Okay. Okay. Hi, I'm David. I'm a student at Imperial College London and an engineer at Symbiotic EDA. So I'm going to talk a bit today about open source FPGA tools, just to get a kind of quick idea of the audience. I mean, how many people have used an FPGA anyway before? Oh, cool. More than I was expecting. Awesome. So just for people that haven't before, so what is an FPGA, field programmable gate array? It's programmable digital logic. If you look inside a modern commercial FPGA, there are two really fundamental elements. There's a lookup table and a D flip flop. Lookup table has maybe four, six inputs and one output, and you just tell it what the binary value of the output should be for all possible combinations of inputs. The other fundamental element is a D flip flop. That's just one bit of memory storage, and that's used to build sequential circuits that do more than just combinational logic. All those elements are connected together by user programmable switches. So effectively you have a big, big device full of programmable logic that you can build any logic circuit you want on it.  This is all configured by something that we call a bit stream. It is literally that a load of bits that just set up all this functionality, set up all the wiring, fill the lookup tables, et cetera, et cetera. Unfortunately, this is the sad bit. Most FPGA development uses the officially provided closed source tools and the companies that sell FPGAs, they don't tell you how these bit streams work.  There's nothing like that for an FPGA. So I'm going to particularly talk about one particular FPGA, the Lattice ECP5, and that's what I've been working on recently. So that has up to 85,000 logic cell. A logic cell is a standard element in FPGA. That's one four input lookup table, one D-type flip-flop, and some dedicated carry logic for building fast adders. It's got, as well as those basic elements, it has 3.7 megabits of block RAM. So that's bigger, 18 kilobit blocks of RAM that you can build for larger memory for processors, for cache, all that kind of stuff. And it also has 156, 18 by 18 multipliers. So that's really, really useful for things like signal processing, video effects. I think the kind of vendor's intended market for this FPGA is things like small 4G base stations. And finally, it has what we call 30s, three gigabits per second or five gigabits per second. That's for doing fast interfacing, PCI Express, USB 3.0, those kind of things. And it's that cheap as well. So it's, pricing starts from $5 for the normally 12K logic element device. That's quite a bit of FPGA for your money. It's bigger and cheaper than the I-40 FPGAs that the open source of the past has supported. So looking into the architecture of this FPGA in a bit more detail, you split the chip up into what we call tiles. And each of those tiles is then split up a bit further into four slices. A slice is two lookup tables, two flip flops. It can also be configured as a 16 by two RAM and two flip flops. And there's some two-input multiplexers for connecting those lookup tables together to build bigger lookup tables. This is quite similar to slices in lots of other modern FPGAs. The Xilinx FPGAs have a very, very similar structure. They just use six-input luts rather than four-input ones. And then you have a large number of fixed interconnect wires inside the chip. And those are connected together by what lattice call arcs. But in the open source world and in the Xilinx world, what tend to be called pips, standing for programmable interconnect point. And unlike some earlier FPGAs, all the wires and arcs are unidirectional, so signals only ever go in one direction. So if you actually look at how the connections work, all the programmable connections are basically just multiplexers between wires. And finally, you have a dedicated global clock network. So the clocks of all the registers have special wiring going to them because your clock needs to go to almost every point in the device. You don't want to be using general routing for that. So if you do a plot of all the tiles and you can find this inside the open source bitstream documentation, this is what it would look like. And this is the smallest DCP5. So FPGAs become quite big quite quickly. So obviously this is not much use, but you can start to see some rows of RAM, big, big C, lots and lots and lots of logic tiles and IO around the edges. So if you just look at all these different things, you've got the yellow, which is DSP and IO at the edges. And finally, the high speed sirdies at the bottom. So just zooming into a much smaller part of that, so that's the IO around the edges. There's the logic tiles and the logic tiles contain both the logic functionality and also the interconnect, so the connections between wires that's programmable. There's actually a bit of a anomaly here because when you look at, for example, a RAM tile, a RAM tile doesn't have any interconnect in, it just has the functionality for the RAM and then you have a separate tile called a CIB which has the interconnect in. And the other interesting anomaly is that they split the device up into a kind of grid system but they don't really follow that grid very well because you end up with, in some cases, four or five tiles all at a single location. So these tap drive tiles are part of the global clock network. So I mentioned that it's a unidirectional architecture made up of multiplexers. Once you've looked at the bit stream, you can actually start to get an idea what the circuits on the silicon would look like. So this is basically what programmable interconnect and FPGA looks like. So these zero, one, two, three, four are bits in the bit stream. So these select one of these six signals coming in to a signal going out. So for example, that connect to the input of a logic function and these would be your general routing throughout the device. And you always have this cascade of two multiplexers which works out to be quite an efficient way of doing this in the silicon. You can, in fact, create a short circuit. For example, if you enabled one, three, and four, you would actually end up with an internal short circuit. And in theory, if you enabled enough of these, you could possibly get the chip to de-solder itself as legend goes. It's not something I've tried and it's hopefully something that will never happen but could be a fun experiment. So the open source tools, where are they at the moment? So we have bit stream and routing documentation for almost the entire functionality of this chip. The only thing we're missing at the moment are some of the more obscure modes of the digital signal processing stuff but that's something to look at a bit later on. We have documentation of all the internal delays, the timing for the core fabric, the logic cells, input and output, and RAM. And then we can use that in a timing-driven use this at the next P&R flow supporting the majority of functionality going fully open source all the way from Verilog to bit stream. So this open source bit stream documentation, this is part of the documentation for a logic tile. This is an overview of what all the bits do. So for example, you have the LUT bits at the bottom, routing bits for the D, B, C and A inputs, vertical routing bits, some miscellaneous input bits. And then if you scroll a bit down in the database you start to see individual configuration bits for particular functionality. So this is a routing multiplexer connecting from some long distance wires and the LUT outputs onto another long distance wire. So these show which bits you have to set to enable the connection from that signal onto that signal. So you can, if you remember the two input, the two level multiplexer I showed a couple of slides ago you can see how that's represented in the bit stream. You always have two bits enabled at a time for any connection. Then looking at something like the bits to configure a LUT inside the database. So you have 16 bits to configure a four input lookup table and we just map each bit to say which bit in the bit stream does. A little interesting thing in the FPGA is the bits are for reasons I'm totally unknown, actually inverted and that's just represented with the little exclamation mark in the database. No idea why they did that but I'm sure there's a very, very good reason. And then you have a few more settings. So for example, the output widths of a block RAM just have a list of the possible values and the bits you'd set to enable that width. So to play about a bit more I decided to make a textual configuration format because a bit stream is just a series of bits. It's not very useful to a human. So the idea is how can we represent this in a way that's still very low level not like very log source or anything but that's easy to see what's going on. And this is to test the fuzz results. And so I built some tools to convert bit streams through or from a textual config format so you can use that to check that you're getting sensible results for simple designs. Look for unknown bits in bigger designs. Check that you've worked everything out. And I also ended up using this format as an intermediate format for post place and root designs in the end. So this is what the format looks like. You have split up into tiles. You have the arcs, the connections, configuration words like lat initialization and the enums which are like textual settings. So this is a slice configured in carry mode. So as well as bit stream documentation to end up with a useful FPGA flow in the end you also need to document the internal timing because again you need to know that a design whether or not a design can work at a given frequency. So you need to know how big the delays are for the routing and the functionality in order to do that. And again like the bit stream documentation they provide some very very high level documentational timing for example how slow a 16 bit adder might be but it's nothing useful enough to build tools with. So again we had to document that ourselves so the vendor tools can create something called an SDF file from a design which gives you all the delays through the cells so getting the delays of things like LUTs was easy enough to extract from that. Routing was a bit harder because they don't tell you the delay for a particular connection. They tell you the delay for a whole net which has multiple connections in. In the end I had to build up a kind of rough hypothesis of how the model worked and then throw it into a least grad solver comparing what I thought my model would be with a load of unknown parameters against what the vendor tools say the delays actually are to work out all the routing delays for the individual switches inside the FPGA. So that's kind of the documentation side of this talk done. And so now from an end user point of view what's the kind of actual FPGA flow that makes use of this documentation to do useful stuff? So the first part of the flow is YOSIS. YOSIS is an open source synthesis framework, Verilog synthesis framework. It now supports multiple FPGA families. So ECP5, of course Ice 40, the traditional open source FPGA. It supports synthesis for Xilinx FPGA. There's some very experimental support for Intel and I think Go-in FPGAs. Miraag's been working on support for analogic FPGAs. So yeah, it supports a pretty good range of FPGAs but it's not just an FPGA synthesis tool. It can do ASIC synthesis. It uses Barclay ABC as its primary route for logic optimization, although there's some work at the moment at looking at other ways of doing that too. As well as synthesis it can also do formal equivalence checking, it can do assertion-based formal verification, which is something that, as far as I know, there is very little else out there in the open source world and this can be a very, very powerful way to verify designs. And it's got all kinds of other really obscure things. I think it's got a spiced back end. It can do simple simulations. It can do transformations, all sorts. So that gets you from your Verilog to a net list, all FPGA-connected primitives, so LUTs, flip flops, but it doesn't actually tell you how they would fit together on the device. So that's for the place and route tool to deal with. For that we have Next PNR. This is a new open source multi-architecture FPGA place and route tool. We started developing it in early May as a replacement for a RACNA PNR, the existing tool for ICE40 that was very, very much a tool for ICE40 FPGAs only. It wasn't really portable to any other FPGAs and the other alternative we looked at was VPR versatile place and route. That's quite a well-known academic tool but it's really not very useful for doing real place and route for real FPGAs generating bit streams. So yeah, it's very much the design of Next PNR is for real FPGA bit stream generation, unlike VPR which is more for academic architecture research. And again, unlike RACNA PNR, the another older open source tool, it's fully timing-driven. So it's multi-architecture but unlike previous multi-architecture place and route tools, Next PNR architecture implements an API. It doesn't just provide say a set of fixed XML files or JSON files. So that gives you a lot of choice in terms of how you store the device database. And you can also implement things like custom packer to combine logic together. This turns out to be a very architecture specific task. You often need architecture specific logic that's quite hard to describe in a flat file but very, very easy to describe when you're implementing an API. So if you look very briefly at what an architecture has to provide, it has to provide some black box ID types. We don't even mandate these because some architectures will just have a flat ID. In some architectures, it's easier to represent an ID as a location and an index. Then you have functions like get bells. So that's the list of bells, the list of blocks inside an FPGA. Get pips, the list of connections. Get wires, the list of wires.  So the number of pips that can drive a wire, for example. And these are specified to return some kind of range, as we say, of a bell ID, of a pip ID, et cetera. Again, we don't actually mandate what that range is, how that range is implemented. So we say, you know, range, typical C++ range has to implement begin and end. Those return iterators, iterators have to implement plus plus dereferencing, not equal to, this is, I think, quite a bit more liberal than C++ specification, really. This is all we require. So if you're doing an architecture where maybe it's quite small, performance isn't a priority, just return a reference to an STD vector. If you're doing a big, big architecture, big ECP-5 Xilinx FPGAs, these iterators can actually be custom walkers over a complicated, deduplicated database structure. So there's a lot of flexibility here. So each architecture has its own folder in the next near-dark source tree, and we build a different binary for each architecture. I know this seems like quite an old-fashioned way of doing polymorphism, but it has a lot of advantages. We can do heavy, heavy compile-time optimization, lots of inlining can go on, and architectures can provide their own data types, but unlike, say, you're doing this with C++ templates, you don't have the big, big build cost, then, of parsing a whole load of all your code ending up in header files. So XP and R has good support for ICE-40 and ECP-5 FPGAs. There's some more experimental work going on on other FPGAs. There's a very, very experimental support for Xilinx 7 series using not a full open-source flow, but using Torq, which is an academic project, to get the device database, and XDL going through ISE to do the bitstream generation. But this is very, very experimental. It's mostly for doing research on very, very big FPGAs. It literally just supports lots of flip flops and no RAM, nothing fancy, but we're hoping to develop this Xilinx support further this year. And in the future, we're also looking at a so-called generic architecture where you can build up the FPGA programmatically using a Python API, maybe even specify the list of wires in a CSV file, for example, looking at things like that. Over the summer, we started with a very, very basic set, the very traditional FPGA place and route algorithms, simulator and e-link placement, and a kind of A-star-based router. Now that those are working well, we can look at more advanced algorithms. So I've been looking at ways of improving the placer, path-driven detail placement. Just two weeks ago, I've started working on an analytical placer, which will give us much, much better performance on bigger FPGAs than the existing simulator and e-link placer. Meanwhile, others are looking at SAT-based placement and packing that will give very, very, very good performance, but will be quite slow. So that might be good for the small-ice forties where you're really, really pushing them to the limits. As well as being extendable by writing C++, we've also got Python API. That's usable for writing extensions. We also use it in place of the TUCL API that vendor FPGA tools tend to have for implementing timing constraints, doing small manipulations, even prototyping new algorithms. And as well as that, it's got a graphical user interface. So you can see this is actually an I-40 FPGA, interactive Python console, and you can explore the net list there. So just sort of idea what the open source tools can do. This is a SOC, open-risk SOC, booting Linux implemented on the ECP5 FPGA built. Very long to bitstream with open source tools and an open source design in the first place. That's the, yeah, the ULX 3S ECP5 board from Croatia. Finally, a very, very brief announcement. If this stuff is of interest to you, there's going to be a workshop on open source design automation, looking at open source tools for FPGAs and ASIC. That's Friday, March the 29th this year at date 2019, which is sort of EDA tools event in Florence and Italy. So maybe that's of interest to you. So interesting finding out more. So project trellis, the bitstream documentation is there, Yoastus, Synthesis there, Nexpy and R, all on GitHub, all ISC licensed, permissive open source slides. And if you want to get involved, then IRC is a great place to get involved. Hash Yoastus, hash hash, open FPGA on FreeNode. The question is, can you build a 10 gigabit a NIC with the ECP5 if you paired it up with a PCIe5 sort of thing? So the ECP5 has 430s in total and you need exactly 430s to do 10 gigabit ethernet with it, running at S, I have, I don't remember the name, the 4, 3.125 gigabit ethernet protocol going into a PHY to do 10 gigabit ethernet. So that's fine, ECP5 can do that, but then you're left with no 30s lanes for PCI express so you would then need to use an external PCI express PHY using regular IO. So it's doable, but it's very much at the limits of the ECP5. For a given input, can you guarantee your bitstream will be the same? For a given input, can the bitstream be the same for a build? Are you talking about against ourselves or against the vendor tools? It suddenly aims to be reproducible, yes. There have been a few places where you've accidentally relied on unordered map ordering in C++ which tends to mean that it's reproducible on the same machines, but not on other machines, but I think we've got rid of all of those so it should be reproducible now. So the question is, you mentioned RAM, is DDR3 possible? Yes, the ECP5 has IO that's definitely designed to support DDR3. I'm on the last stages of the open source tool support for that. My master's thesis is very much in the direction of getting the tools to a point where a DDR3 controller can work. How do the vendors react to these tools? Lattice are a really nice company. So we've had the Ice 40 tools out for a few years now and they certainly haven't done anything negative. They're European sales division, invited us to give a workshop on them and things are starting to look quite good. So yeah, Lattice are a very good company. No comment. The question is, can you go the other way around from a bitstream back to RTL or Verilog? The answer is yes, we have a tool like that for the Ice 40, Icebox V-Log that goes from an Ice 40 bitstream back to behavioral Verilog. I haven't actually finished doing something like that for the ECP-5 yet, but it's entirely possible. It would just be a case of getting around to doing it. Yes, so the question is, can you explain how you get the timing information from the vendor tools? So what the vendor tools, what you can get from the vendor tools is the list of internal connections on a net, so the list of connections between the fixed wires, the pips of a net and the total delay of that net of all those connections. So effectively, you assume that each internal connection has a certain amount of delay and you can sort of split them up into classes. You say all connections of these class have this delay. Then you can build up a sum, equate that sum to


Teaching like exercise comes from the right balance of challenge and support. No challenge, no development. We've said this before. UDL is not about dumbing down the challenge. It's about making the challenge be higher, if anything else. The idea from Dr. Lin at Berkeley is a wonderful phrase. Education is about posing desirable difficulties. Desirable difficulties. You don't educate kids by making things easy. You educate kids by making desirable difficulties. That is, you've made good choices. There are desirable choices about difficult things. It's in their zone of proximal development, which is to say not too easy and not too hard. Desirable difficulties. The central core using her language of UDL is UDL is about decreasing the undesirable difficulties. That are not what you're really trying to do, trying to teach, but are undesirable difficulties that get in the way. What Grace and I want to move to now is to look at assessment. Because assessment is a great way to look at the imposition of undesirable difficulties when you're assessing so that your assessments aren't in fact accurate because they're not measuring a desirable difficulty. The thing you really want to measure is measured poorly because you've inadvertently put in undesirable difficulties. Things that are irrelevant, that are non-construct relevant, and they're getting in the way. So we're going to do that. The first grace is going to go back to the guidelines, work through them a little bit to say, well, here's the issues. When we're looking at expression to pay attention to, then we're going to look at assessment, look at desirable and undesirable difficulties. Grace, you want me to open up that slide, shall we? Great. So please pull out your guidelines. You should have those with you. And the guidelines, as you know, are the guidelines for designing lessons or looking at assessment or purchasing equipment. So here we are in multiple means of action and expression. Thank you very much. And what we're going to do is just do a little review again of where we are. The goal of this session is really to apply the UDL guidelines for you to have the opportunity to apply the guidelines to assessment. That's always a major question, is what does assessment look like through the UDL guidelines? I want to just review again when we talk about the guidelines, what our goal is, and our goal is to develop expert learners, and by expert learners relative to principle two, is strategic and goal directed. That is the ultimate goal. You can see that on your guideline. And here are the characteristics. They formulate plans, and this is really just a synopsis of what David said previously. Effective strategies and tactics, organized resources in tools, monitor progress, recognize weaknesses and strengths, abandon plans and strategies that are ineffective. Again, you're noticing that we're not referring to one specific category of individual, really just referring to expert learners, and all students fall within that category. Again, reviewing just a tad. This is the principle level, multiple means of action and expression, options for physical action, that's the guideline. Here we have the checkpoints that go under those, and you know that when you go on the website, you can actually go right into the checkpoint, look at tell me more, and you can find resources that support. Don't fall into the trap of thinking. One resource equals alignment to the guideline in and of itself. Really, it's just a resource that supports. It's not one isolated event or one isolated technology tool that says, I've arrived. You really want to explore what your goals are and move from there. And here we have five point of the fifth guideline, which is provide options for expression and communication, and that's actually what we're going to be focusing on in the deconstructing and debriefing assessment tools. So again, this is available right out of our guidelines. And guideline six, this is external to internal, and here we are providing options for executive functioning, and David has spent time talking about that. So one more is just to refresh. This is what our guidelines look like. This is a major takeaway for you. When you go back sharing ideas with your colleagues, if you're understanding the guidelines, the structure of the guidelines, and how to apply them, you have done fabulously. From here, we're moving to, do you want to move to this example, David? No. No, okay, good. Okay, so this is the order. Go to the, there it is. Okay, great. So now we'd like you to be test evaluators. What I would like you to do is to look at this item, try to figure out what's the desirable difficulty, what is it trying to measure, and then I want you to look at the guidelines and decide what are some undesirable difficulties, that is difficulties it's posing that are undesirable. They're not about the thing you really want to measure. So first, George, what is it really trying to measure? Then secondly, what are the things it's measuring that aren't that, that are getting in the way? They're undesirable difficulties, okay? First thing, what's the desirable difficulty? What is it really, should be, remain difficult? And then secondly, what are the undesirable difficulties? Things that are difficult but shouldn't be, shouldn't be there, okay? So we look at the guidelines. Now this time we're going to use it as a summary for everything we've been looking at.  First, do it reflectively first. Just pause and you think about it on your own. And then you're not to be included by your peers at that point. So spend, we're going to have enough time that you really will have time to just think about this. This is what students are faced with all the time. And then once you feel okay, I get it, then turn to your neighbor and just share what your reflections are you sharing on. And then we'll do a share out. Okay, so a couple of minutes quiet. What's the guy called? Think time. Two minutes, think time from our guy on Monday. Share, we all know what that is. Okay, and then we'll share. So think about what is it, what's the desirable difficulty? What are we trying to really measure? And what are the undesirable difficulties that would interfere with our ability to measure that accurately? Is this a real item? Yes, but these are all real items from, you know, they have sample test items across the country. I'm sorry, you didn't say where this one came from. I think this was Tennessee. Okay, so now we'll be quiet. Now it's think time. I think I find the easiest thing is to just look around you to find where's the most attractive person and talk to them. No, just talk to someone right next to you, okay? Just one more minute. I don't know, do people use this kind of thing? What do people do to get? Do you do that? Okay, there's always a way. So that's the way. Good, thank you. Thank you, fabulous. Okay, so there's probably people who are math educators. So I'm less interested in what the desirable difficulty is, but so who has a sense of what would be the desirable difficulty here? Anybody want to venture that? That's often harder than the undesirable difficulties. What's that? Well, we'll get to the undesirable minute. What's the desirable difficulty here? Right there. Yeah, understanding patterns. Okay, that clearly seems, but it's a little more than that. Yeah? Square numbers? We need a math. Wow, are they really square? Okay, so it's understanding patterns, but patterns in numbers specifically in this case, how squares work, how... But the second one is that you're squinching up. No, no, her back there, she's squinching up. But you're squinching too. Okay, we've got the two squinches.  The desirable difficulty is that you could approach this in a variety of ways and it's not automatic, we don't automatically go, oh yes, two plus three. Oh, I see, good. So you're saying it's desirable that it's actually a challenging item, which I think is too. So this is a good item in that respect in that it's not just which of the four, you click on one of the four answers of whatever. It's got some thinking in here. Great desirable ability. What were you going to say? It's another problem that involves visual pattern there. So there's a couple of things you can play with. Good. So it does have some potential, as you said, alternate ways to solve it, but it does get us into actually mathematical expression. How would you express this pattern mathematically, which is great in saying we want a mathematical expression. But you first want to understand the pattern and then we can get to a mathematical expression. Okay, so we can see whether you can do that. Now the fun part. What are some undesirable difficulties here that we would be inadvertently measuring that have nothing to do with understanding mathematical expression on patterns. So what's an undesirable difficulty? Well, school over here first. What's an undesirable difficulty people here noted? Yes? Multiple steps. Okay. Multiple steps inside the single item, and so then you start to get into kids who have attention difficulties, all sorts of things.  But it does break them down at least. So I've seen worse in that regard, and you have to I think, right? But okay, so it's measuring in part, can you sustain attention and effort over multiple steps? Okay? Good. Yeah? I'm sorry? And B. B. You have to write. Okay, so the great one. Do we mean to be measuring how well kids can write? Is this item. That is an undesirable difficulty, because Matthew can't write. So what does Matthew score on this item? Zero. Okay, so you wouldn't, so we wouldn't want to say write an expression, what would we want? Obviously they can use, you know, if you just said generate anyway, say there's a lot of means, make an expression in terms of N, whatever, but you may not be able to hand write. Yeah? Okay, go ahead. Yeah? Yeah. I mean didn't you have trouble understanding some of these, I mean this is hard writing. And so you realize, well the writing is harder than the math. And for some students, the writing is way harder, I mean the reading is way harder than the math, the reading comprehension. So essentially, and that's what turns out, people have done studies and shown that 50% of the variance for an LD student, 50% of the variance in their scores is the reading. It's not really testing math, it's testing their reading. So if you give hard reading items, and you don't do other things that we can think of doing, now I hope after these three days, you essentially are confounding reading. We're measuring reading, and then we don't know whether the kid knows the math or not, because the reading is really hard, it's the hardest part of the item is to do the reading, and so therefore a lot of kids are going to flunk and we have no idea whether they know math or not. What's some other things, yes? Sure, explain how you got your answer, what about that? Good. Now what, I was going to, she's saying the show or explain how you got your answer. It's interesting, that one actually doesn't over narrow the means. It sort of is saying, you could do them a bunch of ways, you could draw, you could talk, you could, we've done a lot of examples of this where we literally have a draw button, a right button, a record button, so we say show or explain, but you choose the method. So that if it said draw how you got your answer, that's narrowing the means to one means and kids who are good drawers do well, kids who are bed drawers do poorly, so we're measuring drawing. This is at least saying show or explain how you got your answer saying, well it's a bunch of means you could use. So that one's pretty good, yeah. So if you missed B, you got B. So C is a dead, if you have trouble with B, you're dead for C. So what's the word? They're confounded with each other, right? One's dependent, yeah. Go ahead. Sometimes many times I'm really frustrated and say, well I can't explain it, it's very difficult, but then we reflect and really understand their thinking process. This is asking for really a lot. Yes. But this is not, I know it, so don't bother me making me, we can think about my thinking patterns and then communicate. Good, so what would you say is, he's saying that some kids could do this mathematically sort of immediately and just do the math. And what they would have trouble with is doing all this stuff in the middle and is the item want that? What if they just did it? What if they just went, oh, it's X plus, X plus 2X plus 4X plus whatever and they do it right in the first, then the second part becomes now right about it or talk about it or whatever and you can picture kids on the autism spectrum who would immediately know the answer and not know how to express it in words and is that wrong then? Okay, tricky. A little bit louder, sorry. Can they create an expression that the whole thing's pointing towards along with the algebraic expression that can come in different ways and show it to you. Good, now you're saying so the bottom one is mathematics, it's a form of expression, right? I'm not able to hear you quite well. You're strong, kids mathematically frustrated because they know how to do that. Yeah, right. Okay, great. So we'd have to be very careful to say what is the desirable difficulty we're really after here in order to decide which of these things in the middle are useful in which are just a pain in the neck. Okay, other things. Look at the guidelines. We've not covered a bunch of things that could be and you don't have to stay within expression. There are a lot of triangles of triangles and if somebody has difficulty with vision they might see triangles within triangles or just four triangles of different sizes. Yeah. So the fifth step would be another triangle. Great. Remember I showed you this? Oh, I didn't. Yeah, there's a great slide between some kids see only the big pattern, some kids only see the details. So in fact, that's a very different drawing to some kids than others. And some see there's one triangle, four triangles, and you know whatever. Okay, and for whom is this completely inaccessible? The triangles. Yeah, someone who can't see. Alright, so then you say okay, here's the item and it says use the triangles to make the first 4,000 pound and do that. You can't do the item at all. So if you look at the top row under just the representation you go is something visual also presented in a way that's not visual so someone could do this. Okay? So what would you do? How would you do that? I won't answer it right now, but I think you can probably think, but anyway, so you want to make sure everybody can perceive it. So putting something in a drawing is really great for students for whom all the text is a problem, but then we need an alternative for the fact that you can't see. I don't have a strong math background so I'm not overly familiar with the curriculum probably as much as I do with people in the room. Is there in fact a mandating in the math program for a child to have to write an expression, and if there is such a thing then how do I as an LC in my school ask that my math teachers kind of juggle around what's being asked of the student on an exam, and is it possible to assess them in a different way without necessarily looking at those described curriculum objectives as writing expressions that still know that the mark on a repair card is valid, as much as you need to always do it in terms of marks, but how can you represent that on a report card with validity? She's asking about this word. Do you have to be able to write in mathematics? And this is where we would say this isn't overspecifying the means. It's saying there's one mean, right. There's lots of ways you can generate a mathematical expression. Matthew can do it with his chin. He doesn't write. He generates on an iPad. He can do all sorts of things. There's a million ways, and some people this word is ambiguous, but a lot of people it's not so ambiguous in this this one looks like you're supposed to write in a mathematical expression. Where's the one that there was the explanation, or explaining how if you say write, how you got your answer then we turned it into a writing examination. But if you say show or explain in a bunch of ways, then a lot of kids can do it in different ways. But you were getting cranky in the back about this. Great. They required to show all three ways. Fabulous. So you're already doing Fabulous. But required to show all three ways is very different. They have to do all three. Okay. So then you'd have to worry. Okay. Great. What you need is show at least one of them. Yeah. The word required is the problem. I see. That's very interesting. Great. Yeah. And required and. Wow. Okay. Great. Well then what we want to say is you need to express this and here's the alternative ways you could express it. Right. But what we don't, everybody needs to do it in a second. What? That's right. All four are possible. And you'll be demanding. They need to show that they understand the math can't just draw pictures. But if you say you've got to do this, this, and this, then of course kid who can't draw Matthew all of a sudden he looks like he can't do math, which is ridiculous. In fact, who wouldn't be able to do math? It's wonderful because you can look at the people. My favorite story. Sorry. Great one. If you ever want to hear a guy give a fabulous talk about assessment, it's the guy who the movie Jurassic Park, remember was made around a specific guy who was a, what do you call him, not an archeologist. What do you call him? An oceanographer. Paleontologist. The paleontologist, he was in high school he was already into paleontology. He was a brilliant paleontologist in high school. He was studying dinosaur eggs and, you know, was amazing. And you know what? He won the state science fair three years in a row. This is a guy who's really brilliant. But when he took his tests in his regular physical science class and his biology class, he got out. He flunked. He would be flunking general science and he was part of the top level scientific exploration of mammalian development and flunking general science in high school. And it's wonderful to hear him talk but you think, was anybody paying attention in that school to go, maybe we've got something backwards here. He's a scientist. He's already contributing to the literature and we're flunking him. Maybe it's the test. And so you ask him, if anybody asked him, why do you flunk all the tests? Well, because they always asked him to write or to read and he was dyslexic. And he's still dyslexic. He still doesn't write his own papers. He works with other people to write his papers but he's brilliant. So what happened was all his tests were measuring his writing and reading general science. And if they took a little time to back to the way it said, can you draw what's happening in da-da-da, can you tell us about what's happening? He would have given them a long speech. He would have been fabulous. And he won some big presidential scholar award and George Lucas makes a movie about you. That's pretty successful. Weird that we've been flunking him as if he didn't know science.


This research examined the benefits of combining four different solar radiation models into a single system. Two satellite image-based models and two data-driven models were compared with an all-sky imager, ASI, based model. The results showed that the best combination of models was the general blend model and random forest, RF, blend model. These models provided improved accuracy over the individual models, with the greatest improvements seen at lead times of 15 minutes or less. Additionally, the study found that the use of satellite imagery-based models could be substituted for the more costly ASI-based models without sacrificing accuracy. This article was authored by Miguel Lopez-Questa, Ricardo Alamor, Ines Maria Galvan-Leon and others.


What's up everybody, Jason here with JasperJasperCaseBricks.com We're getting away two flawless spots here in this 1920 Panini Dauners basketball hangar, one box break, round two number four So for 3850 you have a chance to win a $500 spot in 1718 flawless random hit So first we'll do the break, we'll randomize the customer names and teams then distribute the hits out of the hangar Just remember no veteran commons will ship out of there and then at the end of the break We'll randomize 30 customer names again and top two out of the 30, one and two will get a spot each in the break itself So good luck. Let's roll it and we got ourselves a six and a one seven times. Here you go from Marco Daunendoyne one two three four five six and Seventh the final time Bradley down to Bradley at the bottom.  He's got heat with Bradley Robert the Bulls, Bradley the Wizards The rest of the teams here at Lakers doing So there you go quickly stick with what you got to quick hangar Quickly do the hanger really quick Dramon Green, Woosevitz Darian Fox Jordan Bohn, Cam Reddish John Dre Hunter, Little Zion. There you go. That'll pay for the spot right there Especially graded Definitely Asley, Samanich, Pow Guy, Romeo Langford, Jillian Noel So there you go Quick hangar Now let's see Who's gonna win those two flawless spots? Good luck. Yeah, and I just changed it right now. This is like cheese score. 62.39 now. It's crazy Alrighty, so let's do the randomizer now. Good luck Roll it and we got a three and a five for eight times. Good luck one two three four five six seven and eight Dwayne and Bradley. Wow. There you go Congratulations, you guys just won spots in the next flawless break here after eight times one more way to win guys is on the website That'll be coming up shortly as you see a refresh it boom 14 left the number five that fills the break. Appreciate it guys


And here is the man who galloped into your home television sets as the legendary Wyatt Earp. It heads the youth foundation that bears his name, Mr. Hugh O'Brien and guest Mimi Friar. This next man is one of your favorites for his performances on Ozzie and Harriet and Hazel. Just finished two years as a presidential appointee to the advisory council to the Peace Corps. My daddy was also a good one. This beautiful lady swam her way into the hearts of moviegoers all over the world. And we'll never forget our grow balls, the White House and many other Republican functions. That should be the Republican leader of the California. Here is a distinguished Heston and his lovely Lydia. Do a lot of reminiscing when I think of this next man and the songs that he introduced to the world. Meet now if you will. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States and Mrs. Reagan. I want to say first of all that this is a joyous night for all of us in the Republican Party to see our president looking and obviously feeling so well after his recent surgery. And I think we'll all join in and say we love you, Mr. President. Well, I've been asked to do something now that gives me a great somebody that we really want to acknowledge. This special lady and I'm convinced from the time she wakes up in the morning until she falls asleep at night her energies are spent working for the Republican Party. She supplies her own staff to arrange dinners like this one tonight and to raise funds for Republican candidates. As you may or may not know, our next guest has really served the people of California for a great number of years. California State Assemblyman, Los Angeles County Supervisor and Chairman of the California Republican Party to give the kind of strength to the spirit of and hope. But equally important, it is once again a very great honor and privilege for me to present to you the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you all very much. You haven't had dinner yet. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Governor Duke Masian, members of the Congress who are here, the Chairman Antonovich, ladies and gentlemen, and a special thanks to Margaret Brock for all she's done to make this the successful dinner that it is. And I'm more than a little overwhelmed now that I know that that building is what its name is going to be up until now the only thing named after me was a pub in Ballypourine, Ireland.  Well, California is always in the forefront of new trends. Perhaps this idea of a before dinner speech, I'll make it a short window, will catch on. I was happy to see our friend John Gavin, our Ambassador to Mexico. And Jack, as you know, has done a superlative job there. I think he's one of the best ambassadors this country has ever had. And we're enormously pleased that he's going to stay on in his post and continue his great work.  I've told Margaret Thatcher on several occasions that if only their people had come across the other ocean first, the capital would be in California. This is the first time that I've been with many of you since spending a little time in Bethesda. And Nancy and I want you to know how much your prayers and well-mishes and good wishes meant to us. We sat together and read many of the Get Well cards that you sent. Knowing you were with us in spirit was the best medicine of all. Some of those cards were pretty special and pretty memorable. Just one in particular said, Dear Mr. President, I was very concerned to hear that the doctors took two feet out of your inner workings. How did those two feet get in there? This was my second serious visit to the hospital since getting to Washington. And I'm not a little bit discouraged or anything about it. My father told me that optimism, and as Duke pointed out just a few moments ago, is something that is probably a part of my Irish heritage. As a matter of fact, there's a story that illustrates that. You knew that I'd get around to telling a story, didn't you? Had to do with a young Irishman that was bandaged from toes to nose as a result of an accident, couldn't move a muscle, he was in court suing, and he won the suit for four million dollars. And the lawyers for the insurance company went over immediately afterward and they said, you're not going to enjoy a penny of this. We know you're faking. We're going to follow you 24 hours a day and the first time you move, we'll have you. And he said, will you now? Well, let me tell you what's going to happen to me. In a few minutes they're coming in with a stretcher. They're taking me out of here and downstairs they're putting me in an ambulance. We're going straight to Kennedy Airport. There on the stretcher they're putting me in an airplane and we're flying straight to Paris, France. They're taking me off the plane on a stretcher, putting me in another ambulance, and we're driving straight to the Shrine of Lords and there you're going to see the greatest miracle you ever saw. Well, seriously though, I am feeling fine. And when we get back to Washington it's going to be full steam ahead. And if we're going to succeed, we'll need your help. I can count on you, can't I? I was hoping you'd do that. We've been through a great many political battles together. Mike Antonovich and Pat Nolan were just kids back in those days when I was making my first run for the governor's office. They were walking precincts for Youth for Reagan. And they called their gang, the brown is out to lunch bunch. I've still got the t-shirt they gave me. Well, now those same young people are assuming leadership positions in state government and some hold positions of responsibility in our administration in Washington. Perhaps the most heartening development in recent years is that today's crop of young people is turning to our party as never before. I used to say and sometimes discouraged back in an earlier time that every time I went to a Republican affair I thought the only young people there looked like they couldn't join anything else. But not anymore. In that 84 campaign all the way across the country and on a great many campuses and I could remember when if I went to a campus I started a riot but this time to see them all filled with energy and idealism at our Republican rallies all across America. Young voters will continue supporting us as long as we offer the way to a better future. As long as we're the can-do party with an agenda for an opportunity filled tomorrow the party with a positive strategy for freedom and growth. And today the Republican Party is the party of the open door. Here in California as in other states we're reaching out to Asians, Hispanics, blacks and it's making a difference. I know for example that a big factor in Bob Dornan's race for Congress was his going to the Hispanic community even though he was told why they belong to the other party well he got almost 50% of the Hispanic vote. Inroads are being made in the Asian community. You see the other party looks at all those groups and others and says they're ethnic groups. Well our party we look at them and we see Americans. More and more Democrats are realizing they have more in common with our goals than those targeted with the leadership of their own party and today we're a major political force for change in America. That's evident by the terrific job that Governor Duke Major is doing here in California and believe me we're seeing it all the way across the country. Now I hope indeed I know that all of you are going to do your best to re-elect him next year and I'll bet I know what his wish would be if he were blowing out birthday candles right now. It would be send him a legislature that he can work with. More Republicans. And while you're at it why not send another Republican to Washington as a senator to join the Republican senator we already have here. Now I hear there are quite a few people interested in the job and there's nothing wrong with that and I'm sure that practically any one of them would be an improvement. But may I make a suggestion 20 years ago our party in California gave a priceless gift to Republicans everywhere. The 11th commandment, thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. Have a spirited primary, but don't campaign against each other. Campaign against the incumbent and then stand united behind our party's choice and I mean not just talk about as we have maybe for too many years but let's go back to what it was like in that first year 20 years ago when the candidates themselves pledged to observe it and when Republican groups and organizations like the Federated Women said they would only support a candidate who subscribed to the 11th commandment. Let's bring that back and do it again and maybe this time it will catch on all over the country. I've been trying to spread the word about it for a long time and we'll get them every place. By being here tonight you're contributing to a registration drive that will give Governor Duke Magin the leverage he needs up in Sacramento to help us build a new coalition for opportunity and freedom. The other side would like to believe that our victory last November was due to something other than our philosophy or anything of that kind. They talked about personalities and things like that. I just hope they keep believing that. There's a change happening in America. Realignment is real. What the American people see is that the other party just keeps going in circles and it's just like, you know, when you get lost in the woods if every time you come to a decision you lean to the left you will wind up going in circles. Now in contrast we're going forward with confidence and with gusto. Gusto, that's Republican for vigor. A couple of administrations ago. We're not going to stop until we get the job done. Now I know that some of the same people who thought that we would be co-opted by the permanent government when we got to Washington a little over four and a half years ago now think the second term is going to be little more than a holding action. Well let me clear that up. Yeah, we're proud of what we've accomplished so far but we've got an agenda for the next few years and to borrow a phrase from that 84 campaign you ain't seen nothing yet. This fall we're going to campaign for the most extensive tax overhaul this country has had since the 1920s. It will bring down the rates and close the loopholes. It'll be fair and once in place it will energize our economy spurring investment and enterprise. People will have an incentive to channel the resources into job creating businesses and commercial investment rather than non-productive shelters and tax dodges. We're going to take our case directly to the people. It's a choice between the special interest and the general interest. This is a big one and with your help we're going to win it for America. Looking to the future we're moving forward with research on a project that offers us a way out of our nuclear dilemma the one that has confounded mankind for four decades now. The Strategic Defense Initiative Research Program offers us the hope of protecting ourselves and our allies from a nuclear ballistic missile attack. This will permit us to shift our focus to saving lives rather than avenging them. We seek an anti-nuclear shield using technology to make us safer. Our success will be measured by the number of people we can save not destroy. We keep hearing some self-declared experts and some of those blame America first crowd saying that our SDI concept is unfeasible and a waste of money. Well, if that's true, why are the Soviets so upset about it? As a matter of fact, why are they investing so many rubles of their own in the same technologies? One of the reasons the American people have turned to us is that we don't waver from our commitment to do what's necessary to keep our country safe and to secure the blessings of liberty for our children and our children's children. That is the Republican goal. And nowhere is this clearer than in Central America. We've turned around a desperate situation in the last four and a half years. One of the proudest accomplishments of this administration has happened slowly and quietly with little recognition. When we first got to Washington, the question we heard everyone where it was, will El Salvador fall to the communists? Well, today the question is, will democracy win in Nicaragua? And tomorrow the question will be, how soon? We've held firm. We'll continue to do what needs to be done to protect our country's security and help the people of Central America build free, prosperous and democratic countries. Today we have so many reasons to be grateful. Nancy and I have said a few prayers of thanks in these last few weeks, but all of us can be thankful that we're citizens of this blessed land. I want to thank all of you for what you're doing to keep it the good and decent land that God intended it to be. And I'm sorry we can't spend the rest of the evening here with you, but I appreciate, and I know Nancy does this opportunity at least for this limited time to be here with you. Just seeing you here like this makes me sure we'll preserve this last best hope of man on earth. God bless you all. Thank you all. Notice we're leaving to the right. The President says he wants you to notice that he's leaving to the right. One more time. Let's hear it, folks. Thank you. Thank you very much.  Thank you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your dinner. And this would be a good time to acknowledge Manny Harmon in the orchestra. They have been with us for...


BIND has suggested expanding a program that forgives the loans of people who work in public service. While this may sound like a noble idea, the beneficiaries include some extremely high-paid professionals working at non-profit hospitals, like cardiologists, who make $400,000 a year on average. Public service workers often have the best job security, healthcare, and pension benefits among middle-class workers, making them strange candidates for debt forgiveness. Why should students worry about staggering loan balances if the government is just going to cancel the debt anyway? It only discourages them from taking a more prudent path, like attending affordable community colleges before enrolling in a four-year university, or going to a trade school that arms students with practical skills that lead to high-paying in-demand jobs. If colleges notice that high tuition is scaring off would-be students, they'd have to lower their prices.


Akragana vs. Lados, Nigeria, which city is most beautiful. Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a sub-Saharan African Republic. It borders the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east, and extends across the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. Ghana's capital city is Akra. As of 2020, the city's expected urban population is 4.2 million. Ghana's capital, Akra, is the country's most densely inhabited metropolis. It is regarded as one of Africa's most expensive cities. This is owing to an increase in the cost of rent and lodging in recent years. Akra boasts numerous impressive infrastructures and facilities, making the city a site to behold. There are numerous tourist attractions in the city. Lados, Nigeria's and Africa's most populated city, is one of the continent's most important financial centers. This city has Africa's fourth highest GDP and one of the continent's largest and busiest seaports. It is also regarded as one of the world's fastest expanding cities. Lados boasts Nigeria's tallest skyline. Lados has a wide range of architectural styles. Lados is home to a plethora of attractive infrastructure and facilities. This metropolis has the potential to become one of the world's most developed cities over time. In this video, we'll look at two of Africa's most popular cities. Akra and Lagos are these two lovely cities. On the basis of infrastructure, cost of living, tourism, food and nightlife, a comparison will be made to see which city is more beautiful and developed. Infrastructural Development Akra. Ghana's economy has been growing steadily for the past two decades, with improvements in practically every sector of the economy. The economy has grown as a result of a decrease in poverty rates, which now stand at 24.3%, a decline of 4.2 percentage points from a previous rate. Despite these gains, the economy continues to be plagued by gaps in both economic and social infrastructure, which has slowed the rate of acceleration in the economy. Lagos. Lagos Governor Akinwani Amboud has made infrastructure rehabilitation a priority for his administration. The governor has commissioned no fewer than 10 infrastructure projects in the previous two months, which has fueled the momentum. The most recent are four highways in the state's Ikoi, Ediosa local government area. Thompson Avenue, Milverton, McDonald, and Latif-Jackin roads were among the restored roads that were commissioned as part of initiatives to regenerate infrastructure across the state. Because of the economic importance of Ikoi as a real estate hub, the governor indicated during the inauguration of the road projects that his government began infrastructural renewal and rehabilitation of the roads and drainage projects inside the axis in July 2020. He went on to say that the inauguration demonstrates his government's commitment to providing strong infrastructure and improving inhabitants' living conditions. Acra. The cost of living will vary significantly between places and lifestyles, as it does in most countries. Acra is the most costly city to stay in. Some development agencies offer a monthly rent allowance of $3,000 for a house or apartment, but this is insufficient. If you are young, healthy, and flexible and do not require the western way of life, you can live for less money. You can live quite cheaply if you don't mind living without air conditioning, without power for large periods of the day, in a neighborhood with some noise and dust, no official security, and so on. Another option is to share housing with others. Dividing the rent of a three-bedroom apartment in three equals roughly $1,200 per month for each of you. Unfortunately, landlords now need a one-year advance payment. Furthermore, certain living expenditures are exorbitant, for example. Electricity just increased by 75%, and you may have to pay for water to be trucked to your home during the dry season. Lagos. The cost of living in Lagos varies depending on where you want to live, however living on a mainland is often less expensive than living on the island. House rent in Ajij, Ashodi, Surula, Aicha, Yaba, Ketu, Ikordu, Ajidu Berger can range from 350,000 to 600,000 Naira per year, while those in a Koi, Lekki, Ajah, Victoria Island, and its environs can cost millions. However, there are still areas on the mainland where individuals pay annual house rents of around 3 million Naira. It all depends on whether you want luxurious or simple housing.  All you need to know is how to trim your coat to fit your size. Supermarkets, restaurants, and local markets all have a wide variety of foods to choose from. Tourism. Acra. Acra is a bustling modern city with wonderful food on the streets and a beach waiting to cool you down. From a bustling local cultural scene with everything from traditional song and dance to sophisticated clubs with the newest live music, you'll find all you need. Traditional crafts as well as cutting-edge contemporary fashions can be found. The city's Dutch, British, and Danish influences mingle with its West African heritage to create an unforgettable experience. Visit the Ghana National Museum, the Acra Arts Center for Artists and Crafts, and the Quain and Cruma Memorial Park and Mausoleum. Bojo Beach and Labadi Beach are just two of the several beaches in the Acra area that provide clear seas and sports like horseback riding and surfing. Lagos. Because of the country's diverse ethnic groups, tourism in Nigeria focuses primarily on events, although it also contains rainforests, savannah, waterfalls, and other natural features. Tourist spending in Nigeria fell from $2.6 billion in 2015 to $1.5 billion in 2017 owing to the rise of the Boko Haram Insurgency in 2015. Lagos is progressively becoming a prominent tourist destination. As a result of the remodernization project carried out by the previous administration of Governor Raji Bhavatan Fashola, it is one of the largest cities in Africa and the globe. Lagos is in the process of becoming a global city. The 2009 Iowa Carnival, which took place on April 25, was a significant step toward world city designation for the city. Lagos is currently known for being a business-oriented and fast-paced city. Cuisine and Nightlife. Acra. Acra Ghana has a lot to offer visitors, but for those who want good time, the nightlife scene is a real treat. The vibrant nightlife scene offers a fusion of African and European cultures. Acra has something for everyone, whether you are searching for a low-key lounge with an intimate atmosphere or a high-octane night out on the town. The Zen Garden, Inside Carbon Nightclub, and Champs Sports Bar and Grill, to mention a few, are all located here. Ghanian cuisine has mastered the skill of transforming ordinary materials into sublime delicacies that have become permanent fixtures in the Ghanian diet.  Lagos. Nigerian cuisine is rich and colorful, with spices and strong chili peppers, and visitors who want a taste of a country's cuisine should try Jalaf, rice cooked with tomato, onion, and pepper. Acara, deep-fried bean cakes. Banga, a palm fruit-based soup, or Moin Moin, fried fish, esteemed bean pudding, with a variety of posh, casual, fast food, and street vendor alternatives. Eating out in Lagos offers not just variety in ethnic and foreign cuisine, but also pricing and quality. The Victoria and Lagos Islands, as well as the Lucky Peninsula, have the most fashionable and recognized eateries. Lagos has firmly established itself as Nigeria's nightlife capital, with pulsing nightclubs, late night bars, and live music venues. The nightlife seen in the city tends to start late in the evening and last until the sun rises, with most clubs filling up around 11 p.m. Victoria Island and Ikoi are two of Lagos' most popular nightlife locations. There are a couple of wonderful bars on the mainland of Lagos, but they are exclusively for the more daring, as safety is not guaranteed. Pool parties are held at a few upscale hotels and are a terrific way to beat the heat while taking in the Lagos nightlife. Aulowo Road attracts a large number of dining and late night drinkers, while Pat's place attracts Nigeria's resident expat population. Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, stretches inland over the Lagos Lagoon from the Gulf of Guinea. The financial core of the city, Victoria Island, is known for its beach resorts, boutiques, and nightlife. Ghana's capital, Acre, is located on the Atlantic coast of West Africa. These significant cities are among Africa's most populous. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this video, please consider sharing it, subscribing to the channel, and turning on the notify button to receive future updates and do not forget to like this video.


What's up everyone? I'm back here for another video. So if you've noticed, I have my Discipline Workshop Graduate shirt on. So for everyone participating in the Discipline Workshop, we have a new process to give you guys a graduation t-shirt. So please DM Steven R.H.1 moderator or James Freelander or Harry Haas to find out how you can get a Discipline Workshop Graduate shirt. I think the way that we're setting it up is if you stick to your plans for I think one to two months straight, doesn't matter if you won or lost, but if you stick to your plans for one to two months straight and you posted the Discipline Workshop, you will get a special Discipline Workshop Graduate t-shirt. So that's number one. Number two is I'm back in Jersey, right? So I've been in Miami for about a month.  So back home in New Jersey, it's cold but you know it has pros and cons here. So I kind of want to get into the main topic of the video which is the Federal Reserve, Credit Suisse, the markets, everything is going crazy. So we're currently in a banking crisis right now and what that means is previous to well in 2008 the banking crisis was based on bad investments that the banks were making. So you know they were not doing their due diligence on lending money to customers but this banking crisis is very different. This banking crisis is based on customer withdrawals. So the way that a bank makes money is they take the money that you deposit in and they invest it in mortgages, they invest in treasuries, they invest in whatever and let's say they pay you 0.05% interest, whatever they make over that in interest, that's their profits, that's their everything and they're making two, three, five, six, 10% on your money right? So what's been happening is similarly to what happened at FTX when customers were withdrawing money, withdrawing money, withdrawing money and the bank didn't have it, well in this case the banks invested into treasuries from a couple of years ago. So with the inflation going crazy, with the market going crazy, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates which has made treasury bonds more valuable. So these banks a year ago bought treasury bonds for a 1% return for every 10 years, now they're paying 5% return right? So the reality is the market for those old bonds are trash, they're garbage. So when an influx of customer withdrawals came in, the banks had to sell those investments for a loss and that caused a snowball effect, a domino effect of more people trying to withdraw, withdraw, withdraw and what they ended up doing is they withdrew from the small regional banks and they put into the large banks like the Bank of America, the JP Morgan because they seemed safer. So the Federal Reserve came out and pretty much said that they're going to kind of insure every single deposit at these banks. So the reality is that FDIC doesn't really matter anymore, there's a FDIC limit of 250,000, that doesn't really matter anymore, it's pretty much unlimited insurance for bank deposits. That means that if I had a million dollars in this bank, the FDIC would cover 250,000 and the remaining 750,000 would be covered by the Federal Reserve which is kind of crazy right? So to stop all these mass withdrawals happening because the way it works is this is called a run on the banks okay? That happens when all the customers are trying to withdraw their funds at the same time. The banks have regulations, I think 25% of all deposits there have to be in cash right? So if they have a billion dollars in deposits, they have to have 250,000,000 in cash to be able to deal with withdrawals, mass withdrawals. The problem is that if over 25% of people want to withdraw their money on the same day, the bank doesn't have it.  It first started with Silicon Valley Bank and then started with Signature Bank. Now Credit Suisse, now XYZ, all these banks are kind of going under right? So want to kind of talk about what happened with the Federal Reserve, what happened with Credit Suisse now that you guys understand pretty much as they run on the bank okay? And the best way to prevent a run on the bank is for the Federal Reserve to say don't worry, we're going to back everything up, everything's going to be fine, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. If you remember this sounds a lot like COVID when the Federal Reserve came out and said don't worry, we're going to make sure that everyone gets a stimulus check, we're going to make sure everyone's money is there, we're going to make sure everything's right. So what happened over the weekend is the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, that means that the assets that they hold grew by 300 billion dollars okay? So this is a very complex thing, there's so it's going to take me a second to explain it. So there's something called quantitative easing okay? And quantitative easing is a measure that the Federal Reserve uses in extreme panic scenarios. Quantitative easing means that the Federal Reserve is pretty much printing money and injecting it into the system. When they print money and inject it to the system it creates price stability, it creates a floor for prices but it increases inflation. Quantitative tightening is when the Federal Reserve takes that money that they injected into the system and they pretty much just wipe it out right? They sell their assets instead of buying assets, they wipe out the money out of the system right? So when COVID happened they started quantitative easing, they printed six trillion dollars to inject into the markets and that led everything to kind of go up, it also caused inflation to go up. But last year during November of last year the Federal Reserve said not only are we going to raise interest rates, we're going to do quantitative tightening. So all that money that we injected into the system we're slowly month by month going to take out I think it was like 100 billion dollars worth of cash every single month they're going to sell it, they're going to get rid of it right? So quantitative easing is pretty much printing money, quantitative tightening is pretty much reducing the money supply right? So what ended up happening is when the Fed said that they're going to reduce the money supply by quite the quantitative tightening okay?  Now what's been happening is in the last weekend alone the Federal Reserve's balance sheet has gone up by 300 billion dollars. So that means almost a third of the quantitative tightening that they did okay? A third of the quantitative tightening that they did has now reversed. So it's almost like a secret quantitative easing hidden in a bank crisis okay? Does that make sense? So pretty much, it seems like the Federal Reserve is back to injecting money into the system, hiding it behind a banking crisis to make it seem like oh we're not printing money, we're not doing anything, this is not a bailout, this is not nothing. But secretly if you read between the lines kind of is a bailout and kind of is printing money right? So that's kind of where we're at now and that's why you see the markets rebounding the way that they do. Yes, there is a banking crisis, yes that is negative but if you read between the lines pretty much the Fed just printed 300 billion dollars like that, like that okay? And when the Federal Reserve prints money stocks go up, yes inflation comes up as well when you print money. So this Wednesday is a very important day because this Wednesday is the Federal Reserve rate hike decision. Before all this banking crisis happened it was priced in that the Federal Reserve would raise by 50 basis points okay? So half a percent they would raise and then this banking crisis happened and now it's changed so they're going to raise by 25 basis points right? So they're cutting it in half the rate hike that they're going to do but now speculation is coming in that instead of a hike they might do zero okay? They might not even raise interest rates this quarter right? And the biggest Hail Mary lob of them all is rumor is that the Federal Reserve might even cut interest rates okay? So now yes inflation is a big problem but I don't know about you guys the bigger problem is the banking crisis okay? So now we have two problems right? We have inflation going crazy and we have the banking crisis going crazy so if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates more banks are going to go under. If the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates inflation is going to go higher so we're in a very very delicate situation that's going to be resolved on Wednesday. If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates the market is probably going to crash. If the Federal Reserve drops interest rates the market is probably going to go up because the cost of borrowing money will get less with lower interest rates which will lead to higher profits for companies okay? So this that makes sense. I know it's very complicated quantitative tightening quantitative easing printing money rate hike decisions these are very complex things but you need to understand these to understand how the market is moving okay? Now let's talk about Credit Suisse. Credit Suisse is a very big bank very very big very important everyone knows about it. What happened over the weekend is the government pretty much forced UBS another bank to buy Credit Suisse for 75% off the market value. So Credit Suisse was about a I think around a six to eight billion dollar company and now they got bought out for two billion dollars. So that's to kind of contain all the systematic risk out there. So UBS just bought Credit Suisse right? So that bank is saved. That bank is saved which is leading to the markets rebounding even more. So not only has there been an injection of money into the system via the Federal Reserve not only has there been speculation that interest rates are going to go down this banking crisis that's happened the FDIC is ensuring the money the Federal Reserve is going to ensure the rest it's pretty much solved in a week which is pretty crazy right? Pretty crazy. So in my opinion all this banking stuff also is way above my pay grade okay? Even the billionaires can't figure out how to trade these banks. So how am I some herb from New Jersey going to understand how to trade these banks the biggest thing that you could do when there's a banking crisis when there's a Bitcoin crisis when there's any type of crisis is to understand that if the richest people in the world can't figure it out then you can't figure it out right?  So if you haven't seen that video go back and watch it. So the point is guys the point is in this market when there is mass speculation on banks when there is mass fear based on Federal Reserve interest rates all you could do as a small cap trader which is the stocks that we trade the reason why we trade small cap stocks is because people are pretty much buying lottery tickets we are shorting the lottery tickets that they are buying so what I'm trying to do in this market cycle when all the money is focused on banks when all the money is focused on these crazy stocks I'm just waiting for my stocks to get to my desired levels and trade it what you have to remember as a trader is your job is to wait for the best opportunities only we are degenerates we trade every single day about trades a hundred different stocks a day right but for me for me I make the most amount of money on the big place the bed bath and beyond the AMC sector plays sympathy plays first red days so for me I'm trying to patiently wait for those stocks to come back to the market which they always do and attack them yes you could experiment yes you could try different things but for me based on my style trading based on what I'm looking to do based on what is my personality is I am sitting on my hands and waiting oftentimes you have to remember in trading you are not paid based on you showing up to the market you are paid based on the opportunity it's like what I used to work at Starbucks doesn't matter if 10 customers showed up or if one customer showed up if I clocked in I was getting paid but in day trading just because you're clocking into the desk doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a they have a that you're guaranteed to lose money right so when these market cycles are kind of slow like they are in March I'm taking a slow I made half a million dollars in February half a million dollars in February I think I'm barely up like 30k this month something something really small I don't even know I haven't even checked my numbers but the point is guys that you could see when the market is hot like it was in February I'm stepping on the gas I'm hitting the nitrous button I'm fucking doing everything that I can to go but when the market is slow I'm taking slow I'm waiting I'm just trying to control my FOMO control my greed because the worst thing that you could do in a slow market cycle is to force trades and lose money okay so we're in a really weird place in the market right a lot of people are betting that the market is going to go back to the lows in my opinion I think the lows are in in my opinion with the Federal Reserve starting to lower interest rates with them start to print money I think we might have a chance to go even higher right so that's pretty much where I'm at in terms of market cycle credit suice is crazy the Federal Reserve is crazy Wednesday is a very big day to see what the Federal Reserve does it will jam the markets up in a crazy way it'll jam the markets down in a crazy way so I think the market is kind of waiting to determine what's going to happen on the Federal Reserve rate hike day and as you guys have seen small cap stocks are slow so okay it's totally fine let it be slow but use this time to double down on your education use this time to go watch my live training videos and use this time to just step sit back learn and see what we could kind of pick up from this market cycle so if you guys are interested in learning how to trade if you guys have more questions about trading go to myinvestingclub.com slash webinar this is a free mentorship course designed to teach you how to go from A to Z in trading and it includes a live trade for me as well so this is for non-members only um so check that out additionally please subscribe to the channel please leave a like please leave a comment please leave a comment about one lesson that you learned from today's video and maybe we'll send you a discipline workshop shirt so hopefully this video helps additionally guys one last thing if you made it till the end of this video okay right here's the end of this video where most people close the video they skip the video they fuck the video whatever it is I want to ask you guys what type of content do you want to see more for me okay because you know I'm kind of getting sick of these videos it's almost the same thing every single week and you know I'm recording live trading videos I'm recording you know trade recap videos but I want to ask you guys as the audience that is watching these videos what do you want to see more of do you want to see more of the day trading vlogs with George do you guys want to see my trades and then I kind of go in and do like a trade review trade recap the live trades I have reserved for MIC members but please guys I want to kind of reach a bigger audience I want to kind of make MIC more mainstream so I want to ask you as the audience what type of content do you want to see from me please leave a comment please let me know if you guys like these videos and fucking I'll just keep doing these videos but I want to kind of maybe do it like a Monday psychology video maybe like a Wednesday trade recap video and then like maybe like a Friday vlog video so I'm just trying to thank guys but I would really appreciate your feedback on what you want to see from me so thank you everyone leave a comment leave a like and I hope all this crazy stuff quantitative easy quantitative tightening money printing this that doesn't confuse you and if it does ask ask we're here to help so thank you guys I'll see you guys back in MIC