warm welcome back to think tech wise human human architecture. This is our 276th episode and Eric, our producer, thinks Eric always has the number which accumulated viewer you are. So thanks for being with us again and us is our triumvirate here of the three bald guys our most, well, we can't say most remote because we're all over the place but we have our banished Boston booster Metlo Blatt back and we have the Soto Brown back in his Bishop Museum and we have me Martin de Spang back in Munich, Germany. And in this episode, which is the Boston banished boost volume 13, we will commemorate the longevity of human life and its connections between the three locations of us looking forward to. Hey guys, so the Soto, we leave this appropriately up to you to talk about the longevity of human life in Honolulu, Hawaii, which we know statistically is the place that people get the oldest, live the longest because we have the best conditions of climate and culture where climate is the closest to our natural thermal comfort. Absolutely, and that does have relevance to the discussion of buildings and architecture as we will soon be discovering, but in this screen we're looking at a glamor photo of my mother which was taken in 1940 when she was 19 years old. Well, my mother just passed away last week at the age of 102, which is astonishing. She was born in 1920 and she managed to survive into 2023. So that's a pretty astonishing lifespan. And during that time, of course she saw great many things change, great many things happen. She lived through World War II here in the Hawaiian islands which was quite astonishing. She was on the island of Oahu on December 7th, 1941 to witness the Japanese attack as was my father and my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, except for one. So she saw a lot. She lived through some interesting times. She lived for much of her life in an Asapoff-designed house that's relevant for us as well. So we're commemorating my mother and thank you for letting me do that, Martin. And now we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming. Yeah, and if I do the math, so that must have been this picture, a beautiful picture that must have been the year before the attack, right? Because that was in 1940 and 1941. That's right, that's right. And she saw it last time in 48. The house was built and but commissioned by other clients but you moved in in 51. Correct, they moved in. I hadn't been born yet. I was gonna say, but then like a third of the next decade you moved in because they, you know, made you see the light of the world. That's right, so that's where I lived for, and I've spent my entire life in and out of that house. Absolutely, and your mother is remembered for many things, obviously, by many people. And just as an example, the two show quotes at the bottom, one is at the very bottom, just between us there, that's Anne Modonaga. And when we were visiting her and they're still living in our beloved Kahala apartments which the countdown is on when it falls back to Kamehameha school because it leads hold and we're holding our breath and hoping for the best of it. And we were talking and she talked about your mother and she said, oh, I know Miss Brown as a fabulous shopper in Honolulu. So that's one of the many things she's known for. And she appeared in our show with an image. Actually, she was actually one of our most loyal viewers as well but the audience hardly ever heard that but when you were getting ready for the show in your house, she was participating and sometimes after that. But she only appeared other than here with this beautiful picture in one show that's the show quote in the middle right. And that was when we were reporting about the renovation of the part of our beloved Royal Hawaiian shopping center when she was shopping there with her sister who we see here as well, Ryan. Yeah, that's probably about when she was about 100 years old in her wheelchair. She was being wheeled around to look at things. She wasn't buying anything anymore but she still liked to look at things. Yeah, she was running strong up till the very end. That's right, she was. Let's try to cut the curve too, as you said, to our topic but let's take one more image, your slide, next slide, and do that and this is about the skins or our longest in the production making shows of a dress code, a dress code meaning building code and the relationship of the first human skin that we're born with. The second one that as we just said and this picture shows from your mom and her glamour time, the second skin is very important as well to human beings and then we have the third one which is our thresholds and closures of buildings, facades. And the show post top right is what we started out with last time when Semi and I were before we were coming back and now we have quite the challenge to re-adapt to the cold although met we have although, you know, far apart we have similar weird seasonally untypical warm climate conditions but we still have to try to get a depth to that in a way and some other young man here in the back in the temperate which we see at the bottom right the dream of the tropics and dream of America because the two boxes there is a product we just talked before the show about America at its best and in some parts not being there anymore but there's always signs of hope for me that was the company Nixon and the choice of their name is kind of odd because as far as human representatives the name Nixon is not the most beloved commemorated at least by some people but they named it after that and they serve, you know, accessories company and they make watches and they're a great example of still holding up the good old American principle of innovation and so these are two boxes that used to contain watches in there but he has a picture there standing in by the way an IKEA shelf system there and that is very familiar to you to Soto that picture. Yeah, actually that interestingly enough is if a culturally very inappropriate photograph which you would not guess right at the beginning to just look at it that looks like a young hula dancer who is just sitting there on something well, she's sitting on a drum she is sitting on a pahu and that is actually a terrible thing to do a pahu is considered to be something that almost has a soul and the top of it, the drum head is considered to be like the head of a person so you do not sit ever on a pahu but this is someone who was just posed in a photo studio and the photographer in the 1890s said oh, sit on this with no top on and you'll look really sexy and so it looks like, you know it's this wonderful cultural picture and it's actually a very erroneous cultural picture which most people don't know. It's for sharing and letting us know but also one has to say it is depicting actually the way people and that women were dressed not long ago before that, before contact, right? And when white people told the indigenous people not just in Hawaii and not to dress like that anymore and think about it between the beautiful picture of your mom and this one here is only three decades, 30 years, right? Yeah, that is true. That is true. And then on the other side, not just of this slide but the world and the other climates we're having this brand new out article from scientists who went to where I'm from in the north of Germany and discovered when humans were taking on a second skin that is actually the first skin of animal life which is a bear fur and that's quite interesting. I was thinking and doing some research on that. You know, what did you do to stay warm in the freaking cold back in the days, right? And we all know somehow vaguely we have these pictures of when we all had hair I mean, not just on the head that we don't have anymore but in general, right? All over the body. And at some point we and our ancestors long, long ago discovered fire as to stay warm. And I was finding out that, you know scientists are not quite clear there's a span from 200,000 years to 800,000 years and there are some findings 500,000 years ago when that fire was invented but it took until 6,000 years ago when petroleum which is petrified plants and animals, micro-animal organisms were discovered. And then it took another, you know it was 1,000 years ago only when basically the internal combustion engine was first, you know, sketched out but not until almost only 150 years ago it was fully commercialized. So that's like a micro baby step in the whole span of history that is now getting us all into trouble, right? This very short time we had been so abusive with fossil fuel than never before, right? So that's really interesting. And you DeSoto again, you're it's almost like I feel with all respect that thematically you seem to be more although officially you're a host but it seems to be like you're a guest because you might be the most remote from the building we're reporting about but you aren't because going back to your childhood you were in Massachusetts and in Boston and went to elementary school, right? Yes, I certainly did. And I experienced that. Exactly. And let's go to the next slide which is getting us back to the building here for Harvard that Matt, you and your firm did. And another connection is I think that word explicit that we should that your father has also something to do with Harvard, right? And in fact, with the department that Matt told me reminded us is right next to this one here which is the engineering school, right? Right and there, well, no, not the engineering school but he went to the business school. So that's why I spent my first grade year in Boston because my father was attending the Harvard Business School and the whole family went there too for him to do that. And so that was my first experience with bitter cold lots of snow and the whole nine yards. I was not wearing a bare skin. I was at that point clad in not so much synthetics yet because there weren't as many synthetics. There weren't puffy jackets made of synthetics at that point, but I have experienced that. So I do know what it's like. I did it again some years later when I was a teenager. So yes, I know what that is like even though I'm a pampered tropical person who is too delicate to deal with cold at this point. And yeah, sorry for the confusion but that's what I meant to say. The Matt just told me that the business school is right next to the engineering school. So they're neighbors, right? And again, what you and your father had to do and what you always have to do Matt in the winter when it's not unusually warm like now when I have to do in Munich, this is what buildings have to do as well or they should do just as well, right? They shouldn't basically do that. And they should perform in a way that when the climate is as we call temperate which is always a little confusing because increasingly in climate change we shouldn't get temperamented because it jumped from the very cold to the very hot and back and almost like skips on the moderate parts in between but buildings basically have to do and just like we human beings we then take off layers and we put on layers and how then buildings should do that could do that. We're in the midst of again reminding us thanks to Matt. So here is the project again the new engineering school for Harvard and let's go back in and you explain us not just its layout but also again it's sort of cocooning and it's conditioning of comfort level. Yeah, so I mean, as you mentioned it's the, this is the ground floor plan of the engineering school. So it's all of the spaces that are directly at the street level and it's very large building. It's about 500 feet long and so you start to see in the way that the spaces, these chunks of rooms are kind of broken up the desire to break the massing down and create multiple points of entry to this public zone that kind of connects all of these different spaces at the ground level. And so this happens to be sort of the most public floor of the building naturally because of its position next to the street and the public realm but also because it services all of the undergraduate functions that the building provides. So the sort of classrooms you can see on the left-hand part of the slide here there's kind of a cluster of classrooms, flat floor classrooms and slope floor classrooms and seminar rooms and then along in the spaces that kind of line the street to the top of the slide are also, they're all sort of, let's say engineering focused kind of making spaces for student activity. So there's a lot of student activity that's placed very visibly on the street level and facing towards the public part of the campus. The whole building then kind of wraps around an outdoor courtyard which is in the bottom part of the slide and is landscaped in a variety of different ways. The center portion is a kind of a manicured, more of a manicured lawn for events and graduations and things like that. And then ringing that main space is a bioswale that treats and filters all of the storm water that falls on the site and then collects it for reuse inside of the building. There's a term and architectural theory that especially the work of Stefan Venich and you guys have been sort of labeled with and that is, and the work of, the late work of Gunther too and probably as from the beginning, that is organic, right? And obviously sort of post-modern terms that got misunderstood as just formal, right? That things are not rectangular and straight. But let's talk a little bit about that. Talking about the human body, it reminds me almost as if the sort of, what's basically here rendered in grayish, brownish is basically seems to be like come across as organs functionally. And then the circulation in between continued to stretch the sort of metaphors to the medical realm, which we found out that both, you know, Stefan Venich, the youngest son and mine are in that realm of the medical realm as well on a personal, you know, traditionally corridors can almost be like, you know, cartily clogged. But it seems like that what's rendered in yellow is basically infusing and aerating, you know, as you said, already flushing with light and fresh air and with, you know, with frequency and, you know, people, right? Is that sort of fair to say or discuss? Yeah, no, definitely. I think, I mean, there's no reason why that the two walls of any corridor space have to be parallel to one another. And I think particularly given the kind of the ebb and flow of traffic and the way that people move through the building, it kind of creates this opportunity for those spaces to be variable and to use the kind of eddies of space that get created when two walls kind of, you know, radically diverge from each other is a place where people could naturally kind of occupy a certain area of floor. So you sort of, you can see through the drawings of the furniture and these plans, kind of the areas where that space opens up to its greatest extent and allows people to sort of linger and sit down and kind of really occupy some of these areas in a way that's different from the way that you would occupy the more programmatic usable spaces that are in the, as you said, in the gray areas. Matt, I have a question and I don't want to put you on the spot or anything, but for the progression from the thought and then the drawing and then the actual building when it's in use is a long one. And there are many changes that are made in the construction of and when this building was completed, are there things, and again, I don't want to put you on the spot, but are there things that work better than others that you can point out that once people were actually in it and doing things, you realized, oh, maybe it would have been better if we did it this way because people don't want to walk around there, they want to walk to that. That's a really great question, DeSoto. And I mean, you're absolutely right. I think any building is really just a record of the state of the art five years before it opens, right? Because once we draw these things and then they have to basically go into this construction process and the design of the building freezes during that period. I mean, we make changes a little bit a long way, but the basics are there, but industry doesn't stop and innovation doesn't stop our kind of normal patterns of life and thinking about how we occupy space, they evolve constantly. I think, I mean, if we're good at what we do and we're successful, we don't over prescribe what the architecture should or shouldn't do. We try to create the opportunity for life to happen and for people to, let's say this contrary to the way architecture is represented typically particularly through images and photographs, that's not the way life is lived, right? Every chair is not placed in exactly the right place and every towel is not hanging perfectly on the towel rod. You have to create, and I think part of our job is to create spaces that can react and live with the people and with generations of people as they occupy the building. So the notion behind one of the big ideas behind this building is a kind of flexibility and not only spatial flexibility, but also in terms of technical means and uses of this building. So as research needs change and as these kind of things evolve, the building can be reconfigured and re-outfit in a pretty broad range of ways. I suspect that your own family house is a good, would be an interesting study in the way that architecture of a given moment can also evolve, right? And with people's living patterns and of the Asipoff buildings that I've been in, they all strike me as entirely appropriate places to live in 2023 as much as they were probably in 1965 when they were built or whenever. Yeah, and I think that one thing that just came to my mind too was when you talk about changes in technology, one of the things that I've been noticing is that there was a time of expansion when all the banks, every place, certainly in the United States in growing communities, were opening branch banks all over the place because you physically had to go to the building to do your banking transactions. And now that has contracted tremendously because we do everything electronically and these bank buildings which were so significant in a lot of different neighborhoods are closing. So it was this huge investment on the part of the banks to build all these structures and now they are abandoning them in some cases actually selling them off completely and losing the land as well. Nobody could have anticipated that 50 years ago and yet now it's a thing. So this is a change that affects architecture. It is, and I mean the most recent example that is the post pandemic world of, and this building is in fact a great example of that. I mean, I think in this building we have something around the order of 280 offices, individual person offices built that can be subdivided for offices for two people or three people or four people. But since even though Harvard has gone completely back on campus with teaching and research and so forth, the utilization of these spaces is not what it had been anticipated to be even two years ago because people have become so used to remote working or continue to fear whether it's corona or other viruses being in constant close contact to other people. So even within the time it took from when this building opened until today, it's there's been dramatic changes that call into question a whole bunch of decisions that were made eight or 10 years ago. Right, right. Well, and then maybe continuing this discussion get the next slide up, but I would say what was following or what is following corona is the energy crisis around the geopolitical messed up around here next to Ukraine and Russia and things, right? So that's another thing, right? If you're basically building a possible building, right that needs to be conditioned. When people are not there, the building still needs to be pumped in oil, right? It needs to be kept cool and warm because otherwise things basically dilapidate, right? So you're making a huge loss because all your revenue goes away because the tenants might move out and you still have to basically do the providing, you know, to the cooling and the heating in a thoughtful way, while in a bio-plomatic way, you're way better off because you still have to keep, you know, the faucets running, which reminds me of one of our most scandalous German projects that Stefan talks about in the Velo interview there, which is our main Berlin airport, which for several reasons was not going into, you know, being used for too long and people had to just, you know, there was staff there that had to constantly open and close the faucets and keep the other things running. So it's not like you can't keep a building entirely, but again, in much of a less extent, right? So really, I mean, this all pays off your, you know, philosophy in a multitudinal way. We're already cutting close to being done for today again in two minutes, but so we're gonna probably pick up here, but let's quickly talk about this because this goes back to that in the building, as we remember from the last slide, there are these hubs and they're basically almost naturally organically formed where the corridor walls basically open up, right? Then they naturally form these hubs, these cluster hubs and they become these spaces. They're both circulation and communication as we can imagine here. And there's other pictures where there's people and they can easily imagine how that here is. And I just want to quickly explain what the show called is in there because that's a material that Yuta Soto and I are very fond of because it's a Garrail infill that's called, what's it called? From Carl Stahl. Yeah, Stahl Nets. Yeah, Stahl Nets and the X10 is the product name. And that's one that we once had a sample here that we're stretching that you're using here for the inside. We're saying we would love to see this being the mandated, almost not really, we don't want to mandate anything really, but if you would mandate something as for Garrail than Honolulu, we want to see that because it is letting the breeze through. And it's not requiring any maintenance of glass washing and it's also not keeping you hot behind. So it's good in many ways. And so that's a material, again, because you have to make decisions on architecture again on all levels from the macro to the micro and obviously all the systems and material choice. So that I think is worth to pick up again from here next week that you explain us a little bit more what's behind hidden sort of information behind what we see here and we're eager to hear from you. Okay, so that thing said, hopefully see you back next week. And until then, please stay bravely biochromatic. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com. Mahalo.


Hey there lads and ladies, it is Petrifying Pumpkins here, back with another Firewall Ultra video for you to enjoy. Ever since Firewall Ultra was revealed, I've been sniffing and digging to see if I can find out any extra details at all and I did come across something that might suggest that Firewall Ultra could be an Unreal Engine 5 title. And if Firewall Ultra manages to launch alongside the PS4 or 2 early next year then it could be one of the very first Unreal Engine 5 games available on the market. Now if you like Firewall Ultra or just PlayStation Virtual Reality 2 in general then be sure to hit the subscribe button as I'll be doing a lot of Ultra and PS viewer 2 content on this channel. With that out of the way, let's jump in. So like I said, I was doing some digging on Firewall Ultra to see if I could find anything worth talking about and I decided to check out First Contact Entertainment's official website and in particular their careers page as you can often get some hints about what a developer are working on by the kind of requirements and job responsibilities and all that kind of stuff that they're looking for. So they're currently looking for three roles to be filled and one of them, which is for technical animator, lists that a standout or bonus skill for you to have would be not only Unreal Engine 4 experience, which is what they create at Firewall Zero Hour on, but also Unreal Engine 5 experience. Now there's a couple of things to keep in mind. Number one, the other two job listings don't mention anything at all about Unreal Engine 5, just UE4. So it is obviously possible that this has nothing to do with Ultra. It could be for some other game that they're working on or that they will work on in the future. And number two, before you get too excited, we do know that Unreal Engine 5's two most impressive features, which are Nanice. And if you don't know what Nanice is, it basically allows for super detailed assets in the game world at a low cost and Lumen, which is Unreal's super advanced lighting system. Both of these things are not yet supported for virtual reality. Or are they? Let me quickly talk about a gentleman called Alex Columbe. I'm probably butchering his surname. We'll call him Alex from now on. Alex has been working on getting Lumen and Nanice to function on Unreal Engine 5 for the past few months. And he's had good success getting demos running at a solid 90 frames per second. Now, I'm nowhere near technical enough to really understand this or whether or not this is something that first contact entertainment could use themselves for Firewall Ultra. But even if it's not something they could get in there for launch, it is possible that if they are using UE5 and Lumen and Nanice become optimized for VR later on, that they could maybe implement them. Maybe. Now again, I'm not a game developer, so I could be talking complete diarrhea about that. But even outside of Lumen and Nanice, UE5 offers other features that improve over UE4 that first contact entertainment could use for Ultra. Features like world partition, better animation tools, messes sounds for better audio, a more efficient workflow and other stuff like that I'm sure. Maybe you're someone who's much more technically minded than I am and have an opinion about this or would like to correct me about everything incorrect I'm saying right now. If so, do it in the comments below. I'd be happy to see that stuff. But let me know also what engine would you like to see Firewall Ultra running on. That'll be it for this video. Thank you to Decepticon for letting me use his music in all of my videos. You can check him out decepticon.com. Link to his website will be in the description below. Also, if you liked the video, please consider giving us a like, thumbs up all that usual YouTube and shies and whether Firewall will be an Unreal Engine 4 or 5, you better stay Unreal Moist.


Hi and welcome to episode 5 of Off the Hill, the ANU's weekly look at what's been happening in the federal election campaign. As always I'm joined by my colleagues, constitutional law expert Ryan Goss and political marking expert Andrew Hughes. If you missed out any previous episodes you can just go to anu.edu.au to catch up and if you happen to be in Canberra on Tuesday nights you can head along to our weekly public policy forums, the vote. This week we're talking about social policy. Again all the details are on the website. This week we've asked our Twitter followers and our Facebook friends what they think is the most important issue that we haven't discussed or haven't heard about yet in the election campaign. I think what was really interesting is that we found on Twitter people really want to hear about the environment and on Facebook people really want to hear about indigenous issues which is another issue that we'll set aside for now. But let's get stuck into these. What do you think Andrew? Look the environment is a great issue, I mean it's so emotive too as an issue and in years past it's been a desidering campaign particularly in places like Tasmania where you've got to go with me on this one. Yeah no no, Tassey's fair. Yeah I mean it's the images too although sort of like emotive images we've seen in past campaigns we cannot forget the rivers campaign of Tasmania, old growth logging of course has been issued not just in Tasmania but also in other states like Queensland for example, New South Wales and of course Victoria. So you've got all these like emotive campaigns you can run on the environment and we're not seeing them. I mean modern campaigns for example on public transport, on cycling, cycling is always a hot issue. Always a nice wedge issue cycling, well I've been a cyclist by the way. I've got some issues on this, we'll go to Ryan first. Well I think that's right and what Andrew says is of course right but the last 10 years I suppose have been the story of trying to take action on things like climate change but reconcile that with a need, a perceived need to protect the economy and to ensure that jobs and growth as the Prime Minister would say aren't compromised and so Kevin Rudd said that's the great moral challenge of our time. I think the last 10 years have shown that it's a great political challenge trying to particularly for the Labor Party but also for the Liberal Party to reconcile on the one hand taking action on climate change with letting people understand and realise that that may involve changes to our economy over the long term as well and that's very hard for the parties to negotiate it seems. There's a lot going on here right because images are so nice as you say you know it's such a nice sort of positive thing to talk about the environment but then as you've observed this week Ryan it's all being couched in jobs talk. Yeah that's right so I think the Labor Party has stuck to its guns on climate change in many senses it's going to this election with an emissions trading scheme but a more tailored focused emissions trading scheme it's going to the election with schemes for the Great Barrier Reef and so on that are designed to appeal to people for whom the environment is a key issue but they're framed in terms of protecting jobs and providing opportunities for jobs and economic growth in renewable energies for example. Well I'm going to sort of throw my cynical hat in here we know for whom the environment is an important issue and it's green voters. So since 2008 we've asked 26,570 Australian voters what they think is the most important issue facing the country at that time right so this is over you know seven years overwhelmingly coalition voters always worried about the economy and jobs which is exactly as would imagine ALP voters split they're more sort of I guess heterogeneous you know to use the academic sort of jargon. Greens voters absolutely concentrated on the environment don't care that much about about the economy and jobs and the big three I call them immigration economy and better governance. But there's nothing wrong with that I mean green voters. There's nothing wrong with that I'm not judging them. Exactly the Greens appeal to the Greens right but yeah but the thing about as a strategy of political party that they can't appeal for everything.  So if they go to mainstream they run the risk of diversifying too quickly and all of a sudden you think oh Greens but are they really Greens anymore. Yeah absolutely and it also reflects I think the Labor Party's slightly tricky position at this election of having to run defensive campaigns in Sydney and Melbourne perhaps in a Brisbane to a lesser extent against the Greens while at the same time ensuring that they don't alienate voters on questions of carbon tax and emissions. Which leads us very nicely into Indigenous affairs because it's exactly the same problem. Exactly right yeah I mean you think where is the action where are the where is the real measures we need to take as Australians particularly white Australians we need to do more on the reconciliation front we need to make the steps we need to say sorry we need to make sure it's clear we need to put the money behind the words we need to put the action behind the words but the rhetoric aside it should be bipartisan why isn't it bipartisan why don't I ever feel bipartisan on about this issue why don't I have that sense that all the parties should believe in this every political party in this country should believe in this. Because you're gloriously optimistic Andrew. I am I'm a marketer come on that's what we do. I want to back this up with some nice evidence please. You know also optimistic evidence so we asked people about this in 2014 44% of Australians want more support for Indigenous communities we overwhelmingly believe that it's it's a combination of factors that have led to entrenched Indigenous disadvantage and only 19% have said we've gone too far in supporting Indigenous communities so there's something there's there's appetite I guess for change. There certainly is and I think there is bipartisan support for notions like closing the gap I think what's missing perhaps is bipartisan support for the measures that really make a difference underneath those overarching umbrella labels and I think for me as a constitutional law specialist I think what comes to mind here is that we are expecting in the next term of the parliament a constitutional referendum on recognising Australia's first peoples in the Constitution. Will it get bipartisan support? And the question is whether it will get bipartisan support at the moment it's both parties are on board huge polling majorities in favour of recognising the first Australians the problem is no one knows what that will mean yet there are multiple competing versions of what that amendment could look like and as soon as we have a proposal on the table that will begin to cause divisions within the major political parties within political discourse potentially within Indigenous Australian communities and there are people doing great writing on this at the moment Megan Davis at UNSW is doing some terrific work and I think it's yet to enter the mainstream political discourse that this is actually really a contested debate in Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia and it will be a really tricky issue to navigate potentially in the next term of parliament for the government Yeah absolutely and that's grim we're optimistic and now you've really pulled it down a notch Yeah but it's also worth saying of course that constitutional recognition is and should only be part of the picture that closing the gap is will be assisted by constitutional amendments but it's only part of the picture Yeah that's right Now the minor parties are everywhere this week all over the news Xenophon's going to cause all kinds of trouble if he gets the balance of power Why this campaign? What do they do so well? Richard Branson this is this is what he's put himself on to I mean it's really similar campaign strategy to what Richard Branson did which was disruption disruption disruption Nick Xenophon is the disruptor of Australian politics right now Oh this isn't just random words Andrew The marketing is going to go no shenanigans to that Stop being so hard and scientific all the time Live a little like hope that life to the campaign They do run good campaign They do And he's been disrupting South Australian politics for decades He's not new to this he's just taken to the national stage South Australia I think way back in January if we can to when he put his candidate launch for Waringo Tony Abbott's seat right when it was dead in the media space he had the entire airspace to himself at that time when he launched that candidate now they got it wiped away in this election there's no question or they're going to have any chance in that seat but what he did do was get our media you know attention and awareness on him and his campaign for that day at a really quite spot of the year Now we come at this from different perspectives you think Xenophon in particular is a master of mind Look I'm not saying he's the best I've seen but he's definitely up there and I look it's backed up by what his campaign is about too like submarine cakes outside the front of parliament house who could forget that Everyone could forget that Yeah of course they can but there's those stunts which get our attention and the attention's about getting an awareness and that changes your perception of him and all of a sudden you think this guy's got a lot more power behind him know what maybe he does at the moment he's one person in parliament one but he certainly captured a lot of attention and engagement in South Australia his polling numbers are incredible and that's it and that's what it matters in politics you get that attention awareness equals momentum momentum equals people get behind you perception seems like you've got to be more powerful than what you are let's get on this person because he's a winning team he's a breath of fresh air compared to the two majors who become complacent and spin doctrine as we saw last Sunday night now I think you've hit the nail on the head there and this is the problem Xenophon is able to leverage off I think what we're not picking up in opinion polls yet but what is a really underlying dissatisfaction with the two major parties and I don't think people have worked out quite how to express that yet or how to put that into words but I think the major parties in Australia have been really really sloppy really lazy on the back foot haven't really innovated in the way that we would have expected now I'm using the jargon but I think this is chickens coming home to roost for the majors and I think in 2013 what we talked about as being a kind of electoral anomaly was actually maybe not in the case of Lionholm because there's good evidence to suggest that he benefited from being on that you know that number one spot that donkey spot on the New South Wales Senate ballot but I think there is a genuine a genuine interest in minor parties and that's right and I think it's worth emphasising that we did have these Senate voting reforms this that were passed earlier this year that High Court has signed off on they were really designed to stop the micro parties swapping preferences behind the scenes but it by no means at all does that mean that we should count out the minor parties they weren't designed to do that the Greens, the Xenophones potentially the Pauline Hansons the Glenn Lazarus, the Jackie Lambies and there's every reason they'll do well out of this particularly when we take into account the double dissolution and the fact that you need fewer votes to get into this time the lower quota I think will hit harder than a lot of us are ready for I and it was a lazy response I think changing the laws in response to this threat from the minor parties now final thoughts for the week parliamentary budget office have been doing their work and this week they revealed a blowout in one of the government's costings on company tax rate I think it was so went from 48 to 51 billion dollars huge numbers three billion dollars a black hole of quite significance so raises the question and it was raised during the week too choose that up for him on the economy about how we're doing our costings and how long-term they need to be and the consensus there was on terms of the economy it needs to be a lot further ahead we need to have longer-term costings introduce all kinds of error but if you want more details on that that's all on the ANU website from last week's policy forum and Ryan my thought for the week is that we had the leaders debate last Sunday it was I think we can all agree a pretty dreary affair if we have future debates or so-called debates I think we need to take a leaf out of the Americans book in how we ask the questions and take a leaf out of the Brits books in terms of who's on the stage and how they're organized yep get more up there my thought is that the ALP and vote compass and the ABC more generally going toe-to-toe it's a subject very dear to my heart and I can't wait to see how it plays out thanks everyone for watching and we'll see you again next week


Welcome to Digital Asset News. Take a top stories in crypto and break down a bite-sized piece. Today I just want to do a quick updated video on what is going on with the DNews Stake Pool. And I want to make this as simple and easy as possible. So in regards to that, what we did is we put on the different chapters that you're going to go through in this video. Everything just kind of goes through the timeline to make it super simple to find what you're looking for. On top of that, we'll also have the timestamps so we can go over everything that you possibly want to know. And also I want to address one of the biggest questions that I get about the DNews Stake Pool, which is, Rob, why would I want to delegate to your stake pool when I can just leave it on some type of exchange or some type of brokerage and earn roughly around 5%. And the answer is you can do that. You can keep your cryptocurrency on all those exchanges and brokerage and that is fine. That's actually quite easy. The problem is is that when it's on those exchanges and those brokerage, you are not in control of your cryptocurrency, which means that the way that you gain yield is not usually from staking. It's usually from them giving it away or lending it out to different other exchanges or to different institutions where they can, of course, it's called rehypothecation. They can short it, they can long, they can do whatever they want to it. And also based on the terms of service videos that we've done and we've done multiple videos on that, that they're not responsible if something happens to your crypto, any kind of hack or anything that's that is missing, lost or stolen. So just be aware that they are in control of your crypto and you are not. And that's what makes the Cardano Staking Pool so attractive because you want to control your cryptocurrency, never leaves your wallet. And that means that it is your keys and your crypto. So that hopefully will answer that question. Again, you can do whatever you want to, but this also helps to secure the network. So what we're going to do today is just go through different things that we talked about. We'll start with proof of work versus proof of stake, the DNews rewards, an epic cycle, ADA staking versus ETH 2.0, staking fees, the Daedalus wallet, how to stake with Daedalus, Yolroy and Ada Light. And then also what separates us from I think a lot of different stake pools is the cherry called Kiva. So let's just jump right in and get into it and start off with proof of work versus proof of stake. So let's break it down to the basics POW system or proof of work system is the kind that Bitcoin uses where a bunch of computers solve complex math problems and they get reward, which is more Bitcoin. Now Cardano is different. Cardano uses a proof of stake system, which is like a lottery and each ticket is one Cardano token. So the more tickets you have, the greater chance you have to win the lottery prize. And that prize is the opportunity to validate a block and add it to the Cardano blockchain. When you win this opportunity, you must be online at the exact time of winning or else this opportunity will go to the next Cardano holder and you could miss out on the chance to claim that reward. Or you could simply delegate to a stake pool like DNews, which is up and online 24 seven, 365. So there's never a chance you won't miss out on rewards. Now as far as rewards expect to receive approximately four to six percent annually, which really, I mean, it's pretty good for just delegating. Now rewards are paid out every epic and a Cardano epic is every five days. Your initial delegation stake may take about two to three epics to receive rewards, which is like 10 to 15 days. But after that, expect your rewards every single epic. Now to clarify this point, there is a nice little graphic that I like to use called the delegation cycle. And it really depends on when you start to delegate. So if it's at the very beginning of an epic at like, let's say 213, it will take you a while to start to receive those rewards. If you stake at the tail end of a particular epic, then it'll be a little bit shorter. So just so you know, that is exactly how these things work out. Now delegating your Cardano does not put your ADA at risk as your Cardano stays in your wallet. Your Cardano is absolutely not locked up. You can unstake at any time and you're free to move. So there's no lockup time frame or anything of that kind of nonsense. Also, there's no minimum requirement to stake and you can add or remove your Cardano at any time for staking at the DNews staking pool. Also, stake pools such as DNews are trustless, which means that we don't receive your rewards and then disperse them to you. Actually what happens is a Cardano protocol determines your rewards and pays out automatically directly to your wallet. Another great benefit of Cardano staking and choosing a stake pool such as DNews is that there are no slashing penalties. With a 3M 2.0, you could get a slashing penalty or have part of your stake teeth reduced, taken away or just simply burned for errors on the validator's part. And this could be intended or not intended. So this actually does not happen on the Cardano network. And this is why we're excited to be staking on it. Now, the worst that could happen is that she won't be rewarded for a block. But even that won't happen here at DNews as we have again 24-7, 365 monitoring by Rafaana and Kubernetes through the Microsoft Azure, which is enterprise class. It's highly secure and it's proven as one of the most reliable sources, which is why we picked it. Now, it's pretty expensive to run on it, but it's one of the ones or the best ones out there. And it's why we went in that direction. Now there's two fees for the DNews stake pool. There's a 340 fixed fee, which is mandatory by the Cardano foundation for all pool operators. This is automatically taxed from all the rewards that the pool collects. So this fee is spread out over the entire pool. Now, some other pools may charge more, but we charge the absolute bare minimum. The DNews stake pool margin fee is 5%. That means that if you make 188, then the rate to the DNews pool is 588. Now, some charge more and some charge less. But with our platform, reliability, uptime security and competitive fees, I think we have a great choice for you to stake your Cardano. So let me break down these two fees in further detail. So here we're talking about the 340 fixed. That is between all of the delegates for the DNews stake pool. So that would be pretty expensive if it was just one person who had to pay the whole 340. But thankfully in our stake pool, we will have thousands of people and that 340 ADA fee will be dispersed among thousands. So if we have 340 delegates, that means that each person will pay 1 ADA. If we have 680, that means that only pay half an ADA and on and on down the line. Now, as far as the 5% fee, let me break that down even further. So if you staked 1,000 ADA with the DNews stake pool, that would mean that you would make between 40 to 60 ADA per year because that is the industry average between 4% and 6% for the rewards. So these are your rewards, 40 to 60. So we are not charging 5% on what you stake, which would be 5% of 1,000. We are charging 5% of your rewards. So that means that if you earn 40 to 60 ADA, so somewhere around there, that means that the staking or the fee would be only 2 to 3 ADA that you would have to pay. And that is essentially it. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you how easy it is to stake with the DNews pool. I'm going to use the Daedalus Yoroi and ADA light wallet. And this is our official website for the DNews staking pool.  So up top, let's click on home. Let's go to the very top, the very top of the page. Of course, when you scroll over, it got a nice little effect there. This is everything about DNews, about what we just talked about. Owner Pledge or My Pledge is going to be 75,000. Transparency, and then you can check everything here as far as ADA pools and just take a look at what the pool is actually doing, how well it's performing, everything else. Fees and reliability on Microsoft Azure, Kubernetes with 99.9% uptime for max blocks minting.  This is a nice little video from Charles, where he goes into details about what Cardano is, why it's a third generation blockchain, what they plan to do and everything else in between. Pretty good, but it's kind of long, about an hour or so. You can check the roadmap here, the cardano.org, IOHK, which is actually what they, the building part and a Murgo, which is the enterprise arm of Cardano. So just take a look at that. And then this is just a quote that I feel, this is why I did do the things that I do. And it's because trust is a currency you can't buy. You've seen on this channel that when I talk about things, I try to be as precise and honest and open as I possibly can. And that is, I think, why you're here. Also with the website at downteachescrypto.com, just a regular website that is 100% free. I don't charge anything for that. I want people to come in here and learn all about cryptocurrency assets. And this is just what I feel should be done at this time. So then moving down, here's where we have the staking wallets, Daedalus, Uroi, and ADA Lite. And you can secure links here. So there's no confusion as to where you can actually get them. These are the ones that I've tested out. These are the exact websites and places you can go to download these three wallets. So there is no scamming going on, which I always hate. So just check those out. And then moving forward down, this is the exact same video we're talking about here, how to stake some FAQs. And then this is how we compare to other pools. Now, in all honesty, starting up a stake pool, I thought it'd be a lot easier, but it is a lot of work. And there's a lot of things going on, a lot of moving parts. And really, it is its own entity. It is its own business. So if you're out there looking at pools and you don't see them kind of like treating this as a legit business, then be a little bit leery. Because over here, I can see exactly how much work it's going to be. And again, it is its own separate business. Alright, so let's go up here and let's show you how easy it is to stake with all three of the most common Cardano wallets out there, the Daedalus, Yoroi, and ADA light wallet. Now, just a quick note, you can only stake your Cardano to the DNews pool with these wallets. So you can't have your ADA tokens sitting on exchange and stake from there to our pool, actually any pool, it's not really how it works. So again, if you need to download a wallet, just choose one of these three. They're all solid choices. The Daedalus wallet makes you download the entire Cardano blockchain, which takes a bit, but the Yoroi and ADA light wallets do not. So that's an option for you. Okay, let's start with the Daedalus wallet. And I'll show you exactly how easy it is to stake using this wallet. Alright, great. So here we are in our Daedalus wallet. This is our demo wallet. So very easily on the left-hand side, you got your wallets, ITN, some settings. We're going to click on this little icon right here. Looks like a little square. And it's going to have delegation center, stake pools, rewards, and info. And of course, this is our current Cardano Epic. Remember, those are every five days. Next one on Epic is another four days. So that is just what it is for right now. So, so what I want to do is go to stake pools. And I'm going to search for the stake pools. I'm going to put in DNews. And there we are. Of course, we're not doing so hot right now because we are brand spanking new. So we're waiting for everybody to come on in, but this will all change. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on DNews, give us all the information, the official Staking Pool of Digital Asset News, Power of Microsoft Reserve, same thing we just talked about, the rank, the pool margin, the pledge, and all that good stuff. We're going to delegate to this pool. And this little guy's going to pop up, wallet selection, stake pool, delegation, continue. So we're going to select the wallet. And remember, it's pretty much all or nothing. So you can have multiple wallets and dead lists. But whatever you choose will be, it's going to be the entire amount of what you delegate. So for this one, I'm going to delegate a whopping 21 ADA. I'm going to click continue. And it's going to say, do you want to do this? Of course, yes. So just so you know, these other pools right here, the one, two, three, four, five, these are the top pools that are there. But if you see the little bar right there, that green bar, that means that they're saturated. And when they're all the way full, that means that there is the limit of 63 million. Now it used to be around 205 million for the Cardano saturation point, but they reduced that to 63 million. And past that point, you get diminishing rewards. So I would not recommend to sign up for any pool that is already saturated. We monitor all that. If we become saturated, we will let you know in advance and we will start up in another pool. And that day is today. Today it is March 23rd, 2021. And we now have two stake pools for DNews. We have DNews one with a rating of 433 and DNews two, which we just started up about a month ago at 556. You'll notice that DNews one has the bar right in the middle as does DNews two at 586 with the bar right in the middle. So what is going on here? Well, what we have here is that for our DNews, Stake Pool one, we have over almost 1600 delegates or people who have delegated to our stake pool. And we have almost over 30 million, 209,008 ADA. And our saturation point is 46.8%. On our DNews two, we have almost 1500 delegates or people who have delegated to our stake pool at over 27 million ADA being staked to this particular pool with a saturation point of 42.5%. So why do we make two stake pools? We didn't need to. Well, it's quite simple. At the end of March, the Cardano Foundation was going to reduce the amount of ADA per stake pools from and in the beginning, it was over 200 million and went to 63 million, which is what is that currently. And they're going to reduce that from 63 million to only 32 million at the end of March. So we decided we would be proactive and create two separate stake pools. So there was no over saturation. So right now, as it stands, you can safely delegate to DNews one or DNews two. And we are only at 50% saturation at both of these different pools. So the question then is, well, what will happen if you stake to a pool that is over saturated or over the 63 million allowed ADA per stake pool? Things like this will happen where once the ADA or ADA delegations become more than what is allowed, you start to have people lose rewards, like what is happening right here with this stake pool. We do not want that to happen. So we're trying to be proactive before these issues come about. And that's what's best for everyone so that nobody loses any rewards. All right. So that takes care of that piece. Let's continue on with the video where I can show you how to sign up for the deadless wallet to stake into the DNews. So we're going to click on continue. And there's always a fee, of course, a little bit 0.17. That's not for us. That's the Cardinals fee. We're going to type our spending password. Again, do not give this out to anybody. This is your spending password, kind of like your private key. So I want to put this in. I'm going to stop the video, click confirm, and voila, we are done. Stake from the wallet is now delegated to the DNews stake pool. And just like we talked about, sometimes it takes two epics or three epics to really start to get everything moving. And this is exactly what it says. In nine days, one hour, 40 minutes, that's when you can expect everything to really get moving. And that is as easy as it gets. So that's a deadless wallet. Let's move over to the Yorai wallet. So here we are on the Yorai wallet. This is my Yorai demo. I'm just going to click on that. And it's super simple. I'm going to go to delegation list. I'm going to search by ID. I'm just going to put in the news and click search. And there it is. So I'm going to click on delegate. So now I'm going to delegate this wallet to DNews stake pool. So it's pretty much an all or nothing. It's either the total amount or no amount. And you can break up your wallets. You can create the wallets if you don't want to do the whole thing and do that that way. But for this one, to make it simple, we're going to put 19.8. There's fees for on the Kodano network, which is already put in. I'm going to put in my spending password. Again, do not give this to anybody. And I'm going to click on delegate. Great. And it's already done. Successfully delegated. Track the status of the stake pool and the amount of time remaining to receive reward for the dashboard from the dashboard page. I'm going to click on dashboard page. And this is where for in the Yorai, you can check everything out. So that is it for Yorai. Pretty easy. Again, you can add as much as you want to take it all out on stake, whatever you want to do. That's the beauty of the Kodano network. So here we are on the ADA light wallet. So up here, obviously, I'm going to click on staking. So one thing you'll notice is that the default stake pool is the ADA light stake pool. So if you want to get to DNews, all you have to do is first of all, wipe this away. Don't need this. We need the stake pool ID. And to make this very simple, I actually put this right underneath the ADA wallet ID where it's going to copy this. And then we're going to come over here to ADA light and we're going to paste it. And then also, as we talked about, if we look over on the ADA light wallet, we see the DNews one ID and the DNews two ID. And again, as a reminder, it doesn't matter which one you stake to DNews one or DNews two. There's no risk of being oversaturated right now. We're only at 30 million. And the max is at 62 million. So now let's finish up delegating to the ADA light wallet. Getting pool info, DNews, 5%, everything else there. So the fee, of course, is for Cardano. That is just one of those fees that they have. And we're going to simply click on delegate. So pool ID, digital asset news, DNews, ticker, fixed costs, all those things we talked about and confirm transaction. And it's going to sync the wallet. And then here we go. And don't be alarmed, the delegate stake will always go back to the default ADA light. But if you see the stake in rewards history in the left-hand side, you can see that the pools, digital asset news, also over on the right-hand side current delegation ticker DNews and everything else right there. And lastly, I want to mention this, if you go back to the website and go up to about DNews, there's a link right here as far as transparency, when you click on this, this will show it, go you to ADA pools.org. And it will show you exactly how the pool is actually doing over time. So you can take a look out here as far as performance blocks, rewards, delegators and about. Of course, we are new right now. So we will definitely be growing. And this is the place to check all that out. And now as an update, we've added a couple more pieces of information so you can stay up to date with what is actually going on with the DNews stake pool. So under transparency, we have DNews one and DNews two. If you click on DNews one, that and it'll take you to what is going on with DNews. And one thing I want you to pay attention to is the return on ADA, which is monthly. And we are, we are right now garnishing 5.47%. Again, pretty great considering that the industry averages 4 to 6%. And the return on ADA lifetime is 5.57. So again, doing our job, doing great things. And lastly, a couple more pieces of information to go over. If you go to danteagescrypto.com and then on the very top, it'll say Cardano Staking Pool. And of course, this is the site where we're going to, when you scroll down, there's two pieces of information that we added in, which is the saturation level. So just like we saw with pools.pm, when you click on view, you can take a look at the saturation level for DNews one and DNews two and just take a look and make sure that they are not saturated. Again, maximum is 63 million. We are definitely under that. So we've got DNews one here, and then DNews two, and we're looking pretty good. So you can always be up to date with what is going on. So that is the first part. And you can always of course find that right here, as far as the transparency as well. And then the second part, which is a major change, and this is the direction we are going to go with this pool. Now for the description of both of our pools, it says, you know, this is the official staking pool, New York City News, PowerMax of Azure. But this last sentence is super important. And it talks about the proceeds given every epoch to help the global unbanked through kiva.org. What are we talking about here? Well, what is going on with is that every epoch, we are going to be giving these what's called microloans to the organization of kiva. And the reason why we're doing this is because when we give the charities, we never really know what it's going, but with microloans, we can give this to pretty much anybody we want to throughout the entire world for the underserved and unbanked.  And we've already donated up to $500 for this cause. And again, this could be anything from like, you know, somebody in Nicaragua who needs to buy more rice for their shop or somebody who in Kenya needs a water pump for their business. But again, these are microloans. And this is what we're doing every epoch. So we'll be giving 100 ADA every epoch. Now, we have to exchange that for dollars. So, you know, today, Cardano is worth about $1.15. That's about $115. But in the future, Cardano could be, you know, $3 or $5 or $10. So it just depends. So this is what we are doing and moving forward. So just know that if you are staking to DNews, there is a much bigger purpose for what we are doing here. So again, this is Kiba.org. And you can find the link for that, this website in all my YouTube videos. You can also find it on the web page. And the great thing about Kiba.org is that it's been around for over 14 years. And the person that founded it was one of the founders of PayPal. So that's a very structured place. It's been doing good for a very long time. And we're happy to be a part of what is going on here, to make the world just a little bit better. Okay, so that's it. So I want to make that as simple as possible. Hopefully that really just spell it out and laid it out for you, make it very quick and easy. There's just three things to go over. First of all, wallet selection. Me personally, I personally like the deadless wallet. And yes, I know it takes a long time to download the entire blockchain. And it is quite a cumbersome in the beginning. But for me, it just works and I trust it. It's easy to use. And that's it. The other two are solid choices, Yoroi and Adelight. But just take a look at which one works best for you. Me personally, I just like the deadless wallet. That's just how it goes. And then also, don't forget to write down your spending password. So when you get the rewards, you can actually go and do those things with them, whatever you want to do. And then also don't forget about your mnemonic phrases. Don't be like me and write your mnemonic phrase down in some piece of paper somewhere and store it somewhere that you thought you could remember. And then you just lose it. Me personally, in the good old days of the testnet, I wrote down my mnemonic phrase for my deadless wallet and completely lost it. And that means that 20,000 ADA is just locked and will never be seen again, because I could not remember where to put my actually phrase passes or my mnemonic phrase into. So I recommend if you're going to use anything, go and take a look at the Stonebook. I have two myself. I write down all my past phrases, all my passwords, everything else. And I've got two. One in my house, one in my bank account, or one of my safety security boxes. And that really has given me peace of mind. So that is it for today. So if you liked the video and you found it valuable, give it a thumbs up, consider subscribing. And that's it. Hopefully you will consider staking with DNews and I'll give you updates as they come in. But that is it for today. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you on the next one.