Hey. Thank you all for coming. My name is John Box. I co-founded Emerald Union. We're a 501c3 transit ISP. We currently route a whole bunch of Tor Exit traffic based in Seattle, Washington. Three years ago, I started this idea, I started sharing this idea with some friends of mine in the privacy community, that the current way of building out the Tor network might not be ideal for our... the version of the internet that we want, and that might be to Torify everything, to push everything through Tor, whatever. I think that Brave is testing using Tor in the private browser mode. That's awesome. Facebook has their onion. That's awesome. DuckDuckGo, all of the media organizations that use SecureDrop, that's great. But if we want more providers using onion services to protect their users' privacy, then I think we need to go about building out Tor infrastructure and privacy infrastructure a little bit better. So a year ago, me and some friends co-founded Emerald Union. We registered in Seattle, in Washington State. And we've been online for a short little over a year now. Most of the content in my slide deck is, or the details of the content is on our website, emeraldunion.org, because I don't have enough time to go through all of the detail in this talk. So, starting up, we did the Washington non-profit status, $50. The articles of incorporation that we did were compliant with the IRS 501c3 requirements. It's there on that website there, emeraldunion.org, forward slash articles. So I should step back actually real quick. So one of the overall purposes of Emerald Union is to try all of this stuff, make it work, and then publish what we do on our website. So like the articles, like all the other stuff in this presentation, they're going to be online. So you all can easily approach these problems. So step two for us was registering with Aaron to get our ASN and our IPv6 and IPv4 scopes. So Aaron, if you don't know, is like a domain registrar, except instead of going there for domains, you go there for IPs. There's an application process. You have an ASN that you use to talk to other ASNs if you're using protocols like BGP, which we do. And this process took a little less than a month. The application process that we went through is also published on our website so that you can more easily do that. So this is our ASN. We have a slash 36 IPv6 scope. We have a slash 24 IPv4 scope. We use our ASN again to communicate with other ASNs that we peer with in the Seattle Internet Exchange. This is hard. So yeah, ASNs, they're cool. So use your ASN to announce to other ASNs. Yeah, we use BGP. So one really cool thing that we found out, someone randomly told us on Twitter, which was pretty cool. So IPv4 scopes were exhausted in a few years ago. Aaron actually has this 4.10 policy, which was set aside to facilitate the adoption of IPv6. So if you can articulate to Aaron and go through that process, they'll actually give you a free slash 24 IPv4 scope. So that's what we did. We were able to articulate this because Tor in its current state only supports IPv4 traffic between relays. So from middle to, or from guard to middle to exit, that's all IPv4 only. Tor project wants to expand and do more IPv6, but we need more operators to use IPv6 in order to curtail potential surveillance issues around having a limited subset of our nodes being IPv4 only. So please add, if you're an operator, please support IPv6 because we need it and hopefully one day we'll be able to only use IPv6 and we can get rid of our IPv4 scopes. So because our long-term goal was to get 501c3 status as a public charity. Sorry, that's a little early. So the IRS EIN, so this is basically your social security number for your organization. It's a quick, easy thing that you do online. 501c3. So we wanted to become a public charity so that we could be sustainable in our funding. It's easy if you do it right. This was one of the biggest hurdles that we had mentally going into this. We had no idea how long it was going to take, if it was going to be possible. We were being coached by Rise Up Networks and Calix Institute and other not-for-profits and it just seemed like this might be an impossible task in this current day and age for a tech organization to get 501c3 charity status. It was actually really easy. So the trick that we learned is that don't make $50,000 in your operating budget like for your first year and that qualifies you for the 1023 easy. The 1023 is what you would use to apply for 501c3 status through the IRS and make sure that you do that within the first year roughly to do that. So the 1023 easy not only made it cheap, it was $275 compared to I think the normal 1023 process is $850. We didn't need a CPA, we didn't need a lawyer and if you can see by these dates here it was 16 days. I mean for some reason the IRS didn't actually tell us that we got charity status, we had to look it up manually online. So cool but we got it. So part of our articles of incorporation, this is article four, one of our goals as a organization that wants to support privacy was to try and make sure that our scope was general. So the purpose of this corporation is to promote and support online anonymity and privacy. We wanted to keep it very general so that in the event that Tor is you know the hot stuff right now, maybe mix nets, maybe whatever is going to be what we need to build out in the future and there's a whole bunch of other stuff that we could potentially do as a 501c3 charity. So we wanted a general mission statement. Another small thing in the 1023 process, this is how you signify to the IRS what kind of an organization that you are. There's a huge list of NTE codes. We spent a couple of weeks like going through all of them and deciding which one we wanted to go with but we felt like this was the best one given our presumed scope for operating as a transit ISP. So as you can see here, this was the timeline and how much it cost to like legitimately become a 501c3 transit ISP. If we had known that the IRS process was going to be so easy, we'd have done that sooner and we probably could have done it by July. But yeah, so like bottom line, this is something that you can do. This is not that hard. We didn't need a CPA, we didn't need a lawyer. We had them anyway because we were fortunate and our network of friends and family supported us but it's actually not needed if you do these things in the right way. So we turned on our exit relays in July of 2017. We actually made a small mistake that I want to touch on real quick. We originally first leased our IP space from our upstream ISP. We should have just run as a middle relay until we got our own IP scopes. So there was one day when our ISP emailed us and said, hey, we're getting abuse, we're going to start charging you a dollar on abuse complaint if you don't stop. So that would have been kind of expensive and thankfully the Aaron had already approved our IP scope so we were in transition already to use our own scopes. But it's just a lot easier starting up if you start as a middle relay and then once you get your own IP scopes, go towards, you can start exiting. So in this year process, we translated 3.5 Pebby bytes of data and we received roughly 3100 unique abuse complaints. 99% of these abuse complaints were automated. We noticed, but they came in nonetheless. Most of them also don't require any kind of response, but we responded anyway just to be proactive just in case something were to escalate. And we use the Zendesk to automate that automated response back and we serve our legal FAQ, which I'll be talking about shortly, to educate them about what we do and why we're doing it. So if basic math here, which I think is pretty cool, for every 1.13 terabytes we receive an abuse complaint and that's a unique abuse complaint and it could be anything from spam because we run as an unfiltered exit router so we don't block any ports. It could be spam, it could be SSH attacking, I don't know, like there's just a bunch of random stuff.  So Emeril Ennion preemptively developed a strong legal backbone right at the beginning. We reached out to Marsha Hoffman at Zeitgeist Law to help us create some legal FAQs that are also on our website for free. So please check them out and use them if you're operating like we are in the United States because they're not really valid anywhere else. We have two versions of the legal FAQ. One of them you would give to your ISP if your ISP receives an abuse complaint, you could give them this FAQ and it would be valid and explaining like what you're doing is legal. And then we have another legal FAQ which is if you were to receive abuse from anyone so that is the one that we use for automated responding now that we have our own IP space. So one small thing we just note publicly that we don't log any information. Tor does a good job of this already but we audit our devices to make sure that we don't log any network information above and beyond what Tor already doesn't record. So the extents of what we technically have is DNS cache and BGP caches but none of those are super sensitive thankfully. So this is our policy that we state on our website. So DMCA is interesting.  Basically in order to be compliant with the DMCA safe harbor or the DMCA protections of a conduit provider, you need to have a termination policy. This is our termination policy here. It basically says we don't have any subscribers. We can't identify our users but in a appropriate circumstances we'll terminate. We don't really have a technical way to do that because of Tor but we have to have this policy just to be compliant with the DMCA protections. So cool. Okay. So also in that past year we received two subpoenas. This is just one example. Both of them were from the Department of Homeland Security. We published a transparency report here on our website and there's a whole bunch of other things beyond subpoenas that we list just to be explicit. So we update that regularly. This was pretty scary for us to receive the first time like we kind of expected that something like this might eventually happen just talking to CalX and other operators. These came in via email. They don't come in via mail. That surprised us. So they send it to our admin address. It was really scary at first but it doesn't seem that way now just because we've had a little bit of practice. So basically like some takeaways. Don't run an exit router from your home. Obviously Tor Project does a good job educating people about this. The reason why you don't want that is because you don't want to be at the, you don't want law enforcement to come and kick in your door and take your computers just because someone did something presumably malicious from your exit router. So put it in a data center and ideally own your own IP scopes. Like your own V6 and V4 address scopes. And that way you can, instead of being at the part of law enforcement where they come and kick down your door and take your stuff, they come, they send you an email and they're civil and they're like, hey, we have this IP address. We need some user data and we can just literally just reply and say, hey, we're running Tor. We don't have data. Here's a legal FAQ. Please let us know if we can help further. Again, a lawyer isn't needed for this process. At first we did have our general counsel call and just talk to them just to understand this process but it's actually to the point where we're just going to email them back now if they send us another one and just say, hey, we can't help. Sorry. So today we're launching a new program. It's called onion.lawyer. Something that's been missing in the Tor community for a while is clear legal support. So our general counsel Matt McCoy is leading this and in partnership with the Yale Privacy Lab. It's a distribution that you can contact in the event that you are under legal duress because of your operations with Tor. It's a network of pro bono attorneys that will do their best to support you in the event that you need help. If they can't, hopefully they're networked and they can find someone that can. But hopefully this is something that becomes important in supporting operators. Oh, yes, if you're an attorney, please reach out and volunteer for this. If you have a friend that's an attorney, please convince them that this is something that they might want to do and have them reach out so that we can grow this. Okay, so data center stuff. So to move in, we had to have three types of insurance. This is the three types. We bought our own hardware. We use low power Z on D platform that has integrated 10 gigabit fiber. So it's nice and cool and has good connectivity. We, because the Tor network is roughly 90% Debian, we decided to go with a BST platform. We decided to go with Harden BST because of its inherent exploit mitigations and general security, which we think also improves the health of the Tor network. This is an outstanding project. If you are into BST, please support them. If you're an operator, please consider using Harden BST or something that isn't Debian, that'd be cool. Okay, so this is our current co-location and under cost. Nothing special about it. We have a gigabit unmetered link. This particular link is actually part of our internet exchange point connectivity. So we transit through that connection so we only have one 10 gigabit fiber drop, which is cool. And then we have connectivity to Seattle internet exchange, which I'll talk about more here. So internet exchange points are really cool. They provide direct access to a whole bunch of peers. And what I mean by peer is someone that you physically connect to. And this is really important for Tor exit operating because instead of that Tor exit traffic, say you're facilitating the Tor traffic from a middle relay to your exit and then it's going out to the internet from that exit. It is ideal, I think, in that traffic that you're exiting to its final destination has as little hops as possible. And what I mean by a hop is some other router or switch on the internet that is owned by some unknown company and every one that it traverses is an opportunity for surveillance in some form or fashion. So peering is really awesome. I think for the Tor network, not just because of latency minimization. Like I think our average latency to our peers in the six is .35 milliseconds. So it's really quick. So that also helps user experience kind of. But mainly it's the surveillance minimization properties of IXPs that we think is really valuable. So as you can see here, we're peered directly with Google, with Amazon, with Akamai, open DNS, Twitter. So if people are using our exit relays, they're going to terminate at those end points very quickly and with no other third parties observing that traffic, hopefully, aside from the route servers that we connect to in the IXP.  And I'll talk more about that. So, we are, we're kind of fortunate with the CL internet exchange. It's a non-profit IXP. It's, it's, it advises that you don't surveil the ports if you're up here, which is good. I'm hoping that they eventually one day adopt a transparency report that would be better. Non-profits have inherent transparency aspects to them like publishing where they get their money, what they spend it on, stuff like that. So finding non-profit IXPs I think is really awesome. Geolocation, so that could mean it's proximity to like an undersea cable. It could mean it's proximity to a certain provider. It could, there's like 100 and I think 20 about IXPs in the United States. So there's quite a selection and most of them are in dense areas to begin with. So there's not a lot of choice but there's some strategic things that you can, some strategic choices that you can make. So participation, this could be like a certain provider like Amazon, like Cloudflare, Akamai, like big providers, places that traffic will go on the internet, the more the better so that there's more peers that you're sending extra traffic to. And then of course cost. Most of the IXPs that we've seen are for-profit and pretty expensive. Ours, we paid $2,000 for a 10 gig port. It's a one-time cost. There's no recurring fees, which is awesome. So not many are like that. This was a recent article about the biggest, one of the biggest IXPs in the world and it's in Germany, which is unfortunate because a lot of the Tor network is in Germany, like just because of their, how cheap their bandwidth is. It's not clear how good, or obviously not good, how bad this might be for the Tor network. Personally, I would try to avoid DECIX just because of this known issue of active government surveillance, also part of Five Eyes. So it's best to avoid that if possible. So challenges for finding good IXPs. Obviously, if they're under active surveillance, that's not ideal. There's lots of data centers without IXPs. Like I said, there's 120 roughly in the United States. They're large IXPs, so Comcast, AT&T, whatever. Because they're profit-driven, they tend to have restrictive peering policies, which means they're not open to peering with anyone. They're only going to charge money, which is not good for, I think, surveillance, or I should say privacy. And then content providers with no peering policies. So some providers just refuse to peer because it doesn't make sense, which is also unfortunate because that means we can't, it means we have to send traffic around in some other way and it's going through some other provider that we just have no accountability for, that there's no accountability for. Okay, so undersea cables. So we know that these are, we have a good guess that these are all tapped. Which is lame. The way that the tour bandwidth authorities currently work means that the tour traffic largely bounces back and forth between Western Europe and Eastern United States. So there's a whole lot of traffic that crosses the Atlantic Ocean. This, we have a working theory where there could be some more strategic decisions made in order to place tour routers, especially exit routers. One of them is to place them in IXPs because of the early termination and the properties there. Another is because, or if they can be placed close to undersea cables. So again, so if they can receive that traffic as soon as it comes into the U.S. And it can terminate as quickly as it can without going anywhere else in the U.S. that I think is better. So we are just developing this theory in order to try to find things that can help us more strategically place exit routers around the U.S. Today we're also launching this project called Safe Crossing. The first part of this is just us, Emerald Onion expanding into other places in the U.S. We think we're going to go somewhere along the East Coast because of the things that I just discussed. But more importantly, Safe Crossing is going to be research and development around the deployment of net new IXPs. So because of our experience with not being able to find non-profit affordable IXPs with the qualities that I already talked about, we want to build our own. So where there is dense connectivity, we're looking there. There's some underserved areas that we think that IXPs could be built. Places like Puerto Rico we think would be a really great starting point for something like this. But it's basically to compete with the profit driven IXPs that are also generally surveillance friendly. So it's about creating safer spaces on the Internet like basically kind of the backbone of the Internet. This is kind of a cheap way to do that. Create safe spaces for traffic to move about. If you're interested in helping create non-profit IXPs and being involved with Safe Crossing, please contact us here. Particularly if you're involved with the open compute projects, we're interested in that platform because it's open hardware, free Liberty software, goes up to 100 gigabit. It just seems like an ideal platform that creates a safe space for your compute infrastructure. If you have any IXP management experience, we are interested in learning more about how to actually build one. We'll figure it out. If you have IP scopes or are working for a company that has IP scopes that you're not using, like IPv4 scopes, consider donating them to us because we will either use them or we'll give them to an organization like us that is able to use them for privacy. We're looking for partners. If we can create one IXP somewhere, we want to have big partners on day one so that it entices other people to become part of this new mission and grow the infrastructure in that region because the more peers, the better. This is just some quick details about our income. To get started, we received a grant from TorService.net for $5,000. Our directors have been donating monthly, currently up to the sum of about $10,000. We've received about $1,000 of direct funding and DuckDuckGo included us in their privacy challenge just a couple of months ago and received enough money to pay for our whole year of operations for this next year, which is awesome. In the PayPal giving campaign, someone signed us up for that and they just sent us a random check, which is cool. But that's like the benefit of being a 501c3 charity is you can take advantage of some of these programs. Another one that I didn't mention here that we haven't really used yet is if your company prices or matches donations that you make to nonprofits, because we're in those networks as well as a 501c3, which is cool. Challenges. Fees, obviously, it costs money to do this stuff. IP transit, that's our ISP, ASN fees, IP scope fees, transport is where you have to lay fiber from point to point within the data center. That has a recurring cost sometimes, co-location fees, equipment fees, peering port fees. These are all challenges that we have. We're trying to figure out ways that we can make these cheap or free and share that information with the larger community. Generally, it's hard to prioritize privacy over anything else. Like it's really cool to work for Emerald Union and think about privacy first, not logging, using disk encryption, whatever. But it makes it hard because we can't log. So when someone dices us, we actually have no idea who does it because we don't log the perimeter firewall. Just in case some Tor user ends up hitting our firewall in some weird way and causes us to log the traffic. We just don't want the IPs. So making those kinds of choices makes it hard to operate in that way. But that's what we think is important. So we prioritize privacy over money. Open source networking hardware. So there is more and more open hardware showing up, but specifically networking hardware is unique. Both firmware and like full stack compute is challenging. There's some options out there like I mentioned the open compute projects, but there needs to be more. We can always use more. Network redundancy. So one thing that we want to do better is having redundancy in our WAN and LAN stacks. But if we want redundancy there, we're going to be multiplying our cost by at least a factor of two just because we have to have at least two of everything. But that usually comes with other additional costs as well. So we want to have that. But again, that's a big challenge. IPv4 scopes, obviously because of the exhaustion issue, it creates a higher bar for someone jumping into this to get started. If they could just jump in with only an IPv6 scope that would be easier. And of course technical volunteers. It's hard to find people and keep people that are passionate about this stuff. So that's always a challenge. So I wanted to give a quick shout out to Tor Project for hiring their really advocate. Colin, aka Foole is their advocate. If you are an operator, he probably has already reached out to you. If you have updated contact information in your Tor RC file. So if you need help directly, like something that you can't get from the email lists, you can reach out to Colin and he can help you out. Lastly, I want to thank my team. So I have a really amazing team of volunteers on the board of directors and our advisory board. We just wouldn't be here without the help of everyone. So, yeah. Thanks. That's how I'm learning.


Hello citizens of Earth and welcome to this edition of Tomorrow News. We are so excited to have you with us because we have got a lot of things to cover. SpaceX is doing so much down in Texas that I've even got to jump in and talk a little bit about it. NASA may have a new administrator and they're going to be grabbing a seat on a Soyuz. In addition, Japan, they're getting a little bit more money for their space budget. Now before we officially get started with Tomorrow News, of course, just want to remind you that if you like what we do here, don't forget to subscribe. To us, hit that like button down below to let us know that you like the video. Also, set up your notifications so that way you can either get some videos or what you probably want all of the videos, especially once we start doing the live shows, which are returning very, very soon. Yeah, they're going to be back pretty, pretty soon. So let's go ahead and get started with your Tomorrow News for the week of March 25th, 2021. And Ryan, why don't you get us caught up over the past couple of weeks that we've missed? Hopping straight down to Boca Chica, some very exciting activity has just started around the construction of the first super heavy booster, which has been dubbed BN1. Most of the booster has been split into two components for the past few weeks. However, just in the last couple of days, all the different sections have been stacked together. The team is going to be wanting to test the boosters soon, so as their current plan is to get to orbit by the end of the year and as a Starship vehicle isn't really designed to be single-stage to orbit capable from Earth, yeah, it is kind of an important part of the system. Speaking of single Starship vehicles, SN11 has been on the move, and it was rolled down to the launch pad last week, and it has been doing some tank tests, sending them up to flight pressures to make sure the vehicle doesn't blow up. So we could be seeing some static fires soon, setting the vehicle up for a full flight, and hopefully a slightly softer landing. Elon Musk has taken to Twitter, applying to Austin Barnard, who was sharing some photos of the landing legs on SN11 actually being tested. According to Musk, the final remaining firing raptor on SN10 was low on thrust, which was probably due to a partial helium ingestion from the header tank at the top of the vehicle. The temporary landing legs also couldn't do their job properly because of a 10 meters per second impact which managed to damage them and a part of the engine skirt. Something else Elon has been on about is the possibility of landing Starship the same way it's been proposed to land or rather catch super heavy. And we got ourselves a nice static fire for Starship SN11. Three raptors lighting up and everyone seems happy. No word yet on when we'll see a hop, but we're hoping for sooner rather than later. Oh goodness, there is a lot to talk about in spaceflight this week, so why don't we go ahead and bring back a classic and have ourselves a nice spaceflight bonanza. After weeks of speculation, rumors, murmurs, half truths, hypotheses, guesswork, conjecture, postulation, guesstimates, and predictions, the Biden executive branch has put forward their nominee for the position of NASA's administrator and that would be Bill Nelson, a former congressional representative from Florida who began his career in the House of Representatives in 1979 and was there until 1991. He then became a senator in 2001 and that 10-year lasted until 2018, which it ended due to losing re-election in that year's midterms. Bill Nelson seems to be a natural fit for the position of NASA administrator. He has broad support from the industry. By partisan support in the United States government, that is something that is nearly unheard of in these modern times and he was sort of in and around the Cape Canaveral area as the representative for a very long period of time. But there is some baggage that does come with him, his comments about commercial spaceflight, SLS, and also that a politician shouldn't run NASA and him being a politician, well, he's probably going to have to explain himself a little bit and we'll go over those details when the time comes and I'm going to definitely be looking forward to watching those hearings for him getting that position. So let's go ahead and take a look at another seat that is in the spotlight. After a proper scramble from NASA to grab a Soyuz seat, the agency has confirmed that astronaut Mark van de Hij will be joining the crew of Soyuz MS-18 as flight engineer 2, hitching a ride with commander Oleg Novitsky and flight engineer 1 Piotr Dubrov as they launch to the International Space Station, currently scheduled for April 9th. And that's to join the ongoing Expedition 64. And this will be Novitsky's third flight, Dubrov's first and van de Hij's second. NASA's goal is to always make sure that there is an astronaut there to take care of the U.S. orbital segment. And this is aerospace. Anything can happen. Delays can occur and other stuff that may end up causing the International Space Station to have to be decreed. So grabbing a seat on a Soyuz assures that there will be an astronaut there to take care of the specific items that are needed. But the rapid procurement of the seat isn't the only unusual aspect at play. NASA actually did not purchase the seat through Roscosmos. Instead, the seat was exchanged via Axiom Space, a commercial space flight company. Axiom had obtained the seat from Roscosmos, but either group has disclosed what the initial deal's terms were. NASA has specified that in acquiring the seat from Mark Van de Hij, they will be giving Axiom a seat on a commercial crew mission to the International Space Station sometime around 2023. And if you thought that was the end of the story, oh no, there is a bit of an extension. The flight after next to the International Space Station, Soyuz MS-19, will be carrying a Russian cosmonaut as the commander. But two additional crew will be there as well, a film director and an actress intending to shoot a film while aboard the station. This means that two seats down will be occupied. So there's a very strong possibility of NASA astronaut Mark Van de Hij staying on the International Space Station for nearly a year. And he wouldn't be the only one Roscosmos rookie Piotr Dubrov would also spend nearly a year on the ISS. And that's not bad for your first flight to space. So NASA and Roscosmos will continue their cooperation on the International Space Station in low Earth orbit. But a vast majority of the Earth's space agencies are currently aimed squarely at getting humans on the moon. And that is where Russia diverts away from NASA entirely. In fact, Roscosmos will be going to a completely different country to be a partner, China. Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding exploration of the moon. By signing that specific MOU, Russia and China have agreed to come together and use their technological know-how in order to build a base on the moon and have successful operations of it. And in addition to that, they have not closed the door on any international partners who would like to join in. It's being dubbed the International Lunar Research Station and both the China National Space Administration and Roscosmos have put a heavy emphasis that they are open to all interested countries and international partners being a part of it. It is, of course, illegal due to a act of the United States Congress for NASA to collaborate with China. So when it comes to this lunar base, do not look for the United States to be joining at all. But Europe is very interested in working with China and they are pursuing several projects and are sort of looking over the fence, if you will, to see if they might be able to join into this. Now, speaking of collaboration, we've got some happening up in geosynchronous orbit right now. Northrop Grumman's Mission Extension Vehicle 2 has begun to start up close proximity operations with its target, Intel SAT-102. MEV-2 approached to prepare its systems and analyze results from them before moving away. And this is the same operating procedure that Mission Extension Vehicle 1 used in 2020 when it rendezvoused with Intel SAT-901, spending around two months before officially moving in to grab the satellite. Mission Extension Vehicle 1 and Mission Extension Vehicle 2 are actually operating a little bit different at the start. You see, MEV-1 arrived at Intel SAT-901 when it was in a graveyard orbit, grabbed onto it, and moved it to an operational orbit. So Intel SAT-901 at that time was, if you will, dead and put it back into service. MEV-2, however, is a little bit different because Intel SAT-102 is still operational. So Intel SAT actually has to figure out a time that it can halt operations on one of its satellites so that MEV-2 can actually go in and then attach to it and become its new engine and fuel tank. So that is a completely different kind of operation compared to what MEV-1 had to do. And that adds a extra amount of complexity. So we'll see what MEV-2 does over the next couple of months. It's not just geosynchronous orbit where all of the action is happening. No, down in low Earth orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope went into safe mode. It was found to be caused by a software error and that patch was applied and after about half a week, Hubble is now back up and running again. But even with the successful recovery of the Hubble Space Telescope, it's really starting to show its age on orbit. After all, in just a couple of weeks, we're gonna be celebrating its 31st anniversary of being deployed into low Earth orbit. And there were some things that happened during safe mode that kind of show that it really is starting to age a little poorly. When Hubble goes into safe mode, the aperture door, which is a cover at the top of Hubble's optical tube, is programmed to close itself without needing to be commanded to do so. However, this time, it did not close itself and controllers on the ground were lucky enough to catch this, so they switched it to its backup motor and were able to successfully close it. If you look at all of the other components and systems that make up Hubble, everything looks like it actually should be fine to roll through the 2020s. But of course, Hubble operating that long is not a guarantee, it is simply a hope. And we do have the technology to actually send another service mission to Hubble if we would like to, but that would also be very, very expensive. Hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. Remember, the Hubble Space Telescope is a bespoke spacecraft. You can't just roll up there with anything that you've got and start to tear it apart and work on it like it's your Honda or your Toyota or your Jeep in the garage. It requires very, very specific things. There's also that risk of sending people up to Hubble. It's in an orbit that's a little bit higher than the International Space Station, so that kind of makes things a little more difficult. And with the Nancy-Grace Roman Telescope coming up, it's going to be able to cover Hubble's ability from near-infrared to visible light. And it may very well be okay for us to leave Hubble as it is. And one day let it finally get some well-deserved rest. The United States Space Force has awarded four new launch contracts to both SpaceX and United Launch Alliance staying with the two launch providers as their main launch providers until 2027. $224.2 million has been handed over to ULA for USSF 112 and USSF 87. SpaceX, on the other hand, have only received $159.7 million for both USSF 36 and NROL 69. The reason that this contract price is lower is because the National Reconnaissance Office mission only needs a launch and the mission integration will be funded separately. These four extra missions are adding on to the already existing roughly 30 planned missions between 2022 and 2027, which will also be shared by ULA and SpaceX. NASA has said that they are supporting Blue Origin in simulating lunar gravity aboard their new Shepard rocket. The crew capsule, which sits atop New Shepard, will use its reaction control thrusters to spin at a rate of 11 revolutions per minute, which will turn it into a centrifuge that can simulate lunar gravity for around two minutes. The first of this type of mission is currently scheduled for around 2022, with half of the payload capacity on board being purchased by NASA. Blue Origin have also got plenty of suborbital test flights under their belts, so hopefully that will reduce the number of hiccups we could see between now and the flight. And just before we get into some space traffic, Japan has budgeted a record 449.6 billion yen, which converts to 4.14 billion USD for all their government space activities. 80 billion yen will go to the nation's Information Gathering Satellite Programme. 212.4 billion yen is going to be handed over to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and 51.4 billion of that figure will go to JAXF for their participation in NASA's Artemis Programme. 37 billion yen will then be used to develop a new space station resupply vehicle, which has been dubbed HTVX. It is also listed in the budget documents that 3.4 billion yen will be used to develop the smart lander for Investigating Moon, which as you can probably tell from the name, is a lunar lander being developed by JAXA, and 2.8 billion yen will be designated for the Lunapolar Exploration or RUPEX mission, which is a joint project between JAXA and ISRO. 18.9 billion yen will also go towards the development of the H3 rocket, which is planned to start flights this year. Future flights are also planned all the way beyond 2025. That's it for the main stories this week, then so let's pop into some space traffic. Every week we have a new Starlink launch to talk about, and unsurprisingly, we have two to talk about today. Starlink 20 lifted off out of Space Launch Complex 40, which is located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 08.30 in Coordinated Universal Time on March 11th. Booster B1058 safely landed for a sixth time on the drone ship, just read the instructions, something it had done for Bob and Doug's mission to the ISS, an ACIS-2, CRS-21, Transporter-1, and one other Starlink mission. Next up on that same day was the launch of XJY-602, which had placed atop this brand new Long March 7A rocket. 1751 UTC at LC-201, located at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in China, saw the first successful flight of the Long March 7A, taking the 6,300 kilogram payload on its way to a geostationary orbit around the Earth. It was second time lucky for this rocket type, the first of which failed its mission. This was also the fourth launch of a Long March 7. The third launch to cover also came out of China, as the Yaogan 3104 mission was lifted to space by this Long March 4C rocket. Taking to the skies at 02.19 UTC on March 13th, out of Site 9401 at the G-Con Satellite Launch Center, all the equipment on board is heading for low Earth orbit, and that, as it always is with reconnaissance satellites, is all we are allowed to know. Something we are allowed to know about is this very special launch. Now, the payload isn't that special, but the rocket, in my opinion, is. Heading back over to the Cape, we had the launch of Starlink-21, and no, the fact that this is the second Starlink launch of the episode isn't the special part. The special part is that this was the ninth launch of this booster, the ninth. Lifting off at 10.01 UTC on March 14th, the B-1051 booster gracefully lifted into the sky, only to drop off the second stage on its way to low Earth orbit, and then turned itself around to land again on the drone ship. Of course, I still love you. The fact that just a couple years ago, our minds were being blown by a booster flying for the third time, and now it's for the ninth, that just completely blows me away, and just to put the cherry on top of the already tasty cake, this launch also set the first and second fastest turnaround of a fairing to date at 49 days for both used, breaking the previous record a measly 88 days. Oh, and that isn't all, as this was also the fastest turnaround of LC-39A ever in the history of the launch pad at just 10 days, one hour, and 37 minutes. My mind is blown to pieces, so let's look at some upcoming launches. Look into her face, determination and her station. These girls are... Before this week's show is over and done with, I'd like to thank everyone who helps to support the show. We are, of course, crowdfunded by you, the community, and every penny we receive goes straight back into making these episodes as awesome as possible. The escape velocity, orbital, suborbital, and ground support citizens all help the show get off the ground every week, and without their help, we simply wouldn't be able to share these exciting stories with you. So if you'd like to join them, head over to youtube.com forward slash TMRO forward slash join and donate as little as $1 a month. That's it for another week in space. Thank you for watching, and well, we'll see you next week. Goodbye.


Hello, my name is Denise Danine and this is Holistic Happenings. I'm very excited to bring to you a show that will explore the many holistic and alternative practices that are available to us in the Pioneer Valley. My hope is to bring you information that can enhance your well-being by empowering you with options and to broaden your knowledge on the many types of holistic modalities that can complement your existing self-care routine. The whole person, the mind, the body and the spirit. Some of these practices you might be doing now and some you may never have heard of before. With so much information that is out there on complementary therapies, it can get quite confusing to know where to start. My guests will include all types of healing practices, from medical doctors to spiritual healers. So let's explore together. Let's get inspired, get healthy and have some fun along the way. Hi, I'm Denise Danine and this is Holistic Happenings and today I have for a guest Ruthanne Lundenberg. Hi Ruthanne. Hi. Thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to learn more about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. And you are a professional hypnotherapist. I am. You are. So can you tell me a little bit about what that is or how you came about? Well how I became a hypnotherapist. Yes. Well as you know, but everybody doesn't know, I was a yoga teacher for a long, long time. And also a passionate meditator for decades. And I had a yoga studio as you know, and 2008, the economy. And it struck me that maybe I should diversify a little bit. So I started thinking and then I consulted an astrologer. Wow. Yes, and I didn't have expectations about it. But basically my astrologer told me. So you went to your astrologer to ask for some guidance? I asked for a complete reading, soul reading, everything. And what I received was a recording. And one of my questions was with the economy and with my future work, where do I go from here? And it was interesting because what he said was anything as long as it's one-on-one, doesn't matter what it is, just one-on-one. You need to get in deeper with people. Well knowing you, it just seemed like it was just a natural thing for you. When I learned that you were a hypnotherapist, it just seemed like it was just a natural organic thing. I'm glad.  Oh yeah. There was definitely a process there. That was definitely a choice point for sure. So what I did right after that once I listened to that recording, which was life-changing, is I literally started reading lists of jobs that are one-on-one, manicurist, accountant, financial planner, the list. And on the list was hypnotherapist. And it just jumped out at me and I thought, why haven't I thought of that before? Because it's like meditation, but it's better than meditation. So almost right away I went online and started looking at trainings and there were very few trainings that seemed sufficient for this kind of work, but I found one in New Mexico at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America, which is a long-term standalone hypnosis training school, and signed up, just signed up. That was that. Wow. Yeah. So how long was the training? They have a basic level of training that takes about six weeks to complete full-time and then there are subsequent specialties that you can do.  So you can add on modules. Right. So you can get up to, you know, good thousand hours. Yes. Yep. Yep. Just for hypnosis. I think it's amazing because I've tried it with you and we'll get to that a little bit later in the segment. So a hypnotherapist is... Well, hypnosis is the state of mind and body, right? So it's a natural but altered state in which the body is relaxed and the mind has selected awareness, and we call that trance. So a hypnotist is a person who can put someone in a trance. A hypnotherapist is someone who uses those methods to provide beneficial outcomes for clients, tailoring to the client. Okay. So is there a perfect client for you? Or is there a client that you tend to be able to help more if they're searching for a particular help with maybe the stop smoking or overeating compared to maybe an emotional tick or something like that? Right. Is there? I love all my clients. I really do. I don't worry about what my clients worry about. So the first question people often had for me is some version of, can I be hypnotized? Can you work with me? Can you deal with my problem? And the answer is almost always yes. If that person wants to be there, right, and they want the outcome, then I will work with them and the benefit of having the level of training that I have, the breadth of training, the amount of experience that I have over the last ten years during this full time, I find it's pretty easy to find a match between client and technique. It's very organic. And then I do get a lot of people asking for sort of the classic things, you know, behavior, change and stuff, but I really, really like the person who comes in and says, I don't know why I'm here. I know I need something and, you know, guidance told me to come to you. And that, that is always fascinating and open, it's a collaborative. That person is open. Well, it's nice that it's undefined.  Right. Right? I'm a detective. I don't have a lot of time with people because it's a brief therapy. Clients self-pay, so I respect that and do my best to bring the result one to three sessions. Right. So I want every session to be and feel like something really good and important to get done. Okay. So I'm sitting with someone that I never met, don't know anything about for the first time. And what I like is being a detective and finding that perfect starting place in just a few minutes and then we collaborate, which is something interesting that people don't often expect because if you were to, you know, watch a silent movie of what goes on in a session, about a third of the time you would see two people just talking like this. Right. And about a third of the time you would see one person eyes closed, me, my eyes are open. Right. And we're going back and forth. And about a third of the time that person would be quiet, very, very relaxed, and I would just be talking to them. Okay. Yeah. So everyone's susceptible. So anyone can go to a hypnotherapist and go into the trance. What would that feel like or look like for a client when they come in to see you for the first time for someone that's never had even like gone to meditation? So this is kind of really outside maybe their realm or their comfort zone. Yeah. Well, the nice thing about it is, you know, one of the reasons I chose this field was I had the intuition or the idea, at least, that hypnosis was going to be like meditation, but way easier and way more beneficial. At least for the kinds of things that people go to therapy for, right? So hypnosis can be done by anyone if they can be coached appropriately. So for instance, if one has tried hypnosis and said I didn't go into trance or didn't work for me, I would encourage them to try someone else because each one of us is different. But the more different people you've worked with like I have and the more techniques like I have, like I said, I find that I'm able to help just about anybody do what they need to do. Their experience of it often is different than what they expected because we have the classic ideas that are not true. We do, yes. For instance, that you're not going to remember anything. People often remember everything or they'll remember most, that you can get stuck in hypnosis, which you can't. That hypnosis is some kind of truth serum, which it is not. Yes, thank you. Yes. And that I, as a hypnotherapist, can or will program things into them that they don't know about or want. And that's not true either. So you touched upon a question, all those questions. There is a fear around that, I believe, for people that don't know too much about it and hence why you are here to explain all that. How long would a session take with someone or does it depend on when you're sitting down and you're speaking with them what you think that they may need help with or is every session the same amount of time? I set up a duration for a session before each session. So there's no awkwardness during the session, right? We both know how long it's going to go. Usually an hour or an hour and a half and sometimes two depending on what we're going to be doing. Usually folks will book a first session, which they can book for themselves online and people really like that. You know, we like to do it that way these days, so they go on my booking website, they find their favorite time, they choose hour, hour and a half or whatever and one click and they're scheduled, which is nice. So usually folks will schedule for a first session an hour, which is really all that's needed. We can get a lot done in an hour. So could you help someone with smoking for and within that first time or is there something that you would need more? Usually I request three sessions with somebody, I don't force that, but to get the benefit and to give us both a chance to really go deep and get the work done, three is about right. Okay. So that's an option for people to continue for more if they want to, for more support, for more reinforcement. Oftentimes people feel complete with one issue, but there's something else they want to move on to. Or something maybe may come up for them within that one of your sessions. Yeah. Do you give them homework? Very minor homework. Sometimes I make recordings for people from their session and their homework is to listen to the recording once or twice a day. The homework is, the work is really done in the session. So I try to set it up whenever I can where that person is going to have automatic reinforcement based on their everyday circumstances. So that's my job to make that kind of unconscious for them so that they, it's not on them to do stuff, something that's there for them to support them. So if I give them homework, it's something to support them. So an example of homework might be, you know, just to notice something during the course of the week or week and a half. That could be big for somebody. Yeah. So a particular note is something or maybe to watch a certain movie or, you know, video or something like that that pertains to what would support them the most. Would you help them with self-hypnosis? Would that be part of that kind of thing? Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Self-hypnosis is very, very easy to teach and learn. Is that different than meditation or is it just kind of? It is. Yeah. Yeah. It's very different. And my experience of it, you know, I don't think there's one state of mind called hypnosis or meditation. There's a whole variety, right, or spectrum where you can dive in. So different meditations are going to have different experience associated with them, different mind-body states. Some meditations are like very repetitive like mantra meditation or visualization that's very self-hypnotic. Other meditations are more awareness-based. I'm guessing that's less hypnotic. So again, if you haven't had success with meditation, maybe try self-hypnosis and see if you can get nice and relaxed that way. Is there a particular client that is your ideal client? Is there one client that you prefer to work with as far as a condition or is it just everything? I really love that people bring everything to me. It makes me feel useful, right, and I like the variety and I don't know what's going to come in next or who's going to come in with what or once they get there we're going to go. It's a brief thing and people are looking for results. So I need to be very sharp and clear, clear-headed, pay attention. And so that's very challenging for me intellectually because people are fascinating and complicated. So what I like about the way I do it is that I don't have a preference for a particular kind of client. I just connect with each person as a being, right, as a spiritual being, as a consciousness. And when I work with somebody that's in the room with me, you know, call it higher power or guides and teachers, they're in the room. I can sense it and feel it and often draw upon it depending upon that person's spiritual leanings, right, and therefore as an individual I'm interested in a lot of things. I have a kind of a wide range of topics that I like to read about and think about and I get to bring all of that in order to help whomever I'm with. So I like philosophy, I like history, I like psychology, I like anthropology, I like art and music and dance and theater and literature as well as yoga and hypnosis. So I get to pull on all of that. Yeah, because those are universals. There's universal experiences and codes embedded in all of those areas and we can get to the heart of something more easily with, say, a story, right, than in any other way.  People tell me their story, I tell them a story. That's part of the work. It's non-psychotherapeutic, non-linear, non-autobiographical in nature. So it's accelerated, right, and a story or a myth is condensed, supercharged, super empowered piece of wisdom, right, piece of learning. Now is there, I like the idea that you said that you may suggest another therapist, a hypnotherapist if you're not feeling that the client is, do you have a pool of people that you think that... No, that's not exactly what I intended. What I meant was that if an individual, say in their audience, feels that they're unhypnotizable because they didn't succeed with another hypnotist, my brother-in-law tried it on me or somebody said I can't be hypnotized. I would put that aside and try again, try somebody who has a good amount of experience and also who you can feel comfortable with, that's really important, that rapport. I refer people out to different kinds of practitioners. That was my next question. Yeah, definitely. I like my people to have a team so I do ask them who else is helping them with their issue and what they've done that has worked, what they've done that hasn't worked. I think that's ideal, most of all I want people to succeed. I want to succeed. You have a high success rate from what I've read about you and I did my homework on you. Would someone come to you like maybe three years down the road that had come to you earlier with the same type of thing or would it be, so that would not be out of the norm? No. Things change. They change. We aim for things to be permanent but triggers change and then things can pop up, especially with unwanted behaviors or unwanted feelings. If there's a new situation that person hasn't confronted before and that old behavior pops up then we do some more work with the new situation to empower that person for current day needs and circumstances. So we don't do the same thing we did before because that work's already been done. That doesn't happen because it didn't work or the client failed. It happened because something had changed internally or externally that impacted them at the subconscious level. What is triggering something? Yeah. It's almost like taking away the layers and pulling away and then figuring it out. Like you said, it could be multiple things that have caused this, you know, the issue that they're seeking help for. Yeah. A lot of my job is simply asking questions. Asking the right questions. Right. That's really important. Yeah. It is just experience that I have a pretty good idea where to look for particular things. I'm sort of a technician in a lot of ways over what I do. Like to extract. Sometimes it's hard to extract the answers out of some of your clients, I would think, because they're very like, oh, yeah, I'm good or yeah, it's okay and sometimes it's hard to dig in and get all that meat. Yes, you are. I'm good at that. You're very good. Yeah. I remind the client that they're there to get a benefit and that we're both going to have to work hard at it. I remind them that I may appear to be pushy, right, because I want to move that person along, but I'm on their side. So oftentimes nobody but me will know why I'm asking for certain information or what my strategies are being understandable. So I know the kind of information I'm looking for. It's not everything. It's just specific details that will point me to something. And there's a lot of communication that's just nonverbal, most of it. Yeah. So right, if I'm paying attention and I'm observant of that person, I'm tuned in with them, we're having a conversation, I can discern pretty quickly based just on that. Yeah. What kind of how they're feeling. So even if they're in a trance state, if they're, you know, with their body movement or... Micro movements. Right. Yeah. Micro movements to the face. Yeah. And the eyes. Yeah. Right. Breathing. Stuff like that. Or not breathing. Hopefully there's some breathing going on. But yeah, breathing can get very slow. Yes. Stuff like that. And then there's this technique in hypnosis called idiomotor response, which is you plant a subconscious suggestion that the body will move in response to something. So that means that if I have a question, a yes or no question, that that person will subconsciously signal me that it's a yes or it's a no. Okay. So that means that if I, like, raising up one hand or one finger or something like that. Yeah. How does a client feel when they come out of a trance or at the end of a session? What can they expect to feel? People generally feel really good. And you know, it's a special state of mind and body. It's super charged healing. Just being in hypnosis is super charged. Right. So people feel really refreshed. Their mood is elevated. They just feel great. Right. All of those processes of the body and the brain that are beneficial, right? Whatever gets suppressed in our stimulated or stress response, right? We take the stimulation, the stress response down so the healing response can come up, which I know you know about, right? So we're enhancing that to the maximum and hypnosis is like the maximum most accelerated version of that. Yeah. I love that because it's empowering the client and it's instead of having something done to them, like having a medication given to them, it's empowering them that they can do this on their own, you know, with some help, of course, with yourself. Yeah. Is there an age limit? Well, generally I don't work with kids, but I refer to someone else who does work with kids. Generally, I'm about 16 and up. Right. Right. So there's no upper limit? No. Right. Right. So how many sessions have you done the most? Like someone came to you and they needed extra time or do you just do, have you ever just done the three or four or have you done, I guess it just depends, a subjective, isn't it? For each person? For each person. Yes, indeed. I really, I have a lot of confidence in the individual, they're sincere about wanting what they want, so I just let them, I encourage them to check in with themselves and when they feel complete, then they're complete. If they want to come back, they can come back. So once they've completed, they've moved on, so I don't get to know what happens next a lot of the time, except that people will get in touch later on or they'll send someone else who will refer and say that it was good that it worked for them and so on and so forth. Right. Usually when people are coming back, they're coming back for a different issue. They're not coming back for the same one. Well, then you know that they get the help that they need. Yeah, it's a resource for them. It's not a therapist-client relationship necessarily, it's just a resource. So my door is always open to them to come back and I hope they will. Think of it that way. They've already invested in working with me, they've already invested in the hypnosis in themselves. They are doing it. It's a collaboration. It's very much a collaboration. So they're the one who is creating the trance state and they are the one who is having the experience and at the subconscious level creating that new programming and that new empowered strategy that we have me and I and the client together already agreed about the outcome. So part of the process just starting out and having these dialogues getting to the bottom of things quickly is I want us to agree what we're here to do, what the goal actually is specifically. An array of people come to you for all kinds of issues. Right. Yes. And would you suggest they see a doctor, a general doctor or if they're on medications are ready for this certain issue? It's nice to have a doctor's approval. Right. And if they are coming to see me for a medical issue then I want to check and make sure that they have seen a doctor already for that, that they're not using me to suppress a symptom of something that may be serious. Absolutely. Right. That's important. Have you done groups? I know one-on-one, but do you do groups? I have done some groups. Yes. Groups are fun and fascinating. What's fun is that people can share their experience with each other, which is a nice convencer. Right. Most people want to know that they're normal. You know, is this normal? Am I doing this right? Normal. Yeah. What am I supposed to feel? Right. So what is nice in groups is of course that people can share their experiences with each other and they can support each other. So I think groups are great. What you don't get is you don't get the depth of detail, you don't get the tailoring. In a group it would be difficult to do anything but the sort of simplest kind of behavior modification. Right. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The benefit of one-on-one is, as I've described, it's true collaboration, bringing everything that I have to bear just for that one person, just for their special circumstances.  When those things line up, then the change can take place. Well. Yeah. They all need to be there for a real change to happen. Well, it's an amazing process and I'm so happy to have you on. Thank you. It's been great. We'll have information about how you can contact Ruth Ann at the end of the show. Yeah, I'd love to. But I want to thank you so much. Thank you. For coming. All right. So thank you for tuning in and remember, get inspired, get healthy and have some fun along the way.


Anybody else know anything about Andrew Jackson? Where was he from? What did he do? Nobody knows? Teacher language is kind of one of those weird dynamics where it weaves throughout. It comes up, it's not something that you plan. You don't know when you're gonna need to redirect. You're not gonna be able to sit there and say, this is how I'm going to redirect this type of a question, because you really don't know where the students are gonna go. Do you know what his job was? President of the United States of America. For example, at the beginning of the class, when they all announced that they had no idea who Andrew Jackson was, that was not at all where I thought we were gonna be. He was president and he was kind of a controversial president. He's kind of a big deal now. And so that was kind of that moment where I had to redirect the entire kind of flow of the lesson. And that's not something that's planned. And I think that teacher language is just like that with your curriculum planning.  It's kind of on the fly type of stuff, the way that it weaves through as long as you're conscious of trying to use your words in a certain way. Have y'all heard about what's happening with the $20 bill? Yeah. Oh, well, there we go. We got that one. OK, what's happening? Somebody? Hey. There you go. They're putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Who is she replacing? She is replacing Andrew Jackson. Good inference. The thing about teacher language is when you're super conscious of it, when you're saying, OK, now don't say good job.  Instead, what I kind of lean towards when I realized in the very beginning that I was doing that was instead what is the goal of what's happening right now so that as I'm seeing that goal be met, I can say you met that goal. So author's purpose, I saw that when I wanted them to infer and I saw that. I'm able to say you made an inference and you did great. It's also about seeing that when they're not on the mark, because I think that's sometimes the hardest, is when one of the students was not correct in his answer but was very strong and wanted to share and kind of letting them know that in that moment, I see where you got that answer from. I see what skill you use, so I can praise the skill that you used, but say this is where you went wrong with using that skill. So what is the suffragette? Somebody who works for you. When you tell them that they're wrong or you don't reinforce what they just did, they don't know how to repeat what they just did sometimes. So in that lesson today, when it was you made an inference, they're great. What we saw was the next question, they went really into inferencing and they went a little too far into inferencing. But they really held on to, I know what the standard was and I know what I'm trying to do. And so that helped drive the curriculum. And so I think teacher language not only helps you with behavior, but it really helps you move forward in the curriculum as well. I think one of the things that's still a little bit of a challenge for me is that sometimes when you are trying to be supportive of a student and direct them in a certain way, you can back yourself into a little bit of a corner. It even happened in the lesson today, where I'm guiding him where I want him to go, but not telling him where I want him to go, and he's just not coming with me. And there's those moments where you do have to just stop and go, this isn't working. So I'm going to say, hey, there's the answer. Read that paragraph, because you're not with me. And I think that that's OK, because you also get a really strong understanding of where the kids are at. Because if you're guiding them and they're still not following you, then you realize that you didn't scaffold the way that you should have, or that you really need to go back to the drawing board and say, where in the skill did I miss something? You think that? Did he do good? Incorporating the strategy has been a very positive change for my students. I've seen them be more willing to try, to try things and go out on a limb. They will read in class. They will articulate watching them work in groups and their ability to look at each other and say, I eliminated A and B. What do you think? Has come from those kind of conversations happening with me, because they need that modeled and they need that practiced. And once we've done that, not only has behavior changed, but because it's really about what choice are you making right now and giving them back control. It's a slow process. It's not going to be two weeks in. All of a sudden you're seeing all of these gains and it's great. I think it's about seeing with effort you improve and your students improve. We bring in our own bias. We bring in our own bias. My ability to now say a year, two years in to the practice being able to say, hey, I see this in this child. I was able to see that interaction. I was able to see this and to be able to watch. And you're not going to have that right away. So it's kind of stick with it and don't see it as a chore. See it because it really will make curriculum and behavior improve.


How many of you and don't show me hands this is between you and Allah and he knows How many of you can say it?  I lived for you. I did everything for you. I Got married for you. I Had children for you. I Studied worked hard to make my career for you. I Wanted to be educated for you Memorized the Quran for you Islamic studies started Islamic institutions. You name it For you how many can claim this now and In front of Allah will say it The answer is if I want to be very honest with everybody if I say this am I right? Am I honest with myself? That's what's missing ladies my beautiful systems young and old don't blame the young


Times of vulnerability will inevitably show up to balance out the good times in life, and as humans, we've evolved some pretty unhealthy ways of dealing with them. We may mask our vulnerability beneath other negative emotions like anger and jealousy, deny it in order to convince ourselves and others that we are okay, or even blame our problems entirely on external sources. These walls we build around our weak spots can protect us from being badly hurt, but the longer we work to hold them up, the more we allow our vulnerabilities to grow within us, snowballing into something more sinister, like feelings of self-hatred, despair, and even apathy, which can leave us prone to depression. But believe it or not, there are ways to transform vulnerability into something that gives us strength to go forward instead of holding us back. Here are three steps to turning vulnerability into a superpower. 1. Change your mindset. That means stop playing the victim. It's tough love, but only when you stop using vulnerability as an excuse to feel sorry for yourself can you take responsibility for your situation and change it. Instead of ruminating on your misfortune, move towards a mindset of acceptance. That means deeply acknowledging a painful situation and your personal role in bringing it about without allowing these things to define your identity. Sure, a bad thing may be happening to you now, but it is not characteristic of you. When you identify your own self-harming behavior, you acknowledge that you have the power to change it, and that's when you start to take control as a superhero, rather than a damsel in distress. 2. Tear down those walls. Reach out to others and share your story. When you stop playing the victim, you stop looking to others for consolation. And as a result, people will feel safer sharing their ideas because they won't feel responsible for fixing you. So stop expecting others to swoop in and save you, and instead use them as a source of inspiration. You'll find that more people can relate to you than you think, and once you realize that you're not the only one carrying this burden, you'll feel its weight lift from your shoulders and a sudden surge of power that allows you to move forward. That's the moment your vulnerability turns into a superpower. 3. Commit to the new mindset. You might expect your brand new superpower to make you positively unstoppable, but think again. As any comic book will tell you, even being a superhero requires hard work and maintenance. Small continuous efforts are required to prevent negative feelings from snowballing again, especially if you're prone to mental illness. 4. A good mindfulness routine is the perfect countermeasure. When you feel that victim mentality creeping up again, try doing some stream of consciousness journaling, gratitude journaling, meditation, and track your sleep to ensure you get those eight hours. These strategies lead to a heightened awareness of the good things in life that when recognized on a daily basis can stop you from falling victim to vulnerability. Hey, Site2Goers, don't forget that you're not alone on your self-improvement journey. Christine is an up-and-coming freelance blogger documenting her struggles through life and the strategies she's learned to get through them. This video is one of those stories. Feel free to check out her WordPress site, link below. We're sure it'll help you feel us alone. Thanks for watching.


Hello, my name is Marianne Grootvelds, I work for OpenAir at Data Archiving and Network Services or DANCE in the Netherlands. In this presentation I will touch upon FAIR and open research data, the role that good repositories can play in preserving and publishing those valuable data, and initiatives for measuring the level of fairness of existing data. And my call to action for all of you is let's aim for a FAIR-aligned research data life cycle. But first a few words about OpenAir. OpenAir, as you can see, supports different activities and different stakeholder groups. We support open science policies, that's relevant for policy makers and those involved by the policy. We offer training and support in that area. OpenAir also supports infrastructures, both technical infrastructures and human infrastructures. We run a couple of services. Open research data and FAIR data is an important topic for OpenAir, as you can see also from this webinar, and of course open access to publications for which we provide guides and repositories and information about compliance. We're probably familiar with the FAIR data principles. The F stands for Findability. We want research data to be findable both by humans and by computer systems, and having good descriptive metadata allows the discovery of those interesting data sets. Data should also be accessible, stored for the long term in a trustworthy repository and combined with a good license that tells you what you can do with the data. In the ideal FAIR world, research data are also interoperable. That means you can combine data in one data set with other data sets, and you in this case can be a person, as well as a computer system. And in the end, research data should be reusable in future research for validation and so on. The image you see at the bottom is a screenshot from the article that was written about the original session in which the FAIR data principles have been defined with all the authors involved, and you can find other links at the bottom of the slide. Now open and FAIR data are also in your own interest. For some disciplines, we see evidence that when data are made available in the context of a paper publication, that publication is cited more often than a publication which only says that the data are available on request. So publishing your data increases your visibility as a researcher. And of course, publishing open data that are not FAIR is perhaps not so useful, so that's why we talk about open and FAIR. The European Commission has installed what they call a high-level expert group on FAIR data. And last summer, that expert group published their draft recommendations. You see here two of these recommendations. Recommendation 10 is about so-called trusted digital repositories, and it is a recommendation for digital repositories to get certified against the core trust seal scheme of certification. Not each repository is as good as it could be, so certification is a means of finding the good ones that are committed to sustaining your data for the long term. And another recommendation is about implementing FAIR metrics, because it's a very good idea to make your data FAIR, but it's also relevant and very valuable if all existing kinds of data turn out to be FAIR or are being signalled as perhaps not as FAIR as they should be. So we need ways to assess the fairness of data sets. Another thing that the European Commission does is supporting open and FAIR data by funding projects and installing a pilot, a flexible pilot, calls the research open data pilot, you're probably familiar with it, which also says that research data should be opened by default and findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Part of that progress, you see it in the image, and it is also in the guidelines on FAIR data management, is about where you will deposit your data and all the associated metadata, documentation, software code for the future. The European Commission says in their guidelines on FAIR data management that preference should be given to certified repositories, which support open access where possible. To make your data FAIR or to consider the fairness of data for reuse, it may help if you assume the position of a potential re-user. So that's why the arrows in this research data life cycle point the other way. We started reusing and we go back in the process, actually. And when you go through those steps and consider what should be done, it is clear that lots of documentation is needed. That was one of the recommendations in an earlier you that FAIR data checklist, which you can download from Zenodo. And documentation starts usually with metadata. Metadata are typically the keywords and other bibliographical information that you need to find existing data and to also get a first idea of the content of the data. It's recommended that you use community standards in metadata because you want to speak the same language as your potential users and re-users, etc., and so on. So community standard metadata enable into operability. The repository where you're going to entrust your data may support or expect a particular standard, so it's good to check that in advance. And when you're not yet familiar with metadata standards in your field, you may want to take a look in one of these areas. So FAIR sharing, which offers a lot of information about standards, databases and policies, and also about the reasons behind it. That's a very good source of information. Another good source is provided by the Research Data Alliance in collaboration with the Digital Curation Center, the RDA and the DCC. They have a metadata directory for lots of disciplines. And another place where you can look, also in a collaboration between RDA and DCC, is the last one. And you see a very small print information on the right-hand side. The nice thing about that side is that it also offers a long list of tools for metadata. So you find tools for validating or producing metadata for different disciplines and fields. If you're not familiar with that, please go and take a look. In addition to metadata, a good reusable dataset needs documentation. Sometimes the assumption is that all the documentation that is needed about data is already in publication, but often that's not quite true. For instance, when you have a codebook with variables, you will not publish that in the article, but it is a variable source to include in the repository. The same holds for your study design, a lab journal, an electronic notebook, statistical queries that you used, and so on and so forth. So ideally, you would document and preserve everything that is needed to replicate the study. That is the kind of a replication package, you might say, and that is the best thing to publish and to deposit for later use by yourself or by others. And again, if there is a standard in your field, please use that. About selecting a repository where you could deposit your data and documentation, it's good to look at it from both sides. So both for giving your data and trusting it to the repository and for taking it. So reusing data, it's give and take as it is often. Some criteria here are that the repository is ideally certified, as the commission also recommends. There are different standards for that, and you will find them, for instance, through the core trust seal, I'll show you a link on the next slide. It's also important that a repository will support your needs when it comes to file formats, the access regime. Can it be open or only partially open, perhaps? Do they help you to select a license for future use of the data? And the repository, ideally, typically will provide a standard for the metadata. They may offer a Persistent and Unique Identifier, a so-called Persistent Identifier, a PID, which your research funder will probably ask for. They may provide guidance on how the data should be cited if someone uses it, which, again, is good for your usability as a researcher. And when there are costs involved, either in publishing or in downloading data, that should be clear from the start. So it makes sense to contact a repository of your choice, or perhaps a couple of repositories, when you're still looking and deciding. A head of the real, the actual deposit act don't wait till the end. They may help you when you come early. As I said, the core trust seal is one of the certification schemes that are around. And they used to be the data seal of approval and the world's data systems certifications. And these two, at some point, decided they were pretty similar. They joined forces, and the result was the core trust seal. You see here a map which indicates where you can find those repositories. This does not mean that repositories without a certification are not good. But the trend is towards getting certified. So maybe you want to push your discipline repository if it doesn't have a certification yet. Core trust seal certified repositories commit to 16 requirements, and they have been assessed that they not only commit to it, but really do it in practice. And here you see a couple of them. For instance, such a repository maintains the licenses, covering data access and use, and also monitors the compliance with the license. The repository is responsible for the long-term preservation. The repository enables users to discover your data and refer to them in a persistent weight through proper citation. So this is what I mentioned earlier. The repository can take care of this stuff for you. And because they also focus on reuse of the data over time, they will offer a metadata scheme, which helps you and people who are maybe interested. But there are more repositories than these for you, and actually you as a data producer or a data consumer, a potential data consumer, play a role in those guidelines too. When it comes to assessing the fairness of existing data, there are a couple of initiatives. So making your data fair is essential, but checking the existence of existing data sets is very useful too. You can learn a lot from that. So the easy thing to do is go to a data repository, any data repository, take a look at the metadata of a data set, and then decide for yourself, would you feel comfortable with reusing that data? What is it that inspires trust in you that this is a useful data set? Or what kind of evidence is lacking to give you the feeling that you trust the data set? What would help you to trust these data for reuse? You can do this alone, and I encourage you to do it just to go through the motions and see how it works, but there are also some initiatives on measuring this in a more structured way. There are some prototypes under development, and part of the discussion that's going on, and we hope you will play a role in that, is who should do the actual assessment? Maybe a fellow researcher from the same domain where the data were generated or produced? Or should we wait until the data have actually been reused by someone? Should it be the people in the repository? Can we make computers and machinery do it? This is still unclear, it's a very recent process and a recent initiative, so you may want to feel part of this. This was a very brief introduction to fair data in trust with the repositories. The core, I think, is trust, and I can only invite you to aim, as a group of listeners, watchers of this presentation, to aim for a fair aligned research data life cycle. We should credit researchers and others who see value in existing data, who want to add value to existing data, and of course we want to support and credit people who support new fair and open data by using trust with the repositories. So it's important that we stick to standards for data documentation in several areas and end up with good replication packages. Another way to do this is to check how fair existing data already are, and to learn from this when they're not that fair perhaps, and to teach and train early career researchers that they make the data as fair as open and open as possible. Thank you very much. When you have questions, we hope to hear from you.


The Holy Spirit can be grieved. Ephesians 4.30 says, and do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. The Holy Spirit is a person. That doesn't mean he's a human, but it means he is personal. He has a mind, he has a will, he has emotions.  The things that we do or don't do can affect the way he feels. We can grieve the Holy Spirit of God. We can break his heart by what we do or don't do. This is my greatest fear. And I pray that if we fear anything, we fear grieving the Holy Spirit. Don't be afraid of the opinions of man. People will come against you when you speak the truth. People will attack you when you disrupt things by speaking what the Bible says, or when you disrupt things by speaking what the Holy Spirit says. When you follow the way of the Spirit, you're gonna be a disruptor. You're gonna say things that upset the religious. You're gonna say things that upset the establishment. You're gonna say things that upset the culture. You won't always be accepted, and that's okay. When we embrace the way of Christ, we embrace that cross, and often that means persecution for standing in the truth, for walking in his power, for simply loving God, for declaring the gospel. We will be persecuted. Don't fear man. Don't be afraid of man's opinions. They can't do anything to you ultimately. Ultimately, you're in God's hands. And don't be afraid of demonic powers.  Yes, we should be aware of the attacks of the enemy. Yes, we should be aware of his deceptions.  I'm not saying to be apathetic toward the power of darkness. I'm not saying to be apathetic toward the devil and demons. The Bible warns us that the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. But there's a big difference between vigilance and paranoia.  Greater is he who is in you than he that is in the world. Greater is he who is in you and he who is operating in the systems of the world. The Holy Spirit is more powerful than any spirit that might exist. There is no spirit more powerful than the Holy Spirit. So no, don't be afraid of man's opinions. Don't be afraid of the words that they'll speak.  Culture will come against you. The religious system will come against you. Your family will come against you. Friends will come against you.  And don't be afraid of demons. Be aware, but don't be afraid. Be afraid of one thing, grieving the precious Holy Spirit, not for fear of punishment, although there are consequences to sin. Of course we understand sin has a very destructive power and even believers who persist in sin will eat of the fruit of destruction. But don't fear anything but grieving the Holy Spirit. Don't fear anything but grieving the Holy Spirit. Not motivated by punishment but motivated by love. That's the life of the believer. To walk in a way knowing that what you do affects how he feels. Be motivated unto holiness by love. Perhaps you felt the sting of his pain and his heartbreak in an act of disobedience. I know in my life there were times that I thought something, said something or did something or didn't do something that deeply grieved the precious Holy Spirit. And I could sense the atmosphere shift around me from the beauty of that presence, that glory resting on my life, that joy, that peace, that union, that perfect fellowship, to this agitated atmosphere, this broken heart that I could sense, this heaviness, this weightiness. The psalmist wrote, your hand weighed heavily upon me. That grieving of the Holy Spirit, I don't want to grieve him. I only fear grieving the precious Holy Spirit. I don't want to break his heart. There are several things that we do that grieve him. I'll name five. Number one, sins of commission. These are the things that we do that we know we should not do. These are the things that we do that violate the Word of God, that violate the nature of God, that violate the instructions that we were given by the Holy Spirit. When we do those things that we know we shouldn't do, we break his heart. Number two, we grieve the Holy Spirit when we don't do what he's telling us to do. He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. That's what the Bible says. So when the Holy Spirit speaks to you to do something, and you know it's him, and you have to be careful with this sometimes because some have the tendency to take their every thought as an instruction from the Holy Spirit. So they begin to live with what I call religious OCD. And that's not mocking that syndrome or that sickness, but I'm saying that that's a reality. It's a reality that many believers suffer under because they're constantly obsessing compulsively over various things that they think the Holy Spirit is telling them to do. Stand there for five minutes and don't move. Stand up out of your bed right now and stand in the middle of the floor. Don't move. Wear that red shirt, not the blue shirt. Go walk over to that gas station and just look for someone who looks like this. Sometimes it is the Holy Spirit. Many times it is not. Don't suffer under legalism and mistake it for the voice of the Holy Spirit when it's your own thoughts and emotions. But the things we don't do, yes, can grieve him. They can break his heart. When he says, help that ministry and we refuse. When he says, witness to that person and we refuse. When he says, do this ministry and we refuse. When he says, go and do this kind act and we refuse. When he calls us to prayer, read the word and we refuse. These are sins of omission. Number three, what grieves the Holy Spirit is when we ignore the reality of his abiding presence. The Holy Spirit is constantly there, but rarely acknowledged. Don't go throughout your life with such a busy pace that you can't acknowledge the presence of the Holy Spirit. Don't live your life in such a way that you're not aware of his nearness. The Holy Spirit is not far from any one of us. He abides in us, around us. He is that atmosphere that goes with us. Like Moses said, I'm not going to go anywhere without your presence because your presence is what makes me distinct. He makes you distinct. Some of us move through our lives at such a fast pace that we fail to even stop and recognize his nearness. Don't ignore his nearness. Don't ignore the nearness of the precious Holy Spirit. Continue to acknowledge him. Don't go the whole day without talking to him. Don't go the whole day without relying on him. Involve him. Be aware of him. Don't ignore him. Number four, what grieves the Holy Spirit is division in his body. Now, let me make this very clear. There are times that we need to divide. Jesus said, I came not to bring peace but a sword, either you're with me or against me. Jesus made it clear that he is the way, the truth and the life that no man comes to the Father but by him. So there is a time for division. If someone is blatantly teaching heresy, something that contradicts one of the fundamentals of the faith, okay, you got to call that out. And if someone continues to do that, you have to separate from that. If a believer continues to live in sexual sin and doesn't attempt repentance, doesn't care, just blatantly living that lifestyle, the scripture says, have nothing to do with that person. Well, that's what the Bible says. That's not my word. That's God's word. So there is a time for division. But I think that believers often divide because of their ego, because of their own sensitivity, because of pride, because of fear, and they try to blame the Holy Spirit for them being in the flesh. They say things like, well, I just feel the Holy Spirit's grieve with you or something doesn't sit right about you in my spirit. When really what they're saying is, I don't like you.  I can't tell you how many times I've seen believers argue and saying to one another, well, you have a bad spirit. So it's not that they just disagreed. It's not that they both got mad at each other because they disagreed. It's you have a bad spirit. Well, that's not maturity. In fact, our unity can only come in proportion to our maturity. And I'm not saying we embrace heresy. I'm not saying we embrace false teachers. I'm saying that true brothers and sisters in Christ will upset us sometimes. True brothers and sisters in Christ will disagree with us sometimes. True brothers and sisters in Christ will offend us sometimes. And when we allow that division to cause bitterness, to cause us to separate for reasons that are not biblical, now we're grieving the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Holy Spirit in me loves the Holy Spirit in you. The Holy Spirit in me is kindred to the Holy Spirit in you. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. You're one with the Holy Spirit. I'm one with the Holy Spirit. And therefore, through the Holy Spirit, we are one. We're one body. And so when we bicker and when we fight and when we carry bitterness, think about those people in your life who you're bitter against. And you can't even remember why you're mad at them. Think about those times you cut people off because they didn't agree with you on something that wasn't even a fundamental of the faith. That's your ego. That's immaturity. And these are the things that we do that grieve the Holy Spirit. Division is one of them. So we grieve the Holy Spirit through sins of commission. We grieve the Holy Spirit through sins of omission. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we ignore his presence. We grieve the Holy Spirit when we allow division. And we grieve the Holy Spirit with our lack of faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. When we lack faith and we live in fear, we grieve the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we're sang to the Holy Spirit. I don't really trust you. You in my mind don't really have a good track record. Or we're saying, I am relying more on my ability than on yours. That's a lack of faith and it grieves the Holy Spirit. I want to pray with you right now. I want you right now to make the commitment to be aware of the things that grieve the precious Holy Spirit. And I want you to ask for the Holy Spirit's help in causing you to walk in a way that pleases him. Father, I pray for that one receiving this now. And first of all, Lord, we thank you that your mercies are new every morning and every moment. We ask you to forgive us for the ways that we've grieved you precious Holy Spirit. Come on, just tell him. Tell him, I'm sorry, Holy Spirit. Tell him that. Say this, say, help me to please you and not grieve you. Now, precious Holy Spirit, be their reminder and let them live in an awareness of the nearness of your presence. Thank you, Lord, that you abide. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray I want you to say because you believe it, say amen. I know it's tempting to click on to something else. There's lots of content that we offer on various different topics, but just for a moment, hear me out. I want to ask you, my brother, my sister, I need your help with something. Look, we in the body of Christ need each other. The Lord obviously is the one who's increasing his ministry. The Lord is the one who brings in the resources that we need to accomplish the work of the gospel. The gospel is free, but the means to deliver the gospel, that can cost, especially when you want to deliver the gospel message on a mass scale like we're doing. That takes resources.   I'm asking you to not let the screen disconnect us. I'm asking you to not say, well, you know, someone else will give or someone else will do it. I'm asking you to listen and ask the Holy Spirit what you should give. I'm asking you to give a one-time or a single gift, I should say, a single gift to the ministry right now or give a monthly gift by becoming a monthly ministry supporter. You can give a single gift by going to davidhernandezministries.com slash donate. You can become a monthly ministry supporter by going to davidhernandezministries.com slash partner. Give today. Help the ministry keep going and growing strong. And remember, until next time, nothing is impossible with God.