Here we go. Hello, everyone. Wow. Thanks so much for being here. There we go. It's interesting for me to be talking about design in the developer attic because the design is a core part of the development and we should be talking more about it and we don't talk enough about it. So a little bit about myself. I studied architecture back in Brazil. I considered doing computer science or design, but I did something in between and I somehow transitioned to be a developer. Working with games, like technology, Blender was my debut professionally as a software developer. I liked big time nowadays. I work here in Amsterdam as part of the Blender team and I've been doing more design and product management. But let's start with the basics. What is design? There are so many different definitions and some people see design as UI, UI UX. Now there is design thinking, product thinking. So I go by definition from Tom, Tom Orozendal. Everyone knows Tom, I believe. And design is something that exists in between UI UX and engineering. Something that's trying to balance both inputs, trying to find a big picture, big metaphor that works on the implementation level, but also in the user facing level. Bless you. For example, when we're doing view layers and collections back in 2.80, so 2016, we're trying to find different ways for users to basically to work and interface with their data within the scene. So we already had this metaphor within Blender of a database. That's why we have all the objects in Blender, all the data blocks. But we wanted to present a different way to splice that data in a way to be nicely visualized. So okay, what is a collection? Maybe you can show that as a folder, as a little bit you can have a different end view layers. That is just a different way to visualize the same data. But a design doesn't need to be something that visually from its conception or even that technical. So you can see here we are leveraging that we have a lot of technical input when you're thinking about all the implications of those solutions. But a design can be as simple as an answer to a question. So here from the audience, who knows what is an asset? Think about within Blender. Can you define what is an asset? Yeah, you're eating poor guy. An asset is something that you created that you can use in multiple ways. Well, we tried a more minimalistic approach. Asset is a data block with meaning. Okay, so if what are the implications of this? If it's a data block, you don't create an asset. You created a data block already and you just add extra meaning to it. Okay, how do we communicate that? What does it mean? So here we're trying to use the same visual language we had already established for layers and collections. And okay, if you have the main database, you select a few data blocks and you want them to be asset. That's why in Blender you mark something as an asset. You don't necessarily create an asset. The so-called metadata or the meaning is what you developers would call as metadata. So the I mean the license, catalog, author, the thumbnail and so on and on. And those simple like one-liners have a lot of implications. One of the long feature requests people have is, hey, I want to save these as an asset. Why can't I go and save as an asset? Well, because it has to be a data block. So maybe you could export as an asset, but save it as it doesn't give you all the answers because do you want to have all the dependent data linked to that or appended? How do you do that? So say, you know what? Let's keep it simple. Let users be able to handle all their database and what they want to share and link. They do it locally and then Blader just leverage these as we do for data blocks. The other implication of these is that anything that you want to be an asset, then it has to be a data block. So for example, pose a library, which was the first data block we got to support the new asset system, wasn't a data block in the beginning. So we say, you know, so in order to support these, let's make an action data block when you save a pose as a pose library.  Those are the pose libraries or I can even just have an individual ones. So there are a lot of implications to those one liners, but we try to care them further and further within all the entire development process. Another example who wants to guess what is, what are geometry nodes? Habib. Do you want to try it? Get it wrong. That's fine. Nodes that help you create mesh for geometry. It's also right. This is my asset. Everything is right. But we try to say, what, what, if we just treat jump to node as a modifier, a modifier that can handle complex behavior, but that can just leverage being in the modifiers stack and do everything. Another modifier can do. Okay. But what is a modifier? Modifiers for the non-technical users, they're just black boxes with some inputs and outputs. Okay. That means we want to be able then to have a jump to node as well abstracted where all the low level complexity is hidden away from the users. And you just have to deal with this high level interface. And that means for blender, we want to make sure the first citizen of the design is people make sure that all external dependency is listed as an input and people that really want to violate this design and have some hard coded values. Yeah, we do it after the fact, but we try to have this concept over and over and over, reiterated with the implementation. This is older. Less people might be aware of this because it is pre 2.80 as well. So for 2.80 or before 2.80, we had the render mode taken over all the interaction.  So don't have this idea. Why don't we have an overlay layer that contains all the interaction, which is composed stacked on top of the, what comes from the render engine. So this is like one of the early videos we had trying showing that already. So in this case, whereas I was able to move the object in cycles, it's still playing catch up. So you see like the little darkness behind the object for shape. And then you have the gizmos as a composed layer. In this case, it's not only as a one liner, but then we also try to communicate these so-called diagrams and try to say, okay, how good that, how, how good that metaphor is, how easy it is for users to understand for developers to understand. I've been farmed at this design change a little bit in the implementation level. So things are more intertwined, but we wanted to make sure that each mode had its own overlay layer, like edit mode, the object mode, the post mode, and to give us more freedom to develop them as well. Now throughout design, there's the big task of communication, right? Because you think about something, you're going to have to iterate over that. You're going to have to gather feedback from the team. You're going to make sure the whole team is aligned and sharing the same concept. A approach I've been trying a lot recently is the, I call A4 design. It's effectively a full HD because I almost never print those. And this is inspired by Toyota. Toyota has an A3 design approach where with one page of paper, you have all the information you need about a project and you can go and talk to everyone, gather all the kind of feedback, show to those stakeholders, the CS active levels. And of course, you cannot tell a whole story in a single full screen piece of paper, but you can exercise the power of synthesis and see how clear the core of the concept is. Thus the one line is like the one line expanded in four of using for not only feature design, but also anything you want to communicate. So try to go from bird eye view to examples and, you know, try to communicate. These we used for the new data types when you wanted to have volume and hair data types in Blender. And even the simulation node, these, I don't know what I'm going to do once you get later into simulation, but this we're trying to find about a metaphor, a lot of CPU. Can we think about the logic and events and forces us this unit that would be make it clear for people to understand. Now, so far I've been talking about big picture design, which is traditionally strategic design, it comes from oftentimes from Tony himself. He's involved in a lot of those projects. But design is something that permeates everything we do. So it's actually, it's also in the everyday work of the modules. Well, the modules have this big task. Okay. Animation 2025, how to define the future of animation or for sculpting. How do we make sure people that are already using Blender for rendering can also use for sculpting people that come from other sculpting tools. And there's a lot of work on flashing those out and get to the specific feature set we need and try to nail down what are the user cases that can actually better serve those projects. And a while in the strategic level at Blender, we have this really tight structure where we have an institute in the studio. So Tony and his keynote was mentioning how we have 50 people in the payroll nowadays from DevGrant to people on the staff. A lot of these are the studio artists, which are a core part of the development team. They help us with the, well, use cases and testing the features. So for example, the whole hair project we had last year was possible also thanks to bringing people over. So Hans, which works from America to over, and then we could work the trial two months together with the production of charge on how they make a scrubby male character with a whole new feature set for hair sculpting. And again, the use cases in that case. Okay. It's very what are the use cases? How do we flesh out to make sure everything you do is anchored on something that people need to do? However, as a Blender is a open source community driven project. We also have what we call stakeholders. So artists who get involved in the modules, either we invite them or usually they come and say, Hey, I really want to help. How can I help? So on the question we get a lot of, how can I help? I have a lot of ideas. Ideas are great. Your professional expertise is really something very valuable. So for instance, we did all the hair development also on top of what Daniel Bice did. And Daniel, by the way, is giving a talk now at one o'clock. So it could be there. Maybe I can speak fast. And what does a design look like at that level? From we have the wireframes of, okay, you have a use case. How do you flesh that out for jump to nodes want to do basic scattering? Okay. Which kind of functionality we need? What kind of building blocks we're going to need for this feature? And more recently, we're doing French Spanish for the nodes, right? We want to be able to organize the principle shader, want to be able to organize all the node groups people are doing to share their creations and tools, whatnot. And this is more like a bit more operational, but you know, we just have to iterate and again, talk to people, show to people. Now, those are so-called wireframe mockups. There is still a moment where you do want to transition to pixel perfect mockups or high fidelity and mockups. It's always a tool. Forgot it. It's a, you've got to find a balance on when to do that transition because the moment you go here, people are going to be pointing to why is that color that tint of gray, but I still with the digital tooling we have nowadays is a waste not to go there and you can definitely leverage just be able to copy, create variations to create iterations. Nowadays, we use a lot of pen pot is an online open source vector application. And besides basically mockups, we also still encourage like storytelling. Like what is the user journey when they're using a new tool? So this is for the upcoming brush assets system. So the draft system, like how do they expect people to experience? Can you, it is not even a wireframe is like a oversimplified high level picture interaction map of the feature set. And again, these we can then communicate and like their concepts, which are very abstract, like drafts. What does it mean to have a draft for a brush? Okay, how we can do it in a way that we can teach and then people can learn and teach again and understand and maybe the metaphor don't work. And then it will roll back, rise and repeat. But it's also, it's funny because we do design decisions every day. And it's one of those classic Mac that people say is like, if no one is a designer, someone is doing the design work, so go find who that person is and make sure they have the design sensibility, they have design training, because everything we do, we're going to have to make a decision. So I might as well own that and make sure we can raise a flag when, okay, this is beyond what I think I could elaborate myself and beyond my capabilities. Let me try to find more people to help. This quick example was something we needed to create for the warning system for when you open Blender with a file that has a mismatched version. What do you do? If you save that file, you're going to have a MyLoseData, you'll not be able to save it again. So quickly draw something on the white board. And then I think this is a mock-up. I couldn't even remember, I was showing this yesterday, it's someone like, is this a mock-up or the final result? Like, I don't remember because mock-ups got so good nowadays. I think it might be a mock-up, but the background is a screenshot. So saving time is as much as possible. Now, we do have models. Did it house structured Blender development, right? So nodes, modeling, rendering. But we do also have like 30 million downloads, 20 million downloads. How do we make sure we leverage the community without getting overwhelmed? How do we make sure we still have a centralized, cohesive design reveal without being pulled into every direction and yet make sure people can participate in the process? This is like the Holy Grail, right? You don't want to do design by committee, but you don't want to alienate people that can give you their own point of view, a feedback. So we do have a passive and active approach. Throughout all of these, it's always interesting when you see people standing out based on their attitude. I would never mind clarifying a design topic for someone who can position the self nicely. Say, I don't understand, can you explain why you went that route or not? But you also see a lot of people that going to find a lot of friction if they're already come from a position of feel alienated from the process or entitled, you name it. But basically we'll do a lot of passive feedback, which is we just go to the jump to nodes hashtag, for example. What are people creating with the tools we made? Because you can talk the talk, you can say whatever, but if you talk the talk, walk the walk, it's different, right? We know where your feedback is coming from and it's more grounded and you can work together to find, okay, for this, this, this case, maybe a solution can contemplate all of them. One recent example was the repeat zone we have in Jerome to nodes, because you saw people were just taking a node group and duplicating five times, six times, 10 times, when we introduced the simulation nodes, because it needed more sub steps. These require two different solutions. One is to have just a repeat zone and the other one is to have simulation sub steps. This is still coming, I believe. But basically developers do go to YouTube, to Twitter, to Massa, don't whatever. They try to go where the conversation is. They don't go necessarily to user forums because it can be triggering for a lot of people because of the attitude and the energy. At the end of the day is a work, right? If you're doing your work, you have to deal with toxicity. It won't make you happy. It doesn't make me happy. But this makes us very happy. The other approach, what I'm calling the active feedback, is sometimes for new features we try to ask for very focused feedback. Hey, for simulation, for, hey, we're having our simulation nodes. This is what you can do already. Can you show, not your ideas and opinions on the backbone, but can you show what you try to do with the feature? Tell us which workarounds you had to use and which showstoppers you might have had. And that's all we need to work together to get your kind of feedback. So even if you're going to post in our blog, in our video, if you can frame it like this, it's fantastic. Because then we know where your ideas come from. We know even the workarounds, which ones are problem, which ones are not. Maybe you don't even know other workarounds you could do. And so we did recently, not so yeah, we even did, sometimes we go as far as having a artist reaching out to us. Or in this case, I actually asked Erndale, so here Erndale, can you try to reproduce this, I saw a tutorial from probably, I guess with any Go figure. Say, hey, can you try to do this bridge effect or this castle with those gates and some ivy? He couldn't do the ivy. One of his feedback was like, hey, I need a for loop or for each. So maybe you need to revisit that attempt. But this is also a very interesting approach. Hey, you try to do something and you can share your frustrations, but also what you managed to do. Again, your workarounds and your showstoppers. So unvaluable. We actually might be able to free you for the Erndale hair talk. This is the last topic I wanted to bring, because this is a very condensed talk and I'm going to open for questions, of course. But so far I've been talking about almost an idealized work. Okay, we have this one big picture and everything worked great. These are the tools you try to use and we communicate and people like, yeah, they all shake heads and it's fantastic. It's not, so this is more a cautionary tale of something that's happening right now. So for grease pencil or grease pencil 3.0, you want to integrate a grease pencil with jump to nodes. And for that we say, okay, within the jump to nodes, what if we could try this one liner that grease pencils are just curves as far as the user is concerned. Or if you want to have a specific layer or care about specific performance, maybe you need to know how to do more. But it's one of those like try to do simple things simple and complex things possible. It's a cliche, but it's a pretty good cliche. Okay, so grease pencils are just curves for jump to nodes. Okay, first that means we expose then grease pencil as a new component on the spreadsheet and on the separate component nodes. Okay, then we have a layer as a new domain. So you can, you know, evaluate. I'm getting too much into jump to nodes. Sorry about that. Don't need to follow along that closely, but then we have to you can treat the layer of domain just as we treat spiline, splines and points. And then we went over then all the curve specific nodes and converted them to also support grease pencil. So instead of having like one big node called grease pencil to curves and now any curve node that people are already used to how it works should just be converted to it.  But then that's interesting when you start developing something, you're like, oh, then we didn't thought about that or that has too many implications. So in our case is how do we handle the layers in the case where we are not outputting curves anymore? For example, the curve, the point node. Do you want to flatten and all the layers in one single point cloud? Or do you want to keep the point cloud of each layer still grouped as an instance? It's not an easy answer. Like for us so far, what we have now in the daily version of Blender is a version where we have the different groups with instances. But then, and that's super interesting because it's super fast. So hey, performance. But then for users, that means all of my group, which I don't know the black box concept again, if these are black box, I don't know what's happening. I usually put a curve and get a point out of this. Why if I put a grease pencil now I'm getting an instance?  So it has some implications and tradeoffs. So what we try to do is to make sure we don't make those big one-liners lightly and then make sure like we try to do what's called reality check a little bit to try to say, okay, can I have everyone on board of that? Is it clear to everyone? Because again, design is not something that should be delegated only to a design team that's not talking, but it's something that everyone in the team should be, you know, should be respectful and sensitive to it and try to work together on that. I talked a bit more about some of those topics in the presentation I had at PEMPOT. If you're interested, go check it out. And I think we're done with the talk and then open for questions. Thank you very much. And we have six minutes if you want to go to Daniel's talk. But does anyone have a question? I have here, I have the whole date. Okay. Ty, I mean it'll be the node in Jump to Nose. Okay. But I'm not, but Karen, we saw the question was about how I'll co-inspecting tools and how can we analyze the specific data coming out of a node. How do you treat debugging as a legit use case as well in the case of Jump to Nose. So we first started with the spreadsheet editor as a tool which usually you don't need. That's interesting. Like, okay, usually we're making tools for artists to use the tools. But sometimes you need to make a tool for when things don't work. It's a very interesting challenge. So we did, we do this in two ways. One is having to adjust the spreadsheet editor which is also an educational tool for people to even understand what is inside my object. Oh, those are, this is my mesh. You also have the concept of the viewer node where we make sure and again those things are easy to say and hard to implement because we make sure you cannot at any point stop your node three and see, okay, what is being evaluated at that point and show me on the on the spreadsheet. We didn't go far beyond that. We know there are a lot of needs for debugging tools, especially you want to bring the debugging for the viewport like with gizmos. But I mean, within the context of the design topic, I think is a is an is a case where interesting to look at is as I use a case for the technical artists or debuggers. And so I think it's an interesting challenge, but we're open to understand what is missing on the existing tool set. So come talk into the oh, sure to me, but to Jack or to Hans. Overall people with the green pin, they are developers, they can be praised and harassed with your class. Speaking of people that need a blooping, it's for you, how for you? Howard is oh, the gift on our developer. Howard helps the whole Boolean for a developer with commit access with Caron. Okay, so the question I mean, I'm repeating because a microphone doesn't catch people speaking. So it's, I think basically saying that it's nice to have a big concept and whatnot, but how much of that gets to the final users, right? It's a fair question, because in theory, it don't even need. In theory, if the design is cohesive, the users would just feel that things work. It's a classic thing in blender where it can just press G anywhere. And it can just move your node or your object in the viewport. And things, so we have this cohesive abstraction that works everywhere. So it's like the spreadsheet editor. You shouldn't have to explain a design for people for it to click. But we do try that in two ways. In a way, like the user manual is something that people downplay its importance. But the user manual is not for the final users necessarily. It's also for educators, content creators, because those are people that are going to replicate what is the message, how we should be using that. So what we do also is make sure we are communicating, again, communication, communication. So I do write a lot of in the blog posts in the code blender.org. And I think we should do more work on that. So every one of those images I had in, this is on the wiki page, but all those examples here, they are fleshed out in the basically in the code blog. And I don't know what else it could be doing, but I guess it could be hammering more and more like those concepts. For me, it's a bit less of the concept more about trying to encourage developers to think about those one liners for themselves as well and for their project and see how far you can carry that metaphor. So, for example, before we had fields we've jumped to nodes. We're, we could, we had a different approach, right? And then we were trying to have a approach where everything we have is a data flow. So every node just get data in and the data out. And we try to see, okay, how far we can push that. And we had a few more caps on that. So this is what I call, I forgot the name of this, but basically have like two explorative designs. So what are the implications with the use cases to have to pass every single attribute you want to be propagated to every single node? It gets a little bit annoying at some point because you might want to retrieve a selection that you created in the beginning of your node three in the end. So Jack came up with the concept of the fields. And then, okay, it's a very, very hard concept to understand. But then how do we indicate to users that something different is happening? Okay, we have the dashed line, we have a different socket. And there's something we never achieved is that we have ways sometimes to illustrate a concept, but for, it's like sometimes it's very abstract. But there's a difference between illustrate a concept and to visualize what that means. Or maybe it's not the way around, but one of the things to show like for the simulation zone it's clear that we have a different color is something interesting is happening there. The way we visualize not necessarily help users to understand what is happening there. So there's a lot to be improved in that phase of the design as well. But first and foremost you try to make sure that different concepts are shown differently. And if you have one concept defining blender like layer so the grease pencil layer we've been having this debate like yesterday like is layer just grouping? Then come on we're gonna have in the future layered texture. So layer is something specific for grease pencil now because it's about composition. Not about grouping about compositing and the order of drawing. Okay, so that's not if you want grouping for mesh then that's a different concept let's try to have then a different concept. So more questions? Curiosi? Oh, like what format? CSV? Okay, CSV. Yeah, okay. Yeah, the question is specifically about how could I export for a file like a CSV file or we have something that works within Blender but then you want the outside of Blender in a different format. I'll try to reframe it for the context of design and what you're talking here. That's a pretty good question though. So short is we don't have an option but we thought about that but for us is also about maybe the use cases and I mean we do plan to have importing and exporting of CSV files but one of the challenges of design that we try to do is you know design the naive design we believe is just trying to make everyone happy and less make design for everyone and that we don't believe that much in that I don't believe that much on that. So we get to pick a specific audience and use case so we've been focusing so far into the animation pipelines that's why we see use cases which are grounded on the what you need for short film and we're hearing more and more feedback from the scientific I'll guess scientific community the game industry like hey we also like to do procedural more modeling or not the other we hear a lot also hey I want to do in setting I want to do a lot of modeling operations like we know is in the roadmap but we haven't been prioritizing that so in its context is more like we haven't been prioritizing those features yet because we have been trying to first make sure we have one audience that is well supported and then we can use that to basically to check what are the features that that design is valid and eventually can expand further it is one of the things that would easily I mean you can probably do that in Python already by the way should it should be very straightforward yeah yeah for me I'll then say it's one of those cases where it would be really nice if you feel invited to go to the dev talk forum and say hey this is what I'm doing this is what I'm trying to do this is the current work around yeah using Python what not those are the problems of this work around and the show stoppers pretty good example of that dev dev talk dev as in development dev talk the blender.org so it's a pretty good question because there's two more hands and I think I have no idea about time but I guess it's their talk here at one o'clock I hope not right okay so we can see have those questions the spiderman is outside of the node three oh the color map it's a good question so the question is about whether we could have color for the color map color space control within a specific shader no okay I got a question so basically we have a few specific nodes that have a very specific interface like you can do a curve slide you can hold a color ramp color map and then those things work well as individual nodes but you don't have a way to wrap them to a higher level node group that uh they have the same problem in jump to nodes where you cannot expose this for the what fire this is uh again a very interesting question because one of the ideas for jump to nodes as I mentioned is to be able to just be a modifier where is the modifier and if you know the modifiers in blender you know that some modifiers they have in their interface a curve profile or so we have they have different inputs than what they're available if you just expose something so we have a list of those like recently we implemented for 4.0 the annum socket oh no it's 4.1 sorry for 4.1 we have annum socket which is this drop down where you can pick different options and as far as design is concerned we do have this idea that anything you do any node in blender could have been a node group built with building blocks so we still have a way to go there so the color ramp is a good example the those menu switch is another example the idea the sub panel I showed one of the slides is another example of that because the modifiers they can have nice sub panels so if I'm creating my own modifier with my custom tools I should be able to also get that it took more than two months to implement it's not so straightforward but the idea that we want to be able to do everything you can do within a node should be able to do it as a node group and more and more it can have users dealing with middle level node groups or modifiers and people more tech savvy then work with the building blocks and the components pretty good question so that was a one Paul last question here for the question is in within the design process and I guess not so much in the big picture but when you try to flesh it out and how we deliver it to that idea how much do we handle reference from other software other projects so the first thing to that is that we have a we intend to be in between let's say Houdini and cinema in terms of complexity so again it comes with this idea let's have one clear try to have this very clear from the beginning so any decision we make is informed by that so we see that for instance Houdini is a more technical audience in a way you have to use nodes we have no option cinema I think cinema now has some node based thing but cinema was known for be a more graph heaven you know we can do everything with the duplicators and whatever clones without having to do a single node connection or not super powerful super powerful but we try to have this initial target audience that is different than those software so even if you could wanted to just take those experiences one and one and put into Blender is very different right of course in Blender we want to make sure that the tech side of people can also you know have a good time that's why we have this concept of okay for the average user maybe you just have a modifier that someone your TD or someone on the internet prepared for you and it can work on that for the TD people we have the building blocks and maybe even some media level like a random random rotation node group for 4.1 I shouldn't say that online because then it become biting but I want to do a node group for scattering it's always tricky because I won't be able to handle every single situation but we probably don't need to handle every single situation just want the incisor the geometry the transformation the random rotation option so I do have a prototype for that already my computer because again we want to make sure different audiences can interface with different parts of the software besides that there's a question about I don't say how we handle with reference but usually how can users share their experience coming from a different software and present that as a problem with the blender feature set so flipping this around a little bit you as a I guess Houdini artist or how can you like say I miss that feature so much in Maya, in Houdini, in SketchUp how can I make the developers aware of that what we recommend people is to focus a bit less on the feature and more about on what you're trying to do and what is that the tool gives you or another way of framing that is if you had that tool what you'll be able to do this in this best case scenario and we can try to think together what will be the blender way of doing that which what is the way that would click because people are used to those principles every else in blender we I mean I have more time but I don't know if if I have more questions and yeah pretty good question like by the way pretty good questions plural so how do we handle a let's say if you see an add-on an extension of Blender that's doing something which would be adding value to everyone do we consider implement that in Blender bring that add-on itself into Blender we don't do anything because people can already you know go there and handle that were you here for the first the talk from Julian on UX and add-on okay because a is a there's always there are a few angles so that that question the first one is not add-ons would comply to the Blender high level standards for the user interface and the interaction you'll have I've been mentioned a few times that we want a cohesive experience and sometimes you see add-ons taking shortcuts and finding solutions for UI and UX which is all fine but that is not something we can just plug plug and play yeah I guess plug and play into Blender and expect this to lead to a very nice experience to everyone part of a one of the solutions you want to we're pursuing for that is the extensions platform because you know production code is still valid code even though it's taking shortcuts but if you have to maintain in Blender has more implications but I guess with something like the extensions platform would allow more people to have a place to open to share open and free extensions of Blender without having to fight a little bit with the core design of Blender now there's a second angle to that question is okay most of the add-ons all the add-ons are GPL compliant the ones which are shared and distributed some of them are self-contained some of them are have ways to connect to the blue box and the black box Tom was showing his keynote right but let's focus on the ones which are let's say I'm an add-on developer I have something that's fully GPL compliant doesn't require any asset which is not creative common you could say that you could just take this add-on and put into Blender legally it's fine it's not necessarily the best course of action because you're also alienating a contributor from the project from sometimes even the livelihood they have but even the one way they know how to contribute is doing their own solution so we know that a lot of good design and designers got channeled into the add-on space not even say marketplace but just the space no people can explore more ideas more easily there so one of our challenges not so much trying to find the feature set which are we're lacking but who out there are getting pretty much a pretty good UX designers and UI designers like who can actually have a neck for how we do things in Blender and those people would like them to be welcome to contribute to the core of the project so that's the best case scenario you know they feel like you know what yeah I want to find a way to either help partner these into as a core feature or help maintaining more aligned to the Blender UI UX guidelines that's part of the one of the ideas we'd like to explore the final the final angle I'll go there is like how can we make sure the Blender out of the box is a complete experience there's always going to be things that are specific and niche that you're going to be better served by outside plugins right Blender supposed to be general and useful for a lot of people but but then how do you balance okay so we do are very aware that if something is not in the core Blender shipped with Blender is something that Blender is lacking so we don't treat as okay is an add-on it's fine if you can just go there so you do take that seriously it's even one thing don't ask me to try to pursue recently was hey can you try to map out what are the core add-ons people cannot leave without and try to see why and try to see whether we could maybe invite those developers to maybe they already made enough you know money from those add-ons they can just be first contributors to the extensions platform like why not is that we're all building something together to everyone and I think there's a lot to be gained by closing that bridge and closing that gap ultimately I also see add-ons more as a space for experimentation and exploration and then again those things could be used as a start point for all projects as even as a validation for you know okay it's worth pursuing this pipeline we did this in a way for even for core features like you think about Evie Evie is started as a project by Clement on his own time doing a PBR renderer like okay that show that people are excited about it it validates already the product let's now design this the core we have this also for sculpting tools that Pablo Barra was developing it was developing on his own time we bought it back so it's not different for add-on is not so different than those forks and experiments the tricky part is when people are ready making a living of these and I think it's interesting for is what I mentioned about attitude blender is you know providing a living for a lot of people it's interesting for people that want to contribute to the project to feel welcome then I think that's one of the ways I don't have an answer because this is not a simple question so that was a simple answer I think I will you can I'm gonna wrap it now I'm gonna be here every day all days and thanks so much again for your time any questions


Dear student, in this study you will learn about brains in different animals in relation to complexity of functions. Complexity of brain functions in different animals varies greatly and based on different factors such as evolutionary history, ecological niche and social behavior. Brains have evolved to serve specific functions that are advantages for animals, reproduction and survival. Dear student, in this study we will move from simple nervous system to complex nervous system. So first of all we will discuss simple nervous system or the nervous system in invertebrates. So invertebrate nervous system such as insects and Moleskine nervous system is the simplest nervous system. It consists of clusters of cells known as ganglia which are connected by nerve cords. Their brain are smaller in size and adopted to perform different behavior. It like the complexity of vertebrate brain. For example in insects there are special brain regions which are responsible for processing of visual and olfactory information and these information are crucial for navigation and finding of food. Now look at this figure A or the first image is about Hydra which is showing simplest nervous system that is NavNet. The second is about flatworm or here is planaria as you can see that. The nervous system of flatworm consists of simple linear nerves that are connected to a complex neuronal network. The next is analita and here is earthworm. In analita the nervous system consists of bilateral brain, a ventral nerve cord and segmental ganglia. The next is arthropoda and here is a crossover with segmental ganglia and more elaborated sensory organs. Next is fish and amphibians. The brains of fish and amphibians are more developed as compared to brains of invertebrate. They possess regions like forebrain, midbrain and the handbrain and these regions are involved in sensory processing, motor control and some basic cognitive functions. For example in fish there are well developed sensory areas which are involved in detection of light, chemicals and movement in water. Next are reptiles. The reptile brains are more developed and more complex brains as compared to brains of fish and amphibians. They exhibit improved sensory processing, special memory and problem solving skills. In some reptiles like in some species of lizards they show some advanced cognitive skills like learning and memory retention. Next are birds. Birds are known for their relatively large brain and complex cognitive skills. Pigeon bird region of forebrain is responsible for complex behavior like problem solving, tool use, communication and special memory. Some birds like pigeons, crows and parrots have demonstrated excellent problem solving skills in different laboratory experiments. Next group is about mammal. Mammals possess brains which are more complex and more advanced due to their evolutionary history and demand to nurture their young ones. Mammals brains are characterized by a highly developed neocortex which are responsible for some cognitive skills like decision making, language processing and complex social interaction. Some primaries including humans have large and intricate neocartices that are thought to be linked with their social behaviors and cognitive abilities.  Best of luck. Thank you.


Sam asks, we encountered an issue today in the company with this scenario. The CEO has a personal assistant who she has delegate access to the delegate access to the manager calendar and full access to the CEO's inbox as well. Pretty standard scenario. The PA scheduled a meeting on behalf of her manager and sent an invitation to five participants. The PA discovered last Monday that one of the manager's meetings disappeared from the CEO's calendar and only from the CEO's calendar and nothing happened to the other participants. So all other participants still have the meeting booking except the CEO. I've googled without any helpful result. What could be the issue please and how can I get the disappeared meeting back? We have checked the deleted folder and could not find it. Well, that has more questions than there is available to make an answer with, unfortunately. First of all, scheduled a meeting on behalf of her manager and sent it to five participants. And then it's disappeared from the manager. Well, which manager? You're talking the manager. You're talking the CEO that the CEO ever get it. Well, if the CEO was the creator, if it was created on behalf, you're essentially your proxy, the CEO creation. Yeah, but she says manager. She has delicate access to the manager calendar and full access to the CEO calendar, CEO's inbox as well, unless the manager is the CEO and they want the same person. I'd like to use my call, Christian. Yeah, I'd like to use my call for yes. Do you have thoughts?  This is serious, Sean. Sam has an issue. We're trying to help here. Come on. Yeah. Well, obviously the CEO is probably a bit peeved. Maybe the CEO hit delete. Well, that's the question. Who's who's where did it disappear from? Does she have a manager and a CEO or or a manager? Who is the CEO? Well, that's why I'm getting lost. My assumption is that this person, the PA created it. So at one point it showed up on the CEO's calendar, but now it's gone. Well, that's the simplest thing for that is he deleted it. And if he hard deleted it, then it then the recovered deleted items folder. But it's yeah, so that's not a deleted folder. That's the recovered deleted items. The dumpster, if you will, on an exchange on an exchange server. That's the I already deleted this. I did a hard delete on it. But no, we're going to keep this around until the end of the retention policy. So that would be the first place to check. I and the one thing that I've noticed, and I don't know exactly how this applies. But I've gotten invites from people that I've gotten from the internet where they were somehow when I open them, I am the message originator and I can't save them, but that's a completely different story. And I don't know what exactly. Again, I would like that wish you could show me this in action. So there was a question, my question. Ninety six. Hal asks he's getting these internet invites from people on the internet. You know, well, that's how I was asking for this. But so so I have so I had a similar experience where I was the originator, I created the meeting. I invited people like maybe I deleted it like I don't see it. As I deleted it, it's no longer on my calendar. I don't know what happened to it. So if I did delete it. But what I had somebody do is somebody who is still showing up on the other people's calendars, I had them forward me the invites that I created, and then I just accepted I had it back. So that's exactly where I was going. Yeah, and that is exactly where I was going. That's the simplest way to do it. If it's not available and deleted and anything like that, then just have one of the other people forward it back to you. If they like CEO, yeah. Yeah, maybe they don't want the CEO there becomes a short meeting. It doesn't it's the it's the five minute college rule. The CEO doesn't show up. You got five minutes and then exactly classes out. We're done out. We did our part. We were there. And then you hold that over the CEO for weeks. Because that always works. Yeah, it always ends well. Yeah, I mean, I there's one other scenario here, which I'm shocked that that nobody brought up, but it could also be just as simple as a glitch in the matrix. No, no, no, no. Wow, anything is possible.  Thank you, Hal. Yes, I took the red pill. OK, I took the red pill. Uh, all right, that one, that one. Yeah, so we'll see if that helps anyone. But. Sorry. You can always answer. No, that's my first thought. It's like, obviously, it got deleted. So if there, I mean, the only thing I would say is, you know, to add on is if it to Hal to your original point, if the PA sent it, um, did it truly ever appear on the CEO's calendar? That would be the first question. Like, we need to have that confirmation because it may have been a failure right up front that it wasn't truly proxied, you know, on behalf of the CEO, and therefore didn't show up there. Is it showing up on the PA's calendar? Instead of the CEO's. So you have to answer that. That's that those annoying support people questions. Did you try turning it off and on again? Did you, you know, the on button should be glowing green? Kind of question. Like, did you really create it from the CEO's profile and not your own, therefore it's not showing up if it's showing us having been created by the CEO was there on the calendar at some point and other people verify that that recipients of it, that yes, it was the CEO that sent me this invite and it's on my calendar as the CEO is the owner, all of those things, I would have one of those five people forward it back to the CEO and the PA can accept on behalf of the CEO and it should show it back up on the calendar. Yep. Mic drop.


Hello and welcome to this program for NewsClick and The Wire. With me here I have an eminent political scientist, a person who is extremely knowledgeable about what's happening in the state of Karnataka. All eyes are on Karnataka and in a short while from now the outcome of the elections to the state legislative assembly will be known. Let me welcome Professor Sandeep Shastri. Thank you so much for giving us your time. You are the pro-vice-chancellor of JN University and the national convener of the Lokniti program which looks at election analysis for the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Professor Shastri, how significant are these elections at a national level, for both the Bharati Janta Party as well as for the Congress? Paranjay, given the type of attention that Karnataka has got both in the print and the electronic media space, it's very clear that Karnataka is being watched closely by the entire country. Now I would say for multiple reasons, the two principal contestants at the national level, the BJP and the Congress, are in what looks to be a direct face-off in Karnataka. And therefore for both these parties, Karnataka is so very critical. For the BJP, if it has to continue its winning streak after 2014, Karnataka is a critical element to, if you may, complete the circle. After all, Karnataka was the first and only state in southern India which has had a BJP government. Very true. Karnataka was their gateway to South India. And even today, Karnataka seems to be the only state among the five states where the BJP can hope to come to power on its own steam for some time. The fact that they have been in power in Karnataka earlier is both a challenge and an opportunity. There is also another point, Paranjay, which is that whenever the Congress and the BJP have been in a direct face-off since 2014 at the state level, the Congress has been consistently losing. I am going to come to this in greater detail because there is a third play. We cannot ignore the Janta Dal secular. In 2013, they got about a fifth of the vote. So, but when you just look at it from the perspective of the two national parties, the BJP and the Congress, and in the run-up to the next general elections which are scheduled to take place in April, May 2019, Karnataka becomes extremely important. Yes, because as you said, if BJP were to win Karnataka, it builds up the momentum for them in the three states where they have been in power for a long time, especially Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and also Rajasthan. So, it builds up the momentum for the party in those three states and also for next year's Lok Sabha election. So, for the BJP, winning Karnataka is critical to maintain that momentum going forward and in preparation for next year's Lok Sabha election. And so, in that sense, it's a semi-final. And for the Congress, after having become weaker than it has ever been, India's grand old party in 2014, and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's claims that he wants a Congress-moved Bharat, Karnataka becomes so important. So, very true. This is the only big state they are in power, the other two-and-a-half states being Punjab, Mizoram and Puducherry. So, if the Congress were to lose Karnataka, the BJP dream of a Congress-moved Bharat no longer remains rhetoric but becomes much more of a reality. Also, Paranjaya, winning Karnataka for the Congress would put a stop to this continuous losing streak. It implies the Congress has not been able to win back or retain a state they were in power since 2014. And this, in a sense, reverses that process. And I think also, winning Karnataka is important for the Congress to claim that legitimacy of space to lead the anti-BJP coalition. Correct. So, if you lose Karnataka, you have no claim to that space and you will have to forfeit that space to somebody. Being the single biggest opposition party in the country. Now, what is truly unique about Karnataka? It is said that there are conflicting trends. Though in 2013, the Congress did get 122 out of 224 seats in the Vidhan Saudha, if you look at the last three decades, especially since 1983, no ruling party in Karnataka has won a majority in the state legislative assembly. At the same time, we also see that typically, Karnataka has voted in a manner which is against the so-called national trend. So, Karnataka has historically, at least in the recent past, the assembly has been led by a party which is not in power in New Delhi. So, in this sense, we see two apparently conflicting trends. You are perfectly right. Last 32 years, since 1985, a ruling party has not been voted back in Karnataka. There may be a debate about 2004 when no party got a majority and the BJP emerged as the single largest party. And the Congress formed the government in coalition with the JDS. But I would argue that 2004, Congress lost the election, though it formed the government with the JDS. So, every election, the ruling party has been voted out. And the second trend you talk about is equally interesting, which actually predates the first trend we talked about. The second trend has been in visible existence in Karnataka for the last 35 years. That is, Karnataka votes in a state assembly election very differently from a national election. Right from 83, you look at every state assembly election. 83, 85, 89, 94, 99, 10000. Correct me if I am wrong, even earlier. I mean, for instance, the emergency, after the emergency in 77, when the Congress party got voted out of most parts of India, the southern part of India including Karnataka. So, some would argue that one of these two trends are likely to be sidetracked with this election. If the BJP were to do well and get a majority, this trend about not aligning with the party in power at the national level would get defeated. If the Congress were to retain power, the fact that a ruling party comes back to power, one of these two are likely to be negated is what a lot of people argue. This is the big question and, you know, the EVM machines have been sealed. We've had the biggest ever voter turnout about 72% or a little more than 72%. So, this is really the question, which of these two trends are likely to prevail? So, as a political scientist, what is your hunch? I mean, you would be either proved right or wrong very soon. I have, at this point of time, I would go against what a lot of people are saying that Karnataka will have an assembly without a majority for any one party. I would believe that's not likely to happen and I'll tell you why. I would believe that either the Congress or the BJP would either be close to the majority mark plus 5 minus 5. I'm convinced that either the BJP or the Congress would score a century. So, I mean, the halfway mark is 112. 112 is the half mark now. Because the two seats are countermandered. So, plus 5 minus 5 is what I'm looking at. Why do I say that the state is not likely to have a house with no clear majority? We have had such a situation twice in the past, 1983 and 2004. And both these elections, I would argue, were elections of transition. 1983, we were transitioning from a one-party dominant system to a competitive party system. Congress had been continuously in power. So, in 1983, people voted out the Congress but did not vote in somebody. They gave Janta Party the largest number of seats. But it required one more election for that competition to be Congress versus Janta Party. 2004 was the second transition where the two main parties in the competition changed. It was Congress versus Janta Dal till then. And then it became the BJP. Congress versus BJP. So, that was the second transition. So, I'm not too sure that we have any third transition happening this time. What one minute there? I'll interrupt you here. The Janta Dal secular led by former Prime Minister H.G. Debigauda and his son, the former Chief Minister H.G. Kumar Swamy, in 2013 got a little over one-fifth of the vote, 20.2%, roughly 40 seats in the assembly. There is a view, a widely prevalent view, that Kumar Swamy and Mr. Debigauda would be the king-maker. That if it's a close contest, then the seats that would be obtained by the JDS would make the difference to either party. And the next part of that analysis, or the speculation if you like, is that since the BJP is in power, has been in power for the last four years, and it seems to be better endowed at present than the Congress, the chances are advantage, BJP. Now, undoubtedly the Janta Dal sees itself as a king-maker. Of course, officially they say we are not the king-maker, but we are the king. But realistically, I think more of a king-maker, and their hope is no party gets a majority on its own, and it is inevitable that one of the two approach them to be able to form the government. And now, I would look at both scenarios. If the Congress emerges as the single largest party, the BJP would be very keen to tie up with the Janta Dal simply to prevent the Congress from coming to power. Allah, Meghalaya, Goa, Manipur, very much similar to that situation. Where a similar situation, and in the last moment, the BJP swung. Manages to ensure that the Congress, because the larger battle is between the Congress and the BJP. If the BJP were to emerge as the single largest party, I think they would be happy to discuss the coalition with the Janta Dal. The only thing is they will be on a stronger wicket and not concede the chief ministership to the Janta Dal. That's an important point, because either way, assuming, if we say hypothetically if this is the situation, either if the Congress is the single largest party or the BJP is the single largest party, the two chief ministerial candidates, Mr. Siddharamai on one side and Mr. Yadu Rappan on the other side, would perhaps tend to get marginalised because in the deal making, in the bargaining, Mr. Kumaraswamy would at least claim the post of chief minister. You are perfectly right that if either the BJP or the Congress do not touch a century and either of them are bidding to come to power, their current chief ministerial candidates will have to be put on the back burner beyond a shadow of doubt. For a slightly different reason than what you say. If it were to be the BJP, the relationship between Mr. Yadu Rappan and the Janta Dal has been off late, very, very tense partly because of the past experience. So if there were to be a tie up between the BJP and Janta Dal, I think one of the conditions Janta Dal would put is Mr. Yadu Rappan is not among the options to lead the government. But you can equally argue that since Mr. Siddharamai once upon a time was a member of the JDS, I mean he, Mr. Kumaraswamy would say his ditched means are ready. If we are talking of a Congress JDS alliance, the first issue on the table would be Mr. Siddharamai not be considered and some would argue that the statement that the chief minister made yesterday, that I am quite okay with the party choosing a Dalit candidate as chief minister, is linked to this possible development because as you rightly said if you are talking of a Congress JDS alliance, the JDS would have nothing to do with Mr. Siddharamai given his past association with the party. And in that situation we are talking of a Dalit leader, people are talking of Malikarjun Kharge, people are talking of Parameshwar, both of whom have reasonably good equations with the Janta the leaders. Don't rule out somebody like an SM Krishna, like Mr. D. K. Shukumar also playing a role. So there are several players who could play a role. Let me add another point here. Some would argue that of course it depends on the seat numbers. Some would even argue the Janta Dal patriarch may be very happy to concede the chief ministership to the BJP or Congress depending on who is in front. Because then it gives him an opportunity to make his elder son who has never had deputy chief ministership or chief ministership to make him the deputy chief minister. You are talking about Mr. Revanna. It gives him a chance to make Revanna the deputy chief minister either in a Congress led or a BJP led. So the possibilities are many and we can speculate but we don't need to because in a short while from now the outcome would be known. But your hunches, your instinct says that there is a distinct possibility that we won't have this kind of a situation. For several reasons. One, I think the fact of a high voter turnout. He implies it's a record turnout. It's a record turnout of the state. He implies for me that there has been very strong mobilization by the parties and a very strong assertion by the voter that she wants to make a point with regard to who should be coming to power. So I think a high voter turnout depending on the areas we are talking about would benefit the key players in this contest. And it gives me even greater confidence that a particular party, Congress or BJP would emerge. You are the national convener of the Lokniti program of CSDS and you've studied the voting patterns, voting trends across the country. What does a high voter turnout indicate? Now there are different views. I mean one view says that you can't make a claim either way that it's going to either favor the incumbent regime or it's an anti-incumbency vote. With specific reference to Karnataka, what does this record voter turnout in excess of 72%, last assembly elections it was close to, it was around 70%. What are the implications? Paranjay, to the best of my knowledge there is no empirical proof to demonstrate that a high voter turnout either favors the incumbent or favors the challenger. However, I will add three points which I think would be important pointers to this direction. One, Karnataka's battle is essentially in the regions, in the six regions of the state. Analysis of the higher voter turnout by region could give you an indication as to who is possibly going to benefit from this. Some people have argued that there has been a significantly high voter turnout in Mumbai-Karnataka. I'm sorry, there has been a lower turnout in Mumbai-Karnataka and a higher turnout in coastal-Karnataka, Hyderabad-Karnataka and in the Bangalore region and Central-Karnataka. So that has important implications. Would you like to expand, elaborate on this? As you say, there are broadly six regions in Karnataka. In the northern part you have the Hyderabad-Karnataka, the Mumbai-Karnataka, then you have the coastal-Karnataka, then the central part. In the southern part you can say the old Mysuru and the Greater Bangalore region and the rest of Southern-Karnataka. What are the likely, I mean how different are these five or six regions in the state? Point number one, the Congress has a spread across these regions. The Congress support base, vote base is across these regions. On the other hand, historically the BJP support base has been limited to four of these regions, five of these regions I would say. Hyderabad-Karnataka, Mumbai-Karnataka, Central-Karnataka, Coastal-Karnataka and the Bangalore region. The BJP is not much of a force in Southern-Karnataka. On the other hand, the Janta Dal is largely a force in Southern-Karnataka and in Bangalore region. You referred to the Janta Dal winning 40 seats last time. In fact 32 of those seats have been in Southern-Karnataka and in the Bangalore region. So there is a clear variation across regions. In fact, I draw your attention to the first May speech of the Prime Minister where most of us were taken aback when the Prime Minister praised Mr. Devagoda in his speech. Now, a deeper analysis would show that here is the reason. Firstly, he wanted to prove to Mr. Siddharamaya that you are not the real Karnataka because Siddharamaya had raised this Karnataka versus non-Karnataka issue. That you are not the son of the soil, the real son of the soil, all those issues. That you are not the real inheritor of the Karnataka identity but it is Devagoda. But more importantly, was this a message of the Prime Minister to the BJP supporters in Southern-Karnataka where the fight was between the Congress and the BJP, between the Congress and the Janta Dal. Transfer your vote to the Janta Dal. If you think that in a specific assembly constituency, the contest is really between Congress and JDS, he is indirectly appealing to the BJP voter to go with the Janta Dal. And also the fact that they have different support bases and there are very few states where they both, that is the BJP and JDS are in direct competition. Now, that also explains why, of course, two days later he retracted that in his next round of speeches. The larger point I'm trying to make is in these six regions of Karnataka, the type of competition is very different. And just one more point on this question of voter turnout. I would say the more important point with regard to voter turnout is who among the voters have come out in larger numbers. If it's likely to be the poor. Inevitably sir, almost inevitably there is a poor who come out to vote in larger numbers than the rich or the middle class. Something which would definitely benefit the Congress party because study after study has shown that the people who are economically marginalized in Karnataka tend to favor the Congress party more and it's even more. Nothing to do with the incumbency factor. And it's even more in this election simply because the various welfare schemes which the Congress party started. The five rupees a meal, ten rupees a meal. The various Bhagya schemes now. That is something which a lot of people believe has touched the poorer sections of the society. And therefore a higher voter turnout among those sections is beneficial for the Congress. The other is if you have a higher turnout among middle class and the more affluent voters, that would be something that would benefit the BJP. And again the record of Bengaluru city shows that voter turnout has not significantly increased in Bengaluru city. It is more in the rural areas. And as luck would have it you had an election on a second Saturday and on Friday evening you had long views of people in the airport deciding to leave the city. So that's one important indicator with regard to who could have benefited from a higher voter turnout. Let me look a little bit at the caste equations. Again often it is argued that the two dominant castes, the Lingayats accounting for roughly 17% of the population and the Okalikas accounting for roughly 15% of the population. They are considered to be the politically more influential castes. That in a sense their views tend to influence the political or politics in Karnataka. So if you look at caste equations and in the context of the Siddharamaya government, the minority status for Lingayats, which the BJP and the RSS they have a different point of view because they say the Lingayats are part of the Hindu community. How do you see the caste factor playing out? How do you think the caste factor has played out in these elections? From 1956 onwards Paranjay, the Lingayats and the Okalikas taken together account for more than half the MLAs of Karnataka. Every assembly election. Though they account for roughly one third of the population. That's the other debatable point. There has been no officially released caste census that was done during British days and we are extrapolating from those days and coming to 17 and 15%. The Siddharamaya government actually conducted a caste census which was incomplete and it was not released because of the controversy it would generate. But the leaked caste census shows actually that the Lingayat and the Okalika community as per that census was around 9 and 8% of the population in reality. That means a shrunk compared to the... It's actually 17% taken together and the scheduled caste, of course that's a government category. You need to look at each caste separately but all of them taken together was actually around 22% of the population. But then going back to your main point. The Lingayat community which is largely dominant in Northern Karnataka, Mumbai Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka regions and Central Karnataka to an extent. The Lingayat community has been the backbone of the BJP support. Every election last 15 years saved the 2008 election. I'm saying saved the 2013 election. The BJP has been getting the bulk of the Lingayat votes. Partly because they have a Lingayat face as their chief minister. Mr. Yadirappa? Mr. Yadirappa and partly because the Congress has never been forgiven by that community for having very, very unceremoniously removed the last Lingayat to be chief minister under the Congress Mr. Veerendra Patil. In 1990 Rajiv Gandhi just announced Karnataka will have a new chief minister. For the last 38 years really nothing has been done by the party. 28 years. Nothing has been done by the party to remedy that situation. Now towards the end of his government, Siddharamaya announced that we would accord minority status, religion status to the Lingayat community. Now the hope was that this would drive a wedge in that monolith support that the Lingayat community has given the BJP and at least a part of it would move towards the Congress. Now surveys seem to indicate that this has not happened. Surveys seem to indicate that the community still seems to be strongly behind the BJP. But if indeed their numbers are not as large as is presumed, the question would arise is what kind of influence the Lingayat community would have on other sections of vote as those belonging to other castes? While numerically there may be a debate on how much they constitute, in terms of candidates they are a critical number in both the Congress and the BJP. And in terms of influence in their constituencies, I think they do play an important role. However, I must also add this point, the Congress move to give this minority status to the Lingayat community has resulted possibly in a backlash among the Vokaligas who say that while you have done something for one dominant cast, you have not really done anything for us and the backlash of that some people feel was felt in the old Mysore region, Bangalore and southern Karnataka where there is a Vokaliga consolidation. That's correct. And especially because Mr. Devigawda and Mr. Kumar Swamy belong to that community. However, I must add another point. This dominant caste consolidation towards the BJP and the Janata Dal has worked in another way which is the non-dominant backward castes who are numerically quite large in number. Such as? The Kurubas, the ED guys. Which Mr. Siddharamaya belongs to. The Kurubas is the community to which Mr. Siddharamaya belongs. They have strongly consolidated in favor of the Congress. So you have this social... So if you look at the big picture of the state, how would you summarize the way the caste equations could play out? The BJP seems to be the party preferred by the Lingayats and the upper caste in large numbers. The Janata Dal seems to continue to be the party which is supported by a majority of the Vokaligas. Whereas the Congress seems to have consolidated its presence among the non-dominant OBCs, among the Muslims, among the Dalits and among the Tribals. And I will emphasize the last three a little more. There was a belief that the Muslim vote could get split between the Janata Dal and the Congress. Data shows this may actually not have happened partly because of the belief that the Janata Dal and the BJP are in a tacit understanding. And this led many would believe in Southern Karnataka to gravitate towards the Congress party. No, on this point, it is, correct me once again if I'm wrong, it is presumed that the coastal Karnataka, the coastal region of Karnataka is arguably where the communal divide has been very evident and intense or has intensified in the recent past. We've heard about the activities of groups like the Sri Ram Sena. We know about, again, internet sign fights when Baligarh who is supposed to be close to Mr. Yadu Rappa, he exposes what is supposed to be corruption in the temple trusts and then he is attacked by Nareesh Shanoi, who is the founder of the Naam Obligate. So, I mean, again, two questions. How united is the so-called Hindu consolidation? Is it working on the ground? Is it working especially in coastal Karnataka? And you could perhaps analyze what's happening in other parts of the state. As you rightly said, I would do it in two different ways, looking at coastal Karnataka separately in the rest of the state on the question of Hindu consolidation. Coastal Karnataka has historically seen this consolidation not just in this election, but it's been happening for quite some time now. Given the strong presence of minority communities in coastal Karnataka, especially the Muslims and the Christians and also the economic power that they have started to wield, what the BJP has been to a certain extent successful in doing in coastal Karnataka is ensuring a majority community mobilization in the coastal region. So if you drive across the coastal region, you will very clearly see the polarization that has happened on very strong religious lines, very clearly on religious lines. And that's the reason a lot of people would believe that the BJP is likely to do well in the coastal region because of this polarization that is achieved. There is another factor, coastal Karnataka has always seen with every election a switch from the Congress to the BJP and BJP to the Congress. And last time the Congress did very well in the coastal region. So people believe both these factors are operating. Across the state, I would say that this mobilization on religious lines has not been as intense as you notice in the coastal region. Again, the last survey which the CSD as Lokniti did, which was in the first week of May. Now that survey shows... First week of May of... This year. I mean, we did a pre-poll just 10 days ago. That poll shows that the Hindu vote, if you may, the Hindu vote is more or less equally divided between the Congress and the BJP. The belief for... So that means the consolidation may not have been... It has not really happened as much as people thought it would happen outside the coastal belt. Within the coastal belt, yes, that consolidation has been very intense. But outside the coastal belt, it has not worked so much. Simply because I believe other factors are in play that the social coalitions that are in place are in play. And that may have impacted on religious polarization not being the only factor which defines and decides the direction that voters go. Okay. My last set of questions to you, and this is regarding the issue of corruption. And specifically, when we look at the illegal minors, Gali Janadhan Reddy, he's himself not contesting, but his associates, his family members are contesting. I remember when I interviewed you, when I was making a documentary film almost eight years ago, and you talked about how the Reddy brothers, their sort of relationship with the Bharti Janta Party and the RSS. And you compared them to a family where there are two sisters in law. One sister, one wife has come from a rich family, and another sister is from the same community. So she's accepted because she is a wife, but she's been there because of her money. But there is a subtle or sometimes not so subtle sort of differentiation between the two wives, or wives of the two brothers. I found this a very interesting analogy. But today all these, it's no longer nuanced anymore. It's no longer subtle anymore. The same set of people who were accused of corruption by among others, the then Lok Ayukta, just Santosh Ekbe, and it's all documented in writing how the family members of Mr. Yadurappa benefited.  But they say, where's the case against us? Kalijanathan Reddy spent about three years in jail. Mr. Yadurappa, three weeks in jail, a little more. And then after that, he breaks away from the party, now he's back. So I want you to analyze for me the relationship between the Bharti Janta Party in Delhi. Remember the famous picture where you show Sushma Swaraj with her hands on the two. And then later on, Sushma Swaraj says, I've not got a single paisa from them. How do you analyze the impact of the BJP embracing the Kalijanathan Reddy and the miners, the so-called dirty miners of Balarri? Paranjai, as elections approach, this very esoteric term, winnability. And nobody has really defined what are the contours of this winnability. Now, winnability becomes the issue. And I think the way in which the Reddy brothers have made a return to mainstream politics, I think is a reflection of that. But I must add another point. I would say both the Congress and the BJP are guilty of having given nominations to people whose records on the mining issue itself have not been cleaned. The large family was always with the Congress. But Anand Singh, who was an MLA belonging to the BJP, has now moved Congress. But you could argue that the people who were supposed to be spearheading the illegal mining scam, they are today very much with the BJP. Not just Suman Sagar Reddy, Sheeramulu. What is grabbing public attention is the fact that at the national level, the BJP has launched this very strong campaign of fighting corruption, of not defending those who have violated the law. And even in 2014, when you had the Lok Sabha elections, the Reddy brothers were kept out of the whole picture. Prime Minister Modi's famous statement, So, but then the state unit of the BJP chief minister candidate has clearly said that the Reddy brothers are important in winning 10 to 12 seats. And therefore in a close election, this becomes important. So, at one stage the BJP tried to maintain this distance, that the state unit of the party wants these brothers in, but we don't want them anywhere close. The party president has consistently maintained that Janardhan Reddy is not officially anywhere on the podium of the BJP. He cancelled a rally in Bellary for that reason. But interestingly, when the Prime Minister's rally was held in Bellary, the cousins were all in the stage because they were contestant. So, I don't know if this is a price that the BJP thought has to be paid in that desperate bid to be able to win a state. Now, I think tomorrow we'll get to know whether it's actually worked because there is also this view that to win a few seats, which ultimately you may not also win, have you sacrificed something, have you sacrificed that moral edge across the state and across the country? Correct. So, that's an important question. And if you look at this debate anywhere, whenever the BJP is asked what is this you have done, they will never answer that question. But they will say, look, the Congress has also fielded these such people. And also the CBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation, you know, just giving them a clean sheet in some cases or just not going ahead with the investigation of these cases. What appears to be rather frenzy grounds? I hope the sagacity of the Karnataka voter, who at the end of the day can actually put a stop to this, would clearly send a message in this election saying, irrespective of party, if somebody does not have a clean image, we are not going to elect them. We are not going to support them. That will be a very strong message to every political party that next time you put up a candidate, be careful on this fact because at the end of the day, the voter does not take kindly decision. You know, once again, we have conflicting views. You recall in the mid-80s and the late-80s, people said, oh, Bofors won't matter for Rajiv Gandhi. But today on hindsight, we say, no, the impact of Bofors on Rajiv Gandhi, he was the youngest ever prime minister. His rise was as spectacular as his decline. So this whole issue of corruption, whether it matters at all to ordinary voters, especially poor voters, poor people. In fact, there are two conflicting trends which are coming up. When we asked in our survey whether the Siddharah Maya government has done enough to check corruption or has corruption increased or decreased or remained the same during Congress rule, people said actually that the corruption has increased. On the other hand, there is nothing to do with his watch. But then the same people when asked which is the most corrupt party in Karnataka, Congress BJP or Janta Dal, they actually pointed out to the BJP. So the people do feel that the corruption record of the BJP has not been very clean, has not been very something positive. And they also believe that the Siddharah Maya government has not done enough to be able to check corruption in the state. So both get very poor marks on this critical issue. Okay, so if I have to summarize your views and if you sort of tie up all the, you know, sort of connect all the dots and tie up all the loose ends, we just have a little while to wait before we know the outcome. You would say your view is that it's slight advantage to the Congress, is it? It's a slight advantage to the Congress. One of the two is definitely going to be in triple digits. It looks to be either the Congress or the BJP. The Congress seems to be having a nose ahead. However, the last week of campaign where you saw the Prime Minister really No, don't stop. Increasing the rallies that he had and all that, whether that actually has impacted on the voter, whether that has been translated by the party carders on the ground will be the critical question. And if that has happened, I would not be surprised if the BJP actually moves ahead of this. Like a good analyst and a good scholar, you are hedging your bets a little bit. But thank you so much. I think I would, I respect the sagacity of the Karnataka voter who I think at the end of the day would give a verdict which would provide for that stability in the state for five years. Which of the two parties the voter feels, I think, I would bow my head down to the wisdom of the voter in that regard. Okay, thank you so much for giving us your time and for this very, very lucid analysis. And we just have a short while to wait before the outcome of elections would be noted. You just heard and watched eminent political scientist, Professor Sandeep Shastri explaining the various factors that could influence the outcome of the legislative assembly elections in Karnataka. You just have a short while to wait before you know the final outcome. Thank you for being with us.