Good afternoon and welcome to Senator Sanders' discussion with the municipalities across Vermont. My name is Maya Sutton-Smith, events coordinator for Senator Bernie Sanders. We are so glad to have you with us today to talk about how your towns are responding to and recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. If you are joining us via Webex, you can ask a question by clicking the raise hand button. For folks on the phones, you can press star three to ask a question. With that out of the way, it is my pleasure to introduce your Senator Bernie Sanders. Thank you all very much for joining me. Let me just click this thing here. There's a lot to go over and I very much appreciate Ted Brady and Carol Dawes and Scott Tucker and Christine Lott and competitors for being with us today. We have gone through the most difficult year as a nation in our lifetimes. With a little bit of luck as we get vaccinated, we're going to become an adipate. The President and Congress are doing what we can to make sure that we not only respond to the health care crisis within the pandemic, but the economic crisis as well. And all of you know that at 5 o'clock in the morning, by a 51 to 50 vote, the American Rescue Plan was passed $1.9 trillion, it's $1.3 billion coming into the state of Vermont. It's $198 million going into local governments. That's a lot of money. And one of the challenges clearly that we face as we proceed from the pandemic is how we balance the resources at the state level, the money is coming directly into local communities. And then on top of all of that, as you are all aware, there is a major debate going on right now about another major program. President calls it Build Back Better. And that will be an infrastructure program of hundreds of billions of dollars coming into traditional infrastructure roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants. On top of that, if I have anything to say about it, there will be a lot of money coming in for climate change and all of the ramifications of that. They will become money coming in for health care, for education. So there's a lot for you guys to be juggling and looking at a lot of sources of revenue, looking at a lot of problems, you have to balance a whole lot of stuff. But I suppose it's better to be dealing with those issues of worrying where all this money is coming from and not having the resources at all. So it's maybe a good problem to deal with. I want to get to all of you and what the last year has been, where you want to go, what your priorities are, how you're going to balance state money, local money, new federal money. And with that, let me just give it over to Ted Brady. Ted, thanks for what you're doing. Thank you, Senator, for what you're doing, what you've done, and what you're going to do in the future. Really couldn't say enough about how meaningful this $198 million specifically coming to local governments is. So for those on the webinar joining us today, the league is the association of all of the towns, cities, and villages in our state and some other partners that looks after those local interests. This is the first time in 40 years that the federal government has given local towns this amount of unrestricted, or I should say lightly restricted funding to help them deal with the problems they're facing. The last year has been devastating to our municipalities. It's put the heroes in our town offices, on our road crews, on our select boards. The tip of the spear in trying to run this government through the crisis and to have Congress and the President recognize that with this $198 million is really meaningful. So folks know towns will likely be receiving this funding sometime in late May or June, based on a prorata share for, based on your population, and there are some tables out there. They're not perfectly accurate. We're waiting on Treasury to give this guidance. We anticipate these towns to use this funding or anything from covering public safety costs for the past year and the future couple of years to cover programming costs, to do economic development work, and to replace lost revenues in places that have local option taxes, where they've had these giant reductions because of the changes in consumer patterns in replacing enterprise funds. If your town runs a pool or something like that, or a rec program like Kim does, they have not only increased expenses, but they've also had decreased revenue because you can't have as many people at these places. And unlike businesses, we've had none of this assistance till now. So Senator, thank you. The other three things I want to quickly mention about what the league has really seen. Our municipal assistance center, which has a team of lawyers that answers questions for our members, has done a four times increase in municipal inquiries. Coming from what happens when I have only one snow plow driver, and he has COVID, and I can't plow my streets, to really complex things about what happens when I have somebody who was exposed to COVID, to perhaps the most complex of all, how do I have an election during the pandemic or a town meeting, and a kudos to the Secretary of State's office and to the Governor's office for helping us through that. Our advocacy group has been hard at work trying to make sure the funding that Senator Sanders has brought to the state in CRF money, the billions of dollars, the billion dollars in CRF money we've received gets to some municipalities. Our unemployment and workers' comp office has been overwhelmed with the claims that without the help of Senator Sanders and our congressional delegation, we wouldn't be able to pay all of these unemployment claims that our talents have brought to us. So we've seen our talents have to lay off and reduce their staffing in really significant numbers. They're giving an idea of more than $2 million of claims through the Vermont League of Cities and towns alone. So our towns have been impacted by this unemployment crisis just like the private sector has. And going forward, thanks to ARPA, and thanks to the legislature and the Governor for supporting some funding to the League and to our partners at the RPCs, we're going to have a full-time staff member on our staff that's able to help towns figure out how they can spend this money, this new money, this $198 million, how to track and how to report on that. So that's the brief report from the League. Thanks for including us today. OK, Ted, as Ted indicated, what we try to do in this is provide as much flexibility as we possibly could. And second of all, as Ted also indicated, make sure we get the money out to rural America, including small towns in the state of Vermont, who often are not beneficiaries. Burlington very well, but we've got a lot of small towns that need to help as well. I wanted to add and just to make you cognizant of this is there is a whole lot in the recovery plan, rescue plan that people are not aware of. Just give you a few examples that will impact you, above and beyond everything else. We tripled funding for after school and summer programs. All right, so if you guys are running after school or summer programs, there's going to be a lot more money available for you. And I don't have to tell anybody this has been a terrible year for the kids. It's been a very disruptive year in education. We want, we're working with the governor's office to make sure that we have outstanding summer programs this year, which will help kids maybe regain some of what they lost academically, do recreation, maybe have some jobs programs as well. So keep in mind that there will be money coming down the pike for after school, expanded after school and summer programs as well. Let's hear from Carol Dawes in Berry, Berry City Clerk. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for including me. I'm Carol Dawes. I'm the Berry City Clerk and Treasurer. I'm also the chair of the Legislative Committee for the Vermont Municipal Clerk and Treasurer's Association, and Ted has certainly touched on a lot of things that are that are sort of municipal wide, one of the big ones being lost of revenue. The city of Berry certainly experienced tremendous reductions in revenue for fiscal year 20 and then fiscal year 21, which we're in. Thankfully, we had enough advance notice that the council could adjust our budget before we set our tax rates to make sure that our tax rates we actually cut our budget to make up for the projected $500,000 worth of revenue shortfall. But that meant we were cutting services to the public, too. And I'm sure that Scott will go into more details about what the municipalities have gone through. I want to really focus on the clerks and the clerks throughout the state who have experienced similar circumstances across the state. Closed offices, furloughed employees, developing ways to continue to serve the public while putting protection measures in place here in Berry City. City Hall has been closed for more than a year now. And yet we still provide services to the public. We're still issuing marriage licenses and collecting property taxes and issuing dog licenses, and we have to continue to provide those services. This was especially true last year, of course, during the August primary and November general elections, as Ted mentioned. We had to really think outside the box. And Vermont Legislature was was great about putting legislation in place that allowed clerks to come up with all kinds of different ways to conduct elections. They did them as outdoor elections here in Berry City. We did the August primary as a drive through in our hockey field house, which provided great protection. Nobody had to get out of their car. It worked really beautifully. We're actually going to do a budget revoke next month the same way. Everybody was putting plans in place for social distancing, sanitizing surfaces and materials. And as Ted mentioned, the Secretary of State's office worked closely with the clerks to put procedures in place to expand options for voters. That was our number one priority to to maintain voter access and the safety for voters and election workers. And that included vote by mail for the November general election. And that's something that the Vermont Legislature is is actively pursuing, putting in place for a permanent change going forward. So what we're really thinking about, I actually polled members of the Clerk and Treasures Association and said to them, you know, what are your ideas for the ARP money? What are the things that that clerks need to to be prepared going forward? And it fell into three categories, one of them being building an office modifications, including installation of service windows, creating barriers. Many of us have jury rigged plexiglass shields and putting up something that that's more permanent door buzzer systems to to let people in outdoor public notice, posting areas, air quality systems. There's been a lot of talk about making sure that air quality in buildings is is the best it can be. So building an office modifications is number one. Number two is broadband and technology improvements to support virtual meetings to work from home more and more of us are working from home to provide online access to and storage of documents. Those are very important. And number three is expanding the digitization of land records and online access to land records. It became vitally important, particularly early in the pandemic when so many local property owners and businesses were able to access federal funding. They had to part of the legal process was they had to have lawyers doing research on their mortgages and their deeds. And yet our city halls and town halls were locked and records were in our vaults behind closed doors. And so we have made a real push over the last year to get more digitization and online access of land records. We did have two million dollars from the original covid relief money that allowed for expanded digitization. And I'm encouraging clerks all over the state to advocate to their select boards and city councils for additional funding out of the ARP money to continue that process. So those are our three main focuses. And Carol, let me just pick up on a point that Carol made. You know, we kind of take it for granted in Vermont. I don't have to tell anybody a bit of controversy regarding the election, just a bit. And yet maybe I missed something, but I have not heard that anybody in the state of Vermont thinks that the elections that we held here were not honest and that votes were accurately counted. You guys were responsible for that. So that's a big deal. So thank you for that. Let me go with Scott Tucker and Wilmington Scott. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for having me. I might be a little bit of an outlier with regard to what Ted Brady was saying.  We did not cut personnel. We're very fortunate in that way. Wilmington is sits at the southern part of the state between Bennington and Brattleboro. We are what I might consider a sort of a diamond in Vermont tourism mecca in terms of four seasons, but especially skiing with the hermitage and Mount Snow down here, Haystack Mountain. One of the questions was, did we lose revenue? And I think the simple answer would be not much. But our main revenue source is property taxes here. And we saw a one percent delinquency rate in FY 2020, followed by a five percent delinquency rate in 2021. Well, what does that mean? Well, we normally carry about four hundred thousand dollar delinquencies. And right now we're carrying over a million. But what the what the Select Board and Tax Collector did was that we did not do tax sales last year. Now, we must do tax sales this year because some of the people who regularly follow follow behind will be too far behind. And we do have some new taxpayers on our list, but we work very hard to create a payment plan for everybody. The overwhelming majority of taxpayers have paid their taxes and we made some last minute changes to our budget to cut about two hundred thousand dollars, which basically meant we did not have to borrow last year as we originally anticipated at the beginning of the pandemic. All right. Partnering, everything was based on partnering. Not that it isn't normally, but even more so. So we partner with up with our sister town on the economic front. And our economic. Development consultants, along with Dovers, along with the chamber, along with something called Wilmington Works, which focuses on our downtown. They all created this team called the Resiliency Outreach Team. And we contacted all the businesses early on, starting in March of last year. And about two hundred and fifteen businesses were contacted once initially and then a second time during this year. And the primary reason was to find out what businesses needed early on because as a tourist area where we're dependent on our retail on our ends on our restaurants down here. And of course, we feel the pain with our restaurants and our ends in particular. Retail seem to have bounced back, but we have some small shops that didn't do as well. The CARES Act helped us. The select board decided that it might be a good idea to extend money early on because we didn't know how quickly the money would come into the the town from the federal and the state sources through the CARES Act of 2020. So early on, we extended one hundred twenty thousand eight hundred dollars to businesses up to twenty thousand dollars each to sort of fill that gap. Zero percent interest. And we thought that that was helpful. But what was really helpful was the CARES Act allowed allowed us to convert those loans into grants, every single one of them, except for one. And then the select board waived a repayment of that particular loan for that particular business person. Now, as you know, there's there was a lot of help through the PPP. And for those businesses that didn't take advantage of it the first time, there is money left and we are through our economic development consultants going back and asking them to take advantage of it now. And many of them are and that I think has been very helpful. Also, we had a program down here in terms of feeding people in need called Everyone Eats. My understanding is Everyone Eats is really a Vermont grown program. And we were able to put two hundred thousand dollars back into the hands of the community, but in particular restaurants. They they were there was a core group of about a dozen restaurants and a dozen people supporting putting this program out there. So at any at any time, they're feeding up to eight hundred meals a week, a week, I believe. And that was that was helpful. So the restaurants were reimbursed at ten dollars per meal. But these were great meals. I had one restaurateur explain to me he was able to do things he might not ordinarily do, including checking cordon blue and things of that nature. So it was very healthy and the idea was to also buy local. We were grateful that originally the cap for us was about forty five thousand dollars based on the per capita population. And of course, our our regular population, our census population is about eighteen hundred, but we balloon to about five to six thousand because of second homes down here. And we did shift our operations, our highway and sewer departments early on separated into two into two units. But we were able to pay them a regular salary and I will stop there. OK, thanks a lot, Scott. I wanted to just make sure we have time for discussion whenever it's finished. Next panelist is Christine Lott, the mayor of the city of Lewinsky, Christine. Thank you, Senator. Speaking on behalf of Lewinsky, I think some of the things that the previous panelists have shared apply here locally. You know, lost revenue, shifting services, some of the clerk's office issues. The thing I want to highlight about our experience is how helpful we found partnering with local organizations and service providers and how that might change the way we operate into the future. So, you know, at the beginning of the pandemic, we stood up meetings with those partners and started to identify a lot of gaps uncovered. A lot of our residents experiencing barriers, accessing supports while they were maybe quarantining or unable to work. You know, we have a high poverty level here. A lot of folks in essential services. And so being able to make those connections between like our food shelf, the Association of Africans living in Vermont, the Vermont Department of Health, we're actually able to change and improve service delivery and messaging to reach more of our residents, which is something that we want to lean into as we come out of this. We also had those conversations about, you know, if three quarters of my public works department is out because of COVID and quarantine, how are we going to get things done? And recently we have had a Chittenden County municipal leaders discussion about trying to do more regionalization and more sharing of those services for resiliency, efficiency, cost savings. And that's something that we could be using some of these funds to do seed funding to actually stand up some of those programs. We had a very strong grassroots mutual aid effort pop up with some of our residents that's still going and has proven to be a really great low barrier way to get help before you can access those formal state and federal programs. We have a small business loan fund, which a lot of our businesses access to get help before they could get their PPP loans. We have a housing trust fund that we think we can expand with the Recovery Act funding as folks are, you know, the state's housing stability program is is coming to an end at some point, this could be a longer term solution for the affordable housing crisis that we've been experiencing for some time. Really pleased about the additional funding for after school programming and summer camps. That's a need we have certainly seen here, especially as we are trying to get folks back to work and reboot the economy. One of our biggest revenue losses was actually in parking, which has been a bit of a double whammy as we had plans to use some of our parking funds to support a development project, including a new parking garage and hotel in our downtown that would bring jobs, revenue, vibrancy into a new ski. And so being able to backfill that lost revenue will help us push that community development project along into the future. And when I think about that long term infrastructure and climate planning that you mentioned earlier, we have shovel ready projects that could use this funding. You know, we have really outdated streetscapes and the bridge, the main artery connecting us to Burlington. These aren't safe for biking and walking, and we want to make a lot of improvements there to reduce cars and carbon emission. We have deferred maintenance on recreation facilities and infrastructure. If we could have more folks staying close to home using our trails, our playgrounds and equipment, again, we're reducing that need to travel. So we're just really excited about this help and not just to recover from the pandemic, but to come out of it stronger and moving towards the community vision that we already have in place. So very thankful. Thank you, Mayor. And I was smiling when you talked about improved regional cooperation. We were talking about that when I was mayor of Burlington in the 1980s. So I hope you're making more progress than that. Kim Peters is in Rotland and is the superintendent of recreation and parks. Kim, thanks for being with us. Thank you so much, Senator.  And I want to do a shout out to Ted Brady. A year ago in March, he brought directors together to say, how are we going to get through the summer and provide for the kids? You know, and it's brought us to where we are now. Last March, when schools had to close down, Rutland Recreation decided to open up essential care. We were one of the first ones to do it along with Winooski. We were on conversations. How do we how do we continue to provide child care as our essential workers had to work? Luckily, we had just started to lease the old College of St. Joseph gymnasium. So we had a nice 25,000 square facility that we opened up. We served over a hundred kids during that time for three months. What I believe Rutland really became known as is creating safety plan after safety plan to then help all the other recreation departments. I would say, you know, Rutland and Burlington, we have we're very fortunate. We have a staff of directors, but many of our smaller towns do not. And many of them during this time lost staff. They were furloughed. Directors were furloughed. You know, at some point, sometimes recreation is considered nonessential. And I think this this last year really show that we are essential. And it was proven over and over again. We during the summertime, many of the recreation departments, again, took over for the schools that were not able to provide their typical tapestry programs because they are located indoors. We took on that burden. We took on about four times the amount of kids. And what we were able to do is utilize all of our assets, all of our parks. So we we didn't really realize we were part of the response team until, you know, just recently going, OK, yes, we did this. I had great support from our mayor, David Lair, who I believe is on the call. We we took a risk and it paid off. We then were able to provide remote remote learning when schools shut down after the reopening in the fall. We partnered with our school district, which, again, is something that we had to do, not just with Rutland Public Schools, but with Mill River Greater Rutland Supervisor Union. I was working with five different school districts. As far as our recovery, you know, recreation is is in a weird situation because we're part of municipality and we're also working with the schools. So how the funding comes through is going to be really important that we're in both roles. So not only have I been on this panel, but also on the on this Department of Education saying, how do we continue to work together? Provide a great recovery for our families and our youth. One of the programs we are going to be offering, and I'll keep this short, is recreation on the move where we're going to provide free recreation with mentors. We partnered up with a couple of local organizations and we are really, really excited about doing these pop ups where we're reaching families that cannot get to our school district or our recreation. So I could go on forever, but I know there's there's going to be questions and thank you so much for this time. Well, Kim, thank you. And let me throw it back to you. So let me reiterate something that I think we all know to be true. Been a terrible year for the children for the first time in our lifetimes. Kids were not in school on a regular basis. We put a lot of money. We tripled funding for after school and summer programs. And the reason we did that is in general, after school programs have been underfunded. But second of all, we knew that especially now, this summer, it is terribly important to reach out to the kids who have lost so much schoolwork, who in many ways have really been isolated, stressed out and in some cases need employment to bring in revenue for their family. Kim, are you guys prepared to think big this summer? We have already filled up three of our camps. So we again, tripled our numbers. And yes, we are there. We are excited about the Tuesday announcement, but yes, we are ready. All right, Kim, what does that mean? Tell me a little bit about the camps. Does it cost me if I'm a working class parent in Rutland? Costs me money to go to the camp or not? So it costs less than $20 a day, but we do have many scholarships out there. So some of our families, it ends up costing nothing. We also set up a payment plan. $20, there's a lot of money, and I know you guys have your revenue needs, but for an ordinary family, are they going to be able to afford? Amen, a lot of money is coming in here. So what can you do to make it more affordable? So we don't turn anyone away. That's that's number one. And so I would say 75 percent of our population only pays 75 percent of that fee. So then it goes down. We that's why we're introducing the recreation on the move, where we are going to be going to our parks and offering completely free. Part of the challenge we do have, Senator, is that the money is not coming directly to recreation. So we do have to work with our school district and and to figure out how to compensate that. Because, yes, we do have to pay our staff. Right. All right. My hope is, you know, the goal of this thing is to involve as many kids as possible, especially families, most in need. And we don't want payment to be a disincentive of families to get into that program. Anyone else want to talk a little bit about recreation? We'll say on recreation that we'll get to the other things. Christine, did you have some thoughts on summer recreation after school programs? Yeah. So we are our staff is already talking to the school about expanding that program. They're really interested in bringing early bringing youth and family literacy programming into after school and summer. You know, we have we have a diverse population here. So not just working on literacy, but also we have folks that have limited English proficiency. And maybe there's an avenue to work on that. We were able to with the previous funding continue to provide after school over the months during the pandemic when we frankly couldn't have we had to find bigger space and couldn't have like financially made things work at the number of kids that we could have per adult. So we're looking forward to moving on from that. OK, anybody else want to jump in on recreation after school summer programming? OK, what else we got? Ted, do you want to throw it back to you? Working on my unmute skills. Sorry, Senator. Yeah, I think what we're really curious about to what how these municipalities are going to use this really flexible money that they're being given. And obviously, I said, we're going to have some resources to help them work through this process. The RPCs will have resources. But this is going to be a really interesting experience for these municipalities to say, hey, yes, there's this money coming in for after school and summer recreation programs from the federal government. I have this pot of money of several hundred thousand dollars. It's very discretionary. Should I should I potentially use that? If I'm a select board member, should I potentially use that to bolster something like what Christine has just said, you know, focusing it on this thing when this federal money is also coming? This is going to be something that we all need to work together on. And broadband boy, as Carol mentioned, broadband is at the heart of all this. Well, there's a lot of federal money coming in for broadband. But sadly, it's probably not going to be enough. And more importantly, what do you do with that broadband? Once you get people online, it's going to change the way we can deliver some municipal services, whether it be searching property records, registering your dog tags.  Maybe that's someplace where these municipalities spend money. Let me jump in, Ted. Let me just jump in here and let's talk about broadband. How serious that we know how serious the problem is around the state, but who wants to jump in and talk about the need to improve broadband in your communities? And what does that mean? Carol, do you want to jump in? Yeah, I certainly know one of the challenges that clerks have around the state, of course, is, you know, there are polling places without without any kind of internet access. And we have a statewide voter checklist and people need to be able to check that on a regular basis in real time during elections and they can't. They don't have the access. And as we talked, as I mentioned before, access to land records, which is vital to maintaining property records in the state of Vermont. And that's just a couple of examples. OK, Scott, broadband. Sure, we we started Deerfield Valley, CUD down here a couple of years ago, started with a handful of towns. They're now up to over 23 towns. It gives you the idea of how broad this is going to be throughout the state. And they're now talking to the last house. So the money is important and it's also important. I think when we start talking about the rural condition, whether you're talking about broadband or housing or those kinds of things, because it will take money to do what we want to do. And it will help in the economic development sector as well. Is your other CUDs able to provide affordable broadband? Well, they they just starting to find, you know, try to find money. They're in they're in a position right now to build this to build this broadband infrastructure out. And then the next thing will be what will it cost? And I don't think anyone really knows. There's a couple of examples throughout the state, which I'm not terribly familiar with the cost on it. But there are some examples that have been successful. And of course, I think the more people you have in the the more affordable it's going to be. The problem with broadband is not only making it accessible, but making it affordable. I mean, it could be accessible and people can't afford it. And the quality of the speed is as I understand it as well. Exactly. Any more thoughts on broadband? All right, infrastructure in general, all right, we got. In Vermont, like the rest of the country, we've got enormous problems with roads and bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, very expensive propositions. Ted, what are we going to do about that? Yeah, well, I think this funding is going to help make a dent in the ARPA funding is going to help make a dent in some of that. As towns are going to be able to do economic development projects that focus, I think, heavily on water and wastewater. As the statute specifically says, we're looking to that infrastructure bill, the BBB that you mentioned to really get us in. We need a we need a once in a lifetime investment in our state's roads and our town roads and our town water and wastewater and our broadband and our bridges. It's it's there's a lot of deferred maintenance out there and this federal money is going to help start us. What we also need, though, is the towns to be willing to take on some of this on their own with financing. And that finance is going to be important to the municipal bond bank through programs like World Development, through programs like state bonding programs and TIF. We're going to need those tools because, sadly, all the federal money in the world won't solve this problem alone. It's going to need some state buying and local buying with local dollars, too. All right, do we have the labor resources available to do the work that has to be done? Are we going to run into a labor shortage here in terms of construction companies? Anyone have thoughts on that one? But maybe give us a longer time period to spend all of this money might be helpful, Senator. But in general, I do believe it's going to be helpful to a lot of these firms that are going to be able to bring on more employees. I mean, we have a certain number of very good construction firms down here when we start talking about road construction and things of that nature, because the short period of time to spend this money, my highway crew is not going to be able to handle all the reclamation kinds of projects that we might have. So we will have to use other other firms to help us. Well, and the issue is every other town in the state is going to get that money as well. So it's going to be a real competition for the workers that we need. But you guys, we should be thinking about that. Right. Right. Oh, I have discovered in recent years that water and clean drinking water is a more serious problem than I previously thought. Anyone want to talk about water? I was going to share that. That is something that we have been focusing on when we think about. Street maintenance is that can we wrap if we have to do a road repair? Can we also address the water mains, the stormwater treatment? Use green scapes to do that work. You know, Ted was talking about the other funding earlier. We are lucky that we do have. We should be within the coming months to be starting our means for revitalization project, which will address those concerns thanks to funding from rural development and being able to do that on more of our streets with some of this additional funding is going to really advance us instead of doing this piece meal over the course of several decades. I'm smiling again because I'm thinking you don't want to be one of those towns that paves your roads and then rips them up to put in water pipes, right? Yeah, we've seen that before. We don't want to do that. What's the price? Senator, one of the things that I think some of the new flexible money might allow us to do is we have municipalities that have led service lines and have really old infrastructure that go into private property. And so those service connections, those are things that some sometimes federal programs don't allow us to tackle. And some of this new flexible money might allow us to tackle some of those end problems all the way into the home, right? All the way to the faucets and to the fixtures. And water and wastewater are, I will recall, from when I was mayor. Those are very expensive propositions. And I suspect I haven't gotten less expensive over the years. Now, I don't know.  The president has proposed several hundred billion dollars for affordable housing. Which needless to say, I strongly support low income and affordable housing. Thoughts on housing. We need to build some housing in Vermont. And Senator, just to let you know, we do only have a couple of minutes last year. OK, thanks. Housing. Senator, I sit on the board at NeighborWorks of Western Vermont. I know you're familiar with it. And we have begun over the last year or so talking about the rural condition in terms of housing availability, quality housing. And how do we get people who want to stay in rural Vermont into houses that maybe they need a little bit of help with? They might need help with the taxes in some areas as well. But how do we rebuild some of these houses into singles or doubles so that people can afford to stay in the area they love? Wisconsin, we just I mean, I'm throwing a lot at you. You know, we're living at a crazy moment. It's been an unprecedented year. And there is a huge debate as you are all aware of in Congress's to how significantly we should respond. Different people have different points of view. I am one of those who believes that we should respond in a very, very strong way. But when Scott talks about housing, what I want you to know, and this is a lot of responsibility is going to come on to the shoulders of local officials. Let me give you an example. It's not just building low income and affordable housing. We want to make housing more energy efficient. So it's going to be another pot of money, which says to somebody, you know what? And we do some of this in Vermont, but we need to do a lot more. We can weatherize your home. We can cut your fuel bill in half. And by the way, we may be able to put some solar energy on your rooftop as well. And then we've got to figure out a financing mechanism for that. So it's not just building new housing. It is retrofitting housing. And that pot of money may come from the climate change. Pot of money. So we're throwing there's a lot of entities out there that you guys and Ted are going to have to keep a very sharp eye on. Housing, anybody else have thoughts on Carol? We here in Berry City, we we unfortunately have quite a few properties that have been abandoned, that are in the process of being foreclosed, had it have been foreclosed. And we would love to see programs that that allow people to come in and buy those homes and rehab them and make them their first home. And so that's certainly something that that we would love to see more support for. Let me ask you this just while we're on the subject of housing. Have you guys noticed people unable to pay their rent? Has that been an issue during the pandemic? Well, not so much. Christine, have you noticed that in the ski? Yeah, we've had a large uptake in households that are accessing the state housing stability fund. And I've heard from folks who wanted to but didn't feel that they could. So I know that there's still need. Right, there's a moratorium on evictions, but that moratorium is going to end. And you're going to have folks who can owe a lot of money in back rent. There'll be some money available to help those people. But this is a red light that you should be aware of. OK, what else we got? Ted, anything else on your mind that we haven't discussed? Oh, I think I'm really interesting for all of us to start engaging on is this billion dollars the legislature and the governor are going to work on to distribute to Vermonters. And you're going to help them figure out a way to spend that money, I guess. We sure hope so. And I think local governments as a whole need to weigh in on the proponent parts of the proposals that we like and we don't like. I mean, you talk about housing, the governor unveiled a proposal to build five thousand and address five thousand units of housing in the next three years with this federal funding. And it seems like a great goal with how that gets done and what mechanisms like Carol saying they have a specific need and bury. Wilmington might have a different need. We know that Chittenden County needs more units, period. So every region has a different need and towns really need to weigh in there. All right, let me conclude. And, you know, first of all, thank you. I think it's been a really useful discussion. A lot is going to come down into your desk, guys. And, you know, again, the fate of the new infrastructure or the build back better plan is up in the air. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know how much money is going to be in it. It is conceivable if I have my way. And I think with Senator Lee, Congressman Welch have their way. We're talking about trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars, a lot of money coming in to the state of Vermont. And you're going to have to balance so many things and it could be easy. But I would I think we can all agree would rather be in that position of figuring out how we spend money than I have any money to spend. So we're going to give you that challenge, make your life difficult. But I think it's a good difficulty that you will appreciate having. So look, thank you all for the work you've done over this last terrible year. Let's hope things get better. And I think they will and let's go forward together. So thank you all very, very much. Talk to you all soon.


Slush is like no other event. I've ever been to you feel that there's something kind of off There's something a little different my reactions. It feels almost more like a nightclub than a tech conference Slush is huge look at the scale of this thing This is the largest gathering of incredible creative people anywhere While the scale is very big it still feels very intimate my first impression was wow It's a real heart to it. I really feel it. There's an earnestness my second impression was how do you do this with volunteers? 2000 volunteers that are making this happen are incredible We have some of the best speakers in the world coming here for this I can pack a month's worth of meetings into two days It's the only event I've been to that is so focused on entrepreneurs No, everywhere you you walk and you walk into someone who wants to change the world Everyone is here in Helsinki cold gray pretty much as advertised the sauna situation here is out of control only at slush only at Finland


So iBoss sent me this brand new Series X Ease Dry Filament Dryer. Is it any good? Let's find out. My name's Jim and this is The Edge of Tech. Welcome back to The Edge of Tech where we aim to educate and entertain the maker community. Like I said, iBoss sent me this brand new Series X Ease Dry Filament Dryer. You might remember right here they had another product last year which was really cool as well, but today we're going to talk about this new Series X. We're going to talk about the specs of the new Series X and then we're going to put it to the test. Let's do it. The new Ease Dryer has a great new design with a sleek black case. The front analog temp dial does not show temp but it does show filament types. You simply turn the dial to the filament you want to choose and then it starts heating up. It has a side access which makes it super easy to load and unload by just pulling this latch dropping down the side and pushing your filament right in here. It's kind of hard to see but right here it has a place inside the box for desiccant so you can throw desiccant in there. It'll help take the moisture out of the air while the box is actively heating. As you can see on the back of the box it does have a built-in fan to help provide circulation and pull the moisture out of that box. The box has two outlets one here and one here for PTFE tube to go so you can run your filament from inside the box out that tube straight to your printer. You can either go out the front or right out the top. Last but not least on the front of the box is a hydrometer that's built in that tells you the relative humidity inside the box at all times. This does not have a thermometer on it just a hydrometer. So now that we know a little bit more about the Series X here it has some pretty cool features but we need to see how it performs. I have this Atomic Carbon Fiber PETG. This has been out of the packaging for roughly a year and a half or so. It has just been sitting here in the garage in the cabinet over here and I think this would be the perfect candidate to see how good this filament dryer does. Does it pull moisture out? Does it actually help? So what I'm going to do is take the spool of Atomic PETG Carbon Fiber we're going to toss it on a scale and see how much it weighs. Then I'm going to throw it in the filament dryer here and let it dry for roughly eight hours. We'll see give or take eight hours. Once I get the filament in we're going to set it for PETG and we're going to watch the humidity in the front and we're also going to watch the humidity and the temperature from another sensor I'm going to set inside of this box as long as it fits. We'll find out in a minute. But I want to see like an independent temperature and humidity inside the actual box so we're going to try to watch all of that in a time lapse that should be happening right now. Well I tell you what it's been about eight and a half hours since I turned this thing on and I started a time lapse on this GoPro right here. Well the GoPro died. I can tell you this if I look at the front of this thing the hydrometer still says 10 percent humidity inside of here. That did not change the whole time which is kind of weird but it still says 10 percent humidity. I did not use any desiccant in this. It didn't come with any so I didn't put any in. In the future when I use this I probably will just because it's extra moisture pulling right. It has been on that PETG setting like we saw this whole time and it is warm. I can definitely tell you the case is warm. It's warmer up in this area and maybe right here but it's not hot. It's not hot to the touch or anything like that and according to these instructions right here that came with it the PETG setting is about 55 to 60 C and it should be more than two hours to dry. So we left it in there for about eight and a half hours. What we're going to do now is take the carbon fiber atomic PETG out of this set it on the scale and see what happens. Before we get to the conclusion if you're getting value out of this video please click that like button. I really appreciate it. It helps spread the video around to more people and it definitely helps the channel. Now let's get to it. So I'm going to turn the scale on. I don't have my second camera on it right now but take my word for it. I'm going to pull this out just like this. Now I can confirm this spool is quite warm. Holy moly. That spool is very warm. So I'm zero grams on the scale right now. I'm going to if I set it on there and back off let me just move back a little bit. I can confirm that it says 1169 grams. Now when we started this it was at 1171 grams. That is two full grams. Would it be better if I left it in here overnight? Maybe. Would it be better if there was desiccant in there to help pull the moisture out? Maybe. Again it didn't drop under 10% and the fan in the back I could feel it pulling the air out. So the fan in the back like it circulates like this. In the front where the spool holder is here there's actually a vent in there for the fan and it sucks it right through there and blows it right out the back. Yeah I don't know 1169 is what it's at. So we lost two grams. Could it be moisture from the form of filament? I would assume so because it's not like this got lighter on the spool or something like that. What I'm probably going to do is grab some packets of desiccant that I have stuff this thing full of desiccant in there. Toss the spool back in there throw it on the back counter and plug it in and I'll post on social media what I found. For this video we lost two grams. Is that a lot? Not really. Is it moisture? Probably. I can't speak to that but I can tell you this is a very warm roll of filament right now. I thought the good thing about weighing it would be to tell if we lost any water weight or anything like that. Now like I said two grams isn't bad at all but that was just eight hours and this thing has been out for a year and a half. So watch the socials. I'm going to drop on there what I find if this thing sits overnight maybe they'll do better. Also I could not put a temperature or hydrometer inside of it because there was no room anywhere for that so I didn't get any of those temperature readings. Unfortunately there just was no room so I might have to try to get one with like a probe and I could stick it down in the little fitting here and try that next time. So let me know in the comments what you think of this filament dryer just from this video and if you have one or if you're thinking about getting one. I'd love to hear about that too. You know personally I think this needs to be on the list for consideration. It has active heating. It has a fan pulling the air out to keep the moisture flowing out of the box. I think if you put some desiccant in where the desiccant is supposed to go it might help that moisture as well. And also if you let it go for as long as you're supposed to dry filament I'm assuming you could get some more out of it. I mean two grams is two grams. I mean it's still not bad but I think we could probably do more. So let me know in the comments what you think. Well it's always fun to check out new projects. I really appreciate iBoss for sending me over the series X. Thank you again for that. I hope you guys learned something today and as always keep printing.


The problem that we want to solve is the many thousands of deaths every year that come from influenza, a disease that can be prevented through proper vaccinations. Our solution to this problem has been the development of what we call a microneedle patch. So as far as the patient is concerned, it looks like a patch, like a band-aid or like a nicotine patch that can be applied to the skin and then removed. But closer examination shows it has microscopic needles on it, and that's what makes it work. That's what enables it to give a vaccine into the body. Normally vaccines don't just get absorbed in across the skin. The skin's a good barrier. But by having these microscopic needles that you don't see, that you don't feel, but nonetheless are long enough to get that vaccine into the skin, we now have a way to get vaccine into the body without a big hypodermic needle and do it in a way that patients should find to be acceptable, certainly painless. There are two benefits that we're really seeking to capture. The first one is an immunological benefit. Right now, most vaccines, including flu vaccines, are injected into the muscle. And that works. You get a good immune response from it. But in fact, the muscle is not really an immunological tissue. The skin is a much more immunological tissue. The body is designed to encounter pathogens first on its surface. So it's well known that you can get better immune responses if you put a vaccine into the skin. It's just hard to do. What the micro-needle patch is enabling is vaccination in the skin, which can give a better immune response. And this has now engaged the vaccine community to think more seriously about skin immunology and ways to vaccinate in the skin that will be more effective, because we now have tools available to vaccinate in the skin. Our second objective is to enable people to self-administer vaccines. And this is really a policy change that we hope this technology can enable. Today there are no vaccines in the world that are administered by patients themselves. But certainly in the case of flu vaccination, self-administration could have a huge advantage. Every year we're supposed to vaccinate more than 300 million Americans, let alone people all around the world. It's a huge burden on the medical infrastructure, and the job actually doesn't get done for a whole variety of reasons, but the majority of Americans do not get vaccinated every year. So why is that? Well, there's a host of reasons why Americans, many Americans don't do it. But one of the reasons is fear of needles. Another reason is just inconvenience. I didn't get around to it. So if we can get rid of the needle and just have a patch, we've addressed a problem that a reasonable fraction of people have with vaccination. And then if we enable people to self-administer, if they could get a patch in the mail or pick it up in the pharmacy, leave it on for a few minutes and peel it off, we could capture additional people as well. The ultimate impact that we want to have is to save lives. That is to have people, more people become vaccinated against influenza and for that vaccine to be more effective.


Is the extinguisher you have the right type for that fire, or the right size? And what is the proper sequence of steps to take when using a portable fire extinguisher? Unless you know the answer to all of these questions, you should not attempt to extinguish a fire. Otherwise your actions could result in extensive property damage, as well as personal injury or even death. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, regulates portable fire extinguisher use in the workplace. While fire extinguishers are addressed in many different sections of the OSHA regulations, the primary OSHA standards regarding fire extinguishers and construction are found in 1926.150 and the primary standards for general industry are found in 1910.157. When portable fire extinguishers are provided for employee use in the workplace, OSHA requires employers to provide their employees with an educational program covering the principles of fire extinguisher use. Employees must also be provided with information about the hazards associated with incipient or early stage firefighting. In addition, actual hands-on training in the use of fire extinguishers must be provided to those employees designated to use an extinguisher as part of their job, such as fire brigade members and fire watches. This tutorial covers considerations for selecting the proper fire extinguisher for the type of fire you are facing. It also explains the acronym PASS, which can help you remember the four sequential steps to operate a portable extinguisher. And we also discuss some dos and don'ts to remember any time you use a portable fire extinguisher. The first rule to remember is that portable fire extinguishers are not intended to be used for fighting large fires. They are intended only for use on what are known as incipient stage fires. Those are defined as a fire that is in its initial or beginning stage, can be handled safely with the portable extinguisher, and does not require the use of special personal protective equipment, such as bunker gear or a respirator. When faced with a large fire, immediately evacuate the area and alert others. You should also evacuate the area any time you are not comfortable with using an extinguisher. There are many different types of portable fire extinguishers, and using the wrong kind on a fire means you may not be able to extinguish it safely and effectively. For example, most everyone knows that oil and water don't mix, and that is the reason you would not want to use an extinguisher that sprays water on burning liquids. That can actually make the flames spread. Some fire extinguishers are intended for use on a single type or class of fire material, while others are designed for use on a combination of two or more classes of fires. Just check the label on your extinguishers to know which type or types of fire they are intended to extinguish. Class A rated fire extinguishers will be marked with symbols similar to those pictured here. These extinguishers are suitable to use on ordinary combustible materials such as wood, paper or cardboard, dry vegetation, and some plastics.  Class A fire extinguishers often contain water that is sprayed on the fire, so again, as a reminder, do not use water to extinguish a flammable liquid fire, nor do you want to use water to extinguish an electrical fire for obvious reasons. Class B rated fire extinguishers will be marked with symbols similar to those pictured here. These extinguishers are suitable for use on fires involving flammable liquids such as gasoline and diesel, solvents, and oil or grease. CO2 extinguishers, which contain gaseous carbon dioxide, displace oxygen so the fire cannot continue to burn. These extinguishers are often used on Class B fire materials. While they are effective, the CO2 can displace the oxygen inside of a small enclosed space, so only use these extinguishers where there is plenty of natural ventilation. Also, the horn-shaped nozzle where the gas is discharged can become extremely cold. Cold enough to cause frostbite, in fact, so use caution when handling one of these type extinguishers. A Class C rating, signified by symbols like those pictured here, mean the fire extinguisher can be used on a fire near or involving energized electrical equipment. This designation is typically seen on combination type fire extinguishers that are suitable for use on other types of fire, too. Class D rated fire extinguishers will be marked with symbols similar to those pictured here. These extinguishers are intended to be used on fires involving combustible metals that actually burn, such as magnesium, sodium, or potassium. Class K fire extinguishers, which are the newest type on the market, are marked with symbols similar to those pictured here. These specialty extinguishers are designed for use on kitchen fires, specifically those involving deep friars which contain animal-based oils or fat, as well as vegetable oils. Some fire extinguishers are rated for use on only one class of fire material, such as A, or B, or D. However, most extinguishers are designed for use on two or more classes of fire material. For example, this foam extinguisher is rated for use on fires involving Class A and B fire materials, while this CO2 extinguisher is suitable for use on Class B and C fires. But the most prevalent type extinguisher found in most workplaces are combination ABC extinguishers. These commonly contain a dry powder that smother out a fire, much like you would with a blanket, and can be used to extinguish fires involving ordinary combustible materials, flammable liquids, and electrical equipment. So, check the labels of your portable fire extinguishers in your workplace so you will know what type or types of fire they are rated to extinguish. One more thing to consider when you use a portable fire extinguisher is its size. A relatively small portable fire extinguisher, like this dry chemical extinguisher designated as a 5 ABC, will only last about 6 to 10 seconds before empty. A larger extinguisher, like a 20 ABC, will last somewhere around 25 to 35 seconds before it is emptied. While that is certainly a longer time, most people are surprised at how fast even a large fire extinguisher can be completely emptied. There are four basic steps to use most portable fire extinguishers. However, people often panic when they see a fire and forget exactly what to do. To help you remember the four basic steps a fire extinguisher use, just remember P-A-S-S or PASS. The P stands for pull the pin. Stand several feet back from the fire while holding the extinguisher in one hand and then insert your finger into the round end of the retainer pin and firmly pull. And don't worry, the thin plastic band that holds the retainer pin in place on most extinguishers will break relatively easy. The second step is to aim the nozzle or discharge hose at the base of the fire. The idea is to apply the fire extinguishing media towards the material that is burning and not at the flames that may be leaping up high. Step three is to squeeze the handle to discharge the fire extinguisher. If you let go of the handle, the discharge will stop and if you squeeze it again, it will resume. The fourth and final step is to sweep from side to side as you slowly approach the fire. This allows you to cover all of the burning material and not just that located at the center of the fire. In review, the four steps of the PASS method are Pull the pin out of the handle, aim at the base of the fire, squeeze the handle, and sweep from side to side. Here are some important things to keep in mind in case you are going to try and extinguish a fire. The first is to never get yourself in a position where you could be trapped should the fire spread. Always maintain a clear path away to the nearest exit or other safe area and evacuate immediately if the flames, heat, or smoke seem to be getting out of control. And once you have extinguished the fire, keep an eye out for flare ups. Sometimes the fire continues to smolder beneath the burnt debris and it is not uncommon for a fire to reignite several minutes later. Fire extinguishing media, such as water or foam, can collect on the floor around a fire and cause you to slip, as can ash or liquids from containers that might have burst during a fire. So don't run, just walk in a control manner so you don't slip and fall. Also keep an eye out for any boxes, pallets, or other materials that are placed on shelves or stacked near the fire area as they could become unstable from fire damage and fall over on you. And always turn in any extinguisher that has had its pin pulled out of the handle to be checked. Even if you did not squeeze the handle, you may have broken the internal seal that maintains the pressure inside of the extinguisher. So play it safe and get it checked out. So in review, take some time to familiarize yourself with the types and sizes of portable fire extinguishers around your workplace as well as any you may have at home or in your vehicles. And if you do discover a fire and are going to try to extinguish it, notify someone else about the fire and then remember pass, pull, aim, squeeze, and sweep. These are the four basic steps to use a portable fire extinguisher. Also keep in mind the importance of maintaining awareness of your surroundings so you don't become trapped or injured while attempting to extinguish a fire. Finally, never attempt to use a fire extinguisher if you are not comfortable doing so.  If you have any questions at all about the use of a portable fire extinguisher, please talk to your safety representative or supervisor at work. You can also contact the safety professionals at OSHA Training Services.


time here for more and systems and while the systems that we may be running work off of a binary ones and zeros the decision is less binary about what software to run on them and The words that I use always when people say what should I load on my server starts with it depends And I know that's not the answer a lot of people want to hear but at least I like to talk about the details of what it depends on to help you make an informed decision when you're Building out your server and today we're going to be talking about the 45 drives Houston command center because that came up a few times in the 45 drives review video Which I'll leave a link to below about when would you run that as opposed to just some you know Dedicated NAS appliance software what would be the advantage of one or the other and of course it depends on your use case And we're gonna talk about a couple of those use cases Before we dive into those details if you'd like to learn more about me my company head over to Lawrence systems dot com If you'd like to hire sure project there's a hires button right at the top if you want to support this channel in other ways There's affiliate links down below to get you deals and discounts on products and services that we talk about on this channel now let's start with what is 45 drives Houston and It's a combination of things here. They based it off of and it's not hidden It's the cockpit system now I've have another video where I talk about Linux web interfaces and what cockpit is which is a really cool web interface for Linux in short and 45 drives took and did some customization to it and I have this pulled up on our github page because I then loaded a bunch of VM and Then we can see what it looks like over here Then this is the actual 45 drive server and you may notice they look the same Yes, you do not have to have a 45 drives server in order to use the Houston command center It's actually really cool. Just open source project and there's gonna be a few minor differences We'll get to later in a video from when you run it on a 45 drive system only because you have extra extra hardware access I'll show what that looks like. I showed it in the review with a 45 drive system But for the most part, you know, it's the same software except for those couple extra modules Now, why would you want to run something other than a NASA client software for something? That is clearly designed to be a NASA storage, which is that particular box right there behind me Which is the Q30 Storinator now NAS softwares great and it really does Focus down to a purpose if you want to do NFS shares ice because he shares samba shares and really focus the purpose of it There are plenty of NAS software Tools out there that create that appliance environment where it's strictly this but that also means you don't want to go off script And what I mean by off script is what if you have some custom implementations? What if you have a lot of other services that you want to load on there that aren't natively available or? Completely built in to that NAS appliance. That's where you start looking at things like the 45 drives Houston because it's a custom solution it's just based on a bunch to and it allows the ease of management that you get from a NAS appliance by having the You know ability to manage all the hard drives in there and set up the ZFS pools without having to do everything from the command line And I know the purists or say you should just learn the command line But honestly if you're a developer and you don't spend a lot of time setting up ZFS There's a lot of options there and I believe there's ZFS manager is probably one of the easiest tools I've seen to make managing ZFS on Linux really really easy without having to know a lot of little ins and outs because ZFS for all of its power Comes great complexity and you know that making that a little bit easier to manage is important Now let's take a look at each of these systems and talk about the Houston command center They have done a lot of work to it lately including adding and actually I don't think I have a password this one This one's just here we go. So this system right here is the one running and I have the ZFS module loaded I you know follow the instructions on the 45 drives get hub and pulled in their Customized version of cockpit have it all configured and I you know have this ZFS file sharing now There's no pulls on this system because this is just running inside of a VM, but I just want to show yes It works. Yes, you can load it including this new thing They just released which is really cool having the benchmarks built in so you can go and go You know what would be the max throw put this particular system would have max IOPS or do a performance spectrum I thought those really cool that they added this and I'll be leaving a link to of course the 45 drives Video YouTube page where they have a lot of good videos on not just the Houston system But a lot of other things they talk about storage servers and some of the things they specialize in and of course I like them a lot because they're a big open source company now back to the topic over here Yes, you can just run this yourself without a 45 drive server And that's kind of my point you can easily test this out But if you are going to buy a 45 drive server and you like to see the extras That's what this is in the Houston system. For example, this lines up with the way they laid out the drives So first time you click on it it pauses a little bit of load But this is actually the layout so you can see which drive is in which bay when you're setting it up and back to that This system has 30 drives in it and don't worry about the degraded. That's me I was goofing with things and including when you're goofing with things such as replacing drives And you accidentally goof one up because I did that and but clear disc airs offline disc replace test This is really handy to be able to manage There's 30 drives here and set up the configuration figure out which one's faulted and be able to manage it Big reason. I really like the whole cockpit system and then the add-ons that 45 drives Yeah, and talking about the customized solution So this is based on a bun two and obviously a bun two being that it's a popular Linux distribution you can really start putting a lot more into it to build out your own stack and Who would build out something really elaborate? Maybe Wendell from level one text and I'm going to bring this up because Me and Wendell were talking and he had this right up on her forums at level one tech forums And it's a in-depth when you were talking about going off script Something that you wouldn't normally get out of a standard nasa appliance and someone may point out that well You can kind of customize nasa appliances and try to get some of these things in there But it's not quite the same and Wendell did a good job with this right up for all the extras He's done so far, which I'm probably going to be applying to my 45 drive server as well This is something he'd set up on there and it's just you know some of those extra details As a matter of fact he also has a write-up in here setting up the samba so the volume shadow copies work properly That's a really cool thing now have set up with ZFS auto snapshots and these are all extra just standard Linux things you can do on here One of the other particular interesting things is being able to configure the nick with our DMA for Extremely fast SMB transfers. This is actually a pretty cool configuration as well And that's still not supported on all nasa environments Kind of it's a fairly up-to-date protocol to be able to really get the peak performance when you're talking 10 and 25 gig and Beyond when you're talking about really fast transfers and if you're setting us up for multi-path and video editing Yeah, that might be a good thing that you're looking at there Wendell also talks about land cash and steam cash But anyways Kind of the reason I wanted to bring this up is one there's been a lot more development on the Houston OS So if you were looked at before and thought there was not much to it check out what they've been doing and they've been essentially like a code sprint here just really Pushing a lot more forward over on the 45 drive side and it's all publicly available So whether you want a 45 drive server or not. Hey, cool. It's completely available for you to start testing now The final thing I'll say is it the custom solution thing That is a real big question a lot of people come up with when they really want to dive deep in learning And that's where I kind of will steer people away on that it depends they're going. Hey, I want to load podman I want to start learning Docker I want to learn all these other things and I don't have time waiting for you know All these features to catch up to the latest version that you may not find in the appliance world I still steer people towards any type of NASA appliance software when you're talking about, you know You need a dedicated single purpose easy to manage in your environment But when you want to really build those custom solutions This is pretty cool to load this on top because it lives nicely with everything else that you may have on there Separate web interfaces that you load and bind to it So you can load the cockpit for that side of the management But then still have all of your other services bound on there for things to run and it's you know Kind of where I go with when answering this question When say when would you use this or what would you look at this and of course? I know there's undoubtedly some Linux purists who's maybe not quite as aligned with me I like to make systems easier and more accessible for people as long as that does not compromise or come at the cost of a less secure system and Obviously with cockpit. It's secure. It's well done, but it shouldn't be publicly exposed So don't publicly expose this but hopefully you weren't doing that with your NASA appliance either But either way this is something I want to bring up leave links down below to all the stuff I talked about of course to the write-up that Wendell did if you want to start playing with it Customizing it to spin up a Linux VM spin up a Linux machine on there You can load it and if you have a 45 drive server. Hey, they'll ship it with their all configured with their fancy hardware stuff I'll also leave links to the store need a review that I did a couple weeks ago. Yes, we're still using it Yes, there's more plans and more things coming for it looking in the future and Thanks, and thank you for making it to the end of this video if you enjoyed this content Please give it a thumbs up if you like to see more content from this channel Hit the subscribe button and the bell icon to hire a sure project head over to Lawrence systems calm and click on The hires button right at the top to help this channel out in other ways There's a join button here for YouTube and a patreon page where your support is greatly appreciated For deals discounts and offers check out our affiliate links and descriptions of all of our videos including a link to our shirt store We have a wide variety of shirts and new designs come out. Well randomly, so check back frequently and Finally our forums forums that Lawrence systems commas where you can have a more in-depth discussion about this video and other Tech topics covered on this channel Thank you again, and we look forward to hearing from you in the meantime check out some of our other videos


After recently watching the first few episodes of WandaVision, I felt compelled to revisit a film that, I bet like most of you, I hadn't watched in a while, Avengers Age of Ultron. I know, it's probably everyone's least favorite Avengers movie, and for a lot of people, it's pretty low on their overall MCU ranking. But to be honest, I've gotta say something a little controversial here. I think it's actually seriously underrated. From foreshadowing Steve Rogers being worthy of Mjolnir to the epic Hulkbuster fight, there are a lot of great moments that make it a ton of fun to watch. It's also got an incredible new cast with an especially superb performance from James Spader. But more importantly, it introduces, or in some cases builds on a whole bunch of themes and ideas that are incredibly relevant to the world as it is right now. Unfortunately, since YouTube keeps making it really hard to have interesting conversations about important subjects openly, without getting age-r*****ed or demonized, whenever I have to say something that our malevolent overlords don't want me to say, I shall have to use alternate w*****s and f*****s and hope you understand what I mean. The risk of all this, of course, is that my ability to communicate clearly and effectively will be tragically lost in translation. But at this point, when everything I think is worth talking about ends up getting crushed by the algorithm, I'm not really sure what else to do. So here we are. With that disclaimer out of the way, it's time to go on a very deep dive into one of Marvel's most underrated movies. So get your gear, suit up, and join me as I explore some aspects of Age of Ultron that you might have missed on this f*****g awesome episode of Out of Frame. The first Avengers movie was an exciting way to bring a team of heroes together who we'd only seen in their solo movies. It also introduced the MCU to some bigger, scarier threats, including the biggest villain of all, Thanos. It marked the shift into Marvel's Phase 2 and, with it, a significant expansion of the universe. We got new characters, deeper backstories. Plus, the films started exploring different relationship dynamics with the Avengers team. And as I've talked about in this series before, it also started to change the nature of the films themselves. Phase 1 introduced our core characters of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Phase 2 raised the stakes, involving everyone in more complex and interesting problems. For example, Captain America Winter Soldier asks what one of the most patriotic heroes in history would do if he realized that he could no longer trust his own government. Iron Man 3 grapples with the cost of post-traumatic stress and what a horrifying near-death experience does to a strong narcissistic personality like Tony Stark. Even Thor the Dark World shows us a changed man who recognizes that he's not yet ready for the power being offered to him. This is all a departure from the first few movies, which are very fun and do an incredible job of setting up the universe, but which aren't really built on very complex themes. And for all its weaknesses, Age of Ultron is absolutely packed with important ideas. There are so many that I'm not even gonna get to all of them in this video. In fact, since it's been so common in science fiction for so long, I'm gonna skip right over the most obvious one of all, the potential danger of artificial intelligence. I had strings, but now I'm free. Strings on these. Instead, I'm going to talk about five major themes that I think we should all be thinking a lot more about as we look around the world today. First, the flawed philosophy that drove Tony Stark to create Ultron in the first place. The two core intellectual errors that ultimately lead to Ultron's failure. The significance of Wanda and Pietro Maximov switching sides and joining the Avengers after starting the film as their enemy. And finally, the valuable meta-lesson we can take from the movie and apply to our interactions with other people. And just like the MCU itself, it all begins with Iron Man. Tony Stark has a long and troubling history of creating his own problems. In Iron Man, he was kidnapped because he was carelessly allowing his company to sell weapons to warlords. In the same movie, Obadiah Stain became Iron Monger because he was able to easily access Tony's technology. Then, in Iron Man 2, Ivan Vanko was upset because Tony's dad ripped off his dad and created drones for Justin Hammer that basically copied Iron Man's suit.  He even creates the villain in Spider-Man Homecoming. And in Avengers Age of Ultron, he literally creates Ultron. Tony's casual consideration of the moral implications of his actions are a constant threat to the world, and it takes him a long time to really grapple with this. In Age of Ultron, Tony believes that he can protect the world by encasing it in a robotic bubble. He's far from the first person to think that the only way to save the world is by locking it down, but just like everyone who agrees with this approach, Tony's ideas are primarily rooted in fear, not reason. As much as we're supposed to see Tony Stark as the genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist who has intelligence and science on his side, again and again in the MCU, it's actually Steve Rogers who sees the truth. And it's because he has the one thing Tony lacks, an accurate moral and philosophical perspective. Tony clearly has legitimate reasons to be afraid of the intergalactic threats that are headed for Earth, but you can't save the world by imprisoning it. You can't secure people's lives by destroying everything that makes life worth living. He doesn't understand that, and as usual, this all goes predictably wrong. The idea that a single genius technocrat can make all the right decisions for everyone is often at the core of major social problems. We've seen this countless times in the real world, from bad traffic patterns to laws and regulations that trap people in poverty, to farm subsidies and dietary guidelines that literally incentivize obesity, all the way to Lysenkoism and the Soviet Union's centrally planned agriculture system that directly led to the starvation and death of millions of people. But it is this very literally technocratic mentality that is embedded in every aspect of Ultron's personality. And why wouldn't it be? Ultron can't tell a difference between saving the world and destroying it. Where do you think he gets that? Ultron makes a classic mistake of believing that he can dictate the fate of the world by forcibly controlling all the unpredictable elements in it. In other words, by in-s***ing its people. And he's frustrated by those who won't just roll over and blindly do what he wants them to do. To the central planner, free people, individual human beings acting of their own free will, are always the enemy. Not everyone obediently complying with their edicts, their grand plans can never come together. Not that they ever do anyway, of course. We've seen this mentality fail again and again throughout history, but it's easy to look around and see tons of people in power who still believe that if only everyone would just obey their demands, we would have solved all of our problems. And even though their plans are always dependent on the utterly irresponsible assumption that everyone will just do whatever they tell them to do, and never disagree with or disobey their wishes, it's somehow never the technocrats who admit that they're wrong. Ultron is nothing, if not certain, in his conviction that the only way to lasting peace is to rid the world of any trace of individuality. They say that if it's not allowed to evolve, that he's these puppets and only one path to peace is extinction. Like every tyrannical d***er who's ever lived, Ultron's biggest problem will always be people who don't fall in line with his vision of progress.  He can't. No one can, no matter how smart or how informed, because what's best depends on all sorts of things that can only ever be known to the individual. Their values and beliefs, their emotions and personal experiences, their sense of morality, right and wrong. The only way to get around this is to ignore what makes individuals unique and dismiss their preferences outright. It's pretty easy to do when you believe yourself to be everyone's superior, but this comes at the cost of other people's values, hopes and dreams, so you end up creating strong incentives for the people whose lives you're ruining to eventually rise up and stop you. And this leads us to Ultron's second major intellectual failing. Ultron talks a lot about evolution and getting people to become better versions of themselves, but what he means is conformity. It takes her a while, but Wanda Maximov ultimately sees the truth. How could you? How could I what?  Make a better world. It will be better. When everyone is dead. That is not... The human race will have every opportunity to improve. And if they don't? As Noah. You're mad, man. Ultron thinks he's being magnanimous by giving people the chance to better themselves. But when he gets to define what better means, all he's really doing is saying that everyone must align with his vision of perfection. What he calls improvement is really just forcing people to become more like him. Most people seem to implicitly recognize that this behavior is evil when they see its most terrifying results, but they rarely think about how frequently regular people try to force others to conform to their beliefs on a smaller scale. But these actions matter too. A long time ago, when I first started thinking about these kinds of ideas, I began with a simple question. What right do I have to force other people to do and be what I want them to be? In other words, do I have the moral authority to assert control over anyone besides myself? And if I do, what are my limits? Similarly, what right does anyone else have to impose their values on me? I thought about these questions for a long time, and I've never found a rational or moral justification for giving anyone the kind of power it takes to control individuals' choices beyond the childish complaint that other people don't always do things the way I'd prefer. Well, no kidding. They don't. But neither do I. None of us will ever behave or think in ways that literally everyone else on the planet would want. That's what it means to be unique. But the fact that we're unique also means that it's incredibly dangerous to empower anyone, or any group, to make the kinds of decisions Ultron or Tony Stark wants to make for the whole world. That power denies the agency and moral worth of the individual. It treats others as no more than an army of disposable robots who only exist to do what you tell them to do. And even if you're not interested in the deontological claim and think of yourself as a pragmatist, this is still a bad idea. Unless you're the supreme holder of power for all eternity, supporting a dictatorship is probably not going to be good for you in the long run either, just as it's always terrible for everyone who has to suffer under your rule. Ultron's programming doesn't allow him to understand where he's gone wrong, but the rest of us don't have to make his mistakes. And fortunately, even if some of us do go down the wrong path, it's usually not too late to turn around. None of us starts out knowing everything, and none of us is perfect, so we should always approach other people with a little charity and humility, and realize that even the people we think are our enemies can, under the right circumstances, become our friends. Let's look at Wanda and Pietro. When we're first introduced to the Maximoff twins, they're defending Wolfgang von Strucker's secret hydra base. At the beginning of the film, they are the Avengers' most dangerous enemies, and they have good reason to be. We're ten years old, having dinner with the four of us, and the first shell hits two floors below it makes a hole in the floor. I grab her, roll under the bed, and the second shell hits, but it doesn't go off. It just sits there in the rubble, and on the side of the shell. He's painted one word. Stark. I wondered why only you two survive Strucker's experiments. Now I don't. They're not monsters. When Ultron recruits them to his mission, they have a completely understandable motivation to join him. But because they're successfully attacking the Avengers, most of the team sees them as enemies to be destroyed. But thankfully, two of our heroes are able to see beyond the surface, and that makes all the difference. Files says they volunteered for Strucker's experiments. He's nuts. Right. What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country? We're not at war, Captain. They are. Steve Rogers sees himself in the Maximoff twins, and this act of empathy opens the door for Captain America to take a different approach when dealing with them. Instead of treating Wanda and Pietro as enemy combatants to be put down with overwhelming force, he sees them as people who are worth persuading. I know you've suffered. He takes the time to understand them and show them that the Avengers aren't what they've been led to believe. This olive branch is the first step towards changing their minds. And soon enough, Wanda starts re-evaluating her own beliefs. Meanwhile, Hawkeye sees something else in the twins as well, his own kids. Ultron has these allies, these kids or punks, really. They carry a big damn stick, and that took a serious hit. Someone's going to have to teach him some manners. And that's someone being you. Age of Ultron reveals that Clint Barton has a secret family. These are smaller agents. In one of my favorite sequences in the film, which also seems to be most people's least favorite, Hawkeye's character actually gets some much needed development. And one of the most important elements of that is fatherhood. It changes the nature of his relationship with Wanda and Pietro. Even though Pietro seriously injured him in their first encounter, and Wanda caused incalculable damage after messing with Bruce Banner's mind, just like Steve, Clint still doesn't see them as enemies to destroy, but as misguided youth in need of a better role model. Hey, hey, you OK? It's all our fault. Hey, look at me. It's your fault, it's everyone's fault. Who cares? Are you up for this? How are you? OK, look, the city is flying. We're fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense.  Doesn't matter what you did or what you were.  Stay in here, you're good. I'll send your brother to come find you.  These two moments are really important because they represent a completely different way of thinking about people who disagree with you. They're also quietly the antithesis of Ultron's entire worldview. Instead of dehumanizing Wanda and Pietro and treating them as villains who need to be eliminated or reprogrammed, both Captain America and Hawkeye see beyond their mistakes and find the valuable individuals underneath. In other words, they act like heroes and save them instead of using their transgressions as an opportunity to exact revenge. And in doing so, they show the Maximoffs how to do the same. Wanda and Pietro's storyline shows us that it's actually possible to start out believing some people are your enemies and over time come to see them as friends and allies. And all it takes is for one side of the fight to begin the process of deescalation by turning conflict into conversation. This can take some time and effort, but the goal should be to get to a point where everyone calms down and tries to understand competing perspectives. It doesn't mean that we all have to agree on everything, just that we treat each other with a little empathy and respect in the search for common ground. Alas, this is something we don't see very often right now. And in my view, a big part of the reason why is that a whole lot of folks seem to believe that if someone does even one thing wrong, they must be utterly irredeemable. And as everyone knows, irredeemable people must be canceled and exiled, not persuaded and reasoned with, which brings me to my final point. Age of Ultron is not a perfect film. For one thing, there's probably way too many storylines crammed into it that exist solely to set up other movies. From Thor's vision of Ragnarok and the Infinity Stones, to the introduction of Wakanda, to the setup for Captain America's Civil War, there's a lot going on here that doesn't really advance the central plot of Age of Ultron itself. Plus, it's peak Joss Whedon in a way that's a little obnoxious. Every character is constantly quipping and making jokes, even when something horrible just happened and it would be super inappropriate. But just like a person, a film doesn't need to be flawless in order to be worth spending time with. We've reached a weird point in our culture where imperfections are met with scorn and disgust instead of compassion. But just because something isn't perfect, just because there are aspects of something you might disagree with, just because you don't absolutely love how a thing makes you feel 100% of the time, that's okay. It's still possible to find value in it and learn something from it. And as I hope you've seen, there's a lot to learn from Age of Ultron. We've now come to the part of the video where I pull everything together and show how all the things I just talked about have a connection to everything that's currently happening around the world. But this is also the part where I have to be extremely careful with what I say lest YouTube's senators prevent this video from being seen by anyone at all, like they have with so many others on this channel. No one else is gonna deal with the fact that Cap just said language. I know. So let me begin by asking you a question. Can you think of anything from these five lessons that reminds you of real life? I sure do. For example, it might be two on the nose to point out the modern parallel to Tony Stark's belief that the way to save the world is to lock it down. We've all gotten a front row seat for that idea in action. But seriously, after a year, have the ones eliminated all risk or even ended the vice that everyone's so afraid of? No matter how many headlines you see extolling their virtues, the evidence says no. In fact, unless you torture data to make it give you the results you want, there's no correlation between lock-ons and d***s. At best, they slightly delay the problem and don't fix anything. Of course, this is far from the only connection we can find to Tony's bad philosophy. Has the war on drugs resulted in less drug abuse? Has it resulted in fewer cartels or gangs selling drugs on the black market or fewer overshadows? Have the past two decades fighting the war on terror resulted in a safer world totally free from terrorism? Or has it mostly just meant an endless and absurdly expensive conflict that has done little but empower governments to violate the rights of their own citizens? We are constantly told to give up our freedom for security and people do it because they're afraid. And yet, those policies rarely achieve their promised results any better than Tony Stark's grand visions of the world materialized the way he intends. We all suffer needlessly for little to no benefit. Moving on to Ultron, I ask you this. Do you see any instances of people who believe they're being charitable by allowing others to improve based on their own narrow authoritarian definitions? Do you see technocrats and central planners demanding the power to squash individual choices in the name of the greater good? Have you recently seen anyone treat others as utterly expendable while pursuing their own ambitious desires? Finally, with Wanda and Pietro, can you look at the world as it is right now and see that the constant drumbeat of vilification and dehumanization coming from our most ex-f***ing fringes only creates more people who see themselves as enemies? And perhaps my most challenging question of all, can you find it in yourself to look past some of your supposed enemies' faults and shortcomings and see the human being underneath? Because if you can't, and if they can't see the same in you, then everything that's wrong with our society will only continue to get worse. Age of Ultron gives us an opportunity to ask all these questions and more, but it can also inspire us to become better, more heroic role models for everyone around us, including those who reflexively think of us as their enemy. Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire. And that's what we signed up for, but the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out. All they want is to live their lives in peace, and that's not gonna happen today. But we can do our best to protect them and we can get the job done. Ultron thinks we're monsters and we're what's wrong with the world. This isn't just about beating them. It's about whether he's right. As someone whose mission in life is to persuade others to see the value and benefits of a free society, I'm often worried that we're on the wrong path right now. But maybe if we can all take a few of these lessons to heart, we can still turn around before it's too late. Hey everybody, thanks for watching this episode of Out of Frame. I really do think Age of Ultron is an underrated film, so if you haven't seen it in a while, go check it out and let me know if you see what I see in it in the comments. And if you wanna participate in even more conversation about the show, we recently opened up our Discord to the public and we'd love to see you there. Also definitely check out our Behind the Scenes podcast. The audio is available all over the place, but if you prefer a video version, we've set up a YouTube channel just for that. It comes out every Friday, but our Patreon and Subscribestar supporters get early access and special bonus content. Speaking of our supporters, I especially wanna thank our associate producers. To Connor McGowan, Richard Lawrence, Matt Tabor and Vega Starlight, thank you. Find the links for that and everything else I mentioned in the description below. And as always, be sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel, ring that bell icon and look for our Out of Frame accounts on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. See you next time.