It's funny, you know, because I remember how even when I was 18, you would be so angry any time I came close to your drinks. Oh, Steve, Steve, I really want to thank you for this. I'm really happy to be here and it means a lot to me. Come on, look, don't make this weird. We're having a great evening. Let's just chill, you know. I know, I know. For chairman, I didn't expect this. Ah, I've been meaning to ask ever since I got in here. Well, glass is now a shadow. Here for life, it's a programming thing. Or you can't see sharp now. Dad, did you just try to make a programming joke? You don't have any idea how I've been rehearsing and waiting for this moment. I'm proud of you, Charlie.   But now, yeah, I can't even offer you anything in place of a paparapology. You can't see. I was very sure that you're going to waste your life cooked up in that room all day with that chuppate. To get concrete and safe. It's for you. I got it swung, you know. Yeah, I got it swung. Go ahead, let's hear it. Let's hear it. You know, at least you can look me in the face and do it. You're not going to make it easy, are you? Am I not here? Say, uh, as usual with these bullying tactics. Hey, hey, I've been, I've been curious.  You know, it's the reason why Leonard became an architect. She loved art and she was so good at it. Well, at least we all could see it. And it brought her joy, so much joy. Childlike joy. Now that I think about it, I think she was living a piece of herself through Leo. And even that, you managed to turn it into something else. Not understand why she turned on Leo right before SS. But I later realized that she was hard on Leo to become an architect because she didn't want him to give up the arts like she had to. All because you thought it was a useless craft. She sacrificed everything, everything, and gave in to whatever you said and declared final. She felt so small and bitten by the one person who was supposed to be by her side. But I mean, we all felt small and unheard around you. It all, it all makes sense now. I mean, I thought growing up Ma didn't like me because I was the weird one. I later realized that she was only living out a piece of herself that she had found in Leo. And then there was me misunderstood then alone. I understand why I'm here now. Even though I'm not supposed to be. This should have happened a long time ago. We are both alike, you know. We let our egos get in the way of good things. Mostly because we do not understand. And even worse, it's uncomfortable. I don't know how to do this without sounding as if I was trying to defend myself. You know, I explain it in a mirror. I find it to me. When you spend all your time surviving, you seldom live room to live. And that means you sometimes smother those around you without even realizing it. Where's the fall? You become oblivious to your own selfishness, okay? And that is all that I've left with now. Regrets and a lost time. And it hurts. It hurts even more because no matter how sorry I can tell you that I am, I cannot change anything. It's too late. At least for me. It may not change. And it's on me. It's all on me. I have made different choices. If I had the chance. Honestly, I don't know.  No one deserves that.   It was okay. For me, the world out there swallowed the weak. And I wasn't going to have it that my children lacked the guy to stand on their own. When a way of thinking has been beaten into you, change becomes such a difficult thing. How I raised you is all I need. I didn't have the courage to change. That is why I'm jealous.  And you have done so well for yourself. I'm proud of you. So much. I hope you would knock off that burden you're carrying. And forgive me. You're jealous to get here where you and I are now. It's very close that you think. Take a lesson from what we had. And don't repeat it when you have your son. I'd allowed myself to listen more.


How many data was this first you get the pan and then you get the test there then you get the power All right, then you get the matrix portal s3 Uh, this is our s3 based matrix portal version got rid of the samd 51 driving the matrix directly And you've got uh, both sockets and plug tile Connectors for the panels and here's my tester using my rp20 40 brains Um, I love this because I don't need to use a separate computer Raspberry Pi It's really fast and it programs it over in usb And then it does like a wi-fi scan it tells me to press the buttons I press the buttons and it's like test done. This was pre-programmed. So it only took 12 seconds and then so I can Do this fast remove remove Plug this in and then Hit reset and one of the coolest things is that this program's in a, uh A live demo so when people get it it comes ready to go It also does a wi-fi scan and iSquirtz scan. So it's a good hardware test Uh, so this is coming to the shop soon. Just wrap this tester handy. Yes


Hello and let's talk about TRP fixing in India's news business. A couple of days ago, the Mumbai police came out with some startling claims. According to them, certain channels were involved in manipulating TRPs, which are television rating points. Now, this is a metric which is used to determine which channels are the most watched in the country and it's the basis on which channels and the editors keep shouting about how they're the most popular. The way these ratings are calculated is with devices called barometers, which are kept in select households, anywhere between 30,000 to 40,000 such devices in the country. And these barometers collect data on which channels are watched and how much. So if those whose houses in which these devices are installed can be paid off, it's possible to manipulate these ratings. The fraud was reportedly first brought to light by the broadcast audience research council that is BARC, which releases these ratings and Hansa, which was contracted by BARC for the research. At least two of those arrested in connection with this are former Hansa employees. The other two arrested are owners of two channels, Fakparati and Box cinemas. Now the big fish the Mumbai police mentioned is Republic TV. This channel has denied these claims and said that another channel was originally named in the FIR. But amid all this uncertainty, what is clear is that there is a lot of murky stuff and that this is not something we started just yesterday. We talked to senior journalist Anand Dev Chakravarti who has been studying and analyzing this issue for years. Thank you so much for joining us. So it seems that we have a case of TRP fixing again over here. And of course, there's been a lot of debate controversy, lot of allegations being thrown by some of the people supposedly involved. But to take a slightly more to take maybe a couple of steps back. Is this kind of TRP fixing something that's unheard of or is it been, is it a regular thing which is just coming out right now at this crucial moment? If I remember correctly Outlook magazine, I might be wrong, Outlook magazine did a story sometime in the early 2000s on how people were being paid. Those who had meters, in those days it used to be TAM, right? Television audience metering or something that's what the company was called. And they were being paid by channels to watch certain channels and push up there. So this is a very old thing. The network I worked for, NDTV, we had been regularly raising this. And NDTV realized that there's no law in India which can stop this from happening. And so it went to New York, which is where the parent company of TAM at that time in India was there, which is Nielsen and Canter Media, I think. And it filed a case in New York where the judge said that this is not within our jurisdiction. You'll have to take this to India. And those case papers, actually, I am part of that because I was one of the people who used to analyze ratings to find out where this kind of rigging is going on. This has been consistently happening way before Republic TV was ever born. So all those who are crying foul and they're basically all part of this game. That is very clear about it. Absolutely, right. So but just to sort of give our viewers a more concrete understanding, could you just take us through the mechanics of how this kind of tampering works? So let's first understand how television ratings are collected. So there are 44,000 meters in India and what I could make out from the BAK website, 40,000 actively on the panel, which is from where they take data every second, where the data is recorded every second. And I think there is a GSM network through which without visiting the home, they can collect the data into their office through a phone. Now, how does it happen? There is a meter, which they call the Baro meter or the People meter. And for each meter, there are each person in the household has a button. So at least that was the old system. Maybe TAM has changed it. But on TAM's website where I read the technology, it seems to be something similar. So if let's say you and I are flatmates, right? So we'll have two buttons and every time we come into the room and we are watching actively, we'll have to press our button. And every time we leave, we'll have to also press. Now, how does TAM make out that what we are watching? It is possible, you know, you remember in the old cable days, your channel needs to switch from one number to another and you will have to find it again. So there is an audio record being taken. So they're looking at, they're actually tracking not just the picture, but they're tracking the sound of the channel. At the back end, they're tracking all these channels and they're matching the audio to see whether this is the channel. So that is the way they can make out who our watch is being watched, right? So Prashant, we all know and we've discussed this in the past that people watch entertainment much more than news. And this is not anything new in there. It is true across the world. And the less, let's say, the less capitalist country is, interest is news is lower, right? Because the idea of news itself has some connotation with markets and being informed to be a citizen. If you don't value that, if that is not part of your social value system, there's no reason for you to watch news. So a lot of people actually watch entertainment much more than news, right? So let's now take the case of something like, let me take a channel like Star Plus, for instance, right? Which is a frontline Hindi general entertainment channel. If I look at that, then every day out of those 40,000 meters, which are active, about 8 odd percent, which is about 3,000 odd meters, actually are actively watching Star Plus. Only Star Plus, I'm not talking about Hindi entertainment. Because Hindi entertainment would be watched by about 48% of all sample viewers. By sample viewers, I mean the people who are in meter homes, right? Which is about 1.7 lakhs, 1.6 to 1.7 lakhs, right? Now, here's the point that Star Plus, if it went to 50 such meter homes, now meter homes are supposed to be completely confidential. You're not supposed to know, right? Which is why in your family, if you have anyone who works in a channel or has anything to do with a channel or whatever, then that family household cannot have a meter. The problem is that these meters homes constantly get leaked. It's not that difficult. You can actually, you don't even have to bribe the people who put the meters. You actually have to bribe a cable operator. Because a cable guy goes to collect the money, monthly money. They sometimes go to fix, the connection is poor, they'll go to fix and they'll see what the hell is on this TV set. They know there's a meter there, right? So it's not very difficult for you to find out where those meters are. Now, suppose you went to a household which is a meter, right? First of all, before that I want to ask you a question Prashant. Would you allow Bach to set up a meter in your home and tell you that every day, every time you watch, that everyone in your family, when you watch, you have to press a button. When you stop, go out of the room, you must press the button and leave. When you come in, you must press the button and will you do it? Probably not. So every person in every channel, every channel has a distribution person. Who looks at whether these channels are being reached, connected. Everyone will tell you that even the households, which are supposedly telling you about the richest people, right? What is called NCCS, which is the new category they use, A, right? Earlier we used to call it socioeconomic category, SEC now it's called NCCS. I've forgotten what the thing is, some consumer, something category, right? Even those which say are the affluent, in affluent aid, as are actually put in the staff quarters. Because no middle-class household is going to allow you to put a meter in your house. It's not going to happen, right? So this is what invariably happens. In any case, let's come back to the issue. Now, it has been repeatedly found in stories done by reporters and sting operations. NDTV did a few sting operations as well. What happens is that in a person who is a poor household, right? Let's say in Dharavi or in Shadra, which has a meter, right? And a channel goes and says that here is a brand new 48-inch Samsung TV for you. Here is a Tata Sky or whatever connection, Dish TV connection. You watch whatever you want to watch on this brand new TV. And here is 500,000 rupees per month for your additional expenses like electricity or whatever. This other TV on which the meter is connected, please make sure it watches my channel for five hours a day, right? And also make sure all four or five people in your family press the button. So on the face of it, a person who doesn't speak English, right? Probably doesn't earn enough. Their entire family is watching English news, sitting in Dharavi because they've just switched it on. They've got another TV given nicely by the channel for them to watch. Now you will say, does it make a big difference? Now, here are some calculations that might be interesting to look at, right? If you have, let's say 50 such homes, again, just to be sure that the viewers remember, do you remember Prashant, how many meters did I say in all over India? 40,000. Correct. So 40,000, right? I take 50 such meters across India and I go there and I say that here is a TV set. You watch whatever you want to watch on it. This is on your meter TV set. All of you must switch this on my channel for 300 minutes a day. If that happens, a Hindi general entertainment channel, its ratings would move up. If it had 20% market share, it will go to 21.5%. Yes, but we're talking about, say, just a difference about 1.5% here. So it's actually on the face with quite a small number. So what difference does it exactly make in the real world, as I said? So Prashant, the difference it makes is that you can move actually from number two to number one and then get a leadership premium. If you actually can sustain it for six months, you will end up with 50, 60, 70 or even more money, crores. I don't mean 50, 60 rupees, I mean crores annually, which is a lot of money. If we take that for a Hindi news channel, for instance, and if I look at the numbers as to what happens, the same 50 boxes, you manipulate for about five hours each person every day, 50 boxes, which is about 210 people, your ratings go from 20% to almost 26%. And that pushes you from number, let's say, three to number one. Of course, the race is much tighter. Here, a number three person would probably be at 15, 16%. But they will be pushed up to 20%. And that will put them at number one. And that again is 50, 60 crores annually if you can sustain it. If you look at English news, this is the interesting part. 50 meters, 210 people ask them to watch for five hours a day. If you had a 20% market share, Prashant, I would ask you to guess where you would end up. Say around 30%. No, not 30%. It's 79%. You would have nearly 80% of the market because the market is so small. A total of about 450 individual sample individuals watch English news every day. And that is projected for the entire universe. So you can imagine what rigging 210 more people will do to your ratings. Now let's look at 10. You say 50 is difficult. 50 all over India. You could get caught and bark as its own vigilant steam. If they catch you, then you're blacklisted. There could be more things that can happen to you. Hindi, general entertainment. If you have 10 boxes doing the same thing, 10 boxes would meters would be about 42 people. On an average, you'll go up by just 0.3. So it just doesn't make sense. Hindi news, you'll go from 20% to 21%, which is a decent number, again, because you can move from number two to number one. And that fight can get tougher. English news, just 10 such meters moves you from 20% to 49%. These I'm basing on the last 13 weeks of data for the leading channels. 20% to 50%. That is what happens by rigging just 10 meters across India out of 40,000 meters. That is the impact. And this impact is twofold. One, you can basically capture the entire market. And you can say that if the total revenue of English available for English news is, let's say, 500, 600 crore, I should be getting 200 crore out of that. You have amazing cloud based on that.  You could ask me, how can content be affected? If one channel is gaining, how does it affect others? Because we know that everyone is looking for ratings. And when they see that, OK, this channel at 99 o'clock is getting 80% of the ratings. What have they been doing? What have they been showing? Well, they've been showing Sushant Singh Rajpur. That means everyone wants to watch Sushant Singh Rajpur. So this has a bandwagon effect. Everyone moves to Sushant Singh Rajpur. They don't get the ratings. Because we are seeing that those guys still are at low ratings. It makes no difference to the rating. But they think they dare not move away from it. Because they'll say, if we move away from it, then we are out of what people want to watch. So you can actually determine, by this method, push other channels to do what you are doing and basically move from media to gaudy media by simply manipulating this. Absolutely. So it's an interesting question here is, how come there are absolutely no checks and balances on this since the point of failure seems so easy? No, there are checks and balances. There are checks and balances. For instance, as I said, that if Bach has its own algorithms and it's things which we'll see that if suddenly in a place in Dharavi where people were watching for 10 minutes, they're watching for 300 minutes, they're going to come and check it sooner or later and they're going to remove those what are called outliers from the system. They will do that. Damn notoriously, even after pushing and prodding, fail to do it. They also have a vigilance team which actually goes and checks what is happening. And in fact, I think the Mumbai police was claiming, I don't know whether that is true, that some of the initial complaints actually came from Bach itself. They did the investigation. I don't know whether that is true, whether what I'm saying, whether I've understood it correctly. But Bach does do this regularly. The point is that there's an entire network of what is called consultants who are rigging meters all the time.  You'll see that one week, you are number one in Chennai. Next week, you're number one in Calcutta. Next week, you're number one in Bangalore because they have the entire system. Bach is unable to put... There are holes all over, right? So for it to dawn and so every part of that fabric, it is not that easy. So as long as there is a system, as long as channels are going to be able to manipulate it, this is going to happen. You can't get out of it. And so that, like you said, this basically ends up not being just a question of ratings or even money for that matter, but the fundamental question about journalism itself. So do you see any possibility of... Say I'm at the risk of sounding a bit naive. Do you see any possibility of, say, content slash or any way of moving out of this kind of rat race? Are there any alternative methods used? Other parts of the world, for instance, it's kind of go beyond this. My answer to that is no as of now because I'll tell you why, because people do say that let's look at digital and yesterday I had actually tweeted two frames at the same time, Ravish at nine o'clock on NDTV India and Republic India, Bharat, which is the Hindi channel, which whose ratings I would think is 10 times that of NDTV India. And at nine o'clock also probably 10 times. But in terms of a number of people watching at the same time on YouTube, Ravish at nine o'clock at 35, 36,000 and Republic Bharat had 23 odd thousand. So you can see that if that were the market, then 60% would be Ravish and Republic Bharat would be 40%. I'm just giving a naive rough calculation. However, 35,000 is no patch on the number of people who tune into Hindi news at nine o'clock. Even if it were 1% of the 84 crore people who have, it would still be 85 lakh people per minute, every minute. I'm not talking about, so when we say, if you went to YouTube and saw a video which has 85 lakh views over six months, you will say, oh my goodness, that is an amazing video. I'm talking about per minute here. So that's the difference in the kind of reach television has. So advertisers will obviously always be keen to go to these channels. And as long as the Indian viewer is like that, and why Indian viewers across the world are like that, advertising is this is inbuilt in capitalism. We need to understand that. It would be naive and utopian for us to believe that capitalism is going to allow journalism which questions it. That's great. Sure. Thank you so much, Anand. You were talking to us. Thanks. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back on Monday with more news from the country and the world. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.


Thundee here and I just got back from Miami it was a work trip but also spent some time with my girlfriend and I decided to make the whole thing into an S20 plus camera review yeah I know but this should give you a good idea of how it actually is in a more realistic setting less of the controlled stuff that we tend to do as youtubers everything was shot with the S20 plus so let's go check out some photos so as you would expect when you get to Miami Beach the first thing you want to do is go to the beach and taking some photos outdoors camera really does a good job this is the rear camera as you'd expect and this is the front-facing camera now this is sort of a backlit environment because the Sun was of course behind me with a shot but it came out pretty well you can see the details of my shirts my face all that fun stuff and I would say actually in this photo series I don't think I took any portrait mode photos I was just taking natural shots now we're invited by blue so want to give a big shout out to them check out the offices and we captured some stuff here with the camera they've got some really nice packaging I'm glad they are not like just black and white like every other company but we got to see some of the stuff that they really showcased and they're going to showcase later on this year can't talk about it yet but it was pretty cool but they have an array of products to check out between like 100 to 250 it's not sponsored anything I just want to just talk about it because hey they flew me down to Miami and they took us out to go have some awesome dinner and a fruit and drinks in Miami are amazing absolutely amazing totally amazing gotta check it out now skin tones is something you're really gonna appreciate with this camera as you can see in my girlfriend here her skin tone looks really natural matches her quite well her hails are so well depicted even in this photo here which is not focused on the leading front but more of the boat her skin tone comes out well and this general shot of everyone here taking shots skin tones also really matches well and the front facing camera does a decent job as well with skin tone so you're gonna see it a quite a bit with this camera and in video as we got to party on a boat actually two boats to be exact so thanks blue again for that one all the skin tones looked really nice and everything look really sharp and quite vibrant fun fact this is the largest mansion on Star Island in Miami owned by the guy who found Viagra but it's a beautiful shot here you can see everything so clear pretty sharp now we're moving to some no light photos and this is on the boat it's a nice photo but you can see the images down the way a nice focus same thing with this one here as well kind of gives you this painting like feel to it that's something you're going to constantly get with some of its low light photography now this is a really low light conditions but again they still will actually came out well lit which was at least good to see here now when we move to just individual subjects you can see this in this photo there you know the dress comes out well skin tone also really comes out nicely as well although what you notice is the hair which was much sharper and detailed in daytime not as much but again you know my girlfriend has a lot of hair so it's a little harder for the camera to capture that now front-facing camera does a good job with hair here and again skin tones are nice not as bright as vibrant as the rear camera but I do like the shots there this is a shot outside the I love the kind of poster like feel to it I mean there's a lot of lights and street lights so which is probably why the shot came out this way with the night mode same thing with this the palm trees I was actually walking by and I quickly took the shot so I was impressed that it actually didn't actually blur across the board but I think when you kind of look at some of the shots that you get with the Galaxy S20 plus especially in low light conditions it really does a fantastic job especially this last image that we have here that thing does something really unique and awesome for people and I think this camera goes a long way to capturing what you're looking for for camera especially in daytime and of course night time situations I think overall the S20 plus really does a solid job with you know just capturing images and capturing things in the moment there is room for improvements and I think we're gonna see more of those improvements there I didn't show anything in 8k I was basically in the moment trying to capture as much as I could and there were so many photos but of course this is what I just was sharing with you guys so if you have any questions or any comments about this let me know otherwise don't forget to like share subscribe and always enjoy your entertainment


In a highly unanticipated move, the Taliban, you know, overran the country of Afghanistan, invaded the capital Kabul, the president, Ashraf Ghani, had to flee and have now redeemed the country from Afghanistan to the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan. We're inviting Mr. Paul Ijume, an international affairs analyst, to analyze what really is happening in that part of the world. Good morning, Mr. Ijume. Thank you, Alita. Thank you for having me. So we've had debates about the United States' involvement in Afghanistan politics and security for a long time now. And there's been talks about them pulling out, withdrawing all the troops, you know, from the Trump era to now that Joe Biden is president. People are blaming Biden for the crisis in Afghanistan because he eventually saw the pullout of the troops in the US. Do you think Joe Biden is to blame? So I don't think so. I think what informs your international affairs or international relations or policy abroad, you know, grows from internal dynamics.  So there has been this fixation to get the troops back. That is one. Two, there are elections coming and so on and so forth. And then to complicate that matter, President Trump will seem to have handed President Biden a poison, China's. There is really nothing he can do here. If he decides that already the announcement has been done and then the plan has been, you know, put in place for the withdrawal of troops. So if he now goes against that, he will leave with the consequences. Now he has followed it. There are also consequences. And one of the consequences perhaps you said, you said it wasn't anticipated, is that there has been what you call failure of intelligence. If America, by going to Afghanistan, like they have gone to Iraq and other places, was a mass miscalculation of failure of strategy. This one is a combination of both. Afghanistan has become a combination of both failure of strategy and failure of intelligence. Strategy because when they went there, it appears that there was no plan about aftermath. What do you do after the Taliban's were disloyal 20 years ago? Okay. So I want us to take a look at the person who is now the president of Afghanistan. His name is Mullah Berda. Now President Trump had released Berda from prison in 2018. It was one of the negotiations that he had with the Afghanistan government, you know, when they were trying to broker a peace deal. And when we look at what's happening here in Nigeria, how prisoners seem to be released. I mean, terrorists seem to be released and forgiven and saying they have repented. Do you think that it's something that could happen here in Nigeria when we look at the Berda situation? It's always a risky affair negotiating with extremists because you never can trust them. That is the problem they have, problem of trust. How can you, because some of them do not restrain rationally. They are driven by ideology, by driven, whether it is religious or whatever. And so to extremism, the point that these are supposed to be people preaching Islam. But this is the extremist version of Islam. The ones that will not concede any rise to women and then against education and so on. We proud Muslims, we tell you, are not going with this group of people. So that tells you that is the extremist view that is being, is the issue. So now negotiation, like I said, is a risky business. You how can you trust a people that will not respect human rights, because that is what it is. Will you trust a people that will go against the norms of democracy, the principles of democracy? Will you trust people that will bring rules that will marginalize the set of the sections of the society? That is the issue. Now to be able to talk about radicalization, there is radicalization and legalization. Now they are talking as if the Taliban are now saying they are born again, they have changed. But I was reading, I was looking at a report about now asking a reporter, I think with CNN, a woman to cover her face, you must cover your face. But to tell you, even when they are saying in one hand they are saying, well, they are now ready to be, to liberalize. But at the same time, they had a line, principles are still with them. It is whether a leopard really can change the spots. And that is the problem. So when they negotiate, whether it's in Afghanistan, whether it's in Nigeria, it is tricky. It is a risky business. But it has to happen.  You can continue to fight. Now they have been achieved for 20 years. And they come back to the ground zero, you know, from where they started. So you have to negotiate to see how far you can go to bring this report to reason, to see that the world will be better when the government is inclusive. When the government is not meant to be, but when there is justice. All right, Mr. Jamed, certain things I want to also ask.  Here we are dealing with Boko Haram and Aiswab. There's also Ashabaab in Kenya and other places. So how do you think that the events in Afghanistan may influence these other terrorist groups across the world? That's one. Second question is, what do you think must be done to fight Islamic extremism? Because we can do all and say all and fund, you know, built infrastructure here and there and what not. But there is a, these are a group of people that place religion and their beliefs in their religion above every other thing, and that includes above humanity itself. So what do you think must be done across the world to combat or reduce extremists, Islamists? It seems to be a problem that the world itself is having to, would have to deal with. Yes. There are two layers to it at the national level and then the international level. But let me also make the point that extremism is not limited to Islam. Yeah, but there are- No, it's not. You know, I agree with you, Mr. Ajima, but what we are currently dealing with across the world is the Islamist extremism. We're not seeing violence from any other religion. Okay. We may not see violence, but there are also some very insidious and dangerous policies and, you know, practices associated with some religions that should not be tolerated. So I do not want us to now begin to isolate them. I want us to deal with them. If we're dealing with extremism, it has to cut across if it is religion, whether it is by Christians, whether it's the Buddhists or whatever, must be condemned for whatever, for what it is. And let us, you know, what happens is that these people will tell you that they are- They can read their own version of whatever it is they are doing, of philosophy. Remember that Johnstown in America some time ago, very far back, where people- You had a mass suicide of- You have cults, people who follow a particular person, that they lionize and then they worship as their own. And then whatever they tell them, that is what they do. That is also extremism and to be condemned. So while we are dealing with the Jihadists, whether it's ISIS, whether it's the Al-Qaeda, El-Shabaab and all that, it is dangerous. And then we have said, look at it from the macro and the micro level. The micro level is the national level, where you now have- Because at times these things grow and is extended. If you do not catch it or nip it in the board nationally, that is now when it grows and then brings all the- becomes hydrated. So at the national level, governments must make it a point to be inclusive, to show justice to all manner of person, and then not to be pandering to any particular religion. Look at Nigeria. Nigeria is supported by constitution, it's a secular state. But you find that by practice and some things that happen by government, it appears that maybe a particular religion is favored at any particular time. That is not correct. So it is that tendency by governments to deviate from the norm, from the principle, from the ground norm. If the constitution says that this country is secular, whatever you do, make sure that you follow that path and not favor a particular religion against the other. Then what about treatment of people? Women, you do not concern women to the kitchen or anywhere. That is fundamental human rights. Respect the rights of everybody, treat everybody equally, and then be inclusive. Let people enjoy the benefit of government. The Nigerians talk about dividends of democracy. Do you have education? Do you have water? Do you have health system? Do you have roads, good roads? Do you have hospitals? What you call the benefits that must not be given to one particular section at the expense of the other. It must go round. You must be seen to be not just fair, but be seen to be fair, to be transparent, and then show justice to all manner of people. Apologies, but how does this translate to reducing the number of people who interpret their religion in a different way and want to force their religious teachings or the interpretations of their religion on everybody? Because if you look at what the Taliban is doing or what they seem to be known for and how they seem to want to suppress women, they have different rules for women in Afghanistan. There's also the terror groups across the world that have their own beliefs. Are you saying that these things have happened and the fact that they want to enforce these beliefs and these acts of terror on everybody, are you saying that these things have happened because of the unfairness in treatment that has happened in different countries? And once again, I'm asking how do you think that their actions will influence other terror groups across the world? I had a lot of the capsules, so it doesn't become a monologue. So I remember I identified two layers, the national and then the international level. So that national level, if you now are able to put everybody in check, if there is a crime committed by any particular group, you do not show favoritism as against if for instance if one religion can be a member of any religion can do anything and get away with it while you punish the other people. You are not being fair. That is the type of thing that will happen that will now make people to say, ah, if this is what is happening, then those disaffections, those unfair treatment will now coalesce into what you call now extremism. And then they come, if you ask the Boko Haram people, they have their grouses. They will say this was what happened, this was what happened. But the government is now there to look at all every citizen and be able to dispense justice. If you do not do that check once you see any measure or any incident of extremism, you correct it at the national level or whatever complaint they have, you address it so that it does not now go international. It is the inability of correcting that national malay that now grows into, becomes a higher headed issue. And now they have, they now have coalition. So I see it with now, collaborating with Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda with Erzabab and so on and so forth because the national institution, national authority has not been able to deal with it. But once now the, what is it called, the catch has been let out of the bank. You now have now to come to international collaboration. It is no longer one nation being able, and that is the danger that if you are unable to address it or deal with it nationally, once it becomes an international concern, international problem like it is now, you now need collaborative international collaboration and partnership to deal with it. So that is what I'm saying. The government even while you are dealing with it internationally, we still have to fight it nationally. That is the only way, and it's not easy. Americans will show you, they have seen that it's not easy. Nobody, no one country can handle terrorism or jihadism or, you know, Islamic or whatever extremism that has now taken no one country, no matter how mighty you are. You need the collaboration. Americans have seen, you see what has happened, they went to Afghanistan 20 years ago, you know, blazing the special forces, driving a kind of way, using some laws and whatever. Today, they are back, it's a failure of strategy, and so everybody has to go back to the drawing board. So, Mr. Aegeme, the Taliban have threatened to topple the Afghan government once the US forces pull out. The US forces have withdrawn and the Taliban have taken over. Can we take a step back and analyze the question if there was any way the US forces could pull out without, you know, the Afghan forces, without the Taliban taking over? Well, that is what I, let's go back to when they came in. They said, well, they were there to make sure that they kept attacks, jihadist attacks against America very, very far away. It was all 9-11 incidents and so on. And so they told us they have trained 300,000 Afghan soldiers. What are they today? What has happened is that after spending close to two trillion dollars, what happened there was that it was a case of building encouraging corruption. It's all corruption because if you ask, where has that money gone? And where are the 300,000 people that have been trained? That they didn't put up a fight, but the Taliban just rolled over. So that tragedy was at the initial 40 and was never meant to succeed.  How they have left now is not only embarrassing, but it's graceful, but has also left Afghanistan in a very chaotic state. Look at everybody wants to run away. Look at the airport. People clinging to the aircraft, trying to, everybody wants to run away from Afghanistan. Why? Because they did not take care, the issue, the strategy did not address the main problem. What is the main problem? It's about governance, about telling people, taking care of the well-being of people. They have not done that. They went there, blazing. It is not about the kind of military that you have. There is also level, not just kinetic. You have to do what you call human intelligence. You have to win the souls and mind of people. This strategy didn't do that. It just made money for people in the defense industry and then left everybody, left Afghanistan, in worse state than they were 20 years ago. All right. Apologize. Thank you very much for your analysis and for joining us this morning. We always enjoy speaking with you. Of course, we will continue to follow developments in Afghanistan and we look forward to speaking with you again. Thank you. Wow. I think we may have lost him. This is where we will be wrapping up. It's been very interesting discussions, sadly none of them for celebration, but thanks for staying with us. Don't forget to remember to catch up on any of these discussions on our social media platforms, simply at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook and Instagram. Yes, also on PLOS TV Africa lifestyle, that's our new YouTube channel and Instagram handles as well. My name is Aneta Felix. Thank you for being a part of our beautiful Tuesday. And I am Osaugi Ogbama.


Can I make 40 here? So I'm just thinking about identity, thick identity versus thin identity. So thick identity is something usually that's rooted in history where there are norms of behavior that are expected, right? That's a certain standard of behavior that's expected. So for example if you have an identity as an Orthodox Jew or as a Christian or as a parent, there are certain norms of behavior that go with that identity. Now on the other hand there are much more thin and transactional forms of identity. Usually identity that's around solving a problem and I'm thinking about things that are ephemeral like the rise and fall of the alt-right. That was a thin identity.  It was a reaction in large part to the late Obama era collapse but it was not something you could build life on and it didn't really have norms of behavior that are expected from it. So if your primary identity is that of parent, that's an identity that I would expect would last a lifetime. If you identify as a parent now as a key part of your identity then that's gonna last you for the next 30, 40, 50, 60 years. Like even when you're 90 years old, it's again a strongly identify as a parent. Now in those intervening 60 years your desire for political activism may wax away. You may change careers like five times. You may change your geography a dozen times. So compared to an identity like Los Angelino or San Francisco, being a parent is much thicker.  There's not a lot of behavioral expectations that go with being a resident of Los Angeles. So about 11 years ago a lot of people got into the tea party identity and that became a center of great enthusiasm and activism. That was a thin identity. It largely died out and then transitioned into make America great again identity. And some people went around to Trump rallies as a way of life. But going to Trump rallies as a way of life that's a thin identity because Trump can betray you at any time. He may lose. It's not it's not a thick identity. So when you when you compare being a parent, right, to most other forms of identity, being a parent is so much thicker and stronger. I mean, for one, it lasts a lifetime. Two, there are a lot of behaviors that are then expected of you. There are moral norms of what's right and wrong to do as a parent. And it's likely going to outlast a lot of your political enthusiasm, your enthusiasm for your career, hobbies, your location, where you live. Now, most of my communal time is spent in Orthodox Judaism. So the primary framework for Orthodox Judaism is halakha Jewish law. It's legal. And about 90% of Orthodox Jews are observant. Like about 90% of the people identify as Orthodox Jews, at least publicly keep the Sabbath, at least publicly abide by Jewish law. You wouldn't catch the meeting in McDonald's dating or marrying a non Jew. There are all sorts of behavioral expectations for Orthodox Jews. So it's a very thick identity. Now, most Orthodox Jews that I've encountered are not God intoxicated. They're not intoxicated by the idea of the Mashiach, the Messiah. There's no there's no theology or or belief, generally speaking, that animates most Orthodox Jews, aside from the idea that it's a good idea for Jews to live the traditional way of life. So that's a thick identity. Now, some Orthodox Jews get very excited by the doctrine of the Mashiach of the Messiah. But in Jewish history, that's not usually worked out too well, right? Messianic fervor, not tended to work out real well for the Jews. So I'm sure there's a small number of Jews as the price goes up for being Jewish. They're looking for the Messiah. They're looking for God to intervene in this world, make things right. But for most Orthodox Jews, their belief in God, and their belief in the Messiah can essentially be summed up with the idea that God will eventually make things right. But there's no no specific expectation for any intervention in one's lifetime. So that's my that's my belief in the Messiah and my belief in God, that God will make things right. So I can go to sleep at night. And I believe that either in this world or in the next world, God's going to make things right. But I didn't expect that God's going to do any specific intervention in this world. Once read a book by Reformer Abba, there is no Mashiach and you're it. You can guess where that goes. Right. So even among Orthodox Jews, I don't recall having a serious conversation about the Mashiach like when he's going to come. And are we living in the messianic age? It's more it's more an incantation. It's something you say, because everyone else is saying it, there's some rabbis are very excited by the doctrine, but compared to say the thick identity of being a parent. I don't think there are many Orthodox Jews who are more invested in say the Mashiach than they are in their identity as being a parent. And I've rarely encountered Orthodox Jews who are more invested, say in their belief in God or their relationship with God than they are in being a parent. So coming with being a parent that identity, there's so many repercussions. So thick. It's such a way to bond with with other people. While a relationship with an unknowable, unseeable, untouchable, almighty God, a little abstract. Now, I knew a lot more Christians who seem to have this vibrant personal relationship with God. But I mean, I know that works with some people and I know works with some people in 12 step programs. But in Orthodox Judaism, I hear a fairly little conversation about the reality of God, God intervening in our daily lives. With the growth of the Jewish state of Israel, the modern state, there's been quite a bit of Jewish talk about this is the beginning of the redemption, meaning that this is the the transition to the messianic age or in the messianic age. But this is this is usually some some individual rabbis and Jewish activists, professional Jews who beating on the doctrine of Mashiach as a way to gin up enthusiasm. Right. So I grew up as a Adventist, and it's very much raised with the idea that the world's coming to an end. That is told that Jesus was going to come back any day now. And it's now more than 50 years on and of course that that hasn't happened. So for people who take that kind of talk seriously and get really revved up by this is the end of time messiah is coming. They're bound to get disappointed. And so those are the types of, I think, thin identities that people tend to burn out on. So having an identity like tea party or even Antifa or Black Lives Matter, I think that's going to provide the sustenance for for a long life, particularly when compared to identity of being a parent or being a Christian or being a Jew. Because when you're identified as a Christian or a Jew, you've got a community that binds you to other people, you'll participate in one particular community. So Los Angeles Orthodox Judaism is a particular culture. Right. So people from New York may find large parts of Los Angeles Orthodox Judaism, not congenial to them because it's so so influenced by California culture, which is more relaxed and has much more attaided ties of ethnicity, education, and religion. So many non Californians, many people from the east coast find that say Orthodox Judaism in California reminds them of conservative Judaism on the east coast. Conservative Judaism in California reminds them of more relaxed reformed Judaism on the east coast. So Orthodox Judaism is one identity, but it's tremendously affected by by the particular place that you're in. Different Orthodox synagogues have widely, widely different culture. Right. You embed with entirely different types of people, depending upon what Orthodox synagogue you attend. So even different Chabad synagogues or different modern Orthodox synagogues will have quite varied culture here in here in Los Angeles. So all identities are constructed and they're continually constructed and updated and changing, but some of them are much more transactional and thin and fleeting and leave no very little impact on you. And then others seize your soul. So having a particular belief about God in and of itself is not usually going to provide a thick identity. But if you connect to people in a particular community, meaning in a particular geographic area and then there'll be usually people of socioeconomic status and particularly if you then become a parent, then you're really embedded in a matrix where your identity is going to be thick and have so many layers because you all have the religious layer, even though Jews, traditional Jews don't really talk that much about religion. It's a it's a way of life, but you'll have that ostensible. So you're what what the non Jews will call religion, but you've got that that tribal tie. You've got rituals, but you've got a particular synagogue. And more than that, you've got a particular social circle. You've got bombs with people that may very well extend the lifetime. All right, there are a lot of Orthodox synagogues in Los Angeles, places like Young Israel Century City, where people grew up together, where they've known each other for 30, 40, 50, 60 years. And like they've worked for each other. They've done deals with each other. They've married each other. I mean, that is a thick identity where you are known, where your life is known, where they knew what you're like 40 years ago and 30 years ago and 20 years ago, and they've seen all your changes.  And that's a thick identity. And that's an identity at the last. So I noticed with many Orthodox Jews from Australia, they identified first as Australians who just who are Orthodox Jews who just so happened to reside in Australia, but they can pick up and leave from Sydney or Melbourne to Los Angeles or New York or Israel. And their primary identity as traditional Jews just goes with them. It's not particularly changed. Went into a young Israel. Every man in the menu was over 70. Wow. So generally speaking, Haredi shawls tend to skew youngest, centrist Orthodox shawls. Next youngest, then modern Orthodox shawls are probably skewed the oldest of any of any branch of Orthodox Judaism, but still even modern Orthodox shawls, generally speaking, will skew younger than reform and conservative synagogues. So I spent a lot of time reform and conservative synagogues during my first seven years in Judaism. So I appreciate the friends I made there. It was it's sure beat being secular. It was a form of community, but it's not nearly as intense a form of community as when in an Orthodox shawl where everybody lives within walking distance. It was in a hood that the mass of Jews had left behind. Yeah, so that's never been my experience in modern Orthodox synagogues, but on the other hand, I have been to modern Orthodox synagogues that don't work. And I guess I just tend to just block them from my mind. Like I know in 12 step talk, we discuss, oh, this is the meeting that needs support. Well, a meeting or a shawl that needs support usually means it's on life support and it's dying. Because if you're organically meeting a need, then you're not going to need support. It'd be like me saying, Oh, this channel needs support. I need your support, bro. Right?  So there are modern Orthodox synagogues that don't work very well. But there's still a very strong modern Orthodox life. But almost all modern Orthodox communities are becoming Haredi because the teachers in modern Orthodox day schools generally are Haredi when they're Jewish because they don't pay very well. So modern Orthodox is a very expensive way of life. And so very few modern Orthodox Jews want to become teachers. So because the Haredim, the dominant teachers in modern Orthodox day schools, if all the kids get tugged towards a more traditional Judaism, if they form attachments to their rabbis and you get enveloped in a family, how important is the rabbi to the success of a shawl? So generally speaking, in my experience, a rabbi is much more of a reflection of shawl than the dominant force behind it. That's not usually true in a Shawl. Usually the rabbi is the most important factor in the success of a Shawl. There are two types of Orthodox shawls. There are rabbi-led Orthodox shawls and there are board-led Orthodox shawls. So in some Orthodox shawls, the rabbi rules and the board just supports him. And then so that's most Orthodox shawls, like the rabbi leads. And then people either support the rabbi or they leave the shawl. Then you have what bureaucratic Orthodox shawls like, say, a Beth Jacob in Beverly Hills, where you have a board that rules the shawl and they hire and fire the rabbis. So I remember hearing one rabbi say during his son that we had chosen him to be a spiritual leader. And I think, what the heck? I didn't choose you to be my spiritual leader. This is just where my friend goes. The Rockstar rabbi, more important in a men's only Orthodox shawl and an Orthodox shawl, Rockstar rabbi. Well, rabbis are the Rockstars of Orthodox Judaism and the connections that many people form with their rabbi can be quite intense. And so, yeah, there are a lot of there are a lot of shawls that are primarily the reflection of one man, the rabbi. And then maybe his his children like take that take the post after him. So probably the probably the more traditional the shawl, the more likely it is that it's rabbi led and driven and a reflection of the rabbi. Then the more modern the shawl, more likely it is that it's a board that's got the power. It's the board that hires and fires. Now, I think the primary determinant where the people stay in a shawl is usually not going to be the rabbi. It's going to be the quality of their relationships within the shawl. So in a rabbi led shawl attracts on people what motivates people to go to reform synagogues. Well, the music, the music is often beautiful. And it's usually aesthetically more pleasing. The service is usually going to be more aesthetically pleasing. And traditionally, reform Jews earn more money than conservative and orthodox Jews. So it was a place where people would drive up in their Mercedes and their Beamer's like I went to Stephen S. Weiss Temple for my first four years in Los Angeles. And yeah, a lot of very, very rich people would drive up to shawl. Very nice cars, very successful people, people who worked in Hollywood and professors and the professions and successful businessman. So traditionally, it's been that the more successful people went to reform synagogue as opposed to conservative and orthodox. So usually the aesthetics are better in a reform temple. Like the building is nicer. The music is nicer. And it was just an ethos that seemed to fit in better with being an American or with being a German or with being English. And it didn't didn't make too many demands on you. So all forms of Judaism are ethnic clubs, in a sense. So reform Judaism is an ethnic club without mitzvah obligations, without commandments, without laws, very few. And a conservative synagogue is an ethnic club with a moderate amount of ritual requirements, Jewish law requirements. And I remember tremendous feeling of social solidarity in conservative synagogues, and the people were just happy you showed up. Also in reform, to an extent, in reform and conservative people just happy you showed up.  So I remember when I would attend a reform temple, other people thought I was a rabbi, because I was like really passionate about my Judaism. So normally people are not passionate about their Judaism and reform and conservative synagogues. So which denominations has the best kid-ish? Not sure, but like the best music concerts, best music would definitely be be reform. I think I think the primary thing that determines where you go to school is where are your friends? All right. So wherever your friends go, that's, that's where you will go. And what the rabbi says is going to be very secondary to that or the type of dovening prayer service is going to be secondary to where your friends are, because friendships, where you're embedded in a matrix of friendships and relationships, that is thick identity. Like that, that will very well last a lifetime. And that will flow all through your life from your professional life to your, to your hobbies to, to business. You'll often find that reinforced, reflected and shaped and influenced and interpenetrated by, by your friendships. So people who went crazy for, for a thin type of identity, I think like MAGA or the Tea Party or the alt-right or Black Lives Matter or in Tifa, it's not going to be the cause of a thin life, but it'll often be a reflection of a thin life. Because the Tea Party has come and gone, MAGA has come and perhaps gone. The alt-right has come and gone. I think Tifa is unlikely to be a community that people participate in for the rest of their lives. I can kind of imagine parents with kids going to stay in Tifa or Black Lives Matter. So how many people strongly identify as white, all right? People identify as American, as Californian, as English, as Canadian, as Australian, as French, as German, as Norwegian, Swedish, Dane, all right, those much thicker identities.  So being religious in a secular society like Australia, England, France, it's going to be more challenging. So in America it's totally core to be religious, generally speaking. So in a society where it's core to be religious, you're going to be encouraged to have that kind of thick, thick identity. Why are only 11% of Australians vaccinated? Okay, so that is only 11% of Australians are fully vaccinated. So about a third of Australians have had one dose and Australians are about three months behind the United States. So number one Australians were less hard hit by the virus than pretty much any other industrialized nation. So they did not feel the keen need for the virus to the Australian government placed think two major bets on a vaccine. So in America, the Trump administration spent billions and billions of dollars placing bets on all sorts of different vaccines. So not all of them worked out. But when one started working out, American government had abundant supply. So the Australian government bet in large part on a vaccine developed by the University of Queensland, which ended up giving people false HIV positive readings. So that didn't work out. Now, the other the other vaccine they bet on was AstraZeneca, because they bet on these two vaccines, because they could produce them in Australia. And so they bet on AstraZeneca. That was their second bet. And then there were these, I think in my understanding, overhyped dangers of AstraZeneca. So combining Australia's very low rate of COVID with shovel or tow of iron. I hope you are doing well. What what equipment are and do you use for your stroll streams? I like like the steady, like your steady stroll streams. How's the recovery from the stroke? So Australians had a low rate of COVID. They didn't feel the urgency that Americans felt. And then AstraZeneca got a ton of bad press. And so Australians were not exactly rushing to get the AstraZeneca shot. And that was all there was. So now now in retrospect, the Australian government obviously didn't bet on enough vaccines. So they only bet on two. One didn't work. University of Queensland project. And then the other one AstraZeneca got a ton of bad press. And now the Australian government is scrambling to get Pfizer. And also all the bad press that AstraZeneca got is discouraging people from getting the vaccine. And the low rates of COVID in Australia have meant that for most Australians, they just did not think of COVID as something particularly dangerous or threatening. Now, the downside of this is like Australia and New Zealand are about the worst among industrialised nations getting vaccinated. And Australians and New Zealanders, they can't leave the country. And by large, outsiders can't enter the country because most of the population is not vaccinated. Once you've got the majority of the population vaccinated, you can reduce the transmission rate. Yeah, how's the Madaffinil working out iron? So the first first day I felt somewhat dizzy on on Madaffinil. And then second and third days, maybe some light dizziness. But soon thereafter, it's just like an unalloyed benefit. Love my love my Madaffinil. Oh, the Red Me Note 10 cell phone. OK, so but I've got the name. What's the name for the device that holds a cell phone steady? I guess Red Me is the is the device that I'm using a ho-ham to hold up my cell phone to keep it steady. So I am reading a great book right now by Michael Lewis called The Premonition about people who are planning for a flu-like influenza pandemic like way ahead of COVID. And the people who saw the dangers of COVID.  You're not using any device to keep it steady. We do a really good job keeping it steady. You've got a strong hand, Aaron. Got to say that I was skeptical of this Michael Lewis book. I thought it just be kind of PC nonsense just holding up the conventional wisdom. And there may be indeed, you know, some PC nonsense. Yes, in it, but it's just a great read. It's a great compelling read. But a very important topic and even more important topic than the blind side on the importance of having a good left tackle. I think left tackle has become the highest paid position in the NFL after quarterback. The blind side left tackle protects the health of your quarterback. But The Premonition by Michael Lewis is just a great read. I'm only about a quarter way through the book, reading about Charity Dean. So she was the health officer in Santa Barbara County. And so health officers often have enormous power. They essentially have unlimited power to act. Yeah, this is a gimbal. That's what I got. A gimbal. Health officers have virtually unlimited power to stop pandemics or any threat to the public health. They can close businesses. They can close schools. So I had Andy Nuiqi on about 10 days ago who complained about the anti constitutional nature of lockdown. So while it's there in our legal system that you lasted two days. I'm a deaf and you still feel side effects five, five weeks later, five days later. That's that's weird. But I'm sure different people have different experiences. So now other people who did not like the experience of Madafinal and they they quit very quickly. So your mileage may vary. Different people have different experiences on it.  So I haven't experienced that. But your mileage may vary. So I would I just swallow the Madafinal. I don't I don't let it dissolve in my mouth. So when I do when it does get caught in my mouth before I can swallow it. Yeah, there's definitely a metallic metallic taste. But I find it quite temporary. I think I'm going to do a stream a little later talking in a more precise way about thick versus thin identity and how that applies to the success and failures of various political movements.


From Phoenix, Arizona, theCUBE at Catalyst Conference. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. Hey, welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We are on the ground in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference. Really excited to return to Phoenix. Ironically, it was two years ago, about the same time. We went to our first Grace Hopper Conference that was here in Phoenix. And I don't know what it is with Phoenix, but it seems to be a great place for women in tech conferences. So we're back and we wanted to come down and talk to some of the people here that are giving keynotes, presentations, give you a flavor for what's going on. So if you got an opportunity to go next year, it'll be back in the Bay Area. You certainly want to sign up for that. So we're really excited. Our first guest, Yvonne Wasner, the CIO of New Relic, welcome. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I love theCUBE. Oh, thank you very much. That's right, you're a VM world, or VMware, I always say world, not where, for years, and we've been doing, I think the VM World Show for something like six years or seven years. Yeah, super long time. And I watch you guys, it reinvents in a lot of other places. Oh, great, well thank you for watching. So now you're at New Relic, so for the people that aren't familiar with New Relic, why don't you give them the quick four-on-one? Yeah, so New Relic is a software analytics company.  What matters is how your software is performing, both from an application perspective and a business perspective. So we help you understand what's going on. We're the best first place to look to understand your digital business. It's really interesting because we've got a premise that we're, it's all about really your digital engagement model. And you think about banking, how many times do you go into the bank and actually interact with a teller? It's really moved to this electronic interface in terms of your relationship. It's not how warm the coffee is or how long the teller line is, it's how performant is your application and do you have the right feature functionality? Okay, so you're here, you had a keynote earlier in the week, this is the third day of the conference. So first of all, give us kind of what's the vibe been here for the last three days? It's phenomenal. And what I love about the Girl in Tech conference is that it brings together women of all types. I was speaking yesterday to a student at Stanford who's here who has her own nonprofit who's getting her degree to go out and change the world as an entrepreneur to very, very seasoned executives who sit on boards and everybody's here to understand what's the change going on and how do I drive relevancy? And it's just phenomenal. Excellent. So your keynote was on how to stay relevant and how to avoid extinction. I wonder if you could give us some of the, I'm sure that was a well received one. Yeah. Well, what's interesting is change is the new constant and it's actually riskier to not do something to do something today. But what do you do?  Being bold is great, but fundamentally it's hard. And it's easy to say it's hard to do in practice. And so what my talk was really on is how do you address the unconscious fears? How do you say, yeah, those bad things could happen, but you know what? If nothing bad happens, here's how I could change the world and then just go after that vision, free yourself from those kind of unconscious constraints and really go after it wholeheartedly. And so is it more of a willingness to fail? Is it more of a willingness to look silly if you fail? I mean, what are some of these kind of unconscious fears that if you consciously just address them, that will help you kind of overcome them and be more proactive in your experimentation? So for me, it was very personal. It was some challenges that I had in my childhood that really made me risk averse in ways that I didn't understand. And it's one of the things that they say, hey, women should lean in more. And I actually believe the reason that women don't lean in is that they're trying to aim for a level of perfection and don't realize it's a numbers game. Failure is not a reflection on you personally. Failure is a step towards your future successes. And so really it's a mindset change. Right, right. And I fundamentally feel too, as we try to innovate on theCUBE and do things differently, if we're not failing sometimes, we're not really pushing the envelope enough, right? That's everything shouldn't be successful. It's like the old economics newsboy model, right? If you come home with no newspapers, that means you could have sold a couple more probably. So it's not about perfection. It's about trying and not being afraid to let that work out. You're spot on and I led a workshop yesterday as well on increasing your return on investment. And I literally told the women, I said, if you are not failing, if everybody on your team is performing perfectly, you're a failed leader. You have to stumble. It's like skiing. If you don't fall when you're skiing, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. You're not really doing it. So you need to let your team members fall. You have to fall yourself. And that's how you know you're pushing the boundaries. So how is the reception then of that message that you're trying to convey? Is it, you know, I know it, I just can't do it. Is it, I just, you know, there's just so many hurdles in the way. How do you get over the, you know, here's this unconscious thing that you need to be thinking about. Okay, now it's conscious, but to actually start to change behavior. What are some of the little behavioral changes and tips and tricks you give people? Because at the end of the day, a lot of times it's do the behavior, not think about it too much. Exactly. I'd say it's a couple of things. First off, you need role models that can help prove to you in your subconscious that my gosh, if those five amazingly successful people did this, and they're telling me very specifically the failures they had, and they're still that successful, maybe they're not lying. The other thing is I try to give really specific tips. So one of my favorites is, look at, you know, I'm an ex-consultant, so two by two, what's the business impact? What's your unique value? Throw all the things you're working on in there. You should have one to two that are high impact that you're uniquely skilled to do.  You don't, you can get, you know, 20 guys to third base. Doesn't matter. You gotta get one person home. Gotta get them home. That's great. Well, it's curious, because you spent a long time at Accenture before you kind of jumped into the tech company world. So you probably saw a lot of different companies. What's your perspective kind of at a macro view of how this environment has changed over the years? I mean, do you see positive change? I know we have a long way to go, but what's your perspective from some of those early Accenture days? You know, it's never been a more exciting time. I mean, in some regards, I wish I was that Stanford student just starting my career, because there's a technology is changing how we do everything in absolutely amazing ways. But we need to bring the right level of social consciousness to how we apply it. And we need to figure out new engagement models. And I think those engagement models actually play to the strength of a lot of women we have in the room. You have to figure out how to fuse across different industries. So, you know, the Apple Watch, it's designer, it's technology. Like how do you bring those competencies together? You get better stuff done with partners than all internally. VCs are the new R&D innovation engine. So I think the change is really exciting, but you have to be open to new operating models and new engagement styles to take advantage of it. Right. Okay, I want to shift gears a little bit because our audience might not know, but you're actually a very rare breed.  And we hear over and over, I'm teasing you, because we hear over and over, there's just not near enough representation of women on corporate boards. You're on a couple of boards. So I'd like to get your perspective on, you know, how did you get on the boards? How do we get more women on the boards? There's always a conversation, is it a pipeline problem? You know, are they just not enough?  What are some of the things that you can see from your seat on a couple of boards? Yeah, so I'm on three boards. I'm on the board of Harvey Mudd. I'm on the board of Bidium, which is a Series B startup. And I'm on the board of the Athena Alliance. And the Athena Alliance is actually an organization that's non-profit focused on getting more women on boards, because I fundamentally believe it is not a pipeline problem. And I say that because there's many senior executive level women like myself who just, you know, are waiting to check off the 10 things on the list they think they need to be on a board. And it's studied time and time again, women set really high bars for themselves. So I don't think enough women are putting themselves forward. And I don't think that they're known well enough. We're not unicorns. We're really not. Like there are valleys where we all congregate. And so what we need to do is really help the men who I think have amazing intention and want to have greater diversity on their boards understand how to make the connections and find the right women with the right profiles to round out the organizations. So you really think it's more of a matching issue. The desire is there. They're really just kind of making the match when the timing is right and it's a good fit. Yeah, exactly. All right, so I'm going to shift gears on you one more time and talk about education and specifically Harvey Mudd, because as I mentioned two years ago, we were here interviewing Maria Clave, still one of my all-time favorite interviews. She's got such phenomenal energy. She's the president at Harvey Mudd College who are the Athenas. I don't know if you knew the Harvey Mudd. Gals teams are the Athenas. Boys are the stags. But talk about kind of education and what Maria has done. I mean, her thing in our interview is she wants the intro CS to be the best class you've ever taken. Bar none, not the best computer science class, not the best science class, the best class ever. And I can tell you, my sons at Claremont is a really hard class to get into. Your perspective on kind of education and what somebody like Maria with her kind of energy point of view enthusiasm does to expanding kind of computer science breadth in women specifically. Oh, it's phenomenal. I actually had the opportunity to sit in the intro CS class and there's a couple of really key things they've done. First off is they've expanded and energized the CS team with new amazing talent, many women, but not just women, other diversity to just round out perspective. So keeping it fresh. The second thing they've done is they've realized that CS theory is interesting to some but not to all. And a lot of women tend to be more purpose driven. And so they've created classes like CS biology. Same core concepts but now solving the problems in a field where they have questions. So they learn the same thing but in a way that's more interesting. And the final thing is they've restructured how they run the class. So they don't say, hey, here's a question. Everybody goes, oh, I'll get that. They say, here's a question I want you to think about. And talk to your partners, scribble some notes and in a minute let's discuss what you've come up with. And that allows people of all types to be more thoughtful and to get better, well-rounded answers coming out. So they've changed it on all dimensions and it's just, it's an amazing place just to go and be and see the energy and really see transformation in work in our education system because that's where it all starts. That's really interesting the way you say it, to phrase the questions so people are forced to think a minute. Because I have two daughters, they went to all girls middle schools and that's one of the classic plugs for going to all girls. Because the boys, they don't wait, right? Yeah, pick me, I love the teacher. You pick me, I win. Right, and then I'll figure it out versus people that want to think about it a little bit and contemplate and noodle and maybe try to get the right answer before they raise their hands. So great strategy. So before we let you go, unfortunately we're out of time. How do people get involved with the Athena Foundation? What are you up to in terms of priorities for the next six months? Yeah, so it's theathenialiance.org we're on the web, we're just starting. DLA Piper is one of our sponsors getting our 501C3 status. There's information there in terms of membership, who we're working to connect with.  If you're a qualified woman and you're looking to get on a board, reach out. We'd love to hear you. We know you're there and we know that men want to put you on board. So let's make it happen. What a great service really doing that matching game because it's always about the matching game. Well Yvonne, thanks for taking a few minutes out of your busy day and we look forward to seeing you again sometime in the Bay Area. Great, thank you so much for your stuff. Jeff Frick here at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. We'll be back in just after this short break. Thanks for watching.


Hello everyone, I welcome you to today's class and I hope that you had an opportunity to go through the last class where we discussed Dismartian Parahydrin oxidizing agent for the oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding carbonyl compounds. I mentioned that reagent is useful for converting primary alcohols to the corresponding aldehyde without over oxidation and also that substrates which are acid sensitive are easily oxidized to the corresponding carbonyl compounds without any problem. We discussed the mechanisms involved in the oxidation using DMP or Dismartian Parahydrin in reagent and also we saw how water affects the rate of the reaction where the water plays a very crucial role in the mechanism allowing the oxidation to occur fast. Now in today's lecture we will be talking about another interesting reagent which is also based on this hypervalent iodine which is called Iodoxybenzoic acid. If you recall we had seen this intermediate as one of the products that forms when orthoiodic benzoic acid is oxidized with oxone or with potassium bromate then one of the intermediates that is formed is this Iodoxybenzoic acid which is then reacted with acetic anhydride to form the Dismartian Parahydrin in reagent. Now this intermediate also has enormous potential as an oxidizing agent it is however insoluble in many organic solvents and that is of course one of the problems that it has however it is fortunately it is soluble in a solvent like DMSO which is DMSO is nothing but dimethyl sulfoxide it is a polar aphrodic solvent dimethyl sulfoxide and it dissolves this particular reagent readily and it can thus be used as an oxidizing agent. It is especially useful of course to convert alcohols to aldehydes but then there are many other very important transformations that have been discovered and there is also a very interesting mechanistic investigations that have been carried out. For example if one starts with this reagent which is shown here like this so you have this iodine oxygen double bond which of course we can always write like this as I have mentioned above. However when this hydroxy group at this position is replaced by say the alcohol which is present in this particular case say methanol is used as a substrate and the methanol when it replaces the hydroxy group from here this is the intermediate that is formed. Now this intermediate has been very carefully looked at also by theoretical means is that the iodine oxygen bond is out of plane and the one can see that there is an sp3 carbon here and of course this iodine oxygen this carbon and these hydrogens around here they basically are not in the same plane as this iodine oxygen double bond but there is a steric hindrance which is observed which has been found to take place between the hydrogen here and the hydrogen here of the alcoholic substrate. Now the oxidation would not occur unless and until the oxygen here at this reagent this oxygen here is in plane with the hydrogen that needs to be removed during oxidation. So basically what happens is there is a some sort of twist that has to occur where the iodine oxygen double bond is twisted is twisted so that it allows the hydrogen and this oxygen basically in such a way that they are in the same plane and then the oxidation can take place. So the first step where the alcohol in this case methanol but any alcohol replaces the hydroxy group here by the oxygen of the alcohol to form this intermediate here is requires approximately 9.1 kilocalories per mole to replace the hydroxy group by the alkoxy but then the twist mechanism the twist of the iodine oxygen double bond requires more energy like 12.1 kilocalories per mole followed by now very little amount of energy such as 4.7 kilocalories per mole for the elimination to take place already this intermediate is at a high energy. Therefore it takes very little energy to then undergo oxidation by the there is a release of the strain because this intermediate which is in the middle is highly strained intermediate and that undergoes or allows elimination or the oxidation to take place to form the formaldehyde and of course you get back the iodosobenzooic acid this is IBA iodosobenzooic acid. So the mechanism is an interesting aspect and this has been of course theoretically done checked and confirmed. So the first step as I mentioned takes place alcohol replaces the hydroxy group then there is a hypervalent twist that takes place because I double bond O gets twisted it is needed since I O group is out of plane and thus the alkoxy group cannot be in plane with the I double bond O to form a 5 member cyclic transition state which I showed earlier here is a 5 member transition state that is 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 5 member transition state. This is a rate determining step in the oxidation as substantiated by computational chemistry. The twist mechanism explains why sterically bulky alcohols react faster than less bulky. So if you have sterically bulky alcohol then of course the when the twist takes place already you are at a very high energy level and therefore to release energy the rare oxidation takes place very fast and then the corresponding carbonyl compound is obtained. This can also be done by replacing the ortho hydrogen and the alkoxy hydrogen experienced steric repulsion. So if we can see here the hydrogen which is present here at the ortho position here or here whatever is having a steric interaction between these hydrogen from the alkoxy part of the alcohol. So if one increases instead of hydrogen if one makes it here some bulky group or you increase the bulk on this the steric hindrance will become larger the substrate will be at a higher energy and therefore the oxidation takes place faster. That means the ortho hydrogen and alkoxy hydrogen experience steric repulsion and release in strain thus becoming the rate determining step. So once the ligand exchange takes place you immediately allow a steric hindrance to take place between the ortho hydrogen or the ortho substituent and the substituents or the on the alcoholic part of it and the twist mechanism requires the IO bond to be twisted which then is required for the oxidation to take place but since the substrate is at a higher energy level where little energy is given and then the oxidation occurs to release enormous amount of energy and therefore the reaction occurs fast. Replacement of the ortho hydrogen by methyl or increase the bulk of the alkoxy group increases the rate of the oxidation. Now IBX is also available as a silica gel or polystyrene bound IBX. It is the IBX can be adsorbed on silica gel or polystyrene based IBX are also available in the market. Now as I mentioned that the substrates such as the cyclopropyl alcohols with these type of functional groups being around allow the reaction to take place and we get almost like 94% yield of the corresponding product. Now the diol also at 80 degrees allows the cleavage of the bond here. It is similar to the DMP paste oxidation which we discussed here for example we do not have any hydrogen. So obviously when you have an oxygen here and oxygen here and IBX reacts with it so we form an intermediate of this kind here. So you have one of the OH group going and you generate O- here. So IBX if it is taken so you have here an IBX and so one of the OH group can be replaced by the other one and the this alcohol and the I double bond O will give this. So you have an intermediate of this kind which can then undergo cleavage of this type to form of course you will have here the rest of the part of the here example here. This is the part that is present from the reagent. So basically what is happening is that this gives two of these and plus what will be left is from the reagent which I can write it in this way that what you have is an OH here. So your hydroxybenzoic acid has got reduced. This hydroxybenzoic acid has got reduced to the corresponding iodosobenzoyic acid and the diol has undergone cleavage to the corresponding two ketones C-C bond cleavage. So the intermediate is similar this intermediate is very similar to the desmartine pyridinane reagent based. So if you have an hydrogen here if it is present here one of the hydrogens which is present and IBX DMSO will allow oxidation to take place to form the alpha hydroxy ketone. So here we had no hydrogen present as an alpha to the hydroxy group here there is a hydrogen present to one of the hydroxy groups here and then you get a alpha hydroxy ketone if of course there are two of the hydrogens which are present then one can get alpha di ketone or alpha hydroxy ketone one of the oxygen gas oxidized another one does not get oxidized or one can get a mixture of the both two. So this kind of oxidations occur when we have this substrate of diol type where we can have several possibilities along with the C-C bond cleavage one can get alpha hydroxy ketone which is what is present here or a alpha di ketone. Now di ketone I just explained earlier that how the diol cleavage takes place but then there is important point that I need to mention here is that in the case of DMP the generally the temperature is not required higher because solubility is not a problem whereas in this case you have to use approximately 80 degrees temperature. So this is the difference now here for example the same mechanistic aspects that I have mentioned is the DMSO also sometimes can be considered to act as a nucleophile to activate the iodine oxygen double bond here and an intermediate of this kind has been proposed which now has 4 iodine oxygen bonds with also possibility of that this as a very good living group. So when the diol reacts the DMSO can also first come out. So basically DMSO acts as a nucleophile to activate the IBX here generating species like this where now DMSO itself can act as a living group and one of the hydrox groups of the diol reacts with it and replaces the DMSO and form this and then the other hydrox group reacts and then you form an intermediate of this kind because one of the hydroxyl group will be gone as a water here and then of course oxidation by C-C bond cleavage occurs to form this IPA. So this is what the mechanistic aspects of the cleavage or the alpha hydroxyl protons where if one of the groups is hydrogen. Now there is another interesting aspect of this particular IBX which has been reported by a scientist named Casey Nicolaou in the United States who has published a large number of papers on this utility of IBX in various organic transformation. For example here if you take alcohol so if one takes a cyclohexanol and use instead of one equivalent of IBX which will convert to the corresponding cyclohex unknown if one takes two equivalents of IBX at 65 degrees in DMSO toluene you straight away can get the corresponding enone. Now this is an interesting reagent aspect because such conversion of an alcohol to the corresponding enone is somewhat difficult or it takes a few steps. Similarly very interestingly if one takes cyclohexanol and if we use two equivalents of IBX then of course as expected you get an enone similar to the one that I mentioned here. But if one takes 4 equivalents of IBX then you can also introduce the other double bond that means on this side of the double bond. So the first equivalent allows oxidation to take place to form cyclohexanone and then second one allows the introduction of the enone or the double bond there and then you need two more equivalents because then the rate of reaction becomes a little bit slow so you need more reagent and then you can also introduce another double bond on the left side. So this is how these oxidations are described in the literature. Now these react oxidations with IBX the presence of amines and isolated alkenes are tolerated that means this oxidizing agent is a mild oxidizing agent. So anywhere if you have a nitrogen or an alkene in the reaction medium somewhere anywhere like for example you have an alcohol which is like this or if you have an alcohol like this then the nitrogen as well as the double bond gets tolerated under reaction condition. It is observed that catalytic amount of paratominsulophonic acid increases the rate. Addition of pyridine decreases the rate of the reaction now it is just exactly opposite of paratominsulophonic acid. So an acid catalyst increases the rate but the basic catalyst like pyridine decreases the rate of reaction but does not affect the yield. It does not really affect the yield it might take a little longer. This allows extremely acid lival compounds to undergo reaction. It is very similar to the Desmartine pyridinin oxidations but this particular reagent allows say a few other transformations to occur also. Can give varying degrees of unsaturation that means you have possibility of getting such kind of as I mentioned above is unsaturations here. So this one can see in this particular paper some aspects of this reaction. Now what is the mechanism of the conversion of this alcohol to enones? The first is that the alcohol gets oxidized to the corresponding ketone which is the normal mechanism which I discussed and then of course it can exist as a ketoenol. This is an enol which then can react directly with the iodine here to form an intermediate of this kind. Now already there is a hydrogen which is at this position this is what is the position here shown that can undergo this kind of electron transfer so that you generate one of the species that will come out of course would be oxygen H plus here and you of course will have an OH minus. So if one can see what is coming out of from here to here is this plus this. So this is the reagent this is the substrate and then the two of them with OH minus and this particular part of the carbonyl group will give the corresponding carbonyl compound and this IBA. So this is how the oxidation takes place where an alcohol is first oxidized to the corresponding ketone followed by this type of reaction. Now there is a possibility also of converting now why of course in this reaction we have converted an alcohol to the ketone and then to an enol or dienol. This is dienol the when there are two double bonds when there are two double bonds it is dienol this is dienol. So now one can also start with just ketone instead of di ketone one can start with the ketone and you can get the corresponding enol. So in this particular case the reagent of course is IBX here and now you need only one equivalent of the or the reagent because you already have the ketone we do not have an alcohol. So we can start with one equivalent but then it is found that 4-methoxypidine in oxide which is what is called it should be MPO not PMO and that is used as a ligand for the reaction to take place faster or to allow this reaction to take fast. Now what is the mechanism that is proposed is that first is enol formed and then what you have is basically a single electron transfer. So what you have is when this IBX reacts with this enol then we generate a radical cation here or radical cation by the transfer of this electron to the IBX to form this particular to this particular radical anion. So you have a radical cation here and a radical anion here and then the electron from here picks up the hydrogen from here and forms a double bond and then you in the process you form this intermediate and then this intermediate takes the proton from here this proton is lost from here and one forms the enone and the reagent is converted to the corresponding another intermediate of this type which loses water and forms IBA. So basically what is happening is there is a single electron transfer and there is a mechanism which is supported by some experiments in this case and that is available in this particular reference. So you start with the enol which is present in the reaction medium from the ketone itself and then that allows an electron transfer to take place from here to here. So then you can have the formation of an enone via these type of intermediates. So this is something an interesting aspect of the reaction and we will stop it at this stage and take the other aspects of oxidizing agents in the next class. So I suggest that you see this lecture carefully using IBX where we have done the oxidation of alcohol to the corresponding ketone, dialkylwage preparation of alpha hydroxy ketones and then the oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding enone or the corresponding dienones depending on how many equivalents of IBX are taken. If you take two equivalents of IBX and then alcohol gets transformed to the corresponding enone. If you take four equivalents of IBX then the alcohol gets transformed to the corresponding dienone. Then if one starts with a ketone then you can use one equivalent of IBX and get the corresponding enone which has been found to essentially progress via an electron transfer type of mechanism which of course one can easily check using EPR that is electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and there is a good mechanism support that has been found and published in the reference that I gave. So you can go through these oxidations and then we will see you next time. So take care and thank you.


Migraine affects 12% of the global population, including children. Although the severity of symptoms varies among the nearly 1 billion people who suffer from the disorder, migraine ranks as the most disabling disease in people under 50. Fortunately, a promising new class of drugs for the treatment of migraine is on the horizon. Monoclonal antibodies against calcitonin-gene-related peptide, or its receptor. Researchers are also gaining ground on the genetic origins of migraine, and therefore biomarkers for targeted precision therapy. As such, personalized care practices are becoming more commonplace. Much work, however, remains to be done. A special collection of review articles on migraine, published in the Journal of Headache and Pain in collaboration with Springer Healthcare Independent Medical Education, explores the changing face of migraine and examines where researchers are today in meeting the long-standing unmet need for individualized and targeted approaches. In this themed series, Paolo Martelletti, Mesud Ashina, and Lars Edvinson introduce a comprehensive body of work that explores the genetics of migraine. A review, for example, covers the advances in understanding the genes and genetic variations implicated in migraine etiology. That and similar work naturally raise questions about targeted therapy, many of which are addressed by researchers. The team discusses recent data on promising anti-migraine therapies on the horizon. Meanwhile, there is research examining the prospects of polytherapies that tag-team the treatment of migraine and common comorbidities. Of course, at the core of any treatment is the patient and his or her quality of life. In this vein, a nuanced perspective looks at the impact of migraine on work-life and everyday activities, as told by those who suffer from migraine disorders themselves. This collaborative article series represents the frontier of today's migraine research surveyed by some of the world's leading experts. The collective knowledge gathered here serves as a guide for those navigating through the complexities of migraine disorders in the clinic and beyond. To read the full selection of articles, visit the journal website. Click on the link below.


When I started the class, I mean I knew Twitter, I knew blogging, but reaching out to other folks about other things I could bring in to put this into practice. And one of the first things people recommended to me is Twine, which is open source digital storytelling software, free open source digital storytelling software, which kind of works like a choose your own adventure medium, so students put in text and then you create hyperlinks and images where you can bounce around through different stories there. And it really just became a great way for me to see and for my students to see why their writing mattered and how they could make an impact. So from things like Twine, I sort of gained more confidence to explore and realized that there were support systems from different academic communities that could help me learn that software sort of on the fly and get students involved and into it.