fundamental thing that a lot of people don't get. And apparently it matters and it's legal because we all had to know the rules back in the day because you could just set anything back. Like the FCC would certify ham sandwich back in the day. Like they didn't care, nobody cared. You could just turn it up to whatever. But then the radio popo started showing up and started enforcing some things. So there was a lot of crack down, but even then you can set some goofy stuff. So, and understanding, you know, even the 365 CBRS that you can push 50 dB out of now, I mean, that drives a lot of those further distances. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then you go into the much higher frequency, right? 60 gig versus 80 gig, right? So you have these incredible throughputs of gigabit over gigabit over the air. But again, the distances are incredibly short, right? So again, they're not all the same, 80 gig, you get a lot more throughputs, you can push a lot more power, but you have other obstacles, right? 60 gigahertz is more near the wavelength of the water molecule, so you have more attenuation. Or whatever, yeah, exactly. 24 is water, 60 is oxygen. And of course, nobody knows what rain fate is or that there's a calculation for that or anything else, so. Yeah, so there's things like that that are really important to understand and, you know, going back to your EIRP statement, right? That's another big thing that, you know, I obviously I'm on social media all the time, so I see all the posts and constantly, you know, crawling through them and just reading what people are saying and what people are doing and you'll get somebody who says, you know, I did X amount of link, you know, with this gain antenna and stuff like that and I'm getting this kind of throughput, right? Well, you don't know what kind of power they're pushing, right? So then you have somebody else that says, well, he used this smaller antenna, right? And he went this distance, so I should be able to, but that other person is following the law and doing EIRP and he's like, well, I can't go half that distance, why, right? Because you didn't get the other part of the question. It was like, well, you know, what was the DBM set to on that radio and how much power are you pushing, you know? Yeah, and it's different for countries and everything and with international forums and stuff, I mean, some places are still a lot less or there's some crazy stuff there. Yeah, so definitely when you're on social media and you mentioned a good thing because the world is now globalized, right? You know, a lot of these forums have people from all over the world joining it.  Because I mean, if you look at like Latin America, Africa and stuff, you know, it's like the Wild Wild West sometimes, right? So they're running it at full, full speed and full power, you know, as high as the radio can possibly go in a lot of cases. And again, this could mislead you into believing that you can do it when you try and run it legally here in the U.S. specifically. Yeah, now social media, well, I got a separate rant on that one. We'll get to that here in a minute. Let's see, the last RF fundamental, OF, or excuse me, modulation rates and how those work. That's another thing that people don't understand and things like 5G, non-linosite 5G Radius because they're like, oh, we have OFDM, or excuse me, OFDM. So we can work in multi-path and if you put the radios up and you balance the signals off a certain set of buildings just right, yes, maybe it'll make a connection but they're like, well, that's non-linosite. So if I shove this thing into an evergreen forest, it's just gonna work too because the spec sheet says in the LOS and it's not how that works. So just in general, stay out of the trees unless you're working with band and equipment that's specifically meant to run that. Yeah, and again, that kind of goes also with radio types and not understanding.  Well, that's a 256-quam radio, right? So people will associate that distance, those antennas, blah, whatever, to that distance and then they'll say, all right, well, I know now that I can all of a sudden go that same distance with a AirFiber 5 HD, right? Or LTU, which is a 1024-quam radio or now even the newer Cambium, the Force 400 series, which does 1024-quam and soon 4096-quam, it's not the same. The distance is practically almost half, right?  Because again, not just the modulation rate's more complex and therefore there's more challenges for getting those longer distances, but the radio's maximum TX output power is also a lot lower, right? So, you know, we can talk, you know, on and on and on about the other things that people do on these high-modulation radios trying to force them to do higher power. Yes, you may get the signal strength you want, you might get that connection you want, but all of a sudden you're like, why am I getting half the speed I should?  God, I can just go on and on, right? Oh, God, no. Channel width, nobody ever asked what channel size are you running? So again, they see somebody do this huge link and they think it's awesome and then they try and do it in an 80 or 100 megahertz wide channel. Like, why is this thing falling apart? So many important things. Again, a lot of things we're saying, I know we're kind of giggling and stuff, it's really not, we're not really trying to call anybody out or do that. We just really honestly want to point it out and let the new people know that that's part of growing, that's part of your learning process and that's part of being new. So hopefully we can name and pick all these different things that we see people do that aren't 100% up to date on how all these things work and we can hopefully help you not make those mistakes and therefore it's not about doing the right thing all the time, but it's about asking the right question. So when you see a link or somebody doing something that you're trying to accomplish, you now know what to ask them about that link so that way you can duplicate it for yourself. 100%. So look at the spec sheet of your radios and antennas and even if you have a basic understanding of what these fields and stuff means, you're gonna be leagues ahead of a lot. So like back in the day, yeah, that channel width. Now the first time I tried to shoot a 10 mile link across Atlanta on a 40 meg wide channel and I was like, hey, I got like a big 53 on this and my throughput was in the like, I don't know, 12 kilobits per second or something. I'm like, what noise, what is this? And there's not really good written documentation on a lot of this stuff. I mean, a lot of these radios support because the standard supports 80 or 100 megahertz channel but the firmware is just not baked for that channel width as well. So I mean, there's just so much you need to know. I mean, should we talk about firmware versions on radios and what's stable, what's not? Just because it's new doesn't mean it's best. If your link's not broke, don't try and fix it, because chances are you'll break something else, so. Those are the two biggest problems to see with firmware. It's either they upgrade everything to the release version, like new version comes out, they're like, I'm pumping it out that night, right? You should probably let someone else fall on that sword or they won't upgrade or just use whatever is out of the box. Dude, I've seen so many people, they're like, hey, I got these radios and I put them up last week and I'm having these problems and you're remote in. I'm like, dude, this firmware's four years old and not realizing that at manufacturing and by the time it works it's through supply chain, it could have old firmware on it. And they load base images, they don't update those that often, so if you have the luxury of running on a Wisp and maybe have a tower or even a sector where you've got some friendly customers, some Tinker customers, right? The test setup, yeah. The test setup where, and everyone's like, oh, you should lab test this thing. Well, realistically, it's hard to get a realistic, variable-driven lab setup with 20 clients and whatever else. Like it's not gonna work. In the lab, in your office, in your warehouse, don't even bother. No, I do like a base upgrade to make sure it doesn't wreck your config file because I've been burned by like parse breakers and stuff like that, but if you can bribe a sector to cheap friends or family, drop a discount or, I don't know, some barbecue or something on their doorstep, let them be the Tinker guys, that is definitely a great opportunity to make sure that you're upgrading cleanly and do it smoothly because that's the last thing you want to do is break the whole network, and especially on one where you can't recover, you drop the subs and then that's an absolute nightmare. Also, maybe don't upgrade the entire network at one time either. Yeah.  Yeah, definitely, definitely. All right, let's see, oh, another big one. So we mentioned this earlier, there is so much information out there, but you gotta be careful. So let's say, if you're building your entire educational experience on a forum or WIFS Talk or something like that, you've gotta realize that there's a wealth of information and knowledge, and it's so valuable, but at the same time, anybody can post there, like any jack leg, there's no real barrier, right? Anybody. You can even say that the SNR on there is kind of bad. Waka waka! That's my favorite joke that nobody gets, right? I didn't get it, so you wanna explain it again? Huh, so the signal to noise ratio in the forums are bad because it's very loud, but the quality is low, so. All right, maybe it's not as funny as I thought. Somebody out there, if anybody thought that was remotely in using, let me know. If not, I don't know, just ignore it anyways. I'll give you a refund back for what you paid for this, so. But no, for real, there's just so much out there, but even on the big forums, the community forums for the various manufacturers and stuff, you're like, oh, this is the way that I do it, and I've got 23,000 likes or comments, like yeah, that's great, but that doesn't mean they're practical experience, you do one thing versus the other way. There's just so many ways to do things. So I always take those views with a little bit of grain of salt and look at where they're coming from, like Toss mentioned earlier, it's different for countries. They have different RF rules or what works for someone out in the eastern deserts of the Sahara in terms of long distance, high capacity, 60 gig lengths is not gonna work for you in Southern Florida, so you've gotta take context and location into account. A lot of people have their own sort of weird like ego driven things that they wanna do as well, I mean, it coming from a couple of guys that have their own sort of flashy ego things too, like that's a, you know, we're kind of throwing some rocks and glass houses here. My brisket's better than your brisket. Probably so, wait, give me a few months. I gotta get out of the practice before we get to this here time fast, but no, so there's just, and there's a lot of people with ulterior motives and especially it's kind of weird and when the controversial topics pop up, I don't know, like a Starlink or something like that, man, there's some kooky foe that hop, I don't know, so. And you have the fanboys, right? You have the fanboys that are out there as well, that it really doesn't matter. I mean, they'll just fight you tooth and nail just to be right for whichever company there are fanboys of. Everybody has them. I mean, I'm sure we have fanboys as well, right? So that's something that you guys ignore that. We love y'all, but the rest of them. I think with a lot of the other companies that are out there, there aren't many representatives of those companies coming out. Like for example, if, you know, let's say a fanboy of RF Elements comes out there and kind of says good things about the company, that's great, but if what he's saying is incorrect, I call them out. I don't call them out, but I mean like, I go in there and I correct the message, right? To say, you know, like if somebody says, yeah, RF Elements horns are perfect for everything. Well, that's not true, right? It's not, you know, not every horn that we have will fit every possible scenario. There's a lot of things you have to know in order to make that decision, right? So again, fanboys can be dangerous. They definitely can. They definitely can. So again, get second opinions, right? Ask again. And for the new wisps out there as well, there are, you know, some social media sites that are better. Like you just mentioned the Wisp talk, right? But you know, there's actually a Wisp talk for newbies, right? Which I think is great. A little friendlier for sure. Yeah, it is. It is.  And you post something that has been discussed a million times before, you'll get people that come on there and be like, use the search function. You know, this has been mentioned many, many times before, right?  So it's kind of more of a safe space, you know, over to the newbie Wisp. But not that you shouldn't be part of a Wisp talk, right? But maybe it's a better place for you to post your questions. Again, I will say this as well. Please use the search function before you ask a question. I mean, that's just common courtesy. But yeah, there's so many posts in some of these well-established, been around forever groups that, yeah, sometimes it's kind of hard to find the answer, right? And I know it's easy to just type it out and ask, you know, so I see how that happens as well. But either way, like I said, yeah, definitely, you know, look for second opinions on whatever you're trying to do. Yeah, I do that. I tell people that a lot when they're like, should I upgrade this firmware? I always tell people, look, go to the manufacturer's community forum, look at their upgrade, realize that it's probably going to be the extreme. If there's any sort of little problem, people are gonna blow it out of proportion, but get a general feel for there. And then, you know, as things settle down, then hit up your Wisp talk or stuff. Like, what's your experience with, you know, this version or whatever else? And see what your peers in that group are reporting. And you'll get a pretty good consensus like that. So, you know, the Wisp talk is generally agnostic, so some questions fit better there.  And they're, you know, they've got their own motos and everything too. So, you know, you gotta take contacts. You have to take contacts and location into account for sure. Yeah, and it's probably better. I mean, if it's a, you know, a manufacturer-specific question, you know, you should probably start at the manufacturer's forum or the manufacturer's Facebook group page, right? You know, start at the official place before you go ask the user base, perhaps is another option to consider.  And the answers that are coming through Wisp talk at like, I don't know, midnight on a Saturday may also be needed to be taking a little bit of grain of salt too. Well, but it depends, right? I mean, it could be again, from somebody in a different time zone, right? So, what's your midnight is somebody's, you know, noon and they're just chilling and looking for, you know, something to do. And, you know, they answer questions when they can. So, for sure, for sure. So, what are some other fun ones that I've seen recently? Oh, the, I'm going to build this whole ISP network on a fully flat network because routing is scary and it's hard to network. Friends don't let friends bridge networks, right? That's gym-patient, man, Linktex. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that message is a lot stronger now than it used to be.  I've never been a strong network guy, like I can sort of hand fist my way through and can get some basic stuff done, some B lands and whatever else. But, you know, it gets too deep in the weeds. Like I'm the first to admit, I'm like, this is not my bag, baby. Like I'll tap out and bring somebody in. So, you know, when you're building your network, it's just, it's so hard in the beginning because you've got 800 different things you've got to try to figure out the RF side, the network side, the accounting side, the business side, the marketing side and all this. So, if you default to, well, this is the easiest way to set this up for now. You know, some of these things you can go back and fix later or build as you scale, but some of these core decisions are really gonna bite you because if you have to regut your entire network infrastructure, that's a lot different than being, hey, I need a better website. You know, those are two different worlds. So, you know, learn some basic networking if you're not gonna really get that deep into it. Definitely look at some consultants. And, you know, that's a whole another conversation than itself, which can get a little wild sometime. But if you decide that you wanna have someone else build that, look into them and, you know, that's definitely an option. There's a ton of people that run these sort of built networks like that. But, you know, planning on things like redundant back hauls, right? Or redundant, you know, main feeds. You gotta think about that. You gotta think about where you're on route at a tower or at the device. There's just so many different options. You need to have some sort of plan.  I mean, there's just a lot of things to consider.  Yeah, and even if it kind of delays your first build or, you know, your first big expansion, it's definitely worth it. Absolutely. Oh, what are some other fun things people get blown up on when they first start? Let's see. Oh, billing. That's always a fun one. She's, we're gonna talk about software now. Yay. Yay, our favorite topic, which we're totally qualified to talk about, so. But, you know, it's been a very popular topic lately.   And you see that money rolling in and that's great.  Okay, yeah, you can do that in an evening. That's no problem. A hundred, 500, a thousand. If you're doing a manual process like that, you're paying like real money to get your money. And that's gonna all be handled. Yeah, there's definitely, again, a growing path for that as well and things that you seriously have to consider.  And as you grow, like I said, you know, there's a lot of the things that seem simple in the beginning and a lot of it's fragmented, right?  But then you have to log into maybe this other thing in order to run all the credit cards, you know, every month and then you have to go into this email program maybe to start, you know, emailing those invoices out to people and all that stuff is fragmented and takes a lot of time. Really, a lot of these billing systems out there, you know, and management systems like PowerCode, VSP, Sonar, and I'm sure there's a ton of other ones that kind of bring it all together. And they're really nice now because a lot of them are even tying in like inventory management and call center stuff and trouble-ticket systems and all this stuff, you get it in just one, you know, one panel, one software application really automates a lot of that stuff and makes it a lot easier.  I'll let you guys figure out, you know, which one's better for you and who you want to listen to on that topic, but there's just so much more to that stuff and maybe, you know, that's an interesting segue into kind of later talking about, you know, what do Wisps want to see in our show?  I think that would be pretty interesting to kind of talk about those differences or at least some experts that can kind of talk through, again, the differences between, you know, these different platforms or the functionalities of the platform, cloud versus, you know, hosted, you know, on site and stuff like that. I think that would be a really cool topic to talk about. Yeah, for sure. And there's, you know, there's so much variation between them and, you know, especially when you start integrating all these different systems and traffic control, it makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, in the beginning, fully accepting with the value proposition because people are like, oh, I see this dollar figure per sub and, you know, I don't want to lose that. I can do this myself.  And then so you've got to bring staff in and then at some point, you've got to figure out where those two lines cross where, you know, your OPEX versus CAPS expenses sort of make that happy little cross and figure out where it makes sense. So then you got to worry about the migration, right? The migration from manual to automated. So, you know, it's not like, you know, we're saying, you know, that you have to have one of these systems from day one, obviously, you got to make money. You got to make sure that you're doing the right thing as a wisp, right? And that the customers are signing up, your growth is happening, but there is that point where you cross and it's like, okay, from this point on, don't wait for the wisp to get too big before you do that because I've seen a lot of nightmares trying to migrate 500 plus and obviously beyond from, you know, the manual process to one of these kind of managed processes.   Definitely, definitely. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe we can get somebody on here and talk about the differences and really explain what that value proposition is. I think that'd be great. I know some people. I think we can make that happen. Yeah, for sure. So, maybe we can get a couple of them, pin them against each other and have a barring fight. Not tell them. Just let it be a surprise. It could be like, what's his name? Zach Galifianakis, right? Between two ferns, you know what I mean? Between two zooms. Between two ferns or something like that and just have them fight each other and complain. No, mine is better, you know? We'll see how it works. That would be kind of funny. Okay, so now nobody's going to want to join the show. How we never get another guest again, yes. Yeah, or you bring the first one on but you don't let them know about the second one, right? And then once you kind of start the conversation, you bring in the opposing or the other company on, you know? 10 minutes in, that little zoom window pops up. You're like, hey, hey, catch me? So, let's see. That one, those are fine. The other one I've seen very recently, especially so we're in the summer season, right? So, grounding, grounding's a whole lot of conversation. But where I'm really seeing the smaller or newer whips get blown up right now is not having climbing people on staff, your tower climbers. So, I fully get that.  It is painful. So, you know, a lot of people will opt to do all their big tower installs and stuff and contract out of crew and you know, that makes sense. It's, you know, especially when you're talking about some of those big arrays that we've got customers running 12 APs and all the pie to pie. Like it is a definite undertaking to get this done. But so they go and everything's running and great, but you know, you've got a tornado come through or a lightning storm blows some stuff up, you know?  Because not only did it blow your stuff up, but it blew up everyone else's stuff. And the Silcos and everyone else. So, you know, I think what works, especially when you're small, if you train, certify, be safe, that's the biggest thing. Get your certifications. Definitely be safe. Get the equipment because you could hurt yourself real quick out there.  You've got somebody that can swap out of radio that gets smoked or something like that. You're gonna be world better shape than waiting a week or two weeks. Cause that's where you see pockets of bad reviews when you're looking at some of these and you know, there'd be a whole pocket of a week long where everyone just destroyed the reviews cause they lost a tower because they had literally no one there to swap gear out. So, that's definitely something to take into account. Absolutely, absolutely. All right, oh man, those are, there's just so many things that a friend of mine have screwed up over the years that I totally don't have any experience with but thought I'd share. But let's go back, oh, the 24, the 24 gig one. Again, there's somebody out there that is selling 24 gigs of with a 20 kilometer range or more on their bigger units and that blows people up. But I think people picking the wrong backhaul really gets people in the grind sometimes. So, you know, it's so tempting now, especially now where you can get a 60 gig long distance backhaul with the ability to run these higher channels, you know, up into to 65 up to 69 gig and stuff on some of this equipment.  Like, you can really get yourself bound up and that's a whole different world versus well maybe you're just using it to feed a micropop or something. So, you really gotta take into account how do I backhaul this, what's the best way to do it? What makes sense now and in the future and where the money makes sense too? That's such a huge part of it. Definitely, definitely. Especially as a wisp grows, right? So, I mean, again, everything comes down to the Benjamins, right? It all comes down to the money and it's quite natural for a new wisp to start with unlicensed backhaul. So really the question is, you know, license, unlicense and when do you switch, right? So, unlicense is obviously very popular because it's easy, it's unlicense, you can do it, the equipment's cheap and stuff like that but, you know, there's a point where your network starts to grow, the distances you try and cover are much larger and there really is a point where a wisp needs to, needs to mature into the licensed side of backhalls. Not only, because license links can deliver way more data, right? I mean, I think Aviat, right, has like this 80 gig backhaul that people are posting recently I saw, like pushing nine gigs, right?  So, really, you know, as a new wisp, you have to kind of do the cost benefit for when do you transition from licensed to unlicensed, right? And from unlicensed to licensed. And really, not all backhalls are the same, right? So, you know, people would think that, okay, well I saw somebody post, you know, that an Aviat, let's say as an example, backhaul did nine gigs, right? So that means all licensed backhalls must be nine gig, right, and that's not the case. And you have different frequencies, right? You have six gig, 11 gig, 18 gig, 23 gig, and it goes on, right? So, but, you know, usually 11 and 18 these days is pretty much the two most popular. And like, let's say our horns, the right tool for the job, there is kind of a frequency kind of, you know, standard for where you use one over the other, right? So, you know, 18 gig is usually for shorter distances. You know, 11 gig would be for more of your longer lengths and then six gig is really for much longer lengths. But, you know, the spectrum is getting filled up, right? I mean, if you're in some, you know, downtown Dallas, Fort Worth and something like that, it's gonna be pretty hard to find some available channels or at least channels that are big enough for the type of throughput you wanna push. Again, bandwidth, right, is another big thing you have to understand just because an 18 gig or let's say an 80 gig, you know, can push this kind of bandwidth. You may not have that much spectrum available, right?  I want from point A to point B, you know, I'm thinking 18 or 11 gig, whatever it is.  Maybe at this other frequency, I can get you 240s, right? So if, let's say the radio can do, you know, bonded channels and stuff, you can still kind of get that throughput. So there's really a lot of information. License isn't like the final answer because, you know, there comes a time where you may not be able to do it, you know? And also the size of the dishes are huge, right? You know, when you're getting licensed, you know, people are handling like four and six foot dishes at that point. So you really have to consider that. You may have a small tower, right? As a new Wisp, you don't understand.  You're like, this is great. That's what I want to do. And then you find out that, you know, hey, I got to do that with a six foot dish. My tower is not going to hold that, right? So, you know, really when it comes down to that stuff, the best thing is go talk to your backhaul provider, right? Or the people out there, talk to Aviat, talk to Cambium, talk to SAF, whoever it is, Mamosa, that make these kind of license backhauls, their professionals, let them help you kind of, you know, figure out what frequency will get you the throughput that you need. The nice thing about license links is it's pretty much almost a guaranteed link, right? So if you get the spectrum that you need, you know, you're going to get it. When you do on license, you have no idea until you put that link up how much throughput you're going to get. So that's really the nice thing about license backhauls. You want to sleep on the weekends, you know? It's good to have good backhauls that are, you know, 99.99 plus percent uptime and stuff like that. It's all worked out. The manufacturers will usually do the path calculation for you.  And then you can take that to a coordinator or some companies do it, you know, themselves in-house. So, I mean, there's a lot of options out there but license links is something that, you know, whispers definitely need to grow into, definitely.  I remember, you know, being five years, like, all right, I'm ready for some license backhauls. Whereas now it's like, well, you're hitting that pretty quickly. So, but yeah, everything you says 100% spot on. There's a lot of iterative steps that you go through in this design process. You know, okay, I've got a distance. Which radios go that far? Do my RF engineering specs come out? Am I getting the number of nines? I want four nines, five nines. I'm getting the modulation raise, I want. Okay, now I know I have to run these size dishes. Well, will it pass structural? Can I afford these dishes? You get an eight foot ultra HD dish, it's gonna cost more than the radio. So, those are just so many things to take into account. Can I get the channels? Oh, I need X-Pick 80s. Well, you can't get them. So, this is where, too, I come from a distribution background. I've got a lot of experience there. If you've got a good rep in the channel, then, you know, they can do all this for you. So, I helped a lot of the reps, as they were learning at places I've been. That can handle all this for you. Or you can basically say, look, here's point A to point B, I've got good, strong towers, so I can run up to a four foot or a six foot or whatever else. How do I make this happen? And they'll get the radios. And they'll help plan that. They can get you and handle all the coordination, whether it's with Liz or MicroNode or Concert or any of those, you know, to find the channels. Some do it direct, Ken and Aviott, and he's got a crew over there. And, you know, he does all that direct, and that works really well. So, I have a lot of conversations with him, cool cat. If it's a complicated case, Cambium's really good about getting their tech guys in. Some of these cases, I mean, generally in his designs, it's pretty straightforward. And some of them are gonna be crazy, especially when you start talking about these four plus O rigs and stuff like that. Yeah, two plus O. I've done a lot of two plus O's, you know? Yeah. It gets complicated because you have those complicated OMTs that you have to put multiple radio heads on and you could either aggregate them together or you could use them as failover. There's a lot of different configurations when it comes to that as well. So, it gets really complicated.  For sure, for sure. Do not go blindly into that. So, know that you gotta pay for a license and get all that done. So, we could talk about this for days. So, man, actually we could probably talk about all this for days, but at some point, folks are gonna get tired of listening to us. I got a little bit of belly rumble here, getting a little hungry for lunch. You're getting hungry? Well, I mean, we've been, yeah, not hungry yet, but I graded this iterative cycle about every couple of hours. So, it's not really that long of a spread. So, is it lunch? Who knows? Is it two? Who knows? But anyways, and in the back of my mind, the wheels have been turning, I've been thinking about this TitanFest menu and stuff. And now I'm like, ah, now what am I cooking tonight? What am I cooking this weekend? Yeah, somebody was mentioning yesterday. They're like, they sent me a DM and they're like, okay, just listen to me right here. Wagyu tamales. That's all he said. You know, I'm just like, okay.  So, it'd be a lot of tamales, a lot of tamales. If anyone was like, why aren't you hand-making the tortillas? Or like, all right, somewhere we do have to draw a line, but. But we are making a lot of the food ourselves. I mean, all the sides and dips and other stuff like that is all gonna be made with love. This can be made with love. So yeah, I've been playing a little practice. Now I've got like three pounds of brisket trimmings and my main grinder is broke. So I'm like, I'm like, if I can, well, I needed it as he used to upgrade if 100% on us. So, and now that I've got a timeline of meat sitting in the fridge, I'm like, this is a help grease this with the phone in its department. So, maybe pick up a grinder this weekend, maybe do a little bacon brisket grind. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. Kind of excited. Good stuff, good stuff. Cool. All right, well, let's wrap this up, y'all. This has been fun. If you guys wanna get in touch with us, we are everywhere. You can find us at rfelements.com, our main website.  That track talks a lot about these basic RF fundamentals that we were talking about earlier. Great resource there. You can find us on Facebook. We are on the RF Elements main group. We're on RF Elements English, RF Elements Spanish. We are bouncing around on various, we're talking, I don't know, trolling people in various other places too. We're kind of all over. I don't troll, I don't troll. Nah, we actually, sorry, but yeah. Anyways, you can find us, shoot us an email, we're here. So, until we talk to you next time, guys, y'all stay horny out there. Stay horny, everybody. Bye.


Live from Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE. Covering IBM World of Watson 2016. Brought to you by IBM. Now, here are your hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Okay, welcome back everyone. We are here live at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas for theCUBE as part of the World of Watson coverage. Just looking at angle media, I'm John Furrier with my co-host Dave Vellante. We're pleased to have two super influencers, VIP influencers here on theCUBE. Tamara McLeary is the CEO of Thelium. Thelium. I'm a geek, right? So it's Thulium. It's on the periodic table of ours. Thulium with my eyes checked there. And Chris Penn, VP of Marketing Technology at Shift Communications. Both have great backgrounds. Chris, we knew each other when you started pod camp. I would do pod tech and the podcasting days kind of evolved, but you've been on the social side really from day one on the ground floor President of Creation. Now you're starting to see a whole other thing going on. Tamara, you have a variety of diverse experience. Being a geek, being in healthcare, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you. Thank you. So as part of the VIP influencer program, you guys get flown in by IBM and you're on your own. So you're out there to obviously high profiles on social. So you have a lot of audience following you guys. But your job is really to align with IBM but amplify what you see. Not being directed, what to say, but to what you guys see. And that's a real positive thing. And so first question is for both of you guys is, what are you seeing? I mean obviously the evolution of IBM and seeing where they've come from. Chris, you've also been part of the practitioner analytics group with Watson from the day one. World's changing. What are you guys seeing? What's happening on the floors? So what we're seeing now is an evolution from, think about companies having a sort of five part structure, right? At the bottom, they're data resistant. No, no data. Just do things we've always done it. And then they become data aware. Hey, there's this thing called data. Then it becomes sort of data curious. What does it mean? What happened? They become data guided. Like, okay, why did those things happen? What insights can we gather? And eventually they become data driven. They become a data driven company where we say, you don't show up at this meeting unless you bring coffee, donuts, and data. And what's happening at IBM World of Watson is that these companies who are now data aware and maybe data curious are express elevated up the hierarchy because of tools like Watson Analytics that give you the ability to give analysis skills to non-analysts. People who, like you say to somebody, hey, would you go over at lunch? Can you just go run a quick analysis of variance on this thing? Most people are going to go, nope. I'm going to do that. Too much time, hassle. Yeah. My data guy's on vacation. Don't know how to do it. Yeah, they'll say, what are you talking about? So we're seeing that evolution happen with analytics, but what's even more impressive that we've been seeing on the floor is IBM is making it easier for companies to actually work with the data itself without a huge IT and data science team. I just sat through a session on Bluemix Connect and the ability to just pick up entire data sets, move them, clean them in transit, and then drop them off on the user's lap will completely change how we manage data because right now, think about social media, right? How much is there in the Twitter API that's about 250 fields in the API I'd give or take? That's a pain to clean. And yes, the distant tools can do it, but if you now have these tools that can clean it, scrub it, get it ready for you, and it just shows up on your desk in a pre-contained format, why wouldn't you do that all day every day? Yeah, it can manipulate. It becomes part of the code. It's part of the programming, part of the execution. It's beyond code. That's the thing that's important is it's beyond the technical users. Now to the business user, you have this thing. John, you don't need to write code to have this thing. You can have that visualization on your desk in the morning. And they tell that citizen analyst is the buzzword that they use, but basically it's push-button-like reporting with all this intelligence. And Watson brings this automation, and I don't want to say AI, it's not true AI, but it's a vector to AI. Tamara, you're seeing that, right? I mean, you're seeing what it could be even early days now, but it's still good now compared to what it was a year ago. I think to Chris's point, what I think is exciting this year is we're seeing a lot of practical applications versus talking about cognitive. How long have we been talking about cognitive computing but not seeing the actual use cases, the practical use? And to your point, Chris, is you have marketers who now have to be technologists or at least tech savvy, and then you have the IT department that's trying to keep up with being consumer-centric. And now we have things through the conversational pieces where you don't have to be a technologist to write code to use that interface. So that conversational interface is pretty exciting because I think from the IT standpoint in an organization is you can hand it back to marketing and go, okay, you fill in all the blanks and then you can hand it back so that my team is strapped doing everything. I didn't get some dings on the marketplace on Watson not being ready. And when they showed it initially, and they were clear about that. They weren't saying that, and it did get a little bit hype, it did win Jeopardy, so there was a buzz there, but they were very clear like, look it, we know there's a lot of work to do and they knew they had to do more work. It's gotten better, so I think this year my takeaway from what you guys are seeing as well is it's real this year. So the reality of what's real is the practical use cases. What are some examples? What are you saying? Well I'm seeing really exciting things in the healthcare arena, such as the partnership with Watson and the Jefferson healthcare system. And it goes beyond looking at cancer patients and Watson being brilliant at figuring out treatment modalities that are very specific to the genomic sequence of a tumor. Instead of like Jefferson healthcare system, what's really cool is Watson taking a very human component and actually being there in a patient's room so that a patient can talk, ask questions, and be answered by Watson. A patient can ask about visiting hours, what time is lunch served to tell me about my doctor. And if you ever are in a patient's room as a guest or a family member or a patient yourself, what you find is that you're in a very vulnerable position. It's incredibly scary. You're not at the hospital because things are great. But to have that human piece, that component that Watson brings through that conversational interface and that dialogue, a chatbot essentially within the patient room, it's I think it's transforming care. Well that's interesting. So in April we had put a post out there about just a story that came out of the woodwork. Watson correctly diagnoses woman's cancer after doctors were stoned. It's got 10,000 shares on Reddit. It's going, went super viral. But that really is the awakening moment, so to speak, where oh my God, this is a real life example of value.   Right. So in this example, Watson is in the room or at least accessible to a patient or a patient's family. So I can ask any question, because you're right. When the doctor's in there firing, you get the fire hose of stuff, you wonder later, did he or she mean this or do they mean this or what exactly did they say? And you try to guess. And what is accomplishing is you're really ministering to that individual to support them and have them feel cared for. But you're also decreasing a lot of load on your staff. So usually they're interrupted to answer these questions or to change the TV channel or do the things that they don't necessarily need to be doing as healthcare professionals, right? So you're also decreasing the load on staff by having Watson present in that way. And John, to your point with that case of the woman, I think that Watson is democratizing healthcare across the entire population so that you no longer is your level of care or treatment plan going to be dependent on your socioeconomic status and whether or not you could hire the best doctor or go to the best hospital. With Watson, Watson would be able to figure out your best treatment plan that your physician can carry out and it won't matter. You have the best of the best and it's not dependent on your financial status. Well also on that socioeconomically, that's a huge deal and I'll tell you that one thing is you could put Watson out in the field as close to the edge as possible to augment maybe potentially the talent level of the doctor. Or where there aren't doctors at all. That's the key is for low income areas. You will have places where Watson can be that first line of defense. Like hey, the other thing that's interesting kind of goes back to the self-driving cars yesterday. When a human makes a mistake, that human learns from it, right? That's great. When Watson makes a mistake, every instance of Watson now knows how to fix that. So, Tamara may be seeing a doctor of an instance of Watson, it misdiagnoses something, but if I have the same thing, it has learned from the mistake and the whole system becomes smarter so it will very rapidly be the smartest doctor on the planet. So, you're an RN. Yes. So I want to go back to this other example of Watson as sort of this in-room assistant. There's also, there's another side to that, which is sometimes you would ask the nurse, like what's really going on? Exactly. What really are my chances? Okay, so can I filter Watson? I mean, what are the ethics of how you communicate to patients? Because a lot of times doctors are told and nurses are told, don't really tell them what the real chances are, just be positive. So how does that all work? I mean, I think that's a great point, Dave, and I think Watson is going to be best harnessed and utilized to take care of the conversations that a patient needs to have that don't require a medical professional. I still think those conversations about what do you think my prognosis is? Am I going to die? Am I okay? Probabilities, I mean, that's what Watson's good at. But that needs to come, that's where that human piece, that's where I think that Watson is there to support and augment physicians and nurses, but not replace them, because we do need that human piece. You need, I mean, Chris, you need someone to talk to you about that piece and not just get it. I trust Watson more. Well, the state of the art today is. You're getting the information from Watson, but Watson, then you're taking it and communicating it human to human with the good data and information that you get from Watson. Right. What other industries, there's a chat going on with the IBM mobile team right now, and the question I'll ask you guys since we're going on social interaction here, it's on crowd chat, what industries do you think would be most impacted by cognitive and how? Anything. And I'll live into it. So think about, you have routine and non-routine tasks, so your routine task, empty this trash can. You also have cognitive and non-cognitive tasks, non-cognitive, empty this trash can. It doesn't require a lot of creativity to do that. What's happening is that these AIs are becoming cognitive so they can create it. There's a great demo here of Watson music, right? And you can put in a few notes and it will infer and interpolate a new song out of that. Where we're going with this is that the machines can already do routine. The machines can already do non-cognitive. Watson has proved we can do cognitive and now Watson is proving we can do non-routine, which means that we have to seriously think about in the next five, 10, 20 years, what are the roles of people doing work? You will still need that doctor to deliver the news, but you may not actually need the doctor to do the diagnosis because the machine can do it better, faster, more accurately, and project better outcomes. All these people here who are doing things like cleaning and emptying trash cans and stuff like that, we may or may not- They're also live streaming, too, on Facebook and live Reparoscopy. Exactly. We may not necessarily need as many of them. Yesterday was a landmark day. Budweiser had moved 45,000 cans of beer from their distribution facility, from their manufacturing plant in Colorado to their distribution facility. Self-guided truck. No human driver. Okay. No drinking and driving. It's Budweiser's first ship, and I couldn't resist that comment. That was the joke last night. No over-containers, bless your Texas. So what can humans do that machines can't? Nothing. In the next five to 10 years. In the next five to 10 years, we will still have creativity. The curiosity. Conversation with each other. We will still, we still need to relate to each other, but when you look much further out, are you familiar with the works of Frederick Engels, kind of going back to the 19th century? A lot of the ideas of things like original socialism was to say, we can get now machines to create this bounty so we can focus on things like art and music and finding out what we're really good at. If you wanted to become a Buddhist monk, it's economically kind of tough to do that these days, but if the machines provide big... It frees you up from the routine stuff that you can focus your creativity and energy on. And this brings up the question I wanted to get in on about the impact to the mobile experience, because now, if you take the connected cars and go back to the connected humans, hence more automation to free up our creativity, what's the impact to the mobile experience? Mobile is, I would say, mobile is the second platform, right? Desktop was the first, mobile's the second. The third one really is augmented reality, and we're seeing that here. Terrible was talking earlier about healthcare examples of where all of these machines are coming together, but that is the third wave. That's a different experience. There's a great booth here, the Watson Analytics booth team has virtual analytics so you can actually step inside your data, wander around and go, I want to see more of that chart. And that's a different experience than mobile itself. Right, and I agree. I think it's moving beyond mobile and into augmented reality. I wonder even if in five years from now we're talking about mobile, I don't know. We may not be. We may have components that we're aware that are inside of us. There's a great exhibit in the real-time streaming of a cardiogram that is connected to a sensor inside a patient. And Watson can say, that is an abnormal heartbeat. And we'll notify the doctor, hey, go check on this patient. Or it might just be, Chris, that you had five cups of coffee, that's entirely possible. The personalization is just incredible. I mean, just the user interface is augmented, certainly virtual reality is going to change in what immersion means, right? You can immerse yourself into any experience. Okay, what's the coolest thing you guys have seen? So you've been, I know you've been, I've been watching the Twitter feed, you guys have been out on the self-driving track out there, a lot of things. There's been all kinds of stuff happening. What's the most exciting things you've seen? The coolest thing. Chris just named the one, which is the embedded sensor into a human being that could actually be life-saving. And it completely cuts out having to do a battery of tests that happen to be randomly on the wrong day and you didn't have that irregular heartbeat and it is VTAC and it will kill you. But because of a sensor now, it's picked up and you stay alive. And I think that's, how much more cool can it get than that? That's cool. I mean, this is the future we're living into. It's like we're living into a science fiction novel and all of us get to play in this space and I just, I'm wild about saving lives, human lives and making human beings in a better place. Can't say that because you already said that, but give me another one. The coolest thing so far has been the integration of Bluemix Data Connect with Watson Analytics. We have all of this data, right? It's everywhere. These tools can now gather it up for us, clean it for us and get it ready for us so it expands the capability of people to make good decisions. Like business analytics is cool, but the ultimate goal is make better decisions. And now what we're seeing are these tools that make it so easy that we should see significantly better decision making by any company that embraces this stuff. So we had Eric Hunter on yesterday, Michelle Palusa, the CMO was on earlier and it was interesting, we were kind of riffing on like, you know, what's going on. And Eric uses this example of it's a two-dimensional world and now a three-dimensional creature comes in, sees different things that changes what people now look at, changes the observation. And this is now bringing into the dimension. So it used to be like we go to the shows, hey, technology intersects with business value outcomes. That's kind of a boring concept now. When you add in social impact and social justice, you now have a third dimension of where this is going to your point. So there's a really important point there. There's a story by ProPublica recently about an algorithm that the police developed for predictive criminality that was heavily biased against African-Americans and completely wrong. It was 20% accurate. So one of the things that the citizen analyst has to be very vigilant about is that we have to watch our machines. We have to know how they're thinking. We have to provide checks and balances to say, hey, you know, this, Katarma, we don't like people who are, you know, wear red scarves. So we're going to bias the machinery against people wearing red scarves. So we need, that's the flip side of this. We've actually been out of theCUBE at Big Data SV, our other event we do in conjunction with Strata is that you need algorithms for algorithms. So there's the QA and the human role part of it. Well guys, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Good to see you. I would like you guys to suspend a minute each just to kind of describe what you're working on. I know you guys are out. You have your VIP influencers here, but you've got, you're doing all, both doing some work out on your own. Should take a minute to share what you were going to start with you. What are you working on? What's getting you excited these days out in the wild? What's getting me excited is harnessing the power of cognitive computing in the social marketing space. So with social media account-based marketing and learning the patterns and behaviors in that B2B enterprise space when you're looking at selling difficult solutions, how do you reach the right people at the right time on the right channel? And so right now working with cognitive on a better way to do that. Awesome. Chris, what are you working on these days? This is exciting. At Shift Communications, one of the things we're working on is understanding influencers better. So we are using cognitive computing entity and topic, keyword modeling, personality insights, everything that's inside Watson to understand why is an influencer an influencer. So if you look at Tamara, we published a tweet earlier of a network graph. Why is she influencer and who does she influence? These are really important questions and this is not theoretical. This is in production now. Yeah, it's not just the old model of, hey, she's got a lot of followers. It's what's the impact? What's the network effect? What's the interest in the fact? Who influences her? Who exactly? So this is all data driven. Yes. It is. And I think what's nice about that is to your point is that it's actually giving validity to what we're doing. So it's no more vanity metrics. Here's the proof. And it's giving us a more powerful seed at the table. Well, the ROI has always been elusive in socials. It's always gone from that blue sky period of, it's pioneering, but now as it crosses the chasm, it's all about data, value, relevance, context. Yes. The context. ROI is only elusive if you can't measure things. Chris and Tamara, thanks for coming on. Big fans of you guys, great VIP influencer program. Of course theCUBE. We're doing our share to pump out as much content as possible and influence to you guys out there. Go to ibmgo.com to check out all the code. That's our new site. And also go to silkenangle.com and youtube.com slash silkenangle for all the videos. Of course, we're live here in Mandalay Bay. Be right back after this short break.