Today, I'm going to be doing a quick installation and first look at the recently released Antix 23. Antix has always been one of my favorite Debian-based distributions because it's rather unique. First of all, Antix is system D free. No system D. So for those of you that don't want to use a system D distribution, you have something against system D, well, Antix might be the right choice for you. Also, Antix is one of the very, very few Linux distributions these days that still offers both a 64-bit version and a 32-bit version. So today, what I'm going to do is I'm going to install Antix 23, their full edition, which includes four window managers, as well as a full desktop suite of software. I'm going to install this inside of Virtual Machine and take a quick first look around. So I've downloaded the Antix full ISO, so this is a 1.7 gigabyte ISO that includes four window managers. It includes IcedWM, JWM, FluxBox, and HerbstLiftWM, and it includes a full desktop suite of applications, including the LibreOffice suite. Now if you want something a little smaller, they do offer the Antix base ISO, which includes the same four window managers, but not as much desktop software, no LibreOffice or anything like that. And that ISO comes in around one gig in size. And if you want something really, really minimal, they do offer the Antix Core ISO, which has no XORG, it's just command line only at the end, right? It's just got enough stuff installed on the ISO to get networking up and running, and from there you install what you want. There's also the Antix Net Installer, which is a 220 megabyte ISO that, again, no XORG or anything, and you have to hopefully get connected to the internet, and from there you install everything via the Net Installer. So I'm going to go ahead and boot into Antix, let's do the normal boot option. Then it boots us directly into the live environment. The live environment is going to use ICWM, even though there's four different window managers available. By default, it defaults to ICWM.  So I'm going to click the icon here that says Installer, I double clicked it and double clicking it is probably not the right thing to do, because I got some error messages. I'm actually going to close it, would a single click have worked, yes. So no need to double click, so that's a Windows thing, the double click, they're using single click on this, because double clicking it had tried to launch a second installer application and it wouldn't launch the second one, it gave me that little error dialog box. Terms of use, I'm not going to read that, let's go ahead and click next, and then select the type of installation. So I created a 20 gigabyte virtual drive in this virtual machine, so we're just going to use that one virtual drive in this machine. Do I want to encrypt the drive? I could click encrypt and then give it a strong and complicated password for the encryption, and then click next, okay to format and use the entire disk, so it's just wanting confirmation, hey, are you good with us formatting that drive? Yes, and installation in progress. Let's go ahead and create our computer name, so that's the host name of this computer, I'll call it vert dash antics, computer domain, I'll just leave it as the example.dom, it's not really necessary. Then click next, localization, it defaults to US, American English, that's correct for me, US Eastern time zone, that's not correct for me, I'm in the central time zone of the US, system clock uses local time, yeah that's correct, let me go ahead and click next, and then let's create our username, I'm going to call my user DT, let's create a strong and complicated password for the DT user, repeat the strong and complicated password, and then the root user, do we want a root user? If we check that on, we will have a root user and you need to create a root user password, if we leave that ticked off, what will happen is instead of a root user, we will have sudo, and the DT user will have sudo privileges, so I'm going to leave that ticked off and click next, and then we get some tips, and other than that we're just waiting for it finishing the installation, this may take another minute or two, I'll pause the video until the installation has completed, and the installation has completed, after I pause the video it probably took about two minutes for the installation to complete after that, so probably less than five minutes total time for the installation, that installed very fast, even for what is the antics full addition, so I'm sure some of the smaller ISOs would have installed probably in like two minutes, so we need to go ahead and reboot the system to complete the installation, you can see it's already ticked on by default, automatically reboot the system when the installer is closed, so I'm going to leave that ticked on and click finish, and it reboots just fine, we get a grub menu, and it says please unlock the disk with the lux encryption, so that's going to be our encrypted drive, remember it had the option to encrypt our hard drive, and I chose to do that, so let me enter my super secure encryption password, and now it will continue to boot the system, and when we come to our login manager, I'm not sure what login manager they're using, it doesn't look anything familiar, maybe one of the older login managers like Slim or LXDM or something like that, I'm going to go ahead and enter my username, and then hit enter and enter my password, let's go ahead and log in to ICWM once again, so we'll take a look at ICWM first, let's go ahead and change the screen resolution, so if I go into the menu system, and I go into applications, I bet it's under preferences, they're probably using something like A-R-N-R, A-Rander, yeah A-Rander is here, so what this is, this is a graphical front end to X-Rander, which you guys see me on almost every video use the X-Rander command at the terminal, A-Rander is just a graphical way of doing this, so if I right click on the monitor here and go to resolution and go to 1920 by 1080, then hit the checkbox, it changes that resolution for us, although the wallpaper and the conky, they need to be redrawn, so what I need to do is actually restart the whole desktop, so if I right click, go into desktop, other desktops, I'm going to choose the default option, ZZZ-ICWM, and it should hopefully restart the desktop for us, it does, it redraws the wallpaper at the correct resolution and puts the conky in the right place, by the way, this is a program called conky, the system monitoring application that gives you some information about disk usage and CPU usage, ethernet speed up and down, et cetera, so you guys have seen conky many times on my videos, when I show my actual desktop, if I switch over to not the virtual machine, this is my actual desktop, this is conky, right, people often ask me on my videos, what is that? That is conky and that's what they're using here inside Antics as well to display that monitoring information. Now one thing about the desktops, if I right click and go back to desktop, other desktops, you see we have three different, four different ICWMs to choose from and four different flux boxes to choose from, four different JWMs to choose from, it's because each one of these uses a different file manager, I believe, so ZZZ is the ZZZ FM file manager, ROX is ROX FM file manager, I'm not sure what just regular ICWM or minimal ICWM is what the difference in those are, but we could check those out. But first, let's actually take a look at the file manager. So let me click on the quick launcher here for the file manager and go to help and frequently ask questions. The ZZZ FM users manual, so I don't really know this file manager, I have actually never used this before. I don't think, I don't even know if this was in some of the previous versions of antics that I've looked at. I haven't looked at antics lately. So this is a different file manager for me. I'm not sure how to use it, but that is the ZZZ ICWM desktop. If I go to ROX ICWM, this is going to use the very old school retro looking ROX filer. ROX filer, for those of you that were around Linux, you know, 20, 25 years ago, probably remember a lot of the ROX applications, including the ROX filer file manager here, looks really old and ancient. And it was never one of my favorite file managers, but a lot of people really love ROX. So it's nice that it is an option. If I go back to other desktops and just use ICWM with no other description, let's see what it's going to use for a file manager. And it looks like it's just going to go back to using ZZZFM. I didn't mean to make that maximized. And then if I go back and choose the minimal ICWM, let's see what the file manager is going to be. Once again, ZZZFM. Okay. So the only one that has a different file manager is going to be the ROX file manager. And then, of course, the khaki is not here for the minimal one. So I guess that is the difference. Also, the desktop pipelines are not here for the minimal. So I guess that is the slight differences between the three. I'm going to go back to the default ZZZ, ICWM. We get our desktop applications back and we get our khaki back as well. So ICWM has a panel at the bottom, a standard kind of panel. You click on the icon here, you get a menu system. Also, if you right click anywhere on the desktop, you get the exact same menu. So this menu, the right click menu, the quick launcher here just launches that right click menu in this spot, right? So it's the same kind of menu. And if I go through it, let's see app select. Is this some kind of app store? Yeah, it looks like we can go ahead and choose to install some things such as ad block. That's interesting. I have also Mixer. So obviously, they're using also, they're also using, I believe, pulse audio and pipe wire. I wonder if Control Alt T would bring up a terminal. It does. It brings up the ROX term. So ROX terminal, again, one of the ROX applications. You zoom in. I do a where is pipe wire. Just to verify that they are using pipe wire. They are. Let me zoom out a little bit. I made that a little bit too big. So where is pipe wire? You can see there's the location to the pipe wire binary. And just to verify, system D is not here. Where is system D? It's nowhere to be found. Let's see what kernel version they're on. Let's do a uname space dash R. They're on 6.1.42. So a pretty recent kernel. If I do a apt list space dash dash installed, let's get a list of all the packages that are installed via the apt package manager. I'm going to up arrow, and I'm going to pipe that into WC, the word count program, space dash L. So instead of word count, I want a line count. That's what the dash L flag does. Let's get a line count of the apt list dash dash installed command. There are 1,676 lines of output in that. So that means there's 1,676 packages installed out of the box via the apt package manager. If I get back into the menu system here, we've already taken a look at the terminal, the file manager, the web browser, I believe is Firefox. Yeah. Let's see what version of Firefox we are on if I go to help and about Firefox. This is Firefox, the extended support release ESR. 102.14.0. And back to the menu system. We do have an editor here. Now they have a couple of different editors installed. This is Genie. Genie, one of my favorite plain text editors. It's a really fantastic lightweight text editor slash IDE. You can see this is Genie 1.38. I believe they also have a mouse pad or leaf pad, one of those two. If I go into the applications, go to accessories. Leaf pad is also another plain text editor. That's very plain though. I don't know why you would choose to use leaf pad when Genie is already installed. I'd probably just uninstall leaf pad to be honest. Also in the menu under applications, we go into accessories. You can see you've got your basic applications that you would expect for any full desktop environment. So you've got your archive manager for zip, unzip, things like that. You've got your calculator, a calendar. You've got your clipboard.  That's interesting for those of you that want to fire jail your applications. You also have, is that URXVT for a terminal? So other than the rocks term, we also have URXVT installed as a terminal. That's interesting. I wonder why we have dual terminals here. We also have XF burn, which is a disk burning utility. It's part of the XFCE suite of applications. Pretty simple little disk burning utility. Also under applications, there's actually an antics section here. And a lot of this is customization for your antics desktops. For example, add menu item. I'm assuming that would edit our ICWM menu. So yeah, you can go ahead and create a app name. You get an icon. Tell it what command to run, et cetera. And when you're through, it should appear in your menu system. Under applications, there is a games category. Not much here, really. DOSBox and Mahjong are the only two applications. Under graphics, we have our document scanner. If you still have a scanner, other than that, we have a couple of basic paint applications, Mirage and Screenshot. So we do have the Screenshot utility, which I'm assuming probably the XFCE Screenshot tool. It's kind of what that looks like. Also under applications, we have a multimedia category. We have Awesome Mixer. So that is basically something like Pavu Control, where you can adjust sound settings for also. But you also have Pavu Control, post audio volume control. You also have a CD Ripper application. You have Celluloid for video player. MPV is also here for a video player. SMTube is here as well to play videos. XMMS is here as well. So this is your audio player. It's kind of like an old school Winamp clone. Actually, a lot of really neat applications are installed out of the box. Even though the ISO was only 1.7 gigabytes, the reason they're able to put so much on that ISO is most of these applications are really, really tiny applications. They have Cine, which I believe is like a wireless networking application. I'm not using wireless. We have ClausMill for email client, not my favorite email client. HexChat is installed as well. So and it looks like it's going to by default connect to OFTC for a network. I'm not sure what that is. I was hoping maybe it would automatically connect us to like the Antics support IRC or something like that. Maybe it does, but I'm not going to go to the trouble of trying to enter a chat room. Let's go to the office category. So we do have the entire LibreOffice suite, calc, draw, impress, math, start, center, and writer. Let me launch LibreOfficeRider, which is the word processor. Let's go ahead and see what version of LibreOffice we are on. So this is LibreOffice <IP_ADDRESS>. And let's close that out. So ISOWM is a pretty simple little window manager. It's really kind of a full desktop environment because you've got your panel and your menu system, the panel, very full featured. You've got your quick launchers. You've got your desktop switcher, where you can switch between desktop one, desktop two. You've got a sys tray. You've got a clock and everything else. Let's take a quick look just for a couple of seconds at the other desktop. So if I go to desktops, other desktops, let's switch over to ZZZ Fluxbox and see how their Fluxbox is themed. So Fluxbox, we still get desktop icons. We get the conchie and everything. And we have a menu that we can go through here in Fluxbox. Of course, Fluxbox has its traditional right click menu as well. Again, the menu icon is just a way to actually launch the right click menu without having to right click because sometimes you'll have applications full screen on a desktop and you don't have a place on the desktop to actually right click. So it's nice that you have that launcher in the panel as well. And of course, you have your workspace switcher. Fluxbox, very open box like. If you've ever used open box, you'd be right at home in Fluxbox. And if I go to desktop, other desktops and switch to ZZZ JWM, JWM is even more like open box because it really is. It reminds me of open box in a lot of ways. It has the dynamic menus. Like if you want to create some scripts to dynamically generate output in this menu system, you can actually make that magic happen. But JWM, unlike open box, does come with a proper panel. It's got some quick launchers and you do once again have a menu button that you can click to launch the right click menu rather than having to right click. Just in case, again, you don't have space on the desktop to right click. They also mentioned HerbsLuftWM being on the ISO, but I didn't see HerbsLuft as an option for switching here. I wonder if I could choose HerbsLuft from the login menu. So if I log out and go back to the login manager, so let's log out and session type. Let's see, can I click that? It says press F1 to change session type. So let me do F1. Why did that not work? Okay, F1 and it cycles through. And there is a HerbsLuft entry. So let's just take a quick look at HerbsLuft. It may not be themed or anything. That may be why they don't want people to log into it. You know, if you've never played with HerbsLuft like a default HerbsLuft without it being configured, it could be a little weird. So let me go ahead and cancel switching to the other desktops. Now, I'm not going to know the key binding, so I may actually have to read this. So SuperShift C to close, that makes sense. That's the default close key binding for DWM and for X-MotenAD. So HerbsLuft uses that as well. I'm assuming SuperEnter gets us a terminal. SuperShift C to close. SuperShift R reloads. So if I make some changes or something, SuperShift R would reload and SuperShift Q would quit. So let me get back into the ICWM desktop here and A-Rander. I guess I didn't save the A-Rander command I ran earlier. So I'm just going to run X-Rander-S1920 by 1080. For those of you that actually want A-Rander to remember what you did, what you would have to do is you would go back to, what was it? Under preferences, go to A-Rander. You would choose your output or your resolution. And then instead of just clicking the check, you still need to click the check to make those changes happen. But then you also want to save. And what you want to do is save a file somewhere in your file system. And remember that whatever name you give it and have that file part of your auto start hook and all of your window managers. So every time it tells A-Rander to run the script and automatically change the resolution. So that's how you accomplish that magic. If you need for that to happen. So the only real reason to need to do that is really in a VM. So let me go ahead and fix the screen resolution here by choosing other desktops. And let me right click. Oh, we get a much bigger menu now. So there's some kind of glitch there. But what I was wanting to do was go into preferences. Just to see, I was really wanting themes. Well, we have a ton of themes. So antics, green, large. Okay, so that just changes your ICWM theme. So the title bars and the panel is ICWM. That's not the GTK theme. The GTK theme is actually the center of your window, right? The ICWM theme is just your title bars and buttons. But that is a pretty cool theme they were using. So back to preferences. I'm not sure what the default is. And this is blue huge. So for those of you wanting big themes. Yeah, we've got a lot of big names. How about New Day Small? Yeah, that's much more my style there. If I right click, I want to see the wallpapers. So I'm not sure what kind of wallpaper application they're using. I would assume they're probably using nitrogen to set the wallpaper. But I could be wrong about that. I'm going under preferences. Customize look and feel. So they're using LX appearance for the GTK theme. So I could use something like arc dark, arc darker. Yeah, yeah. And the icon themes. I could change that here as well. Let me once again, right click, go to applications, go to preferences, backgrounds, maybe, or wallpaper. There it is. Wallpaper. So let's go ahead and select a picture. And it defaults to user share wallpaper for the directory. And try that one out. Hit apply. It is a wallpaper that was titled beta. It's got the Greek later letter beta there. So that's interesting. Let's see what else we have flat. Well, that's kind of colorful. Let's see how we like that one. Yeah, I could live with that. We've got found lost marbles. Don't really like that. There's a leaf. There is a flower, pylons, space, and a sunflower. Let's try the leaf one. Looks kind of minimal. Would be probably really good against a dark theme. You know, set the ICWM theme to dark, set your GTK theme to dark. That would probably work out just fine. So that was just a very quick and cursory look at the recently released antics version 23. Again, four different window managers, ICWM, JWM. You had Herb's Luff WM and you also had Flux Box all on the ISO antics. Again, very light, very fast, very minimal. No system D available, both 64-bit ISOs and 32-bit ISOs. For those of you that have really ancient hardware, so I'm talking about machines 15 years old or possibly older, and you need a 32-bit distribution, I strongly urge you, give antics a try. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this episode. Daniel Gabe James, Matt Paul, Royal West, Armored Dragon, Commander Angry, George Lee, Methos, Nate Irion, Paul, Peace, Arch, and Vador, Realities4less, Red Prophet, Roland, Souls, Astri, Tools, Devler, Ward, Jintu, and Ubuntu, and Willie. These guys, they're my highest tiered patrons over on Patreon. What about these guys? This quick look at Antics23 would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen. All these names you're seeing on the screen right now, these are all my supporters over on Patreon. I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community, if you like my work, and want more videos on Linux and free and open source software like Antics. Subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. Peace, guys.


Today we're doing the Tomodachi rescue exercise. It's a bilateral operation to conduct air drops to the south of Susaki port in an effort to practice our humanitarian aid and rescue efforts. The exercise entails four aircraft mixed with the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force and the 36th Airlift Squadron. Flying close together to conduct an air drop below the port of Susaki with some floating bundles that are going to be picked up by a large Japanese Marine Self-Defense Force vessel. And then they're going to truck those bundles to a simulated disaster area. In this exercise the Flying Squadron, the 36th Airlift Squadron, which is part of the 374th Airlift Wing, and really the entire air base of Yakota is involved with the building of the bundles, the loading of the bundles, receiving our Japanese Air Self-Defense Force counterparts. And then the Japanese Marine Self-Defense Force is of course going to be receiving the bundles. The significance of this exercise is we're demonstrating the capability to be able to provide humanitarian relief to disaster areas when there's no availability for a runway to land and download supplies and no availability of a land drop zone to be able to recover the supplies. So if we can drop supplies into the water that can be recovered by some sort of vessel that greatly increases our ability to provide relief during disaster scenarios like they experienced in 2011 which led to the Tomodachi exercise. It was a lot of coordination between our Japanese counterparts and of course all the organizations that we have here the 374th Airlift Wing and across the base to be able to receive them and to be able to deconflict all of our different types of aircraft. It presents an interesting problem when you have four very different type of aircraft that are all going to be dropping within close proximity to each other. So a lot of deconfliction is involved in planning this. From the Jazdiff side they have a C1 that you can see behind me, a C2 and a C130H model and then of course the 36th Airlift Squadron flies the C130J. It's really different dropping on a water drop zone as opposed to a land drop zone as far as the capabilities that we're presenting to our commanders. So to be able to drop with this many aircrafts and different types of aircrafts is really going to create a really good benchmark for PACF and their capabilities to respond to humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations.


Hey guys, Jeremy here. Now I reviewed War of the Planet of the Apes a few days ago, and I really wanted to review Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. However, when I was just kind of random going through my old research and all my old reviews, I noticed that I remembered more so that I reviewed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes when I used to write for my university's newspaper. So I thought, who better to review this than 23-year-old me who watched this brand new when it came out in July of 2014. So this is going to be me just roars a reading this review and with some visuals along the side. So I hope you guys enjoy it. I'm interested to see what 23-year-old me sounds like now. Reactions were mixed when director Rupert Wyatt brought us Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011. While some believe that the failed reboot, which was Tim Burton's 2001 film, was enough, 20th Century Fox wanted to give it one more go. For the most part, it worked with a good script from Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Rise of the Planet of the Apes brought a new and creative take on the Apes who, while still primitive, possessed higher brain function and character development than any other human character. That was the only thing needing correction in the sequel, and they only got halfway there. After images and audio messages superimposed to a revolving earth explained how a virus encompassed the globe, the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes shows a community that Caesar, the leader of the Apes, has created. Andy Serkis has truly become the primate animal man of Hollywood. His character is still the strongest by far, but there are others with unique characteristics. Rick Jaffa and Rick Rafa and Amanda Silver deliver a script that takes the narrative down surprising paths just when a predictable outcome appears to loom its head. The major turnaround is the growing aggression between humans and apes. While there are some stereotypical characters, they are only mine and serve the necessary purpose of contriving conflict. Jason Clark delivers a decent performance as Malcolm, the man who builds a foundation of trust with Caesar. For an actor who has spent most of his time as a secondary character in most projects, he takes a role closer to lead with an emotional resolve that has been absent from previous outings. But despite his attempts, he still ultimately becomes a secondary character by the time the film comes to a close. This in turn weakens the viewer's emotional resonance with the humans. Renowned actor Gary Ollman is given such a small amount of screen time that we only get peeks into his character when there is obviously so much more that needs to be shown. In the end, he turns out to be the guy who just hates apes simply because he isn't given enough time to reveal anything else. The humans take a backseat to the narrative once again controlled by the apes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. This is in fact what this series has built itself on. We get so much more from the apes because of their simplicity. Their primitive nature lets us discern so much more than we can from humans. While the film tries to preserve humans with a similar style, it only half works and leaves questions unanswered. A strong connection to the human characters would have made the final climax more morally complicated. But this is brought on because of choices in the editing room. The film tends to drag in certain areas, but it still keeps the story constant. Had there been more human development, the film would have ultimately been damaged because of an inflated runtime. For those who wanted more drama from the apes, this film is full of it. Crumbling, hierarchy, disobedience, betrayal, run amok, and Caesar's community. Andy Serkis delivers an even deeper look into the primate than ever before, as he struggles to connect with his tribesmen in the face of rising tensions with the humans. His performance is incredible to watch as he attempts to rebuild the trust with the humans that he once had with his adopted father, played by James Franco from the previous movie. But not all of the apes are of the same mind. One of Caesar's loyal apes, Coba, is opposite Gary Oldman as the aggressor in this film. Having lived a life of pain and confinement, he seeks the means to exact his revenge for what was done to him. Similar to Magneto's story of loss and vengeance in X-Men, Coba follows a path that ultimately leads him to darkness. Throughout all of this, director Matt Reeves keeps everything in the camera's focus with fantastic cinematography and excellent action sequences. There is one panoramic shot on top of a mobile tank during the apes' siege of the human settlement that is completely awe-inspiring. So much is happening in one shot, and it is both terrifying and amazing to behold. Matt Reeves can instill astound audiences by altering the tricks he used in Cloverfield to create such sequences. While his work in Cloverfield may be the staple of his career, Dawn is by far the best work he has ever done. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes dwells into social divides on both sides, though the apes come away with a much more powerful delivery than that of the humans. It's not just because of the amazing effects, it's Andy Serkis' performance, but of the collective performance. The apes deliver multiple sides to a story, mainly through sign language and body motion, and while the ending is morally gray, you will find that you are still cheering for the apes once all is said and done. So yeah, I pretty much agree with 2013 myself, and the only thing I might say is a little bit much on the human characters, because the humans are not main characters in this series, it's always been the apes, but I just kind of wanted more characters, less stereotypes, because there's a few of them in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Sure, most of them, as I said, are minor and more so tools of the plot, but Gary Olin. You had Gary Olin, guys, and you basically just, if he had been Malcolm's character, maybe that would have been more of a use of his talents, but I don't know. Either way, though, this is still the best one in the series, in my opinion. I think Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is near perfect with its decisions of the story, the twists and turns it takes, the whole moral compass of Caesar, and the confliction with Coba, and the humans trying to connect, but in the end, causing what would be an ultimate strife that would continue on into War of the Planet of the Apes. So in the end, my rating for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a 6 out of 7. This is a good movie out of all three, I would suggest everyone watch this one. I know War of the Planet of the Apes is getting massive praise, but I still say that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the best one of the three. Anyways, guys, that's my little random review, and that's another bucket list review actually too, so anyways, I'll see you guys later.


In our previous video, we introduced the Ultrain Series Test and actually provided a proof for the said Alternate Series Test. What I wanna do now is actually look at some examples of how we can use the Ultrain Series Test to determine the convergence of some series. Now remember, to use the Ultrain Series Test, we have some Ultrain Series, so it switches between positive, negative, positive, negative. And what we need is, if you ignore the negative signs and look at the absolute sequence, we need that that sequence is decreasing towards zero. And if that happens, our Ultrain Series would be convergent. And so let's look at some examples. Perhaps the poster child to consider here is the so-called Alternate Harmonic Series, the Alternate Harmonic Series. Because if we ignore the negative sign, this is just the harmonic series, N equals one to infinity of one over N here. But with the negative factor, so this thing will make it become positive, negative, positive, negative, positive, negative, notice here, if we expand this thing, this will look like one minus one-half plus one-third, minus one-fourth, plus one-fifth, minus one-sixth, et cetera. This number right here, we're actually gonna see is gonna get a finite number despite the fact that the harmonic series is divergent. Because if we take the absolute value here, we ignore the Alternate Factor, right? The fact that absolute value is basically gonna get rid of this guy right here. And we're left with just the sequence one over N. Now, does this sequence decrease? Is it a decreasing sequence? And the answer, of course, is yes. Because if you consider the sequence one over N plus one, if you compare that to one over N, making the denominator get bigger makes the fraction get smaller. So one over N plus one is smaller than one over N. So yes, this is a decreasing sequence. Is it, does it converge to zero? Converged to zero here. And the answer is, again, yes, the sequence one over N will approach zero. And so then by the Alternating Series Test, we see that this is a convergent series. It's convergent by this Alternating Series Test. I'll often call this AST for short. It's a convergent series. So we have just two simple tests that we have to do to show that the Alternating Harmonic Series is convergent, although the Harmonic Series is divergent. The Alternating Factor actually helps. Because kind of what's happening here is if we were to look at this graphically, let's say like the x-axis right here just for a moment. This is our x-axis. And as you take this sum, right, you add things together, where you're gonna start off with your first term, which is positive, so you get this B1. Then you take, then you're gonna add, then you subtract B2 from it. You get something like down here. Then you're gonna add B3 to it, so you get good up here. But the thing is you don't add back more than when you took away since the sequence is decreasing.  Then you're gonna take something away. Then you're gonna add something back. Then you're gonna take something away and then it kind of plays this game of jump, jump above and below, and this will decrease over time. And so what happens is you're gonna see that there's some number line kind of sitting in the middle here, that this sum is just gonna jump above and below, above and below, above and below. And that number is the limit here, this S value. And so it's really kind of nice this Alternating Harmonic Series can be convergent by the Alternating Series test. It's a lot easier for an Alternating Series to be convergent than as opposed to just a positive series because the negatives can cancel out some of the positive values here. So now let's consider the sequence here where B sub n, this is our absolute sequence, the absolute value of the a n's here. If we ignore the negative signs, we're gonna get three n over four n minus one. Does this sequence satisfy the conditions of the Alternating Series test? So does it decrease towards zero? Well, the first thing to notice here is that this sequence right here is a balanced rational function. It looks like three n over four n. So as you take the limit as n goes to infinity, this thing is gonna look like three fourths. That's not zero. So it turns out that you can't use the Alternating Series test to determine convergence. Now this is something that I want to make very clear about the Alternating Series test. The Alternating Series test can never show divergence. The Alternating Series test never shows divergence. I said that twice now. The Alternating Series test can only show convergence if the assumptions are satisfied. Now one thing important about the Alternating Series test is that if you look at the second condition, if condition two fails, that this sequence does not go towards zero, then in this situation that if you fail the second condition, then what I would actually recommend to you is then use the divergence test. Because the divergence test says that if a series is convergent, then it must have been that the sequence went to zero.  And so that's actually a real, the divergence test and the Alternating Series test are good friends because if the second condition fails, then that actually activates the divergence test.  This is a divergent series. Now it's not divergent by the Alternating Series test. It's divergent by the divergence test. So do know that distinction. The two things kind of go hand in hand. And typically speaking, if an Alternating Series is divergent, it's because it's divergent by the test for divergence. Now there is a potential exception going on here. So as an example, notice that you could have a situation like the following. Here's again our x-axis. And suppose our Alternating Series that, sorry, let's look at the Alternating Sequence. Let's say a sequence does the following thing. You have the first term and the next term gets smaller. So it looks like it's decreasing, but then it decides to increase again and then it gets smaller and then smaller. And then it decides to increase again and get smaller and smaller. And then it gets increased again and smaller and smaller. And then increase again, smaller and smaller. So what you're gonna see here if you draw the dots is that it decreases and then it gets this increase and it decreases and then it gets an increase and then it decreases and then you get an increase and then decrease and it kind of does something like that. Or another way of drawing is what if your sequence kind of behaves in the following way? So it's oscillating, but what if the amplitude of the oscillation dampers over time, right? So this would be something like the function y equals e to the negative, negative x sign. Sign of x, that's not exactly true because I think does go below the x-axis. You could potentially add some quantity to it, but just sort of as a suggestion, what if we are oscillating above the x-axis but the oscillation dampers with time? So this would be an example of a sequence that does converge towards zero, right? It does converge towards zero, but maybe it's not decreasing because with these convergence tests, like the comparison test, the integrals test and the alternating series test, in order to apply them, it only has to be eventually true. Like if our sequence was like, hey, I'm doing whatever I want, but then eventually it's like, okay, I will decrease towards zero, right? Something like that. In that situation, it's eventually a positive decreasing sequence going towards zero. That would be okay. That absolute sequence we could apply the alternating series test towards. But this one, because of this oscillation happens forever, you couldn't use that. So the alternating series test would not apply in this situation. But the good news is I don't believe once we'll ever see this example because this one's a little bit harder to determine. Not all of the tests that we will learn about convergence in this class, it's not exhaustive. There are other series that can be difficult to describe. We're gonna do the more simpler ones. So the more simple ones grammar there, whoops. Let's do one more example as we conclude this video here. So let's take the series where it equals one to infinity. It's alternating because you see this negative one to the N plus one there. And then you have this series right here, N squared over NQ plus one. So we just have to figure out, does this thing decrease towards zero? I actually recommend looking at the limit as N goes to infinity first here, N squared over NQ plus one. If you look at just the leading terms on top and bottom, you're gonna end up with N squared over N cubed, which this thing will look like the limit as N goes to infinity of one over N, that does converge towards zero. So the first check is done. And in fact, this right here is telling me that my sequence N squared over N cubed plus one, this is approximately the same thing as the harmonic sequence one over N. And so this sequence does, it does decrease towards zero. And so because these things are asymptotically the same, I know for a fact that the sequence in question here will be eventually, it will eventually, it will eventually decrease towards zero. And so because of that observation, the alternating series test implies that this series is convergent. So we don't necessarily have to get into all the grime and muck about the decreasing in zero, because it just has to eventually be decreasing towards zero here. Now one could go through the details of calculating the derivative right, because if F of X equals X squared over X cubed plus one, then it's derivative by the quotient rule. I'm gonna kind of jump over the steps there. You can get that this will be two X minus X to the fourth over X cubed plus one to the fourth there, a squared, excuse me. This thing would be your first derivative as the bottom will always be positive. Where does the top go to zero? When is it less than zero? Two X minus X to the fourth is less than zero. And so as you try to like factor that thing, you get X times two minus X cubed is less than zero. So you get X, it's gonna switch sides at zero. That's a number to consider. You get like the cube root of two. And so you can see that this sequence, with a little bit more analysis that I'm omitting here, is that when X is greater than the cube root of two, you're gonna see that this sequence is, that the derivative is negative. It's also true when you're less than zero, but that's not an option. Given that we have to start at one right here. But when you get past the cube root of two, with the cube root of two is one point something. By the time you hit two, it is our sequence, our derivative will be negative, and hence the sequence is decreasing. And so that's what I was saying earlier about eventually, right? So I really, like we introduced with the limit comparison test, this idea of asymptotic comparison, right? A limit comparison. N squared over N cubed plus one is essentially the same thing as one over N when things get big. And so in terms of eventually, N squared over N cubed plus one will be eventually the same thing as one over N with a very small margin of error. So it'll eventually be decreasing and it'll eventually go to zero. And so use those asymptotic limit calculations we did with the limit comparison test to also help you out here. Because by means to be proper, we could do this derivative calculation, but this is a mess. When we can actually see asymptotically that these two are gonna be the same and this one was much easier to do. We did it above on this very video right here. So use the alternating series test to determine the convergence of the series compared to the harmonic sequence here to determine that it's decreasing towards zero. And you actually do need to check these assumptions are valid because if the assumptions are not valid, then we don't actually know if it's convergent or not. We have to check the assumptions to make sure the alternating series test actually applies in this context.


Hey there, it's Sandy Allknock. I am sharing the new Colorado Craft Company release. I missed the blog hop a couple of weeks ago. A long story on that one, but they want me to share a little fun deal. It's written up over on the blog, so make sure you check that out. But I wanted to show you some cards that I made with these beachy stamps showing how not to make them beachy. So let's get started. Since I'm working with colored pencil today, I thought I'd break out something. I just got myself a black wing pencil sharpener. And this one is a bit unique. It's a little more expensive than others. It's, I think it was like $16, $17 and it comes with extra blades. So basically you get a couple of sharpeners in one, but it's a two-step sharpener. It takes quite a while to get this thing working with your pencils because it needs to be in the right shape. So the first hole gets the whole point into the right shape to make it a nice long point. And when it comes out of the sharpener, it has a really funky end on it because the very tip goes straight. It's only sharpening that the rest of that. It's sharpening basically the wood. And then you put it in the other hole. And that's when it starts sharpening the lead and making that really pointy. I had trouble doing this with my colored pencils. This one's made, I believe, for their graphite pencils. So I do want to try it on those. I want to see if there's a difference in how hard or easy it is. But holy cow is that a sharp point. I really like this one also because it's really small. And I wanted it to be able to travel with me and be in a kit and that sort of thing. But I will report back later with my assessment of how good it is or isn't. But I took a quite, quite a long time to sharpen all my pencils for these projects. So this one is the stamp set with the bunnies on the beach. And I put sweaters on the rabbits. Dad has a vest and mom has sleeves.  So yeah, when you start coloring over things, you lose some of the elements. You could put a cup of coffee in his hand, which would be easier to draw than a pair of glasses. Because it was just way too hard to go around them with the color. But their chairs have a little bit of fall checkerboard pattern on them. I thought that would be kind of fallish for them. And then the baby bunnies are supposed to be under an umbrella on the beach with all their beachy toys. But I decided to give them leaves instead.  You can use this kind of technique with a lot of your different stamps, put down a bunch of different colors and clump them like keep them in little clusters rather than making polka dots. Some dark colors, some light colors, leave some yellow opening so you have some bright color and then use a blending solution and blending stump to mush it around a bit. When you have all those clumped colors, it really does look like leaves. When I was using the implied line technique for these cards, I have to use my pencils and get really close to those edges. Since I don't have a black line, I stamped it in a very light line, which implies there's lines there, but there's not actually stamped lines there. And it ends up looking like a drawing as opposed to looking like it's got stamps in it. So that's what I'm kind of doing here is mushing it all around and getting close to El Bunnies. This one was super fun.  I just put two lines down for the glass and then handles on them. And then some leaves falling from the sky. So I got to get this onto a card. If I get it on a card before I leave for my vacation, I will have it on the blog. I'm doing this video before I leave and I'm kind of in a frantic panic to get ready to go see mom. So there will be more information on the blog, including some stuff from CCC. So be sure to check that out and find out what the deal is that's going on right now. So for this stamp set, it was one stamp set that had a whole bunch of animals in a row and they all had beachy things in their hands or their paws, I guess. And I just replaced them with Christmas packages and a gift bag. And I made the, I think that was a fishing net. I just turned that into a banner with a Christmas tree on it. And I didn't spend time filming all of this because this was a couple of hours worth of coloring for all these critters. They have jackets and sweaters and vests and hats. It was a blast. I felt like I was playing dress up with paper dolls or something. Super fun. You can do this with any stamp set, make them Christmas characters. And if you do, then tag me and let me know. I have one more to show you that is a bit easier than these. These were very complex images, but the cats in those three sets are pretty simple. So I stamped three of the cats and then I stamped the other two cats in between. The only thing I masked off was that one little paw that had a crab, I think in it, because I didn't want to crab in this. But then I stamped the sea items, all the little tiny stamps. I stamped one on each one of them on their chest. So I could draw sweaters. Oh my gosh, crazy cats in Christmas sweaters. I kind of picture them maybe they're performing a show for Christmas or something. That might be it. It was just it was a hoot to think about putting little dress up costumes on them. So I just had a good time. I don't know about you, but I tell stories to myself while I'm drawing things and I talk to the characters that are on there. So I've given them hats and then I colored some of the items on their shirts and then color the cats themselves. None of this required masking because when I get to the cat's tails, I can just decide which one's going to be in front, which one's going to be in back. And that way they can have all their hands intertwined. Some will have their one paw in front and one will have it in the back, that sort of thing. And then I flattened out the bottom of all their feet because I wanted their feet to be standing in the snow, like it's deep snow. I put a little heavy line across each of their feet to make it look like there's a hole there where they're standing. And then I added a snow line in the back that's higher above their foot line. So it looks like there's some snow behind them. And that let me have room to put a little shadow just a very light shadow underneath of each of their bodies. And that cute.  Cats in sweaters. I don't know what they're doing. Maybe you can tell me in the comments what the cats are doing. Are they having a party? Are they performing? Are they just celebrating? I don't know. But go see if I made cards out of them by now on the blog. And I will see you guys later. Go get a deal from CCC. And I'll see you next week.


The meeting of the full board of commissioners. We. Have the short agenda, but it's definitely still without a depth, depth of content. So. Curious if there are any additions to. The agenda as it stands. Okay. Hearing none. I do note that there are some members of the public on. If there are any questions, please let us know if you've had anything that you want to comment on. Or any questions you can also, you can raise your hand or comment in the chat box. And John can pull you over for questions. If there's anything. Raise right now. Sorry, I didn't. I didn't hear that. Looks like we don't have any members of the public. I'm just. Okay. Thanks John. All right. Moving on to the consent agenda. We do have a couple items that we are going to. Pull off for discussion. So the executive director update will be pulled off and the capital projects update will be pulled off for discussion. Are there any other items that. Commissioners. I wanted to also pull off the annual organization. Okay. And the annual organization of my mom. Okay. So 3.4, 3.7. And then any other items that commissioners would like to remove further discussion. Okay. So we will. Any objection to approving the consent agenda as it stands. Use my phone. Okay. All right. So the consent agenda. And we'll start with a discussion of item 3.4. Next before we'll discuss the items that we're pulling off the consent agenda before we move to. The executive session. So we'll start with the executive director update. So Sarah, maybe. You can just walk us through that. And then further items that we're pulling off for discussion. Okay. Certainly. And please let me know if there's any difficulty in hearing me. I'm also on my phone, which is unusual. So this month's director's update was. Quite a packed. So I know. Paul stable. You had a couple of questions on particular items. Yeah. Yeah. So the question was just the discussion about potential sighting and solar panels at our facilities. I wanted to make sure I understand that a little more. My concerns there are. I just want to make sure, especially if anything cited on the landfill that the cost. That if something goes wrong, we have to get them removed that the. Whoever is putting the panels up or gonna bear the full cost of it. So I just want to make sure that. If that happens. So I also question. I mean, a lot of that landfill is north facing slope. So I just question whether it's, you know, that, that good site for it, but, but I know there are other facilities too. I just want to make sure that, you know, should there be any maintenance required? We are. Make sure we're covered. Yes. Thank you. I was just going to ask you about the, the, the. Many. Solar providers in Vermont. And it sparked our interest in putting out an RFP to see if there was. What kind of interest there would be in. Leasing some of our property. And I know that Leslie. No, he has talked about this for quite a long time. Former commissioner to be. I had also talked about this for quite some time. So with the coming of public entity, we looked at how we could do that. And there had been a process going away. There was some. A little bit of urgency in understanding. What our potential options might be. So. The, the one presentation that we had did show. A significant. Array on the, both the close land. That was the two options. A very large all encompassing array. of the the roof surfaces that we have available specifically at the Mountain Compost, the ASP building, they were also looking at Essex drop off center, but there may be others as well. And it was enough of a presentation to spark the interest in learning more. I did forward the presentation to Commissioner Malty. She and her husband have a lot of experience in this area. And they just confirm my sense that we needed to go out and look for potential proposals. So we didn't want to go with the first, isn't the first option to the board for consideration. We want to see what is available out there and to have those questions asked and answered specifically about the landfill and knowing that, you know, over time, we will have to continue to maintain the closed landfills. If there are any issues, Paul, to your point, we would need to be able to get at those locations and do repair. Any other just general so that was those questions were not addressed in that brief presentation just because it was too too short and there was just not enough time to do that. So in order to get more information before we bring something to you, that's where we realize we needed to have a more formal process. So those are exactly the questions that we would want to have answered. And to ensure, as you say, that that any any costs that would be specifically related to the array obviously will be taken care of. And that if we did need to go in there and do any any kind of work, if there was a catastrophic failure, for example, you know, of the landfill, what would be our liability to to the people who are releasing the space and to the equipment? There's a whole host of questions that we would need to to discuss. So it was basically just a letting you know that there is some interest in growing interest in using some of this space. And Paul, you're right, it would be interesting to know because so so much of it is north facing, you know, doesn't really make any sense. The risk would not be on the district. So it all be on the company. As far as getting there, you know, the the the kilowatt hours that they would need to be generated. But there's a lot more that we need to learn. So this was just a first stab. And it was, like I said, interesting enough to to me and Tim and Josh to say, let's let's issue this RFP, see if we can get some answers to the questions, bring that back to the executive board and the full board if it seems to be promising. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. The other the other issue that I was concerned about wanted to hear more about regarding the Richmond drop off center and the town's RFP. My question, a couple of questions there is, does our lease specify how much lead time we have to receive before we're we vacate the process premises and how much equipment and or facilities, you know, structures will we need to remove? Should should we need to do that? Yeah. So to back them again, some more context and information for board members who may be new. We generally for our drop off centers for all of them, but Williston, we lease the property from the host town for a dollar a year. We enter into what will eventually be 20 year payments they in blocks of five year lease agreements. So it's a five year lease that we seek three five year renewals. Generally, those those have gone without a hitch. This particular instance in Richmond, the lease expired last December, and the town wanted to take another look at their options. So they requested a one year lease instead. So we are currently in a one year lease for the property enrichment. And the town has gone put out an RFP to haulers who may be interested in operating transfer station at that location. So the they basically model the RFP directly off of our contract or off of our lease requiring everything that we currently collect to be collected by a potential new vendor and new manager of the site. And they had as an option operating a facility similar to a reuse zone. They did not make that a mandatory component of the RFP. I did question that with the talent administrator. So we have some conversations about that. We do intend to bid on on the site. We will we will submit a proposal to the town and it is due on June 29. It will be publicly read. So we will know on June 29. How many bidders there are and what the cost proposals are. And as I mentioned to the town administrator. I think, you know, it's great that the town is doing their due diligence. And I think it's a good move. And I'm also I thank him for doing this in May and not in October. And I felt that was beneficial. And as far as how much time we require to vacate. I would have to double check to see if there's a specific time in this lease. Generally, we like 60 days. No less than 60 days. We obviously will know on June 29, June 30, if we will be awarded the next set of next lease, which is again, the same terms that we have. So five years with three options to renew for five years each. At that point, once we know if we are not being awarded the contract, we will then draft our decommissioning plan. We would anticipate remaining on site through the end of this lease through December 31. However, we could negotiate with the town to vacate sooner if that was the desire. So we would again, immediately begin that that crafting that decommissioning plan. Everything that is on site within the fence, including the fence is CSWD property. So we would be removing everything. What would remain obviously would be the the pavement. We did bring new power into the site. We would not take it back to the old inefficient power, but everything else would be removed. All right, I appreciate it. I just first I'd heard. So I wanted to understand that better. I do now. Thank you very much. Thank you. I see. I think I saw Josh wave his hand. So I don't know if you want to add anything before we take questions from commissioners. Just a quick addition. I just pulled up the lease and read it. There's there's no requirement if the town wants to terminate the contract for time wise or if we're going to leave. It's only a requirement when we re up that we request within 12 months that we want to re up a five year no more than 12 months, no less than 30 days. And as Sarah mentioned, the property, our lease terms indicate that we return the site back to the condition that it existed in prior to the inception of the lease, unless otherwise arranged with Richmond. So again, we'd most likely leave the asphalt in the event that they wanted it, but everything else would probably go. And I'm going to go to Logan next. Thanks. Just a quick clarification. I think there's a little more nuance about like how we got into this one year extension. There was like a I think in like it was an honest oversight and mistake in terms of when we had to like renew the contract. And it just came up in a really awkward way in terms of the ongoing discussions around the relationship between the town and the district. It wasn't just the town going rogue and being like, we're just going to do a year. So I just wanted to appreciate that there was a little more to it than that. Otherwise, that jives with my understanding. Sarah has described the process between the town and the district. Thank you. Thank you, Logan. You're right. And normally, again, because it's it is nothing really much changes from year to year with the terms and the town was interested in looking at different options for reuse zones. And it simply is not an option for the district. So I thought it was a great idea to, you know, for the town to be able to take a very deliberate and thoughtful look and approach and understanding what else might be available to them. So so I thought it was a great approach and to thank you for that clarification. Is this the first time that a town with a drop off center has asked or put out an RFP for other options? It's a good question. I believe so. I'm not sure if there's anyone from my staff who is would have more historical knowledge regarding there probably would be Lee Turrey. If I don't know if Lee is on, I can't tell. But to my knowledge, it has has not happened this way. I saw Tim's hand next to you mentioned that we the district intends to submit a proposal. I was wondering if you could tell me kind of what that decision making process was? Who's is that a a board decision and kind of what what the logic is behind submitting the bid? So the the logic behind it was to continue service in Richmond. And Tammy, you're right. I shouldn't assume that it's the will of the board to continue to operate a drop off center anywhere. I was going under the impression from based on the conversations that were had at the drop off center retreat several years ago that the locations where we currently operate are the locations where we want to continue to operate. But you bring up a good point. It could be something that worthy of discussion at the board level that discussion would need to be had at this meeting and the next meeting. If we are to submit a proposal, the next meeting will be June 23rd. So if there's conversations regarding not submitting, we certainly want to hash that out between now and then. But that's a good point. Thank you. Brian, I don't know if you've got any recommendations there. I guess my just from a high level, I look at the drop off centers as being something that are very heavily subsidized. We've kind of got the similar, you know, we did a deep dive on the organic facility, and we restructured that entire operation. And we are subsidizing it to a much less less extent right now. And I guess I feel the same way about drop off centers. This may be a good opportunity to go ahead and shed resources and to go ahead and put our budget in better shape. And I certainly wouldn't feel that I don't feel that the the district should be put in a position where we're spending time and resources to provide them a rich service either as a resident or another town. I'm a bit, I find that a bit disappointing. I would prefer not to spend any resources getting getting a proposal together. Thanks for your thoughts, Tim. I do think that, you know, Sarah, it does warrant a bit of a financial review to see what we are. What that would mean to remove the DOC from our series of services. Also, what that might mean in terms of services that that, you know, could be lost from from, you know, the it's not just the Richmond municipality, but the surrounding towns. I mean, I know when you ski doesn't have a DOC and that we rely heavily on our surrounding DOC. So it's, you know, it's a broader infrastructure thing and not just simply Richmond. So I would be interested to see if we have any data on that as well. So we're not thinking about it in a vacuum. Because it will, it will impact a great the greater community and not just the community of Richmond. Whatever decision is made either way. But it, you know, Tim, you raise good points that we should look at take a moment and look at the financial implications as well. But certainly not to do it in a vacuum. I mean, the point of the municipal services are to meet needs of the community that aren't able to be met otherwise. So great questions. I do see Alan's hand. So we'll go to you next. Tara, you've gone down some thought process with respect to this. We're, you know, leasing for a dollar a year at other places. I'm sure that vendors are probably going to be competitive in a financial way. And that's probably their selection process. But were you planning on increasing the dollar amount that we might be compensating Richmond for the property? Yeah, the at the risk of providing too much information to a potential competitors. Our thought is to provide the service that we're providing now. Thank you. Oh, go ahead. Okay, thanks. I would just point I think there's a political ramifications as well if we were to appear in the public to be withdrawing a service from the district or from from the county at a time very soon when we'll be going back to the voters asking them to support a lot of expensive infrastructure for the CSWD. I think it's very important that CSWD support the towns and the the DOC's as they currently exist. So I would be against any move to pull or withdraw or not bid on a Richmond DOC. We'll go to Abby next. I just want to really agree with that since I think this whole thing has come about from the loss of the reuse center. And yeah, I really agree a lot with Paul's comment. Thank you, Paul, Saber. You can go ahead. Yeah, I just want to say I fully support Richmond's, you know, right to go out for a bit. I think that's great. I think we should put in a bid, you know, and I would also point out that if we have to pull up stakes, it'll cost us money too. So, you know, we have to look at the balance on balance. But I agree with what Paul said and Abby said in terms of I think it is our our responsibility to provide support where we can to our member communities. So Thank you. Any other commissioners want to share? Leslie, I see your hand. And one there was a time I'm not exactly sure when when maybe it was the time that we were looking at the redo of Heinsberg that the district looked at a number of options for adding new or replacing existing DOC's. Is there any data from that exercise that would be worthwhile sharing as we decide how to approach this particular situation? Yes, I think this conversation has been very, very helpful to me. I think what I would like to do is to, as you say, Leslie, go back to some of that information we did. John Dore did a study that showed kind of where showed coverage and where our population center is and kind of seeing where people are coming in from. We don't have have extensive data on where, you know, people live who are using each of the DOC's. We don't collect that data. We've only done some studies here and there. We do I do know that Jericho residents do utilize the Richmond Dropoff Center fairly heavily. I heard that first hand at the select board meeting the other night. And so I know that it's simply it's not simply a Richmond centered Dropoff Center. But we do have some analysis from that work. It is now probably about three years old. But we should take a look at that information that we presented at the board retreat back in 2018. Make sure that that is still relevant. And I would propose that we bring that information back to the next meeting and share that with the board. And at that point, if if it makes sense to submit a bid, there is still time. If it doesn't, we can have that conversation. And we would really at that point be either putting the town on notice that we intend to not continue. Or the town could also withdraw the the RFP they could choose to not award a contract. And then we would be back kind of in under the conditions of existing lease that we're in right now. So there's nothing compelling us to put in a proposal. The thought was that it's a show of good, good faith and interest. But you're right, we do want to make sure that that is I think the will of the board to be able to, you know, make sure that if we are going entering into a new situation that it's it fits in with the strategy overall. So this has been a very helpful conversation for me. If I could, if I could say also, I would have been much more comfortable discussing this in executive session, because it does have a contractual aspect of it. And particularly with the fact that the proposal is a competitive bid situation. I would hope that when we discuss this at the next meeting, some of this can be in an executive session. We we have to look at all our options. And we have to look at the a relocation cost. If that's something that we want to consider. There are a lot of parts to this. It's not going to be simple. We do have estimates for decommissioning. We have that from Heinsberg. So we know how much we spent there. So those those figures are are recent and relevant. But you're right, I'll have to, I'll just double check with Thomas to see if that's something that is relevant for executive session. possibly, I'm not sure that it necessarily meets. I'll look into it. And Sarah, I'm curious if there's the ability to have the DOC attendance, the Richmond DOC attendance begin to ask where the patrons are the customers are coming from so that we can gather some anecdotal data, even if it's not going to be statistically significant, but it will be the most recent and most site specific data that that we can get in in the timeframe that we're looking at. So if that's possible, I know that I would have interest in seeing that. Yeah, we can do that. Any other conversation on on this item for now? Okay, great. It sounds like we can move on to the next item. Which is there anything else from the executive directors? memo that folks would like to discuss? Okay, hearing none. We can move on to the sorry, one second. To the capital projects update, Josh. I had one particular question. But if Sarah, if you want to offer an update or anything with that 3.7 was first, that was the annual organizational meeting. Thank you. Yes, 3.7. So sorry, this should probably be pretty quick. So again, this is either the second or third year in road that we're we're using this system for the annual organizational meeting. We that is we're required by our charter to annually elect our slate of officers. And that is done at the meeting the last meeting in June, which is June 23, that annual organizational meeting is held first as the first order of business before the regular meeting. So that meeting will start at six, and the regular meeting will start whenever the annual organizational meeting is concluded. So for nominations for the positions that are elected, the is the executive board, the officers are the chair, the vice chair. And then we also elect treasurer and secretary. So those who may self nominate, or if you feel sheepish about self nominating, someone else may certainly nominate you. If you are interested in nominating someone, please do talk to them first, and make sure that they are willing to serve. So you can email those nominations to me, we will put together the slate that will then be distributed in the board packet. Self nominations will also be accepted at the at the meeting. So we will not close nominations until everyone has a chance to self nominate in if they would like to. Let's see. So there are eight questions. The finance committee is appointed by the chair. It is helpful. It doesn't miss the finance committee doesn't need to be appointed at that meeting. It can be appointed at a subsequent meeting. It normally has been appointed at that meeting. Previously, we used to elect, but it actually is not necessarily an electable committee. It is an appointed committee. So if you are interested in serving on the finance committee, please also let me know that and then I can let the candidates for chair know who may be interested in serving on the finance committee. And then the other committee that we do elect is the executive board. The executive board is five members. And the chair is an automatic member of the executive board. So there will be four additional seats available for that for that subcommittee. So you can self nominate for any of the individual officer positions and or for the executive board for election. And then you can let me know of your interest in serving on the finance committee for appointment. And I do want to encourage folks that, you know, I started on the finance committee and I don't consider myself a numbers person, but I learned a great deal about the organization. And I believe that that was a significant opportunity to just have time to ask additional questions to understand the structure of the budgets, how and how things have changed within the last few years to improve our fiscal management. So, you know, I do want to encourage folks to consider that or and or the executive committee. You know, I think that we try pretty, pretty hard to keep the time reasonable for those committees, typically not to extend over an hour and a half to two hours. Some of the ad hoc committees, you know, depackaging might last a little bit longer depending on the topic. But for the most part, the time commitment tries to stay pretty reasonable. So if you haven't taken that on, I encourage you to and if if you're already participating and want to continue, then, you know, I think that all helps ensure that the board is informed and engaged and just lends itself to better conversation when we reach these full board meetings as well. So there's my pitch. Brian, I have a question. Are alternate commissioners eligible to serve on any of these in any of these positions, or is it just the regular commissioners? Yeah, so we we have that question asked a couple of years ago. And so I asked Thomas and the full. So I say primary commissioner because alternate commissioners are considered commissioners in every every way with the exception of voting if the primary commissioner is an attendance at a meeting. So they have all the rights to all of the materials to participate in ad hoc committees. And I would I will double check with Thomas, but I believe to also be able to participate on the finance committee. The executive board is an elected board. So for the elected positions, those must be primary commissioners. Any other questions? All right. And Sarah, just one last clarification. So outside of expressing interest, there is no other formal documents that need to be submitted to to put your hat in the ring, essentially. Correct. Just an email to me. Okay, great. If there's nothing else on that, then we can just move to 3.8. The capital project updates. And you said you had a question for Josh. Yeah, I'm going to scroll down. So see if I can jump to it. One second. I think Josh, my primary question for you was what the return on investment is estimated to be for installing the installation of the waterline? Great question. I don't think we've performed that yet. The idea came about when we were discussing the expansion of the ODF, and then it got to the point where we know we're going to be looking to put a morphin on Redmond Road and then an administrative building. So we can either I've got about $400,000 earmarked in capital for the waterline, because it's going to go about a quarter mile. We could put four production wells in, but those would cost between, you know, $40,000 and $80,000 each, where our waterline would would provide us, you know, municipal water. I so long, long winded answer. I haven't performed that yet on that. And Josh, we do have line items in our budgets for GMC to haul water down the road, because that's currently what we're doing now is we are having multiple, so we hire a company, they bring a water tanker down to the nearest hydrant, they fill up the tanker, they drive it down the road to us, they you know, pump it out. So we do have those figures I off the top of my head can't recall how much they are, it was I don't know if Dan is on the line. In some years, it's the cost of the water for gallons between 10 and 30 times more to put it in a tanker truck versus getting it from a municipal waterline. So that was, that was one of the drivers that we initially kind of pushed this project. I know that at one point we're talking about it potentially costing certainly over $50,000 a year, just to move water less than a quarter of a mile. So we can double check that and see it that would be just for that one facility. Nevermind, you know, then you add on like you said, the production wells. The the MRF should the board approve that project is going to need a very sophisticated and significant fire suppression system. So whether that's water based or no, not sure yet. We have also seen in MRF's some dust suppression systems, which use a fine mist. So, you know, whether or not that would be something we would want to include, but that obviously would need a very safe stream of water. But it really is is for the ODF for the organic diversion facility. So that again, we do have that line item in the budget. We can verify that number. Yeah, and the reason why I ask is just this second to last sentence of the addition will of the water line will reduce current ODF operational costs. So that's, I was just curious how that was playing out in what the forecast for return would would be. So that's where that came from is, you know, not having to purchase water and we're restricted by times of the year. If we need water in early March, and it's below 32 degrees, it's very difficult to get water out of fire hydrant at that point. So that, you know, in pairs are operations as well. So and there's no there's also risk that comes along with pretty production wells in, you know, your production wells are above 10 gallons a minute. And in our area, the wells range from one gallon a minute to 25 gallons a minute. So that's, you know, you run the risk of not having enough water, even if you spend the money to put a well in. Any other questions from commissioners on capital? Besides water line, are you anticipating putting in? It's running the main downs and eight inch water line. And it'll come straight on to the facility. We'll have an outlet for the the pumper truck. So it'll just feed directly into that, which also is an operational efficiency because the way we pull water out now, we have to close the gate. So that's, there's some there's some synergies we're going to see with this thing. Are they exploring different options of installation, whether it's open dig or directional drilling? We're actually going back and forth in that right now. The town of Williston has softly requested directional drilling that anything that goes under the road. But there's no requirement in town ordinances to do that. So we're just kind of investigating what that cost difference is right now. We've got a Du Bois and King working on it for us. They've been doing a great job. Thank you. The Dan is estimating that 30,000 a year is is likely. So that's what we're budgeting upwards of $30,000 a year for bringing water down the line in a truck. Okay, thank you. Anything else from commissioners? Okay. Sarah or Amy, I believe we can move to executive session if you want to read the language. Sure, you read it. Motion that the board of commissioners of the Chittenden Solid Waste District go into executive session to discuss contract negotiations with respect to the Organics Diversion Facility and confidential attorney client communications to provide legal services where premature general public knowledge would clearly place the district, its member municipalities and other public bodies or persons involved at a substantial disadvantage and to permit CSWD staff and attorneys to be present for this session. So moved Jericho. Second, Byron Lincoln. All in favor. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay, we'll move to executive session. Thank you. Amy, if you can let me know when we have a quorum, please. We do. We do have a few folks that haven't joined. Okay, I think we have everybody back. Great. I'll entertain a motion to leave the executive session. So moved Milton. Second, Byron Richmond. All those in favor. Bye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay, we are back in the public forum. At this point, I would entertain a motion to read the, read the resolution in the executive packet ES4. Sarah, I don't, if you would mind. Certainly. Whereas Chinden Solid Waste District, CSWD or the district is a union municipal district with an operating purpose of providing for the efficient, economical and environmentally sound management of solid waste generated by its member municipalities and their residents, whereas the state of Vermont has adopted a universal recycling law Act 148 that bans the disposal and landfills of food scraps and organic compostable kitchen waste. Whereas in order to support the district's member municipalities and their residents and businesses, with respect to Act 148, the district has determined that the district's member municipalities and their residents would benefit from an efficient and environmentally sound intermediate facility for organic waste diversion. In addition to the district's Green Mountain compost facilities, whereas the district entered into discussions with Williston Organics Recovery Facility LLC and affiliate of Vanguard Renewables LLC, the operator, regarding the district's leasing of a parcel of land for the development, construction and operation of a food de-packaging and organic waste recovery facility, the facility, to collect, de-package and process food waste and other organic materials that could not otherwise be safely and economically diverted for food consumption by humans or agricultural use, including consumption by animals. Whereas the Development Committee of the Board of Commissioners of the District, the board, has worked with the district's management and providing input, guidance and support for the development, construction and operation of the proposed facility and reviewing a ground lease between the district and the operator for the leasing of a portion of the district's property on Redmond Road, the ground lease, and a project development agreement between the district and the operator for the construction and operation of the facility, the project development agreement, forms of which have been submitted to the board. Now, therefore, we resolved that the terms and conditions of the ground lease and the project development agreement are hereby approved, and it is further resolved that the executive director of the district is hereby authorized and empowered to execute and deliver on behalf of the district, one, the ground lease and the project development agreement, each between the district and the operator in the forms which have been submitted to the board with such insertions and modifications and additions that she determines to be necessary and appropriate and otherwise to be in the interest of the district and, two, all other documents and instruments necessary or convenient in connection with the ground lease and the project development agreement. All with such modifications and insertions, as the executive director deems necessary, and in the district's best interest and it is further resolved that the executive director of the district is hereby authorized and empowered to further develop the operations plan for the facility and to execute and deliver on behalf of the district, such operations plan as the executive director deems in the district's best interests and it is further resolved that the district is authorized and empowered to apply for and obtain all municipal, state and federal permits, approvals and consents necessary in connection with the development, construction, use, occupancy and operation of the facility, including without limitation, zoning permits, subdivision permits, Act 250 permits, solid waste facility certification and other environmental permits, building permits and fire and safety permits. And it is further resolved that the executive director is further authorized and empowered to take our cause to be taken, all further actions as the executive director in her discretion may be necessary or desirable in carrying out the intent and purpose of the foregoing resolutions. So move, South Burlington. Second, I can note. Any discussion? I just want to say as a member of the committee, I've said it before, but I really feel staff and our council have done a great job addressing all the concerns I had going into this. And so I do feel we are protected from any foreseeable issue that might occur. So kudos to staff and council. Cheers. Tim. I just want to thank the committee, especially for all the hard work they've done on this, it's just a fabulous job. Yes, thank you. It definitely has been a lot of effort to get here and a lot of commitment. So I appreciate all the efforts and also the confidence in the board for appointing the Joint Development Committee to their roles as well. So thank you for that. At this point, we will take a vote if there's no further discussion. If you can turn on your cameras for this portion and for purposes of documentation, we will raise hands to show our voice and physical vote. So all those in favor, please raise your hand. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any oppose? Any abstain? Motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I believe we are on to any other order items of business. Paul? I just have one thing. I was very troubled to hear about the leachate spill at Coventry. I think this is a really bad thing. I hope that Cassella will take corrective actions so that it can never happen again. It sounded like a significant spill. And I just want to register my concern with that. Thank you for noting that. I just have two quick reminders. If you have not submitted your bios for the website or even taken, please do so. If you're not comfortable posting your photo, there are options for Sarah and the staff to post the logo of the municipality that you represent. So just to remove that barrier if that is one of the holdups. I think so far the bios that are posted are fantastic. I have really enjoyed learning about commissioners that I've been on this board with for a couple of years as well as those that are newer to the board. It's very cool. So if you haven't had a chance to take a look, I really encourage you to do so. It's impressive. And I think we should all be proud to be working together and to learn a little bit more about each other. So especially given that we've been on Zoom for so long and we don't really have that opportunity to have the informal connection before or after meetings. So it's kind of a cool way to have a chance to get to know each other a little bit better. So if you haven't done so, I highly encourage you to get your bio in so that we can fill out all of the board and just pay credence to all of your volunteer work, all of your commitment to the district. So and then last reminder is the executive director evaluations are out. If you have questions or having trouble completing the Survey Monkey, please email me directly and Amy, Jewel, and we will troubleshoot that with you. If you would like to request a hard copy, be mailed to you, then we can do that as well. But we are trying to go digital and move into the 21st century with this. And so hopefully it goes well. First try. Are there any other orders of business? Bryn, can you let us know if you received our survey? Yes, I will. Okay. Bryn, I just had a question. Could Sarah update us on where things stand in terms of adoption of the upcoming year's budget with the towns? Yes, thank you. We are, the budget has adopted. We have, I have two more communities to go see. So that's it, just South Burlington and Burlington. And then otherwise we are good to go for fiscal 22. Yeah, I think at least for Winooski, there weren't really any concerns or any questions and having full board approval, unanimous approval, just really resonated with them quite significantly. So, you know, thanks to Sarah, the team and all of the commissioners for your work on that as well. At this point, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. That's my move. Second. Here's second from John Milton. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Thank you so much. Have a great evening and safe and happy Memorial Day weekend. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.


Okay, let's talk about systemic racism. Now, before we get a systemic racism, what is racism? What is racism? So I want to read you a section out of Ayn Rand's article on racism because I can't think of anything that is better in terms of defining and describing what racism is and how low it actually is. I can't read you the whole article. You should definitely go read it.  It's definitely an article you should read. It's in the book, Ayn Rand's book, The Virtue of Selfishness. And here's what Ayn Rand says about racism. Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social, or political significance to a man's genetic lineage. The notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry, which means in practice that a man is to be judged not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. Isn't she brilliant? Racism claims that the content of a man's mind, not as cognitive apparatus, but its content is inherited. That a man's convictions, values, and character are determined before he is born by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman's version of the doctrine of innate ideas or of inherited knowledge, which is being thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men. Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attributes which distinguishes man from all other living species, his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man's life, reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predisposition. Predestination, sorry, predestination. Now that's brilliant as all Einren's writing is. It's truly amazing. But racism is judging a person, not by his own character and actions, but by the color of his skin, or his ethnic group, or his race, however you want to define race, I think race is a bogus concept, whatever you want to define race. By his genes, by his ancestors, by where he comes from in the world, by where he was born, by fill in the blank, not by his own character and actions. So it's judging a person based in this context, in the context we're talking right now of the riots out there, by the color of his skin, let's say. Judging him, judging his worth, and evaluating him, you know, whether he gets a mortgage or not, you determine whether based on the color of his skin, whether the kind of treatment he gets in the police, based on the color of his skin, whether you trust him or not, based on the color of his skin, whether you employ him or not, based on the color of his skin, all of that is racism. So the question is, is there such a thing as systemic racism? Now what does systemic racism mean? So here, again, I am referring to Jonah Goldberg's article, which is excellent, by the way, speech is not violent. Jonah Goldberg generally is an excellent writer. I don't always agree with him much. I don't agree with him. He's a conservative, but one of the better conservatives. One of the conservatives I view in many respects as an ally, although in other respects is not, but in some respects as an ally. He writes, systemic racism, also called institutional racism, is a theoretical framework that says, a society can have deeply embedded racist mechanisms and ideas within it that yield racist results, treat people differently based on color of skin, for example. That's me. Even if the individuals working within it aren't racist. So all of us might not be racist, but because the way the laws and the institutions are structured, they discriminate against people based on race. Now here is a definition from somewhere that he cites, quote, systemic racism or institutional racism refers to how ideas of white supremacy are captured in everyday thinking at the systems level, taking in the big picture of how society operates rather than looking at one-on-one interactions. These systems can include laws and regulations, but also unquestioned social systems. Systemic racism can stem from education, hiring practices or access. Okay, that is pretty abstract. I looked at that and I said, what does any of that mean? How do they think this actually operates? I'm not ruling it out, but how does it happen? What is the mechanism by which there is a system that implements racism even though there are no racists behind it? So, luckily for me, somebody sent me a video where they're trying to basically provide an explanation of systemic racism. We could call this systemic racism for dummies. Simple, animated, right? Now, of course, the obvious way you could have systemic racism is if the laws were racist and we'll get to that. But I think what they mean is something more subtle because many of the laws have been changed to be significantly less racist, right? And indeed, maybe even what you'd call reverse racism. So, you know, in the 21st century, it's unlikely to be just the laws. They're implying that it's something more subtle, something much more than the laws. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning, any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, wins or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism, and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. Using the super chat, and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you step forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So, I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity. Go to www.uranbrookshow.com slash support or go to www.subscribestar.com www.uranbrookshow.com and make kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not showing the next...