I thank you, Cymruuen. I thank you very much to the Institute for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here, delighted to be in Dublin, although I'm rather intimidated by all the intellectual firepower around. I'm a journalist, I'm an observer of the world rather than a great thinker. I'm not going to talk as a political scientist or an academic, I'm going to try to do what I try and do in my columns, which is to talk about the world as I see it. I've got a very small subject sovereignty in the globalized age. So I thought I'd try and split it up into three parts to make it slightly more digestible. So I thought I'd first look at the debate actually in Britain about sovereignty and the European Union. And then I want to go on to suggest that that debate about the national and the supranational is actually points up in microcosm, the challenge that faces all nation states in and outside Europe as they seek to reconcile domestic politics with the realities of globalization. And in the third part, briefly, I want to come back to some of the strains in Europe as it deepens integration in the Eurozone. Britain and Europe. Now, I suppose some of you will have noticed that there's been something of an argument in Britain about how or its relationship with the European Union. Now, in many ways, this is really an old debate. Britain has never quite joined the European Union, even if it signed the various treaties. And there have been, I think, two organizing emotions in the relationship during the past many decades. The first is superiority. The second is insecurity. It was superiority that informed Winston Churchill's famous Zurich speech when he called, I think it was in 1946, for the creation of a United States of Europe and then added, but of course Britain as a global power would have no need to join. The same, I think, dismissive attitude helped keep Britain out of the coal and steel community and made sure that we weren't present and represented at the founding conference of Messina. Now, this sense of superiority is rooted in history, in culture and geography. It says that Britain's mother of parliaments has a stronger democratic tradition as an island state with an imperial heritage. It looks out on the world, lifts its eyes above Europe, and of course it won the war. The problem is that it's a pretty hard act to sustain in the face of relative decline. What drove Britain towards the then common market at the end of the 1950s beginning of the 60s, Macmillan's first application for membership, was the other organizing emotion, insecurity. This is the realization of the middle-ranking power Britain simply can't afford to be on the outside looking in as the rest of Europe draws closer together. Much as it disdains the EU, Britain fears being locked out. Margaret Thatcher put it very well actually back in 1975 when she was campaigning for a yes vote in the referendum, when she said that Europe opens windows on the world for Britain that otherwise would be closing. And these are the two emotions, I think, that will be uppermost in any future referendum. The skeptics, urophobes, swivelide, I don't know what you want to call them. Swivelide or not actually to be fair, will declare that Britain can perfectly well make its own way in the world as an independent nation. The pro-Europeans will counter that the nation's prosperity and security remain inextricably linked to its capacity to shape events. The truly neuralgic word in this debate is sovereignty. Sovereignty is the standard carried highest by the Euro skeptics. Briefly put, their case is that membership of the European Union extracts too high a price in terms of, and I put inverted commas around this, surrendered sovereignty. On the populist level this says the nation has lost control of its own destiny, witnessed the supposed flood of immigrants from other European countries, the social policy decisions taken in Brussels, the rules and regulations that are said to strangle British business and finance. And just to confuse things, the skeptics lump in the European Court of Human Rights into the mix as allegedly stopping Britain from expelling terrorists and criminals. On a slightly more elevated level, the argument runs that Britain's mistake was made at the very beginning when it joined the Union. In doing so, it accepted the primacy of EU over Westminster law. Once the single act promoted ironically by Margaret Thatcher and the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties had been signed, with their provision for much greater majority voting among member states and a corresponding widening of the authority of the European Court of Justice, the primacy of European law gave the EU the right to intrude into too many dimensions of British life. Now, the skeptics do have a point. Pro-Europeans, and I'm one, have to acknowledge that the EU does involve an unprecedented pooling of sovereignty. It represents a major departure from the European state system established by the treaties of Westphalia after the Thirty Years' War. And indeed, that's the point. For the avoidance of war, the founding fathers of the European Union set about creating a new system. The Westphalian Treaty has underpinned a system under which rulers would be free of foreign interference in any of their domestic affairs. In the EU system, members have effectively had each other the right to interfere in each other's domestic affairs. This is what the distinguished British and European diplomat Robert Cooper has called the post-modern state. Now, the central claim of the Eurosceptics, or the Euro-Outs, is that by leaving, Britain can at once reclaim sovereignty and the capacity to shape its own affairs. In the first part of that proposition, as I've said, they are right. Sovereignty gives you the capacity to say no. But it's on the second, the idea that sovereignty confers the capacity to act, that they are so badly mistaken. At the heart, I think, of any pro-European case lies a recognition that the interdependence of states demands that they share sovereignty in order to exercise it. In this respect, you could say the EU is simply the most developed of the many international organisations in which states have acknowledged and accepted that trade-off. You can think of NATO, ASEAN and Mercasur. And this, for me, is the fatal argument, fatal flaw in the argument of the Euro-Outs. Where Britain to leave the EU, the Westminster Parliament could indeed say that it reclaimed untrammeled sovereignty, but that sovereignty would not translate into a capacity to act in the interests of British citizens. Most obviously Britain's prosperity would depend on replacing EU trade, investment and other economic agreements with other nations around the world with its own bilateral arrangements. And each of those bilateral arrangements would involve some seeding of sovereignty, so sovereignty reclaimed from Brussels would be expended in new agreements. Britain also would have to negotiate new agreements with the EU to ensure that it was not locked out of the single market. Notionally, it could close its borders to EU citizens, but we've learnt from bitter experience that actually Britain can't operate its own borders effectively without the cooperation of countries like France, Belgium and I'm sure Ireland. The reality is that for a middle-ranking nation sitting on the edge of Europe, the option of an independent sovereignty is a mirage. We were talking earlier about Michael Heseltine, a former Conservative pro-European politician, and he had a good phrase for it. He said, the man walking alone in the desert is entirely sovereign and equally entirely powerless. This brings me to my second point, the globalisation more generally and the challenge to states. The state remains and I think will remain the basic building block of political organisation and international relations. But globalisation, I'm looking well beyond Europe here, has imposed significant stresses. The UKIP or the Eurosceptic Tories are not alone in their hostilities towards Brussels in Europe. We've seen the rise of populist nationalism elsewhere in Europe. But we've also seen the rise of nationalism more generally across the world. And at times of economic stress and insecurity, the populist turned nationalists, harm a seductive tune, that nations can throw up the barricades against the world beyond. Here they ignore the central fact of modern political life, that nations have to act together if they're to confront the biggest challenges of the age. If you think of the danger from pandemics and other risks to human health, that you find national borders, the need to confront climate change, arguably the biggest challenge we've ever faced to human welfare, all the effort to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or the spread of identity-based terrorism. The interdependence is immutable. The world's becoming, sad to say, at once more multipolar and less multilateral. Rising states are sceptical about handing power to international organisations, especially the established ones of the post-war order. And hopes, I think, that the G20 would provide a broader architecture for international cooperation have gone unfulfilled as yet. But the result of that is that there's a gap, the gap between the demand for and the supply of international governance. Multilateralism isn't about to collapse but it is fracturing. If you start at first principles, stability and prosperity rest essentially on the capacity of states to meet the demands of their citizens for security, economic and social as much as physical. But the big consequence of globalization, I think, has been to weaken those same states and governments. Powers become a lot more diffuse as international corporations, non-governmental organisations and other non-state actors erode the capacity of the state to act. You can see this in tax arbitration of multinational corporations, been in the news a bit lately. The multi-country supply chains that distribute profits and jobs around the world. In the cross-border identity politics facilitated by the web. And in the louder voice, and this is welcome, of course, of civil society and political decision making. It seems to me that the crisis in the eurozone may have owed quite a lot the mistakes made by policy makers. But it also demonstrated the power of international markets to force states to adopt particular economic strategies. So states are also finding it more difficult to control their own borders, to regulate migration, to tackle cross-border crime and to prevent the spread of terrorism. The two men who killed a young soldier in London recently were probably radicalized by being exposed to jihadi propaganda on the web. So, as I've said, what we're witnessing here is a widening gap between the supply of and the demand for governance at the level of states. As power flows from state to non-state actors, it's also moving, as we've seen, from established powers in the west to rising powers in the eastern south. The result? Well, the result is that citizens are demanding from governments protection from all these insecurities, from all the insecurities thrown up by globalization. But governments are actually finding it harder to provide that security. And that, I think, sort of brings me to what I think is the central paradox of our age. Sovereignty is increasingly prized by nations, but even as it is prized, this sovereignty is increasingly ineffective. The weakening of global governance, the weakening, if you like, of the pooling of sovereignty threatens to weaken the power of individual states. The obvious conclusion for me is that states share an unavoidable interest in fashioning a system of international governance that recognizes their mutual as well as their national interests and recognizes that the national interest often lies within that mutual interest. Domestic progress can't be separated from international rule setting and cooperation. Threats, wherever they come from, nuclear proliferation, climate change or global financial weaknesses simply do not respect national boundaries. I'm going on too long, so I'm going to very briefly turn to Europe, but very briefly. My view on where we're heading in the Eurozone is that further integration is both inevitable and necessary. Inevitable because the completion of monetary union required to sustain the Euro over the medium to long term requires much closer economic. Coordination but also I think collective decision making. Necessary because the shift in global power eastwards and southwards makes it more essential for Europe to act as one if it's to succeed in promoting its interests, norms and values in the wider world. But to say that closer integration, more shared sovereignty if you like is inevitable and desirable is not to say it would be easy or popular. Many people, not just anti Europeans, are worried about sharing authority over national budgets, tax and spending levels. These are issues at the very heart of democratic states. There should be, I think, a recognition to that the European Union has often, has too often belonged to its elites. And this incidentally, I think, is where populists of both right and left at the moment are striking their most powerful cord. I was in Italy last week and I heard the new Prime Minister and Ricoletta say there that the great tragedy of the European elections next year could well be that the most successful candidates are anti Europeans. So it seems to me that a more integrated Europe does demand more transparency, more accountability and a much clearer chain of responsibility for decisions taken at the European level. Now whether the answer to that is much closer engagement by national parliaments or more democratic institutions at the European level, I'm not sure. I tend towards the former, but what's clear, I think, is that national electorates need to be able to see the identity of interest between the national and the European.  Interdependence can't simply be wished away. But those like me who argue that pooling sovereignty is the only answer have to make that case and it's not an easy one to make in an age of austerity. Thank you.


What do you think the number one thing that is a mistake that new agents make? I think there's several. Yeah, yeah, but I'd say the number one in my opinion is probably being a lot of agents like can't get in front of people or they don't know the best way to get in front of people or they try all sorts of different things. I try Facebook leads, I try direct mail, I try this, I try that. Just figure out one thing and that's one thing that I tell agents a lot of times like they agents are they try and make it harder than it really is like let me I gotta figure out all these different things. No, screw that. Just go figure one thing that's really good that you can do whether it's knocking on doors, whether it's calling people, whether it's doing seminars, go figure out one thing and then just go beat the heck out of it. You can tell when you speak like you have a lot of passion for the industry. Yeah, you believe in what you sell and if you believe that's a limiting belief holds a lot of agents back like if you believe in what you sell, you shouldn't worry about what people are going to think when you ask them. All right, today I'm excited to bring another power player to the mix and interview with my brother-in-law, one of my good buddies, Mr. Matthew Allen Smith. Dude, I even used your middle name. There you go. You know me better than most people. That's true, man. I like that. So social is, you know, Matt's done an unbelievable job with helping new agents succeed, recruiting operations, et cetera, as a partner and secure insurance group. And I really wanted to have him on to share his experience because we have a ton of new agents that start watching our content that struggle with prospecting, getting in front of people, closing business, cross-selling, a lot of different things. I asked you the question earlier and I loved your answer, so I'd love for you to share it. What do you think the number one thing that is a mistake that new agents make? I think there's several. But I'd say the number one, in my opinion, is probably being spread too thin. I think a lot of new agents try and know everything and they're like a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none. They want to know how to sell Medicare and life insurance and annuities and everything when, honestly, figure out one, figure out two and really do well at that and then learn the rest as time goes. I was talking with a new agent the other day and he's got some annuity prospects and I said just don't worry about that. If somebody else help you with that and go out there and just do the rest really well. I think spreading yourself too thin can be a problem. That's a really good point too because a lot of people are going to be like, okay, this is my niche. I'm really good at this, which is what you've done well, but I've got this person that asks me about this random thing that I've known nothing about. Well, there's no reason to spend two weeks reading up on it and educating yourself because who knows if they will even take the appointment or even buy it and then you wasted two weeks and you could have been selling other stuff. That's what we love to do locally is partner with someone that is an expert at that. They get a better chance of closing the business anyway. You'll end up doing a commission split or something. 50% of 10,000 then 100% of zero. That's right. Totally, totally. That math, it does add up. That's pretty good. It's pretty good. I love that. I didn't major in math, but why do you think a lot of agents struggle with or why do you think they spread themselves to that? Why do you think that happens? I think another thing and I think the question is, is I think they're not seeing enough people and they're trying to maximize that and they're just not seeing enough people. When you're not seeing enough people, you don't have enough prospects. I think that's another huge issue that agents have and new agents especially. Yeah. What's some of the unique things that Secure does that you guys do that help agents see more people? You'll get some unique things that work really well. We've got a really good discounted lead program, so we do that really well. We help agents with seminars and I'm sure people have probably heard your dad talk and several other people, but seminars we do seminars really well. We do online webinars and we've kind of mastered those. We do a lot of really unique things through discounted leads, through direct mail, helping our agents with direct mail, through seminars and through some online webinars, or some of the most unique ways I think. I've even seen my dad actually go to a different state to do seminars for people. We'll bring on new agents and these agents, you know, they're comfortable speaking from people. They're good and they know Medicare and things like that, but we've truly mastered it. I mean, it's pretty much down to a science. I can kind of give you some numbers if you want, but it's a science at this point. We figured it out and so basically a lot of times, Brian will bring on new agents and he'll go to them. Like he's gone to I know Mississippi, Illinois, Pennsylvania. He's offered to go to Georgia. Just offered to go to Georgia the other day. Yeah. He actually will be going to Georgia. Yeah, Texas, Oklahoma, probably half a dozen more, but he'll travel to those states and do those events and help out and things like that and teach those agents how to do it. And then obviously he's not splitting any commission or anything, but just he wants you to be successful. So that's probably one thing that's unique about Brian and unique about Secura really is Brian, he just wants people to be successful and so he's committed to success. And so I think that's proven by he'll go to Georgia and do a seminar for Secura. He will give. There's no doubt about that. He gives almost, I'm like, you got to slow down. You're giving too much. You're giving it all away. But he does that. That's really why people are attracted to him and you guys. And what's the third thing? Okay, so we talked about, okay, spread yourself too thin. If you're taking notes right now, you got to be taking these notes, right? Because you're probably spreading yourself too thin, right? Because you don't have a niche, right?  You know, it sounds like this dude can help, right? And what's really some other things that are mistakes that new agents make? Well, I think that the next thing that new agents do is they have a it was like, it's like a fear of just not knowing everything. And so basically like, you're gonna not know something, somebody's gonna ask you a question that you won't know the answer to. Yeah, I could stump you on something, but you don't have to know everything. Do people have a fear of like, oh crap, I don't know 100% of all the questions I could be asked. I don't want to go make that phone call or make the door knock or whatever. Just go do it. And then if you don't know, ask somebody, you know, ask an upline, ask another agent, ask somebody. And I think that's the third mistake agents make all the time is just a fear of thinking, oh crap, I don't know. So true. And I think prospects also, they can smell BS. I guess they know when you be honest, say, Hey, that's a great question. I really don't know the answer.  But call that person back. Yes, I think I think that builds credibility with the person as well. It really does. I'm glad you said that. A lot of people say that a lot of people preach like fake it till you make it, right?  Oh, yeah, for sure. I respect that. So go get the answer and then get back to them. I think they respect that. So love that. Those are probably the three biggest mistakes that I would say agents make new agents make. Right. For sure.  You know, well, you can eventually get better at those specifically. Why Medicare? You've always had a kind of a kind of drawn to Medicare. It's been a niche that's SIG is really strived at. You personally saw hundreds of prospective clients during A&P this year. You are managing, I don't even know, 3, 4, 5,000 Medicare clients now. 5,000. 5,000 Medicare clients. It's a lot.  It's insane. Kind of a drum drew me to it. I would say I really like the residual income. So I think that's number one. Number two, just helping people. Like, I think there's a lot of times that I know you're a life guy and there's a lot of life guys. That's cool. I like life. So he hates me now.   But I enjoy Medicare. I enjoy feeling like I'm helping that person. It's honest to goodness. It's probably a little easier than the life side of things. But that's okay. For sure. Medicare guy, I can say it. But I truly enjoy helping people. I truly enjoy like I'm building something. If you want to make $100,000, how do you do that? Well, in life, you got to go beat the pavement. You got to go knock on doors. You got to go do stuff. And every January, it starts over. If I want to make $100,000, I want to do that with Medicare.  A couple of years, you're making $100,000 and it's all residual income. Which is crazy to think. Like, that's what's so attractive about insurance is you can literally, within two to three years, have a six-figure renewal income. Absolutely. You wake up, 6 a.m., let me drink some coffee. I think I just made, what is that, $500 today? Because that's two grand a week, eight grand a month. Oh, I just made six figures. There you go. Or I went on vacation and I still made money. The office is still there. Exactly. It's just pretty rare. How did you get into it? Well, so I had, I knew somebody. I knew some people. No, I basically, I just married in really. Pretty much. No, I had a background in law enforcement. So I went to school to be a policeman and decided, you know, I don't really know that I want to be on the side of the road at three in the morning, you know, with the drunk guy. I'd rather be at home with my wife and my kids. So anyways, I knew these guys. You can't say kids now too. I can't say kids. We just had our second. But yeah. So got with these guys and dating your sister and thought, you know, it would be a good thing. I think I could do it. No doubt. And you've done very well too. Well, thanks. Thanks. And what would you say is like, okay, I focused on this. If you're you, I focused on this. And that's why I was able to succeed early on in a very difficult industry where 92% will fail. I mean, I'm speaking to a conference in the Philippines to 5,000 agents. Oh, cool. What statistically, 4,200 of them, 4,100 of them are going to fail. Yeah. That's insane. Oh, it's but you were able to succeed at a high level and continue to succeed and continue to do more as you continue to run operations and everything else. Why were you able to make it? I would say when I would say a lot of agents like can't get in front of people, or they don't know the best way to get in front of people or they try all sorts of different things. I try Facebook leads, I try direct mail, I try this, I try this, just figure out one thing.  Like let me I got to figure out all these different things. No, screw that, just go figure one thing that's really good that you can do, whether it's knocking on doors, whether it's calling people, whether it's doing seminars, go figure out one thing, and then just go beat the heck out of it.  That's what you do.  Just figure out one thing that I'm good at or a couple things that I'm good at and just maximize those. I remember us calling leads together at night on like five years ago, where we're on the SAG side just calling, making calls at eight o'clock at night. Right, right. Is there any reason short of a, what was it, a nuclear bomb on why you wouldn't be there? Boom, boom. He's a closer. That's the lockdown question, man. That's it. So, when you're setting an appointment, he just brought it up, so we'll teach you on it, right? There you go. You're just set the appointment. You've agreed on a time. Is there any reason short of a nuclear bomb while you wouldn't be there Friday at two, right? And that's the lockdown to give people to say, well, actually you're right, I do have a document. Like if you're going to find out, you want to know now so that they stand, that they don't stand you up and they show up. And then that's how you get it to improve your appointment setting, right? I think we did zombie apocalypse too once. Probably, probably through all kind of crazy stuff, you know, but it works. Yeah, absolutely for sure.  Absolutely, absolutely. What's the, now that you're starting to help a lot of new agents, we have a new agent program here at SAG and Springfield. We're bringing on agents and helping them get in front of, you know, webinars and leads, seminars and all that kind of stuff. What's some of the things that are some of the systems that you've been able to implement or helped implement that have helped some of those new agents find success, made it easier for those that are new to the business and have really put some of those systems in place to help them have a smoother transition the first couple of years? Yeah, so we've really worked a lot on cross-selling opportunities, cross-selling when you can. Who's the easiest person to sell something to? Somebody that's already bought, you know. Work on cross-selling, you know, work on just kind of what I said earlier on maximizing on like figuring what you're good at, what you enjoy, you know. We've got some LOAs and we basically, we gave him some Facebook leads, we gave him some great mail, gave him all sorts of different types of leads and we said, well figure out what you like, you know. Which is good because not everyone, I like that you said that because not everyone watching right now is going to do and enjoy doing the exact same thing like I didn't mind door-knocking. A lot of people don't like to door-knock, you know. They don't really want to door-knock. I didn't mind it, you know.  Some like direct mail, some that don't, some that are working more one market more than others. More markets huge, more markets huge for sure. Speak on that because I felt like you did a really good job of that as a new agent. Most people don't. Ask everyone you know. People are afraid of that. Ty, Ty did a great job of that as well. Ty probably did a better job than I did. He probably did a better job than I did too.  They need insurance. They know they need insurance. They need life insurance. They need Medicare. They need whatever you're selling. They probably already own it. Why not help you? They already own it. Yeah, for sure. They know they need it. They probably already own it.  They'll buy it from you. And especially if you've got a great product. Totally. That shows that you believe in it. Absolutely. You can tell when, when you speak, you have a lot of passion for the industry. You believe in what you sell. Absolutely. That's a limiting belief those live agents back. If you believe in what you sell, you shouldn't worry about what people are going to think when you ask them. Then you're not really selling anything either. It's just natural. Yeah. Totally agree. What were some of the things that you did? Speaking on one market and working on one market. What are some of the things that you did early on? Was it a hit list? Maybe it was a cocoa for coffee. Maybe it was a phone call. What were some of the things that you did that maybe else had a box that someone can learn from if they're wanting to go immediately? Help people that they love. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think a couple of things. I think, well, like dad, mom, that was just like, Hey, that was the hardest. By this, you know, yeah. But I talked with you and they already owned it. I guarantee it might as well. You might as well be the agent. Absolutely. Absolutely. But one thing that was kind of unique that I got from you and Dallas actually, Dallas kept a list. He called it a hit list of rolling 100. Everybody that guy talked to would be on a sheet of paper and whether it was the pastor of his church is whoever came in. I've stolen that rolling 100 from him and taught on it and given him credit several times because it's brilliant. Oh, it's brilliant. Everybody and as soon as they buy, cross them off, put somebody else on the list. Exactly. And I think that's phenomenal.   Like God, I sold a policy at the pizza place the other day just eating lunch. Yeah, we go there all the time. And the lady came up and was like, you're the Medicare guy, right? Boom. Okay. How about that? Who wants to be sitting at lunch at like, you're the dude that helps everyone through Medicare, I think. Didn't really think. Yeah. But same thing with the rolling 100.  We are creatures of habit. You frequent pizza joints. I go to the same four restaurants around the office every day. Lauren and I eat at Haruno twice a week sushi joint right down the street. It's crazy. Mine's Chick-fil-A. There you go. I eat Chick-fil-A today. Yeah, me too. You know. Yeah. That's awesome. Actually in Tuesday's barbecue day, but we had Chick-fil-A instead. What's some of the things that you really have learned that you've seen that you would like to educate on or help with or mentioned while we're doing this now? Well, I think probably I kind of, I'd like to come back to kind of what I said earlier. Yeah.  Like I'm pretty sure I did all three of them, probably worse than anybody, but especially like, I'm the kind of person I want to know every single thing about everything. Love to have that personality. That was honestly my biggest struggle starting out was, and I think I probably annoyed you when I first started out and everybody else in my family because they all do insurance, but what do I say if this person asked me this question? And you would always be like, don't you don't know? It doesn't matter. Whatever. Figure that later. And so for me, that was my biggest struggle of just not knowing, and not knowing everything that there was to know. But that, I think what I did that, that I just found out stuff that I enjoyed, and I just kept doing it, you know. Yes. So. I love that you mentioned that too because there's a, I would say a lot of insurance agents are the exact same way. How did you get over that? Because probably we're struggling with that. That's holding them back a little bit. How did you get over it to where now you're like, yeah, whatever. I don't care. That's, I pretty much just decided, yeah, whatever I don't care. I'll learn it, but I spend a lot of time learning stuff and learning about different policies and things like that, but also just that mindset that you just said of, hey, it is what it is. If I don't know the answer to something, I'm not going to pretend like I do. Where does that come from? Maybe it's parents, childhood upbringing. The last thing you're ever going to do is lie to somebody. Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely think, yeah, upbringing for sure. I also think one thing that new agents also do, and not to hijack your interview, but one thing that I think new agents do is they get like, oh my gosh, I have to sell this policy and they get like really stressed out and amped up and to the point where like prospects can feel you and they feel when you're uncomfortable and they don't want to buy from that person. Oh, absolutely. They don't want to buy from that person. So one thing that, and this is, I just thought about one thing that I really learned was, I don't give a freak if you buy the policy or not. I remember the house I was sitting in, when my mindset shifted. I was sitting there and it was, if you're a Medicare agent, I was trying to sell this lady a dual plan, which was by far the best thing this lady could have ever bought. And doesn't cost her anything, gets her a ton of free benefits, whatever. Well, I'm sitting there and her and her daughter grilling me on this dual plan on why it's a good thing and all the other stuff. And I don't know really why I said what I said or did what I did, but I said, I don't care if you buy it or not. Just tell, it's the best thing for you. I really don't care if you take it or not. I'm going to walk to my car and pass three other people that want this. We're at a senior housing. And I think that was when it was like, oh, you know, it was confidence. And so I think a lot of new agents like confidence and they feel like, oh my gosh, I have to make this sale.  So I think that's something else too, you know, that's good. Just agents are, they lack confidence and then they, you know, people feel that. So we're afraid a lot of times that we're going to lose the sell. And you just demonstrated something to where lose the sell on your own terms, you know, like, and, and a lot of times too, I bet they stopped asking as many questions because they're probably like, this dude's really just trying to help us. He doesn't even care. I sold an annuity one time. And I'm not an annuity guy by any stretch of the imagination. But, but I was selling an annuity once biggest case to date that I'd ever sold. I literally was having lunch with a prospect and her mom, a prospect and her daughter. And I said, look, just don't waste my time. Are you interested or not? If you are, I'd love to be able to help you. If not, that's cool too. But just don't waste my time. Don't waste your time. It's the biggest sale I've ever made. I kind of got some of that stuff from you where it was just like, just be confident with it. It was the best thing for this lady, you know, and, and so I think confidence is a big thing too. Oh, dude, it's huge, man. The prospect feels it.  Yeah. I think a lot of new agents need to be more confident for sure. Yeah. What's some of the things that they can do that you did, you know, and it's probably obviously it's learning, it's trial and error, it's experience, but what's some of the things that you've you that helped your confidence when you didn't maybe didn't have as much of it as you do now? Well, I guess just trying not to get discouraged.  It's just that's good. Get back on the horse, just keep going, keep talking to someone. Eventually, someone will say yes. Eventually, somebody's going to buy something from you. Just keep asking. You're not, you know, asking the right questions. Keep getting in front of people, see more people. Right. I think you always say 15 people a week or whatever. That's right. That's what you need to do. At least. You really do. Unless it's AEP and it's like 100 people a week. Yeah, exactly. What made you initially want to get into law enforcement as a kid? Was it just random side note? Probably, I don't know. I always playing cops and robbers. I always want to be the good guy. Maybe TV shows. Yeah, there you go. It was good. I got a four-year degree in criminal justice and I always joke with clients and tell them, you know, this job's fun.  Probably not. You know, I don't get to tackle somebody today. That's right. It's kind of frowned upon in this business, but yeah, this one a little bit more money and do that. No, I not tackle the prospect yet. Eventually. Maybe an agent. Yeah, Dallas. Right, right. But yeah, so love what I do and wouldn't rather do anything else. That's phenomenal. You can feel your passion. I've seen you grow as a business person the last several years. It's been amazing to see and you're doing some big stuff. Anything else you want to share? Before we close it out? Just be confident. Don't be scared and keep seeing people. Boom. I love it. You're here first, Matt. Thank you for your time, bro. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. Go be confident. Hey, if you enjoyed this, I got another one you're gonna love. It's right there. Click on it. See you in there. Hey, there's five words right now. You should never say you got to stop saying. Promise me you'll stop saying them. We'll do it. I don't know what the words are. Over the next few minutes, you'll know and you will never use them again. Number one. And as I preface why we're going into this.


Thanks, it's a treat to be here. I hope you'll find this presentation provocative. This is a photograph taken by a colleague in Pontiac, Michigan at St. Joseph's Mercy Health Center. Her name is Peg Nelson. And this photograph is remarkable for a number of reasons. One is that there are a lot of health professionals clustered around the patient's bed. The other one is that the patient's bed is actually occupied by two people. And the other peculiar feature is the health professionals are not focused on the patient. The patient is one of a number of observers. And I find this image revealing and thought provoking around what we count today in healthcare. So to me, this is a remarkable image. I'm a person who makes my living partly through interpretation of images. And I'd like to share with you an interpretation of this image. The patient is a 57 year old woman with advanced patriotic cancer. And her prognosis is dismal. Like most people who are facing the end of her life, she's troubled by some things.  And her terrific palliative care team has managed to at least substantially allay her fears in that regard.  And again, the palliative care team in concert with the patient's family, I think have managed to reassure her that they will do their level best to make sure someone is with her in the final hours of her life. Her third fear was a little bit more difficult to respond to. Her first grandchild would be born in the coming couple of months.  And a race against time. One week passed, two weeks, a third week. It became apparent that the patient would very likely expire before the birth of her grandchild.  So in my experience, something rather remarkable happened. Some health professionals consulted each other about a very unusual problem and came up with a rather unusual solution. And you see that solution in action in this image. Namely, the patient, the 57 year old advanced pancreatic cancer patient's daughter came into her room and lied down supine next to her mother in the hospital bed. And an ultrasound machine was rolled up to bedside. And a technologist spent about 35 minutes at the bedside giving this patient an opportunity to meet her unborn but named grandson. His name would be Aidan. So our patient lying there in bed had a little bit over a half an hour to see her unborn grandson's heart beating. She had an opportunity to count his 10 fingers and his 10 toes. Now rather unexplicably, at one point her grandson actually gave her the thumbs up sign. We don't know what that means but it happened and we captured the image. We have a static sonogram showing her grandson giving what appears to be the thumbs up. Does that count? No formal request was entered for that exam. An ultrasound machine from a busy ultrasound clinic was rolled away from the clinic and up to this patient's room. That meant first that that piece of equipment could not contribute to the productivity of the department to which it was assigned. And secondarily, patients waiting for exams had to wait longer because that machine had been taken out of service for upwards of an hour. Is there, you may know, ICD-10, the International Classification of Diseases includes something like 70,000 diagnostic options. Is there an ICD-10 code for this exam? A major source of revenue for the American Medical Association, CPT codes, right? Current procedural terminology. Now in its 10th edition, is there a CPT code that can be applied to this exam? Not that I'm aware of. Did this exam contribute to throughput? If anything, its impact was negative. Was any revenue generated from this exam? No, in fact, revenue was lost or at least delayed patient satisfaction scores may have in fact suffered because this exam was, because in a sense there's no patient in this room at least in terms of the utilization of that precious healthcare resource, an ultrasound machine and an ultrasound technologist. Are there any entries in any medical record? No. In terms of the ontology of contemporary healthcare, this exam does not exist. It never happened. It doesn't count. And to me, an exam like this is a powerful reminder that sometimes the things that count for the most simply aren't counted and in some cases may in fact be uncountable. There's a quote often misattributed to Albert Einstein, it goes like this. Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. In our current zest for quantification, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that some of the things that count for the most are in fact uncountable. Suppose I made the bold assertion that your marriage or your relationship with your most significant other stinks. Your marriage is lousy. Suppose you were to set about disproving my assertion. You can bring any evidence you want, but it has to be quantitative. Show me the numbers that prove that your marriage is of high quality. Well, you know, what would you talk about?   My spouse has expected lifetime earnings, you know, we're on the order of, on an average day, we speak X number of words to each other. X number of expressions of affection per week, you know. Would that tell the story of your marriage? I think we are living and practicing in an era of healthcare where we desperately need advocates for what really counts, despite the fact that it can't be counted. And I like to think that the McLean Center is one of the bastions, one of the places where our sensitivity, our perceptiveness, our gut feeling for what really makes a good health professional, a good doctor, good care for a patient is nurtured and developed because I exist much of the day in an environment where if I can't produce data, what I have to say is sometimes considered not worth listening to. By the way, I'm not suggesting we should cease collecting or analyzing data, particularly coming on the heels of a moving presentation about carol stocking, but that being said, the social sciences, the biological and physical and chemical sciences do not have a monopoly on truth and surely it's incumbent upon ethicists above all. People whose very being stems from character, human character, what makes someone admirable, compassionate, wise, conscientious, not necessarily something we can quantify, but I think something that's vital and real and desperately needs advocates in the current healthcare environment. So I wanna pass on that misattributed statement by Albert Einstein again. By the way, Einstein, of course, surely the most important physicist of the 20th century, in fact, Time Magazine's person of the century, Einstein didn't work mathematically. He worked in thought experiments that could be conceived as far more, far less like a mathematical equation and far more like something like a narrative, right? He figured out the story and then he found the math to help describe it. Perhaps that's a paradigm that we need to adopt as medical ethicists. So that misattributed quote, not everything that can be counted really counts and everything that counts cannot be counted. So thank you very much.


Hi there, I am Gary Irby. Welcome to our podcast. You are listening to Nordseks Storytime. You always wanted to know more about the stories behind Nordseks CTF? Well, our talented scenario designer, Éric Boivin, will tell you the story of Nordseks Toria. Hello, my name is Éric Boivin. I was approached a few years ago to bring my tabletop role-playing game experience for a unique role in the Nordseks CTF, being the scenario designer. All CTFs have a series of challenges, but what is interesting is when there is a surrounding team and a cohesive universe around it. My mission at Nordseks is to take the amazing technical challenges done by the challenge designer team and weave a story through them. During a series of capsules, I will share to you the lore of this year's Nordseks. Through its characters and challenges, you will see how we've been able to create a little world and give more dimension into this CTF. So for today, let me introduce you to Nordseks Toria. Nordseks Toria is a medieval town located on an island between two great rivers, the upstream and the downstream. It acts as a major port in the region. It was more or less modeled around Montreal, with its big mountain in the center, the King's Peak, its bustling downtown port area, and its quiet suburban villages. It has two main neighboring kingdoms, the Vale to the North and the Grand Duchy of Longaes to the South. Speaking of South, you might ask, is there a South sectoria? Well, this is a story for another time, my friends. Nordseks Toria is a kingdom ruled by a stern but benevolent king. At the time of the event, no name was given to the king. But what we know is that he is a respected ruler, but his feeling of power is slipping. You see, something special has happened to the kingdom and has shaken the forces of power already in place. The people of Nordseks Toria have access to fully functional computers, for some reason. Nobody really understands how they work, hence why everything technology related is simply named magic. These are the kind of creative things that we can create as a challenge designer in such a competition. Technology has impacted greatly the everyday life of both peasants and nobles. New tools and offerings that are now available are quickly changing how things are done. But in the end, Nordseks Toria is still a calm farming kingdom. Some people are adapting faster than others. Merchants, especially, are transitioning to this new way and are taking advantage and are taking advantage of the wonders that magic brings to the kingdom. It is in this world that the participants of the CTF are sent. A familiar world with medieval tropes mixed with things that are very modern to us. It is not a high fantasy world with fireballs and dragons and things like that. It is a world where people with very few education suddenly have access to extremely powerful technology that they don't really understand and where those that do understand can use to manipulate others. It is not a secret that the team is a metaphor of today's world where the peasants represent the general population. The oblivious nobles are the slow moving governments and the merchants are the technological elite. Technical illiteracy is one of the main teams of this year's Nordsek. But we still wanted to make it a grim world, but rather one of hope where the participants are here to make Nordseks Toria a better land for everybody. So this was a quick introduction to what this year's team was in Nordsek. During the series of capsules, I hope that you'll enjoy discovering this rich universe that we created and learn more about how we fleshed out the fascinating technical challenges created by our designers. So until next time, au revoir! Thank you so much Eric for sharing with us all that's behind the curtains of the CTF team. Stay tuned for the next episode!


The previous two theorems showed that if you add a rank one matrix, the previous two theorems, meaning the theorem we showed just now and the last theorem we actually proved in the previous class. They showed that if you add a rank one matrix or if you border a Hermitian matrix, then the eigenvalues of the matrix interlace. So now the question is, if you take two interlacing sets of real numbers, then can you realize these interlacing set of real numbers by a Hermitian matrix with a suitable modification? So can I find matrices such that these set of interlacing numbers are such that one subset of numbers are the eigenvalues of one matrix and then if you, for example, border that matrix with a Y and an A, you can get another matrix for which the other set of numbers are the eigenvalues. The answer is yes and that is what is the essence of the following theorem. So it's kind of a converse result to the theorem we just proved. So let n be a positive integer and let lambda i, i equal to 1 to n and lambda hat i, i equal to 1 to n plus 1 be two given sequences of real numbers such that they have this interlacing property. So lambda hat 1 is less than or equal to lambda 1, less than or equal to lambda hat 2, lambda 2, lambda n minus 1, lambda hat n, less than or equal to lambda n, less than or equal to lambda hat n plus 1. Now let lambda equals a diagonal matrix with diagonal entries equal to lambda 1 up to lambda n, then there exists a real number A and Y in R to the n.  So that's the statement of the theorem. So we'll show this. So first of all, note that lambda i, i equal to 1 to n are eigenvalues of lambda. So we already have that first property that this matrix here has lambda i as its eigenvalues and what we are saying now is that the other set of eigenvalues lambda hat 1, lambda hat 2 up to lambda hat n plus 1 can will be the eigenvalues of this matrix A hat if you choose Y and A appropriately. So the proof is essentially going to be constructive. So we'll show how to choose Y and A such that lambda hat 1, lambda hat 2, etc up to lambda hat n plus 1 are in fact the eigenvalues of A hat. So straight away what you can do is you can look at trace of A hat and that is equal to trace of lambda plus A and trace of lambda is just the summation of lambda i, i going from 1 to n and trace of A hat is the summation of the eigenvalues of A hat and what we want them to be is lambda hat 1, lambda hat 2 up to lambda hat n plus 1 and so this just implies that A is equal to sigma i equal to 1 to n plus 1 lambda hat i, lambda hat i minus sigma i equal to 1 to n lambda i. So we already figured out what A should be. Now let us look at the characteristic polynomial P A hat of T. So P A hat of T is equal to the determinant of T i this is an n plus 1 cross n plus 1 identity matrix minus A hat which is equal to just substituting for A hat we can write it as the determinant of the matrix which has T i minus lambda this is an n cross n identity matrix and then minus y minus y transpose and T minus A. Now what I can do is I can do one small trick here which is I can pre and post multiply by other matrices whose determinant is 1 and that will not change the value of this determinant. So that is equal to the determinant of the identity matrix and below that I will have T i minus lambda inverse times y transpose 0 and a 1 here this times this matrix T i minus lambda minus y minus y transpose T minus A. I will just draw some partitions here so that the quantities do not get mixed up and the transpose of this matrix over here i T i minus lambda inverse y 0 and a 1 here. So these matrices have these are lower triangular and an upper triangular matrix and their determinant is equal to 1 so that does not change the value of this determinant. Now if you carefully multiply these out what you will find is that this reduces to the following form it becomes determinant of T i minus lambda and over here I will get T minus A minus y transpose T i minus lambda inverse y and 0 here and a 0 here so that is the reason I did all this so that I get a block diagonal matrix or in fact this is a completely diagonal matrix and since it is a diagonal matrix I can now readily compute its determinant and so that is just equal to the product of the diagonal entries which is this term T minus A minus sigma so I will just expand this product here i equal to 1 to n y i squared divided by T minus lambda i this is a diagonal matrix with lambda i's T minus lambda i's are on the diagonal this inverse of this matrix because after all T i minus lambda is diagonal so T i minus lambda is also a diagonal matrix so converting computing this inverse is super easy you just invert all the diagonal entries and so that is this value so this is the same as this times the product i equal to 1 to n T minus lambda i okay so we will call this equation star we will come back to it in a bit so now we have already determined what A is okay and so what we need to do is to find y such that this P A hat of lambda k hat is equal to 0 for k equal to 1 2 up to n plus 1 okay so we have already determined A so need to find y such that P A hat of lambda k hat equals 0 k equal to 1 2 up to n plus 1 okay so this is a little bit challenging so let us see how to do that so consider two functions f of T which is the product i equal to 1 to n plus 1 T minus T minus lambda hat i and this is of degree n plus 1 and another polynomial g of T which is equal to product i equal to 1 to n T minus lambda i this is of degree so what we really want is that this characteristic polynomial should end up becoming and coming out in this form so that then we know that lambda hat i i equal to 1 to n plus 1 are the eigenvalues of this are the zeros of this polynomial so we basically want to and this thing here is actually your g of T okay and so we have P A hat of T to be this quantity times g of T and we want back to somehow end up in this form where f of T is equal to product i equal to 1 to n plus 1 T minus lambda hat i okay now this is degree n plus 1 and so this is degree n so basically what you can do is you can you can write so you can you can find you can you can divide f of T by g of T and then you will get a quotient and a remainder and the quotient will be of degree 1 and the remainder will be of degree at most n minus 1 so by the Euclidean algorithm we must have f of T equal to g of T times some T minus C plus r of T where C is some real valued quantity because all the coefficients here are real and r of T must be of degree at most n minus 1 so this is the remainder polynomial and this is the this is the quotient polynomial so what we can do is now let us let us compare the coefficients of T power n on both sides so so the coefficient of T power n plus 1 is just going to be 1 because the T power n plus 1 comes from this T power n here times this T here but if you look at the coefficient of T power n the coefficient of T power n here is just the summation of lambda hat i okay because you will take n of these terms and one of these lambda hat i's okay and or rather it is minus lambda hat i but I will ignore the minus n I will consider a minus sign for the other thing also and so the coefficient of T to the n is the summation of lambda hat i i going from 1 to n plus 1 and if I look at this the coefficient of T to the n is going to be either I can take all the T terms here then it will multiply with minus C or I can take n minus 1 terms here and multiply with this T and then I will get a minus lambda i so basically that what that means is that sigma i equal to 1 to n plus 1 lambda hat i is equal to C plus sigma i equal to 1 to n lambda i and so then this means that C is equal to summation i equal to 1 to n plus 1 lambda hat i minus sigma i equal to 1 to n lambda i which is actually nothing but a okay and so basically this T minus C that we are looking at here that is nothing but T minus a okay and further if I compute f of lambda k okay that is going to be equal to G of lambda k times lambda k minus a plus r of lambda k and this is equal to 0 because there is a T minus lambda i term here product of T minus some right terms here so G of lambda k for any k is equal to 0 and so this is equal to r of k and this is true for k equal to 1 2 up to n okay and so now what that means is that if I compute f of lambda k for k equal to 1 to n I then know what r of lambda k is at n different points so r of t is known at n points okay lambda 1 through lambda n okay so f of lambda k I can compute because it is just this polynomial here and so I can just substitute lambda 1 lambda 2 etc I know what f of lambda k is and by this thing I know then what r of lambda 1 lambda 2 up to lambda n is so this has a degree at most r of t has a degree at most n minus 1 and I know this know its value at n different points and what that really means is that we actually know what r of t is so just for the moment in order to proceed further I'll assume that these lambda 1 to lambda n are distinct and then I'll come back to the case where some of these eigenvalues are repeated and I'll deal with that case later so for the moment assume lambda 1 lambda n are distinct okay then then we need we what that means is that g of t is the product of all these t minus lambda i terms and each of these are going to be first order terms okay and so g of t only has simple roots each lambda i occurs only once as a root and so g of t has or only has simple roots and we have the following see for example if you are given a first degree polynomial with the unknown coefficients all you need is the value of the polynomial at two points and you can determine what the polynomial is similarly if you are given a second degree polynomial all you need is the value of the polynomial at three points and you can determine what the polynomial is and for the first order polynomial case I'm sure you have seen this Lagrange interpolation formula which tells you how to write out what that what the straight line that matches the two values that you have observed is and we see that in linear regression and various problems many times but this is a generalization of that so we are looking for an n minus one degree polynomial such that its value matches with some given values r of lambda one r of lambda two up to r of lambda n at n at these n different points and so that formula is directly I mean there's a direct formula to write out what r of t should be and so this r of t is equal to the summation i equal to 1 to n f of lambda i times g of t divided by g dash of lambda i that is the derivative of g of t evaluated at t equal to lambda i times t minus lambda i so this is called the Lagrange interpolation formula so we'll take this on faith but maybe I can indicate why this is actually correct so for example if g of t if I write g of t to be equal to g i of t times t minus lambda i so all the other n minus one factors in g of t are in this g i of t then g dash of t I can write to be g i dash of t times t minus lambda i plus g i of t which means that if I want to evaluate g dash of lambda i that is equal to now if I substitute lambda i here I get lambda i minus lambda i so this term goes off to zero and so I'll be left with g i of lambda i okay so the derivative is actually equal to g i of lambda i it's a simple fact but it's true and so that means that at t equal to some lambda k if I were to evaluate what happens to this part here g of t divided by g dash of lambda i times t minus lambda i what I get is I will get either g i of t times so g of t is g i of t times t minus lambda i t minus lambda i over g dash of lambda i times t minus lambda i and I need to evaluate this at t equal to so I need to evaluate this as at t equal to lambda k so I'll have to consider the k equal to i and k not equal to i separately so I'll consider k equal to i here and so then I will be substituting t equal to lambda i and if I substitute t equals lambda i these two terms cancel and so I'll have g i of lambda i over g i dash of lambda i but g i dash of lambda i equals g i of lambda i so this is equal to g i of lambda i over g dash of lambda i which is equal to 1 so this is for k equal to i and the other case is when k is not equal to i I won't I don't need this factorization so I can just write it as g of lambda k divided by g dash of lambda i times t minus lambda i is lambda k minus lambda i but g of lambda k is equal to 0 for any lambda right because it has all these factors g of t is the product of t minus lambda i so if I substitute if I look at g of lambda k that's always going to be equal to 0 and g dash of lambda i is all the other factors it's g dash of g i of lambda k and if I drop the i term from g then this will be a non-zero quantity and lambda k minus lambda i is also non-zero because I assume the eigenvalues are distinct and so this is always going to be equal to 0 for k not equal to i so then so now we know what happens to this so if I if I if I look at what happens to r of lambda k then I will have a summation i going from 1 to n f i f of lambda i times this thing evaluated at t equals lambda k but this is non-zero only for k equal to i and so only the the kth term in this summation will survive and for k equals i this quantity equals 1 and so I'll be just left with f of lambda k r of lambda k is equal to f of lambda k okay which is what we wanted right we started out by saying that f of lambda k is something that's known and we want r of lambda k to equal f of lambda k at these k at these n points lambda 1 lambda 2 up to lambda n so I'll just write that here so r of t is a degree less than or equal to n minus 1 polynomial that satisfies or I'll put it this way that equals f of lambda k at lambda i i equal to 1 to n i e n distinct points so that means that r of t is actually unique and it is given by the formula that we determine this is a consequence of the Lagrange interpolation it's a consequence of polynomials so then what that means is that we now know what the form of r of t is so if we now consider what f of t divided by g of t is this is equal to t minus a so f of t was t minus a g of t plus r of t so plus r of t divided by g of t is equal to now I'll use this formula for r of t which is summation f of lambda i g of t divided by g dash of lambda i times t minus lambda i so I'll write this as t minus a minus summation i equal to 1 to n okay I wrote it with a minus so I have to write a minus f of lambda i over g dash of lambda i times 1 over t minus lambda i sir yes sir in the above point the one above r t is uniquely determined should it be f of lambda k or f of lambda i it is okay so let me to avoid confusion and just remove this so at n distinct points okay all I'm trying to say is that r of t matches certain given values at n distinct points happy is it clear no sir I'll think about it sir I'll ask one teams yeah so basically r of t is some polynomial we don't know what it is but we know that r of lambda k equals f of lambda k at k lambda one at k equal to for k equal to 1 to n that is all that I'm saying it's a degree n minus 1 polynomial up to at most n minus 1 polynomial where its value at n distinct points is completely determined so for example if I have the real line and I gave you 1 2 3 points and I say here is one value here is another value and here's another value now if I asked you to fit a degree 2 polynomial okay which is a quadratic which matches with these then it turns out that there's only one way you can do that which is a quadratic that somehow looks a bit like this I'm not good at drawing these things but it's a quadratic that looks like this there's no other way you can fit a quadratic that matches these three points if you had given me if you had allowed me to choose a third-order polynomial then it you can actually choose many different third-order polynomials where it matches with these three values but if I have to choose a quadratic this is the only way to do it it's easier to think of it if you go to an even more trivial case which is a straight line so if you give me two points and then you say the value here is this and the value here is this then there is only one way I can fit a straight line through both these points okay and this is the first-order polynomial and if you allow me to fit a quadratic through these I can I can fit many different quadratics this is in fact a quadratic where the the t squared coefficient equals zero but of course I can fit a quadratic maybe like this maybe like this etc etc so there are many ways to fit a quadratic through this but there's only one way to fit a straight line where it meets these two points so if you take if you are given that a polynomial is of degree at most n minus 1 and if you specify its value at n distinct points then the polynomial is completely determined I'm just illustrating that the way we've chosen r of t by using this Lagrange interpolation formula is such that it's r of lambda lambda k equals f of lambda k for lambda k lambda 1 lambda or for k equal to 1, 2 up to n okay so I'm not yeah I'm not shown the uniqueness here that's a property of polynomials but I'm just saying that the way we've chosen is actually something that works in the sense that it matches f of lambda k r of lambda k matches f of lambda k for k going from 1 to n I hope that's a bit clearer yes sir yes okay so now sir I have a question so so we need to determine a polynomial of degree at most n minus 1 that was rt and we we know the value at n minus 1 points n points here so we could write it in terms of general polynomial expression and and we know the different values so basically the coefficients are unknown so we could express it in ax equal to be linear set of equations and absolutely yes that also works this is a direct formula for the for the answer did that this is the answer you would get okay this Lagrange interpolation formula is the answer you would get if you did what you what you just suggested okay sir another side question that that you told that if I am given two points and then I can fit infinite number of quadratics through them so if I in this way if I form the set linear set of linear equations then I will find some some vector in the null space that is the interpretation in this absolutely so there's a very nice connection between polynomials and linear systems of equations and yeah so what you said is actually correct number of solutions if there is something in null space yes exactly okay yeah so yeah maybe time permitting I'll take a digression and discuss this this kind of connections also but we are actually closing in on the end of this course and so there is some more material that I need to cover let's see how it goes but your intuition is correct now coming back to this so what do we want we want that f of lambda k hat equals zero for k equal to one two up to n plus one okay so to oops to have f of lambda hat k equal to zero k equal to one two up to n plus one we must have now substituting directly into this formula here lambda hat k minus a minus sigma i equal to one to n minus f of lambda i divided by g dash of lambda i times one over lambda hat k minus lambda i equal to zero for k equal to one two up to n plus one okay now now one one small point is that what if I mean I'm dividing by lambda hat k minus lambda i and so if lambda hat k equals one of these lambda i's then of course I'm dividing by zero that doesn't make sense so this is not a problem because if lambda hat k equals lambda i then I have f of lambda i sitting here okay and so this coefficient will also be equal to zero because f of lambda hat k and lambda hat k equals lambda i so f of lambda hat k equals zero so these two actually first cancel and then you have one over g dash of lambda i so there's no singularity at t equal to lambda hat k okay so now what we'll do is we will set yi squared to be equal to minus f of lambda i over g dash of lambda i and this is for i equal to one two up to n now if we can show that this quantity is greater than or equal to zero okay then and now I'm telling you how to choose yi okay then okay so then let's see if I go oops we go up here yeah so p a hat of t is equal to t minus a divided by sorry minus yi squared over t minus lambda i times this product okay so now let's compare this okay against so you'll need to keep this in mind or maybe what I'll do is I'll write that here so that it will be clear p a hat of t is equal to t minus a minus sigma i equal to one to n yi squared over t minus lambda i times the product i equal to one to n t minus lambda i okay this is what we had earlier and and what we have here is that f of t over g of t is equal to t minus a minus sigma i equal to one to n f of minus f of lambda i over g dash of lambda i times one over t minus lambda i and g of t is exactly this polynomial here now f of t is something that we are choosing such that it has lambda hat one through lambda hat n plus one as its zeros and so if this polynomial exactly matches with this polynomial we know that a hat the characteristic polynomial of a hat has lambda hat one through lambda hat n as its zeros so if you look at this this g of t is exactly this thing here and so all you need is to make this equal to this and then you're home dry in the sense that these are exactly the same polynomials okay so all you need now is to show that yi squared if for for me to be able to define this to be yi squared this quantity should be non-negative then i can define this to be yi squared for some real valued quantity yi and so if i can show that um so if can show that yi squared or actually i'll put it this way minus f of lambda i over g dash of lambda i is greater than or equal to zero for i equal to one through n then pa hat of lambda hat k equals zero for k equal to one through n plus one from this equation star which is the same as this okay so that means that we have found the polynomial that we want i mean we found the y such that the characteristic polynomial of a hat is exactly the one that has lambda hat one up to lambda hat n as its roots okay so now i still need to show that these yi squareds are greater than or equal to zero or that um f of lambda i over g dash of lambda i is less than or equal to zero so um that's just one or two more steps but i'll do that in the next class because i'm run out of time um and then i need to extend this to the case where the eigenvalues could be repeated because i assume that lambda one lambda two up to lambda n are distinct the extension is going to turn out to be almost trivial because if for example lambda one equals lambda two then lambda two hat equals lambda one because lambda two hat is supposed to interlace between lambda one and lambda two and so that means that i can pull out some factors and deal with them separately and then consider only the distinct eigenvalues that remain okay so we'll complete this proof in the next class we'll stop here for today


We've looked previously at compound data in form of p-vectors and arrays and there's a separate video about strings Which also fall into the category of compound data In this video, we're going to look at some of the behaviors of compound data Let's look at something that doesn't have any compound data in it. It's a simple thing here. A gets a value and B is initialized from A We change A's value to 5 and we print out B Of course the question here is What do we get? Do we get a 4 or a 5? So let's look closely. This by the way, you notice the heading here is value semantics as opposed to reference semantics and we'll see how this plays out So we can see that A It's got a memory box there that holds its value 4 and we're going to do this assignment Be getting assigned from A's value and let's see what happens So when an assignment happens Contents of A copied over into B And so we see B has now got a 4 in it and it's a separate 4 independent of the 4 that's in A So now when we change A's value to 5 we can see that it affects A but has absolutely no effect on B that initial assignment of saying int B equals A They just got done at the time. There was no lasting connection between B and A Now let's do this again, and this time A and B will be p vectors so A starts off P vector components of 3 and 4 Then A is assigned to B Now we change the Y component of A and Then we print out the corresponding Y component of B and again our question is just the same Do we get a 4 or a 5 printed out? So again, let's have a look at what the memory diagram looks like So here it's a got a bit more to it when we just had A just being an integer because A is a p-factor it's Pointing to a memory block that contains the p-vector information So we can see it's got the 3 and the 4 that are the two parts of the p-vector That's A's value and we can see that A holds a reference. We can think of it as a memory address It holds a reference To that memory block, you know how to get from A to that memory block now we're going to do the assignment and We're going to do the same thing we did before with integers. We're going to copy what's in A to B And what is in A? It's just a reference to that memory block. And so that's what gets copied over to B So now we end up with this A and B are Both pointing to the same memory block because all that got copied across was the reference to the memory block We didn't copy the memory block itself. We didn't end up with another copy of that block Instilled it's the one p-vector memory block and A and B both reference it So now when we change the y-component of A to 5 We can see that we're also changing the p-vector memory block that B is referencing So not surprisingly B comes out to be 5 as well Now we move on to arrays And we get the same story here Here we've got an array A That is 2, 3, 4, 7 we do our assignment of A getting assigned to B We change the A2 element to be 5 instead of the 4 that it is and we print out The B2 element and again the question is do we get a 4 or a 5? We can see from the memory diagram just like with the p-vectors That there is only one block that represents the array and we just have two references to it A and B are both pointing to the same thing So B of 2 is going to be 5 as well. We're going to get 5 printed out And we're talking about assignment here But assignment is also what happens when we pass values into functions So you can see we've got three separate columns here The first column is looking where we've got the same function Well essentially some function foo in each of the columns And foo's got a parameter B And we can see down in setup We're calling foo with variable A So what's happening here with all these cases is when the function foo gets invoked We're doing an assignment of A getting assigned to B The red thing in the center of the page here This is happening for all of them So we're just doing the same assignment that we've just seen in the previous examples And so it's the same thing happening here In the first case when B is an integer We do the B++ It has no effect on A But then when B is the P vector or the array Then just like we saw before A and B point to the same thing in memory Either the same P vector or the same array And so we can see in the second and third cases We do in fact see a change in A So we get a 5 printed out instead of a 4 Just like we saw before And all the memory diagrams we saw before Apply exactly here to show exactly the same thing And one else, another thing we should cover with references Is that we've seen, we can write P vector P equals new P vector 3 4 on in one line But often we don't want to do it in one line There's some reason to do it separately But we ask, well After we've done the first line What value does P have? It does have a default value Of null We can draw a little memory diagram for it there And show P It's got a value of null inside it Null just indicates that This reference Isn't a reference to anything It's like an empty reference It's a null reference And we use the word null to refer to it So it doesn't point to anything It just doesn't, it's not a pointer at all It's just, it's an absence of pointers It's an absence of reference Just a null So as I say there in the second point A null P vector is not really a P vector Because you can't do anything to it If P is null Then P dot X doesn't mean anything Because P doesn't reference Any memory block that is a P vector So null You just can't do anything with it If you've got a null array Then you can't do anything with that either If you want to say well how long is that null array Well it's not an empty array It's just not an array It's an absence of an array And so when we say If A is null, A is an array Of type array And it's null And A dot length We can't do that We can't say oh it has a good zero length And so A dot length will give us an error


Okay, there's now the craze for AI in everything and when you go to the social media a lot of people know AI just for photographs and they're changing their photographs and making themselves look good but AI goes beyond, goes beyond photographs and some of the things that we do for just enjoyment. We can actually, according to experts, Africa can overcome poverty and others with AI. That's according to the NCC boss Dan Bata and we have a guest in the house this morning, Dominic Rumey Aurivier, a certified blockchain architect and Metaverse expert. He's going to tell us how true that statement is. Dominic, good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning and thank you for having me. Okay, let's know the potential of AI. Let's begin with that. Let's know what AI really is and what it can be used for. Okay, truly, I just want to tell you just imagine AI being able to create new jobs and industries in Africa. Imagine artificial intelligence also being able to boost Africa's economic growth and also improve the quality of life for Africans. In the words of one of our fellow Africans, as the current vice president of Ghana, we said Africa is the first, second, and third industrial revolution, but he's determined that our continent will not miss the fourth and fifth, and the fourth and fifth is characterised by a high level of technological innovation and it is actually a good thing that our NCC boss, which is Professor Uma Dan Bata, has stated that Africa can actually overcome a major challenges of food insecurity, poverty and healthcare using artificial intelligence. You know, currently there is an ongoing theory-based annual conference with the team of artificial intelligence and Africa. And Dan Bata said that this particular artificial intelligence would actually provide these major solutions to solve the challenges that African countries are actually going right now. Because when you look at it, some of the challenges revolve around healthcare, education, infrastructure development, looking at infrastructure development, you can see that with artificial intelligence, you can actually put more products into the market faster. Let's say for developers now, Africans might not really have had the best developers, but with artificial intelligence, you can write codes, you can fix and debug those codes, and then you can also deploy those codes into the market to be able to have a full-finished product. How about poverty alleviation? It can actually help to use to develop targeted alleviation programs that can actually help to support these vulnerable populations. If it's food security, artificial intelligence algorithm will help agriculture, productivity and efficiency, and it will see that the food shortage that a lot of African countries are also having right now will be solved. So he's not wrong. He's correct. Also subject to the human factor. For instance, let me give you an instance. INEC said that we're going to use technology to make our election better, so that by now we wouldn't be in the courts anyway if we had applied it. But they chose not to apply it in some places and applied it in some others, and the places they applied it, we didn't have much problems. Where they didn't apply it, we have problems till date, and it might carry us beyond 2023. So what can be put in place now to make sure that when artificial intelligence is being deployed, people cannot maneuver it to their own advantage.  You still find this kind of things happening in the oil sector, for instance. When you go to UAE, you find everything about oil, every drop of oil, can be monitored from one room, which Nigeria can afford, but they are not doing that. So how sure are we that we can even be comfortable with the AI technology in Africa? What needs to be put in place now by anybody who is serious minded so that the next generation will enjoy this thing we're talking about? So this point just raised now, that's where the place of ethics come in for artificial intelligence. And the NCC bus actually said that it's very important that we ensure that AI systems are transparent, accountable, and fair. Once also see that these AI systems, they can actually give us high level of data security and privacy so that they don't just go into things that are not permitted for them to also access. Now you see one of the major reasons why technology has actually had a, has taken a back seat, especially here in Africa, is the fact that we're actually not ready to embrace all of the technologies and implement it. You know, action creates energy, inaction creates depression, and we're depressed from the fact that we can see that these things can actually be implemented into our systems and no action is being taken. For example, in the place of supply chain management that you said, when somebody is able to track the movement of goods from one place to another, it would have been said that okay, we can use blockchain technology to be able to solve that type of problem. But then is that being done, blockchain technology has been around for the last five years, but even in the U.S., they know that they can use blockchain technology to be able to do their elections free and fair, and everybody will be able to see those transactions, digital tokens on the blockchain. But they've not implemented that, even as, as technologically advanced as the United States, to be able to start conducting their elections. I'm positive that the next 24 elections, even though with blockchain, we can use them to actually still make, still do elections, they will not use blockchain to do their own elections. And that's to tell you that the system is still corrupt and the system needs a little bit of change. So it is a situation of educating people more in my, so in my last book that I released from code to consciousness, bridging the gap between artificial intelligence and humans for powerful results. I restated the fact again, that education and the ability to see that people can do it themselves and being able to acquire the skill set of the future, especially with technologies of the future is extremely important. And this we see that the changes are truly affected in small, small circles. For example, in some private sectors, technology has been used to be able to start to do things like voting, to be able to see that goods have been tracked from one place to another in agriculture, they are defy programs for small farmers here in Africa already. And these things are already being done. But the government is not adopting it. You know, when technology comes, it is individuals, government and businesses that has to adopt this technology. We see that whenever technology comes, individuals adopt technology, businesses adopt technology. But it is very slow for the government to adopt this technology. Yes, I know there needs to be a lot of policies and all that check to actually do, but I think this is actually a time reminder of the potential of artificial intelligence to transform Africa. Africa has the potential to address the world problem, feed the world and anything that the world is looking for. I mean, you can see a country like UK taking away from Africa. And you can see that with artificial intelligence, the supply chain management can be truly monitored in such a way that revenue generation is actually maximized. It is very important to use artificial intelligence responsibly and ethically. And education, we see that we're able to bridge that gap. And a lot of people, we apply it to their businesses and their day-to-day lives. But are we ready to explore this road? Because if artificial intelligence is the future, do we have the manpower that can operate in that space? And if we don't have the manpower, what do we need to do to grow this manpower that can take advantage of artificial intelligence for our benefit? So at the moment, I would say in terms of the manpower, we are developing the manpower. You know, as a developing country, we have some lapses that we still are trying to cover. But we have already taken a very huge step. The fact that we're discussing this this morning to be able to sensitize the population is one good step on it. Joining artificial intelligence associations, too, as someone that is interested in association in artificial intelligence advancement, we see that you are also able to adopt the technology on time. And you're in a community of people that are doing that same thing for you to always keep yourself up to date with it. That can truly see that a difference is made. Yeah, but in a situation where our school system, you have to go through the school system and then come out and then attach yourself to someone else before you can learn this kind of tech that we need to survive in our world. Where you still go to the primary school, nothing about tech there. You go to secondary schools, there's nothing about tech there. At least 90% of them, especially government-owned, they're still teaching handwriting and no computer, you see. So I don't know. Can we turn out a good number of people or we still need to leave these people to come out from school, spend four years or five years in school, as the case may be, and then come out and attach themselves to somebody as an apprentice before they can learn tech. Can't there be deliberate policies that will make sure that as a child grows up, he grows up with technology? What are those that you recommend? I'll tell you a story. And this story is from one of the richest, is from the richest man in the world right now, Ileon Moff. So I discovered something recently, I was trying to rewire my own learning and I discovered that Ileon Moff's children, right? They did not go to conventional schools. Now, there is a platform Syntezia, which I think I did some logic on it. So the truth is our educational system truly needs to be reworked. The syllabus needs to be improved. Some of the syllabus were done in 1999. They are still what we are using now, and it is not the best. One of the ways that people can actually level up is to see that if this is your passion, you can start going to schools that are specifically designed for this. For example, AdVorem, which is the platform for blockchain, web theory and AI skill mastery. You have courses just for technologies of the future. This is what the platform is focused on. You can just go there and learn technologies of the future, anything on blockchain. I just recently finished a course on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, their synergy together, and it is going to be launching there on the 1st of October. So this is what we have also been doing to see that as people come out and learn handwriting, learn how to draw toraks, they can also still go to online platform from the comfort of their homes, from their bed and be able to take these courses and learn and be able to keep up with technology so that they can be competitive in a changing world like this. But I like to say all the time that you don't miss what you do not know. You cannot miss what you do not know. If you don't know there is a car that exists, you can miss being in a car. If you don't know that there is an airplane, you can miss being in an airplane. So a lot of these people don't even know that these opportunities exist because they are not telling them in schools, they're not telling them in the places that they should know that, okay, even if we cannot offer it in school, there are places you can go to. And for instance, there could be an Elon Musk from my small village, but you find out that there is no internet in my small village, but there is a school and nobody is putting through these children to make sure that they know, they are informed, they are aware, they start to develop the love for it. All they will do is teach you how to be a preacher or an Imam. So that's one of the challenges that you have just made mention of. The fact that there is a high level of infrastructure gap and we are talking about technologies of the future. I've not been able to even conquer the traditional challenges and intricacies and we are moving very fast. The technology is changing like every three months. We are having Meta trying to give Elon Musk a run for his water products he's releasing, trying to give Microsoft the run for whatever they are producing. And the people in the village, they don't have internet to even assess this information, talk less of use the infrastructure, now understand the service to develop the skill sets. So this is where the gap and divide comes in. So you must be somebody that is truly interested in being able to change what's the things that are around you to be able to get involved in innovative technologies to also see that you want a better life than what is being offered wherever you are. Also look out for better opportunities to see that, okay, you can expose yourself to this type of information and become digitally savvy to take advantage of technologies of the future. Definitely it's not everyone that will be Elon Musk, it's not everyone that will be Bill Gates, it's not everyone that will be Steve Jobs, but then there will be people that will listen to this particular message now and be able to set the trajectory for their own future. On artificial intelligence, on blockchain, technologies of the future, it is going to be an amazing time in Nigeria and Africa. So will it take too much for the government to implement some policies that will make these things available to people even at remote areas, just as they have made schools available to people at the remote areas? Is it so cost, the cost implication, is it so much that it cannot be afforded by private schools and government schools, for instance? I'll tell you a true story again. This week, I forwarded some proposals. So there is a change of government that just happened now. In Delta State, yeah, I forwarded some proposals to the state government in terms of being able to teach. International Education Day is on 24th of January 2024. Now what I did is that I did a proposal to see that we teach youths these technologies of the future. Using our platform, right? But the biggest challenges that we are facing that we have to pass through layers. Now, there are people that have the manpower, there are people that have the technological skillset, the network of people. We have people outside the country, whites people that can also come help us take these things. But the levels we are having to pass. And then another thing is that somebody will not tell me too that if I want to be able to actually do this thing, well, I need to spread it in such a way that it must be for all 25 local governments in Delta State. Why? Because the Delta State government might not really want to go into this except they are having to get maybe favors from those local government as votes for the next time. So there's a lot of politics involved with educating the masses because they have their own selfish interests too. And then when you look at it, okay, what they would put a cost to it. How much to rent wedding hall for Legos? How much to rent hotel? The cost that we put to it was like, let's say about a hundred and, let's say 120,000 dollars. Now 120,000 dollars as of today is 120 million. To rent a hotel for people in worry, to basically want to do blockchain Delta, to be able to see that we rescue the lives of over 60 million citizens here, to be able to be concerned with the technologies of the future. You will not see that, okay, let's be able to do something like that, put costs, okay, like if you want to buy laptops to also empower these people after the tech, after the training, after the training, what next? So there's also, you also find a situation where even governments do this thing and they don't also provide innovation hubs, like there are innovation hubs here that has never really benefited anybody. Okay. People have really gotten jobs from the innovation hub that they have here and then they are able to work in Greece, they are able to work in Sweden, they are working in the US. It doesn't happen like that.  We do hope that there will be somebody with a political will to change the lives of people and not look for selfish interests. Dominic, we'd like to thank you for coming on the program this morning. It's been a pleasure having you. All right, thank you very much. I'm grateful. Okay, we'll be talking to Dominic, Rume or Ririye, a certified blockchain architect and metaverse expert. We're looking at how Africa could leverage on the AI technology and improve the lives of the citizens of this continent. We'll take a very short break now and we'll be joined live by another guest that will be talking to us about IVF, which is in vitro fertilization. Stay with us.


To be alone is wonderful, but to feel lonely is terrible because loneliness means somewhere you have made your individual nature so exclusive that there is no way to feel connected with life around you. Of course in a new place you may have a few challenges, I appreciate that. But the important thing is for any given human being, we must understand we come alone and we go. When we are here, we are seeking for other people to travel with us as co-travers and that need not be only in one form or one type of relationship or the other, it can be in any number of ways. So above all, if you do not concretize your individuality, I am this kind of a person. I am from this nationality, I am this race, I am this religion or I am this gender and whatever else, if you just keep yourself little open to life that you are alive, you will see there is no room for loneliness, there is too much population, how can you be lonely? It's just that you cannot smile at this person that you have never seen before.  It's a terrible condition for a human being. Why can't you just smile at anything? Why can't you smile at this guy? Why can't you smile at a tree? Why can't you smile at a cloud? Why can't you smile at the sun which is trying to burn you down?


The sounds produced by SCP-628 are not anomalous beyond their origin. Ordinary infrasound, however, has been shown to cause feelings of fear, awe, sorrow, anxiety, and disorientation. Some waves, at or very near 18 Hz, the resonant frequency of the human eye, can also produce simple optical illusions. Since the sound is only audible under ideal conditions, exposed personnel frequently ascribe supernatural causes to these sensations. Level 2 personnel and above may refer to Site-104's database for recordings of original works.


Going on everyone Sam here with late sports cars have been one box the sports car all my neck volume six personal box edition four It mr. Steven T Stephen you got box number 18 the sheriff's number. It's a first. It's Justin Nice on the true green first auto from 23 Bowman Carl son 50 of 99. Yes, son of Carl Yeah, he is gonna be really good man. That's awesome Steven congrats on that one, buddy J craw for sure Not bad. Thanks again Steven get it out to you buddy