Thank you. All right. So for this second half of today's class, we are going to derive the optimality equation for the discounted setting. Okay. So the good news is that if you are not impressed about all the heuristics we've been given in the last part, it doesn't really matter because we start basically from scratch and derive the Bellman's equation from its bare assumptions. Okay. So this were the first part was meant as a motivation. Maybe after the fact you will want to go back and understand where it comes from. Okay. So let's recap what the problem is. We want to find out a policy, a single actual policy by AS which maximizes, so this would be our optimal policy, which maximizes our expectation from zero to infinity of the discounted rewards, which we can write as usual in this form. And just as we did for the time dependent Bellman equation, we introduce value functions for a certain policy pi. Okay. So specify the policy. We have the expectation of the same discounted sum. Now it's conditioned on the fact that we start at the initial time at a state S. Okay. So nothing has changed except for these minor changes about the presence of the horizon and the presence of discount factor in this, in this definition. All right. So and then in a sense, we want to find that what is the optimal policy, the optimal value function, this object, which is the one which maximizes overall possible policies. So once we have obtained this, we know what the best policy is. So this is just to recap what the task is. So the first step in this derivation, so the step one, is to find a recursion relation. Okay. So this will be very similar to what we did for the time dependent Bellman equation. So I'm going to go quite quickly on this. If we start from the value, what do we do here? As usually, we split this sum here into two terms. So this is going to be the expectation of the reward. For the first step, that is for state S, which is the initial state, action one, state two. Okay, which I can say as note, as if you wish, so it's a clear plus gamma. And then I have the sum of t going to one to infinity. I pulled out a gamma here explicitly so that this becomes the t minus one. And then I have r s t a t s t plus one. Okay, all this is conditioned on S mode equals S. Okay, so very easy step. Separate what is happening now from what is happening from the next step until infinity. And then just going by the same steps that we had last time, we see that this first average can be written as some overall possible S primes in A. Or again, S node is S. So I have to pick an action from S. Then I have to pick a new state from S and A. And then I have my average reward for the triplet S, A, S prime. So this is this first expectation value. And the second expectation value is plus gamma. And it's absolutely similar in the sense that I pick an action. I'm sorry. Yep. S is S naught. Yeah, they are the same. Yeah. Okay. And in the first equation, it's R of S0, A1 and S1. You're right. Thank you. Thanks for pointing that out. Okay, so the same happens here. We are going to move one step forward. And then in that step, then again, we see the new value function in the new state S prime. And then when we put everything together here, we went up with our recursion relation, which is sum over S prime A of I, S. Okay, we're writing this here, this object. Now, this is a recursion relation, which is recurrent, strongly recurrent, because there's no more this feedback structure that there were for times. So you don't have a vector at a certain time, and then you can derive the vector that previous time. Now, every state talks to every other state with the same object. Okay. But nevertheless, you can solve this equation. It's a linear equation. So you can solve it very simply. It requires just one sweep to be solved explicitly. And this is our starting point. Then the second step is to look, step two, look for optimal V, okay, V star, which is the vector of optimal values. That is what you get on average if you follow the optimal policy yet to be discovered. So now the proof of the optimality equation is extremely straightforward. So it's mathematical proof. So it's very elegant and concise. It doesn't shed a lot of light on what is happening. But we will derive the Bellman's equation in other ways tomorrow in order to see more from new different angles what is happening. But now this proof will just require basically four lines of computation. And it starts out as it should in the sense that the definition of the optimal value is just the maximum over all possible policies of the value of any given policy. Okay. So, and then the next step is nothing but replacing this quantity by the explicit expression that is in the red box above. Okay. So quite not particularly demanding from the intellectual viewpoint. I just copy. Okay. Now, in taking the maximum there are here, of course, a couple of problems because you cannot take the maximum inside simply because there's a sum. So you cannot just make it go through. It's a nonlinear operation. Okay. So in order to manipulate these things we have to do something. So the first thing we do is quite obvious in the sense that by definition this star is optimal. Okay. So for any pi by definition, let me write here by definition of V star. Yeah, the V star s is larger equal than V pi s for any state s just because it's a maximum. So using this I can say that this quantity here since it has a V pi in here is a smaller equal than the same thing where I replace V pi with V star. So you see what has happened here? This thing here I replaced with this one because of the property of the maximum. Okay. Quite easy so far. Next step is again relatively simple. We have to look. Now what have we gained here from going from here to here? Is that pi has disappeared here? So there's no pi any longer inside. The only pi is here. So second step of this second step. We realize that term in square bracket is linear in pi. So the dependence on the policy of the term over which we maximize now is linear. And therefore as you remember we discussed this last time. When you optimize a linear function over a convex set, the maximum takes place on the boundaries. Okay. If you remember we had this very simple example. So let me go back to that for a second so you maybe it refreshes your memory. We've been discussing this at the end of last lectures. Okay. So the linearity. And the example was this one in the very simple case in which you have a policy of two actions. This means that it's a linear function. So it can only take values at the boundaries which in this case are zeros and ones. And the value that it takes is just the maximum between the two coefficients that are in front of this. So the equivalent multidimensional argument here leads us to say that this object here is equal to the maximum over a. And we drop the pi in there. So once again in interest of clarity. So we've been using the property of optimality of V star to simplify the dependence on the policy of the right hand side. What is under the maximum operator? The first line on the top has become the third line. And the third line has become the fifth line because of linearity in the policy. Okay. This is very nice, but we have an inequality yet here. Okay. So we wish to find an equality. So we have to do a little bit of steps yet. So now next step that we do is that we define arbitrarily a new policy. Let's call it pi bar, which is defined as the arc max over a of this last square bracket. Sorry, this sum here was over S prime. Of course, S prime of B of S prime S a. This is not going to end well. So let me take some more space here. It's defined as the arc max over a of the sum over. All right. And then again, I'm coping the last line. Okay. So I am defining a new policy, which was not present at the beginning. Now, what is important if I choose this, this means that this last line that I have here is also equal to the value of my policy pi bar by definition. Because if my policy is to pick the argument of this, then the maximum is just the value of my policy. Okay. Because I use the recursive relation. Okay. So this is just the tautology. It's just by definition. But then if this is true, well, this is one possible policy among many. So again, this has to be suboptimal by definition. So this has to be smaller than V star. Therefore, if you look at this in full, well, you have this here and you have this here at the beginning. This is where we started from. So I don't know if you probably it's not possible to see it in all, but we started from here. And then we put series of less than less than something which is the same thing which we had at the start. So this chain of inequalities basically is our starting thing is less equal than our final thing, which means that they must be equal and everything that is in between must be the same. Right? So as a result of this chain of inequalities, also this object must be equal to V star. So that putting all things together, we can conclude that V star of S is equal to the maximum over A sum over S prime, which is the Bellman's optimal equation and which is nothing but exactly the same thing that we derived heuristically in the first half of today's class. So the intuitive solution of the problem, which could have been demonstrated to be true otherwise is also shown to be valid by this mathematical reasoning.   We will give, like I said, tomorrow more concrete proofs of how this about how this optimal equation emerges. Okay? A little bit more constructive way of deriving it. But that's the bottom line. This is the Bellman's optimal equation. Now that we have an equation, again, this is a no linear equation, we cannot use dynamic programming because we have the same thing on the left and on the right. So we have to find out some other way of solving this equation. But first of all, if we approach this problem mathematically, the first question is, are there solutions to this equation? Are they unique? So now what I'm going to do in the next minutes that are left is to derive one result which answers to these three questions altogether. That is, it will tell us that solutions exist, that they are unique, and will give us a method to solve them. Okay? So the following step that we take now is step three, solving Bellman. Okay. So the first thing to notice is that if we reason at a very abstract level, we can write down the Bellman's equation in the following form. So V star, you can see it as a vector. Okay? V star is a vector in R to the cardinality of the state space. Oh, you're frozen again. Hello, hello. I can hear you, but the screen is frozen. Now I can open it. Oh, it's like the freezing came with a little bit of logic. Okay. Hello. You were totally frozen for a while. Yeah, we saw you freezing after that you say that you were frozen, but no, it's okay. Okay. So V star, you can think of it as a vector in a space which has the dimension of the number of states. And before we can write down the Bellman equation in the following formal way, which is some operator B acting on V star gives back V star. So what this operator is while you read it from here, you have to take your vector V star here, you multiply it by gamma, you make a linear combination with the transition probabilities, and you add on top of this, this other thing. Okay? So it's a combination, and then you take the maximum. So it's a combination of linear and nonlinear operations that returns you another vector. And we call this nonlinear operator without much of a imagination. It's Bellman operator. Now what we're going to show here is that this operator B is contracting. What does it mean to be contracting? It means that it takes pieces of the space of this space where the value functions leave. And if you take any pair of points in this space, this operator brings them closer. So it creates, if you apply this operator to a cloud of points, these cloud of points will get closer. And then intuitively, this means that if you repeat many times this operation of applying the Bellman operator, this will get you closer and closer and closer, which is the important intuition. Because this will tell you that there exists a solution which is the center of this contraction. And this solution is unique. This is what is one example of a broader concept in mathematics, which is called the fixed point theorem. Okay? So, excuse me. Let's move on and try to prove the contractivity of the Bellman's operator. So again, it's quite compact as a proof. It works as follows. Take two vectors, W1 and W2 in this space where the value functions leave. A vector which has as many entries as states. Then you ask yourself, so if I apply B to W1 and B to W2, and then I take the norm according to some norm, what is it? Okay? So, my goal is to show that this distance is smaller than the distance between W1 and W2. So, if I take two vectors and I apply the Bellman operators, after one iteration, they will be closer. Okay? That's my goal. How do I go about it? Questions? Any questions? If I go about it, I will go about it. So, let's first replace my definition of the Bellman's operator. This is just copying and pasting the definition. So, this is max A of sum over x prime. Sorry, don't restart. So, this just follows from the definition. There is an absolute value outside. Okay? No manipulation here so far. Now, remember, we want to show that this is smaller than the initial one. So, we want to bound this expression with something that is larger than that. And the basic idea here is let me take a short break by using a different color. So, what I'm going to want to show here is realize that this is the difference of two maxima. Okay? So, it's a maximum of a vector minus the maximum of another vector. So, I'm going to use... So, let's draw a little box here. I'm going to use a very simple inequality. So, this very simple inequality and I'm just going to play around with that a little bit. So, let's suppose we have the maximum over A of the difference of two functions, f and gA. Then if I take this as the... I sum the maximum over gA. This is smaller equal than the maximum over A of the sum of these two, which is fA. So, this is very straightforward to show, because the maximum of a sum is less than the sum of the maximum. So, recall that the maximum of the sum of two functions, which are different from this, let's say, h1A plus h2A. Okay? So, since every one of these is a smaller equal than the maximum over A of the maximum of each, and then this maximum here doesn't matter any longer, the one outside, this is equal to maximum over A of hA prime plus maximum over A of hA2. Okay? So, the same inequality here, if you use it by changing the names of h1 and h2, you get this. And therefore, this tells you that the maximum of... Yeah, the difference of the maxima is smaller than the difference of these two taken in the proper order. Okay? So, you can use this to bound the absolute value of this. Okay? So, basically this tells you that maximum A of fA minus maximum A of ga is smaller equal than the maximum A of fA. Okay? So, we're going to use this here. The difference of maxima, we can sum inside, so algebraic sum of the things that are inside. So, take this minus that, this minus that, and therefore be able to write that this object is smaller equal than the maximum over A of the difference. But when we take the difference, you realize that the first term here is the same. So, you take each other. And therefore, what you get is that this is smaller equal than gamma times the sum over S prime, E of S prime SA, W1, S prime minus W2, S prime. This is close, and then there is an absolute value outside. Okay? Now, next step. Excuse me? Yep. But according to the last orange equation, if I'm solving it, I'm obtaining that the sum of the maximum over A of fA minus ga plus the maximum of ga is greater than... Oh, sorry. I didn't know what I'm writing here. That's perfectly right. Sorry. So, that's not what I'm writing here. Sorry about that. Yeah. So, let me just go quickly through it, see what's wrong with this last step. Oh, yeah. Because I was wrong in the first... Sorry, sorry. I copied this thing wrong in the very beginning. Apologies. Apologies. This is the statement which derives from this. Okay? So, if you recombine, then it's the first line as the area in the opposite dimension. Thank you for pointing it out. I see you're wide and awake, much more than me. Very good. So, you can directly check this separately. It's just a straightforward calculation, but I was wrong in writing down the answer in the top. Very good. All right. So, if you use this, then we go to the next step. And then, of course, there are few things... Few easy things to do. The first one is to pull out the gamma, which is the number. It's just a pre-factor. And then the second thing we can do is that... So, this is... Every one of this term here is actually smaller equal than the modulus. Okay? So, this is, again, very quite obvious. If it's positive, it's the same. If it's negative, it's less than the absolute value. So, we can bound this with the modulus. And, of course, if this is positive, then all these... The things which are inside the square bracket are also positive. So, I can drop out the modulus outside, because everything will be positive. And this becomes the sum over S prime, P of S prime, S A, times the modulus of 1, S prime, 2. Very good. Next step. So, next step, we are going to introduce the infinity norm, which is a mathematical concept. It's a distance in vector space, which is defined as... Well, it's also called the total variation distance. It's just the maximum overall S, which are in the S, of the modulus of the vectors, of the components of the vectors. Okay? So, it's a norm.  It's not the Euclidean norm, but it's a proper norm. If you think of it geometrically, the Euclidean norm has level lines, which are spheres. In this case, the infinity norm has level lines, which are squares. Okay? Cubes, hypercubes. Okay. So, if you define this, then you realize that you can bound each of those, each of these terms. These are components of a difference of two vectors. So, you can go one step further and say that this is the infinity norm of W1 minus W2 is bounded by this, because every component must be smaller than the infinity norm in absolute value. Okay? Then, now we're almost done, because now the sum over S prime is acting only on this, but this is a probability. So, this object gives 1. And now the next nice thing is that the maximum over A now is totally vacuous, because the dependence on the action has disappeared. So, this object is actually equal to gamma, the infinity norm of W1. So, let's look at where we started from. Okay? So, this was basically, if I have to write it properly here, so I'm sort of making it even more transparent. This was taken for two different S, okay, because there was still an S around. So, this was component by component. Okay? You see that there was this dependence on S heading over. So, recap, we have shown that the Bellman operator applied to the vector W1 component S minus the Bellman operator applied to vector W2 component S in modulus is smaller equal than gamma, the infinity norm of W1 minus W2. This is valid for all components. So, I can take, on both sides, I can take max over S on both sides. And the max over S of what is here is just the same thing, because there's no dependence on the component. But what this object here is called by definition, the maximum of the modulus of this is just the infinity norm. Okay? And then we're done. We're done because now we conclude that if gamma is smaller than one, the Bellman operator is contracting. And then by the fixing point theorem, we conclude that bv star equals v star has one unique solution, which is again intuitively given by this property of contracting points. Okay? So, first take home message. This apparently nasty nonlinear equation, in fact, has rather nice mathematical properties, at least when we use the infinity norm. Okay? So, we will discuss a little bit if this is really crucial or this is a mathematical artifact. I can anticipate that it's mostly for demonstration purposes than or you can sort of make it more sensible even with other norms. It's not a necessity. Okay? Why do we care about this? Well, I mean, it's a good and interesting mathematical property, which we have to cherish because this means that if we find, if we look for an optimal solution of our planning problem, we don't risk ending up in the spurious optimal results or local maximum. Okay? This is not the case. This has a unique optimal solution, which is not obvious from the outside. But it's even more interesting than that because this provides us step four, an algorithm for solution. And this algorithm is called value iteration. So, what is the area? Well, the area is extremely straightforward. So, the pseudo code for this algorithm is the following. Initialization, choose vnode. What is vnode? It's a guess. It's a guess for your value function. Okay? Thanks to the fact that the Bellman operator is contracting, everywhere contracting, it doesn't matter where you start from. Okay? So, your initial guess, did you miss any part of? The initial guess. The initial guess is arbitrary. Okay? Because it doesn't matter where you start, you will always be converging to the optimal, to the solution. But of course, if you start very far away, it will take a lot. Okay? This is to be expected. So, then you define your next, then there is a loop which defines your next approximation to the value function as the Bellman operator applied to your previous approximation. So, you start with a guess. You apply the Bellman operator. This produces another vector. And then you repeat this again and again and again until your distance from the new guess to the previous one is smaller than some tolerance. Okay? Well, you should define this in the infinity norm in order to be able to apply the theorem. Okay? So, when the two vectors, the previous one and the new one, are close enough in this cubic, hyper cubic distance, then you call it off. You say, okay, I'm happy. So, you're close enough. And then you define your optimal approximation to the policy. So, you're after this step when you're exited. So, this is return, the optimal policy, the approximation, which is as usual a function, which is defined as the arc max over A of the Bellman operator. So, it's S, S1, S8, S8, S1. Okay? So, it's the usual thing that I'm rewriting thousands of times all over again. So, even if you cannot read it well, it's the same object which has appeared many, many times. And then this algorithm guarantees you that given the tolerance, you are within your close to the optimal policy as much as you want. If you decrease the tolerance, you will get even closer. So, in a sense, this tends to be star and pi star. So, graphically speaking, just to give you the final intuition of what is happening here. So, you may think of this being the space of values. Okay? So, it's not a line. It's a possibly high-dimensional space. Okay? So, this stands for something which should be r to the power number of states, real numbers to the power number of states. So, this is the space of values. Now, then there is a function which sends values into values, which is the Bellman operator. So, how the Bellman operator used to think about it as something like a function like this, which everywhere has a slope lesser than one. Okay? So, this is what the B of V is, like the graph of B of V. Everything is, I mean, this is just a one-dimensional sketch. So, be aware that these are maps of vectors into vectors. Okay? So, and this axis would be the sort of the outcome. So, again, here I drew it really horribly. So, please let me just try to do better. Otherwise, this is going to be something like this. All right. And it's no linear. Okay? So, I'm trying to draw something which is at the same time no linear but not too ugly. So, it does have the right properties, something like curve like this. Okay? So, what is the solution of the Bellman equation? Well, it is a solution when there's two lines. Oh, my God. This is lovely. So, this is the curve of V prime equals V. And this is V V prime equals V V. Okay? So, this object here, this point here, this is V star, which is the solution of V V star equals V star. The contractivity property is equivalent to say that this green curve here has a slope lesser than one. Why is that? Because if I take two points like W1 and W2, what will happen to them? Well, I look at here and then this will be my, the position of my W1 prime and W2 prime, which correspond to this. And you see that if the slope is lesser than one, two points which were far apart will become close. So, this is the contractivity property. And what does the value iteration algorithm do? Well, you start from one guess. Okay? So, you start from, let's use another color. Let's, you start with your guess V nodes. Then you go up, you see, okay, this is sending me to a value which is larger than we know, because the green curve here is above the white one. So, this will send me to V1 here. And then if I apply again the Belman operator, I will get here and so on and so forth. So, you see that this sequence approaches V prime. And the same thing happens with star. And the same thing happens from the other side. Of course, again, this is one dimensional, but you can take my word that this idea of contracting does the same job in arbitrary number of dimensions. Okay. So, I think that that was quite a lot for today. In the exercise session, you will see how this value iteration works. Okay? But tomorrow for starters, I will go back to this idea of value iteration and show you a little bit some intuition about what kind of approximation it produces in some simple example like the green one. Okay? But that's for tomorrow. Fine. Any questions? I just wanted to ask you just a little bit above what you wrote. Okay. Where there's the infinite norm of Vk plus one minus Vk, it needs to be lesser than you said, and this is some tolerance that you decided at the beginning. Okay? So, you have to decide when to stop. Okay? So, you basically decide maybe I want to stop when the difference of my value functions is lesser than a given number, or you can use actually other things. So, you can use also the percentage change. Okay? So, you might want to also to choose when this object divided by the norm of Vk infinity becomes smaller than something. Okay? So, you have different choices depending on if you have an idea of the numerical value that it takes, or if you haven't, you maybe want to use the percentage tolerance. It's a the substance of the algorithm doesn't change. The performance might be different, of course. This requires a little bit of craftsmanship to be true. Thank you. So, any other questions? Okay. So, that's good. Thank you very much, and see you tomorrow at nine. Okay? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Have a good day.


to actually stand up and actually say, these are the ethics and virtues we wanna put in artificial intelligence. This is how we want our family to thrive. What are you doing? How are you measuring that, you know? And so now is the time for us to actually to put a stake in the ground and start to bring artificial intelligence into a nourishing embrace, encode it with ethics and virtues and shift it onto that benevolent timeline for us to thrive. Today is where we need to make that decision. Okay. And so the artificial general intelligence, the AGI, do they have safety factors in place, their own paradise, if you will? So the, well, there is no paradise plan. So the artificial general intelligence is being discussed at the moment, Debbie. There's lots of folks that say that AI has achieved general intelligence, but actually that's not true. It's simply a mimicry of intelligence.


Have you ever sat next to your router and got ultra-fast speeds and then the moment you got to another part of the house, it feels as slow as PLDT. We live in a wireless world, but the truth is some things are still a lot better and a lot faster if they were wired, such as the drastically different charge speeds from wired as opposed to wireless charging for our phones. The most important speed everyone cares about however is our internet. Even though I'm in tech, I can tell you that even I get confused on the many different kinds of hardware used in networking. There's Wi-Fi boosters, access points, routers, mesh and so many other things which promise you light speed but which are all very confusing and overpowering to understand if you didn't graduate with a degree in IT. Which one is best suited for your home needs? What causes bad Wi-Fi signal in the first place? What devices have we forgotten about which run better wired? Hi, I'm Rafael from Hardware Sugar and these are all good questions. The best way to learn is through real-life problem solving. With only a 400 peso investment, I was able to double my download speed on not just my PC but my TV as well. If you're already a Zen master on what a network switch is then you'll have fun commenting how unnecessary this video is. But if you aren't then stick around and you just might improve your quality of life. Here's my problem. My PC speed downgraded to just half of what I was used to because of the Philips Hue Bridge I installed a couple of days ago. So the Hue lights are pretty cool however now I just discovered a new problem which is that you actually really need to have the Hue Bridge actually near the lights in order to be able to control the lights. And there's no way to go about it other than plugging in the Hue Bridge into a regular LAN socket. Now I've used that LAN socket for my PC. This is a network outlet sort of like what you would see in a hotel. Now the problem is I only have one slot and it goes to the Hue Bridge. Now my PC is now just running a fraction of the internet speed I'm entitled to. So I want to be able to get my PC internet speed back up and running to its full potential and I want to be able to have the Hue Bridge functionality. Then I decided well you know I was like why don't I just get internet for my TV as well. No there is nothing wrong with my internet or the Hue. It is quite literally a problem of a lack of sockets. My PC internet speed from Sky Cable gives me a download of 200, 216 Mbps and an upload of 28 Mbps. However the speed on my phone from the same internet is only 88 to 91 Mbps and an upload of 28 Mbps around the same upload speed. The difference lies in the fact that my PC is directly plugged into my router while my Wi-Fi is being broadcast from an access point on my ceiling. When we built our new home it was our contractor who suggested that we future-proof the internet speed of the house by placing internet cables or LAN cables in each room of the house. These cables in turn lead directly to one place. The gym which is where our Sky Cable router is. In short the only difference between physical cables running across the house leading to the router and what we have right now here at home is that the cables are hidden behind the wall or the ceiling. It is all thus purely cosmetic or for the looks just like my cable management video which you can see here. The wires are still there I just don't see them. My room was given two LAN outlet cables one for my ceiling where I installed the access point and one for my PC which looks like an electrical outlet. The access point is superior to that of a repeater in two crucial ways. One it does not pick up second-hand signals and two you do not need to connect to a different hot spot when you move between rooms. I'll make a separate video on this in the near future. For now let's focus on the LAN outlet. Now my problem is that I have three devices my PC the Hue Bridge and my TV which I want connected to the same outlet. The problem is I only have one socket. The solution just like when you have a lot of electronics but not enough plugs is to get an extension cord. A network switch is the equivalent in the networking world. It just like an extension cord boosts the number of connected devices to a single outlet. Unlike an extension cord however you must always give up one hole or port so if you need to connect three devices you must have a network switch of at least four ports. The reason for this is that the first port is used to connect to the router itself or the source of where all your magical internet comes from. If we don't connect it to the router it's like plugging your electronics into an extension cord. But the extension cord itself isn't plugged into a power supply. So I'm going to plug in and there we go it's reading. So this network switch is now connected to the access point in our gym. All right so now I have two devices plugged in. Notice that the blue one is again plugged directly into the network outlet which is connected to the gym. While the white one is plugged into the hue and the yellow switch is plugged straight into my PC. Now we just need to plug in a switch a LAN cable for the TV. Alright let's see if it's working with the hue. Boom! Now let's check out the TV. Okay. Wine connection it is connected. Pretty fast. And now for my favorite part. The cable management. If you found our content useful please like and subscribe to Hardware Sugar because it super helps us out. But how does this help you with your network or Wi-Fi problems? First it helps demonstrate the basics which is the wired and wireless connections will give off different speeds. But no matter how long a network cable travels around the house it will always give you faster and more consistent internet speeds as opposed to Wi-Fi. This is because cables are not affected by the things which degrade Wi-Fi. Distance, metal, glass, concrete and other people's Wi-Fi. Especially if you live in a condo building and even your own microwave oven impacts Wi-Fi strength. A lot of people blame their internet providers for slow internet and sometimes never ask themselves if it's their home or their neighbors who are causing the problem. Second if you have multiple devices which can benefit from wired internet like the TV then you don't need to bring in five or seven cables you just need one. And with that single network cable you can attach it to a network switch inside your room which instantly grants you more ports. In fact theoretically you can plug a second network switch the same way how you plug in an extension cord to an extension cord for a similar result. But you might ask Rafael I'm not planning on any renovations anytime soon. That's great too. Like I said you can just let a wired trail from your room to where the router is and it will accomplish the same thing. If you want better cable management what you can also do is buy plastic molding adhesive and a very long internet cable. Always measure and add one fourth more than what you measured to be on the safe side. You can always hide the cables later. If you're wondering if my network outlet is different from my proposal it isn't. Behind the outlet is a long internet cable and it's just much more convenient and neat looking to make it a socket rather than a wire which sticks out. Now there are other solutions to internet problems such as changing the frequency of your Wi-Fi so that it does not overlap on your neighbors or whether or not you should get an access point or a mesh system and so forth. All of these can get quite technical and so if you don't want to think too hard go with the tried and true method. It took me a year to finally troubleshoot why my access points in the house would not work as they should and throughout that period a lot of experimentation. Setting up access points are easy in theory but when you have to set up so many you're going to encounter all sorts of problems eventually. To make matters more stressful ubiquity access points are not cheap and so I spent many of those months getting angry as I troubleshooted until I found the sweet spot which allowed every room in the house even the garden to have the same Wi-Fi signal strength. It's really quite a magical feeling to go from one room to another without needing to switch to a different hotspot and be met with uninterrupted fast Wi-Fi. However I feel that my Wi-Fi download speed of just 100 is still way below what I should be getting considering my wired download speed is 200. So yes even after a year I still haven't fully maximized my access point investment yet the cable part has remained consistently as simple as plug-and-play. If you have a special meeting coming up and wish for extra protection from slow internet plug your laptop or PC straight into your router temporarily it may look ugly and might probably trip someone but you are at least milking your network provider for their worth. Let us know in the comment section below what home network problems you would like us to tackle. Coming up in the future is a more thorough discussion on the difference between access points routers Wi-Fi boosters and routers which you convert into access points and we would like to give a special thank you to our top fans Rafael James Liam Magnaje Ian Meru Richard Rónquico ITX addict John Rubinocia and Christian Espinoza thank you so much we're gonna be able to get to a hundred thousand subscribers pretty soon thanks to your consistent help thank you


that there's nothing wrong with Strava segments per se. It encourages their competition, their friendly rivalry between local runners. It might even encourage you to get out more. However, what it does encourage you to do, which you shouldn't do, is run fast all the time. You don't wanna get into the mindset of having to try and beat a Strava segment every time you go out. You don't wanna be in the mindset of trying to run really fast. Your best time ever, every single time you go out. And that's what Strava segments are trying to encourage you to do, to run fast all the time. That's one surefire way to get injured. It's one surefire way to burn out and get tired. Don't do it.


The Indianapolis Colts are sitting at six-and-a-half wins on Fandals Sportsbook, and let's just say, I think this season is going to be a long one for Colts fans. The first game against Jacksonville, that's going to be an L. Week 2 in Houston, and I think that's also going to be a loss. At Baltimore, L. At home versus the Rams, you may be, may be able to sneak a win past this. Rams team, so I'll give that a win. At home versus the Titans, L. At Jacksonville, L. In Cleveland, L. Versus the Saints on the road, L. At Carolina, another loss, then you go to Germany to lose to the Patriots. Get a win against Tampa Bay because I don't know what the quarterback situation is going to be like there. Lose to the Titans in Nashville, lose to Cincinnati, lose to the Steelers, beat the Falcons, beat the Raiders, and beat the Houston Texans at home to wrap up the season.


Team, report! So we're down at Tindall Air Force Base at the 801st Red Horse Training Site. We're down for readiness challenge. Eight different MAGCOMs put together 41 member teams. Down here to demonstrate some civil engineer downrange capabilities. We are Team AFTW, which is two bases, JBAB and JBA. This is the second challenge in 21 years. At the end of the day, it's a show of force while building camaraderie within the entire CE Enterprise. JBAB and Andrews coming together has given me a very different perspective. A lot of times you're pretty much only dealing with the team that you're normally used to, so like people from your own base, but in a deployed location as well, you have people from all over. For the most part, I like to keep a very positive attitude because either way we've got to be out here, so you might as well enjoy yourself. A lot of the team building isn't necessarily built when you're being watched, it's when you're not being watched. It might look natural on camera, but we've joined together in order to make ourselves a much stronger chain.


calcium phosphate materials have been widely used in dentistry due to their similarity to bones in terms of composition and osteoconductivity. These materials can be found in the form of cements, composites and coatings and are used in a variety of applications including fillings, crowns, baneers, implants and root canal treatments. Research has focused on improving the mechanical properties of calcium phosphate materials by using biomimetic processes and creating functional gradient materials. Additionally, this paper provides a review of the current state of calcium phosphate materials in dentistry, focusing on their use in dental applications, improving mechanical properties and biomimetic processes. This article was authored by Jabba S. L. Sanabani, Ahmed A. Madfa and Fadhel A. L. Sanabani.


I'd like to welcome you to the second seminar of the year and to welcome Mr. General Hossam from the time first. It so happens for those of you who may have come too big to go to the second seminar and second presentation from someone at time first. I guess that actually that is just easily how important the organisation is in terms of the practice of environmental law and development of environmental law was within the country and internationally. So, Tatania comes from the Columbia regionally. The practice was a practicing environmental lawyer there as well as NSE before joining us where she was working on various environmental issues but including clearly plastic. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much for inviting me and let's get on with this. So, we're going to talk about the European policy developments around plastic pollution. This is an area that has been moving really, really fast lately. From my experience and the experience of my colleagues, which are more than 80 lawyers in an organisation, they all say they have never experienced a policy issue moving as fast as what's going on with plastic pollution at European level. So, why should we care about plastic pollution? I'm sure you're aware but just let's go quickly through the effects of plastic pollution. So first, we know that plastic pollution has very dangerous and adverse effects on wildlife. So, plastic pollution, all the plastic waste is not necessarily collected. It escapes collection systems. Collection systems are not created in a way that actually protects from leakage. So, a lot of the plastic pollution that is generated on land ends up in the sea. And once it reaches the ocean, it has these effects on animals. So, when they eat the plastic waste, they can either get internal abrasion or they can start because their stomachs are so filled with plastic that they cannot eat other types of food. When they get entangled in plastic pollution, they can suffer from wounds. They can die. They have inferred mobility. So, if a shark comes, they can't escape. They have trouble reproducing. They asphyxiate. Plastics are not just the big plastics, the bottles, the bags. But once they go into the ocean and they receive sunlight, they break down into tiny particles called microplastics. These microplastics have in them all the toxic chemicals that are present in plastic. And they also absorb the toxic chemicals in the environment. So, many animals eat these microplastics thinking they are phytoplankton. And by eating them, they introduce these toxic chemicals in the food chain where they bioaccumulate. So, animals that eat plastic are going to have higher levels of toxic chemicals in their blood and their organs. Plastic waste also creates like rafts in the ocean. And these rafts transport invasive species from one ecosystem to the other at higher rates that they would do if there weren't these rafts of plastic in the ocean. And this water contaminated by plastic has also been shown to spread antibiotic-resistant genes. It's created all sorts of problems globally. So, human health also suffers from plastic pollution. These are effects that have not been studied in depth. But we have some studies that show scary things that we should be careful about and study further. So, we are exposed to plastic injection through many ways and not just by eating seafood. So, we have found microplastics in bottled water, tap water, table salt, honey, beer, seafood, and in the air we breathe. And the effects of plastic pollution mainly are related to the toxic chemicals that are in plastic. And the main effect is endocrine disruption. And many scientists believe that the increase in the use of plastic is tied to the increasing diseases we have seen in modern society like obesity or reproduction problems or cancer or gene mutation. And the microplastic fibers that are in the atmosphere when you breathe them, they stain your lungs and they create a longer, long-term exposure to these chemicals. So, they increase the possibilities of not only inflammation of the lungs, but this inflammation when it becomes chronic can lead to other diseases that lead then again to cancer and gene mutation. Also, this is a link that many people do not make, but plastic has a big impact on climate change. So, plastic production and the incineration of waste give rise to approximately 400 million tons of CO2 per year. And in Europe, right now, there are 49 million tons per year of CO2 that are related to plastic. If things continue being as they are at the moment, in 2050, the CO2 emissions that come from the production of recycling and incineration of plastic are going to be more than those of aluminum and cement combined. So, not only the ecosystem suffers, wildlife suffers, our health suffers, climate gets warmer, but there are some costs to society, costs in money from plastic pollution.  Their ships need to take different routes because they collide with plastic and their motors get damaged. Also, authorities spend lots of money cleaning up beaches, tourism suffers, Bali was closed for five days this year twice because 50 million tons of plastic appeared in their beaches carried by the sea. So, can you imagine the impact of that on the tourism industry in Bali? And that is something that's going to continue happening everywhere in coastal areas. And there are also changes in routes for commercial shipping. So, this is the projection of what's going to happen to plastic and where we are at the moment, we're here. This is how it's going to be, the plastic waste generated. The plastic waste comes mainly from single-use plastic applications like packaging. In Europe, 59% of the waste comes from packaging. So, even if we improve recycling, even if we've worn all the plastic, we still have a huge gap of plastic that isn't damaged. So, we know that just by increasing recycling and incineration, we're not going to be able to solve the problem. So, what we need is to close the top of the unnecessary applications of plastic that we're using today. Like, plastic is designed to last hundreds of years. So, we shouldn't be using it for applications that are meant to last for half an hour while you drink a bottle of water. This is, again, the plastics that are used in Europe and the source of plastic waste. So, then we come to what happened this year, and we are not completely sure of what were the elements that made the European Union move so quickly to make these changes in policy around plastic pollution, but something triggered them. It may have been Blue Planet 2. It may have been the efforts of NGOs for years and years and years that they reached the tipping point. We don't know what it was, but it happened. So, in January 2018, the European Commission published a document called the European Plastic Strategy. And in this document they had several aims. Many related to increasing recyclability of products. They also wanted to promote innovative business systems and delivery systems for products that increased reuse instead of disposable plastic. They wanted to decouple plastic waste from growth because what we have seen so far is that as a country becomes more developed or its economy grows, they use more and more disposable plastic. They wanted to reduce marine litter, especially not just that one coming from land-based sources, but also coming from ships. And they wanted to phase out the substances that make recycling plastic so difficult because if you have toxic chemicals in a plastic item and you recycle it, you're keeping the toxic chemicals in the economy and keeping the exposure to those toxic chemicals. So, to achieve these aims, they have a list of tools in the plastic strategy. Some of these things they have already done, some of them are pending. So, the first one is the revision of the essential requirements for placing packaging on the market under the packaging, packaging waste directive. Any of you familiar with the packaging and packaging waste directive? Okay. So, this is a directive that tries to harmonize access to the single market and protection to the environment. By saying that any packaging that complies with the requirements in the directive can be used all over the European Union. The problem is that the requirements that they set in this directive were so low that this directive isn't achieving in any way the protection of the environment that it tried to achieve. So, also, they say that one of the tools is better extended producer responsibility. So, if I am a producer of plastic items or I am, for example, Marx and Spencer's, selling things packaging plastic, I should be responsible to pay for the costs of dealing with the plastic waste that I'm making money from. And the EPR or extended producer responsibility that was in the waste framework directive, the packaging and packaging waste directive, had very low requirements. So, producers weren't actually paying for the costs of dealing with that and taxpayers were paying. So, local authorities didn't have money to do the recycling, and recycling goes wrong. Now, I don't know if you've read in the news that taxpayers pay 90% of the costs of recycling plastic in the UK, and producers pay only 10%. And the recycled plastics are not even being recycled, but are being shipped abroad to countries where they receive the waste. But many of those shipments are not being received, they're just dumping the waste on the ocean. So, this is the effect of a badly designed system and badly designed directives that now the European Commission said we need to correct. They said we need new recycling targets for plastic, we need traceability tools to know which chemicals are inside the plastic, we need to expand the product requirements under the eco design directive. Do you know what the eco design directive is? Okay, so it's a directive that says how you should design products to make them environmentally friendly, but so far it has focused mainly on saving energy. And the Commission said we can make this directive cover also requirements for making products reusable and recyclable. They also said we need to work with the European Committee for Standardization and develop standards for recycled plastic. Many other solutions they propose, finance research projects for new products, new materials. They also asked the industry to make voluntary pledges. What are you committing to do without need for me creating a law that makes you do so? They have received very few pledges and the pledges are really insufficient, so they needed to move forward with legislation. They said they were going to have a legislative initiative on single use plastics. They were going to harmonize the rules for what's considered biodegradable plastics, ban intentionally added microplastics, and some things called oxodegradable plastics that are plastics that don't really degrade but break into very small particles, and they were going to revise the urban waste water treatment directive for capturing microplastics. And they started moving forward. They published this in January and boom, they moved. They had already prepared four directives to modify the waste laws in the European Union. So one directive amending the waste framework directive, another amending the land filling directive, another amending the packaging and packaging waste directive, but this is a less ambitious reform than what they think is needed, so there is going to be a further amendment of the packaging and packaging waste directive, and one about end-of-life vehicles and waste of electronic equipment. In the directive reforming, the land filling directive, they set two separate targets that are very important. So by 2030, the waste that is suitable for recycling or recovery cannot go to landfill. So this imposes very, very strict sorting obligations on member states. So you cannot just dump everything on landfill. You have a real duty to look for recyclable material in waste. And by 2035, the amount of municipal waste that goes to landfill should be less than 10% of the municipal waste generated. This is a very hard target to comply with if you don't borne your waste. Now the directive amending the waste framework directive says this is super important because in previous case law, the European Court of Justice, now the Court of Justice of the European Union, had said that many schemes that incentivize reuse of packaging are an obstacle for member states accessing the single market. So there was a very famous case about Danish bottles and some cases in Germany about targets they had for reuse of packaging, and they didn't let those systems operate because they said these harms the single market. But when you harmonize measures using a directive and you tell specifically to member states that you can set targets for reuse, that argument goes away. So it's 55% by weight by 2025, 60% by 2030, and 65% by 2035. And there are minimum operating requirements for the extended producer responsibility systems. So requirements on what it should cover. It should cover the costs of separate collection, treatment, and transport of the plastic waste. And the costs are going to be covered in a way more fair manner than what has been now. So for the extended producer responsibilities that were established before July 2018, the producers will need to cover at least 50% of the costs. And for extended producer responsibility systems that are created after July, they will need to pay at least 80%. In the reform of the packaging waste directive, this directive is telling member states which instruments they can use to incentivize reuse of packaging. So this is huge and I have not heard anything on the press praising this. There were some scars like press notes here and there, but this is going to be huge from 2020 onwards. So member states are going to be allowed to set deposit return scheme, qualitative or quantitative targets. I don't know what a qualitative target is for reuse. Economic incentives like paying for your plastic carrier bags or a latte levy that says you need to pay if you want to use a disposable cup. And a minimum percent of reusable packaging placed on the market. So the member states can tell Coca-Cola 5% of soft drink bottles are going to be reusable. That will change the game absolutely because making these the law levels a playing field in such a way that companies that want to use reusable systems are actually able to compete. And it raises the recycling target for plastic to 50% by 2025 and 55% by 2030. There was a new proposal from the commission. It supports reception facilities directive. This is being discussed at parliament at the moment. We don't have a date for a plenary vote, but it has already gone through committee vote. And many ships when they have waste in their ship and like damaged fishing gear and all the things they ate and the packaging they have. When they go to a port they need to pay a fee for them to receive that waste. And up to this moment many times the fee they pay depends on the amount of waste. So people in those boats instead of paying a high fee just dump the waste before they go to port. And what this directive does is says okay you know what the fee is going to be the same for every boat that has this size.  So this change is going to be very important in removing that incentive. It also requires fishermen to take all reasonable precautions to avoid losing gear. Are you aware of the problem of ghost fishing? So when you lose a fishing gear at sea it continues fishing and killing fish. It's just that you cannot recover the fish because who knows where that gear is. So the commission is going to set a framework of conditions that are going to be considered the reasonable precautions. Like putting fingers and things with GPS so that you can track where your fishing gear is so that you don't lose it. There is going to be extended producer responsibility with eco-modulated fees for fishing gear. Eco-modulated means that the gear that harms the environment the less is going to have cheaper producer responsibility fees. And the more harmful gear is going to pay more. There are going to be reporting requirements for lost fishing gear and increasing inspections of boats to see how they're handling their waste. Now we come to the single use plastics directive. I was in Brussels last week doing loving for this, talking to members of the parliament. We proposed my organization and a coalition of organizations working on this issue. We proposed some amendments to the commission's proposal and they passed and we're thrilled. And this directive is going very, very well. So what we need is the governments of the member states in the council to approve what has been done so far in the parliament. So the single use plastic directive is focused on the 10 items most commonly found on European beaches. And for it creates different categories of items because they say we cannot have blanket measures that apply the same way to every item. Every item is different. People use them in different ways. So they said some measures that apply for separate categories. So the first one is they want member states to have targets of reduction of consumption of food containers, cups, cigarette filters. In the parliament, they passed a target of 25%, which we think is very ambitious. But who knows what the council will do and if it's going to stay there or not. There are some bands, things that are going to be banned in the European Union, which are plastic cotton bots, cutlery plates, straws, beverage steers, balloon sticks, and extended polystyrene, like the white foam food containers. There are going to be some product requirements. Perverge bottles are going to have 35% of recycled content by 2025. And the cap of the bottle is going to be attached to the bottle so that the cap doesn't get lost. Some labeling requirements on sanitary pads, tampons, wet wipes, telling people not to flush them and that they have plastic and harm wildlife. The extended producer responsibility for the items covered by this directive is great. It makes producers pay for the costs, not only of collection, transport and treatment, which are the ones usually covered, but also for the cleanup of litter and awareness raising measures. There are some additional awareness raising measures for food containers, packages of crisps, wrap of flexible material, etc. For fishing gear, there is 50% collection target and 15% of recycling target. And there is separate collection of beverage bottles. So these items create great pollution. We know this is not the most systemic directive that could be there. This is not the reform to the packaging or packaging waste directive. But in combination, we believe these measures are going to create great change. Also, the commission proposed a plastic tax, a tax on non-recycle plastic. It's not a tax that goes, the money that is raised by this tax doesn't go to the European Union, but it's an authorization for member states to use that tax to raise revenue for themselves. It's being discussed for the 2021-2027 multi-annual financial framework, but we don't know if it's going to pass or not. We will know in May 2019. And we're still waiting for the inclusion of intentionally added microplastics. It's expected in January. The reform of the eco-design directive, it's really hard to establish these requirements and to know how to make them effective. We are expecting some product requirements like, for example, that plastic for packaging should be clear so that it's easier to recycle or a list of chemicals that cannot be used in packaging. And we're also waiting for the revision of the essential requirements for placing packaging on the market under the packaging and packaging waste directive. So thank you very much. These are all the policy developments that are going on at the moment with the change of commission. We don't know who is going to continue pushing for this at European level. So the more pressure that comes from the citizens, the better, because we need to keep this on the agenda. The citizen pressure has achieved so much that the commission has moved quicker than ever and so has the parliament. And I wanted to tell you that right now there's an open consultation at UK level on the proposal to ban plastic cotton bots, straws, and the stirrers used for drinks. And you can go to the consultation and answer it via this link. It's a bit long, but it's really, really easy in case you want to participate. And I'm open for your questions. Yes? Well, the thing is that personal consumption is influenced by the options you give to people. So if you make it more hard for people to buy things without plastic, if you make it more expensive, if you put plastic on things people don't really need, people don't really need plastic on teabags, but it's there. So an investigation by another NGO called Ciel has shown that the plastic industry has pushed demand for plastic on things where the public wasn't asking for it. So what we need to change is the structure of society and how things are pushed in our faces as consumers so that we can make responsible choices. Because it's really, really hard. There was a campaign during Lent called Plastic Free Lent. And lots of people on the internet set up blogs or were tweeting about it trying to live a life without disposable plastic just for Lent. And many people weren't able to. And people in my NGO who are very environmentally conscious and not necessarily the poorest of the poorest because they're employed, they couldn't do it. They had to travel for more than one hour to buy their groceries because there wasn't anywhere near their house where they could buy things without plastic or they had to pay more. So we as citizens can make simple changes like carrying a plastic bottle, carrying a reusable cup, carrying reusable cutlery, not using things that we can choose not to use. But for people who are pressed for time, who have children at home, who go from their office to their house at night and just need to buy something, whatever is closest to them, do you think it's fair? Or lots of microplastics come from when you do your washing, synthetic fibers go from your clothes to the wastewater that comes from your house. The problem is that the cheaper clothes are usually made from synthetic fibers. So how can people not contribute to this? It's very hard. And we shouldn't be putting the responsibility on people who have very reduced choices. Let's just make the system fair for everyone. And they will pay impute. Yes? How will the EU regulations affect the UK government? We don't know. We're trying to find out. And we don't know, and the UK government doesn't know either. We have been asking and they don't know. Apparently there's going to be a transition period in which all these things apply. But from then onwards, that's why it's very important that you participate in the consultation and every consultation that comes out. There was a consultation on plastic taxes in the UK in May. It's closed. It was a consultation with more responses in the history of the Treasury. So let's hope that in the annual budget that's going to be announced on Monday, they announce taxes on plastic. What Kleinert was asking was taxes on virgin plastic pellets to make a fairer market for recycled plastic and some charges on individual products that make consumers think twice before buying something in disposable packaging. It depends on how they're designed. The tax on virgin plastic will go to the producer, but who knows if they're going to introduce the costs in the price of the things that you buy, like for sure. But at least it's going to make them think twice about using recyclable plastic. Recycled plastic. Any more questions? Yes? Yes. I read online that you also know a bit about China, is that correct? Yeah, a bit. I was just wondering if you can make a comparison with Colombia or China on how maybe the EU is better or worse plastic, maybe the environment, the regulations in general, and the health impact that it's the EU versus one country. Well, what I'm seeing from China at the moment is a lot of momentum and political will, the same as the EU, but without believing they're better than everyone else as the EU. So they actually recognize they have a problem. Client Earth is training the judges in China. They have an agreement with the government and they're training the judges in China in environmental law. And we believe it's because of that training. We have trained more than 2,000... Client Earth, my organization. We have trained more than 2,000 judges. And some cases at the beginning of this year resulted in the declaration of the existence of the polluter-paste principle, which you all, I'm sure, are familiar with, but that wasn't really used so much in China. There have been some litigation in China, some cases about consumers filing lawsuits against fast food companies that were not giving customers the option of not having disposable plastic with their order. We're waiting for the results of that litigation, but even if it doesn't go right, it's going to set an alarm on producers and it's going to make them think about how they use plastic. In China, lots of Western companies do their production there and push products there that are really environmentally harmful, like lots of sachets and unnecessary packaging. So I don't think the problem comes from the culture in China, but from the way in which Western companies operate in China. And that's something that the EU should take responsibility for. And there is a memorandum of understanding between the EU and China to promote the circular economy. It came in June. It's in the EU website, you can look it up. And I think it's going to be a great instrument to make companies, especially companies like Unilever, Coca-Cola, be responsible for their production and delivery systems. Yes? Well, how does the EU strategy tackle incinerations? It doesn't. They're trying, well, one thing they say is we want to create better recycling systems at EU level and we want to invest in that. So by promoting the market to recycled plastic and investing in recycling facilities, it diffuses some of the incentives for incineration, but it doesn't tackle it straight away. Yes? What about these cleaning the sea ideas that came up sometimes? Yeah. Yeah, there's still a thing. I don't like them. I think they're a drop in the ocean. Also, they cause a lot of by-catch, which is like non-intended killing of animals in the ocean.  So what we aim for is prevent. Sometimes when people say, oh, we're investing money on this machine that will clean the ocean gyres or something, companies are trying to say that that's their corporate social responsibility while continuing to put lots of plastic waste in the market. So, yeah, like, sure, why not, but I don't think there are solutions. Maybe for some islands that don't want to see their tourism industry like damaged by plastic pollution, they can have one of those machines nearby, but it's not a solution to the pollution problem. Okay, maybe could you tell us a little bit more about incineration is one thing, the next steps as a client is going to work on, or that you think should be that it... Yes. You've only presented one aspect of the broader picture. So we're going to continue working on the single-use plastic directive because it's far from over. What we need to do now is lobby the member states, their governments, so that they actually support what's there. And after that, we're moving to the essential requirements in the packaging, packaging waste directive, because that's where the problem is. Like, 59% of the plastic waste in Europe comes from packaging. So we need to change packaging, so that companies cannot use disposable packaging unless it's really impossible for them to use reusable systems. We also want to lobby cities so that they implement reuse systems that work in a similar way than the standard cycles. So wouldn't it be great if you had a system of reusable launch boxes in central London and that you could use that launch box to buy your food in bread and in Costa and in McDonald's and in Leon. And they all use the same launch boxes and you just went with your oyster, took your launch box, returned it in another establishment. It would be fantastic and it would reduce a lot of the plastic waste that cannot be recycled because plastic used in food packaging is usually too dirty and too flimsy to be recycled. So we want to find new options, new initiatives that we can push at city level and we want to go for the packaging, packaging waste are active and I am currently working on a project trying to explain to companies that plastic pollution is a business risk. Are you familiar with the concept of climate risk? So because of climate change, companies are exposed to losing money part of transition risks and physical risks to get stranded assets and resenting to companies the concept that plastic pollution creates the same exposure for them so they need to manage that risk, change the way they operate and disclose the risk to their shareholders. There are some pension funds and investor groups and activist investors that are saying to companies if you don't change I'm going to divest in your company so that's going to be another way to lobby for change in the way we use plastic. There should be other consultations coming this year in the UK and one of them is a reform to the packaging regulations to reform the extended producer responsibility system in the UK because it is a disaster. The national audit organization found that there was no transparency that the plastic waste that is claimed to be recycled in the UK isn't actually recycled and that the distribution of costs is completely unfair and has not allowed local authorities to invest in recycling facilities so we're going to be working in that too. There is going to be an environment bill in the UK so we're going to make sure that our concerns about plastic and our key asks about plastic are there too and we're working with the commission to draft some sort of certification so that companies can improve their practices on how they handle plastic pre-production pellets so when you create products from plastic what you buy is like a bag of very small bowls made of plastic and you melt them and that's how you make your products but those bowls they escape they escape in the production plants they escape from trucks they escape when you transfer them from one place to the other and they end up in the ocean and fish eat them and the whole thing happens again so we want companies to handle those pre-production pellets in a better way and it's a very easy way to reduce micro plastic pollution and we're also working with governments at the UK level to reduce the use of cars because micro plastics from tires are the second largest source of micro plastic at EU level so the tires roll and the friction with the roads generates lots of micro plastic and with the rain they go to the rivers and from the rivers they go to the oceans we're also working with agricultures on the use of plastic mulch they put plastic on top of the crops to avoid like herbs how do you call that like bad herbs yes growing so it would be great if instead of plastic they use another type of crop cover to avoid the weeds because the plastic when they move the air to plant more things it makes the soil degrade and lose its properties so it's going to lead sometime to food scarcity too and that's what we have planned if you have any ideas anything you can think of that could reduce plastic pollution please send me an email I welcome any initiative I'm really interested in engaging with people there is an app you can check to what's the name of the app if you want to use a reusable water bottle and you just carry your bottle and you check the app you can refill it in many points many shops around London and many other cities if you're interested in me sending you the name of the app because I forgot you can write me an email great so yeah any other question thanks for that I'm just wondering the long term cost effectiveness argument is clear it's kind of like what should we need to get another kind of change long term costs are very high but clearing for businesses to buy into more than a low amount of food because they buy into a low amount of food straws, potential they might buy into that but in the short term to get their buy in so the science is getting clearer what about the economics of it so when you do your logging or when you're drafting what kind of economics where is the data coming from where are the numbers coming from is there an organization that you collaborate with? the new economics foundation has been doing research on this and UNOMIA is also doing research on this and the European Commission did their impact assessments of all these measures before they published the plastic strategy and for each one of the directives they also do an impact assessment numbers what I have on top of my head is that the investments on new recycling facilities was going to create more than 20,000 jobs and that was in the UK so each one of the member states has an incentive to invest in these new systems because it will create jobs the same way that renewable energy creates jobs yes it's expensive but it works because if you put more money in the economy the economy gets better but actually I love cars because you know McDonald's they are big players but I actually can't remember the volume language but potentially not as big as some of the biggest car manufacturers so I'm just wondering in terms of the counter-effect because right now you're lobbying and the big guns haven't really come into play a counter-allowing effect because the commission, the EU is taking a proactive stance on this rapidly but people so potentially there's a conflict with trade and competition in the near future so I'm wondering whether that kind of lobbying has also started already in terms of the rationale for why we cannot move to that new generation yeah nor neither I went to speak with the more right-wing parliamentarians in the parliament and they didn't seem to be really listening to what the industry was saying like some of the things that were proposing the directives the industry cared about and the parliamentarians were like okay okay we cannot push this so far so for example for the extended producer responsibility they were saying okay let's keep the directive covering the cost of cleanup in the future but not infinite costs like the costs of what volunteers do regularly and what municipalities spend cleaning beaches but those were like one of those parliamentarians told me that I was an immigrant and I was dirty and I threw trash on the street so it's people that say those things and they were saying oh yeah but we need to find a balance they really need to pay for cleaning the beaches so I don't know why but they're not really listening to the industry and the industry is loving hard plastics Europe the British plastic federation they're putting all their money in there they have met with every head of state they're meeting with the parliament constantly they're meeting with the commission but I don't know why they're just not being effective yeah yes well if you make it more one reason why plastic is used so much for everything is not just that plastic is very flexible and adaptable but it's that it's cheap it's really cheap so many times for companies for example restaurants it's cheaper to just pack a lot of sushi boxes ready instead of having someone putting dishes in a dishwasher if you raise the costs of producing plastic they're dealing with the waste companies are going to make a different calculation and maybe they'll think it's easier to buy a dishwasher and pay someone to fill it so all these legislative changes the plastic bags the EPR the product requirements the waste packaging reform that makes member states to create deposit return schemes those are not cheap to run to have minimum content of recycled plastic recycled plastic many times can be more expensive than virgin plastic we have reuse systems and the targets are high so these reuse systems are going to be mandatory and we have the EPR it all goes to taxes and EPR mandatory reuse and vans but vans are the least effective thing and they just cover the low hanging fruit but they're a great symbol and they change the vans of consumers and they make you think if I'm not using a plastic straw maybe I shouldn't use a plastic bottle but mainly making plastic more expensive so that companies don't use it as a disposable application yes would there be any kind of like subsidies program for using alternatives you know this kind of algae type plastics or any kind of thing like that would there be support for companies but maybe you don't have the structure or the money to finance it well the good thing is that for many of the applications where plastic is used there are alternatives so like they can switch to paper they can like for many many applications they can switch to something else but you mentioned algae made plastics yeah those aren't as good for the environment as you might think because well for many biobase or biodegradable plastic you're not only using lots of land water fertilizers like lots of natural resources into the production of that thing that you're just going to use and throw away many times the standards of biodegradability of those things are so that they only degrade under certain conditions and those conditions many times aren't the conditions in which the product ends up so if the product is designed to biodegrade at a certain temperature on soil and it escapes into the ocean where it's a lot colder it's just not going to biodegrade so it's not like a magic wand you can use to solve the problem and we should be very cautious to substitute regular plastic for biodegradable or biobase plastic yes how these plastics and set up byproducts of the petroleum industry yes they are so effective to go to the source and reduce that industry with alternative renewable energies of which there are about a dozen technologies it's just a question of cost when it becomes comparable with petroleum wouldn't it be better to go that way or alternative? yes that would be great especially like oil companies already in their projections they know that oil is not going to be easy to use for burning as a fuel so they are projected that by 2050 their oil is going to be used mainly in plastics and the petrochemical industry by producing chemicals so they are really against these reforms coming from the EU because they want as many opportunities to use their oil in plastic because they are not going to be able to burn it so by blocking oil companies from burning the plastic and from burning the fuel we don't necessarily solve the plastic issue but we should tackle both things together but don't burn the fuel and don't make the plastics we don't need make the plastics we need with moderation like plastic for construction it's great for creating isolation for temperature for example I mean when you create a building plastic is great for making buildings safer more isolated from temperature outside making cars lighter it's great for making syringe in medical applications safer but just don't put lots of wrappers and things we don't really need out in the market how can they be doing that especially as I said how can they be compelled to invest in alternative renewable energy and forgive the amount of oil there is one product for oil as a fuel I wish it was possible I don't know who can make them that was the end of that process discussion yeah the oil companies are making our life very hard to everyone can you ask a question about one of the possible solutions you were mentioning some for example all established humans had these portable lunchboxes is that something that's actually being in Switzerland there is a scheme called recycles re-circle and it's an association of business that are using the same lunchbox and you can just take it from one place and deposit it in the other ones you've eaten your food but they wash it yeah like plates but wouldn't that create a problem then imagine that a lot of people buy and get them from one place and they all take it to the same place and then the cost follows that particular one to clean it and wouldn't they just put the cost of that into the products yeah but it's contemplated that it's contemplated that if difficulties arise they'll just deal with it internally it's not something like super super hard to move containers from one place to the other and if it becomes more difficult more money from the scheme goes to the place where you have more lunchboxes that need to be washed yes so policy-wise in hygienic terms it lies on the consumer's responsibility to bring my own box and then for example to a restaurant or to a takeout it's my responsibility as a consumer if there's anything if my lunchbox is not proper or like yeah the good thing is these restaurants offer like a washing facility so if you're not sure that your lunchbox is super clean you can like rinse it with a bit of soap before they put the food in it so that it's safer right now in morrisons I don't know if you've ever been to morrisons I've never been but I've read about this you can buy your fish and your meat by taking your own containers and I hope other supermarkets in the UK move in that direction too are there financial incentives for consumers so they get for example one pound off if they bring their own in morrisons I don't know here well here in prep that happens yeah was it part of the EU policy? no it's not part of the EU policy because the EU policy just came out this year and many of the things that are in the policy are only going to come into force around 2020 so when that happens Member States can take measures like the measures they took around like with carrier bags that now when you go to the supermarket if you want a plastic bag you need to pay for it that came from a 2015 directive from the European Union so all of those things work to make a system where businesses and people all work together to use but what about compostable again the same problem compostable, biodegradable many plastics that are labeled as compostable they only compost under industrial composting conditions and that's not the same composting as your composting being in your kitchen compostable plastics are a lie at this moment in time you were going to ask a question no? okay if we've exhausted questions then thank you very much no you're very welcome and before you go next week we have another seminar next week we're moving to something completely different but also very necessary climate change, loss and damage by Lisa von Halla from UCL to the flyer climate change I just remembered another thing like very recent research this was published in August 2018 shows that plastic litter continues to release greenhouse gases once it has been exposed to sunlight so all the plastic waste that's in the ocean is released into greenhouse gases so one other configuration of plastic waste


The IAEA has continued to monitor the nuclear program of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea using open source information and satellite imagery, said Director-General Yukie Yamano at the March meeting of the Agency's Board of Governors, which started today. The Agency has not observed any indication of the operation of the five-megawatt reactor since early December 2018. At the Radar Chemical Laboratory, we have not observed any indications of reprocessing activities. At the Lightwater Reactor, the Agency saw indications of ongoing construction work. We also continued to observe indications of the ongoing use of the reported centrifuge enrichment facility. In his statement, Mr. Yamano said that Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In implementing verification activities in Iran, the Agency analyses all safeguard-derivant information which normally takes time and takes action when appropriate. The Director-General also highlighted the installation of a new radiotherapy machine at the Agency's Laboratories in Cybersdorf, which will be used for research and training. Last month, we began installation of the Linear Accelerator in the new Bankam at the Dosimetry Lab. We look forward to beginning operation in the coming months, significantly expanding the services we offer to member states. The Board of Governors meets five times a year to discuss key resolutions to further strengthen the IAEA's work. From Vienna, Austria, this is Alejandra Silva reporting for the IAEA.


Hey survivors and frivers, in this video I am going to be talking about the narcissistic injury and how to know if you have caused one. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. If you would like to donate, my paypal link is in the video description. If you are interested in one coaching, you can email me at narksfivercoaching.com. We have a new Reddit community where survivors and frivers can share their personal experience and knowledge. If you would like to sign up to our Reddit community, you can do this through the Patreon page. The link is in the video description. Have you caused a narcissistic injury? Narcissists have an obsessive need to portray an image through their false self at all times. This is actually a front to cover up the fact that they really feel the exact opposite about themselves. Narcissists who act grandiose, deep down feel worthless and insignificant. Narcissists who act as though they love themselves, actually hate themselves and are deeply insecure. Narcissists act arrogant or follow themselves. The definition of arrogance is to have an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities. They are the exact opposite of what they are portraying themselves to be on the outside. Deep down they feel worthless, insignificant, insecure, weak and fearful. These feelings are often what causes them to abuse and manipulate you. They want to feel valued and significant. They want to project their insecurities, weaknesses and fear onto you. But just know that all of this is a front and deep down they feel the exact opposite. A narcissistic injury is any threat to the narcissism-frated ego or self-esteem. Narcissists have a sense of arrogance and entitlement to whatever they want. They have a distorted sense of self-importance and consider themselves to be superior to others. Narcissists experience a narcissistic injury whenever there is a threat to their ego or self-esteem. This causes their need for narcissistic rage or revenge. So how do you know when you have caused a narcissistic injury? The narcissistic actions will be based off of their intense negative emotions rather than logic. Narcissists negative emotions such as hate, anger, envy and jealousy. Narcissists do not behave in a natural way. They prefer to respond rather than react. So many other things they say or do will be scripted or orchestrated in a way where it is designed to affect you or to get a specific result or emotional reaction from you. They prefer to respond rather than react because it makes it difficult for you to detect the fact that they are not being themselves. If they were reacting to you like a normal person, you would quickly discover that this person is not the grandiose or confident person they portray themselves to be. If they were reacting to you, you would quickly discover that this person is actually the exact opposite of what they have been portraying themselves to be. But when you have caused a narcissistic injury, they will have difficulty responding. Instead, they will react off of their intense negative emotions which will be very difficult for them to control in that moment. They will try to get revenge by projecting these emotions onto you. They will devalue and degrade you. They might use manipulation tactics such as denial, projection, blame shifting, gas lighting and a double bind. In an attempt to wind you up, they will publicly humiliate and exploit you. This is all designed to project the emotions that they are experiencing from their narcissistic injury onto you. Without their narcissistic injury, they would feel no need or purpose to do any of this to you. When you are feeling happy and contented with yourself, you do not feel any need or purpose to abuse or manipulate anyone. People do this because they feel miserable, dissatisfied and unfulfilled. If you have caused a narcissistic injury, the narcissist may randomly stop talking to you. Maybe they will give you the silent treatment or they won't interact with you as much. They might exclude you from special occasions or events. They might arrange something with you and then disappear and never show up. They might lead you on and make you believe that they are interested in you, when really they have all of this hate and anger inside of them. This is designed to make you feel as though you have no value or significance to offer to them or that event. The opposite is true. But they are trying to project their feelings of worthlessness and insignificance onto you. They might triangulate you or treat someone else more favorably than you. They might find a new source of supply and post pictures of them on social media or tell you that they have been spending time with someone else. Again, this is an attempt to make you feel envious or jealous. It's projection. They were feeling envious or jealous of you and they caused a narcissist's injury which then developed this need for them to project those emotions onto you. They will also withhold things from you such as their time, attention, validation, approval and admiration, affection, sex, money and material items. This is all designed to project the way that they feel onto you. The narcissistic injury has made them feel hateful, angry, envious and jealous, worthless and insignificant, insecure, weak and fearful. They don't like the way this feels. But narcissists do not self-reflect or look within to acknowledge or resolve these emotions. It's too painful for them. So instead, they will do these types of things to project these emotions onto you. It relieves their pain for a short period of time. Causing someone else pain or suffering allows them to distract themselves or take the focus of their own pain and suffering. They might try to get revenge on you in some way.  You might not even realise what you have done wrong. Remember, narcissists have an inner critic or an inner dialogue. You could be telling them that you love them or you might be giving them a compliment. But in their minds they have this inner critic or inner dialogue which is telling them that they are worthless and insignificant. This programming in their minds will block or deny anything positive you say about them. So you could be really good to them and then suddenly they are trying to hurt you. And you may not have done anything wrong. In most cases where you have caused a narcissist. You will not be able to confront them or ask them what you have done wrong. Narcists have so much frustration and resentment towards you once you have caused a narcissist. They might pretend as though nothing is wrong. While continuing to be abusive or passive aggressive towards you, I have done some videos on this topic. Please check out trying to explain to the narcissist and narcissists do not want a resolution. Once you have caused a narcissist's injury, it is going to be almost impossible to explain anything to them. Narcists do not want a resolution. They want an opportunity to be abusive or passive aggressive with you. They have poor conflict resolution skills so you will not get a mutual understanding or resolution from them. And if they start talking to you about what you have done wrong, this could then give you an opportunity to tell them what they have done wrong. Which is probably what led you to saying or doing whatever it was that caused the narcissist's injury. Narcists are emotionally immature. They are not going to accept responsibility or accountability for anything that they have done. You can try having a conversation with them but all you are going to get is manipulation tactics such as denial, projection, blame shifting, gas lighting and the double bind. They have poor conflict resolution skills so nothing ever gets resolved for them. Once you are aware that you have caused a narcissist's injury, you need to be very cautious around them. Narcists are dangerous people. Following a narcissist's injury, they will have reckless behaviour and poor impulse control. So when you do anything that might be against their best interest, you need to be very cautious. Once you have caused a narcissist's injury and they experience narcissist's rage, they go from having a lack of conscience to having no conscience at all. Once they think that you have got a one-up on them, they will do whatever it takes to get revenge on you. It could be something as simple as a back-handed compliment or they could kill you. Most often it will be something extreme. Maybe not something as extreme as killing you but most often it will be something extreme. Once you have caused a narcissist's injury and they experience narcissist's rage, they will enter this predatory survival mode where they have no conscience, no empathy or compassion. They will be filled with hate, anger, maybe envy and jealousy and at that point, they will do whatever they think will hurt you the most without thinking of the consequences and only when those intense negative emotions have diminished will they then realize what they have done and then it's too late and they don't know how to go back to the way things were. They don't know how to correct the situation. When they were in that state of narcissist's rage, they were not thinking about the consequences. They were just thinking about what would be the most impactful way to get back at you. What would hurt you the most? In most cases, they will not try to deal with the consequences or correct the situation. If they were to do that, they would have to accept that they messed up. They would have to accept responsibility and accountability for their actions and that's not something that narcissists like to do. They don't want to accept that they are capable of making faults or mistakes. So instead of trying to correct the situation, they will find a way to justify what they have done. They don't care about the future, about the further consequences that may come by not correcting the situation or how that might affect other people in the future. Narcissists are self-absorbed and lack empathy. All they care about is what they want or don't want in that moment. And in that moment, they don't want to have to deal with any faults or mistakes or even accept that they caused them. When you have caused a narcissist's injury and they are experiencing narcissistic rage, they become very unpredictable and there really is no telling what they will do. You may think you know them. You may think that you know how they are going to react. And this may work with normal people where you can tell how they are going to respond to you but with narcissists, they can do something that you have never seen before. When they are experiencing narcissistic rage, you could see a person who is very different from the person you thought you knew. It's almost like they are possessed. Like some demonic entity is controlling their body and mind. Once you trigger the narcissist and cause a narcissist's injury, there is no telling what they will do. And most often, what they do while they are experiencing narcissistic rage will usually affect their lives in some way. Their actions might have a direct effect on their lives or it could be something to do with God, karma, the law of cause and effect. Narcissists will risk destroying themselves and their lives while trying to get revenge on you. They will go through pain, suffering and misery just to get revenge on you. If you have said or done something which may have caused a narcissist's injury, whether you intended to or not, please ensure that you are in a place of safety. They are reckless and lack impulse control. When they are experiencing narcissistic rage, they are very unpredictable. And they do not mind punishing themselves or putting themselves in a difficult or undesirable situation. If it means that they can get revenge on you. They are sadistic.  Even if it isn't getting to you, just the thought of it getting to you is enough for them to do it. That's their idea of pleasure because they cannot get the same fulfilment from anything else. They do not think about the consequences. They do not think about the future. And that is what makes them so dangerous. Thank you for watching. I hope this video has helped you to identify whether or not you have caused a narcissist's injury. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. More videos soon.