Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjoy Gohar Thakurtha and with me here in the studio I have Palagumi Sainath. He really needs no introduction, a senior journalist, a Maxis Airward winner, an activist and currently very very concerned about the agrarian crisis in the country and he is one of the persons engaged in trying to put together this long march of farmers, farm workers, the dispossessed sections of Indian society to converge onto the national capital at the end of November. In the first part of this discussion I have with him, we are going to look at the agrarian crisis. Sainath, you say that India's agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian, that's what you've written. You said it's an entire crisis of our society, perhaps even a civilizational crisis. I mean why do you make this statement? It's in fact not just about the loss of production, not just about the loss of lives, it's also about the loss of our own humanity. We've sat by quite comfortably for 20 years during which 3,00,000 farmers have taken their own lives in suicide. There has got to be something very wrong with us to be able to act as if the world is perfectly normal and things go on normally. The crisis is also way beyond the agrarian because every other section, all other sections of society are being affected by it. Within agrarian itself what do we mean? It means it's not just a farming crisis, but a crisis of the larger agrarian society. Their livelihoods and also it's linked to what's happening in urban India, correct? Pretty much. Also you've seen the biggest migrations in our history. The 2011 census hints as much. For the first time urban India added more human beings to its population than rural India did to its population. And you believe this has a lot to do with loss of livelihoods, distressed, farm distressed in agriculture? It's not just a question of what I believe. It's also the fact that if you look between the 91 census and the 2011 census, 15 million farmers have dropped out. The number of farmers in 2011 census is 15 million fewer than they were in 1991, which means that they've been dropping out at the rate of more than 2000 a day. Every 24 hours there are 2000 fewer farmers. First 10 years, 91 to 2001, 7.2 million fewer farmers. Second 10 years till 2011, 7.7 million fewer farmers. That's about 15 million or 14.9 million. So where do they go? Well, some of them have moved to the cities, some of them have moved. Migrations is not just about going to the cities. There is village to village migration, rural to rural, rural to urban, urban to urban, a tiny element of urban to rural. And then there is the footloose migration where people are just going about looking anywhere where they can get work for 10 days, 20 days a month. So that kind of complete insecurity has come into many of the agrarian classes. But where have the bulk of the farmers gone? In the census abstract, primary census abstract on agriculture, you just have to look at the next column. As the numbers of farmers declines dramatically, the numbers of agricultural laborers is exploding, which means that today many of the agricultural laborers of today were yesterday's farmers. That's a gigantic crisis, that's a huge crisis. And when you say that farming has perhaps become the most risky profession in this country, I mean far more than playing the stock markets or gambling, that it has become that the very section of our society that is responsible for providing you food is engaged in the riskiest of all professions. And you are saying the entire scale of the crisis, the magnitude of the crisis is being covered up today because the government's National Crime Records Bureau is not publishing data pertaining to suicides of farmers for the last two years or thereabouts. And you also allege that the data that has been put out in the public domain is being manipulated. You've gone to the extent of calling it fraudulent because certain states like Chhattisgarh and West Bengal have claimed that there have been no suicides by farmers. Why don't you elaborate on this point a little more? Well, okay, first of all, the National Crime Records Bureau was a division of the Union Home Ministry. Its data, the NCRB and its statisticians and its monitors, they themselves have done no harm to the data. They have not fiddled the data. They have not, the data that they were publishing was the closest we have to authentic, but it has lots of problems because it reflects our social biases and prejudice. Okay, when a policeman goes out to a village to look at a suicide, you know, if it's an Adivasi or a Dalit farmer or who doesn't have a patta, he won't record him as a farmer, just as a suicide. If it's a woman, nine times out of ten, they will record it as a woman's suicide, not as a farmer's suicide because socially we are, we find it very difficult to accept women as farmers. And that there's actually been a large scale feminization of Indian agriculture where women have been playing an increasingly greater role in farming. Increasingly greater burden because where the migrations out of the profession by men, men, that means that women who were earlier doing livestock, diarying and anyway doing the bulk of work, you know, are now pushed more and more into crop agriculture as well, where they are facing new sets of problems. So you have women excluded very large time, but this was not done by the NCRB. That is the data coming from the police stations reflecting our social prejudices. So it was always the NCRB's figures which began in 1995 for farm data were always huge underestimates. But from 2011, as the farm suicides issue became a big political, you know, football or explosive, one state after the other started declaring zero suicides. In fact in 2014 12 states and 6 union territories came, there was zero suicides and in 2014 and 15 the NCRB numbers saw, according to you, they've manipulated the data. The word what you use is fiddles in methodology. My words were they're hiding corpses in other columns. Now what happens is this in the 2014 report they changed the methodology, which the NCRB had followed for 20 years in 19 years and in the 20th year they changed the methodology. So the 2014 report which comes out in 2014 data which comes out in 2015, they break farmers into different categories, farmers, agricultural laborers, tenant farmers. Now knowing fully well that 95% of tenancies in the country are unrecorded. So what's going to happen is that the policeman who is checking, he's going to record that guy as an agricultural laborer. So that year, the number of agricultural labor suicides was far higher than the number of farmer suicides because you've shifted a number of tenant farmers into that column. Then even then the figures were looking so bad, so they started burying corpses in other columns. Now in all these accounting columns, you have a final one called Others. And you see those numbers going up. They weren't going up, they were going through the roof. So Karnataka had a 60% fall in farm suicides that year and a 245% increase in suicides by others. The five major states that accounted for 70% of farmer suicides. These are? At that time Andhra Pradesh, Telangana were one. Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, MP. These states accounted for more than two-thirds of the farmer suicides. In 1995 when the collection of data started on this, they accounted for 52%. Today they account for more than 70% of the farmer suicides. In those areas of high stress it's been exploding. Now these five states saw a fall of more than 50% in farmer suicides and an increase in the others column of 128%. So that is to substantiate your point that they're fudging. All right. Now what we are seeing in different parts of the country, including some of the states that we've talked about, farmers, farm workers have been protesting. We know farmers have been shot dead in Mansoor in Madhya Pradesh. We are seeing in other parts farmers protesting in different ways, including in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh. Their produce is being dumped on the streets. Milk is flowing on the streets. Tomatoes are flowing on the streets. Yet we see the government seems to be trying to add best, applying band-aid to problems which are very, very deep-seated. And we'll talk a little bit after that on two or three issues. Manrega is one of them. And this whole thing about the minimum support price in the Swaminathan Commission. Yes, please. But it's actually trying to apply a band-aid to a hole in the heart. That's what they're trying to do. The thing is also, please, I forgot to mention, but you did. By 2014, 12 states and six union territories were declaring zero suicides. And yet the numbers were showing not a decrease. Yeah. Bengal for five years, Chhattisgarh for five years. These were states that had annual averages of 800 in Bengal and annual averages of 1500 in Chhattisgarh. Suddenly they go to zero. Who can believe this? It's simply not physically possible. So that's one sort. Yes, farmers have been protesting increasingly. And for me, that is a very positive thing. What I looked at over 20 years of covering their crisis is serious, deep-rooted demoralization, which is a recipe for suicide, among other things. Okay. So in the last two, three years, you're seeing them stand up, fight, protest, come out onto the streets. They know they've been cheated. They've, you know, so yes, you saw the Mandasaur firing. You saw a lot of things. You see everywhere in the country that is unrest amongst the farmers. The thing is that they've now decided to move from, I mean, it seems to me that they've decided to move to active protest than passive demoralization. Okay. We're going to come to that in a little while from now. But you argue, and you're not the only person, people like John Dries and others have pointed out, how the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Program, which is one time, touted as if it's the world's largest social security program. Whether it be farmers, whether it be farm workers, whether it be fish of people, whether it be forest dwellers, whether it be artisans, whether it be workers in Anganwadi's, school teachers, employees in, you know, government out, all of them are at some point of time, they thought that this scheme would help them.  That started, to be fair, that process started several years ago before Mr. Jaitley and the NDA as well. It had started even when Mr. Chidambaram started undermining the NRGS. So there was always, see the NRGS was something that I think the Manmohan government did reluctantly under pressure from their own leader and also under pressure from 64 left MPs in parliament. This was something that they did reluctantly. Maybe some of the top Congress leaders were very much for it. But I don't believe that Mr. Manmohan Singh and Mr. Chidambaram loved that program. So you saw the undermining of the NRGS in various ways. And in Maharashtra, for instance, Mr. Salat Pawar saw to it that it couldn't take off. You had eight districts that were at one time reporting zero performance, zero. Now it's been well documented that even if the government claims that they're spending the maximum amount of money, this money is not released, they're huge backlog, six months, wages not being paid. And in the last four years, and the four and a half years, especially since the Narendra Modi government came to power, do you see this particular program having been further undermined and weakened? Incredibly much further undermined and weakened. The classic example for you is in the first year of the Modi government, they slash the NRGS funds of the best performing state in the country, Tripura. Tripura was not by their claim, but by the central government's own acknowledgement and the Rural Development Ministry's acknowledgement. Tripura was the best performing state in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. And in Tripura, the NRGA had gone much further than just stopping hunger. People were able to send their kids to a little extortion. It was having an impact on education of children. Unlike, say, in some parts of Andhra where it was really a business of keeping the agricultural labor alive, you cut 53% of Tripura's funds and double the allocation for Gujarat, where it's all going to be done by machines. It's all going to be done by, it's not going to be done by manual work. It's not going to be done that way. So there was, it wasn't an accident. It was clear policy that we will finish this program. Okay. However, this government, whenever it has been accused of not doing enough for agriculture, the agrarian sector, the rural sector, they've come back and said, no, no. Our programs will ensure that farmers' incomes would be doubled by 2022. And most recently, the government has talked about, quote unquote, the biggest ever hike in the minimum support price. And then they're talking about the Swaminathan Commission and the National Commission of Farmers and how they have sought to increase these farmers. Now, why, I mean, you have consistently argued that the Swaminathan Committee's reports, which have been, therefore, the last 12 years, sorry, 12 years I'll stand corrected, has not been implemented. I mean, why there, why this, and even this government is making a claim that it's implementing the Swaminathan Commission's reports, but it's not. Okay. Well, you're right, actually, 14 years, because the first of the Swaminathan Commission reports was submitted in December 2004. The last, as I remember rightly, 2006 October. So over 80, over 14 years, there has never been a discussion called on the reports as such for the entire parliament to debate. I think 14 years is plenty of time. Now, second thing is that about the government and its claims, this government and its claims of implementing and not implementing. Firstly, the Swaminathan Commission's report, which is more accurately described as the National Commission for Farmers report, there were other people in it, was about a lot more than just MSP. Correct. Okay. And there are more than just a calculation of cost of production plus 50% plus amortization, interest, depreciation, etc., etc., the various ways of calculating that number. That's exactly right. But I mean, you have giant ideas which are still to be even looked at, price stabilization, fund, the new credit systems, all these sort of things are there in the Swaminathan Extension program. Extension programs. But look at this government. 2014, it came to power on a promise of implementing the first of the Swaminathan Commission's main recommendations, which was a minimum support price equal to cost of production, COP2, plus 50%. Now, this was 2014. 2015, the government submitted an affidavit in the courts and an RTI reply, this cannot be done. The government that came to power on the promise said it cannot be done. It would lead to a distortion of the markets. So they were worried about the distortion of the poor market, not about the distortions of millions of human beings who are farmers. In 2016, Radha Mohan Singh, the current agriculture minister, claimed that no such promise had ever been made. In 2017, they said, what Swaminathan Madhya Pradesh has gone much further than much further than Swaminathan Commission. Look at how Shivraj Chawan is doing. And we saw how he was doing with the Mansur firing and the killing of five farmers. 2018, budget speech by Mr. Arun Jaitley. I draw your attention to paragraphs 13 and 14 of the budget speech. Jaitley acknowledges that such a promise was made, and then claims, not only did we make this promise, we have implemented it. In the cariff crop, it's already been implemented. The MSP of cost of production plus 50%. July, Mr. Modi and others say, we're going to implement the MSP of cost of production plus 50%. Now, they've made five different positions in as many in four years. Now, what does this MSP stuff about? People get confused about it. I get hundreds of emails asking me about it. There were various ways of calculating MSP, not just three. There was A1, A2, C1. But there are three that mattered, which people were using at one level or the other. One was A2, which is purely the input cost, the paid out costs of the farmer in a season. Two was A2 plus FL, which is the input cost plus imputed family labor cost. Third was what the Swaminathan Commission had actually asked for, which was cost of COP2, comprehensive cost of production, which would include rental value of land, debt, which the government is saying we can't give. Effectively, without not in so many words, which by the way, no enterprise in the world functions without calculating those. Can you name an enterprise, any business enterprise that functions without taking these calculations into account? Now to give you what is the difference for a lay reader or lay viewer, the cheapest variety of wheat, when these announcements came, the cheapest variety of wheat, if you took it at A2 value, the cost of production was 500, which means MSP would be 750. A2 plus FL cost of production was 800. MSP would be 1250. But COP2 was 1200. The comprehensive cost of production of that cheapest variety of wheat was 1200 per quenter, which means your MSP would be 1800. Now between 750 and 1800, or even 1200 and 1800, it's a huge sum of money. And that was the cheating that they were doing. Most of the products were under A2. A few had A2 plus FL. Alright. So you have been actively engaged in trying to mobilize support from various sections. And I understand over 200 organizations have come together to have this march to the national capital in late November. In March of 2018, a lot of people were taken aback when 40,000 farmers, forest dwellers, adivasis, the underprivileged section, walked for seven days from Nashik to Mumbai in the peak of summer and came to Mumbai. Now you think, I mean, yes, we'll talk about how the media described them, but you want to now have an even bigger march of people in Delhi. But enjoy. There's a very big misunderstanding here. This is not my march. No, I know it's not yours. It's not my march. I am trying to see how middle class professionals like you and I can make ourselves relevant to and worthy of the call of 201 farmers organizations that made a call for a march on July 14th this year, a couple of weeks before that, the largest body, the All India Kisan Sabha had made a call. But the 201 farmers organizations, banded under the All India Kisan Sangars Samithi Coordination Committee made this call. And I felt that we have to respond to the AIKSCC call for a big march. It is the call of the Sangars Samithi Coordination Committee, the Kisan Sangars Coordination Committee, their call to which people like us feel that we should respond. The idea of it and the credit of it actually goes to them and also goes to the 40,000 farmers you mentioned who showed us that the world was somewhat different today than what we had come to believe it was. And they walked at night so that the children who would have to appear for their school examinations would not be disturbed. And you saw even in the city like Mumbai, where large sections of the middle class came out in support, gave them food, gave them water, etc, etc. But it was a spectacular thing. But where from there, where are we? The question is, Fadnav is the chief minister of Maharashtra said, yes, yes, we will look into their demands and they were sought to sort of diffuse the entire. Of course, we will try doing that. That's why we have a larger march at the national level, because so many of the issues concern the center. Now, but here, but I have to tell you this, when you say what did it achieve, I think it achieved something fantastic. Remember, when that march began, the AIKS march began from Nashik to Mumbai. I believe in Nashik, they were about 12,000. They reached Mumbai, they've got 50,000 in that in the in the Azad Maida. People joined them all along the way in Nashik and Tane. When they're coming up the Kasara Ghat, it's a spectacular site of 40,000 people winding up a mountain. Okay. And what did they do? First, they showed us that it can be done. These are people who don't, who are so poor, they don't own footwear. They came with their feet cut and bleeding and the old women and many of them prevent, staunch the bleeding of their feet by cellotaping their feet. They were too poor to afford chappals. So they put cello tape. Activists of the Kisan Sabha gave them rolls of cello tape and they put those around their feet and marched in 38 degrees overhead heat, two degrees plus coming from the highway and they came to Mumbai. In Mumbai, they were exhausted, but they decided, as you said, to march at night and in silence without raising slogans, they didn't want to disturb the lax of children who would appear for their board exams. And I think that triggered a wave of gratitude and respect in the middle classes of Mumbai who came out, people came and gave a thousand pairs of free chappals. People came out with food packets, with water packets. I have not seen that in 35 years. Now, let's try and see what's going to happen. But one moment, one moment. The thing is, when it started, the cabinet ministers of the Fadhanavi government said, we will not talk to these people. Who are they? They're not farmers. They're urban mousers. When they arrived with 50,000 people, they came in on 90% of their demands in four hours. Okay. The fact is that these guys showed us that sometimes you've just got to go yourself and get it done. That's what they showed us. Third, they showed us that they could reach out to sections like the middle classes, to the students. These are the things they showed us. I think the achievement was... So you're hopeful that this march that is being planned for the last few days of November would be able to scale up. There would be more people. I understand the government of Delhi has given you support. But are you prepared for how the government is going to be sort of... Government of Delhi has given the march support. Right, wait.  Your plans of surrounding parliament, there'll be section 144 there. Your plans of saying we'll have a special session of parliament to discuss the farmers issue. The government is not possibly not going to give a damn or to say we do do it. No, but once again we've had protests by farmers in Delhi. We've had farmers from Tamil Nadu displaying skulls in Jantar Mantar. Tell me this so-called occupied Delhi march. I'm being cynical. You are. I am. To ask you how you think, what impact it could possibly have. I think you were yourself present at a meeting where a network of middle class professionals on a Sunday 3550... On a holiday. On a holiday. On a holiday, 3550 people were contacted, 200 people showed up. Yeah, really enthusiastic and many of some of them included veteran activists who have been part of many marches who know what's possible and what's not possible. That's one thing. Including people like Mr. Damle who was moving force behind the Maharashtra. Damle. Sorry, yes. So he was the moving one of the big organizers of the Nashik to move by march. There too, I was not an organizer. People's archive of rural India played a role in that we were from the first hour putting out information about the march which the Marathi president picked up from us in a very big way. But the farmers scored the victory by getting a video of themselves coming up the Khasaragat and sending it out on WhatsApp and that went viral and it went berserk on Marathi television. And the same media that had virtually ignored the march was forced. I was getting 90 calls a day from media people asking. There were guys asking me, can you sum up in a few sound bites the complex issues of two decades. But they made the deaf here. They made the blind see. Don't underestimate these people. About the Modi government and it's of course I'm very sure they might try it but on the other hand they may not because one of the things is we're asking all members of parliament. The marchers are asking all members of parliament who agree with their demands and there are many to come and join them in the march today. So they should be escorted by members of parliament to parliament. Second, this is the most democratic protest. What are people saying? They're saying we want our parliament to function. The represented are telling the representatives we want you to function. We want you to come and join this march. We want you to escort us to parliament. We want to sit there. Third, you're asking for a special session of parliament again. A democratic demand. Third, fourth, you're saying it's on that focus of that session should be on the agrarian crisis and related issues. Issues beyond MSP. Now one of the things is government will accept MSP. They will say 5000 rupees per quintal tomorrow. They will never implement it because they will not procure. If there's no procurement system outside of Punjab there hardly exists one anymore. If there's no procurement I can offer you 10,000 rupees. The second thing they do is they will open the procurement centers 10 days late. In which case you as a farmer on this occasion the MSP announcement took place well after sewing had begun. It should have been announced one month earlier. The government really wanted to have an impact. And then they'll open the procurement centers 10 days late and they'll close them five days early. So both ends of the house, both ends of the arrivals, farmers are forced to sell off at lower rates. So all these problems you do expect. You know when you undertake any activity of protest you do expect. But the farmers and laborers in this march are making their protest within the highest standards of democratic behavior. One. Two. Coming to your point about the Delhi government in fact the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal personally said. I mean he made the he said I will visit I will receive the farmers at the borders of Delhi. And he said the Delhi government will help with arrangements of food, water and toilets. So you also do have a government here the host government in the capital city of Delhi. His attitude was entirely refreshing. Even if this government has been hamstrung or constrained badly because of the Uttar government. Yes but the attitude was totally refreshing in saying that they're coming to their capital city. All right. There are you know we will receive them. We will. My last question to you before I conclude this part of my interview with you. What would be the political impact? What could be the political impact? Did the march of the 40,000 farmers or the 50,000 farmers in Maharashtra could it have an impact on politics? Why do I ask this question? After 2014 the congress became weaker than it's ever been before. The left became weaker than it's ever been before. And you mentioned Tripura earlier with a good track record in implementing the Mandrega. The government is gone. The left is in power only in Canada. So the left movement has been weakened considerably. So I'm asking you what impact, what kind of political impact do you foresee? The first thing that we see and the lesson again was a lesson taught to us by the farmers of the Nashik Mumbai march was the totally, by us, unforeseen impact on the consciousness of the urban middle classes. The impact on the last in May, in May I spent, to April May I spent three weeks in Punjab. I was then in Andhra Pradesh. All these come after the Nashik march, my tours. In far out places in Sankuru and Batinda farmers had heard of the Nashik Mumbai march, were very proud that their counterparts could do it. And these are supposed to be, quote unquote, wealthy farmers. This is supposed to be the agriculturally most prosperous part of India. And they were saying, we should do this tomorrow. We should go to Delhi. By the way, the farmers who came from Nashik to Mumbai, they were the poorest of the farmers. They don't own footwear. Okay. So what I'm saying, it caught the imagination. It caught the imagination of the farmer. Now the protest with skulls at Jantar Mantar, that was really, for me, it was so sad because it was a tactic aimed at the media which would otherwise not pay you attention. Right. So that was the problem. But, but everywhere I went, two things she had had caught the attention in Chattisgarh, in Sangroor, in Bhatinda, in Ludhiana, in Kakinada, in Mahabubnagar, in Telangana. People knew two things. Swaminathan report that has caught the imagination that, you know, that this is the big one that you have to get. Swaminathan report and tell us about the Nashik march. All right. We will wait and watch and see what happens. You mentioned the media. Let's talk a little bit about the media, but we conclude this part of our discussion. Thank you very much for giving us your time. This is the first part, the conclusion of the first part of the interview with Sainath, which examined the dimensions of the agrarian crisis in the country. Keep watching Newsclick and keep watching this YouTube channel for the next installment of this interview with Sainath. When we examine and we look at the current state of the media in India. Thank you for being with us.


I have an induction cooker at home on which I am boiling water and I thought the way it worked was like an iron box. The base would just get hot and that heat would get transferred to the vessel and start cooking whatever is inside. But then I read that that's not how it works. The base of the induction cooker does not get hot at all. And then I tested it out. I took the induction cooker, I switched it on and then I put my hand on top of it for a few minutes and nothing. It wasn't hot at all. It was right. It doesn't produce any heat. But then on that same thing I keep this vessel of water and within minutes it starts boiling. So the question is how does an induction cooker cook things and heat things up without itself getting hot? Well, that's what we're going to find out. And it turns out it's due to the magic of, I mean science of eddy currents. So what are these eddy currents? To answer that question, let's look inside the induction cooker. If you could open up, then you might see a lot of things. But the most important one is a coil at the center. And we know that when you pass current through the coil, it produces a magnetic field and that's exactly what happens. When you turn on the switch, there's a current that starts passing through the coil and that current starts generating magnetic fields. And what's important is that the current is fluctuating. It's changing its direction continuously. It's called alternating current, which we'll talk about in separate videos. And it changes its strength. As a result of that, the magnetic field that it generates also keeps fluctuating in direction and in strength. So imagine this is how the magnetic field is generated. It's continuously fluctuating. And that's all that our induction cooker does. It does not produce any heat. All it does, it produces a fluctuating magnetic field. But how does that boil over water? We'll get to that eventually. But for now, instead of thinking about keeping a vessel on top of this, let's keep a rectangular loop of wire. What will happen? Well, because the magnetic field is fluctuating, we have changing magnetic flux through a coil. And from Faraday's law, we know that that produces an EMF. And as a result, there will be an induced current in this coil. Now, the direction of the current will all depend upon whether the magnetic field is increasing, decreasing what the direction is in terms of lens law, something all we have talked about before. But don't worry too much about the direction as of now. What's important is there is an induced current due to the changing magnetic flux. But now comes the question, what if instead of having a coil like this, what if we kept a rectangular plate? Now what would happen? Well, again, the flux is changing. So there is an induced EMF. But earlier, there was only one path for the current to flow. But now the entire thing is a conductor. The whole thing is a playground for the electrons, which means your currents will be formed in loops everywhere on the surface of this conductor. And so you'll have loops of current formed on the surface. And these loops of current, which are formed on the surface of a conductor due to changing magnetic flux is what we call eddy currents. And I thought that these are called eddy currents because maybe some guy named eddy discovered it because that's how most of the stuff works in physics. But they're called eddies because they're swirling. So if you consider a whirlpool of water, something that's swirling, they're usually called eddies or vortices. And since this is very similar to that, we call them eddy currents. But how does that produce any heat? Well, of course, current produces heat. We've learned that before. When current flows through a wire, the wire heats up. Now there is current everywhere on the surface of the conductor, which means this whole metallic plate heats up. So if we go back to our vessel of water, due to the fluctuating magnetic fields, eddy currents are set up on the base of this vessel. And that's how the vessel gets heated up directly. And then that heat is transferred to the water, making it boil. Well, then why doesn't that same thing happen to our hands? Well, that's because our hands are not all that great conductor. And therefore, the eddy currents formed are incredibly microscopic, and they hardly have any effect. So in short, these induction cookers generate fluctuating magnetic fields. And when there is a conductor nearby, it experiences of changing magnetic flux. That induces currents on the surface, which we call the eddy currents, which heat it up, and that's how you can have induction heating. Incredible, isn't it? But wait, wait, before we start parting, doesn't it mean that whenever you have conductors and changing magnetic fields, you will have eddy currents and as a result you will have heating? Even if you don't want them? Yeah, wouldn't that be a problem? What if you don't want that happen? How do you reduce eddy currents when you don't want them? Again, going back to our metallic plate, how do we reduce these eddy currents when we don't need them? Well, we can reduce current by increasing the resistance of our metallic conductor. We know more resistance means less current. How do I increase the resistance of this conductor? One of the cool ways of doing that is by introducing slots like this. So kind of making it like a comb. In doing so, think of what we are doing. We are introducing air in between and air is an excellent insulator, which means the overall resistance of this now has increased tremendously. And as a result of that, the eddy currents now have reduced tremendously, which means less heat loss. And this also means now there is less area for the current. So you'll have tinier eddy currents. And again, because of this, we'll have less heating effect. And a practical application of this is seen in transformers. Now, the details about the working of transformers is something that we'll tackle in a separate video. But the important thing is transformers also have changing magnetic fluxes and they have this, you can see this giant conductor in between, which means there will be eddy currents formed over here and we don't want the heating effect to happen over here. So how do we reduce it? The whole idea over here is instead of having one giant block of metal where eddy currents can keep dancing wherever they want, we instead have thin slices of these metals laminated and then glued together. In doing so, we are introducing air like just like over here and as a result, increasing the resistance, thereby reducing the eddy currents. And because these things are all laminated, there is no electrical contact over here, which means you can't have a lot of eddy currents over here. So in doing so, we dramatically decrease eddy currents and as a result, we dramatically decrease heating losses. So now we not only know how to use eddy currents to heat up things, but we also know how to reduce them when we don't want them. But wait, there's more. Check out this demo. In this case, again, we have an electromagnet which is going to generate fluctuating magnetic field due to the alternating current and it's pressed that so it's switched on and then he's going to put a metallic and aluminum ring on top of this and see what happens. Here we go. And, voila! Notice the ring just stays there. It's levitating in air. Beautiful, isn't it? Why is it doing that? And see what happens when you let's go off it, it falls down. So why is it doing that? Can you pause the video and think a little bit about this as to why the ring was levitating? All right, let's go back to our drawing board. Here is that picture of levitation one more time. Why is the ring staying in the air like that? Again, this electromagnet is generating a magnetic field. There's a current running and it generates a magnetic field. But importantly, it's generating a fluctuating magnetic field just like with the induction cooker. And as a result of that, we have a conductor placed on top of that and just like how we saw, there's going to be eddy currents. So there'll be currents running on the surface of that aluminum coil. But what does it cause levitation? Well, remember, this current loop itself starts behaving like a tiny magnet. So this aluminum ring now behaves like a magnet. And now from Lenz's law, we've seen that the current induced will be in such a way that it tends to oppose the cause for it. So when you apply Lenz's law, it just turns out that the magnetic field that it generates opposes this. And as a result of that, this starts repelling this magnet. And for that reason, once that repulsion is stronger than gravity, it starts staying in the air. Magnetic levitation. And one of its applications can be seen in these amazing trains called as maglev trains. Some of these trains, you use the same principle. Eddy currents are used to levitate the entire train in the air. And as a result of that, they're not touching the tracks and so friction is dramatically reduced. And as a result, these trains can achieve a high, very high speed. Maglev trains. Magnetic levitation trains. Amazing, isn't it? But wait, there's more. Check out this demonstration. We have a pendulum with an aluminum plate attached to it. And we have a couple of electromagnets. Now, once the power is turned on, this starts producing a steady magnetic field. There are no fluctuating magnetic fields. Now see what happens. And an important thing, aluminum is not a magnetic material. It doesn't get attracted to magnets. Okay. So there goes the pendulum. It's swinging just like usual. And now it turns on and see what happens. What did you see? Can you explain what you saw? Again, pause the video and think about what might be going on. So we saw that the moment the magnetic field was turned on, it immediately stopped. Why did the pendulum stop? What made it stop? Is it eddy currents? How does that work? Let's get back to our drawing board. So let's say this is that constant magnetic field generated by those electromagnets. And here is that moving aluminum piece, pendulum. Why would there be, what's going on over here? So even though the magnetic field is not changing, notice as the piece enters into the field, from its perspective, the magnetic flux associated with it starts increasing. And as a result of that, there is an EMF induced. This is called motional EMF. And now this motional EMF starts producing eddy currents. And the same thing is gonna happen when it exits. As it exits, the magnetic flux is decreasing. That'll produce motional EMF and eddy currents. But why does it slow down? Let's look at it carefully and use Lenzer's law. As it enters into the magnetic field, since the flux increases, the current induced will be in such a way as to try and decrease the flux. In other words, the current eddy currents over here will tend to oppose the magnetic field. And as a result, it'll end up repelling the magnetic field. Which means as the plate enters into the magnetic field, it repels these magnets. And so what happens? If you repel as you're entering, it'll slow it down. But what happens when it exits? Well, now as it's exiting, the magnetic flux is reducing. So the opposite happens. Now the induced current tries to increase the magnetic flux. As a result, it tries to produce magnetic field in the same direction. And therefore, which means it gets attracted by the magnet or gets attracted towards the magnet. And this means now when it's exiting, it gets attracted back to the magnet, which again slows it down. And therefore, every time this thing enters into the field and exits the field, it gets slowed down. And as a result, it eventually stops. And now you can answer this question. What do you think would have happened if we had slots in the aluminum plate and re-read the experiment? What change would you predict this time? Okay, hopefully you made your prediction. Let's see if your prediction matches the experiment. So now you can see there are slots cut into it and we're gonna repeat the experiment. There goes the swing. Now it's gonna turn on the magnet. Now, what do you see? The magnet is turned on. Hard to believe it's turned on, right? It's slowing down, but it's taking much longer.  I'm pretty sure you can answer that question yourself now. And one final demo, which will make a lot of sense now. Here it is, again, an aluminum disk this time attached to a motor. So when you turn it on, it spins. That's not the demo. But the question is, what happens now when you bring a magnet close to it? Can you predict what's gonna happen? Very similar things. Well, let's see if your prediction matches. It slows down. Does it make sense? Well, again, as the pieces of aluminum go through into the magnetic field and exit the magnetic field, they experience repulsion and attraction that slows them down. And as a result, the whole disk slows down. Which means you can use any currents to break, to slow down things. We call them electromagnetic breaking. What could be an application of this? We can slow down spinning wheels. Which means we can slow down wheels of a train using electromagnetic breaking and eddy currents. Wow. In short, eddy currents are currents formed on the surface of a conductor whenever magnetic flux through them changes. If you want to reduce them, you just increase the resistance by adding some slots or using lamination. And they can be used to heat things up or maybe levitate things or slow things down. In other words, they are pretty, pretty awesome.


Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome if you're new here. My name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and it's Friday. So on Fridays, we talk all about my week, my weigh-in and the Weight Watchers Workshop topic.  Make sure you're subscribed. Your bell notification is turned on because I do upload five videos every single week and Friday, like I said, we always talk about my weigh-in, my week and the workshop topic. Don't forget to check out the description box down below where I will link nutrition coaching. I do offer personalized to you macros and calories. Highly recommend. This is how I have lost and maintained a 140 pound weight loss. I also offer one-on-one coaching for accountability to ask your questions or talk with me directly. Links and discounts to my favorite things and my Facebook group, come join us there. It's free, it's supportive and we would love to have you is also down in that description box. So let's jump in to my week, my weigh-in and the workshop topic. I hope you had an absolutely amazing, amazing week. I really feel like I'm 100% back in my groove. I had a really, really busy week from the weekend all the way through today has just been insanely busy. I did share quite a few updates in my Wednesdays, what I eat in a day. So if you missed that video, I'll make sure that it is linked down below for you. You'll get lots of life updates and things that have happened over the course of this last week. But needless to say, it's been a very, very, very busy week, but it's also been a really good week. I got in all of my workouts this week and tomorrow is kind of an exciting day. I'm actually heading to what is called Peek-a-to-Peek here in Arizona with my boot camp group. It literally is a peak, the top of a mountain that you climb up to. Unfortunately, due to my recent cosmetic surgery, I'm not going to be able to do the last half of the hike because it involves a lot of gloves and ropes and pulling yourself up the side of the mountain. And I'm unable to use my upper body to that extent right now, but I am going to do the first half of the hike, which is about four to five miles. And then I'm just going to enjoy the scenery while the rest of the group hikes to the top. And then afterwards, we're all gonna go have breakfast. So it's going to be a really fantastic way to start my Saturday. Make sure that you follow me over on Instagram and that you're in my Facebook group because I will post lots of pictures there so you can see how that hike went, how I did on the hike. It's going to be probably one of the longest and most intense hikes that I've done so far. And honestly, I'm pretty excited about it. I also got in all my days of boot camp, lifted weights, just really had a great, successful active week. I'm feeling really, really good. I would say other than the tightness of my incisions, especially my back incision, I feel pretty normal. I feel, I would say like 98% back to my normal self. It gets better and better every single day and I'm able to do more and more in my workouts. Actually, this week was kind of a big NSV for me at boot camp. I was able to do mountain climbers and I haven't been able to do those since I had my cosmetic surgery. So I am, like I said, getting back into the swing of things, getting back to normal. I'm gonna give myself just a couple more months for my body to fully heal before I go back to full activity. But I'd say 98% is looking pretty darn good. I did eat out quite a few times this week as well. We had my boot camp girls night where we went to the Barbie movie. Spoiler alert, the Barbie movie is really, really good. I loved it. There was so much underhanded humor. It was fantastic. If you haven't seen it, highly recommend. Troy and I ate out a couple of times as well just due to the business of our week. I mean, sometimes life happens and we end up eating out more than normal. And I still feel like overall I made really, really good food choices and did my best to not only stay on plan but also get in my protein. So I rate my week really about a nine out of a 10. Before I talk about this week's weigh-in though, I wanna discuss this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic because it's another really good one that everybody needs to hear. And this is, are the people in your life helping or hurting your progress? This is definitely a question that we all need to ask ourselves. Are the people that we're surrounding ourselves with is our community? Are the people we're following on social media helping or hurting our progress? Family, friends, co-workers, people you follow on social media, they can either have a really positive or negative impact not only in your weight loss journey on your mental health but just in your life in general.  Number one, list the people you talk to, listen to, read or see most often. Are they friends, family or co-workers, podcasters, news anchors, TV hosts or social media accounts, bloggers and writers? Number two, explore your top few. Think about their tone, messaging and how they make you feel especially about your journey. And number three, categorize them based on whether they help you reach your goals or not. Who could you connect with more? Maybe the ID influencer who shares real lives ups and downs of weight loss or maybe the co-worker who gets you to walk during lunch. Who could you interact with less? The friend who constantly talks about trendy crash diets or the podcaster who stresses you out about your health. Number four, recalibrate. Can someone on your more list replace time with one on the less list or can you find someone new to swap in? Invite your co-worker to try a workout instead of a diet obsessed friend. Listen to a new podcast recommended by your favorite IG influencer and lastly number five, plan exactly what you'll do, when, where and how you'll make it happen. It's really easy to get into a habit or a routine to hang out with the same people whether they serve us or not in our life and in our weight loss journey. We also don't usually take a lot of time to curate our social media feed, our Instagram feed, our Facebook groups that we're in, our connect feed. We want to make sure that we curate those again to people who serve us. I really like the approach of thinking about the people you need to spend less time with and the people you need to spend more time with. I know for me, the fact that I have a Facebook group that has almost 30,000 members is really, really beneficial for a positive healthy place to be on your weight loss journey. We don't allow negativity, everything is positive. There's some amazing tips and tricks that are shared in my Facebook group. So again, if you're not part of it, it's free, it's supportive and it would be a really good place to put your energy for a positive community. Make the changes you need to make to be more successful, curate your feed, curate your friends, your family. Don't spend time with coworkers that don't contribute to a positive workplace for you. Choose your friends, the ones that are really going to benefit you on your weight loss journey. And with family, it's a little bit harder. With spouses, it's a little bit harder. But that's when you actually sit down and you have a conversation with those people and let them know what you need from them in order to be successful.  They want us to succeed. And if they don't, they're definitely not your friends or people you should be spending time with. So they should listen to you, absorb what you're saying and really help you reach your goals. As always, there's three amazing fast facts from Weight Watchers. Number one, when it comes to our weight and wellness journey, the people around us matter. Number two, this is true for the people we interact with both directly and indirectly. And number three, noticing how people impact our journey can help us prioritize time with those who support our goals. Again, less time with these people, more time with these people. You have full control over who you spend your time with for the most part. I mean, you might be married to someone or have family. But again, that's when you sit down and have that conversation on what you need from them. And hopefully they love you enough to support you in your journey. But your friends, even your coworkers, your social media feed, especially, you can really curate that to benefit you most. Make sure you're surrounding yourself with like-minded people who will help you reach your goals, not hinder them. As always, I really like this workshop topic. I think that this four week series from Weight Watchers about people you surround yourself with on your journey is really, really important and maybe not something we think about that could really be either helping or hindering us along the way. So I really appreciate that Weight Watchers has focused on this for the last few weeks. Now let's jump into my weigh-in. I know that that's what a lot of you tune into this Friday video for. Last week I actually maintained my weight to the ounce which I was really grateful for. I had gained a couple pounds, lost some of that and then kind of have maintained that sense. If you didn't know, I do weigh myself daily, usually in the morning and at night. The scale doesn't have a negative effect on me. So for me, I truly just use that as data. I like to see how has my workout, the foods that I've been eating, how much water I've been drinking, whether I ate out or cooked my meals, how that affects my weight. And I know that weight fluctuation is totally normal. So it doesn't ever affect me in a negative way or a positive way. Again, I simply use it for data. This week, my weight did a lot of this, which is pretty normal for me. A lot of my fluctuation is based on exercise. If my body is really sore, my weight immediately goes up. I can literally gain three pounds overnight. If I do a really hard workout, especially a lower body or leg workout, my weight can just shoot up the next day, which I know I didn't gain three pounds overnight. It's simply just a weight fluctuation. But at the end of the week, when I actually weighed in this morning, I am down 0.4. So last week I maintained my weight this week. I'm down just a tiny bit and I'll take it. I consider that more like a maintenance, which is kind of what I'm trying to do while I continue recovering from cosmetic surgery. So again, I can see where my body lands once I am fully recovered. Speaking of body and recovery, I am going to go back and have another body scan in November. November will be one year since my last body scan and six months since my cosmetic surgery, which means I should be fully healed and the real results should be there. So I'm really excited to see what that body scan shows one year later. So stay tuned. I'll share all of that with you guys, of course, but I'm feeling really good about my 0.4 loss. I'm feeling good about maintaining my weight. The fact that I ate out a lot this last week, that I had several events where I didn't have control over food, I feel really good about losing 0.4 pounds. Now I want to hear from you guys. How was your week? Did you gain? Did you lose? Let me know how you feel about curating both your in-person and social media environment to serve you better.  Subscribe if you're not. Turn your bell on. I do a weigh-in every Friday. And like I said, I do upload five videos every single week. Don't forget to check out the description box down below for nutrition coaching. Highly recommend personalized macros and calories. Links and discounts to my favorite things. And like I mentioned, please come join my Facebook group. Follow me over on Instagram for positive and a really supportive, loving community. Of course, we'd love to have you in both platforms. Thank you again for watching. Happy Friday, friends. Happy weekend. And I'll see you in tomorrow's grocery haul. Bye.


The researchers have developed a new type of coating that can reduce the amount of dust and ice on solar panels, making them more efficient and reliable. This coating uses two types of polysiloxane compounds that have both isophobic and hydrophobic properties. These compounds allow the coating to repel water and ice, while still allowing light to pass through it. This makes the coating more effective than other coatings currently used, which can cause damage from ice build-up and dust accumulation. This article was authored by Katarzyna Ziakowska, Bartwami Przepozewskiy, Dominic Grzeta, and others.


Hello everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense. Welcome back to another edition of American Minuteman gear. And today we're gonna talk about why the chest rig. If you have been following this channel or this series rather for the past couple of years, you know that this whole series started because I went to a semester at one shepherd. And there I wore traditional belt kit, like kind of Vietnam style era belt kit, right? So I had a Mali padded belt. I put some suspenders on it. And that's where I carried my water and my butt pack and some more sustainment type stuff around the waist. And that's when I really started to make the transition away from plates and a pistol belt, kind of a more SWAT style, direct raid, direct action style, mission set gear thing into a more sustainment style gear thing. And this whole series has been kind of documenting that journey. And now we're at the place where I wouldn't say I've come full circle, that's silly, but I've certainly evolved into a slightly different direction than I originally intended or at least originally thought I would go. And for right now, and again, this could be different in a couple years from now, we'll wait and see, I have landed on the chest rig as kind of my default kit over and against plates and over and against a belt style kit. And there are a couple of reasons for that. And I've probably mentioned them offhand here, there and everywhere else, but I don't know if I ever consolidated that into one video. So here we go. This is my argument for why the chest rig. Now, hey, right at the outset, if you don't like the chest rig or you think it's crap or you've got a system that works or whatever, well, hey, it's America, do what you want. This is just my reasons and my argument for why I would select the chest rig over and above everything else. So let's talk about the pros and then I think there's one semi-con depending on how you count it to the chest rig. The first pro is that the chest rig keeps your hips clean. And what I mean is there's nothing that has to be on your belt. That's important to me for a couple of reasons. One, when you're making a longer movement in the field, it just feels better to me to have your hips free. Could be a total personal thing. Could be some kind of science behind it. I don't know, I don't care. I just know that when I'm doing a lot of walking, it's nice to not have anything binding or pressing on or around my hips. And so that just frees me up to feel less tired at the end of movement in the field. So I like to carry my stuff up top, then, and not on my hips. The second reason about keeping those hips free is that it gives you options. And the first one is you can actually use the waist belt on your pack. If you're running traditional belt kit, for example, you really can't use the waist belt on your pack. Yeah, you can maybe do it and a lot of people will like set up like a shelf kind of system on their butt pack, right?  And so they help to try to distribute weight that way. And that's all well and good and I've done that. However, I have just come to prefer the waist pack, the waist strap on the pack itself. It was designed with the pack, it was designed with purpose. It also can be pulled really tight and that gives you your abs something to press against. Very similar to like using a weight belt for deadlifts or squats or overhead press. It gives your core something to compress against and therefore helps keep your posture better on longer, heavier rucks. So I like to use that waist belt whenever I can and if I'm able to do that and carry fighting gear well then hey, so much more the better. So that I think is a really nice feature. It also keeps your hips open because then it allows you to add other things as you would so need. So if you would just need an extra belt, right?  You can do that. If you wanna wear a pistol belt, right?  Well then hey, you can do that because like I said, your waist is free. So it gives you those options. The other thing I really like is speaking of the compatibility of the chest rig is that it can go on or over a plate carrier, right? You can either, if you have the style that clips it into a plate carrier, you can do that. Or if you don't have that, you can just throw it straight on over the plate carrier. So again, it has the most versatility. The advantage to putting a chest rig over a plate carrier or clipping it into a plate carrier versus having a separate plate carrier setup is that it's simpler and cheaper. I mean, it's just, again, it's the same rig so there's no change.  And then the other thing that I like is it's consistent. So again, it's the same setup. Whether I'm wearing plates or not, it's all the same setup. Nothing changed, nothing moved, it's all just there.  Another really big reason I like chest rigs over any other setup is it's vehicle compatible. Because chest rigs keep your back completely clean, I could wear this sitting in a vehicle for a long time and be very comfortable. And again, if I don't have a pistol belt on or anything like that, chilling in a vehicle with this in my rifle, I can be super comfortable. You can mostly do that with plates, which is good. But even there, you know, stuff will start to wear, a lot of guys will carry like a Nerf football right and put that under the back plate so the back plate rests on that to make themselves more comfortable.  And I'm still gonna be really comfortable. So I like that it's vehicle compatible. In America, America's a big place, okay? And we have vehicles are our primary mode of transportation. Walking is not our primary mode of transportation. For example, if we've ever been to Europe, right? A lot of the cities are much more walkable and they're designed to walk from shop to shop or they have a really good subway system or whatever. However, America is not like that. America is car-centric, not person-centric. And what that means from a tactical perspective for you is that likely if anything ever gets weird, you are gonna be in and around and using vehicles. And as such, I don't think belt kit ends up being the best decision there because it's not comfortable at all to wear in a vehicle, right? If you've ever had belt kit on and tried to sit in a vehicle for a while, it's not comfortable. So I like the idea of being versatile in and out of the vehicle. The other thing I really like about that is that if I'm gonna be in a vehicle for a while and then I need to immediately transition to a foot movement, I can do that, right? We can talk about that. I can get in the vehicle, we can drive two hours and then, hey, we need you to walk this two, three, four mile circuit or whatever, patrol this area, no problem. I'm in the vehicle, I'm riding, I step out the door, I throw my rock on, boom, I'm out.  I can be ready conditioned one the whole time. And I really like that. I mentioned this a little bit early when I talked about the rucks, but I do think that the chest rig is the most compatible to ruck out of any system. With plates and wearing a ruck, you know, it's putting a plate between your back and the ruck, right? And so it's creating this gap. And some packs are better designed about that than others, but that's always gonna be more uncomfortable to wear a plate between your ruck and your back than not. So that's another one of the advantages I really like is that they're the most ruck compatible system compared, again, to plates, which can be uncomfortable, or compared to belt kit, which then you can't utilize all the features of the pack sometimes, and or is uncomfortable. Now I know some people will say about the ruck thing, well hey Dylan, the whole point is that as soon as you hit contact, you're dropping rucks anyway. So, you know, you might be uncomfortable in the march, but when the push comes to shove and the fighting is on, you're dropping those rucks. And I would say, maybe, the dropping the rucks thing is a big army thing, right? That's a thing where we have lots of backup, lots of supplies, I can call in artillery, I can call in helicopters. I'm not going anywhere, right? I've decided, for whatever reason, big army, I got all the resources behind me and I'm standing here and we're gonna dupe this out and see what happens. So, in our world, in American Minuteman context, you may or may not do that. Likely, in American Minuteman context, if things get weird and you get into a conflict, you don't have the luxury of dropping your ruck. You don't have the luxury of, I'll just set this here and come back to it. Likely, you might need to shoot and scoot, right? You might get an engagement and you're immediately breaking contact. So, you don't have an opportunity to drop and pick up rucks and that's only gonna cost you time that you probably don't have. So, I don't like to base off the assumption that I'm gonna drop my ruck and I'm gonna do the fighting thing and whatever and then I can just come back to it and get it. I like to work out the assumption that I have to keep all my stuff on me, right? And then I'm gonna work, fight, move in that and then we can work from there. Now, if situation dictates and we are gonna be here a while or we're in a defensive position or there's a million different scenarios, well then yeah, of course we'll drop the ruck, big deal. But in general, if I'm out on a patrolling or a movement, I don't think it's likely that I'm gonna have the luxury of being able to drop that. So, again, I want the fighting system that's the most compatible with the ruck over the long haul and I think chest rig wins in that category. Another really nice advantage of the chest rig is they breathe pretty well. Now, they definitely, especially when you get like split rigs that split down the front and stuff, those can be opened up and breathe a lot better. But if you're in anything like hot, humid, like Florida, for instance, if you're anywhere south of that Mason-Dixon line and it's humid, a chest rig is probably your go-to. Maybe a really light jungle belt kit. It does, again, it can trap some heat in here, right? However, it's gonna breathe the best versus, again, like plates.  Chest rigs, again, are also pretty versatile to know how many layers I have to throw on. So if I have to throw some coats on or some extra thermal layers or Gore-Tex or whatever, I can always just toss the chest rig on over it. Now, with like a belt kit, you can probably get away with that too, although you do start to feel a little Michelin man bulky with that.  So that can become a little bit more complicated. Now, there are a couple downsides to a chest rig. Let's be honest here, my identity's not based in what gear I wear. The first one is there's a lack of armor, right? And that's only solved with plates. Plates are the only armored system. Belt kit has a lack of armor too. But with plates, right, that's the only thing that's gonna stop bullets that counts as armor. So you would have to either wear plates under this, right, and then toss the chest rig over or wear plates and then clip this into a system. So that is, it's a minor con. I don't necessarily even know if I call it a con because I think it's pretty surmountable like we talked about with the compatibility earlier. However, it is something that should be listed. So let's talk about what I think is probably the biggest disadvantage of the chest rig and this could be arguable whether it's a disadvantage or not. And that I would say is lack of sustainment, right? Chest rigs, I happen to have water on this one, but in general, chest rigs are not designed to carry sustainment type gear. Belt kit is, right? You can put belt kit on there. You got a lot more room to attach sustainment type gear. Between your butt pack and your canteen pouches, you can sustain yourself for a while, which is one of the big advantages of belt kit. But when it comes to the chest rig, it's designed to carry tools for the fight, right?  You know, maybe a thermal or a GPS or something kind of that in a GP pouch somewhere. It's not usually designed to carry sustainment stuff, like water or food or a poncho or anything like that. It's usually designed to just carry the tools for the fight. So what that means is almost always and in my system, always, you have to pair a chest rig with a ruck. They have to be paired. You can't run a chest rig if you're doing anything longer than four hours alone. You have to run it with a ruck. And how big that ruck is, of course, is just determined by what exactly it is that you're doing. But you're gonna have to pair it with a ruck. And usually the biggest contributor to that is water. You're just not able to carry enough water. Typically I will carry a three liter bladder when I go out and do stuff. And that's kind of my starting point for water. Maybe then I'll toss another canteen on here or I'll put another one on my ruck or whatever. But somewhere between three to four liters is usually my starting point. And again, starting, it'll go up from there of water depending on how hot it is, how long I'm gonna be out, et cetera, et cetera. And again, you just don't have room on a chest rig to be able to carry all that sustainment, namely water, and the tools for the fight. You just run out of room. So if you're at all considering why you should run a chest rig or thinking about running a chest rig over those other systems, I think I would make the argument for you to come over to the chest rig camp. Because I think there are a lot of advantages given our context in America with vehicles, big spaces, needing to walk potentially, needing to be in a vehicle potentially, needing to do lots of stuff. And given our mission set, right? American Minutemen who might be on long foot patrols, not getting in contact intentionally.  That would be silly not to, right? I would just clip my chest rig into my plates because I'm gonna get in a fight. I'm gonna more than likely get shot at. I want that armor on if I can help it. However, if I'm just doing whatever it is that I'm doing because things have fallen apart, I'm gonna wear the chest rig because it's the most versatile. I don't have to carry all that extra weight and I can be the most fresh for, if anything ever, bad does happen. So given our context of being an American Minuteman, I think that the chest rig wins out over the other systems. And I think that really allows you, again, those options to vary to your little independent variables that come into your mission set. In general, big mission set, American Minuteman. What that means exactly on a day-to-day basis, I think the chest rig meets all of those needs really well. Does it meet them all the best? No, but I think it's, I'm gonna go with 85% of the way there on everything across the board and higher in some categories. And I think that's a pretty good score. I'll take it. I hope that is helpful. And if you think that's total crap because your belt kit has served you faithfully since whatever and you only wear plates because of such and such a thing, well, hey, let me know and we can have that discussion. Do brave deeds and endure.


Hi, I'm Premier Christy Clark. This week we got some great news. In their annual report card, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business gave us an A rating. British Columbia is the only province in Canada to receive their top score. And you know why that's important? Because small businesses create 90% of the jobs in our province.  When you free them up to do what they do best, you help secure a stronger economy for families all across our province. And that's what it's all about. This Red Tape Awareness Week, let's celebrate how far we've all come by working together.