Phyllis was founded in 1992 to be a peer-to-peer support group for Black and Latino students who were interested in tech but didn't have the support or the specific kind of resources that met certain challenges that they had. And 29 years later, it's still continuing that mission and continuing to grow. Hey everyone! Hey man! Hello everyone! The purpose of the organization was to have a support group for students who were coming in brand new, who were fresh out of high school and not really very familiar with the IT field. We noticed that a lot of underrepresented students, Black, Latino, Latinx, were leaving the major because they just didn't understand the connection between the course content and what they would effectively do in the world. There wasn't a lot of people, individuals, minority students especially, who really understood the power of information. A lot of us, quite frankly, felt lost, but we were lost together. We're like, hey, how can we put our collective brains together to figure this out? Let's get together and let's help each other study. Let's try to get in groups together so that we can work together and help each other out. Once we saw that this was growing, we decided to put together a formal proposal and it just launched from there. We've seen just the evolution go from four to now over 3,000 students that have graduated and have participated to some degree on campus of Bliss and then to some degree post-graduation have come back and have done a variety of things for Bliss. Anyone who was a part of the organization would return to the university, would help students find summer internships, would come and speak at conferences and show them what we were able to accomplish and what they could accomplish once they were done with their degrees as well. Hearing people in the field who they've experienced certain kind of adversity, certain challenges and they know what it's like to be in my shoes was really inspiring for me and it's part of why I wanted to be on the e-board and to be able to give back. I think Bliss is in superb hands.  They still got our initial vision and taking it to a whole new level. Taking our founders now much later in their careers, still having that fire to give back and empower other students to do that on their campuses, it's really just an honor. And now because of them we have this infrastructure where we can develop new ideas, we can go work with other campuses, we can bring in companies that typically don't recruit from Syracuse all because of the chance that they took at pursuing an idea. So thank you for being brave and taking a risk and laying the foundation for us to continue.


So in this video, we're going to do actually some problem-solving with kinetic friction. If you haven't watched the other videos that describe the concept of friction and the specific terms in this equation, you want to go back and watch those. They're in my playlist. In this case, we're going to start some problem-solving. And I'm not writing these out as word problems, but let's just say we're given a problem where you're told that the coefficient of kinetic friction has a particular value, maybe 0.36. And you're given a value for the normal force. And again, I'm just going to make up a value here of maybe 15 Newtons. Remember, again, force is in Newtons, and a coefficient of kinetic friction does not have a unit. So in this case, what we would be solving for is we would be solving for the frictional force. And in this case, we don't have to rearrange this equation. So we can take our equation and simply plug in our values. And the particular values that I'd be plugging in is the 0.36 and the 15 Newtons. And when you plug those into your calculator, you're going to get a value here of 5.4 Newtons. So that tells us that the frictional force is 5.4 Newtons. When I apply a normal force of 15 Newtons between two surfaces where the relative coefficient of kinetic friction is 0.36. So this is one example. Let's say I have a slightly different example. And now I'm maybe doing an experimental setup where I can measure the normal force and I can measure the resulting frictional force. And what I need to solve for is the value of the coefficient of kinetic friction. This is actually how they go through and find particular values for the coefficient of friction. They do it experimentally. In this case, let's use some made-up values again here. Let's say 26.5 Newtons and 3.75 Newtons. Whatever your particular word problem is will give you the knowns that you need. Now to rearrange this equation, I've got to do a little bit of algebra here, dividing through the normal force such that my coefficient of friction is the frictional force divided by the normal force. At that point, I can go ahead and plug in my values and actually put that into my calculator and get a value for the coefficient of kinetic friction of, well, around to get to three significant digits, I would get 0.142. Now, it doesn't have any units because I had both Newtons on the top and Newtons on the bottom, so those canceled and left me with a dimensionless coefficient. One last example showing another algebra rearrangement for this one. Let's take a look at what if my knowns are, I've got a particular value for the friction and I know my kinetic friction coefficient and I'm solving for my normal force. So this would be the next set of algebra. Now, even without giving you guys any numbers here, you should be able to go back, look at this equation up here and figure out how to rearrange to now solve for the normal force. And in that case, we're going to be taking our normal force is equal to the frictional force divided by the coefficient of kinetic friction. So if I plug in actual values here, I'm going to have something which is a Newton value for the frictional force and I'm going to have some sort of probably decimal value with no units since most of our coefficients of kinetic frictions are going to be between 0 and 1, maybe up to 2, but probably between 0 and 1. And when I plug those values in, I'm going to get a normal force in this case of rounding it off again to three significant digits would be 56.3 Newtons. And again, it's Newtons but divided by no units, so it leaves me with Newtons. And almost all the cases we're going to be dealing with unless there's sort of really sticky surfaces, the normal force is going to be larger than the frictional force, so that makes sense.


We're back on the phone. Rich, what are we about to do? We've got a gun bill that you've got to have. To get into Ag's the only way I can get the gun bills passed. I wouldn't count on it. Yeah, it's not going to happen. Oh, you've got a bunch of gun haters in here, Robert. Yeah, I don't know. They hate freedom. Oh, you're starting. You want us to look at this bill? Exactly. Wow. Thank you very much. Real life. Oh, and actually in, okay, Michael actually brought a large print. I know you're getting a little older, Chris. Is this another? I'm a greeter. Wow, we have a hemp bill on shades. Okay, so this is a separate bill. Yeah, this is just an amendment. This is an amendment to that bill that he wanted to present to us. Another issue. And these are both on your one page by the way. Yeah, you computer guys have died on your one page. But so I figured if we weren't, we had a cancellation on me as well here, but he wanted to do it. Because the seed bill, the seed bill, that hemp seed bill will probably be getting out of here shortly. There's not a lot of opposition. And this would go in with it. So you want to welcome to the ag community. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Stark and committee Senator Rogers for your record. This proposal would move the allowed delta nine THC and hemp, which is now 0.3% to go to 1% and put it in state statute. This is something that I've been advocating for for some time both here in the state house and with our federal delegation and have talked with state legislators around the country about this issue. Something that's a problem in all the hemp states and now we're even more worried with the USDA's proposed rules around how they've got some real, crazy and restrictive stuff in it. And I think if we in other states get out in front and say, this is how hemp should be defined, that we have more of a chance pushing the feds to redefine it exactly like this. Vermont has probably had more investment in this single hemp industry than any other single industry in generations. I personally in the past year invested about three quarters of a million dollars between equipment and property to grow the hemp on. I know some of the processors have invested four and five million dollars in processing plants. A lot of the processors who have been set up for some time, some of the early entries into the market are investing in bigger machinery because as you've probably heard, so many people got into growing hemp this year that there's a glop of biomass on the market. Processors can't keep up. Therefore, farmers are sitting on hemp. So what happens with the majority of the strains of hemp? Similar to an apple. If you picked the apple two or three weeks early, it's not quite as big and it's not quite as sweet. And with the hemp, a lot of times for your high CBD containing strains to reach their maximum CBD or close to it, you have to let them go full term. And what happens in many of those strains, as they get closer to full term along the CBD level going up, the THC level goes up as well. And there's a lot of strains that will still go over the 0.3%. So if you have to pull those strains before they hit the 0.3%, you're losing two things. You're losing content. Your content might be 8% CBD. And if you let it go full term, it might hit 12 or 13. But you're also losing volume because that's when the flowers are putting on weight. In those last few weeks, they might add 10 to as much as 40 or 50% in weight. So it's a huge deal to anybody that's growing hemp, especially when the wholesale biomass market has dropped from over $100 a pound last year down to about 40 or $50 a pound this year and may continue to decline. So this is what I see as a simple way to deal with the problem of our farmers being able to grow good strains. When you turned it into a manufactured product, it would still have to meet the federal definition. So what happens? The 0.3. But with all the products that people make with hemp, you're adding other things like for topicals. You're adding different kinds of oils and maybe shea butter, coconut oil, sunflower oil, and this dilutes it down so that there's very literally trace amounts of THC by the time you've made the product. So you could still use the 1% product to dilute down so it would be all underneath the point. It would still hit federal compliance. And the other thing that a lot of folks are able to do is separate out the THC. There are products and processes that can take whatever the level of THC right out. I actually just had some isolate made, which is only CBD. It doesn't have the other compounds in it. Do you have or maybe Michael can answer? As I understand it, we continue to operate our hemp program under a pilot sort of permission. And does changing the definition in the middle of our pilot give us, jeopardize that? We like being in the pilot zone. And so I'm wondering if there's a concern or... I'll give you my perception and then let Michael give you the right answer. My perception is that because we do it in statute, it doesn't affect our program and we're operating under an approved program, but Michael may have a different view. So first we operate under the pilot until October 31st. And so this would only affect the pilot from the effective date until October 31st. The pilot is under the 2014 Farm Bill and that does define hemp as 0.3 THC on the driveway basis. I think really the question is would the USDA enforce against us between the effective date and October 31st, because effectively they'd be enforcing marijuana and cultivation. And I don't know. I would want to look at that letter from DOJ from a few years back about marijuana enforcement. So that is what I don't really know because it would be about enforcement of marijuana. Is there a thought of making this effective November 1st for that, you know? To guess why this makes sense. That protects our pilot clearly, but I'm open to anything. So then it's about getting approval of next year's hemp cultivation under the USDA approval process, under the draft. No, it's not draft anymore. It's under the interim USDA rule. And that defines hemp as 0.3 THC on a driveway basis with a margin of safety. When does that 0.3 kick in? Harvest time at product time? I mean it sounds to me, according to John, that it depends on what you do with that product. But the way the federal legislation is right now, it's 0.3 at any time, it will never go above it. And there are several problems, but the big problem is that test was originally designed by testing leaf and matter from the bottom of the plant. And now the feds have said, no, that's not how we want you to test it. We want you to take the top bud, which is the strongest. The stuff down on the bottom is the weakest. So they want to test the strongest stuff and take all the THC in it. And in most strains, that puts you over it. Or if you tested it the way the test was originally designed, and it's all described in the scientific paper, as I understand, that a lot of these plants would pass because if you mix the weak stuff with the strong stuff, it of course brings the strong stuff down. So, you mentioned that the product would still have to meet the 0.3 federal definition, but this draft changes the definition of hemp products and gets rid of the, with the federally defined THC concentrate level for hemp. So Michael, wouldn't that? I, Senator Hardy, you're right. If that was Senator Rogers' intent, I did not do it properly. Yeah, and this, I never get too hung up on a draft because they always get changed. That was not my intent to include the products. My intent is to protect the farmer. And there are several avenues we could take. If the committee is skeptical of bucking the feds on this, maybe the committee, I could work with the committee and we do a letter to the federal delegation or something, but there needs to be a change. And I think the states need, the hemp states need to try to band together and push the feds because what the USDA is doing at the federal level right now puts all the hemp programs at risk. And all that investment, I mean, I did, and I know tons of other, this is my personal story, but I know tons of other people did it too. I just made a giant investment based on the 2014 Farm Bill in the pilot program. And if they pull out the rug out from under me and all these other people who've invested all this money and it's part of their business plan on how they're going to pay back, literally across the state, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars that's been invested, you're going to have a lot of people hurting. And so I'm trying to figure out a way can we as a state buck the system and will they let us get away with it? Because so far they've been kind of hands off on all the state programs, right? They've said, well, we're not going to enforce the marijuana laws on recreational marijuana. We're going to leave the states to do it. And so there's a chance that they might say the same thing on this. I'm just trying to figure out how do we as a state legislature protect the millions of dollars in investment in the huge influx of economic development and money into our systems that this hemp program has created because we've been a national leader in our hemp program and tons of people have moved here and invested here because of it. And I don't want to see the rug pulled out from under any of us. Are there other dealers that are growers actually that worked with you to help put this together? An association? There is an association that's kind of a loose coalition. There's lots of little groups, but everybody agrees that we have to change the definition and everybody's been freaking out. The whole hemp community has totally freaked out since the USDA released the draft rules. Michael, have you followed that stuff at USDA at all on hemp? I have. I've got the rule in my hands right now from conversations with Carrie. The last time I talked to him about this was about a month ago. He said he plans to submit the current Vermont statute and propose hemp rule as our state program and just see what USDA does because our program has the ability to grow basically up to one provided that the three alternatives for disposition you destroy your crop or you sell it to a dispensary or you contract with a dispensary to separate out the CBD and the THC to get it to a correct. So that was his idea to still kind of maintain the definition of hemp as point three but to see if USDA will approve that authority to separate out to bring it down into that point three standard. So that is a risk. It's a calculated risk as it's this. Wouldn't we be better off not to rock the bulk too much and hopefully try that to see if it slides through with approval rather than doing this that would maybe be an insult to it. As I said, this is where we as a nation need to get to. If the committee thinks it's too much of a risk I would ask is it maybe possible to get the committee to do a letter to our federal delegation and just talk about the investment in Vermont and trying to save the hemp industry in Vermont and that we need some changes and we're not... I know our ag agencies not happy with the USDA rules either so maybe you should have a discussion with them. Maybe we would be better off... I mean we want to protect the hemp industry but maybe we'd be better off to write a letter explaining the investments that have been made here and how we've done 9800 acres of hemp and do all the good stuff and we've done this by following our own little set of rules of the way Cary is promoting and asking to do in Washington and that we support Cary and the agency a bag and our hemp growers in moving forward but request this to be fully executed or thought of and analyzed. I don't know. What do you guys think? You know sometimes you catch more flies with honey and you do with vinegar. That makes some sense. What do those rules become, the rules? They are the rules right now but those states that were under the pilot program got an additional year to operate on the pilot program. So we could ask to have this as an extension to the rules or how would you do that? They aren't going to cut us out and say okay Vermont you can do this but the other 49 states have got to do it this way. So far they've been improving state programs which are all different, variations. Oh yeah, we don't all operate under the same state programs. You as a state have to send in your program and then they approve it. So we should just strongly support them continuing their practice and allowing the states the state to run their own program. That's basically Cary's position. Let's see if they're going to approve our program. We do have that kind of pressure release valve that is not contemplated in the USDA rule but you can make an argument that the USDA rule said it needs to be 0.3 plus or including a measure of uncertainty and that measure of uncertainty just needs to have a range that's under 0.3. So you could potentially have a test at 0.5 with a measure of uncertainty that says it's 0.3 to 0.57 and that would be okay under the USDA rule. And so theoretically our program with you can separate out or otherwise dispense with the crop that's over 0.3. It's similar. It's not a measure of uncertainty but it's a technique or a management mechanism to deal with what's over 0.3. The problem is this requires one to test over 0.3 for it to be destroyed and the US Attorney General to be contacted and for the state to implement enforcement. Yeah. And then the other thing is yeah and all the labs would have to be DEA certified which is another ridiculous step so basically what we would be doing by following their rules is subjecting all of our hemp farmers to be in locked up and fighting legal battles if their stuff tests a little hot. So. Like duck in a cell, right? Is that what you're maintaining? It's a crime. It's a crime. It's a crime. So what we should be doing is supporting Ag's request to be licensed and approved as submitted and maybe not even mention the particulars. I would want to come with Carrie about what they are submitting as the full plan and I want to be careful in whatever is written. Yeah. No and I would recommend that you guys have Carrie come in and make sure that he's okay with it but I think he would be okay with the additional support of the legislature behind him so it's not just the agency, it's this committee in the legislature that oversees this section of our law that's also saying, you know, this is what we need. Well. Is the committee agreeable to do a letter of support and we'd ask Michael to work with Carrie and see what they've actually done? Yeah. I'd like to hear from Carrie and see what's included in his plan before we say we support it so there may be things in there that... Well... Well, I don't think it's not the human seat. Yeah. I'm very interested in us being as assertive and frankly pushing back on the fence as much as we can but we need to understand... This new proposal is ridiculous that they want it if you go over. They want to lock you up and bring charges against you. So to move forward, we got Michael to work with Carrie and start putting together his thoughts to do a letter so we got to keep this wheel turning Exactly. And because... We just have 15 minutes with Carrie to... Yeah. And then we'll... And then we can just make sure that we understand what's in it and that would then... Well, I both Carrie and Michael in at the same time. Carrie can go through it. Michael's sitting there listening. And Stephanie, if you can't get... Carrie and Stephanie are going to engage in the law. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. So that worked for you, John, with all your amendments that we might do... A letter might be more beneficial than... I like sticking it to the man but I'm okay with playing nice today. For now. Yeah, for now. Yeah, there is. Now thank you guys. Very productive and I thank this committee for its help on all the hemp legislation. This is not... There's not still some bumps in the road. We're going to have to keep a jest in as we move forward but there's been huge investment and I believe there's huge potential for helping out rural Vermont and rural America with this hemp program if the USDA doesn't screw it up on us. Is that... Have you talked to a lot of supplier growers that are somewhat happy? They're happy with our program. They're not happy with the USDA. People are literally freaking out about this USDA proposal. And there's still an awful lot of people sitting on their product because of the bottleneck with processors and that's another thing. No processor is going to invest in new equipment because they see this USDA thing coming down the pike. There's no reason to invest anymore right now. So that's another big problem. And there are still some horror stories that we're going to hear. We heard about the one guy got locked up for not paying and I don't think that's the biggest one that we're going to hear about. I think there's another... That was their donor. ...bigger one coming down the pike. No, the CBD Vermont guy. It wasn't contracted with people. They grew for him and he didn't pay him. Oh, okay. But there's a guy that contracted about a thousand acres around the state of Vermont and told all his growers to round bale it and wrap it in plastic. And I think it's going to be mush. Is that the guy that wanted to use the prison? I don't know it. No, I don't think that's the same guy. That's going to be the guy Gladstone and Nelson and all those guys. All those guys grew for him and they got those round bales. They're still sitting on the farm and you can't wrap moist green bam. It's not hay. But didn't that guy... He just didn't pay the farmers though and that's why he got in trouble. So he was trying to screw... He got in trouble for lots of things. Lots of things. Yeah, he was not... I think he got behind on money and went downhill from the car. So... Thank you. I guess we're all set. If you're welcome to come back when we get... Sure. Yeah, let me know. I'd like to listen in anyway. Let me know when you schedule it. I'll be happy to come back. Yeah. Way more fun in here. My more... It is. Christmas is us. I'm sure. Just be careful how you introduce yourself. Oh, you?


Hi guys, Ashley here back with another video. Today I wanna talk about how I like to set up my ICU rooms for an ICU admission. I kind of over the years have kind of tweaked the equipment and things that I like to be in the room for an ICU admission based upon all of my experience and things that have occurred and whatnot. So I wanted to share with you guys how I like to set up my ICU rooms in hopes that maybe this might be helpful for you guys who either work in the ICU or if you're in another specialty or do like telemetry med surge, this may be helpful for you guys to see as well. Before we get started really quick, I need a little bit of help from you guys. I'm trying to get this survey filled out. It's about healthcare readmission. So if you're in the healthcare setting, if you could go down to the link below and fill out the survey, it takes like literally two minutes. That would be super awesome and helpful. So thank you so much. If you enter it, leave a comment and I will enter you for the giveaway that I'm doing over on my Instagram. For everyone who's filling out the survey, I am giving away either a Starbucks or an Amazon gift card, whatever the winner would like they can choose. Okay, so the two, two, that's four, two most important things to have for an ICU admission. If you have nothing else in the room, have your suction set up and oxygen equipment. So I like to have my suction canister already. Make sure your suction's working with the suction tubing and then a yonker or yonkauer or yanker, everyone says it differently to have in case you need to quickly suction the patient. I can't tell you how many times patients when they get moved over from the ER bed or telebed, wherever they're coming from, suddenly they vomit and you don't want them to aspirate. So very, very important. And then the other thing is oxygen equipment. So you don't necessarily need to have like a non-rebreather, nasal cannula, all those things in the room that have the oxygen oximeter and then a little nipple as people call it, Christmas tree, the little part that screws on in case you need to plug in the nasal cannula or whatever. And with this oxygen equipment, have your bag valve mask in the room available. You don't necessarily need to have it set up unless you have a crashing patient that's coming up to you, but have it available in case you need to start bagging the patient. If you have those two things, you can pretty much like wing it until you get more people in the room if something happens. The next thing that I like to do before I get admission is I like to always zero my bed. I like to do this so that way when the patient gets up, I can weigh them right away and we can have a current ICU admission weight. That way if we're giving fluids, if we're diuretics, doing dialysis, we can have an accurate patient weight right off the bat. I also like to make sure that my monitor is working. I have all of the cables that I'm going to need and I usually put electrodes and a blood pressure cuff in the room. Sometimes a pole socks, depending on the type of patient that's coming up, we have the little clippy ones, but if the patient may need a little sticky one, so that way we can really monitor things closely, they're not trying to take it off. I like to grab that as well. Make sure you have all of your cables. I can't tell you how many times admissions come up and you're like, oh shoot, I don't have my electrodes and it's not fun to be in that situation if a patient is actively not doing so well. Another equipment that I like to have in the room are I like to grab a couple flushes just to make sure I can check my IV central line right away when the patient gets up. I like to grab my glucometer and like glucose testing stuff because we always check a patient's blood sugar right when they come to the ICU. I'll usually grab maybe an extra chuck or some towels, maybe some parispray depending on again, the type of patient coming up, maybe they have a catheter, maybe they're homeless and we're gonna need to clean them off. I like to have just the basic hygiene products. I like to make sure that when I come on my shift, if I have an open ICU bed that my room is set up almost immediately. So that way, no matter what happens during my shift, I know that that room is ready. It's not fun when you're taking care of another patient and then your charge says, hey, you're getting a postcode that happened on the floor, they'll be here in three minutes. It's not fun to try and scramble and get everything set up. I will also say that at my hospital we have an admission cart that we put right outside the room that has a lot of the basic things in it. So I don't really grab, you know, like IV fluids, IV tubing, labels. I don't really grab that stuff until I know what type of patient I'm getting up. If I know I'm gonna need to bolus them, if I know that they have several different drips running, then I will grab all of those things. But for the most part, I try to keep things very, very minimalist. So that way I'm not wasting a ton of supplies. I will also make sure if they're a contact patient or especially now that I'm getting mostly COVID patients, I'll put a contact thermometer and contact stethoscope in there that is just for that patient. I also like to fill out the whiteboard with my name, the patient's name and the current date. And that's pretty much it. Honestly, it takes me about two to three minutes to set up a room. But it's just nice and reassuring to know that if I'm gonna get an admission, it's already ready. I'm not scrambling to try and get it done just right when an admission is coming up. I hope this video was helpful for you guys. If it was, give it a thumbs up, subscribe to my channel. Let me know if there's any other things that you like in your room when you set them up. Again, I know I'm pretty minimalist when it comes to setting up rooms, but let me know what else you like in your rooms. Give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel and I'll see you guys next time. Bye.


I'm Sergeant James A. Sullivan, 11 Bravo Infantry. So we did a platoon live fire. We had mechanized infantry. I was a dismount team leader. And my role in this was to breach and allow our assaulting element through. The main obstacle that we came across as a team was Constantino wire around two buildings. And before we got there, we allowed our sport of fire to suppress the enemy. Once we hit the Constantino wire, I put insecurity with one of my other guys. And then my third guy cut the wire. And then we marked it and pushed through the breach. Good to go. Two to go. One to go. One to go. Third down, third down. Push two. Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown.


The Bemidji High baseball team is off to a good start this young season, winning their last four games. But if anyone knows there's no time to get comfortable, it's the Lumberjacks. They've lost the game before states the past two years, and this time they're looking to go all the way. After the cold weather snowed out the first month of the season, teams like Bemidji are having to deal with a compressed schedule, putting the pressure on its players. It's kind of nice as long as you're in a good hot streak at the plate, but if you're not hitting well, it's tough to get out of slump when your season's only three to four weeks long. You know, it makes a lot of fun, especially when you're playing really good, because it just keeps on rolling and rolling, and just a lot of fun. For the pitchers, it means you have to throw strikes when you get the call. And this year the team has one of the youngest pitching staffs they've ever had. For we graduated a lot of Indians, guys that have thrown a lot of Indians for us the last couple years. So we knew we were going to see some new faces out there, and you know, that's a fun part about coaching high school sports is, you know, there's always kids graduating, kids coming through the program. So it's fun to see new kids step up and play new roles for your team. The team's had a strong offensive start this year, both with power and with speed on the base paths. I think we've got a lot of guys that can see a lot of bases, and that puts a lot of pressure on their team to make plays, and it causes them to make mistakes. They're flourishing on the bases, being aggressive, and when you force the issue, you know, sometimes mistakes happen by your opponent. So you certainly want to be doing that all the time. And in the back of their heads, all season long, making it to state after losing in the section championship game the past two seasons. We've lost about the last two years in the section championship, and that's a big thing we want to win one and go down to state last year, especially senior year. Guys, I really shouldn't get back to that title game, but we got a lot of steps before we can get to that game we need to focus on first. Well next step of the journey for them, a doubleheader tomorrow against Thief River Falls. That one starts at noon and two, nothing better than playing two than skipping school and playing two. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Over 12,000 residents have received food polities from the federal government to cushion the effect of the rising cost. The beneficiaries are mostly people with disabilities. With those, the aged use an other resident of Shagamo, Ikenne, and Ramon North local government area of the state. The federal government also distributed 250 solar street lights in the areas for proper electrification. The food polities were distributed by the federal government in collaboration with Honorable Adegomir Ono Nougat, deputy chief whip of the 10th assembly, speaking to newsmen during the distribution held at the palace of Dakaribu of Remorland in Shagamo. The beneficiaries commended the organizers for the generosity, saying that the items will go a long way in their families' lives. It's a very, very good one and a very welcome idea. We can see everybody here happy having this, so it's a very cool one, and it goes a long way. At least the people who have something to keep them for a period of time. Responding, Ademi Ono Nougat showed the residents that the federal government will bring more positive development to the area and the country in general. The reward for any hard work is more work, so I've said to them that even after this, there'll be another bout of palliatives, and I'll be doing that shortly, very soon. We do training for different sectors of people, for women, snail farming, for the young ones, the youth. We do fishery and all different kinds of agricultural stuff for them to be able to be on their own. Even for the students in high schools and secondary schools, we teach them artificial intelligence. We do a lot of stuff for different aspects of people. So of course we will be doing that, doing a lot of training for them, so they can also be self-sustained. Ono Nougat explains that electrification is part of the president's vow to alleviate the miseries of residents. The lights up is in faces, not even first and second, is in faces. The first one is about 250, thereabouts, maybe less. And then the second face is like another 500. So we want to be scaling it up as we go. When we see, you know, once you start a project, a lot of people will now come out and say, oh, we can also benefit. So you begin to take down those numbers and see how much more you need in different faces.


Sibang Ilmani who received R14M from Encephus by mistake get four years in prison for theft. Student who received R14M Encephus payout in error charged with theft and corruption. Sibang Ilmani, the Walter Sissulu University, WSU, student who accidentally received more than R14M from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, Encephus, and went on a spending spree in 2017, appeared in the East London Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning. Hawks spokesperson Captain Anilas Afini confirmed that Mani, 28, was arrested on Tuesday by the serious commercial crime unit of the Eastern Cape Hawks, after it requested that she hand herself over. She has been charged with theft. Mani accidentally received the Encephus payment of R14.1M and went on a three-month spending spree. She allegedly spent just over R810000 of this amount on personal items over a period of three months before the anomaly was detected by the scheme, Afini said. News 24 last year detailed how Mani, who studied accountancy at WSU, spent the money hosting parties for her friends, buying Peruvian wigs, designer clothes, handbags, and expensive smartphones. During this time, her grandmother who raised her continued living in poverty. She was the branch secretary of the Pan-Africanist Student Movement of Azania at East London's Potsdam campus, when her life transformed overnight, from that of an ordinary student to a socialite. Mani was released on a warning and was expected back in court on July 2. In September last year, News 24 reported that Walter Sisulu University, Encephus, and cash service Intalimali told MPs on the portfolio committee of higher education that no error had been made on their side. Intalimali CEO Michael Ansel told MPs their systems showed that the right transaction of R1400 was made to Mani on the date in question, and there was no oversight, error, or negligence on their part.


Amen. All right, keep your place in Romans chapter eight. Now, if you're wondering how in the world I'm going to get through all Romans chapter eight and one sermon, I was wondering the same thing about Tuesday when I had a sermon that was close to probably four hours long. So what we're going to do this morning is we're going to break this thing up a little bit. I'm going to spend tonight and next week in Romans chapter eight. And I'm going to just preach on three verses in Romans chapter eight tonight because I was the thing with Romans chapter eight is there's so many great doctrines in this one chapter. And I didn't want to preach a sermon where I would just skim over each one. And of course, I want to be able to explain everything biblically. So tonight what I want to do is I want to look at Romans chapter eight verses 28 through 30. And these are verses that are it's a great set of verses in the Bible, but it's used for a lot of heresy by a lot of Calvinists out there today. And what I want to do is I want to explain these three verses in the sermon tonight. And another unique thing that we're going to do tonight is we're going to use logic and reason to explain these three verses. And it's funny because a couple of weeks ago, the guys were talking in a circle and this topic came up on what I'm going to talk about tonight.  I want you to just start with a blank slate. And what I want to do is I want to explain Romans 8 28 29 and 30 using the book of life. Okay, so we're going to do a study tonight on what is the book of life and how does it help us understand these three verses. So let's first reread these three verses. And in Romans 8 28, the Bible says, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose for whom he did for know, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren, moreover whom he did predestinate. There we see that word again, them he also called in whom he called them he also justified in whom he justified them he also glorified predestination. The term predestination make means to make firm beforehand. There's this doctrine out there that teaches that God has predestinated everyone on on earth, everyone in history before they were even born.  Okay, so what I want to do is I want to explain this using the book of life. And here I have a quote. First of all, don't read Bible commentary. Because it is, unless it is by a pastor that you know and trust, but then that's not Bible commentary, that's preaching. Right? But I want to read for you, I went and I looked for some Bible commentary on these three verses and I found some really good stuff here. Now there's this website called Got Questions. How many of you ever heard of Got Questions? It's a very dangerous website because it seems like it's kind of like Baptist sort of. You'll see a lot of answers that are close to what we believe. But I want to read for you what Got Questions explains about Romans 8, 29, and 30 in the Bible, not the Bible. The Got Questions answer is this, if God is choosing who is saved, doesn't that undermine our free will to choose and believe in Christ? So far so good. Somehow in the mystery of God he continues, predestination works hand in hand with a person being drawn by God and believing unto salvation. God predestines who will be saved and we must choose Christ in order to be saved. That should raise some red flags, that statement in your mind right there. And then he says, oh the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Now that's a misquote of Romans 11 using the NIV. Okay, Romans 11, 33. So that's another red flag. So here's a couple Bible reading tips, Bible studying tips for you and I've already given you one of these tips. But when you read that, when you read his God predestinates who will be saved and we must choose Christ and then he explains it by saying we just can't understand the mystery of God, he says. Okay, you must say no when you see things like that. The Bible study tips I want to give for you tonight is first of all, whenever you have a verse that contradicts the way you're thinking about it or interpreting it, contradicts clear Scripture, you are interpreting it wrong. That's the first tip and you've heard this tip before. The second tip is this.   So when somebody says things that you know you have free will and you don't have free will and those things are both true, you must say no. There's something wrong here. Okay? And this is the same for all heresy. All heresy will lead you to this point where there's this, you have free will and you don't at the same time and it's the beauty of the mystery of God. No, you have no idea what you're reading in the Bible because you're not saved. Is the answer. And I'm going to show you tonight and if you're confused by those three verses, I'm going to show you what we're going to do is we're going to do this study. We're going to look at the book of life in the Bible and then we're going to read those three verses again and they're going to make perfect sense to you. Just because you don't understand, you know, a verse doesn't, you know, but teaching a heresy out of that verse and applying that verse to a heresy is a completely different thing. Okay? So first of all, just just blank slate your mind right now. Let's just look at what the Bible, especially we'll start out in the New Testament says on the book of life. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. So there's this book and it's not the Bible, but the Bible talks about it several times. There's this book called the book of life. It's mainly called the book of life. You'll see in the Old Testament, it's called a little bit different, but we can, you know, deduce that it is the book of life that they're talking about. So in Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians verse 4, look at verse number one and we'll read a couple of verses beforehand just to make sure we're getting the context. Therefore my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved. I beseech Udius and beseech Sintitci that they be of the same mind in the Lord and I entreat the also true yoke fellow. Help those women which labored with me in the gospel with Clement also and with other my fellow laborers whose names are in the book of life. Okay. Next. So here we see, what do we see here in 1 Thessalonians 4? Hang on, let me turn there. Yeah, it was Philippians 4, that's where I'm going. So it was Philippians 4 and verse 3. Sorry about that. So we see that the saved are in the book of life. Okay. He says, my fellow laborers. So we see that the saved are in the book of life. In this book we have saved people, the fellow laborers with Paul. Okay. Now turn to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. We're going to start reading in verse number one. And the Bible says this in verse number one, Revelation 3. And unto the angel of the church and sardis write, These things sayeth he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know thy works, that thou hast to name that thou livest and art dead. Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die. For I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore, how thou hast hath received and heard and hold fast and repent. And thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in sardis which have not defiled their garments.  He that over cometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment. And I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. But I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. So here we see someone is blotted out of the book of life. So we have the book of life that has saved people's names in it. And then we see the book of life that has names in it that God has blotted out. Okay. Now turn to Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13 and look down at verse number seven. Verse number seven. And the Bible says this. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints. This is the Antichrist at the end times. And to overcome them. And power was given him over all kindreds and tongues and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So here we see people's names that are not in the book of life and people that are still alive. Okay. People that are still living physically on the earth that don't have their names in the book of life. Okay. Those that worship the beast in this case. Now turn to Revelation 17. I also want to point out keep just go back to Revelation 13 and look at the end of verse number eight where it says from the foundation of the world. Okay. So the book of the life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Meaning the beginning before everything was made. Before any of us were even here. Revelation 17. Let's look at the next reference of the book of life. And the Bible says in verse number six. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her I wondered with great admiration. And the angel said unto me where wherefore did thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carryeth her which have the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was and is not again the antichrist and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. So we see again this phrase from the foundation of the world. So the verse before said that Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world. This says that the book of life was from the foundation of the world. Okay. So the book of life was from the foundation of the world. When they behold the beast that was and is not and yet is. Revelation chapter 20. Revelation chapter 20. Look at verse number 14. All you soul winners know this well.  This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.  So this book is pretty important.  So we know that there's saved people in there. We know that people are removed from there. We already have a problem there, don't we? We know that the book was written from the foundation of the world.  That's what we know so far. Turn to Revelation 21. It's nice how the Bible fills in all the gaps for us. I'm a little confused right now but I don't think I'm going to be confused for much longer. Look at Revelation 21 and verse number 22. The Bible says, And I saw no temple therein for the Lord God and Almighty and Lamb are the temple of it and the city had no need of the sun. This is the New Jerusalem. Neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved, remember that phrase, shall walk in the light of it and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it and the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day for there shall be no night there and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into anything that defileeth neither whatsoever work at the abomination or makeeth a lie, but but what, but who's going to be there then? But they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. Again the saved are in the Lamb's book of life and they're in there after they die. Okay? Revelation 22 in verse number 18 the Bible says, For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man, any man, any man, any man, any man shall take away from the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book, the Bible. So he just talked about two books there, the book of life and the Bible. So here we see any man can do something to get his name out of the book of life. Any man, the Bible says that if any man takes away from the words that God wrote in the Bible that he will take his name, he will take away his part out of the book of life. So let's recap. Okay? Let's recap. That was a lot of Bible reading. Let's recap. Well, no, first, let's go to the, let's look at Old Testament because the Old Testament talks about this, turn to Psalm, Psalm 69. The Old Testament talks about the book of life as well. In Psalm 69 verse 28, Psalm 69 verse 28 in the Bible reads, Let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous. Sound familiar? David is praying, the Psalmist is praying that these people would be, that God would blot these people out of the book of the living, the book of life. Exodus 32 and verse 32, you don't have to turn there. I'll just read it for you. After Moses came down and he saw that the people had made the golden calf. He was, he was lamenting and he was, he was trying to intercede to God for these people. And he said, Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book, which thou hast written. Moses is like, Hey, if you're not going to forgive them, just, just, just blot me out. He's like, Oh, blot me out of the book of life. Well, you're like, Well, Moses was saved. Well, did God blot Moses out of the book of life? No. Right. Moses was just constantly advocating for the children of Israel. He was a great leader. And to the point where he said, God, you know, just take it out on me is what he was saying. But he references the book that has these names in it that God blots people out of. Daniel 12 and verse one. Daniel says, And at that time, shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was a nation, even to that same time. And at that time, the people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. People's names in this book again. So let's go and let's look at the what we've learned. So we know that in Philippians four, three, I don't know why I had first Thessalonians written there, that the saved are in the book of life. Paul calls them my fellow laborers. Right. It's the saved. We know that names can be blotted out. And we know that I'm not going to preach on eternal security tonight. But eternal security is very clear in the Bible, even in Romans chapter eight, that if you're saved, you can't be blotted out. So we know that there's saved people in the book of life. And there's also these other people in there that God blots out. We know that some people who are physically living don't have their names in there. People who have not died yet. If your name is not in there after the first death, we know that you're going to go to hell. Right. And then again, I mean, we've seen several verses on those who are saved being in the book of life. And then we know that any man can have his name taken out of the book of life. Of course, if you're saved, you can't. So, you know, you could have these people that ask all these questions, what if you're saved and you blaspheme the Holy Ghost?  Okay. No man who's saved is going to take the mark of the beast is going to blaspheme the Holy Ghost. I don't even believe that's possible today. And thirdly, no man who's saved is going to change God's word. I mean, no one who is saved would do that. Okay. Now, what does this mean? Oh, and another thing we learned is that the book is from the foundation of the world. Turn to John 1.1. That's a hugely important, hugely important doctrine here.  The same was in the beginning with God. So, the Bible, the word of God was written before the world even began. God just happened to use men to write it down. And then he promises that he'll preserve it for us. Doesn't it make sense that if the word of God, who is Jesus Christ, by the way, the word became flesh and Jesus has always been, he was never created. Doesn't it make sense that if God had his word established, the word that he gave us, the Bible, that he would have already established the words, the names that he put into the book of life. You say, well, you make that assumption. Well, no, not really, because it said it's from the foundation of the world. But it makes perfect sense that the words in that book would be established from the foundation of the world, just like the word of God that is given to us, both in the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ, from the foundation of the world. So here's the deal, folks. The book was already written. All God has is an eraser. And he uses it. So let me ask you this. If this unconditional election, this predestination, if this was true, did God make a mistake? Why would there be people in the book that are not saved? God wouldn't have to blot anybody out, because the book was written before any of us were here. It makes no sense. So this, this, you know, this unconditional election that God had made the decision on who was going to be saved and who is not going to be saved from the foundation of the world makes no sense when you look at the book of life or any other part of the Bible for that matter. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2. I mean, you certainly couldn't believe in eternal security and predestination. Because look, perseverance of the saints, the P in tulip is not eternal security. They may tell you it is, but it's not. Perseverance of the saints is availed lordship salvation. That's all it is. That's why the Calvinists, that's why the Puritans, the Calvinists, when they died, they were scared to death on their deathbed. Because they believe in the perseverance of the saints, which was really lordship salvation, meaning they never really knew if they were one of the chosen. They believed that God chose people, but it depended. You will do the works. See, if you're saved, you will do the works. And they knew all they looked back when they were dying. They looked back on their life and they saw sin in their life. And they're like, man, did I really persevere? Am I really one of the chosen? Well, no, you're not. It is the reality of it. It's lordship salvation under a different name. But if you read Bible commentary, they will say, you will even hear them say, once saved, always saved in certain places. It is not once saved, always saved. It is veiled works, period. And it's sneaky. And this is one of the reasons that you will find people that are so wrapped around the axle that they will never get saved. It's sickening. Where'd I have you go? First Timothy chapter 2. Why did we go there? Every, okay. Let's see what God says, okay? First Timothy chapter 2. Let's look at verse number 1. What everyone starts in there, it makes perfect sense with every other part of the Bible.  I know, I used to be really confused on every part of the Bible, especially Romans. You have to question that doctrine. You have to. Look at first Timothy chapter 2 and verse number 1. I exhort thee therefore that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved. I mean, what in the world? When it says he will have, it means it's his will that all men be saved. That's what it means in the King James Bible. It's God's will that all men would be saved. And you know what? The book of life is proof of that because he wrote everybody's names in there. Everybody had a chance. Everybody's names were in there, but God has an eraser. It's more like whiteout. John 3.16, whosoever believe in him should not perish.  Whosoever, all men. I mean, the beauty of it is in chapter 4 of 2 Timothy chapter 2, who will have God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved.  I mean, what? All men, whosoever believe in him. Look, if predestination meant God only chose certain people from the foundation of the world, it would not be necessary to remove anybody unless he made a mistake.  I mean, Lutheranism is kind of like pseudo Calvinism, but I didn't even really grow up around many Calvinists. But man, you read into this stuff. It is very difficult for me to believe that someone could be a Calvinist and be saved. Very difficult for me. I cannot, I can't logically wrap my head around it. Because from the very beginning of the tulip, the T is total depravity. And that's where they go with unlimited or unconditional election because you're so bad.  Because you're so bad. But you know what? There's people who are physically alive who don't have their names in the book of life. I mean, that is the reprobate doctrine right there.  But the problem with this Calvinism is they just, from the very first letter, you're down these rabbit holes that confuse you on what real actual salvation is.  And if the Bible said that, you know what? I'd believe it. Because you know, I don't need God to be fair in the Bible. I don't need it to agree with, you know, what I think should be. Of course, I kind of have this Holy Spirit in me and I do agree with everything in the Bible. But the point is that I've said many times from the pulpit that if the Bible says it, even if the culture you were raised in disagreed with it, because guess what? When I first became a Baptist, there were some things that I had a hard time with. But then I read the Bible and I'm like, it does say that. I accept it because it's in the Bible. It's true. But this, you know, it's not in the Bible. They use John 15.5. I mean, it just shows you that they just don't even know. They're totally confused. John 15.5 says, turn there. They use it to justify unconditional election. I can't even understand what they're saying. The Bible says in John 15.5, I am divine, ye are the branches, he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, you can do nothing. What in the world? Abide in Jesus, and you'll bring forth fruit, come soul-winning, and you'll bring forth fruit.  There's a lot of people wrapped up in this stuff. All right, now let's read Romans 8.28-29. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. And we'll talk about the calling of God here in a minute. For whom He did foreknow. I'm going to read for you Jeremiah 1.5. Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And before thou came as forethought of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.  John 10.3 says, to him the porter opeth, and the sheep, the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth him out. Look, God has chosen everyone is really what it boils down to. I mean, think about it. It matches up with baptism, that I was alive once without the law. God has chosen everyone. If you choose, you know, to, you know, and not everyone's a reprobate, by the way. You know, so don't go overboard on that one. I mean, it's, it's pretty bad out there, but not everyone is a reprobate. You know, the Bible, you can, you can miss it.  All right, continuing. Where were we at in verse 29? Verse 29, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. Guess what? That one's not even talking about salvation. I mean, if you're saved today, you're predestinated to be conformed into the image of Jesus. That's what God wants for you. God wants you to be conformed to be sanctified throughout your life into the image of Jesus. And that will never be perfected until we're all risen again. That he might, and then it explains it right after this. I just love this. To be conformed to the image of his son, why? What's the point? I'm saved. Why, why be conformed?  To be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. The example of your life should lead others to salvation. So you can be the first born among many brethren.  And you can get other people saved. You can't lose your salvation, but you can cause other people to stumble and never get saved. It's possible. Plenty of examples of the Bible of that. Plenty of men of God in the Bible who just, the next generation was just a bunch of wicked people. Plenty of people. Plenty of people I could think about in our own day and age. Great, great men of God. Next generation. Nope. There's no guarantee. So be conformed to the image of his son, that he may be the first born among many brethren. Verse number 30. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Look, this is proof right here, them he also called, because this is talking about salvation. This is proof of first Timothy chapter two. This is proof right here that God wants all men to be saved. That God's will is that all men would be saved. Because he's calling. You know, I know there's a lot of talk even amongst pastors about the calling of God and all that kind of stuff. But look, God's will is that if you're unsaved, the calling that God is doing to you or towards you is that you would get saved. That is the calling. And I've seen it. I know I've gone up to the door and I've met people who are just like, you know what, I've been looking for the truth. For some reason I've just been, I've just been, I want to find the truth. And you know what, that right there is the one thing that I love trends. I love, I love identifying trends in a way, I've made a career out of it. And I was, you know, when we moved to California, you know, you go to a church and everybody's a little bit different. Everybody raises their kids a little bit different. Everybody has a little bit different views on this or that. You know, we all agree on the Bible. But I'm just like, you know what, because I've met many saved people who just aren't interested in coming in a Bible believing church, coming to a Bible believing church. They're not interested in changing their life. They're not interested in getting sold out for Christ. They're not interested in that. You show them, you know, hard Bible preaching and they just, it just doesn't resonate with them.  You met these people. They're saved. But it doesn't resonate with them. And I'm like, what in the world do all these people have in common? There must be one thing that these people have in common. And the one thing that I have found that people like us, people like Verdi Baptist Sacramento, I'm sure it's the same in the other is that at some point in their life, they were all looking for the truth, irregardless of what they believed themselves.  I just want to know what's true. That's the trend. And you know what that is? That's answering that calling because you're taking your pride and you're putting it aside because your pride, it plugs your ears. See? Your pride plugs your ears. How many times did Jesus say those that have ears to hear, let them hear? What do you think he was talking about? Jesus was literally speaking the word of God to everybody. And he's sitting there saying those that have the ears to hear, let them hear.  And they're not hearing that calling that God has for them. Because you know what? They're in the book of life at one point. At one point, Ted Bundy was in the book of life. That's why at the end of the documentary, Psychopath Reprobates, you know, you'll hear Pastor Jimenez saying, you know what, maybe somebody should have walked up to little Ted Bundy when he was riding his bike, when he was 11 or 12 years old and given him the gospel. Before some wicked people got a hold of him and he fell into this wicked life that started searing his heart and plugging his ears and then searing his heart more to the point where when that key came out to go in to that heart, it just didn't fit anymore. See? But at one point, he was in there. I mean, it's the only thing that makes any sense, folks. Look, Romans 10.17 says, then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You hear the call. Look, I mean, the calling, I mean, I've heard stories like, oh, I was called to preach and I was knocked down on the ground and all this kind of stuff and that's what I was called to preach. And you know, the calling for me, and maybe it's different than other people, it was not an audible voice. God didn't talk to me audibly. You're like, whew. But it was just, you know, it was just, you know, you get saved. You answer that call and then you open your heart to do what you're supposed to be doing.   And you know, God doesn't speak to me audibly ever. But you pray about it and just say, God, whatever you want. And then, you know, you just kind of follow that burden, you know. And that's how it happened for me. Maybe it happens different for other people. But, you know, that's the calling. That's the calling. So, I mean, I believe that.  You know, the Bible says, if a man desires the office of the bishop, he desires a good work, you know.  So, if you're saved, you're being called to good works, okay. That's the call. Whether or not you listen is up to you. And you can plug your ears. Even after you're saved, you can plug your ears. You know, those that have ears to hear, let them, let them, let them hear. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. We'll end here. I just want to bring you back. I want to bring you back to, I guess I have two more points here. I just thought of something. I want to bring you back to something here. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and look at, look at verse number three. And look what Paul says. And he fears for these people. What could he say as he says, but I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Look, salvation is the simplest doctrine in the Bible. It's simple and it makes perfect sense why it would be simple. Because God, it's his will that all would be saved. And some people are simple. And you'll find that the simpler people are, the easier they are to get saved. Because their ears are open and their heart, you know, is hopefully not seared. But I mean, you'll find that people that just aren't puffed up with all this pride or the easiest people to get saved is what you'll find. So when you find people complicating salvation or complicating simple doctrines in the Bible, especially the simplicity that is in Christ, just you got to get out, you got to run. You got to get out of there. It doesn't make it, you know, the simplicity that is in Christ is that hard to understand. I mean, these, I actually had to go back. This is how bad it is. I actually had to go back and re-review what the Lutheran church, Missouri Synod taught, or taught on salvation. Because it was so complicated, I couldn't even remember it. It's, it's pseudo, I'm not even going to go there. But the point is that this sermon, I was like, yeah, this sounds a lot like this. I had to go back and review it. Because I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah. And then that and God chooses you and, oh, but this and that. It doesn't make any sense. It didn't back then either. Yeah. See? Look, turn to Acts 16. Turn to Acts 16. We'll end here.  Just the Bible in general. I don't know how many times I've read Acts 16 to people. I don't know. Maybe thousands of times. But you know what? These, these verses in the Bible, you can learn something new from these verses. And look at Acts 16. First of all, first point on Acts 16, verse 30. This is the Philippian jailer. The, the disciples who just got thrown in prison, they got beaten half to death. They're singing and praising, you know, he wants to know how to get saved. So he asked him, he says, and brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. They didn't say, okay, here's the acronym. And it's this, and it's this, and it's this, and how do you have a couple hours? You know, and a PhD or whatever. But look what else he says. Look, it's just believe. That's it. We can just read. I mean, just believe. But look what he says then. And thy house. Okay. Let's read a couple more verses just for fun. Thou shalt believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.  They all must have been chosen from the beginning of the world. What are the odds of that? Seriously. There's all these people in his house and every single one of them were the chosen ones. Pretty good odds, right?  Even a Calvinist would say that most people aren't going to heaven, right? Brother Stuckin, I argue it's either 99 or 98. No, he's a pessimist. I'm an optimist. I think it's 98% of people. I'm probably wrong. But the point is, there's very few people that are saved. One or two percent of people here, I don't even know what it's like in your other parts of the world. It's probably worse. But here's the point. If one or two percent of people are saved, what are the odds that every single one of the people in that house, say there was 10 people in that house, they're all part of that 1% that God chose from the beginning of the world? Are you kidding me? That's a miracle in itself. Let's keep reading, see what happens. Do they get saved? And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, that was the disciples, and was baptized. He and all his, they all got saved. It's a miracle. It makes no sense at all.  You know, hopefully there's a lot of people that just don't know, that just get, that are in this doctrine, that just have that moment where they just want to know what's true. Because if you believe in Calvinism and you read the Bible, you are one confused individual. I'll tell you that right now. Calvinist, read the book of Romans. You're going to be so confused throughout the whole book. So look, the Bible is an infinite book. I just, I just love it. I love how you can just, but God wants all to be saved. The book of life was written it from the foundation of the world. Everybody's names in it. Some people get blotted out before they're dead. Most people get blotted out after they die, that first death. Okay? So we got those three verses out of the way. We'll hit Romans chapter eight next week. All right? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the book of Romans. We thank you for the Bible, Lord. And we thank you for the book of life. And we thank you for telling us about it. You know, you put these things in the Bible, Lord, so we can, we can study them. And, you know, it just, Lord, it just makes so much sense. Thank you for the, for the logic of your word and for the, the Holy Spirit that you've given us. So we can just, it's, it's so clear to us to understand these things, Lord. Lord, I pray that anybody that is wrapped up in these doctrines would just put their, put their pride aside and just, you know, have that moment in their life where they just want to know what's true. Where they want to just, you know, God just tell me what's true. And then, Lord, send them a soul winner. You know, bring more soul winners, Lord. Bring more soul winners to this church and, and send a soul winner to that person when they humble their heart. And we'll get, we'll get the gospel to them, Lord. We'll do everything we can. Lord, we thank you and we love you in Jesus' name. Amen.


Okay. So, hi, and welcome to my talk. It's about a small site project that I worked on, but I had a lot of fun doing it, and I think it's a very simple application of new radio and SDR in general, and it's something very accessible. I did it with hardware for 35 euros, so maybe it gives you an idea of what you can look at and what's out there, where you can start playing with software-defined radio. So, a bit about me, I'm Bastian and I work a lot with software-defined radio, a bit at university where I mainly work on Wi-Fi stuff, but also on sensor networking stuff when we have a project where we actually put sensor modes on beds, so that was fun. In my free time, I play around with different technologies, a bit with RDS and try to receive what's out there. Okay. So, these days a lot of people are actually talking about smart cities, smart power grids, smart lights, smart everything, and smart often means networked and embedded systems, the network often means wireless and yeah, but actually today I thought let's do the absolute opposite. Let's look at the absolute dumbest thing you could ever do, and in fact, when we in university have the course on embedded system, the kind of Hello World application is always let's turn an LED on and off, and basically that's what I want to look at today.  So, in Germany, we have some wireless traffic lights, there was a post on Hackaday about what I am just showing, and then I read the comments and it was a discussion like, what the hell is he talking about, and then somebody explained that they seemingly have these wireless traffic lights in Europe, so I don't know if they just are not there in the US or whatever, but yeah, so it's about mobile traffic lights. And I just wanted to give a very brief shout out to my friends from Inde Edwache because they just by chance found the same traffic lights in the GSM network, so they are usually scanning around in the internet and found that these wireless traffic lights actually have a GSM uplink. So, for monitoring and configuration and stuff like that, they are actually online, so they were able to log in and do some stuff, so this was covered in the news last year. And just very recently, Mike Osman and Dominic Spill, they triggered some traffic lights with infrared. So, today we want to look at this big antenna, and as you might guess, that doesn't look like GSM, so for the GSM uplink, they maybe didn't put this on the traffic light. So, yeah, I was looking into this and one friend of mine said, whenever he's close to this traffic light, his DAB, his digital audio radio just stops working, so. I thought, okay, let's look around in that area, and actually that's a band which is kind of to regional allocated. So, it's kind of land mobile radio. I'm not sure how the translation is in German, it's Betriebsfunk, and usually you have some FM modulations there. So, I use the RTL-SDR dongle that we've already seen today a lot, and I think all guys know it, and just started GQRX, and indeed there was a very strong signal when I was close to the traffic light. Okay, and usually on these bands, they are FM modulated and just tried it, and there were some, yeah, these signals look good, which came out of there. And my normal workflow when doing these things is there's now really some really great tooling. So, we have GQRX where you have seen where I could easily see the signal and filter the signal, and then I just did some recording to a wave file and had unloaded the wave file in Spectrum. I will, in a minute, show you the tool, and Spectrum is really nice if you just wanna see, get the signal parameters, see how it is modulated, bits per second, and stuff like that. And then after I know the signal parameters, I just do some simple decoding new radio. So, let's first look at in Spectrum. So, this is how the wave file loaded in Spectrum looks like. If there's no transmission with FM, then we have just some noise here, and then here you can see the traffic lights. So, there are always slots of one second, and in between we have six transmissions. So, the fact that they look a bit different basically tells you that there seems to be a different SNR. So, these are actually one traffic light and one is the other traffic light. So, they are not sending this just not one sending and the others only receiving, but they are sending back and forth. So, to assert that the other traffic light is still there. And they are sending different types of frames. So, basically we have some ones that are slightly longer, which we will later see is the kind of master, which tells the other one what to show. And the other one is basically just reporting back, or at some points it's also telling the master that there is, for example, a car. Some mobile traffic lights that actually have cameras to detect if there's a car ahead. So, they can maybe preempt the signal and give you priority and just not fall always a strict schedule. Okay, so this is a very, very rough. So, zoomed out version of the signal. So, let's have a bit closer look. So, this is also in spectrum still. It allows you to look at the signal and also have an overlay that helps you in finding the bit boundaries. And with this it was pretty obvious if you zoomed in that there's some FSK modulation inside there and the bit rate was 100 bit per second. So, this is always one bit and it's ordering between 1,200 and 1,800 hertz. So, you either have a complete cycle or one and a half cycle in there. So, this was basically the most important thing about the signal and with this I kind of manually decoded the preamble. Maybe I think in spectrum also has some possibility to decode the signal but I just manually wrote down the preamble because this is then what I needed in GNU radio.  Actually, now I'm still claiming that oh and then it's so simple and I just doing that step but I think that this is the step that might be the most challenging for several people.  And basically here in the last step it just looks for the preamble and then I have one custom block which is also just one line of code. It's just whenever it finds the preamble it's just outputting I guess 200 bits or something like that. So, I end up with a lot of bits on my console and I just piped it into a file and wanted to have a look at how to decode, how to make some sense out of the bits. And I played a bit around in WIM and because I like the workflow so much I thought I'd make a very, very brief video. So actually this is two and a half minutes of reverse engineering and it's now twice the speed. So you have two frame formats. Okay, now it's just selected one. If you scroll up and down you see very, very easily the boundaries where there's some information in there and basically what's in the frame is so now we get rid of that. If we now scroll up and down we already see some patterns in there and then I just split it. And from this it has some kind of timer or it seems to be a timer that's counting upwards whenever a new complete cycle begins. And then here I just found something which changes from time to time and this turned out to be actually the phases of the traffic light. And in the beginning I had some repeating pattern so I thought okay this seems to be the same thing if both show the same. Hopefully it's two times red. And then it started from there to make some sense out of it. So with this then I had at least an idea of how the signal could look and I created some easy interface. So for the web browser, I mean, GNU Radio we already had it in the file. I have some very shitty web GUI which was reading the file and then just showing the actual state of the traffic light then in a web browser. And then of course I had to go outside and hope you didn't drink too much beer because it's really shaky here. It was really cold. So I had two different types of traffic light. This one was directly in front of our university and so this was really convenient to work except that it was in the night and pretty cold. And then with another one where I also have a video on my website so if you wanna give it a try but here it was just with a lighter which is just much easier to see that it's kind of following the traffic light. Okay, so that was the, I actually can receive it and whenever, actually I was pretty happy with that and already kind of good enough but whenever I showed it to someone the obvious question was. Yeah. And I thought, okay, at least I should kind of include it in the talk a bit and say a word about it. Okay, I thought about, okay, how can I transmit? I have one of those but I'm very sure that it doesn't allow me to transmit out of the amateur radio bands. So maybe it can receive there but transmitting is limited. I looked on eBay, you can of course buy lots of these land mobile radios or however they are actually called but they are a bit expensive or a bit over 100 euros usually. Then I remember that at some point I bought this incredibly cheap shitty device from China and never actually used it and it turns out with this 25 euro it's kind of very nice because it's cheap and it's portable and even in the Lingon Amazon it was 172 megahertz. If you play around with it that yeah. Yeah, it turns out that can actually work or at least I wanted to give it a try. Good, what can you do? There is the obvious way like going beside the traffic light and just screaming in the radio and then you're basically jamming, disrupting the communication but it's pretty boring because it's always possible but when I had that on my blog there was immediately somebody who wrote me that he tried that obviously or for whatever reason he knew that when you just jam it it's just flashing orange which makes a lot of sense because this is the kind of fallback solution. What else can you do? So the actual question is like could you spoof transmission means like you could generate the signals yourself so that the traffic light would accept it so that you can actually trigger the traffic light? This is what most people seem to be interested in but as I said, most of them have cameras and you should not mess around and also with the GSM uplink they know probably if you're doing some shitty stuff with it so I thought but still I wanted to see if there is at least some I can come up with a proof of concept that maybe you could further investigate it so okay I did another Agui but this time obviously I wanted to trigger it then I again had a new radio flow graph where I wanted to when I kind of was generating the signal that I just showed you and this time it was just really playing new radio blocks so there's nothing where I had to code it was basically I have two signal sources which produce the 1,200 hertz signal and the 1,800 hertz signal and then I have some logic with the bits which is kind of turning one on and off that's in a high level overview of the thing so what this then does is this time it's not connected to SDR or software refined radio stuff but this time it's just outputting the signal into an audio sync and then it was kind of a no risk, no fun I could just connected it directly the line out of my PC to the radio actually when you look online they don't recommend doing that so I used a USB audio card because I was hoping maybe then just the USB version is broken and not directly my PC but at least for me it worked actually you should decouple them I guess but I'm not really good in circuits and stuff like that okay so the thing is if you enable Vox so I guess all the amateur radio like know it is you can switch between push to talk and that the radio just turns on whenever there is some signal so I enabled Vox on the radio connected it to the line in of the microphone and yeah there you basically then have your transceiver and I just have a very brief demo of the set up in on my desk at university so you see I have another GUI here then there is GNU radio stuff going on and it's then connected to the handheld radio here and on the other side there is the other GNU radio receiver that I just showed you that was working with the normal traffic light so it's the same frequency the very same thing everything's the same so I was really generating a signal just as the traffic light so yeah so much for the you can also maybe transmit at least in general so yeah so that's just from my side I hope yeah you find it a bit profoundly application and also I'm now motivated to play a bit around with this cheap technologies that are out there okay thanks is it half? oh I'm sorry actually I thought it's way too much content so now I was rushing around through the slides I'm sorry yeah so if you have any questions do you know if anyone would try it? no especially from the internet if you try it ask me if he knows that anyone would try it if he knows that anyone would try it yeah so usually exactly so that's usually what happens that if somebody does it then hey it done that five years ago or something like that but actually seriously knows that nobody wrote me so I wouldn't know if anybody I also tried different yeah I got emails from other guys who were looking into that but none of them were actually transmitting something yeah what? yeah this is the anechoic chamber of our university what? I'm using another frequency there was another all this has metalized windows where nothing gets out it's a parody page exactly yes so there seems to be the configuration always seems to be that the one is kind of the main the kind of the master of the communication and the other such as kind of reporting back periodically so that the master actually knows that what he was transmitting actually was received so not that the master turns green the other doesn't yeah and also on this frequency you don't have to space them that close because you're actually on one hundred seventy megahertz you get some range yeah so I don't know that particular tool but so if I already try if I tried another tool that was recently released a schmuckon which is called airwave I guess oh how did you say wave converter yeah I don't know that particular tool but today in the morning we had a panel where we said about it's sometimes really hard to get started with new radio and then when I had a look another look at my slides okay now I say from I have all signal parameters I know the preamble and now I just have to build the new radio receiver and then this is when I realized that this will be the tricky part for most of the people so that they really come from this now because in loading it in a spectrum it's pretty straightforward I would say and then also having some high level overview but then from that to the transmitter that might be the part where people draw off yeah and but maybe this is something where you maybe could come up with some default standard solution where you maybe can just plug in different values like one for on off keying one generic one one for FM and stuff like that for there are some out there but they are kind of distributed also you don't even need the parameters okay so these wave converters should I should have a look at it and see yes no because I think it's because so it is really a kind of really straightforward and I think it also doesn't make a lot of sense I had to look at two different traffic lights they all are slightly different also they might have different configurations so most likely that wouldn't work out of the box either way so you have to do some slight adaptations but the main point is actually that this is something very straightforward you can just have a look at it and also it shouldn't it shouldn't be just I just download compile and run a thing I guess yeah yeah you can just yeah the ones at university they actually rent and it looks like then the company is doing the monitoring of the traffic light and also most likely the configuration stuff everything remotely and you just put them there yeah reverse engineering yeah so when I look back actually then mainly I was always to do something with traffic even I actually didn't think about it so what my other projects were I received telemetry from buses so I had an open street map where you could see the buses in Paderborn driving around and I had a presentation two years ago with RDS TMC so this is the digital subcarrier on FM broadcast data so there's also some traffic information modulated on there so your GPS device gets it from the FM broadcast stations and also I have a project which is a way label this is decoding my car key fob for example then you get the 64 bit rolling rolling code out of it and yeah stuff like that so there's tons of this very very low hanging fruits out there where you can have some fun playing around with yeah so usually when you are close to it then it should be very dominant and clear that it's there I mean if you have absolutely no idea about the band so with this I really had an idea and also if I wouldn't have known that it kind of interferes with the DAB audio stuff then I would have started there so if you know or have a rough idea about the frequency allocation there are some spots to look but yeah in general if you just use GQRX and scroll through the band I guess you should see it very dominant for example with the buses also I had no clue where they are but when one drove by me very close it was just bam so you couldn't miss it yeah but for this small distances nobody don't even have to pull it out oh yeah yeah so this is a half lambda half yeah so what was it two meter band one meter antenna I don't know okay thanks


So, here is a photo taken last month of dead fish in the High Her River in Tianjin. There were over 40 chemicals that have been detected at the blast site and many of these are toxic and many of them are found in large quantities. And so, we are always exposed to mixtures of chemicals in our food and our ability to track how they impact our health in a concerted way is actually limited. So, these chemicals can get into food from being there naturally, from agricultural chemical applications from industrial use, as well as introduction in processing and packaging and storage. So, this problem came to our attention when we were studying a chemical that is in a toxic mushroom. And we did very careful mechanistic studies of this chemical and in understanding that molecular process, we were able to predict that a combined exposure to other chemicals from food would actually lead to an increase in toxicity to this chemical. And so, our typical one-at-a-time approach in evaluating toxicity failed us there. Now, around this time, I moved my research team to the ETH Zurich and I met a colleague there who was a pioneer in systems biology. And I can describe his approach with the movie The Matrix. So, if you remember The Matrix, in The Matrix, our exterior world is actually computer programs and we can break down all of our experiences to binary code. So, if my colleague was basically describing a human in the code of The Matrix, what I wanted to do was see how that human changed in The Matrix when it ate contaminated food. Well, basically, this is a complex way to approach even the basic science of toxicology. And so then the idea that we could apply this to risk assessment of chemicals seems like a little bit of a stretch. And it's also important to note that if we do this incorrectly, actually the implications could be in chronic long-term health effects of many of these chemicals. We're really motivated because of the major advances in handling and interpreting large biological data. So, for example, the Human Genome Project, 15 years ago, 100 million to sequence 3 billion bases of the human genome, and now we're under $1,000. And so, what we need to do to start this approach is take the basic concept of dose responsiveness in toxicity. And so, doing a traditional experiment, usually using an animal model, a key point to determine is a threshold, and that's a point at which the test system diverges from having no detectable response to the chemical. And so, now in taking our new systems toxicology approach, we keep this idea central, but we need new biological models, ones that we can test in a very rapid way, like human-cultured cells, for example. In using new biological models, we need to change our measurement strategies, and we need to change our mathematical means of extrapolating from our measured points to our safe dose points. To do this, we use basically high-content analytical technologies, like genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. And we use that to define the molecular response to active chemicals, and then we can use this to build, basically compute a biological network model that allows us to predict adverse effects. So this idea is not just my idea of using a system's approach to toxicology, but is really a paradigm shift in the field of toxicology. It's very collaborative, hugely multidisciplinary. This is an image of a robot in the US ToxCast platform that's currently screening 8,000 chemicals in in vitro toxicity assays. So a major scientific challenge right now is taking information from different models and different platforms, and using that information to understand an adverse response that is realistic to a human, and doesn't just represent a normal adaptive response. So this is a complicated big thing that we will take into the future. And so how can we use this right now to address something like the problem of mixtures of chemicals in foods? So something we're doing at the ETH Zurich as part of a large European consortium called EuroMix is that we are taking chemicals in foods and classifying them into assessment groups based on their mechanism understood in this manner. And then we can mathematically predict their toxicological relationship. So the take home message here is that we're decoding blueprint for the toxicological effect of active compounds. This is contrasted to the traditional black box animal testing approaches. And the advantages is that it offers a scalability, and it also offers a means of really simulating and predicting adverse responses. So taking a systems toxicology approach, really and applying that into risk assessment allows us to integrate a fundamental understanding of molecular responses to chemicals. And that is enabled by these high content analytical methods and biological modeling and applying that to our practical need to ensure the safety of our food.