Good afternoon, everyone, and today I will just start with a few, I think, useful information because some of you asked me by email about the exam, so I think I should spend a few words about the exam and also I will also give you a bit of a summary of what we have done so far and what it's left, okay? Like this you can maybe orient yourself a little bit better. I apologize for this because I mean this is really the first time that I give proper lectures to an audience that it's not neuroscientific, right? So normally you give either some like popular science very, you know, entertaining talks or you just give proper talks to a neuroscientific audience, so this for me this was a little bit new. So anyway, the exam, so what I will ask you to do it will be to, I will ask you to read a paper. I will select a few papers also that are basically similar to the studies that I presented during the lectures, so some of them would be human studies with fMRI, others would be electrophysiology in animals, so you can pick up one of these paper you have to read. The paper won't have an abstract and won't have a title and you have to basically provide title and abstract, you have to write the abstract of this work. So basically, because I think the aim of my course was really to give you a grasp into neuroscience research, right? So I really would like, so by of course talking about time and how time is investigated, what we knew about time, how time is implemented in the brain, really the purpose is just to make you familiar with the neuroscience research and the logic of it. So that's why when you read a paper and when in order to make an abstract, you really have to just focus on the following things, the things that you see listed in the slide. So you have to really try to understand what are the key questions that the authors want to address with the experimental work, what is the hypothesis or predictions if they make any predictions about how are the questions addressed, so what is really, what kind of experiment do they run, so what is the experimental manipulation they use, what are the results, so really the facts, what they show that the results and how these results are interpreted by the authors, right? And then as a last thing, what is the significance of these results, what do they add to the field? So really in order to I guess write an abstract, you really should try to answer in a very of course concise way because an abstract has a limited number of words, normally it's 250, 300 words, so you have to concisely try to have more or less all this information. Yeah, so I think my suggestion then is really to read papers, among you know the papers that listed in the references, also you can read according to your, to your, really to your taste as well, so to the research you are, you feel more or you can, you know, you can be driven by your curiosity about this subject rather than that one, this experiment rather than that one, right? And you know, you have to read not just to, not to remember the content, the content somehow it's less important but you have to rather focus on the logic, on the few stuff that are listed in the slide. I hope it's clear but we will have, with some of you I will have the chance to talk, especially with the diploma, with whom I have to apologize for today, for missing the meeting today but yeah, so we can meet tomorrow. Okay, so what we, we have done so far, I think in the first week we really focused on specifications and we, and on this, we talk about the internal clock, so we really said that time, so the focus was on, we focused on milliseconds to few seconds time range, we focus on duration perception and processing, we mentioned how it was difficult to study time because we don't have receptors for time because there is no specific pathway, neural pathway for time. We talk about the, the, the scalar property, so we, and the Weber's law, so we basically said that the capacity of perceiving time is the variance in perceiving time, the variability scales with the interval at hand, okay, so although then this is called scalar properties present in human, in animals, across also different tasks, although there are some violations and we talk about some of these violations that concern the use of interval that are below second or below 100 milliseconds and above two seconds. Then we briefly mentioned the internal clock which was the very, was a dominant way of thinking about the, how the brain process time, so imagining really a clock-like mechanism in the brain that was basically, was unique and universal, no, so the clock tells time, no matter the sensory modality of the input, no matter the task at hand, no matter the range at hand. And we, we, I brought as a proof of the existence of somehow this clock, the, all the words that show the, show a core of, a core of areas of brain regions that seem to be engaged in temporal computations again, no matter the sensory modality, no matter the task, no matter the range, right? And I mentioned this work, this, this FMRI experiment where Jenny Cool used, asked participants to discriminate duration or color, the color of a visual stimulus. And I talked a little bit of what we measure with FMRI, okay? Sorry, so is there a question? I heard a noise, a sound. You want to make, is there a question? No, okay. Oh, no question in the chat. Okay. Okay, so the second week we focus on the role of sensory features and sensory court, this is a sensory court activity in time perception, because one of the sort of counter argument against this universality of a temporal mechanism is the fact that there are sensory features that can influence the way you experience time, right? And we mentioned all those experiments that use space, so distance, or they manipulate the speed of a moving object, right? Or the contrast, the luminance of a certain visual stimulus. And they ask me, the task was always the same, was to discriminate time perception. And what all those studies showed is that really the sensory features impact your perception of time. And then we talk about the contribution of sensory court, of sensory cortex activity and perception. We mentioned the work, the electrophysiological work by Alessandro Toso and Matthew Diamond and Colombian colleagues, where basically we actually saw not only these behavioral effects, these behavioral biases, but we had the chance of seeing how the barrel cortex activity, which is basically a primary sensory cortex. So it's the cortex that is receiving information from the whiskers of the rat. So the activity in that in barrel cortex basically can be used to mimic the perceptual behavior of the rat. And linked to that, we also show by using a different perspective, so by making inferences about causality, so the importance, the necessity of the activity of a certain brain region in temporal discrimination, then I presented to you the studies in humans, they use transcranial magnetic stimulation, and they interfere with by inducing an electric field over in the cortex, they are able to sort of shut down the activity of these of the visual courtesies and this is an impairment in temporal perception. In the same line, we also show how this sensory, this visual cortex, how in visual cortex the temporal processing happens in the neural circuits that are also engaged in spatial processing. So we really try, we seem to see a link between temporal and spatial representation in visual courtesies and this was also a TMS experiment. Then I mentioned the SDN model, so the state-dependent network model by Dinguono Mano, where we actually saw behaviorally, we saw some data that seemed to meet the prediction of the model, so time is an object included in the context of previous events, so time is in the dynamic of a network and the network dynamics doesn't reset if it doesn't have enough time to go back to rest, so basically every temporal interval it's basically included as a unique object in the dynamic of the network at that point in time, so when information arrives into the system. So we saw the behavioral studies and we also saw the in vitro study, where basically in line with this SDN model we saw that it's possible to induce a temporal dynamic in a network, in a slice of a piece of cortex basically, so in a very local system let's say, that it's not a brain so you can train this tissue to express some time, although we said that of course it's very difficult to link this activity over time that is expressed in the network that is trained can be linked to perception, so that there is this big gap to be filled. And then this week basically I will try to focus on three different aspects which are basically, actually there are two aspects, one it's really time in the firing rate of neurons, so in two ways I will talk about this and so time is included in the slow ramping activity of neurons and this is what this ramping, what we call ramping models seem to suggest, so that is really this rapid, so sorry not slow ramping activity of neurons that we'll see today, or the time is encoded in the speed of the neural network, so in how quickly the network reach, the neural network reach a certain state and this we'll talk tomorrow and the last day I will focus on a slightly, on a new perspective in time studies, so people that start to investigate the existence in the brain of a form of tuning to duration, a form of selectivity, so duration is like color or like orientation, so for which we have tuning mechanism in the brain, so we want to see whether we have this similar tuning mechanism in the brain and how this tuning, this duration selectivity also can be topographically organized in the brain. Okay so let's start, so if there are no questions I will then start with this ramping idea and I will share something different, so stop share and I will share something here, yeah basically under this label of energy read out or ramping models are all these ideas, the time is really in this activity, it is in this neurons that basically ramp up in their activity, this ramping up activity is very common across the brain, so many brain regions can have, many neurons can show this slow ramping activity and I will show you a few experiments on that, in different brain areas, some are in parietal areas, ramping activity is also observed in pre-motor cortex, so in prefrontal, sorry cortex, so areas that are more frontal as well as posterior regions, so this of course this ramping activity you can observe only if you record, this is not quite sure but I will see if I have time to tell you more, but it's mostly possible to observe this type of ramping activity in neurons, right doing electrophysiological recordings in single cells, okay so you do in animals, so and in fact what I'm presenting today is this study by Giazairi and McShadlin and this is a study where they use monkeys, so they train two monkeys to perform the task, this task and I will tell you, so the task is the following, so the monkey stare at this red dot and then there is something that flashes here, okay this flash is just describes the the receptive field of the neurons from which they record, what does it mean, what is this receptive field, so they record from neurons that are my keynote was just closed, I don't know for some reason shuts down, okay share again, okay so this is the monkey brain, why it is quickly open to application again, why I'm experiencing this weird, okay let's see if it happens again, so it's this area here is the, so sorry this is the the the monkey brain, so this is the front, this is the back, so this is the cerebellum as we saw also in human brains and yeah the basically what you see represented here is as if you cut here, you oh god now why it is, sorry I seem to have problem with keynote, let me try to convert the keynote into PowerPoint, safest option let's see, oh very sorry, yes, I don't know, I really don't know, maybe let me try to quit keynote then I will reopen again and if it happens again I can convert in PowerPoint and see, okay let's try, okay so what you see is, no you see it's just okay let me try to to resolve to find a way around, but I don't see any option, well maybe, well maybe I think well let's try like this anyway, no it's very blurred, no Matteo how do you see, it's very, no it's worse, no because normally it's much nicer, okay I'll try it then to PDF as you search, so okay let's try to just let me guide through it because now I have to put all the info in the slide whereas before there was some animations, so let's just focus on this, okay, so I was telling you about where basically the where the experimenter did the cut, so like you have to imagine that they cut, this is a coronal section, so they cut here as if my face was just off, okay and so what you see is exactly this, so the lateral intra parietal sulcus is this red areas that is inside the intra parietal sulcus, this sulcus that you see here and here this is a coronal section, it's calling like this because it's like a crown, okay so it's like cutting here and this LIP area contains neurons that fires for if you present, if you have to make a saccade, so an eye movement towards a specific position in space, okay, so let's say if the monkey is so fixed is has to make a saccade to this gray zone, basically there is only a bunch of neurons in LIP that will fire if the monkey saccades here and that's called the receptive field of the neurons, so it's basically the piece of external space that elicit a neural response if stimulated, okay, so that's the receptive field of the neurons from which the guys, Giuseppe and Shardland recorded, okay and they basically this is the way they select the neurons so they have to want to make sure, so they select the neurons and they want to make sure which piece of the space these neurons respond to, of course they don't respond to the piece of space, the information that is presented in the space, they respond to a saccadic eye movement that is made towards that spatial location, this is the function of this LIP neurons, okay, and so basically what they do then, so the monkey keeps fixating, this is the external space towards which they have to make a saccade, but for the time being they just fixate, then there are two sequential flashes, one it's a ready signal, they call it ready, and then a second, these are in peripheral locations so they are not in the receptive field of the neurons from which they record, are somewhere else in the visual space of the monkey, okay, and those two visual flashes basically mark an interval, so it's what they call a sample interval, this is a duration for the monkey, okay, and the duration can range from 500 milliseconds up to a bit more than one second, okay, so this is the range of TS that they use, and then the monkey task is basically to hold the response, so to produce this interval, so to produce the interval between ready and set by holding a saccade and making a saccade only making a saccadism eye movement, they have to make a saccade in this spatial location, only when the time that they have, they have the experience before has lost, so they have really to reproduce time by holding the response, and basically they get reward, okay, if they wait in time is appropriate according to the duration, the TS they experienced, and here you see basically this is the plot of the sample interval over the production interval, and this is basically this green area tells you that when the monkey gets a reward, and even the reward timing is basically is given at a time that is scaled with the interval that the monkey basically experienced, so it's very short, so it's very close to the 529, but it could be the variance, the variability of the reward delivering, it's much higher for durations that are bigger, okay, so anyway this procedure, so they train two monkeys, and this procedure leads to this type of behavior in the monkey, so in the two colors, the two lines that you see here, the plots are the behavior of the two monkeys that they train, one it's dark and one it's with these white disks, and what you see is the production interval as a function of the truth, as a function of the sample interval that they use basically, the straight line, so this sorry this diagonal line, it's the expected behavior as if the monkey, if monkeys were perfect clocks, okay, but as you can see both monkeys show this show a little bias, so they in the first place you see that they can perform well, right, because you see that they can perform the task, so their reproduction is closer to 500, in when the duration is 500, it means closer to a thousand, when the duration was a thousand, okay, so somehow they perform the task, but they are not perfect clock, so they perception or better day production as a bias that basically this is something that we encountered before, so they tend to overestimate the longer duration, and they underestimate the shorter duration, as if basically they basically regress into the mean of the distribution, so their performance sort of merge becomes closer and closer to the mean of the distribution at hand, and also what you can I guess, this is basically the gray bars are basically the distribution, these are basically average behavior, right, this is the full distribution of the production times, and here you see that you see again the behavior, which are the little discs of the two monkeys, dark and white, and the line, the fitted line in between is a Bayesian model, so basically the Bayesian model that if you want to see the full detail of the model is in the paper and the supplementary material, but basically they assume, I will tell you conceptually, I will try to describe, this is the Bayesian theorem basically, so they assume that the monkey is a Bayesian observer, so and a Bayesian observer that takes advantage basically of the knowledge of the prior knowledge of the distribution that they experience in the task to optimize, to reduce the variability of their behavior in condition of uncertainty, so basically what this formula is, is basically this is the, if you are familiar with the base rule, I mean this is the posterior, so this is really the perception of the monkey, and sorry, I pasted the wrong formula, this is not the one I wanted, okay, it's not this one, there was in the other, yeah, I deleted the wrong one and I kept, so I deleted the good one and I deleted the good one and I kept the wrong, this is basically just tells you is the likelihood basically, it tells you that the measurement, so T s, so T m, so the perception of the subject, this is the conditional probability of T m of the measurement over T s, which is the real duration, okay, so the likelihood is basically a process that has some noise in it, that they basically model as this noise, they model as a Gaussian that has a mean zero and the standard deviation scales with the T s, because the greater T s, the larger is the noise, so this process of perceiving the interval has some noise and is also influenced by Weber's law, so we see that the variability is function of scales with the interval at hand, and what I wanted to show with a different equation is that basically the posterior probability, so which is basically the perception, is a function of the likelihood, so this incoming sensory information, this process of encoding the information that has noise and follows the Weber law and the prior, which is basically the probabilistic knowledge of experiencing different intervals, so is the knowledge of the sample interval that the monkey basically experiences in the experiment, and basically what they, and the prior, the model, the model they use for the prior, is just a uniform distribution, okay, so it's a static prior, it's something that it's like that the monkey acquired at once, so and this uniform distribution ranges basically the range that the monkey experienced, so from 500 to a bit more than a second. Okay, so this is just to tell you that this bias in performance, this regression to the mean is explained in Bayesian terms, okay, assuming that perception follows, perception of time follows also this Bayesian rule, and this is basically what you see depicted here, is basically, so they record from these neurons in LIP, and this is the behavior of a cell, they record that 58 neurons from LIP, and this is just the depiction of the response of a single cell during overtime in the experiment, so you see that basically there is the, so if there is the target, so basically the sample interval is the distance between ready and set, okay, so the larger this difference, so the neurons fire at the target, at the presentation of the target, this is the really the interval that they are supposed to time, and the longer the interval the later the circuit, okay, I hope it's clear, so whereas here if the time is, here is that the target appears ready set, so it means that the interval to time is short is 500 milliseconds, so here you see the firing of this cell that it's immediately, so it's shorter than here, for example, because this means basically that the cells express the behavior of the subject of the monkey that can perform the task, and even at the cell level you see that there is different behavior according to the duration that the monkey is experiencing, so this is an example of a single cell, but then let's see what happens if we look at the on average the behavior of the cells on average during this period, no, from target to second, okay, so and this is again the average of this 58 cells, and what you see these are the, so every epoch of the trial, so every, so here the basically the signal is aligned with the silent interval, with the silent event, sorry, of the of that epoch, so here everything is aligned to the ready signal, remember the ready is here is the first flash, ready set is the interval to be timed, so ready set from ready exactly to set, and this set to second, okay, and they look at the specific temporal windows, so they basically, you see that there is this discontinuity in the plots because they focus, they zoom into temporal windows of interest, and what you see is the firing rate of spikes per second of the average of this 58, and color coded are basically, is the activity sorted according to the different, so is the activity sorted according to the activity, the temporal interval that the monkey has to produce, so shorter durations are in blue and colder color, longer duration are warmer color, and so here you see there is a after a mission deep, so this is would like to stress the fact that ready set is really the time of the duration encoding, okay, so it's when basically the monkey just experience time indeed, so there is no motor preparation because the monkey doesn't know until the end when, for how long the circuits needs to be old, okay, so here there is no expectation of reward, no motor preparation, and this is the initial state, so the first 500 milliseconds what they observed is just a deep in the neural activity that doesn't seem to be different for the different durations, whereas here they see something very interesting, so in the last 200 milliseconds of this ready to set period, so before actually the set, before the offset of the interval, they observe this increase, this modulation, so the activity of this neurons is different according to the type of interval that they have to, that they experience, okay, and we will see here that if you zoom in, if you look at the this set activity here, so here this again set the average of the 58 neurons in the set activity as a function of the sample interval, so you see that there is almost linear increase in the firing rate as a function of the length of the interval, okay, here in the, so in the set you see the distribution of the slopes of this ramping activity in the different neurons because they basically calculate a slope for each of the 58 neurons, and in black are the neurons where this slope is significantly different from zero, so you see that there is this linear this ramping here, and this is I think the most interesting bit of the story that they tell, because it's this activity can be due to time, nothing else, no expectation of reward, no planning of a motor of a saccade, whereas the activity that they see here, so from set to saccade, so once the monkey know the interval, he knows for how long he has to hold the saccade, and so he knows also when to expect the reward, so which is very, you know, it's crucial for the monkey, and basically what they see is just this initial deep and very fast ramping up, what is important is that before making, so from 500 to 200 before making a saccade, there is this again ramping activity, that this time has an inverse relationship with the interval, so you see that there is a steep ramp for shorter duration, and a much flatter, so sustained, I would say, ramping response for longer duration, okay, and you see depicted the same, so it's a summary of what I just said here, this built up rate that scales, so that changes as a function of the interval, and this activity of course, it's more related, you know, we know that LIP neurons, the job is to fire in preparation of an eye movement towards a specific spatial location, so it's pretty normal that they show this type of behavior. The novelty here is the fact that this ramping activity is modulated, has a temporal precision, let's say, so he's modulated by the interval the monkey has to produce, and again here we go back to the concept of the possibility of isolating a circuit that does just time, I mean I think what is, as I said many times now in my lectures, is that I think it's more likely that rather than having something that just does time, we have a time behavior in each circuit that needs time, so this is a circuit that needs a temporal precision, and it's a circuit that is specific for making eye movements, and these eye movements needs to be produced with high temporal precision, that's why time matters here, so time is in this ramping activity, because we need ramping activity in this task, so and I think this is this modulation of time, it's very very interesting. Anyway, so another similar behavior, okay this is just to tell you, because now it's already four o'clock and I want to show something in you once, but just to tell you that this type of behavior, this ramping activity is not a peculiarity, as I said before, of LIP, of Parallel area, even for example primary visual cortex can express this ramping activity, and this is here, it's shown here, I'm sorry I have to go quickly through this, but this is a study that has been published in Science now quite some time ago, and this is primary visual cortex, so I think they record in rats in primary visual cortex, and what they do, they train rats to expect a reward when they stimulate different eyes of the rat, so in one case they just stimulate, they know that the stimulation of the left eye, so if the stimulation is with the beam light basically, they stimulate one eye, and then the rat knows that if it receives a stimulation on the left eye, the reward will come immediately, so very shortly, so after, I don't remember, I think the durations were in the range of a few seconds, half a second, and a second and a half or something like that, whereas if the stimulation was on the right eye, so they receive this light on the right eye, they're going to get the reward twice the time of the left stimulation, okay, I think, so they basically expect a reward at a given point in time, and what they see in neurons that are responds to the stimulation of the left eye or the right eye, here are colored coded, okay, left eye, it's the neurons that respond to left eye stimulation is in blue, the neurons that are responding to the right eye stimulation are in pink, and as you see, so here it's basically in this basically under this bar, this is the moment where basically the stimulation is given to the eye, and here you see how basically the firing rate of these neurons, this is a single neurons, here they plot single neurons, single cells, these are, and here you see that they ramp up at different time according to the expected reward, this ramps up quickly and just goes down quickly, this has a more sustained response because this is when the reward is delivered, okay, but ramping up is not the only behavior electrophysiologists found, there is also a sustained decrease, so there is also behavior in the opposite direction, okay, so this is when the time when the stimulation is given, and this is this deep in the activity, so inhibition in the activity that then so this deep is different according to the two different durations, okay, also here this is another type of behavior in the firing rate of the neurons, they are neuron steps rather than sustained decrease, they peak, they peak at the expected time of the interval of the sorry the expected time of the reward, okay, so they have here they peak, so when the duration is expected early and this peaks a bit early but when it's expected late, and these are basically when you observe the behavior of the neurons that are sensitive to the stimulation of left eye, right eye, these are the response of neurons that are not sensitive to that stimulation as you see this is basically a flat, and this is just the differences between dominant and undominant responses, this is just a different way to see those three plots, but here you see as a difference between those two type of plots, so again this is not purely time in visual cortex, this is the rat is expecting to get a reward a different time, and he learned to expect this reward by a visual stimulation, okay, so we know to associate a certain visual stimulation with a certain duration, and again the visual circuit that receives this visual stimulation, it's modulated according to time because this is a visual task and it needs temporal precision, and you see that there is some trace of time in this activity here, so similar thing you can see, so at the beginning I said oh in order to see this modulation of time in neural activity you need to record from single cells, in reality this is not entirely true, you can even do with humans, this is what we did in an fMRI study, this is quite an old study of mine, where basically this task is very simple, so the the subject gets this blue target, this blue stimulus, and after a certain amount of time the blue annulus, this blue stimulus, change color gets, becomes yellow, and what we manipulate here was the time between the blue and the yellow, okay, so and in one case the blue, so the yellow, so the in one case the the the timing follow a unimodal distribution where the the probability of change was around, was maximum around eight seconds, and in other blocks of trials the the the probability of the change was either early, around four seconds or late, so here if you want, subject is expecting something interesting to happen, which is the color change, at the specific point in time, okay, so there is a an expectation, there is a temporal expectation, okay, and okay I don't know maybe I should just then I think it's only a few minutes left, so basically at behavioral level what you expect, if the subject can really use time to make this prediction, you expect the subjects to be very fast in responding when he highly expects this to happen, so around here, so and then if I present, because I have some tails here, if I present the stimulus here or here in the distribution then subject would be slow because the the change happens unexpectedly, same thing I can I can say here, so the change happens with high probability here and here but I can, you have tails here, so I can, if I show, so subject would be very fast if the the change happens when it's, when the subject has learned to be highly provable and it would be very very slow if things happen unexpectedly, and this is basically what we observe behaviorally, so this is how fast the subject responds as a function of really the the occurrence of the stimulus, and here you see that there is basically the, in this unimodal schedule the subject it's faster and faster by with time because if, if something is not happened it will happen for sure because this is what they learn, so here we also use the conditional probability but I don't want to go into that, and in the bimodal schedule it happens what I just said, so that here it's the most likely point in time where the stimulus happened and the subject is very, and the subject is very fast, and here again you see that the subject is fast when it's expecting and it's slow when it's expecting, it's the change up unexpectedly. This is an individual subject, this is the group, but what I think I want to show you a brain level, it's let's focus only on this piece of the information that resembles what we saw in monkey's brain, so basically this is the activity in primary visual cortex, when the subject is expecting something to happen around 10 seconds, and you see that also visual cortex, this is what I plot is the the percentage of signal change, how the hemodynamic response function change in time, so this is the time, time from target onset, and basically you see that the visual cortex is modulated by time, so it rises when something is likely to happen in time, and this happens also in the bimodal condition where basically something is likely to happen either early or late, and you see that there is this shape that resembles the conditional probability in reality, but what I want to point out here is basically this is the activity in primary visual cortex, when the change physically happens only late, so we just took only the trials where the color change happened later, but the subject, since the subject is in this bimodal schedule, is also expecting something to happen early, and so you see even if there is no physical change in the stimulus, your visual cortex lights up, so reacts, the signal rises in primary visual cortex when you are expecting something to happen with a certain temporal precision, okay, so even visual cortex activity can be modulated by time, and I'm basically ending by saying that this modulation is not only in visual cortex, we actually observe it also in a wide network of brain regions that includes the cerebellum, the parietal cortex, like the monkey eyes, the supplementary motor area, and the mid-frontal cortex, an area which is even more frontal is more or less here, so basically here you see also the advantages disadvantages of the technique that we use, so if you use single unit recordings you're able to see this behavior in single units, beautiful, because to see spiking neurons is very exciting, but of course you are constrained into a specific brain region, okay, or two brain areas maximum, whereas with fMRI of course you have a microscopic view on the process, but you can still appreciate something that is similar to what you see at a neural level, but here you observe across a wider range of regions, and I conclude, so thank you for your attention and I'm looking forward to your questions if you have.


So I'm Jonathan Lee, I'm the Agricultural Programs Director for Interfaith Food Shuttle. National Guard's out here helping us today get some stuff out of the field and get some stuff planted. During COVID, unfortunately enough, our need to serve has increased exponentially. So our programs have really been turned on their heads since this started and we've really been trying to find creative ways, innovative ways to send more product out. We typically see anywhere from 15 to 30 volunteers about three times a week come out normally in corporate groups. Those corporations are shut down right now so our labor force has significantly decreased. So then our capacity to serve decreases unless we have help. The National Guard, glad to have you guys out, very good working alongside you, getting stuff pumped out to people. Today we're out at the Dover Farm for the Interfaith Food Shuttle and we're going to be planting some cantaloupes as well as some squash and other summer crops and in addition we're going to be laying some irrigation. All of the credit belongs to the soldiers behind me. They've been doing amazing work the last couple of days and they've been a huge help to the farm. I grew up actually firing myself with my grandpa on his farm from about five to eight years old. We planted everything from cantaloupes, watermelon, corn, we tilled the fields from about six in the morning to ten in the morning. My grandpa would probably be the cheesing at me right now. He unfortunately passed away but everything he taught me is bringing to fruition here. I'm enjoying this. This is just me giving back to the community. I grew up doing this for my family and now I get to do it for everyone else. I've lived farming, I still farm now and doing this with the other soldiers, I couldn't be more grateful for this experience and helping out during this pandemic. We're set up what we're growing at the farm for our programs. Yesterday you guys helped us pull about four pallets worth of collars out of the field with our two-day turnaround. Those are heading out probably tomorrow to one of our mobile markets for distribution. So definitely helping us out, get the food pumped out and get it to a home.


Good morning, welcome to CMC Markets on Friday the 13th of August, and this quick look at the week ahead beginning the 16th of August with me, Michael Houston. Well, we get started. Let's have a quick recap of this week's events, and I think this week's events can be summed up quite succinctly in the context of US dollar higher, stocks higher, and the yields higher, which ordinarily you wouldn't expect to be the case. But I think for now markets appear to be working on the baseline assumption that a taper is coming, getting comfortable with the idea, and as long as the discussion doesn't move on to the more sensitive topic of rate rises, then the current trend of higher highs and higher lows looks set to continue we've already seen this week, record new record highs for the DAX, the stock 600, the FTSE 250, the DAO and the S&P 500 FTSE 100 is lagged a little bit, largely due to the larger concentration of big blue chip stocks that went ex-dividend this week, but nonetheless, it's encouraging that it has managed to sustain some moves above 7200, more importantly, making a very strong move to the upside, the only concern that I have is that it could take a while to get to my end of year target 7400, but I am encouraged by the fact that we have finally appeared to have broken above this series of peaks through here. We've also seen new record highs for the DAX, it's now above 16000 for the first time ever, and continues to ratchet higher, the break of above 15800 was a key, I think was a key indicator, a key measure for the move higher as can be seen from that chart, that chart there. So the catalyst for the move higher, well, I think we can sort of look at it in the context of US 10 year treasury yields, we've seen them move higher. Now, obviously, the people are starting to talk about the reflation trade, and yet the reflation trade earlier this year caused widespread concern about stock market valuations, and certainly, I think that continues to be the case. But if you look at this yield chart, you can see that we're still very much in the downtrend that we've been in over the course of the past few months, and even though we've seen a decent rebound in yields, we're still in the overall downtrend. So I would theorize, and it is only a theory, that even if we were to go a little bit higher in US treasury yields, as long as we're able to hold above these two peaks here at around about 142, and this trend line here, the downtrend for yields is likely to remain intact, and as long as it is, and the bond market is not pricing in higher inflation, then stock markets should continue to slowly creep higher. That's despite some of the inflation data that we've seen this week point in different directions. If you look at CPI, US CPI, that flat line will soften just a little bit in July relative to June, and yet PPI continues to push higher to 7.2%. Well above market expectations, a big jump of 0.8% from the previous month, and core prices were also fairly high as well, coming in at 6.2%. So there is, there's appeared to be a little bit of divergence between CPI, PPI, and PCE as well. That's the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, PCE, which also dropped back in June. So the inflationary pressures in the US economy are there. The big question is how much of it is transitory and how much is it, how much of it is persistent? Certain part of it will be, certainly shipping costs are showing no signs of coming down and there are strains in the supply chain. So as we look ahead towards this week's Fed minutes, I don't think we're really going to get anything to add to the overall debate that's currently being had by US policymakers. It's also important to understand that the Fed minutes coming out this week predate the payrolls numbers earlier this month, which came in at 900,000 as well as the upward revision to the June numbers as well. So I don't think they're going to tell us that much more than we already know. And obviously we've got Jackson Hole later this month. I think the likelihood is that the Fed will start tapering in September and October. The market is pricing that in. And as long as the debate doesn't move towards the potential for rate hikes, I think as long as we hold below this trend line resistance here and bond yields remain fairly muted, then the line of lease resistance is likely to be for slow incremental gains higher. As I say, the dollar has also moved higher. Euro dollars hit slowest levels or matched its lowest levels in several months. More importantly, it hasn't broken below 117. And until it does so, then the potential for further downside is likely to be limited. But even if we do, then we're looking at these twin loads through here and about 116. So 117 could prompt to move back above 117. 80. If we move back to 117. 80, then we could see a move back towards these levels here. Why is this level important? Well, because it happens to coincide with a series of loads through here. And when loads break, they generally become resistance on any retest back. So this area between here and here are likely to be key for the future direction of Euro dollar. Cable. Surprising weakness here, despite the fact that we've seen some fairly decent GDP numbers over the course of the past few days, 4.8 percent. We have we have a raft of UK data out this coming week. Unemployment, CPI, retail sales, none of these are likely to move the market that much. The Bank of England is already suggesting that inflation is going to move to 4 percent over the course of the rest of this year. We're currently at two and a half. So it wouldn't be a surprise to see headline CPI in July move up to 2.8 2.7, 2.8 percent, given the July reopening and the fact that I've noticed anecdotally that some retailers have started to increase their prices already. I've noticed my local latte has cost around about 20 or 30 more on my local prep than it did pre lockdown. So there's some latte inflation for you, if you like. Retail sales could see a little bit of an uptick as well on the back of the reopening in July. Obviously summer holidays, schools break up, you could see some retailers basically pass on price increases as a consequence of that as well. That might impact that might impact retail sales. We did see a bit of a rebound in June of 0.5 percent, despite the fact that people were expecting a decline. So that would suggest that July retail sales could go either way, either plus 0.2 or minus 0.2. Who knows? It's difficult to say, but certainly consumer demand is picking up and hopefully will continue to do so. Cable could drift back to 1.37, 70, 80. That's 50 percent retracement of this entire up move from the lows here to the highs here, finding a bit of support around about 1.38. But as long as we hold above 1.37, 70, then we could well come back and retest the highs here. You know, the weakness in sterling is all the more surprising, I think, given the fact that while we are starting to see a little bit of softness overall, it still remains. The UK economy still looks if it's outperforming the rest of Europe, which makes this little bit of a short squeeze in euro sterling slightly more surprising. But nonetheless, euro sterling is a habit of doing that. Just when you think it's about to break lower, it squeezes higher. It did it here. It looks like it's going to do it here. So as long as we hold below 10.15, which at the moment doesn't feel as if it will, we could well squeeze all the way back to 85.60. I'm still of the opinion that euro sterling still is likely to head towards these lows back here of 82.80. Of course, it's likely to be messy in terms of how it gets there. But overall, the direction of travel still looks broadly sterling positive, given the fact that the Bank of England is already starting to have a discussion about tapering its own bomb purchase program. But nonetheless, it's likely to be messy and we could slip back towards these levels down here. This key support on the CMC sterling index of around about 10.15. So I think that there are there about slightly to be a fairly, fairly key support level, that low there back on the 2nd of August. So the August lows or the sterling CMC sterling index. OK, brief pause. So we've got UK unemployment. Bank of England, again, is suggesting that's likely to head back towards around about 5.2 percent by the end of the year. At the moment, it's being disguised to a certain extent by furlough. So again, it's probably not a true reflection. But those numbers are due out on the 17th. CPI on the 18th of August and retail sales on the 20th of August. We've also got US retail sales as well. Markets of pricing in a 0.2 percent decline there. Again, higher prices there could actually crimp retail sales spending for the US economy. But let's not forget, but July retail sales also encompassed independence day celebrations, so you could see a pick up and spending there. And they've been very difficult to predict this year. So again, it's difficult to see how that's likely to be a significant driver of risk going forward, unless it's a big beat to the upside. But, you know, as I say, if we look at if we look at the US dollar more broadly, the line of least resistance appears to be for a slightly firmer dollar simply because the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, to a lesser extent, are on a slightly different track in terms of monetary policy than the European Central Bank. Gold is flash-crashed earlier this week. It's slowly starting to claw back all of those losses. And it was a flash crash. Nothing more. Japan was off. It was thin liquidity and basically washed out a few stale longs. What was significant, though, was we didn't break below these series of loads through here. And I think if we can get back above 1760, 1770, then we could squeeze back towards 1800. Again, that was a course of the next few sessions. So those. Those are the key macro indicators. We also got Chinese retail sales. Again, I think the Japanese, the Chinese economy is struggling, the Japanese economy is struggling with rising infection rates, as is the South Korean economy. So Asia is the fly in the ointment when it comes to the global recovery story. And you can see that playing out in terms of the Nikkei. It's interesting that the Nikkei chart looks very similar to the US Treasury yield chart in that we've got lower lows, sorry, lower highs and twin lows in and around here. So I think, you know, putting that to one side, keep an eye on the Nikkei. But I don't think it's particularly instructive with respect to the overall risk story, apart from the fact that Asia appears to be diverging from Europe and the US. And I think it's no coincidence that's largely down to the fact that despite rising infection rates here in Europe and the US, the percentage of the population that's been double jabbed is much higher than has been single jabbed in Asia. And that could be a drag as we head into the winter. In terms of the earnings picture, there's three. There's three stocks I've got my eye on. Robin Hood Markets is one of them. It's had a rather mixed start to its trading journey. This is an early chart that we're looking at. As I say, it wasn't that long ago that at IPO'd. And it was a bit of a flop. Since then, things have livened up a bit. There's been some talk that some of the shareholders were looking to cash out of their shareholdings with up to 98 million shares. We could get some more information about that. That Robin Hood Markets Q2 earnings numbers, which are due on the 18th of August at its last set of numbers because the company posted a loss of one point four billion dollars. A large part of that was down to the fact that they had to raise three point four billion dollars of new debt, which it used in order to ensure the business met disposal thresholds required by the various clearinghouses that handle trading orders on its platform as a result of the GameStop volatility. Now, it would appear that some of these investors who helped out in this February fundraising want to take some profit and who can blame them. Robin Hood's monthly active users have more than doubled in the past 12 months. They could well rise to twenty two point five million towards the end of Q2 revenues have risen sharply. Q1 revenues of over five hundred million. The company is expected to see a profit of around about eight cents a share when it reports on Wednesday. We've also got UK House Builder, House Builder, easy for me to say, Persimmon. Share prices have come off the boil a bit in recent months. And I think that's largely down to the fact that the stamp duty holiday is slowly being phased out. Forward sales are still pretty good, though, around about one point eight two billion pounds, even though they're slightly lower from twenty twenty. Management appears optimistic about the long term strength of the housing market despite the slowdown. There's a slightly higher cost base because of covid. But nonetheless, they have re-started dividends. So the big question for me is this series of lows through here. Can it hold, given the fact that the highs are starting to get lower on every subsequent rebound? Again, those numbers are out on the eighteenth for Persimmon. And looking at Walmart, that's always a good indicator for the US consumer. We've also got Target as well this week, but I'm going to focus on Walmart on the seventeenth. Business costs, again, eaten into the top line. Extra staff hide to help clean stores, stack shelves, get online orders out the door. The company. Recruited in excess of an extra five hundred thousand people last year alone, so tougher comparatives from last year could also test shareholder confidence in light of the recent rise in the share price. But Walmart is also looking to diversify away from retail and into health care. It acquired MEMD earlier this year. Profits expected to come in around about a dollar fifty four cents. A share, which is slightly down from the dollar sixty nine cents a share that we saw in Q2. But it did upgrade its guidance in Q2. So it's coming, sorry, Q1. So it is going to be a bit of a high bar when it comes to not only its headline numbers, revenues, EPS, more importantly, what are they going to do with respect to their guidance? They upgrade their guidance in in Q1. Will they maintain that guidance as we look ahead towards Q3? OK, so that's pretty much it for this week. Once again, thank you very much for listening and for your time. I hope you all have a great weekend and speak to you all same time, same place next week. Thanks very much for listening.


The Army is revising its centralized promotion board process for the first time in 50 years. The change is set to ensure that promotions are based on the most qualified soldier getting promoted versus the soldier with the most seniority. According to Army G1 officials, the new system will deliver the right person to the right job at the right time. The change based promotions and visibility of the order of merit list or OML standings are amongst the most significant changes that will take effect this fiscal year. The change begins with the Massa Sergeant Promotion Board where sequence numbers will be based on merit instead of on seniority. This time around, the OML will serve a different purpose. Rather than being used to generate an annual promotion list, it is being used to identify which NCOs are fully qualified. Being fully qualified does not guarantee promotion. Once deemed fully qualified, the board will evaluate NCOs using their records to determine their sequence numbers. Soldiers will also have access to personal OML standings through the Army Career Tracker website. This visibility will provide soldiers the opportunity to estimate their data promotion as well as see where they stand compared to their peers. As with any big change, it will take some time before things fully take effect. But stay on the lookout and keep yourself informed on the latest by visiting army.mil forward slash g-1 hashtag org dash resources and scrolling down to enlisted centralized selection boards. If you have questions or topic ideas for sit-rep, let us know on Facebook or Twitter Sergeant Cadet out.


Montgomery and the rest of the players on the field will all be wearing special Lou Gehrig day patches as Major League Baseball celebrates the first annual event. Gehrig becomes the third player in Major League Baseball history with a day honoring his legacy. One player who will be forever linked with the Iron Horse is Cal Ripken Jr. and he is honored to have that distinction. First I want to say thank you to Commissioner Manfred and MLB for the opportunity to be a part of this Lou Gehrig day. Obviously I was connected to Lou Gehrig through the consecutive game streak and as the record was being closer to being broken, I remember not wanting to learn about Lou Gehrig. I just wanted to keep things just where they were but it was impossible not to. You learn how great a player he was, you learn how great a man he was, very well respected. And I remember a lot of times they would compare my career with his career and I kept thinking how can you compare me to one of the greatest players that's ever played the game. But when they mentioned me and compared me to the man Lou Gehrig, I was extremely honored. So I will have that connection. I wish that I had a chance to talk to him at some point. Because I play the game to try to meet the challenge each and every day and have your teammates count on you. And I'm certain that was Lou Gehrig's makeup.


I think it helps, I mean I think everyone's different, some people may be capable of going straight in and being a top coach straight away you know that's fantastic but I certainly felt as though that's the way I wanted to do it, I wanted to almost learn and be an apprentice again and learn the ropes properly and so when I do get an opportunity I'm at least able or I feel confident enough to do it so I remember taking my first under 14 session it was like a Tuesday night down at Moor Farm you know I planned my session all day you know I'd literally I've got you know 16 players I've got 10 balls I've got all this equipment and I turned the park I remember and it was really windy really windy and I had hardly any equipment I'd like three balls or something because someone had lost some balls in the games at the weekend and I turned about three balls so literally I'm you know I saw it so I got my first really good lesson of you always have to plan for the unexpected you always got a plan for what happens if your session goes wrong so I did a lot in the early days I'd start to look at okay what could go wrong with this session I think that was a key aspect of being able to react to things that happen within this because you got to be flexible having you know session goes exactly how you write it down on paper so that gave me an opportunity to do that and also the enthusiasm of those players I mean I'd take you under 10 sometimes I take you under 11s 12s and some of those were the most enjoyable sessions I've ever had you know because of course later on you start getting a few cynical first team players it's those 11 year olds just want to hang on every word and just love the game and it was quite nice to have both aspects really


What's up everybody, Jason here for JaspysCaseBrace.com We've given away eight Jaspys First Off The Line Football Mixer spots away with this 2020 Dauntress Optic Football Value 1 Fat Pack Break. Round of teams number one. So again guys, first we do the break. Randomize customer names and teams distribute the hits out of the pack here. Then at the end of the break we'll randomize all 32 customer names and the top eight names get a spot each in the Jaspys Panini First Off The Line Football Mixer. So here we go guys. Here's the dice-rollers and customer names and the teams we do that first and it is eight, four, three, seven times. One, two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Chad down the top seven times. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Dallas Cowboys out on the Washington football team. All right, so there you go guys. Stick to what you got. I'll give you a quick glance at your teams before we start. All right guys, stick to what you got there, because that and here's the Optic Value Fat Pack. So again, we have to do one more guys and that sells out that football mixer. It looks like we did get a green velocity and it is Charell Lewis. Kenneth Murray-Ricky. So there you go Rams and Chargers with that one. Jonathan with the Rams and Chargers Michael. Now let's switch scenes and give away the spots number top eight. Get in guys. Good luck everybody. There you go. Eight, click dice-roll to two and a four six times. One, two, three, four, five, six. Boom, two and a four. Top eight, Daniel, Jonathan, Kevin, Michael, Daniel, Chad, Coleman, Chad Dahl, and Ofer. There you go. Good mixture of customers here. That's good. There you go after six times. Top eight, get in. So there you go guys. Next one is already in the store and that sells out the break guys. So let's get it going. Jaspy'scasebreaks.com.


So you heard about our Valentine's Day contest where you spread the love with Art Resin, you put some Art Resin on something that you're making for your Valentine, and then you post it to Instagram with that hashtag, spread the love with Art Resin. And the winner is going to win a 10 gallon kit of Art Resin. So it's kind of a big deal, right? Well, I'm not entering the contest of course because it's my contest, but if I were to enter the contest, this is what I would do because I did make something for my Valentine a.k.a Dave. Here it is. So here it is, a little polyptych for above the bed. It's just acrylic on wooden panel coated in Art Resin. Looking forward to seeing all your entries again, hashtag spread the love with Art Resin, and you got to have it in by February 10.  So why not enter? Enter. We'd love to see what you're doing. Thank you very much, Dave.


In the Natural History section of the exhibition there's a wonderful set of photographs by a photographer called Amy Vitale, who was shooting at a panda sanctuary in China. She was shooting for National Geographic and she obviously spent quite a long time at this sanctuary. In order that the pandas didn't get too used to human beings, everyone had to dress up as a panda so the keepers were also dressed as pandas and in fact I know that Amy was dressed as a panda as well. So it would have been such a fun job to work on and it makes you smile, you know.


We just got a direct-to-film printer from Amazon and we're going to show you how to set it up and what it can do right now What is up a welcome back? Do you like to do a builder to make it so do we and we have a new video each week this week? I got a brand new toy We got a brand new toy. This is a direct-to-film printer DTF printer Now it didn't take as much convincing as it did the glow forge But way more convincing than it is for the 3d printer I still can't convince her that I need a 3d printer Yeah, if you guys were on our live on Tuesday We had a whole conversation about why Garrett does and does not need a 3d printer I can't I can't give her a product that the 3d printer needs to make So if you have any suggestions on how to get me a 3d printer, leave me a comment down below Yeah, even if you have a 3d printer and you print something cool Comment if you don't have a 3d printer, but you wish you had one because you could print something cool Leave that down below too because so far all he's got is a comb and maybe some and the Cap to the toothbrush like a travel cap Not worth it. It's not worth it But that's not what we're here for today here today We're gonna talk about our DTF printer, and this is our little heater that comes with it Why did we get a DTF printer? Well, we love sublimation. We've done a lot of sublimation videos I think sublimation is super cool super cool The problem with sublimation is having the proper materials with that high poly content It's got to be polyester. It's got to be poly acrylic. Yes, or you have to pre-treat it with some kind of poly something I mean, it looks really cool on the t-shirts, but I sometimes I've had some ideas to do some cool things like With other materials like gene material and stuff like that. That's truly a hundred percent cotton I can't use the sublimation printer for that, but you can use a DTF printer I also want to and most the biggest thing that I want to do is to be able to Sublimate on wood and we've tried that a bunch of times some cool images on some MDF Yes, and make that stuff pop. We've done a couple of videos You can go back and see some previous videos where we use laminate sheets and we did some Sublimation on the laminate sheets. We use poly acrylic spray. Yes, and we tried to sublimate on that But none of them gave me the results. I was really looking for something with those bright bright colors So we did a little research and we found this DTF printer. What is a direct-to-film printing? So DTF printing is a relatively new technology It's only been around for about two years But the great thing about this is it's it's kind of like direct-to-garnet printing if you've seen that except now You can print directly to a film and then that film can be applied to so many different types of materials It can be applied to t-shirts. It can be applied to wood It can be applied to metals lots of different things. So that's a very exciting the DTF film once it's applied Once the ink has been applied to a shirt It's got a lot of stretch ability and flexibility It prints the image face down on the film and then it comes back in with some white to give it a background And then you put some adhesive on the back Melt that stuff and then it will apply to anything Including black t-shirts because it has that white backer. It'll go right to dark colored materials a black cotton t-shirt No pre-treatment. Oh a hat.  Yeah So we've got a lot of great ideas and we're really excited about this and then through our research We found that in many cases the DTF printing is cheaper faster more affordable Easier easier. I mean think of the images that I can do that I wouldn't be able to do in vinyl or something like that or screen printing Yes screen for so it's it's definitely easier than screen printing unless you've got that set up set and ready to go So for kind of this Mid-level crafter that we are this DTF printer. I think it's going to Kind of revolutionize some of the things that we're doing especially we do a lot stuff to a whole other level That's what he's been saying that for a month We really want to try this on the the MDF so that we could do some cool things with our door rounds We want to take them to the next level So we're really excited and we thought Well, we thought we would show you the whole setup of this process So we've we've done a little research. We've watched lots of videos. Most of them are by the manufacturer So there aren't any kind of Good explanatory videos. Yeah, how would some normal person get into this? Yeah, if you were a DIYer and you were looking to do something with DTF printing Let us tell you about it show you how to set up this printer and let's do a first print print and What press print and press let's try our first print and press So we found a DTF printer on amazon that cost about $2,800. It came with the printer It's a modified epson L1800 printer It came with the oven that melts the glue on the back and it came with the ink And the transfer sheets. Oh and it came with a hundred transfer sheets That's right the film the only thing we needed to pick up was the DTF transfer adhesive It's just a bag of powder Setting up the printer was pretty simple after I uncrated it I simply put the ink waste container in the back. It was just two screws and then a little plastic cup Then I had to put some ink tray for drippings underneath the printer But I couldn't really figure out where it went. So I just put it somewhere under there. If it leaks, I'll move it I plugged it in. I powered on the back power switch I let it do its little thing and then I hit the front power switch And then I let it do its thing. I guess it's doing all the checks Then I ran a piece of plain paper through it just from the copier Then I ran a sheet of DTF film through it just to make sure those inner workings are pushing my paper through Next I filled all the little ink jugs. That was pretty easy I think peeling off the little safety top was the hardest part. I spilled the blue everywhere Once the ink was in I used some syringes and I just primed each of those little print heads Just getting that ink started Just pulling it through. I'm only sucking about two or three millimeters of ink into the syringe The first few I dumped back into the little tiny tubs But the next I squirted into the trash and I rinsed them out. Next I primed the ink waste I unscrewed the little cap, stuck the syringe in there, and I just started the the ink waste Installing the software is probably the hardest part because my window's virus protection kept thinking it was a trojan horse So I installed the software the first time to create the folder I went ahead and excluded that folder from my virus protection And I reinstalled it and it seemed to work fine. I then installed the drivers I connected the printer to open the software and use the software. I need a little dongle I needed a little dongle say that's five times fast That's what they call it That was the encryption key or the software key for the rip software Now the rip software you're not going to be able to build or make any graphics in the rip software All that really does is enable you to put white background to it and print color then white It's kind of like a hack for the epson printer And once I got that installed I loaded it in our graphic and I did a test print All right, we're ready for a test print. Let's see how this thing works Let's let's get it going We're going to print our logo and try to put our logo on a couple of things. It's pretty cool It came with a whole bag of film. Yeah, there's like a hundred sheets of film So you want to print on the dusty side. There's like a dusty side and a dull side One side has this like little powder on it. You can kind of scratch it off That's the print side. You want to print on that so we're going to put it in a printer And this printer it's face up dusty side up We've mirrored our image. We've duplicated our image And you can see that as it prints it's printing face down. That's why we mirrored the image And you can see that it lays the color down and then it comes in With the white print head and prints white over top of it kind of gives it that white background Once it was done printing we used that DTF Powder that adhesive powder we rolled it around on the We rolled it around on the wet ink for a little bit Make sure it was getting everywhere getting all those little nooks and crannies a nice even coat And then we gave it a gentle shake off And we put it in the oven that came with the whole kit And that went in there for about 200 degrees Fahrenheit This shows Celsius and we went for 200 seconds All printed I tried printing with two different color settings This is the graphics and text. This was photo So the photo looked like it gave it a little better white on the back But the graphics seem to turn out a lot better like a little more crisp You can see all the little hash marks in the make We're going to trim these up and then we're going to put them on some stuff So we're going to start with a black t-shirt.  So everything else is like your sublimation. You do want to lint roll this shirt Make sure there is no lint under there And then we're going to give it a quick pre-press The temperature is 325 320 320 quick press You know, let's say while you're doing it. Hey, what's coming off on the shirt? I don't know. We're gonna find out. You might have to lint roll it again. Yeah All right, something was on the something was on the easy press I don't know who would have done that Who's using who's using the easy press last? Left in a mess Relent rolled Still warm. We're gonna start with the one that we used the picture settings for the photograph All right, so I'm really gonna find out where my center is and just eyeball this thing. Yeah eyeball it That's how I would do it All right, does it look crooked? No, it looks good. If it's crooked. I'll just stand crooked We're so excited about this. We're gonna get ourselves a heat press All right 320 for 15 seconds It's medium pressure medium pressure. So I'm just gonna lean on it. Just gonna give it a little quick lean As opposed to standing on it. Yeah, I won't stand on it. I'll just lean on it Let me come around this way so you guys can see me Oh, is that it And then we get chance to chitchat No, I think it was just back up to oh, did you do it again? I think that was it.  Yeah, that was it. Now this is a cold peel. So we're gonna give this I was gonna shake the shirt Just gonna get it off that hot pad Give it a little shake and Let's shake it. I won't stir it All right, is that cold enough? No, it's not cold enough. Why don't we start? Why don't we set that right here? All right, let's set this over here to cool down now and we'll start the next one All right, let's try another shirt, but we'll try it with the The other graphic now the difference between these you can really see that this has a nice solid white backer And that one is much thinner a little bit translucent a little bit translucent So I want to see how they both work. Yeah a little trial and error for you We're gonna tell you what our lessons learned are here See what we figure out. So second shirt same as the first Got my separator sheet Just so the plastic doesn't stick to it just in case 320 15 seconds What's the medium pressure? Medium pressure Medium pressure I'm on my tiptoes Yes One that's it get out of here. Come on now All right, this is also a cool press Oh, you can see it's already doesn't pop like the other one. Hmm All right, we'll leave this to cool Give it a minute to cool Cool it down Now I have some MDF pieces. This is what we've been waiting for. Yeah, I want to see how it works on the MDF See how well lines up if I can line up something that I cut on the glow forge Was something that I printed on the DTF printer Let me make room because you're gonna need to set it over here To cool right All right The thing about MDF when you heat MDF it will warp So we want to heat this Are you gonna do it? You're not gonna do it upside down. You have high heat tape on it or something Yeah, that's how I heat tape it. Okay With MDF once you press it and heat it you want to put something heavy on it. So as it cools It cools flat and it doesn't cool warped Just gonna keep it in place while I flip it So he lined it up upside down Layed it on the film and now he's gonna flip the whole thing over after he's taped it Yeah, that worked well. All right, let's do it. We're gonna keep the same time Yep, 320 15 seconds and pressure Now, which one did you use the one the photo setting in the one with the more solid white backer? I cut two of them now Oh, okay, we can try both of them. Great. Let's do it Oh, that was it such a quick 15 seconds. I love it. Yeah, there is a quick 15 seconds Oh, this slate is heavy. Yeah Here, I'll put it back here. Huh All right, we're gonna let that dry I mean cool with the slate on it. Was that the photo one? Yeah, that was the photo one All right, this one's got some burnt edges I wonder if we'll be able to see the burnt edges Good test. Good. Good test Good test. Good test. Good test. Look at us There are so many settings So many color settings and percentages I haven't gotten all that figured out yet. See. All right. Let's see a moment of truth All right, we'll start with this corner Yeah, that's a pretty easy peel. Wow the colors are super bright It looks good Interesting Man, I like how that pops on its shirt. All right, let's do the other one This feels like those t-shirts I had that I would get at the beach when I was a kid. Oh, yeah See the white needs to be poppier. Yeah, hold them up. Yeah So this was the graphic and text This was the graphic and text you could see how sharp it looks But the white didn't pop. That's the photo It's the picture the photo settings. I like that white that white pops. Yeah, that's perfect But I can't see the lines Yeah, you can't see the lines as much as much as you can in this one Well, there's a drop shadow and I think the drop shadow is messing with the photo Oh, yeah, okay, so can we do photo with Can we do graphics and text and change the white setting to match the yeah, we can try that Okay, we're gonna try that. All right. These are cooler. Do you want to try them? We'll start with the photo one. You let this sit. Oh, yeah, it's pretty cool All right. All right. Next is the peel of the MDF. Wow, that came off real easy Oh, that looks so tight. Oh, oh, I just smeared it. Oh, it's still soft I gave it a little smudge. It needs to cool longer. Yeah, it needs to cool a little bit longer All right, don't rough it up right when it's fresh out of the bag. So it wasn't cool enough, but it looks great I mean it looks great. Let's do the other one then There's the MDF on the back This on the front. All right, again, that's the photo And this is the graphics and text I think they both look great. Let me see But again, you can see through it. Yeah, I like the white the white really pops What do you think pretty easy right pretty easy pretty affordable For the kind of results. I mean, I wish you guys could feel that that feels Pretty cool It's said nice and stretchy our next our next thing is I really like how this photo stuff works on the wood That's that's the whole purpose for me. That was the big the number one reason for getting this So it's to really see what it can do on the wood and it take our uh rounds to a whole other level You know, those things go like hot cakes now wait till they see what we got cooking for them right now Yeah, they got some new ideas and we're excited to try them out. So are you on the fence about getting a DTF printer? You're going to get a DTF printer. What do you think you're going to make with your DTF printer? You're going to stick the fabrics you're going to get a little adventurous and put it on other substrates Yeah, next week we're going to try some more materials. So come back and watch us next week where we'll try this On maybe a tumbler. I want to do a stainless steel tumbler.  We love you guys. Thank you The list keeps growing and we love talking to you. We get to interact. I share some files. You share some info I love all the sharing that happens in our little community And Wait, don't forget to join us on Tuesdays for our live where we're usually Doing a test cut Tuesday And painting a new file testing a new file and painting a new file for a new door round Moving on the edge. All right now go. We are about out of time So if you're not going to join us for the patron after show We will see you Tuesday and then next Friday where we'll do it build it and make it again I'll balance one of these little guys Oh, hey, it's a lot drier now Now it's not smeary Yeah, better a lot better Ooh, tiny I'm out


Kaiser Permanente Guide to Medicare Basics The National Medicare Program, which was created in 1965, has given people peace of mind and the security of knowing they'll have access to health coverage. Medicare is administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, and provides health care coverage to people who are 65 and over, and people under 65 who have certain disabilities, including end-stage renal disease after diagnosis. Medicare is made up of parts A, B, C, and D. We'll explore each one, so you have the information you need. Let's look at Part A first. Part A is hospital insurance and provides coverage for inpatient hospital, skilled nursing, hospice, home health care. Services not covered under Part A include custodial care and long-term care. If you've worked at least 10 years of Social Security-covered employment and are over 65, you generally will pay no monthly premium for Part A. Once you're eligible, you can sign up at your Social Security office. Then you'll receive a red, white, and blue Medicare card. Next, Part B is medical insurance. It covers services like doctor visits, preventive services, inpatient and outpatient physician services, outpatient surgery, lab, radiology, durable medical equipment, dialysis, and other medical services and supplies not covered under Part A. If you qualify for Part A, you're eligible for Part B, and you'll keep your Part B benefits for as long as you continue to pay for them. And here's something important to remember. You must sign up for Part B once you are eligible, because if you don't, you may have to pay a late-enrollment penalty. This penalty increases the Part B monthly premium by 10% for each 12-month period you decline coverage, and that amount is not a one-time penalty. It lasts for as long as you remain enrolled in Part B. There are exceptions to this penalty, such as a person or their spouse who continues to work after age 65. We've now covered Part A and Part B, which together make up original Medicare. Keep in mind that your employer group or trust fund-sponsored plans likely offer additional coverage to original Medicare. Let's move on to Part C, often referred to as Medicare Advantage. Part C is the part of Medicare that allows you to choose a private insurance company to provide your Medicare benefits. Medicare Advantage plans must cover all of the services that original Medicare covers. However, hospice care and certain care for clinical research studies are exceptions. They're covered under original Medicare and not Medicare Advantage plans. If you have a Medicare Advantage plan and need these services, you can still have them covered under original Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans feature a network of providers that you must use for care. If you choose to see an out-of-network provider, you'll be financially responsible, except in the case of an emergency or urgent care. When you sign up with a Medicare Advantage plan, you still have Medicare. You'll just receive your health care coverage through a private insurance company. Once you're enrolled, you will only need to show the Medicare Advantage plan's member ID card to get care. But you should still keep your red, white, and blue Medicare card. And then there is Part D. Part D provides outpatient prescription drug coverage. A Part D plan must have a list of covered drugs called a formulary. And you may only have one Part D plan at a time. You're eligible for Part D if you are entitled to benefits under Part A and or enrolled in Part B. The only way you can enroll in Part D is through one of these options. A Medicare Advantage plan that includes Part D prescription drug coverage. A standalone prescription drug plan which offers prescription drug coverage only and some employers and unions. Like Part B, Part D also has a late enrollment penalty. The penalty for Part D is 1% of the monthly premium for every month that you defer your enrollment. This penalty does not apply to those who are eligible for low-income subsidy, also called extra help. To apply for this program and get assistance in paying for your prescription drug premiums and costs, contact Social Security or your state Medicaid office or call 1-800-MEDICARE for more information. Now that we've gone over the four parts of Medicare and the benefits they offer, let's go over how and when you can enroll in original Medicare. The initial enrollment period for original Medicare begins three months before your 65th birthday and ends three months after the month you turn 65. A total of seven months. If you miss your initial enrollment period, you can sign up during the general enrollment period between January 1st and March 31st each year. And your coverage will begin on July 1st of that same year. If you decide to continue working after 65 but lose your employer or union coverage, you can take advantage of a special enrollment period, which is any time outside of the general enrollment or initial enrollment periods. In the next part, we'll discuss enrollment in Part C and D. To be eligible, you must reside in the approved service area and have Parts A and B. Some exceptions apply, such as if you have end-stage renal disease, also known as ESRD. Medicare has specific rules about enrolling individuals with ESRD. Unless you qualify for an exception, you may not be eligible for a Part C plan. For more information, please call 1-800-MEDICARE. Additionally, if you have an employer or union health plan or other health coverage through a company that offers Medicare Advantage plans, you may be able to join one of their Medicare Advantage plans. Most Medicare Advantage plans have limited enrollment periods. The initial enrollment period for a Medicare Advantage plan with Part D is the same as original Medicare.  You may qualify for a continuous enrollment period if you are eligible for low-income subsidy, also referred to as extra help. To see if you qualify for extra help, call 1-800-MEDICARE. There are also special election periods based on individual beneficiary qualifications that allow you to change plans or enroll in a new Medicare Advantage plan outside of the regular enrollment periods. Examples of these special election periods are loss of employer or union group coverage, qualification for low-income status, relocation, you have moved, or are moving. Now you have a smart, easy way to compare Medicare health plans, apples to apples. It's called the Medicare star quality ratings. Each year CMS uses this system to evaluate all Medicare health and prescription drug plans. Plans are given an overall rating from 1 to 5 stars. 5 stars meaning excellent. These ratings are based on major categories which include preventive care, chronic care, prescription drug services, customer service, and member satisfaction. Whether you're choosing or changing coverage, these ratings are a simple, fair way to compare plans in your area and help you make a more informed choice. So now you have the confidence of knowing the basics of Medicare, understanding what the four parts A, B, C, and D represent, the important enrollment periods, and the significance of the Medicare star quality rating system. If you need more information about Social Security and Medicare, including Medicare star quality ratings, please use these important websites and phone numbers displayed here. These references can also be found in our enrollment materials. Thank you for watching and stay well.


If you're interested in getting involved in this stuff and haven't got much support, you need to be passionate. You need to be feed income and you need to stick at it. When we first started this in the Brigade, I went and looked at what the Brigade had done in the past. One of the members had done some work with the school kids. Another guy come down from New South Wales from the Royal Fire Service. He did a bit of work with that. Another guy I just like to talk to people. These are the things you can get your members to do. People who got an interest in something, pick up on it and use them. You don't have to use fancy words like community engagement. Brigades have been doing this stuff for years. Adding clones when I was talking to people. What I'd say is we're just going to get on the street and talk to people about preparing their properties for the fire season or else I want to put a stand on the show to do some recruiting or to prepare for the fire season. This way guys understand what you're talking about and you get them on board a lot easier. Initially Brigade members saw this not as our role. Possibly someone else's like Regen or Headquarters or District. But now they're more coming on board and we've got a quite a successful summer fire safety program in place. If you have an event and you only get one person turning up, that's a win. You've had one person there. Some members will say, no, why bother? All that effort for one person. No, but to me though, one person turning up, they'll talk to others. You've got the message out there. It's a one person say you've had a win. Even if no one turns up, you've done only advertising, you're getting out to the community and the community's seeing what the Brigade's actually doing and not just fighting fires. If you're in a small brigade or in a small town, you don't feel it's got the resources to do this sort of work. In the Bendigo area, Lodden Malley formed a group of a number of brigades that are working together to promote community engagement and it's top stuff. The main thing to remember is be passionate about what you do. Expect that it's going to take a while and stick at it.