Hello everybody and welcome to another hobby cheating video today. We're gonna talk about panel lining But specifically we're gonna do a little science and figure out the best way to do really bright panel lining Let's get into it. Let's strict techno man sir. That is Vincy V. Let us get to the technique and learn it Vincy V style 10th edition 40k is upon us. And of course, I'm pretty excited About the new edition. It's brought back and rekindled a love of 40k I've had for more than 25 years now and as such I thought hey, maybe I'll paint up a new force and the thing that grabbed my attention was some towel I've always thought towel look cool I like giant robits and I wanted a simple scheme something I could execute on quickly What always appealed to me about towel was these fun deep panel lines that they have and It's easy and great to panel line and dark colors So if you have bright colored towel and you want to do dark panel lining We've talked about that on this channel many times both using things like actual panel liners products that are made specifically for that or oil washes traditional washes inks anything like that But I wanted something different. I Wanted some towel that looked more like Tron basically, you know these bright ultra punchy Neon lines tracing around The the miniature itself the problem is getting those really bright thin lines to fill the panels with a fluorescent pigment Or a fluorescent color is a lot harder It's easy to make recesses dark. It's often hard to make recesses bright There's not as much need and so there's not as many products Today, we're gonna talk about three different methods You can use at home to create this Tron like effect on your minis and get some really punchy Awesome-looking minis. So let's head over to the desk. Let's do some science All right, so we're just gonna start by laying down Abaddon black over the whole model This is over top of the primer and the reason I'm using Abaddon black Although I normally hate this paint and find it to be quite not a good paint because it's very satin All of its bad sides are gonna be positives here. I'm not gonna do anything with the rest of the color except edge highlighting I want the surface of the thing to be very dark to pop out against the Tron lines. So Satin Abaddon black do my highlighting for me move on All right method number one. We're gonna take alcohol and we're gonna put it into some ink Basically, we're gonna do two drops of alcohol to every one drop of ink or sorry three drops to one apologize and This is just basically a theory I had alcohol breaks up surface tension. It's often used in other paints to increase the flow Alcohol itself if directly exposed and let's sit on acrylic paint can be quite destructive to it But if mixed in like this it can actually just enhance and help the flow and my theory here was correct It's basically acting like a super flow improver It should go without saying that if you're gonna do this kind of work a good sharp brush for this kind of Tracing is of high value So this worked basically how I thought it would What I mean by that is I was able to very easily trace the lines quite accurately The paint just wicked right off the end of the brush no drama at all And you know any kind of sharp line I was able to fill The issue of course is that I still had to go through and trace every single line The other challenge here is alcohol evaporates very quickly it's a highly evaporative substance and So I found myself having to both rinse the brush regularly as well as go back Into get more you know sort of wet paint regularly.  There's very little cleanup. I Then did the same thing with the golden high flow fluorescent pink This is one of my favorite favorite fluorescent colors. I can't recommend the golden high flows enough for this purpose It's already a pretty well flowing paint but we of course added alcohol to this again in the same ratio and I found again this made it flow really smoothly Now there's no real capillary Actioning happen with action happening with this first one That is to say I can't just touch an area of the model and watch it fill the entire recess as you could normally do with something Like an oil paint or something similar So this is still requiring a lot of very careful work and tracing Now the bright side of the fluorescent side Especially being as thin as it is with the alcohol is it's relying on the color sort of gathering in the recess to really build up Whenever I did sort of miss swipe or or hit something outside of the space. You really couldn't tell All right, so now we're gonna try oils. We're gonna do a little comparison this is some standard Gamsol white spirits from gambling and Some light flesh tone, which is about the closest to white you're gonna get with a with a nice I Wanted a little bit of warmth in it. Basically. I didn't want to use just a normal dead white So we mix the living bejesus out of this like just mix mix mix mix mix mix mix mix mix Until it is so thin and as you can see I was using quite a lot of white spirits there, but still enough Now this worked exactly as I sort of suspected it would You want to get a lot on your brush You don't need to worry about having a very sharp brush here because you're effectively trying to have an overloaded brush a brush just full of liquid and then you're going to try to touch the brush against the miniature in an area where hopefully It doesn't really matter if anything spills over. So for example, I was leaning on like those rivets and things that I knew We're gonna be painted differently where I could and I just let the capillary action do its work.  You don't need a sharp hand You don't need a sharp brush. You don't need fine control You just move your way around touching the miniature in little dabs and dots and the capillary action basically does the rest for you The downside of course here is probably fairly obvious This is an oil paint and it's going to dry very slowly So I had to let that sit for an entire day before I then did this step This is gal kid an oil painting medium plus some fluorescent pink pigments plus a little bit of white spirits to keep everything flowing and Once again, I found that this little chemical mixture here actually worked really nice So gal kid is a medium for oil painting that effectively can be used to sort of thin and add a very like a shine and durability to it It's fairly glossy as a as a thing though white spirits help break it up Which is normally a thinner you use with oil paints anyways, so I'm just using the same effective thinner Once again, the application is the same You want an overloaded brush and you're gonna touch and the capillary action will do most of the work Now I had to make sure the first layer was completely dry before I did this so as I said this is maybe a Day day and a half later. Honestly, even with that small amount in the recesses because it was in the recesses I wanted to give it plenty of time now the challenge to this one is that when it dries it becomes very very very glossy and And that really becomes a challenge in the long run because other paint doesn't want to sit on top of this as Easily and yet again, you do need to give this a really long time to drive So the capillary action on this one is incredible But ultimately the finish is weird because you have to really give a long time for it to dry and then really matte varnish everything down like I had to put Basically three coats of ultra matte varnish over it to get it back into being completely neutral and matte I'll be honest all three of these things take time So when you're looking at this there's a series of different things you're trying to balance The first one is how fast can I create the lines around the miniature and then the second one is how much cleanup? Do I have afterward? It doesn't help if you can do everything really fast if then you have to spend a ton of time and clean up So as I was experimenting with these I was always trying to be mindful of balancing the total time involved in Creating the effect not just making the lines themselves bright All right method number three. I'm returning back to the ink plus Alcohol but this time I have a new idea. I've also added some flow improver and Quite a lot of it and what I found is by adding a lot of that flow improver and then having that overloaded brush I could get the capillary action Because I didn't need that high of a percentage of the white ink to have it still have a strong effect Because all that pigment is gathering together in the recess the ratio of white ink could actually be pretty low And still have a really strong effect And so in doing this I was able to actually Reintroduce that great capillary action not quite as good as with the oils those do admittedly flow better But the alcohol plus the the the white ink plus a you know a decent amount. Let's say another Two-to-one a flow improver. I found actually gave me really good results to lay down that base coat And and start that strong capillary action and get the mini done quickly Now this is a little messy because you're gonna get those dots everywhere and those will need to be taken care of Now here is my revelation just take regular alcohol plus pigment nothing less nothing more so this is pigment dumped into alcohol and Not a lot of pigment even so Because again, it's all collecting into a very small space. It's working over a near pure white. So it's going to have a strong effect Here I will I loved this method. This was ultimately a big winner for me Because I was able to you can see how strong the capillary action is here plus the Alcohol doesn't fully really set the pigment which would be a problem if it was on a flat surface But it's not it's on a recess where your hand doesn't actually touch if you wanted to you could varnish afterward either way but Because it's in that recess it just gathers in there deposits that pigment and then evaporates and what you're left with is a really pure bright version of the pigment Alone and it was so fast to go and fill this Now the only downside here was because the way I did the white you can see all the extra dots That are here outside where the sort of fat overly laden brush had to touch against the miniature So, you know, we'll have to go back and clean those up later But I found this method to be really easy and rewarding. So this was just a 99% isopropyl alcohol plus the raw pigment about one 128 of a teaspoon to probably Four drops of alcohol it does evaporate quickly But that was a super easy time to work my way around the mini tint everything and it finished so bright and so intense Once I was done with everything. I just went back in with Abaddon black and you can see there's areas where you know sort of There's paint where it shouldn't be where either I touched the miniature wrongly or those little initial white dots got there Little cleanup and then we're good to go All right, there we go, there's all three of the different methods now, let's take a look at the outcome So here's the three of them next to each other. I'll be honest I really like the last method the best so this was simple alcohol and pigment it Flows really well and really fast into the recesses It's extremely bright and punchy the way the alcohol because it has almost no surface tension it deposits the pigment really evenly in the recess and Ultimately, it locks it in there now if alcohol and pigment is all you have on a normal flat surface You can actually wipe it away quite easily. It doesn't set as fully However, since these are only in the recesses and we don't really touch the recesses of the miniature it actually works really well and Moreover on those larger flat surfaces It becomes quite easy and fast to clean up additional layers of paint going over the top or simple Sometimes you can even just wipe it away with a wet brush So for me the first method is the sort of easy you don't have anything else But you it takes a longer amount of time, but it's very clean The second method although in meat chemistry experiment in the oils and how we could make that work in The end just didn't really work for me. The color is flatter. It's really glossy Base and it was just ultimately You didn't really gain the speed and I had to sit there and wait a long time for everything to dry and set The third method of just the alcohol and pigment or they are really taking down the alcohol and ink with some flow Improver in the in the white those two combined made this process fast easy and a breeze So that's ultimately what I would recommend if you want to try to replicate this on your own minis Hey, I hope you liked this if you did give it a like Subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future. We have new videos here every Saturday There's gonna be plenty more For hammer 40k and AOS and display miniature and everything you can imagine content coming up as always every Saturday If you've got a question drop that down below I always answer every question asked on the channel if you want to support the channel. Hey, I'd really appreciate it There's a patreon link down there focused on review and feedback and taking your next step on your hobby journey We'd love to have you as part of the community as always I thank you so much for watching this one and we'll see you next time


Well, that guy seemed to have his act together. You don't see that very often. Yeah, surprised me. I thought we had a big story here. Looks like it's just some desperate arcade owner looking to spread around his liability. The director you talked to, he didn't seem like most government types. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, and he knew how to say it. It's been a while since I talked to him, but I'll tell you one thing. He's been practicing his media relations. Critics are charging your department was negligent in inspections of the fun house. That this fire could have been prevented. How do you respond? Safety is the number one priority of the Fire Marshal's office. We had inspected the property involved in this tragic fire just a month ago and found that it fully met all state safety codes. We also inspected the property after the fire and discovered that for some reason the owner had decided to use gasoline to clean the floors and that one of his employees had been smoking on the job. It's pretty clear this fire could have been prevented and that the children who were hurt could have been spared their suffering. Hello, I'm Dick Wynn. In this program we'll be taking an in-depth look at mastering the skills that will make you better able to deal with the news media. In the first video of this series we talked about some of these skills in general terms. Now we're going to spend some time really getting into the subject of media relations. We'll talk about developing messages that reporters will want to use. We'll talk about how to present those messages in the most effective manner. And we'll show you how to deal with reporters' toughest questions. Along the way we'll be pointing out the differences between print and broadcast news, the different kinds of interview situations and how you will want to adjust your approach to different types of questions from reporters. In each part of this program we'll be showing you segments from some typical interviews so you can get a better sense of the techniques you can use to improve your performance. And while the National Wildfire Coordinating Group's focus is fire, we'll be seeing people in a variety of occupations talking about a number of different subjects. The reason for this diversity is to emphasize that the skills we'll be discussing can be used by anyone who faces the media in any kind of situation. Now the key to success with the news media is mastering three basic areas. Choosing your message, presenting your message and defending your message. First, let's focus on choosing your message. Why do you believe that Elm City should allow the Clark Company to build a coal plant? Well, let me take you back a few years. You know, we've always been real close to not having enough power to supply the town's needs reliably. I think it was about five years ago that the folks from Clark came to us and suggested the idea for this coal plant. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time and even though the rate of growth has not been the same the last couple of years, it still seems like something that we probably still ought to do. I mean, a lot of people have put a lot of time and effort into this whole process. It would be a shame not to use this effort constructively. So there's no really pressing reason to build a plant now. Why do you insist on going forward? Jobs, need, taxes, stable supply. I'd give you a lot of reasons for going forward. Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Knowing what you know now, do you think it was a good idea to allow Clark to get as far as they've gotten in the permitting process? That's a difficult question for me to answer. I believe we're making the right decision to press on. Many people will be put to work as a result of building this plant. Taxes will be lowered as a result of the revenues generated by this plant. We may even get to shut a couple of those old plants down their metal grove. Makes sense to me to go forward, I think. How did you feel about that interview? Sounded like there was a lot of good information there, right? But let me ask you, if you were the reporter, do you think the interview subject made it easy for you to take a couple of good pieces of that interview for use in a story on tonight's news? Well, I'm afraid not. What happened is what happens thousands of times every day all across America. People interviewed by reporters simply haven't taken the time to decide exactly what they want to say to best communicate their position on a particular issue. A reporter has a reason for wanting to speak with you. Good communicators make sure they know exactly what that reason is, and they craft their messages to be clear and responsive. Once you know what a reporter is after, you must take the time to put together your planned response in a logical, strategic manner. What do I mean by strategic? Well, for every interview, you should prepare a response that anticipates what a reporter is going to ask and allows you to get your key message points across no matter what you're asked. Let me show you what I mean. Reporters are sent out to cover a story because it has some kind of news hook that potentially makes it interesting. Think back to that brief interview we just saw. The news hook was that air quality in Elm City could be at risk for the licensing and instruction of the new coal plant. Local residents were starting to express a sentiment also, one that's becoming more and more common today. It's called NIMBY, which stands for Not in My Backyard. For every newsworthy issue that you'll be questioned about, there'll always be a few key message points you'll want to use to present your point of view in answer to reporter's questions. You'll want to write down those message points in preparation for your interview. In the case of the coal plant, the points might include such things as this plant uses the most environmentally sound technology in the world. The plant will provide many economic benefits, including jobs, tax revenues, lower electric rates. The plant assures a stable supply of energy for the region. The plant construction is being sponsored by the local utility. Admissions from the plant will be well below regulatory standards. The town would benefit from funds promised by the builders to improve the quality of life in the town. Some older, dirtier power plants could be closed down. You get the idea. There are always many points that you may find useful in responding to a reporter. And the reason for taking the time to go through this exercise is really quite simple. It helps to clarify for you the points you could make in an interview. It forces you to focus on exactly what you want to say to a reporter. And it gives you an opportunity to evaluate the strength or weakness of your arguments before you meet the news media. Think about that interview we saw. Did it sound like the commissioner had taken the time to go through this process, or did he more likely just wing it? Well, once you've got a listing of the points you can use to support your position, your next step should be to decide whether each point is an offensive one or a defensive one. For example, in our coal plant interview, the points about economic benefit to the community and stable power supply are both offensive points. A useful defensive point might be the statement that the plant emissions will be well below all regulatory standards, or that other dirty plants will close. Once you've identified your key message points and you've decided whether they're offensive or defensive, what's left is to select the strongest two or three points in each category and decide how to present them. But before we move on to discuss the skills needed to present your message most effectively, let's take another look at our interview and see what happens when the Utilities Commissioner has taken the time to identify what his key message points are. Notice how he uses his key offensive points in responding to a general question and his key defensive points when the questions get a little tougher. And also notice how he uses a positive point in each answer. Why do you believe that Elm City should allow the Clark Company to build a coal plant? The Clark Company electricity plant makes sense for three important reasons. First, the plant will assure our community of a stable supply of fairly priced electricity for many years to come. Second, the plant will use the most environmentally sound technology in the world today. Third, the plant will provide many important economic benefits to our community. For example, the Clark Company has pledged to employ local workers to build and operate the plant. They have pledged $200,000 per year to assist us in keeping our school system the best in the region. Isn't it true that we really don't need the power that that plant will produce? By the year 2000, that's just a few years from now, we'll need 30% more power than we have now. It takes seven years to get a plant permitted and constructed. We don't need the power now, but it would be irresponsible for us to wait until we're suffering brownouts to address our future needs. When we've flipped the light switch and nothing happens, we've waited too long. After choosing your message points, you'll next want to focus on just how you want to present your message. In this portion of our program, we're going to cover a number of subjects. We'll be talking about what to say, how best to say it, and what you need to remember when dealing with very different characteristics of television, radio and print news media. Let's take a look at a couple of short interview segments. Both focus on the same subject matter, which do you think is more effective? Critics are charging your company with the fish kill. What's your response? We at NCG categorically deny that we're responsible for the water-borne agents that appear to be responsible for the mortality among the various fish species in the Phillips River. NPDES permit clearly prohibits wastewater discharge in excess of one milligram per liter of CU and our WWMT has confirmed that we were never in violation of our permit specifications. Critics are charging your company with the fish kill. What's your response? Our number one priority at National General is protection of the environment. The members of this community were very concerned about the mysterious death of so many fish in the Phillips River. Even before we started building this plant, we volunteered to install an extensive monitoring system so that we could make sure that we weren't doing anything to harm the river. We checked and rechecked every monitor and we verified that there have been no discharges from our plant that could be killing the fish. Our president asked the technical staff to volunteer their services to the city to run tests or do anything else that could help resolve this sad situation. Quite a bit of difference between those two presentations. Both contain information, but I think we'd all agree that the second interview would be much more persuasive when broadcast or seen in print. And the whole issue of persuasion is fundamental to effective media relations. There's about 8% content, 42% appearance, and 50% delivery. Now we may all agree that it shouldn't be that way, but since that's the reality we face, how things are packaged and presented is critical to success in dealing with the news media. As I said in the first video in this program series, perception is reality. Let's take a look first at some general principles that apply to all the mass media. Keep in mind at all times that the audience for your message is not the reporter, but people who are reading the papers and watching the TV and listening to the news on their car radios. The reporter is an intermediary and the news medium is a conduit for your message to reach the audience. Also remember that the reporters, editors and people who own papers and stations are interested in presenting a good, interesting product every day. You can help them do that and accomplish your goals too. Do you have any questions from a reporter? Well, I'd say in a concise, understandable and compelling manner. And when you put yourself in a reporter's shoes, what do you want to get from an interview subject? Good quotes that you can use to make your story concise, understandable and compelling. So in many ways, you and the reporter are basically after the same thing. Your challenge is to make the reporter's job easier so that you and your organization benefit from balanced coverage. Once you've chosen your message points, now's the time to put them in a form that makes it likely that a reporter will use your quotes as the basis for the story. You can frame the debate in your terms by crafting your message points to talk from the viewpoint of the public interest, talk about benefits, humanize the issue, put the message in positive terms. For example, fire safety experts always say stop, drop and roll if you catch fire. They never say don't run if you catch fire. Use colorful words and contemporary references. Make yourself quotable by using words like first and best. Put your thoughts into simple, complete sentences. Remember the billboard rule. Professional communicators use no more than seven words on a billboard because that's all you can take in as you speed by. When you're talking to a reporter, try to keep your points concise but when you present your message you have to keep in mind the different requirements of the various news media. Television is the medium of pictures. Both in terms of the actual videotape as well as in the words that support the video footage. Stories that appear on television news fit into a very conventional format that viewers have come to expect. On average, stories will run about one minute and 40 seconds and you'll be doing very well if you can get two 15 second quotes or sound bites as they're called into your story. That means you only have time to get your message across in two or three sentences for each quote. Television is not the medium to start a response with the history of the problem. There simply isn't time and the words need to support the pictures. Radio is the medium of immediacy. When local news is breaking you turn on the radio. Your challenge as a communicator with radio is sending your message in concise, clear terms, always keeping in mind that you're not getting any help from pictures. Keep your answers to around 10 seconds. It's a lot easier for a radio reporter to use your good 10 second quote than to try to rewrite what you said in a longer answer. For a radio interview you need to be organized, ready to go, and able to respond in a way that listeners can easily visualize what you're saying and feel good when you're saying it. Print usually allows you to present your message points in a little more detail, but remember that television has changed newsgathering forever. Today even print interviews need to be planned as if they were going to be TV interviews. Certainly a publication such as USA Today is much more like network TV news than like traditional newspapers of years gone by. Just because you may have more time to discuss an issue with a print reporter doesn't mean that you can be any less nervous. Remember, print interviews often take place over the phone with the reporter trying to type what you're saying. No matter whether the interview is over the phone or in person, it's a lot easier for the reporter if you respond to questions in concise, simple sentences. I said before that it was important to keep in mind that the public is your audience when you give an interview, not the reporter. Whatever the medium, put yourself in the shoes of the audience and present your messages immediately. Now, because television is such an all-pervasive medium, and because it's the medium of pictures, let me take just a few minutes to cover some of the basics for appearing on television. Of course, whole books have been written on this subject alone, but here are some key points regarding appearance. And remember, as we said before, persuasion on television is at least 50% appearance.  Unfortunately, that's just bad advice. We live in a three-dimensional world and television isn't 3D, at least not yet. What happens when you appear on television is that your natural look is flattened. You've got to compensate. And what's required is for you to exaggerate your features somewhat. You need to keep a slight smile on your face when you're on television in order to come across looking natural. If you're being interviewed standing up, put one foot slightly in front of the other so you won't be tempted to look away back and forth.  Look right at the reporter or interviewer who is asking you the questions. The slightest eye movement is magnified on TV. It's distracting and it'll make you look as though you have something to hide. The big, bold gestures you learned in drama class are great for the stage, but television is an intimate medium. And your gestures must be in keeping with the size of the screen. If you use your hands, use them here in front of you and avoid any hand motions that will be seen going in and out of the screen.  When you appear on camera, you'll have a tendency to rush and get breathless. Finally, remember that when you're on, you're on. Until the interview is over, act as if the camera is on you at all times. Directors always like to get those nervous reaction shots to tough questions. Let's take a brief look at what we've just talked about. First, we'll see a mayor before he began practicing his television manner. Then we'll see what a little practice can do. Every day in Elm City, we produce enough garbage to cover Memorial Stadium's football field two feet deep. Now, it costs our town more than $300,000 every year to handle all of the garbage trash. That's $360 for every family in town. Today, I'm pleased to announce that we're declaring war on garbage. Today we begin a new chapter in our history by recycling our aluminum cans, our glass, our newspapers. We'll be saving approximately $80,000 this year alone. But just as important as the money, we'll be doing the right thing to help protect our environment and to ensure that the town we all love is as final place to live for our children as for our children's children. Every day in Elm City, we produce enough garbage to cover Memorial Stadium's football field two feet deep. Now, it costs our town more than $300,000 every year to handle the town's trash. That's $360 for every family in town. Well, today I'm pleased to announce that we're declaring war on garbage. Today we begin a new chapter in our history. By recycling our aluminum cans, our glass, and newspapers, we'll be saving approximately $80,000 this year alone. But just as important as the money, we'll be doing the right thing to help protect our environment and ensure that the town we all love is as final place to live for our children as our children's children. Tylerville started its recycling program two years ago. It's taken us a while to catch up, right, Mr. Mayor? Well, sure. You have to understand, though, that in Elm City here, we have a different process than our friends to the north. Here we have to have consensus approval from the Board of Health and from the Planning Board and City Council. I'm going to give it my final approval, so all these things take time. A much improved Mayor the second time around. But while I think we'd all agree that he has his presentation skills down pretty well, he did have some trouble with that follow-up question from the reporter. What would have made a better answer? A better sound bite on tonight's newscast. Well, that's the subject of the second part of our program on dealing successfully with the news media. We'll take a hard look at defending your message, and especially how to answer all kinds of tough questions from reporters. Now that we've discussed choosing your message, framing the message, and presenting the message, we turn to a real challenge, defending your message. This is the area I think we all dread the most, but like every other difficult activity, there are some basic skills and techniques that will make it a lot easier. Now I'm not saying that you'll ever actually enjoy going toe-to-toe with an aggressive reporter, but you can be a whole lot more comfortable than you probably are now. Let's take a look first at what can happen when the questions start flying on tough issues. What if the fire takes a turn and heads back for the place where those endangered species are? Well, that could make things tough. I guess we'll just have to hope that the wind doesn't shift, and that could make for a very tough situation. We've got another issue. Conservation groups say that you're permitting overgrazing at the expense of the wildlife habitat. Is that a priority because you're paid lease money for the grazing pastures? No. It might not seem like it, but we really do care about the wildlife. Let me just ask you one more quick question. I know you're busy. Have you stopped sending in more firefighters to that area that you failed to protect? Well, yes. Well, actually, I guess I really mean no. I'm not sending anybody else back into that area. Those exchanges are what can happen to a spokesperson who isn't well prepared to defend message points. Were the questions fair? Well, whether they were fair or not, they were asked, and they needed the best responses that could be given. Remember, the news media has drawn to conflict and controversy. Reporters see themselves as just doing a job asking you the tough questions. Along the way, though, all good reporters have discovered questions can be just as important as the subject matter they're asking about. Let's take a look at some common techniques used by reporters and see how you can successfully handle questions. Remember, you're not under any obligation to answer questions the way the reporter wants you to. You should always be working to take control of an interview so that you can best present and defend your message points. The first technique that reporters may try is the hypothetical what-if question. Don't fall for this. At most, a hypothetical question deserves a hypothetical answer. Try to take one of your key message points and answer that question without addressing the hypothetical. Isn't there a chance the fire will turn and you could lose the historic old lodge? There's always a yes answer to a hypothetical question such as that one. The real issue here is what we're doing to protect the lodge from loss of this fire. The answer to that question is that our plan makes protection of structures a priority. We have stationed our firefighters and equipment to defend the old lodge. In the unlikely event that the fire makes a turn, we're prepared to aggressively fight it. Reporters also will use a variation on the old have you stopped beating your dog question. This is the question with no answer. Again, answer such a question with one of your key message points. Whatever you do, you don't begin answering one of these questions with a yes or no. The temptation to edit the tape without your supporting statement may be just too great for some reporters. Have you stopped your unsuccessful attempt to keep the diesel oil from seeping into the river? We're totally committed to minimizing the impact of the oil spill in the Johns River. Our crews have put an earthen dyke completely around the spill and we expect a cleanup crew and we've actually calculated the amount of the spill that's going into the river as the equivalent of only about two coffee cans. We expect to be successful in controlling the spill. Force the reporter to ask a question before you start to respond. Sometimes a reporter will just start a statement and let it trail off in hopes that you'll jump in and start talking. Be careful of questions that aren't questions. Make reporters do their work. They ask the questions. You answer them. Don't worry of a reporter who doesn't follow up with a question right away. This is an old trick. Don't be tempted to keep talking to fill the dead air. When you've finished what you have to say, stop talking. The dead air is the reporter's problem, not yours. Let's see. Fire in rough country. Old equipment. It must be... Do you have a question for me? Sure. How long have you been using a lot of old equipment on this fire? Mostly equipment that we have assigned has been in service for five years or less. We do have a few additional pieces of equipment that are older. They're all in good shape, well maintained and suitable for the jobs assigned. Okay, I... Finally, we've all faced the loaded question. A reporter will repeat something that's not accurate and base a question on the inaccurate statement. Your answer to questions such as these first debunk the incorrect statement. Then you present one of your message points as the answer to the question. We're hearing reports that one of your fire crews left some hikers they were helping and fled the oncoming fire. What's your comment? Well, that's not only untrue, but it's totally unfair to the dedicated men and women that have been fighting this fire for the last six days. Let me tell you what actually happened out there. After the firefighters found the hikers, they escorted them back to an evacuation bus. And then the firefighters went back to fight the fire, which they'd been so successfully doing for the last week. So this isn't a negative story. This is a positive story of rescue and the dedication of a very outstanding group of individuals. Now let's talk about different types of interview situations and what you need to look out for in defending your messages. When you're doing a live interview, you have a lot more control over delivery of your message. Keep in mind that what you are saying is really directed to the audience and to the listeners, not to the reporter or interviewer. Think of how you would receive the message if you were home watching or listening. What you're saying, they're hearing. You don't have to worry about what will be edited out. In the taped or edited interview, however, you must take special care to get your message points out clearly and concisely. Short answers end up being used. Don't make it hard for a reporter to edit your remarks. For all types of interviews and sessions the key to success is preparation and practice. One effective approach is to anticipate what I call the dirty questions you're likely to get from a reporter. Have someone play the role of a reporter and answer the questions as if you were actually talking to the press. It takes a thick skin to go through this exercise. But I guarantee you that when you take the time to do this, your encounter with the reporter will be much less stressful. Before leaving this section on answering questions from reporters, let me review several other key points. Whenever you're faced with a negative question always try to state the positive opposite. For example... Isn't it true that this fire will be an ecological disaster? A fire like this will provide for the renewal of vegetation. It's part of the normal cycle of life in the forest. See how effectively this approach works. You know you've done a good job when a reporter says, why do you say that? You've turned things around. Now you have an opportunity to talk about the positive and negative aspects of wildland fire management. Another thing you want to avoid is quantifying the size of the peril.  See how a skilled communicator comes across by not diminishing the seriousness of the situation. You've lost some houses in this fire, right? Unfortunately, we did lose five houses. We have assigned all the available firefighters and equipment to prevent further spread of the fire to houses within the area. Many of us live around here with our families. And the thought of even losing one home is difficult to accept. Negative questions need to be repositioned. Don't waste your precious time repeating a negative when you could be hammering home a positive point. There seem to be only two reasons why this fire is still burning. Either you don't have the people in the equipment to do the job or you're not waging an effective campaign against this fire. Which is it? Our job is to put the fire out and that's exactly what we're doing. We're using firefighters and resources in locations where they can work safely but also be the most effective. Our strategy for combating the fire is also working very well. In just 48 hours we've contained 80% of the fire and we expect to have more. What about dealing with a reporter who seems to have an agenda? You know, the type that keeps interrupting you or the type that raises his or her voice in hopes that you'll lose your cool and begin to mix it up. A few common sense rules apply to these kinds of interviews. If someone interrupts you and you've already said one of your key message points, let the interruption pass. If the reporter keeps it up let he or she finish the new question. If it was interrupted and you turn to the reporter and you say what was that next question? Don't ever be bullied in an interview situation. Exercise your rights especially in a news conference where your number one priority as a communicator is to keep control of the situation and prevent what I call a feeding frenzy. And most importantly don't ever get angry no matter how outrageous a reporter may get. You should practice the law of the inverse proportion on any reporter who suddenly starts to get aggressive. When the reporter gets louder and faster you get softer and slower. If the interview is live the audience may start rooting for you. If the interview is taped you can be sure that the reporter's provocative tone will not be in the news clip but you can count on your angry answer showing up if you allow yourself to be goaded by the reporter. I urge you to study the number of proven techniques that you can use to make yourself more successful in dealing with the news media. I urge you to study the supporting material that accompanies this program. Use the reference card in the checklist and you'll get more and more comfortable dealing with the press. You know, not one person you feel as a good communicator was born with those skills. The more you do it the easier it becomes and the better you'll represent yourself and your agency.  They tend to view the world in negative terms because their job is to cover the news and the news is most often negative. You on the other hand are responsible for presenting your agency in the most positive terms. Winning the media relations struggle often comes down to just how well you're able to get reporters to accept positive answers to negative questions. It's a challenge. It's a big challenge. But it's something that everyone can learn to do if you're willing to work at it. There's an old story about a young boy stopping an elderly man on the streets of New York to ask the question how do I get to Carnegie Hall? Without hesitation the man answers practice, practice, practice. Do you remember that newscast we saw at the beginning of the first program in this series? You'll recall that it seemed negative and unfair. Let's take another look at that same situation. This time the interview subjects will be using the skills we've talked about in this program. I think you'll find that you'll like the outcome much better. Look, here's the fire information officer. Can I ask you a question? Sure. I'll handle Channel 9. Okay.  I have a second to catch my breath. It's been a busy morning. Anything else that you'd like to talk about other than the general fire information? It's just general overview stuff, how the firefighting is going, stuff like that. Anything else? Well, there's some criticism about an endangered animal that might be lost, a weasel or a gopher, something like that. Okay, I'm ready. Go ahead.  Our job here is to control this fire and that's exactly what we're doing. We're started by three helicopters and two air tankers. Also five logging company bulldozers are also being used to fight this fire. We have the resources and we're getting the job done. Have you figured out what started the fire yet? Yesterday afternoon, a forestry division crew was burning an area of logging slash as part of our management plan. The weather forecast only called for a minimal wind for a 24-hour period. Unfortunately, there was a period of high wind which caused the fire to spread outside its prescribed area. Someone decided it was okay to burn during this drought? As I said, our management plan requires us to do some burning under very carefully controlled conditions. In this case, we use the most conservative restrictions on this burn. We are more aware than anyone else exactly how dry it's become. The wind was not supposed to be a factor. When the wind began to spread the fire, the crew took exactly the right action to handle this situation. They began an aggressive effort to control the fire and really call for backup assistance. Conservation groups seem to be worried about a place called Maple Creek and about an endangered animal that lives there. Do you know anything about that? Yes, I do. Everyone involved in managing this fire has received a comprehensive briefing. That briefing contained information on protecting an area where an endangered species known as the woodland mink live. So the conservationists are right then. Your inability to get this fire under control has put the woodland mink in danger. We're very aware of our responsibility to protect the woodland mink and the other wildlife in the forest. Forestry, personnel, our conservationists too and where every bit is interested in the future of the forest and wildlife is everyone else. Let me assure you that this fire is being managed very carefully and we're doing our best to protect the woodland mink. Are the woodland mink in danger? At this point the fire is not threatening the area where the woodland mink live. In fact, the fire is burning in the opposite direction. Hypothetically, if the wind shifts the mink could be in danger. I've always thought that a hypothetical question deserved a hypothetical answer. Let me assure you that we are on top of this situation. We are managing this fire with sufficient personnel and resources and we are very aware of all the special considerations including the woodland mink. Thanks. Just one more question. I know you're busy. Just between you and me given the drought situation it confuses me. Do you really think it was a good idea to have a log-in slash? If you're asking me to comment off the record it's my policy to answer every question like the answer might appear on the first page of the New York Times. On this issue, the burning of logging slashes is important to forest management. Overall we have an outstanding record and it's easy to second guess this fire because it got away from the crew but remember the wind was not supposed to be a factor. If we never burn because something might happen we'd never get anything accomplished and we wouldn't be doing our job by burning the forest in the best way possible. Thanks for your help. You're welcome. It's not an easy job. Excuse me, would you mind moving that light just a little bit please? Thank you, that's much better. Now what was your question? Now about the fire. I was down on the fire line earlier and it's obviously a bad one. Are you losing the battle? Wildfires always look dramatic but we're winning this battle because we have a comprehensive plan in place that most effectively uses our resources. The fire started here and it spread to this location driven by winds that were not forecasted.  We expect to contain the fire within 48 hours. Where's Maple Creek? Maple Creek is here approximately three miles from the head of the fire which is moving in the opposite direction. So that's the area where the Woodland and Mink live? In the comprehensive briefing that we received before we took over the fire we were informed that the Woodland and Mink live in the Maple Creek area. Now we use this information in the earliest stages of managing this fire to protect the Woodland and Mink habitat when it was threatened by fire. So what are you doing to protect that area now? We are very aware of the importance of protecting the Woodland and Mink. However the head of the fire has moved three miles from that area and we're concentrating our efforts in an area of greatest threat. Right now we have the responsibility of protecting a valuable stand of commercial timber but you can be assured that we'll continue to monitor the entire fire and we have contingency plans in place to protect the Woodland and Mink habitat. We'll move quickly to adjust our firefighting forces if necessary. So timber company interests are more important than wildlife interest? I didn't say that but what I did say is that we concentrate our efforts in areas of greatest threat. When the fire was threatening the Maple Creek area we concentrated our efforts there. Now that the fires moved three miles from that area we're concentrating our firefighting efforts at that location. I've been told that the fire started when a controlled burn got out of control. Now based on what's happened and the unpredictability of forecasting wind gusts it certainly is possible for the fire to race back down to Maple Creek and get the Mink, right? Of course that's a hypothetical question. Managing wildfire requires all the professionalism experience and skills we have in the Forestry Division. We're proud of our track record of controlling fires in this region. The dedication of the men and women out on the fire line is unsurpassed. With every fire comes the challenges of protecting life, property and natural resources. We face these challenges every time we fight a wildfire and we're not satisfied until we can say we did our very best job to overcome them. And now, news of the River City and the Emerald Valley. EY Evening Report with Jack Hart. Good evening. Here's what's happening. There's encouraging news from the scene of that stubborn forest fire burning in the Winchester area. With an exclusive report here's New Center Six's Joseph Rodriguez. Joe.  Despite the forestry crews aggressive efforts the fire spread and headed for the Maple Creek Basin which has never been logged and is home to the Woodland Mink an animal whose habitat is especially vulnerable to fire. Let me assure you that this fire is being managed very carefully and we're doing our best to protect the Woodland Mink. Are the Woodland Mink in danger? At this point the fire is not threatening the area where the Woodland Mink live. We've been putting the fire out so the crews were not letting their guard down. Right now we have the responsibility of protecting a valuable stand of commercial timber but you can be assured that we'll continue to monitor the entire fire and we have contingency plans in place to protect the Woodland Mink habitat. So Jack, as you can see the forestry division is fighting the battle on two fronts. Right now the emphasis is on protecting timber but many people would say the real success story is saving the habitat of the Woodland Mink. So joining us live in the studio is Roland Johnson who is director of the forestry division. Director, you've heard Joseph Rodriguez's report on your successful firefighting efforts but why did your people start a fire? When just this week your department sent out this news release stating that we may be facing one of the worst fire seasons in history because of the drought. Jack, the forestry division has a responsibility to manage our forest in the most effective manner possible. Part of the responsibility includes doing some controlled burning under specific conditions. We do this in order to reduce the amount of brush and old dead trees that would really feed a wildfire if it broke out. We only burn when the weather forecast and wind conditions are favorable. Unfortunately in this case winds that were not forecast spread the fire but it's under control now because we had a backup plan that expected weather conditions. Is the forestry division more concerned with protecting wildlife habitats or commercial timber interests?  At any given time we're most concerned with protecting whatever is facing the greatest threat. When this fire we were very aware of the woodland mink habitat and we took actions to protect that area when the fire was threatening the Maple Creek region. And now that the fire has moved northeast we're focusing our efforts on protecting the timber. Effective fire management calls for us to constantly adjust our resources and personnel to meet the challenges we face. And overall we're very proud of our record of success controlling wildfire in this region. Do you have enough equipment and people to do the job these days? Every manager would always like more resources. But Jack, I must tell you that our region is fortunate to have the most professional and effective group of firefighters that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Well thank you Director Johnson and good luck with the rest of the fire season. Thank you Jack. On our late news, we'll hear again from Joseph Rodriguez who's in Winchester until that fire is out. He'll be profiling some of the people who've been fighting this blaze against wildfire under the roughest conditions.


First question is from Shrumpf F836. Does wearing a weighted vest or a hoodie during cardio really make a difference in the amount of calories burned? Or is it like the oxygen restriction masks and just to perceive difficulty? It doesn't, but it does make you look way more serious than anybody else that you're running next to. And that counts. Yeah. Okay, so. I'm ready. Theoretically, a weighted vest would make you burn more calories because there's resistance and it's harder, but it's not worth the tradeoff. And what I mean by that is a weighted vest, weighting your body down, doing cardio, changes your movement patterns. If you're not used to moving that way, injury is much higher. If you want to use weight, use weight for what it's used best for, which is resistance training. A hoodie is not going to improve your calorie burn. In fact, it may reduce your performance to the point where you actually burn less calories. But wearing a hoodie may help improve your ability to tolerate heat. So if you're trying to train yourself to be able to, let's say you're going to go hiking and it's going to get hot and you want to get better with heat tolerance. That may be one way to help yourself out is to do cardio in a hot environment, either heat up the room, do it outside when it's really hot or wear the clothing that makes you really hot, in which case you're training that aspect of your body. But as far as calorie burn goes, you're going to do the best in the best state, meaning the best performance with the best form and the best technique. Yeah. Unless you're like a soldier or unless you're like, even for football, on some degree, you had weighted equipment. And so I would consider certain things like that with the style of training is very specified. So if I'm doing sprints or doing anything, I'm trying to emulate the amount of time I would be doing that in the game and the amount of weight I'd be carrying around my body. And so, you know, there's ways to kind of do that creatively and the weight vest might make sense in certain instances like that. But in terms of your everyday average person that's just trying to burn calories or get stronger, you got to evaluate these things. They don't really have a lot worse in that direction. I'm glad you said that because this is where I was going to go with that. This only makes sense to me if you are doing something where you are going to have some weight on your shoulders while you're performing an exercise or a sport. Other than that, it's a classic example of how silly fitness humans think that the ultimate goal is just to make everything harder and that therefore it ends up being more results. So that's just how we, so many people train this way, you know, it's always intensity. If it's difficult, it's hard, more results and it's not true at all. It's a much finer dance than that. And when you talk about the potential thermogenic effects because you're heating up faster and your body is trying to cool down, like maybe getting more calories, that's all splitting hair bullshit.  And the trade-off to Sal's point earlier is it's just not worth it and it's splitting hairs unless, to Justin's point, you are doing a sport where you would put on something that's weighted like shoulder pads or do some of the obstacle course races have them do that? I'm not sure. What's rucking? Is it rucking? Yeah, there you go. Rucking does that. Yes. Yes.  So if you're training for something specific to get better at doing whatever it is you're doing with a vest on, that makes sense for all other reasons. Yeah, for all other reasons, yeah, not silly.  You're really, you really feel it more in your abs. They totally got that from boxers and boxers do that because in boxing you get punched in the stomach. Yeah, you actually get punched. Yeah, there's a real, yes, there's a real application for them.  It's not helping you build your abs more. Yeah. Yeah, wearing a weighted vest is not going to help your, your cardio or to burn necessarily more calories, not worth the trade unless that's what you want to get good at, which is cardio with weights.


So yesterday, I was facing a major dilemma. I got up yesterday morning and I noticed I had a bunch of emails from the AUR, the Arch User Repository, notifying me that several of my packages in the AUR had been removed. They had been deleted and the person deleting them, he listed the reason they were being deleted is because they were for a single person, one user, me, and because they were my suckless builds. And he says, these don't belong in the AUR because they're just for you. And I tried to explain to the guy that it wasn't just for me. I don't actually need my builds of DWM and ST and Dmendu in the AUR for my personal use because I have the source code on my host machine. Why do I need them in the AUR for me? I have them in the AUR for other people to use and many, many people do use my suckless builds from the AUR and it's unfair that the AUR has removed those packages. It's unfair to you guys. It's not unfair to me because of course I've still got the source code on my machine. So I needed to find a solution to help you guys out that actually use those packages. So my solution was I decided I'm just going to create my own repository of Arch packages just to maintain those builds, those suckless builds, and maybe other packages that maybe the AUR deems unworthy to actually be in the AUR. So today I'm going to show you exactly what I did to set this up, how you guys can host your own Arch repository over on GitHub or GitLab. And the reason I'm going to do this on video and why I want to share it with you guys today is because I know not everybody will want to do this, but there's almost no documentation on how to do this. And it was frustrating for me to get this done yesterday. I started at 10 o'clock in the morning and I didn't finish till 8 p.m. last night because I just couldn't find any documentation at all on how to do this. I had to do a lot of trial and error and in many cases, just some guesswork to get this done. So I know other people will eventually want to do this and be scouring the internet for information like I was doing yesterday. And hopefully in the future, those people looking for this kind of information will find this video. So I had about four packages that were deleted from the AUR yesterday. One of them is DWM-distrotube.git. You can see that page is no longer here. ST-distrotube-git is also no longer here. That was my build of the ST terminal. I also had my builds of DWM blocks and my build of the menu. So I had four packages really that I needed to do something with. So what I did is I went to my GitLab and I created a new repository. I called it DT-arch-repo, a repository for my Arch Linux packages. And let me show you exactly what you need to do to set this up. So you guys, if you already have a GitLab account or a GitHub account, create a repository and name it whatever it is you want to name it. So let me switch over to my desktop and I'm going to open up a graphical file manager here to show you guys exactly what I'm doing here. So I created the DT-arch-repo repository on my GitLab. And then I cloned it here locally on my machine. Now in this empty repository, what I did is I created a folder called x8664. Now that is the architecture of the packages. So that could be x8664 or i686 or ARM or whatever it is. Any typically is another popular architecture in a Arch package build. And you can have multiple of these directories with multiple architectures. For me, I'm just doing four packages. All of them are going to be x8664. So that's the only directory I created. And in this directory, I threw the four packages that I needed. So these packages here, my builds of D-Menu, DWM Blocks, DWM and ST, and in the package.tar.zst format. So when you run make package on your package builds, you know, it creates this compressed archive typically by default now in Arch. It's ZST compression. So I put those four packages in here, but then I needed two other packages. These two packages here, which are the name of the repository dot DB and the name of the repository dot files. How do you get those? Well, this was one of the really tricky things that kind of tripped me up, actually, because looking at the documentation for how to do this, I was able to find the command that would create these files. Let me delete these files. That way you can see what happens when I create them. So initially you create your folder for your architecture. In my case, x8664. And then you throw all of these package.tar.zst or whatever compressed format that you've decided to export these things to.  Let me CD into my GitLab dash repos directory. And this is DT dash Arch dash repo and doing LS. And yeah, let me CD into the x8664 directory. And there are those four ZST files. And then the command you need to run is repo add. And then let me make this full screen so you guys can see this repo add name of repository dot DB dot. And then whatever compression you want to use on the database. I use tar dot GZ, just a standard compression that a lot of people use for the database files. And then I did the asterisk sign, meaning what do I want to go in the database? I want all of my package builds that were package tar dot ZST. That's what the asterisk means. It means every file that ends in dot PKG tar dot ZST. So let me run that command and you can see it's adding packages to the database and it creates the database. So now I have four files it creates. So it creates these two files, which are the arch repo dot DB dot tar GZ and the DT dash Arch dash repo dot files dot tar GZ. And then it creates some links to both of them. And this is where things get a little weird. This tripped me up for hours yesterday because I thought that was all I needed to do from here on. All I needed to do was do a get push to my get lab. And then after that, I needed to add the URL to my get lab to my Pacman dot com. So let's do that. Let me get into sudo vim slash etsy, not make package dot com. That's something else. How about Pacman dot com and give it my root password here. And if I go to the very last line of my repositories here, you can see you have your standard arch repositories toward the top. The core extra for me is turned on. The community repositories also turned on multi lib. If you need a 32 bit applications to also run on your machine. And then because I run Arco Linux, Arco Linux has several repositories, their own custom repositories added. And then finally, I added my repository. DT dash arch dash repo is the name of the repository. And it has to be exactly the name of the repository, meaning that's this name right here in get lab. So that's what needs to be inside those square brackets. And then SIG level. So this is do the packages need to be signed? I made it optional. Optional is the default on arch because I didn't create any kind of a SIG files or anything. So I didn't want it to check for PGP keys or anything like that. So it's optional. And then, of course, the important line is this one right here server. It's like, hey, where is it going to find these packages? You know, where is this repository? In my case, it's this URL here, which is get lab dot com slash DWT one, which is my get lab slash dollar symbol repo dollar symbol repo is a variable for this year. And then in my case, I gave it the raw address to the arc variable, which is x 86 64. Actually, it could be a variety of things. But in my case, I just have x 86 64.  What is raw, it means it's not a formatted text in any way. And basically, it's just the plain text. Now, the tricky part is getting the raw links from GitHub or get lab. And it's actually pretty easy once you know how to do it. So if I go over to my get lab, typically what you want to do is find a plain text file somewhere in the repository. This org document might read me as plain text. And if I want to, one of these links here will say raw. That one there, it says open raw. And that actually just opens it again as plain text as raw data. That's not formatted in any way. And that gives me the actual link, which is get lab.com slash DWT one slash DT dash arch dash repo slash dash slash raw slash master slash read me dot org. It's a very long URL, but that gives me an idea of the format that I needed to use here. And then I just replaced a DT dash arch dash repo with the variable dollar sign repo. And then, of course, dollar sign arch for x86 underscore 64. Now, I thought that's all I needed to do it at that point. I thought, you know, once I had all of this on get lab in that repository and then I had this, you know, pointing pacman to that repository, I should just be able to do a sudo pacman dash syu and everything would be just lovely. And then, but no, I was getting errors saying that it had a problem with this archived format. As a matter of fact, let me show you this in action.  So we're actually going to do it an update. I'll go ahead and add everything and I'm going to do a commit. And then let's do a get push. And this will actually break things, but this will show you the error that I was getting. Now that I've pushed all of this to my get lab. Now let me do a sudo pacman dash syu update the let's resync the repositories before we try to do the update. And of course, these are the errors I get. And I couldn't figure this out because it says it could not open slash var slash lib slash pacman slash sync slash DT dash arch dash repo dot DB. It's an unrecognized archive format. It's like, how is it an unrecognized archive format? It's tar GZ. I tar GZ has been supported in arch since the beginning. And then I decided, you know what? I would recreate these and I created them as tar dot XZ. Still, I was getting unrecognized format. I even tried them as tar ZSTs similar to the package files themselves. Again, unrecognized archive format. I couldn't figure out what was going on. And then it finally dawned on me that these sim links. Why do I have these sim links here? These sim links are actually what is getting placed here. So that sim link to DT dash arch dash repo dot DB is actually what is being put in that directory rather than the archive itself rather than the actual archive. So what solved this problem for me was I got rid of these files. These sim links, we don't need them. And really, this was just kind of a guess on my part, but it actually worked. I got rid of the sim links and then I renamed the tar dot GZs. I got rid of the extension. And let me rename the extension for both the DB file and the files file. And then once I did that, let's repush to my GitLab. So I'm going to do a git add dash u for update and get commit. Let's do a git checkout just to see, you know, OK, just making sure to get push. And now when I do sudo pacman dash capital S Y Y U. Hopefully everything works out. It's possible I still get an error. No, I didn't. And then I could take that update, but I will decline that update. So that fixes the problem. So you won't find that tip anywhere online about the sim links, deleting them and then renaming the tar dot GZs, you know, without the extension, you won't find that tip anywhere. And that really cost me hours yesterday. But now that I have done that, we're good to go. Now I have, again, my own repository over on GitLab. Right now, all I'm doing is I am just hosting my own package builds, because I've already, as soon as I've created the empty repository and started working on it, you see, I already have two issues. So people already started asking, Hey, man, can I put my package builds here? I don't know if I want to be responsible for a repository with other people's stuff in it right now. It's just for my stuff. Maybe at some point we may open it up to more packages other than just my personal package builds. But for right now, I just needed something up for those people. I know there's some people that out there that use, especially my D menu, my SD and a lot of people do use my build of DWM as well. And, you know, they're going to be wondering why now when they're trying to install it from the AUR with something like EA or Paru, hey, that package is no longer there. Well, now that we've got that settled, by the way, and just to wreak hash, how exactly you actually get this repository enabled, that slash etsy slash pac-man.com. Again, you need to add that line that's not just for me. That's for you guys that want to use this repository.  And then once you do that, you should find a D menu dash distro tube dash yet and DWM dash distro tube dot get and all of that in your repositories. Now you should be able to install those packages. I just to verify that I actually could do that on camera. Let me zoom in just to ensure that it's working since I did kind of play around a little bit. Let me do D menu dash distro tube dash get, which is no longer in the A U R. So but it is available to install with pac-man because I'm pointing it to that extra repository over on my get lab. So and to verify that the menu works, there is D menu right there. If I wanted to open a lacquerty from D menu. So crisis averted is probably something I needed to do anyway. I'm not I'm not upset that they removed those packages from the A U R. I'm upset that maybe it caused some of you guys some pain, hopefully not. I was able to get the new repository up and working within a about 24 hours or so from those packages being removed. So hopefully a little downtime shouldn't have bothered anybody. And now hosting my own arch repository is probably something I was eventually going to need to do for some stuff anyway. So it was a good learning experience. And hopefully you guys, if you guys want to do the same thing, host your own repository. It doesn't even have to be a public repository. It can just be stuff for you, right? If you got a GitHub account or a get lab account, it's really easy, or at least it's really easy to do this now that somebody's actually explained how to do it. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of the show, Ebsi, Dallas, Gabe, Lou, Mitchell, Alan, a Commie, Archfinger 30, Chuck David, the other David Dillon, Gregory, Lewis, Paul, Paulie, Tech, Scott, Steven, Sven, Wes, and Willie. They are the producers of this episode. Without these guys, you wouldn't know how to host your own arch repository on GitHub or get lab. You wouldn't know about it. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these ladies and gentlemen as well. All these names you're seeing on the screen right now, these are all my supporters over on Patreon, because I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you'd like to help support my work, I'd appreciate it. Look for DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys, peace. At this point, I might as well start my own Distro.


Well, hi there. It's Sandy Allknock and today I'm going to be doing something really crazy. I'm doing string art. I've never done this before. And I'm going to throw my friend Ellen under the bus. It's all her fault. And I'm using some letterpress card stock along with these new dies from Ellen Hudson. And each one cuts out little holes in shapes. They don't cut out the shapes themselves. And each package, by the way, has twice the number of dies you see there because there's a whole second set behind each one. So lots of dies in these packages for the money that you pay for them. Each one, I have die cut. It just makes the pattern in the shape, whatever the shape is. It doesn't cut out the shape itself. So now I've got a nice flat piece of paper with a bunch of holes in it and can string them up any old way. There's lots of different ways you can do this. And I'm just going to say it's Ellen's fault that I spent way too many hours on Google and Pinterest finding all kinds of beautiful ideas for string art. This was my very first one. It's the very first thing I tried. And I was curious to see how this was going to go. One of the things that looked really easy was to pick one spot on the end of one of the shapes, make everything radiate out from it. And that's what I did with the oval. And I did die cut the little circle, but I wasn't really sure what that was going to turn into. I didn't have an idea in my head, but I wanted to see what would happen as I started making these threads go around the whole thing. There are so many designs out there. And a lot of the people who do this string art take a board and they put a whole bunch of nails around the edge of it in whatever designs they want. And then they start stringing that.  I would never get nails in a board even like that. So I'm kind of excited that we can do this with dies as well. Then for the inner circle, that little one that I put in there, I decided I would make it also join at the base where everything else went through that one hole. But I only ended up going around to the top edge. And what this kind of made it look like to me was a feather with an interior part and an exterior part, which was very beautiful. I really didn't have any expectation how this was going to come out. It was just going to be my first try. And I have so many other things I'm going to do now.  So you can either leave the hole showing or you can cover them up like this with another piece of paper. And then I added a little heart on some dimensional adhesive as well. And the heart is from yet another set of dies. My second one is going to be the circle. So I thought I'll try that one. And one of the things I saw in a lot of these different string art designs is circles that have almost a wreath going around the outside edge. Well, I counted the number of holes I had on the outside circle, which is 55. And then the number of holes on the inside circle, which is 44. And they don't divide evenly. So I couldn't really figure out how to make all these things join. But I did make 11 little tick marks on my paper. The reason is because this was the fourth time I tried doing this. And each of the other times was how I figured out this was not going to work out evenly because I kept running into a place where they just all got off. Like just nothing was working out right. So once I started with my little 11 tick marks, I made one row of the 11 going all the way around so that they were at approximately the right angle. There was no way to say, I'm going to always skip three holes on the inside or I'm always going to skip four holes because it didn't work out that way. But this got me started. Then once I started filling in the rest, it was just a matter of filling in. And as long as they sort of ended up around the same place, then it all worked out to be a really beautiful wreath type shape. And I made sure there was something coming in and out of each hole. Some of the holes had two strings in them just because there was a little cheating to be done. But it made it a whole lot easier than trying to ritually tell myself I had to do this number of circles or holes here and that number over there. I was always terrible when it came to doing knitting and crocheting and that sort of thing because I would forget to count. And I don't want anything where I have to count. So it was kind of nice to come up with something that I could make a little bit randomish once I got the basic design kind of stabilized. And once I finished that, I wanted to again do one of those things where all of the threads radiate to one thing. And I tried using my hole puncher, which didn't reach far enough to the middle because I wanted to put a heart in the middle, not in the middle. I wanted off center because I don't do things that are too centered. So I poked a hole and then took a lighter blue thread and just started going around from the inner circle all the way to that center one. And again, this is like mindless and wonderful and easy and simple. Just keep going around and round and round till it's all done. And then I added the heart with a little dimensional adhesive. And it looks dimensional, doesn't it? The whole thing, the only thing popped is that little heart. Next up was one that I decided to get a little more adventurous and do some criss-crossing.  Now, depending on which die you choose and how many holes it has, you may end up with other counts of things. But try one side. The only thing you risk is having to undo it. You can really easily undo all the threading you do and reuse the same parts off, which is kind of nice. It's not like when you're drawing on a piece of paper and then you have to put it in a recycle bin if you totally blow it. Here you just undo it and do it again. And it's, yeah, it's not that bad. So I'll go all the way around the outside edges, creating a beautiful pink border and I reserved the corners because I thought it would be nice to do something different in the corners. And I saw lots of different designs that did different things with different colors and thought, man, I wish I could figure out how to do more exciting things than that. But, you know, such is life. When you're starting out on a new adventure like this, you can go for tutorials that are going to show you exactly what to do. And I debated it. I debated looking for string art tutorials that showed, you know, how to make certain kinds of patterns and I may resort to doing that. But the thing that I found was so fun about this was making it up on my own because I could do whatever I wanted. And I didn't have to worry about being right because it came out pretty anyway. And all I had to do was unstring it if I didn't like it. So the corners I decided to do in an orange thread and I just went from the outside absolute corner to each of the holes that didn't already have two strings going through it. And so that gave me an anchor for each one of the corners in a separate color. And then I used that color. I die cut another square out of the inside so that I could make another little radiating thing to the center to put my little heart in the middle. Now, before I let you go, I want to show you the rest of the release in case while you're going to get these dies, you decide you need another stamp set.  And what I decided to do was to make a couple of these little happy dancing guacamoles. And I did it just with inks and a little bit of water. These are Catherine Pooler inks and it's on watercolor paper. So it gave me this really nice texture for the little guacamole dudes. And I didn't have the right colors for this. I didn't have a brown. I have no brown inks. I own none. It's weird. So I stamped an orange and then I stamped a blue over top of it and then mushed it with a little bit of water. So those of you who know your color theory will know why that is orange and blue. So I did the same kind of thing with the sun. And I painted my own sun rays around it. That's the same stamp as their bellies and painted a little bit of ground around them.  So I used the back of it and made my own card stock layers for that one. All right. Next up, there's a darling little pinata. And if you are someone who likes to smash a pinata, then you might like this one. I decided to airbrush the background on this one and make the little pinata broken in half. So I masked half of it and then masked the other half. Just move the stamp a little bit so that I could draw in the broken part in the middle with all the candy and the toys coming out. And I used another Ellen Hudson stamp set to add to it so that I'd have somebody down there with a handout catching that candy because don't let any of the candy hit the floor. I think that's illegal if it does. I didn't have time to make anything with the fringe dies, but check my blog because I might have something by now for it. And then is Squidward. This little guy is going to be my new best friend. He's so funny. And of course, he has dyes to go with him, but he's got sticks. And his little sticks, one stick has a shark fin so he can pretend he's a shark and scare boats. And the other has a Loch Ness monster on it, which is kind of hilarious. The way I made the background for this, I'll just explain real quick a new video. I cut with scissors around the boat and then I tore a section on the left so that there would be a wave there. I airbrushed the sky in the back and I airbrushed the water and then just took a couple marker strokes around the top to make it look like there's some motion there. And it says, just squidding. Yeah, Squidward, he's just teasing. He's pretending to be a shark and scaring the boats. Oh, I cracked myself up. Anyway, this card is going to be over on Ellen Hudson's channel. She has got a celebration going on with the new release over there. And I'm going to show you how to make this one, including the entwining of that sentiment, et cetera. And pictures of all of my cards are on the blog, links to everything. So you can go see if you need to buy anything else.  And that is it for me today. I will see you again very soon in another video. So hit that like button, subscribe if you haven't yet, and I'll see you again soon. Bye bye.


Instrumenta-varioidaan analysointi on suurtoinen asumson, että asumminen on ympäristössä ympäristössä. Tämä asumson on kuitenkin esim. esim. esim. ja se on ympäristössä. Tässä asumminen on ympäristössä. Onko se mahdollisimman, että esim. esim. on ympäristössä, ja esim. on esim. esim. Let's take a look. So the exclusion criteria was about this correlation. So we must assume that z, the instrument of variable, is uncorribled u y, which is the error term of y, the main dependent variable in our analysis. And that must be assumed to be zero. But that is fundamentally untestable because we don't observe u y, so we can't correlate it with z. And also this model is just identified, we have zero decrease of freedom, so we can't really test anything. So, but anyway, we have this test called Sargon test, Sargon saw J, Sargon Hansen test, over identification tests that claim to be testing this exclusion criteria. So what do these tests actually test, and in which way do they test the exclusion criteria? Let's take a look. These tests will require that you have more instrumental variables that you need. So here we have one endogenous variable, and we need one instrument for estimation. If we have more instruments than what we need for estimation, then our model is over identified. If we have two endogenous variables, two axis here, then we have need two instruments. If we have three, then we have an over identified model. So let's add one more instrument to the analysis. So we have two instruments, z one and z two, they are freely correlated, they explain x, and they are assumed to be uncorrelated with u y. We have one degree of freedom in this model. And whenever we test the model when we have decrease of freedom, we need to understand where those decrease of freedom come from. And what is the constraint being tested? What is the meaning of that constraint? And then how does testing of constraint inform our research? Let's take a look at where this one degree of freedom comes from. So what is being tested? We can do a little bit of algebra with covariances, and we'll see that the covariance between z and y, z one and y here, is the two paths from z one to x directly through the beta say z one and here through z two. So it's the sum of those multiplied by beta x, so that this is a simple application of the tracing rules. And turns out that this can be simplified because this thing in parenthesis is simply covariance between z one and x. So that's the covariance between z one and x. And so there we have it. We can solve for beta by dividing with correlation z one y and correlation z one x, and that solves us beta x. We can also solve beta x using z two, so that gives us another estimate. And our test, the overall identification test, is simply testing if these two are the same. So we write the equation bit differently like so, and we express that the difference between these two ratios is zero. We actually calculate that ratio from our data. If it's far from zero, then we conclude that this constraint does not hold, so we are rejecting our hypothesis. But this doesn't really tell us, this is the covariance that we are testing, but it doesn't really tell us what is the meaning of that test. So what exactly is being tested with this one degree of freedom. So let's take a step back and let's go back to this equation. So covariance between z one and y is simply the model implied covariance here if the model is correctly specified. Let's assume that our model is misspecified, so the z one actually correlates with u y. So that would be a violation of the exclusion criteria. And let's call the correct population value beta star, so we get that kind of equation here. So the actual estimate beta x, I'm omitting the hats for simplicity, would be a function of the population value and the correlation between the instrument and the error term. So we can see that if this is non-zero, then our estimates will be inconsistent. Let's proceed with this equation a bit more. We can simplify the bit, so it's beta star plus ratio of covariance z one with error term and covariance z one with x. So the first covariance quantifies if the exclusion criterion holds and the second covariance quantifies the strength of this instrument. Now this is a useful way of looking at the constraint or beta x, because if we write again an equality, we can solve beta x using the instrument z two as well. We can write it like that, we can cancel beta x star from both, and this is something that we can actually start interpreting. So what's the meaning of this equation? So how should this equation be understood? We have the covariance between instrument and error term divided by covariance between instrument and the endogenous variable, and those two ratios should be the same. There are two ways of understanding the equality of these two ratios. The first one is that if one instrument is valid, the other one is as well. And this is the assumption of these exclusion tests or overidentification tests. We must assume, we need to have a strong theoretical reason to believe that at least one of our instruments is perfectly, is uncorrelated with UY in the populace. And then we can test if the others are uncorrelated as well. So we can basically test if these instruments are equally valid. And if we know that one of them is valid, then if we know that the others are equally valid, then we know that they all are equally valid. Another way of understanding this is that if one of them is correlated with the error term, if one of them is invalid, then both are equally bad. So these tests for exclusion don't really test whether the instruments are excluded in the absolute sense, but they test if the instruments are equally good. And if one of them is known to be valid, then we can infer that the others must be too. There are a few implementations of this idea. Let's take a look at Stator User Manual. So Stator has this S-that-over ID, which gives you the overidentification tests. And they explain that there are a number of different tests that they can calculate based on how you estimated the instrument available model. Did you use GMM? Did you use maximum likelihood or something else? But all these tests boil down to two basic ideas. So the first idea is that we regress. We take the residuals of Y and then we regress them on the instruments. If the instruments are not equally valid, then there will be some correlations between the instruments and residuals from this regression analysis. We test whether the R-square of that regression is exactly zero. If it's not, then we conclude that these instruments are not equally valid because one of them explains the residual more than the others. And this is the idea. We take the residual here, we take the disease here and regress. This is the idea of Sargon test, Sargon Hansen test and Sargon's J, which are very similar. It's like a family of different tests building on this idea. Another idea that we can implement is to test the overall fit of this model. So we can use the one degree of freedom from this model for model tests. For example, if we run structural ecosystem model and get SCM, then we can do a chi-score test for overall model fit. If the model is rejected, then we could conclude that the instruments may not be valid. But it's also possible that the model is mis-specified in some other way as data user manual tells us. So the fact that we reject the model just means that the model is not correct, but we don't know which way it is incorrect. But the same thing here to do if you reject the model or if these test statistics are significant is that you treat results with caution because they are probably not valid anyway.


As we close out 2017, strategists are out with their forecast for 2018. Here now is Eric Wytonis from JPMorgan Private Bank. Eric, I think JPMorgan out with a 3,000 price target for the S&P 500. We remain optimistic as we head into 2018. I think optimism continues to pay. There's a lot of different things to point to in terms of reasons to potentially be concerned what's going to cause the next recession and things like that. But to us, there's a lot of reasons to remain front footed in terms of your investment and your risk disposition. Global growth is genuinely, continuously synchronous. That's very powerful. This is a story that's about much more than just the United States. Earnings are the main driver here. That's incredibly important. This isn't a story of massive multiple expansion. And when we look around the world, we just don't see the types of imbalances that would create that next downturn. So we remain optimistic. You know, global quantitative easing stimulus in 2017 stood at 2 trillion. It's expected to go down to 1 trillion in 2018. How could that affect the markets? We know the markets love that stimulus. That's a fair point. If there is something that could potentially go wrong, to me it is possibly inflation, surprising expectations to the upside, and forcing an increase in the pace of that withdrawal or stimulus, or that general withdrawal not going as smoothly as the post-crisis period has done. I mean, let's be honest here. The central bankers have got it pretty darn right in the post-crisis period, but as they have to gradually withdraw liquidity, haven't had a ton of examples of that in history, so we're going to need them to get it pretty darn right again. What sectors bring us to 3,000 in the S&P 500 next year? What do you make of the tech sector, financials, etc.? We do still like tech. We think that the growth story there is fantastic. Disruption and AI are going to be themes that continue to play out in markets. That being said, Scott, this rotation at this point of the cycle, almost a decade into it at this point, or getting into that ballpark, we're probably going to continue to see some degree of a rotation in the direction of sectors that will benefit from things like tax reform and also investments that offer a greater degree of value at this point in the cycle. So stay with the financials for 2018. Yes. Meanwhile, what about Bitcoin? I'm sure you're getting a lot of calls on that. Futures trading debuted on the SIBO not too long ago with starting again on the CME. What do you make of it? Fascinating phenomenon. Our disposition at this time is to invest in things where we determine their fundamental value, cash flows, organic growth. That's where we think it's best for our clients to invest in the long run. So is Bitcoin an investment in your view? Some would categorize it as an asset class. Some would categorize it as a new type of currency. We choose longer-term, more proven asset classes where we can, again, model the cash flows, what's the fundamental value, and what's the prospect for growth over the long run. My hope is that we could see a degree of volatility return to broader capital markets at some point in 2018. You and I were talking about this earlier, Scott. The level of somewhat eerie state of complacency in markets I don't think is super healthy. So I'd love to see a 5%, 10% pullback sometime soon just to shake things up and remind market participants that to continue to melt up in markets isn't so much the norm. Yeah. Remind investors that stocks can go down. Yes. Eric White in this. Thanks so much. Thanks a lot.