All right, shall we begin? Hello, I'm Vagran Kaskedian. I would like to present to you my latest infatuation, my crush on Gnu Geeks. I'll start off with it's kind of awkward calling it Gnu Geeks, especially when you're talking about crushes. But for the longest time, pronounced it Gwix. It's a bit awkward in conversations talking to people. They don't know what you mean. Are you the intersection of people interested in Gnu Geeks who are geeks interested in Gnu is pretty high. But anyway, despite awkward naming conventions, I'm pretty interested in this new system. It's got its quirks. It's a bit of a curiosity. And I think there's also a really interesting, a really solid community alignment with a lot of the values that Debian shares. So a bit about myself. I'll just reduce it down to some basic numbers. I've been a Debian user since probably around 2001. I got deeply involved in Debian in Debian Comp4 back in 2004. I became a Debian maintainer around 2008 and a developer in 2010. And my stats with Gnu Geeks are a bit fresher, which is a bit more exciting. I started submitting bugs and kind of hanging out on the channel kind of late last year and started getting some patches into the Geeks Git repository just earlier this year. So I'm kind of doing this as a compare and contrast of Debian. So I just figure I will briefly touch on at least some small piece of Debian, most notably that Debian is a volunteer effort and they want to focus on a free, high-quality Unix operating system. And this I just cut from the Debian fact. Of course, Debian is much more than just these few simple lines. But interestingly enough, Gnu Geeks, the Gnu System distribution, and the Gnu Geeks package manager are free software projects developed by volunteers. So there's a pretty strong alignment there. The free software values, the volunteer driven, community driven focus, that's pretty similar. And I think, bears in mind, some value commonality there. What, where it kind of differs a little bit more is Gnu Geeks is a re-implementation of the Nix build system, and the re-implementation is done in Gnu Gile. It also operates as a standalone package manager, interestingly enough, on top of other distributions. Maybe you know of some. And it also has a full operating system designed entirely around the Geeks build system. I pretty much got interested in Gnu Geeks when I caught that twinkle in the eye across the room when I was involved with some reproducible builds. And I started meeting some of the Gnu Geeks folks. And with reproducible builds, I'm pretty excited about reproducible builds. And a lot of things that we're doing with reproducible builds in Debian is kind of trying to shoehorn some new practices into a well-established system that didn't really have that built in mind. But Gnu Geeks has a lot of the premises of reproducible builds built into it directly. It's by intention not something we're trying to bolt on later or reintegrate. So it has a number of things where it normalizes the build environment. It even builds in containers. It has standardization of the build path. And it has built in mechanisms for actually verifying the reproducibility. In Debian, a lot of these processes are pretty hard to actually integrate. We're doing the best we can. But it's going to take some time. Whereas this, it has much more potential to be reproducible right out of the gate. So one of the bizarre things where it really differs is in the file system layout. The file system hierarchy standard is, for the most part, thrown out the window. So all of the software on the system goes into subdirectories under the Gnu Store directory. And then it will have a hash of the tool chain used to build that particular version of that package and a package and a version. There are other things also in the store that are not specifically packages, such as upstream tarballs, but they all basically follow the same basic premise. So since it doesn't follow the file system hierarchy standard, things like your path are going to be different. So a lot of what it accomplishes in order to get you to use the binaries from Gnu Store, blah, blah, blah, is it sets the path, sets up in a specific order so that you typically will get the binary that your particular configuration is set up to run. So it uses a lot of sim links to accomplish this. So first, you'll have your GUIX profile, which is a sim link to var GUIX profiles, which is a sim link to another profile within that directory, which is a sim link to another actual file, I think. And then in there is a sim link to the file that you're actually running, say, you want to run Emacs, for example. So it's a whole big mess of sim links, which has some really interesting properties, but we'll get into some of that more later. So where exactly does a binary live? Typically with bash, you might want to run bash from the system. So it'll be in the system profile path. And then you'll find the actual bash is located in the Gnu Store, hash of toolchain, bash, the version, and bin bash. So what will be interesting here is when you list all of the libraries that bash uses, they all point directly to other files in the store. This has some really interesting properties when we get into the transactional upgrades and transactional rollbacks. So basically, because essentially all that a package is is a built thing shoved into a directory, really the only way you can use it is through setting up your sim link tree to actually point to that one preferred over some older version. So this way, when you upgrade a set of packages, first it will build them. And then once the build completes and is successful, then it will update your sim links. And so the act of updating a sim link can be an almost atomic operation. So the likelihood that you are ever in an inconsistent state is really quite low.  And you can, in a desperate situation, actually manually re-implement those to get yourself back into a consistent state. I've only once had to do that in the last year, but it has a mechanism where you can actually switch back to any generation currently available in your profile. Users can install packages without requiring a system administrator permission, which is a double-edged sword. You can, every single user has an entirely independent copy of their profile. So the users upgrade their software when they want to upgrade. They're not waiting on the system administrator. And I'll talk more about the implications of that later. It's also really fairly trivial for an individual user to install a customized version of a package. So this was, this is kind of a cut and paste. The formatting didn't quite turn out great, and a lot of it's scrolled off the screen. But basically, if you're familiar with a scheme, all of the packaging is basically done in a scheme dialogue called Guile. And essentially, you can run a custom version of Geeks by using the pre-installation environment, and then just asking the build daemon to build this custom package for you. GUIC's environment is the ability to, it's kind of like if you were to call, say, S Cherute, and then it will, or S build, and then it'll drop you into a shell with all the dependencies necessary for actually building that package, tweaking that package, customizing it. And so this can be really useful if you're just kind of developing a new upstream version or something.  It has some importers to pull package definitions from other sites such as PyPy, or I think there are even some Haskell ones, and basically it will dump a definition much like the one earlier, so it'll spit out the scheme that will give you a baseline to start hacking on a new package. And kind of back to the reproducible builds issue here. So by design, it's intended to be able to challenge the builds. So basically, if you do a local build of bash, you can compare against the servers on which you might download that version from, and you can even compare against multiple servers. So by design, it already has a fairly simple system for checking and seeing that you're getting the same results as produced by the upstream servers. And here's an example checking bash from my local system, and they were identical. Here's an example with the Linux Libre kernel, and for whatever reason, it's currently not reproducible, so you can see that they differed. And it gets a little more verbose, because it's a more alarming situation. Upgrading a package in Canoe Geeks is often as simple as updating two lines. So I've been the Uboot maintainer in Debian for many years, and so naturally, some of the first patches I submitted to Canoe Geeks were to update the Uboot versions. And so here, you're just updating the version number, and this is the expected hash of the upstream tarball that you use for the new version. And literally, for that version bump, that was the only thing I needed to change, which I think at the time I actually used Canoe Geeks to test Uboot before I tested it on Debian because it was just so simple to just do a few tests, install Uboot on a few machines, rather than going through all of the steps to update the Debian packaging, update the patch sets, those kind of things. The Canoe system distribution is the full operating system level. So it includes an entirely new init system, which I know people love to talk about init systems. That init system is, of course, written in Canoe Geil. And this init system is just a few lines of Geil, which of course includes much larger libraries, but this is a particular exact init for this particular instantiation of this operating system.  So it's kind of like configuration management by design. So the running SSHD, for example, here is actually passed the configuration file in the store. You can fairly trivially instantiate virtual machines. You can build a virtual machine that's basically identical to your running system configuration, and it can pass the contents of the store or possibly a limited set of contents of the store to only include the things that match the same system. So this can be done quite quickly. In bug reporting, this will be familiar to a lot of people in Debian. It uses Debugs. What's maybe a little unfamiliar is there are only two packages with which to submit bugs. Maybe there are more than that. Somebody might be able to correct me on that, but it uses Debugs. So you can use your favorite, just email it, describe your problem. You can get a list of bugs at the URLs. And here's where we really get into some interesting things. So you can run GUIX SD as a full-blown operating system, but you can also run GNU Geeks as your own as an installation on top of another operating system such as Debian. You can download binary tar balls from the upstream GNU Geeks site. You can install from source, and there's been a little bit of work gone into actually packaging GNU Geeks for Debian. So one of my biggest frustrations with GNU Geeks is there's a long outstanding bug where there's not really a built-in chain of trust integrated to the system. So the entirety of GNU Geeks is defined as a single get repository, and each individual commit may be signed. In fact, I think they're required to be signed, but unfortunately there's no built-in system for the end user to go through and verify those signatures. So there's no trust key ring. There's nothing like that. There's no built-in system. You can go through and manually pick, oh, I see this commit is signed by somebody who's got a strong enough connection in my web of trust, but you can't, there's no built-in system where, oh, this is the expected set of keys that should sign things and will automatically only build versions that have been properly signed. Another really interesting effect is because every single user on a system can have their own sets of packages installed. There's a system-wide profile. Even Root has its own set of packages installed separate from the system profile, or in addition to, rather. Security update consistency across the whole machine is a little hard to audit. It has some strengths. You don't force any users to upgrade at a time that's inconvenient to them, but obviously if there are lingering security updates out there, that's a bit of a concern. So those are some of the big issues that have turned me away from using GNU Geeks in any serious capacity. I just have a stronger concern about the level of security there. The updates, basically Geeks pull is essentially roughly equivalent to App Get Update, but it actually recompiles all of the available package definitions, and this takes some time. Even on a fairly modern computer, it can take a few minutes sometimes depending on how many package updates there were, and that doesn't even include installing the packages. So the fact that when you try to update the system, it's going to take a long time, can really hinder people from doing those security updates that they keep putting off. So that's a big concern for me as well, and it's also just practically kind of annoying to sit there watching a little spinner going on. So those are some of the big concerns I have with it as a system. I know there's some work to improve the speed on that, and I've even seen some of those improvements in my brief involvement. But, and then another thing that can sometimes drive you crazy is a minor update in the tool chain can have a cascading effect on which packages get rebuilt. So it's hard to know when you run an update, like just how many things are actually going to be updated. You know, I want a new version of X, but along with that comes like an entire tool chain dependency on countless other packages. So sometimes updates can be, even for what seems like a relatively minor update, it can be an entire, almost an entire rebuild of your system. They have some features that kind of can work around some of those limitations that are reasonably safe to use, but in my experience every once in a while, you'll just get a huge update. And additionally, it's both a binary and a source-based distribution. So individual users, individual users could choose to rebuild everything from source and to some degree that's encouraged so you can compare against the official servers. And that gives greater assurances with regards to reproducibility. But there are also binary servers that are basically rebuilding all of the packages, but get pushes can go a lot faster than the binary servers may be up for rebuilding. And so at any given time, you might do an update and you can download a lot of the binaries or you end up rebuilding the world. And that can be a little awkward and challenging at times. Another thing is I don't have much background in scheme or lists or anything like that. And the parenthesis for updating package definitions, it kind of always has this feel like it looks very elegant and straightforward and then I actually try to do it and you miss a parent somewhere and you get a very explosive trace back trying to figure out how it goes. Your mileage may vary on that but sometimes I find it a little overwhelming. Just you define something and boom and you don't know where it was and maybe you didn't fastidiously commit to get while you were hacking on it. That's basically, that's the gist of things. I really have, I've been using Debian for ages. I love it. I do sometimes wonder if some of the things that GNU Geeks are doing might better handle things like PyPy and RubyGems and things like that where the entire ecosystem is just moving a lot faster than Debian can keep track. So that's one of the things I've been interested in this GNU Geeks is it's much easier to do updates to individual packages without necessarily having to do an entire transition. Those kind of things, you can do individual packages to just test updates without needing to build the entire ecosystem around that. You can just build it for your little test. And yeah, so a huge thanks to both Debian which has really built me into a free software developer on some level and GNU Geeks for being a small welcoming community. That's it for my slides but I have a number of demos I could get into and why don't we take a few questions and then maybe I can respond with some demos or something like that. Speaking of PyPy and RubyGems, is there any prospects for some auto translation of the language specific package manager recipe into the Geeks format? Yeah, there's an importer which can basically, in my experience, I've done a few PyPy packages with it and with some of them it just worked out of the box. You say Geeks import PyPy and then the package name and then it'll output the package definition in the Geil format and some of those have worked and some of them needed some additional tweaking, pulling in a few more PyPy modules, things like that. So there's work there. I don't know how fully automated it is. There's always probably gonna be some degree of manual checking and it's code so it can be improved. What's that? It's Sol's package. Ah, that gets more interesting. But yeah. Oh, also for Debian source packages? Yeah, I racked my brains a bit at how I could more closely bring some of the features of GNU Geeks into Debian and it's a bit hard. But yeah, it's a very different paradigm. Not to say it's impossible but I think the Debian project might move a bit slow to make that a reality. Yeah. So you mentioned updates sometimes needing to rebuild a lot of stuff. That presumably applies to security updates as well. So if you get a Lib C security update, you then have to rebuild absolutely everything. To on near, very close. Yeah, at times. Right, and my understanding of this, the way that the system is set up with this whole functional model, that's kind of baked in. Do they have a bodge for that? They do. I believe it's a system called Graphs and it kind of fudges the like, well, so if you remember every package, you might have 10 different versions of Bash 4.0. And each version is basically the tool chain used to build it. I believe, and I don't understand in great detail, but I believe the Graph system will take, whatever the most recent Bash is, and use that or Lib C is probably a better example, will take whatever the matching, as long as the version matches, we'll kind of pretend that that is actually built with this other tool chain and do some tricks like that. So that helps a bit with that. That's actually, that kind of reminds me also of, I neglected to put it in my slides, but one of the biggest frustrations I have with GNU Geeks as somebody who kind of came into the free software world as a system administrator is they have no concept of stable updates. It's all, it's basically all a rolling release at this point. And so, yeah, security updates are just normal package updates essentially. Does that answer your question? Hi. Okay. Any other questions or I can just start to dive into some examples. Yeah, I had a quick question. You mentioned that each user, including Root, has its own environment and its own set of more or less home-built packages that are not system-wide. Is there any particular reason why when a user wants to have a package built, it cannot be part in a GNU store to have the application with also users? Yes, so when another user, so you have user A, they install a package and then user B installs the same package, all they have to do is make the SimLinks. So the second user or system or whatever to install it, they share the same store. Okay. But then it's just a trivial SimLink operation. So that also gets into things like how about Geeks environment. So here, basically, I've probably already run it. So it was a trivial operation. It built a charoute that essentially has only the stuff necessary to build the hello package. So this, because it didn't really show you much, why don't I try with another one? So here, it's basically building a charoute kind of like what P-Builder or S-Build would do, except because many of the dependencies might already be available because I've installed other packages which have this in the store. It doesn't actually have to go through, unpack the packages, do all of those operations. They're basically already on the system and so it can just do a nice quick SimLink tree to instantiate that. Yeah. Sometimes you need to rebuild the packages and all the dependencies and that you can have several versions of the same library on a system. So is it working on old machines? So if you have an old hardware, is it going to be working? For example, if you have a small HDD or not very efficient processor? Right. So naturally one of the things I started doing with Geeks is to, since I work on ARM systems a lot, I basically added support for a number of ARM boards and one of them was a single core ARM processor with half a gig of RAM and it sometimes took a day to do the most basic operations but there are some really nice features. Let's see. So there are some really cool features where I would build the entire system on a faster machine and then you can actually publish all of your build results. Everything in the store is basically something that should be publicly available and so you can have kind of peer to peer setup where each, you know, this machine, trust that machine to build packages and it can just download them from a faster machine that's already built them. So that's one of the really nice features. But yeah, but even then there are some things that still need to be run locally just as part of the process or if they don't build reproducibly enough or something, then it's like, no, no, I gotta rebuild this myself, I'll see you in a few days. So yes, on slow machines it can be a bit challenging. There, I believe there's a way where you can rebuild everything from source and not trust any binaries but I don't know about the, I haven't found any way to do the converse where it's like, if a binary is not available don't bother installing it. So, yeah. For these build machines, I can imagine that the C flags or the LD flags will affect the binary. So is that taking into account into the reproducibility? Yes, so since it's functional package definition, let's see if I've got this right. Because it's functional, so here basically the input is the entire scheme information that produces that package and so you'll see it'll pass cross compile arguments and all of the inputs that go into the file are there. I wonder, do we have C flags specified anywhere? So one really exciting thing is the entire repository is just one git repo. I mean, so, and realistically we've got a distribution here that has maybe a third of the packages in Debian, give or take a little and those packages are represented in, you know, an 89 megabyte git repository. So it has references to the tar balls and hashes of what it expects to find or references to other git repositories and it has a hash to make sure you get the correct thing. But so you can, to look for things like that, you can do things like git grep. Oh, okay, in various packages, so we could look in GNU packages Android and we can see it sets the C flags for Android lib cuutils. Never seen this package before but so basically if you change anything in the package definition, it's going to result in a new definition of the package. So any kind of C flags type changes are going to propagate into any of the things that use that as an input. Otherwise in Debian terms, kind of like a build dependency, it'll cascade down the whole system and everything that used that will be rebuilt. Okay, oh-ho. Can I interrupt briefly and say that seems to imply that I'm forbidden now from just setting C flags in the environment because that will totally mess everything up? Yes, forbidden, well it'll just be ignored. So you can set it all you want. But it's fairly simple to edit individual packages but I guess if you're wanting to set a global change or something like that, that's more what you were getting at. Yeah, yeah you can't, you actually need to specify, because it's functional, you need to specify all of your inputs in order to produce the output. So all of the inputs are defined in the given package. So here, here I've got the arm trusted firmware package I worked on briefly to get an upstream version of it. Currently packaged in GNU Geeks, they have arm, they have arm trusted firmware. All of the targets are actually built with, they're all built with custom vendor repositories. This is kind of a thing in the arm world where just about everything is built with a custom vendor repository. But finally, they added some support in upstream arm trusted firmware. So I started working on a packaging definition for that. And you'll notice there's a function kind of right at the top there, make arm trusted firmware. So you can use functions to define packages that they then inherit all the baseline for it and you only specify how they differ from the main package. So if you did want one or two packages that shared kind of a common build system or something, you could define that in one of these function definitions and then you could create a local version of that package. So here I'll try this one. So here I'm running a build. So when you use the pre-inst environment, that's kind of a hack to work around updating all of the package definitions. It kind of just, I'm not even sure exactly how it works, but basically you build a particular implementation of GNU Geeks and then it will kind of reuse as much as it can and spit out a bunch of warnings. But here I've just built a new version of arm trusted firmware, which is now located in GNU Store, blah, blah, blah, blah. Another question. Yes, so you just mentioned that we can basically, oh, people can generally more or less write arbitrary will code as for package definitions. Do you have some particularly cool users for that and do you also have some cases where it just makes package definition hard to analyze either by hand or automatically? On the latter case, I have a harder time defining that, but I think, I don't know if you've ever looked at the UFoot packages in Debian, but the UBoot, like for example, here I've got UBoot one board and it's a two line change and now I support an entirely new board in the Debian packaging that usually takes editing four or five files and making sure you get it right. Someone that's maybe my own fault and it could be done more elegantly, but things like this I find to be tremendously useful. Any time you have a project in which you might have multiple versions in the archive, say a console only version and an X version and a Wayland version or something like that, this kind of approach really makes it easy to define multiple different versions. You can also say the Wayland version isn't ready yet, but you wanna add support for this package. You can start by submitting a version that only does the console utilities first and then it's already there and maybe somebody else comes along and adds another variant and it's pretty trivial to add. And there was a second part to your question. Yeah, do you have cases where basically you would want to, for instance, automatically grab for whatever package information, like find all packages that have this or that feature and just it's hard because now you have to more or less execute arbitrary code to understand it. Yeah. Oh, Quicks already runs the code, so. Great. It's got, I mean, you can search for packages, kind of like apcache search. Oh boy. Let's see how that does. Right, so it puts out a boatload of stuff sorted by relevance. Probably looks fairly similar to your typical Debian packaging format. So you can kind of search, there are package definitions. I do find get grep to be extremely useful for searching for common things or searching for a package that's doing something that I might need to cargo cult into another package definition. But just the fact that the entire operating system is in one get repository makes some of that analysis possible, I think, much easier than with Debian, where all of the packages are scattered between countless tar balls and archives and sources.debian.net simplifies it somewhat, but obviously using common utilities with get on a 89 megabyte repository is going to be a lot faster. And I think the answer to, or to put it, my specific question was, I guess, Quicks already turns like that arbitrary code into package definition we can search, it seems. Yeah, let's see if I can find one for you, oh boy. So also, it drives me crazy that Garugik's puts the hash. I really wish it had been package version hash. Makes tab completion a lot easier, but that's not the way it is and to change that would be a lot of work or a lot of rebuilding everything. So it would require reboot strapping the whole thing. But anyway, I was trying to, ah, yes, the GNU Store is essentially read-only. There's a daemon running. Yeah, I'll try and explain that. That's a, so somebody mentioned they don't want you to touch GNU Store. So there's essentially a daemon running. So one thing about all of your binaries being in this one directory with GNU Store, big long hash, package name. Processes that are running tend to have very long names and are a bit hard to sort out. But basically, here's an example. This is the Geeks daemon running. Currently, I believe it's essentially a fork of, it's a fork of the Nix daemon. There's work in progress to rewrite it in scheme. But for now, essentially this is running where it's, when you do a package installation, it's basically you call out to the daemon and you say, hey, I'd like this package. And then the daemon will go and it will check all of the essentially inputs for that package. And in this case, it will look for substitute servers on berlin.guix, berlin.guixxd.org and mirrorhydra.gnu.org. And it will check for, do I have any binaries?  And then anything it doesn't find in the entire chain of whatever it is you're trying to install, it will then download the sources, start building it. And where was I going with this? Ah, yes. So the daemon then can, has some special privilege to remount the GNU Store as needed, as writable, and then inject any of the objects that either downloaded or built into the store. So, so one of the workflows that I really liked about GNU Geeks was in Debian, I'm packaging bootloaders and with the ARM64 systems, they pretty much all require ARM Trusted Firmware, but almost every ARM Trusted Firmware is some vendor fork somewhere, and to get it into Debian right now, we only have a single vendor fork of ARM Trusted Firmware for all winner systems, and it doesn't even cover all all winner systems. So in GNU Geeks, it's fairly simple to say, to add just one more package definition that shares a bit of the same system as the other ones, because you can inherit the existing packaging, and then add, well, actually I wanna use this for upstream for this particular variant. And that was a lot easier to actually get a Uboot package that has kind of everything ready to build out of the box. So, yes, question. Yes, question from IRC. Is GNU Geeks suitable for self-contained cross-compiling? Yes, well, I don't know about self-contained per se, but it does have a pretty good support for cross-compiling. I've been cross-compiling Uboot, a kernel, ARM Trusted Firmware, those sorts of things, and I think it even uses a bit of functional magic in order to actually derive the cross-compiler rather than having to build an entirely new package out of it. So I was pretty excited to see the cross-compiling support, which in Debian is only kind of a recent addition. So there's a bug report to do a request for packaging on Debian, and I don't know if anybody else is, if this is sparked their interest in that, could sure use a lot of help to actually get anywhere. It will probably also require a Debian policy exception because of the file system hierarchy standard, not really being a thing for Geeks, but because you can install it on a foreign distribution, I think it can be really useful for end users to be able to update to newer versions of software where it's not really appropriate for Debian. You can run Debian as the base system, and then all the user packages that you actually find that you actually interact with or maybe a select set. I think you might have a bit quicker uptake than say with the back ports. It's got its quirks because you'll have to set your path appropriately to actually be able to use these things, but yeah, that's about it. All right, well, thanks for hearing me ramble on a bit, and thanks to both the Debian and GNU Geeks projects. You've shown me a lot of great things, and I hope to contribute back more.


Great to be here with you. Really, you know, this story today begins back in 2000 when I was challenged to think differently about the wealth that a client I was working with came to me and the challenge was, how can we use this wealth to do something good in the world? At the time, you can imagine it kind of as an allocator of globally diversified portfolios, I was kind of inspired but also challenged and concerned about how to make those two things work because as we know, especially at that time, the ideology of the modern investment world was singularly focused on the idea that it's all about investment performance. That's it, that's all that really mattered. The outcomes, the impact, the accomplishments that my clients were really trying to seek from this capital had to come back this ever complicated and technical investment ecosystem that was really designed to maximize fees and slash a path to maximum returns. So, that's the world I inhabited, that's where I worked. That's where my, and so it became really clear that this and my client appreciated the extensive undertaking to transform this work into investments that could actually deliver both returns and impact. Given this rare opportunity to transform my practice, as well as recognizing that this was something that resonated with my philosophy, my ethos, and candidly seeing this as a business opportunity, I did what most people do with these types of challenges. I just dove in head first. And so, as a result of that work, arrived Sonin Capital. The name Sonin Capital is simply a modified acronym to define the idea of social and environmental capital. And Sonin really stands proudly today as a firm for those who feel the same passion, the urgency, the conviction that there must be a better way to invest as a place to be. You know, our clients often come to us with kind of rekindled dreams. Dreams that haven't really been forgotten, but for far too long have been sidelined by the financial industry's insistence that the only thing that matters is investment performance. That simple conjunction of and is what separates the traditional capitalists from those of us who want to do good in this world. That is the power of what Sonin Capital seeks to deliver competitive financial performance and positive social and environmental impact. But investing with social environmental considerations, it adds another dimension, a shared reality that we have to acknowledge that there's just interconnectedness between companies that we invest in and the world we actually inhabit. The truth is, in simple terms, all investments have an impact. And over these past decades, what's happened is investors have been given dozens of ways to research, evaluate, analyze an investment to the point where they've lost sight of the world that these investments occupy. We all know that the price of an investment is up to the market. And yet the true price of that investment is borne by all of us. If you think I'm exaggerating, consider one of the most water-intensive crops that is grown on thousands of acres of farmland, generates $350 a ton and is grown in one of the driest places on earth. I'm speaking about alfalfa, grown in drought-stricken Arizona to feed cows on the other side of the world. All investments have an impact. This notion that we must yield on our values in order to achieve competitive returns and have impact is tired and outdated. Rest assured, however, the absolute traditionalist has no compunction about using their resources to undermine the industry. All around us, we see in the deconstruction of ESG and the rise of green hushing, where companies are downplaying the social or environmental impacts that they may be doing an incredibly great work at generating all for fear of irrational responses. Sadly, this now is also a trend within those that are putting efforts forth towards addressing racial equity. Our work in this field matters even more so today, whether it's environmental catastrophes, racial gender inequity, sustainable efforts, all of these policies, policies that make sense, policies that don't make sense. The powers that be have not stemmed the Malay that they are creating and our leaders certainly have not demonstrated their ability to rise up to these challenges. Fiduciary responsibility is most often what is quoted as the rationale for the singular focus on financial return. But sadly, the world has lost sight of the origins of the word fiduciary, which stem from to trust. So what's the point of trusting the board of a retirement plan who only worries about having the funds to pay retirement benefit without any regard for the world they're leaving for their retirees? Imagine, here's your check to enjoy retirement. Sorry for your health problem, a lack of access to healthy foods. Oops, you have to move, all while potentially lowering your life expectancy. The best intentions often obscure negative outcomes. Those foundations that create more problems with how the majority of their assets are invested than what they're doing for good with those earnings. Or in the context of a family that focuses on preserving wealth for future generations without recognizing that those investment decisions are robbing those future generations of long fulfilling lives. As I look across this audience, it's all dark in here, but nonetheless, I can still see some familiar faces. I see many of these familiar faces who have been on the front lines of innovating solutions to the social environmental challenges that we face. I also see some new faces out here, which I imagine are awakening to these new vital opportunities our industry offers to the veterans of the ecosystem. I thank you for all your tireless effort, for your courage to pursue innovative business models that embrace the notion that embrace the notion that commercial business can be a force for good. Please continue to be willing to share your successes, but also your failures so that we can attract others into this field while saving them, making those same mistakes that we have made. To those just joining us or early in their journey, I welcome you. To be clear, we still have a long road to go. The good news is that there are many of us here today and at this event that have the battle scars from which you can learn and accelerate your own journey and path. And lastly to all, please don't take this time together that we've had here at Socap as a place to generate more topics for longitudinal studies or theoretical exercises, but use this as a framework for action. So join me in reclaiming the narrative of our time and reclaim assets as a force for good in this world. Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your day.


Welcome back to the Chanel everybody. Good morning. Got the good vibes right now. It's not 100 degrees outside in Texas. We've got our first little cold front. It's only 78 degrees. Yes, and it is time to do a little dangling y'all. Today's video is brought to you by an app called Fish Brain. I'll tell you a little bit about that in just a second, but let me just give you what's going on today. This is a lake that I've been to a few times. Last time I was here I discovered that there is crappie in here and I haven't really done a whole lot of crappie fish in this summer. Normally I do more of it, so I brought some crappie gear. I got some jigs, some crankbaits, things like that with my good buddy Rob with Lunkers TV. We're also joined by Guggen Squad Production crew member Backwater Bryant. This is his official name. I've decided Rob is trying to tackle these bass. I'm going to be trying to tackle some of these crappie. Let me tell you about Fish Brain and why you need to get signed up. If you haven't downloaded the app, you need to go download it. The reason why Fish Brain is so awesome is it allows you to never be alone. While you're fishing or even thinking about fishing, there's an entire community. I'm telling you right now you will be absolutely shocked. If you live in a fairly densely populated area, how many people are on this app and how many people are posting pictures, posting information about where they're catching fish, how they're catching them, and if you download the premium features, which if you visit the link in the description, just go click it down there. You're going to save 20% off on these premium features like the exact lures that people are throwing, best times to fish. You can even check out me and see everything that I'm doing. What it also allows you to do if you're concerned about your exact fishing location, you don't have to post that. You can put the general area in there. You don't even have to put anything about the location. It's all up to you. You can have competitive competitions with your friends, buddies. Me and Lunkers can see like, oh, I'm catching them, but I'm not going to tell you where they are. Or, hey, I'm feeling pretty nice today. I'm going to tell you exactly where I'm catching them and exactly how I'm catching them.  Now it's time to launch some kayaks. A little bit of physical activity today. As we're getting into the fishing game, I have a cooler so I can keep some fish.  I am. You ready to go, buddy? Give it at an angle. Bryant, did I not just catch one? You caught it on photo. We're taking photos. I just want everybody to know. Have you caught one? No. You just talking to a camera like me? I understand. Yeah, this is critical. I need to get in the water quick, but I have caught one. I caught a bass and I think I'm going to leave that little topwater tide on. I just threw threw right at the boat ramp here. I still need to load the gax.  I'm taking my dad fishing for his birthday. So we're going to do some bass fishing tomorrow morning. So if you guys want to tune in for some bass fishing action, stay tuned. One of the problems with small lakes, ponds, whatever, if you stalk crappie in there, it can be bad for the bass spawn because in the spring they're both kind of in the same areas and the crappie spawn before the bass and they'll eat a lot of the bass fry. It's good to take those out of there. If you're trying to grow a big bass, another way to grow a big bass is to take out the little bass, especially in the hard times and the low food times, high metabolisms during the hot summer months.  Part of managing that is taking fish out. I know it's weird, but I do actually have a cooler here so I can take fish out if I need to. The landowner already requested that we do so. So I'm here to help, you know, here to dangle and put them in the grease if necessary. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we are in. Just to start off throwing a little poppin bait just because I just caught a bass on it and I like to catch none of them. So I'm throwing this on 12 pound mono, Guggen Squad mono. Always want to make sure you're throwing your top waters on mono and you can also crank with it if you're doing shallow cranking and that's exactly what I plan on doing with this rod. So this is like my small square bill, small crankbait, topwater rod. It's a 6'10 medium. It's not windy today. Look at this. Beautiful morning. Yes, sir. I only have half a paddle because the other half you brought doesn't connect. I might try to catch me. Catch me a bass up here. Toppy, toppy, topwater. You know, there's only so many minutes in the morning. Can't really get that topwater strike. So, oh, got him. Oh, this is a crappie. No, it's a bluegill. Yes, I did. Oh, that's a magnum. You're coming home with me, sir. Screwed up, dude. Okay, here's the deal with this, y'all. Like my cooler's right at the truck. So I'm just going to let him flop in this cup holder for a minute. It's good to know. There's a big bluegill up here.  This is actually our brand new popping bait. This is still a prototype right here. I've been throwing, but production models will be available soon. Just a big fan of that bone color. As one of the colors, I was like, you got to have for the toppies. Totally just forgot I had a fish flopping in the middle of the boat, and it scared me. Okay, I think I got to go get my cooler. Okay, here's where it gets pretty serious. It's like, what is going to happen with these crappies? Well, we just drop them on down here. I got one already. No, that's a bush. No, I got him. It's coming up. It was like immediate. First one is gone. Oh, they're there. Last one was for sure a crappie bite. First one might have been bluegill. Got it. Oh, shoot. It's running with it. They want to play. Just going to have to get right on top of them. Oh, it's a magnum. Oh, it's a magnum. Oh, gosh.  Oh, it's a big crappie. Come here, baby. Oh. Oh, yeah. That's a freaking hammer. Absolute hammer. Come here, slabby roo. Oh, yeah. Wabam. Whoo-hoo-hoo. How about that little slab, huh? In case you guys are wondering, Brian is our main photographer at Guggen Squad. So when you see those dope picks, that's who's getting them. That guy's a thousand percent going in the cooler. No need to measure, but just in case you all are wondering, it's one of the few times I've ever said don't be a bass because I thought it was going to be a magnum crappie. If you find yourself in a situation, you know, most lakes crappie have to be 10 inches. This box right here, this bass mafia box, this mid-size box is exactly 10 inches from right there to latch to latch. So that's, uh, that's like a 14. Hee-hee. Mando. Dude, that thing jammered me up. Like just straight up jammed me. Man, y'all. First crappie of the day. Absolute magnum. There's some definite baitfish activity around this little brush section right here. So thinking that the crappie might get, they're getting active down there. Just gotta figure out the right depth. Oh, there he is. Begging, begging, begging. Oh my gosh. This could be a bass. Oh baby. This is a crappie. It's a magnum. Oh, get out of that brush. Get out of that brush. Six pound test swinging me around. Oh, it's a bass. Oh, it's a bass. He's got me. Oh my god, I'm tangled. Come here. Oh God, look at this little rod, y'all. Oh, don't go that way. Come out. Come out. Come out. Come out. There you are. There you are. That's a decent bass, y'all. This is an incredible fight on this little yamper river in a crappie jig. Woo hoo hoo. There we go now. Oh man, you want to have a fun fight. Little crappie jig. Six pound line. Little ultra light rod like this yamper. It's good times. Now that one is not quite small enough to take out. That's a nice healthy fish. You know, I would definitely take it out if it was emaciated. It's over 14, you know, it's got potential. So I'm going to let this one go. See you buddy. Just stay away from them and crappies, okay? Just got a bluegill bite. Got him. Ah, dang it. I'm going to put some brush.  Oh, golly. Got thomped. Thomped big time right there. Oh, seriously? Jesus. Okay, try a different color. Another one on. Oh gosh, this could be a big one. Oh baby, what are you? Please be a big crappie.  What are you doing big bass? You're not quite as big as the last one, but golly, you're putting a bend in the rod. Come here. Just switched up colors and first drop got one on. Now this one is pretty small. So I'm going to take him out of the herd. You know, crappie fishing versus bass fishing as far as action goes, not a whole lot. Like once you get the depth in the right spot, from my experience they don't like a whole lot of action.   Just going to try taking it down. Another spin. Okay y'all, I think I'm going to come back to that one, that particular area. There's a lot of bass in there. I know there's some giant crappies, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to tie on one of these mini-recons, which crappie will inhale. I think almost all the fish are just suspended high in these trees, so I can cover a little bit more water. And if I get a bite on this, I'll know there's some activity in the tree and then I can proceed with the dropping on them. Okay, I'm just going to try this brush because it looks too juicy, not too. Oh, I think I just had one. Got it. Oh, yep, those are crappie nibbles. Something being chased right here. Got a fall. He was running with it. Gosh, dang it. Okay, for sure I had a crappie bite right there. They're just so close to the cover right now. You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of this motion right here. Like, I'm spoiled with the pedals, man. Man, these crappies don't look like a lot of boat noise, man.  It feels like you're fighting a tuna. Oh, top of the tree, backwater Bryant. You got this? Well, oh, I just threw, I threw me a little mini recon out there in search for these crappies, but a pesky old largemouth got on the line. Oh, don't you do it. Oh, Rob's hooked up double. There's a couple in these trees, a little translucent color. I haven't thrown too much. We don't have too much clear water in Texas, but the water is clear right now, so. Oh, there he is. Oh, did he come off? Oh, he came back and hit it. Dude, that was awesome. He hit it like a topwater. That was cool. I was going to tell you what color has been just doing the damage. He liked that little float up action. Yeah, I just stopped it and float it up, and he tried and hit it. Oh my gosh. I'm going to let this guy go. He's a little, he's got a big head on him. He's got a future. Got to pause for Bryant's awesome photos and then let this fish go. That was really cool. I mean, Rob doubled up right there, really almost on the same tree, and the bass chased his lure out like two times and then grabbed it on the surface. That makes me just want to throw a crappie jig in there and see what happens. Oh, there he goes, the crappie jig. All right, I got a straight angle. Oh, oh gosh. Oh yeah. That just happened. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just think about an actual big bass. Okay, that's a eater right there. Really want to slab crappie again though. In my opinion, that's the best to eat, but you know, honestly, bass aren't bad. Oh gosh. Oh, come on baby. Hey now, another largey. Oh, another eater.  Oh yeah. That's going to flay up nicely.  Oh, I'm in here. Going in. Oh, Rob just drives a largemouth right into my crappie tree, then rams his kayak into it. Totally unnecessary. Now all the crappie of dispersed. I'm going to have to go to the other trees now. I'm going to try these gangly looking ones first. Oh, blue geek. Absolute hammers in here. Another one for the bass. Oh, okay. Oh, little guy. Absolute pound town on that guy. It's gone. I've got three bass that might weigh as much as my crappie. It is Louisiana catching cook.   Oh, I had a fish on. I didn't know it. Well, y'all, it is a little past 10 and it is time to go in. That's the summertime motto. Past 10 got to go in too hot till the evening time. The crappie were like biting first thing, then they shut down. The bass were kind of biting too, and then they shut down. I wasn't really fishing for bass that much, but ended up catching quite a few. So here's what we got going on in the cooler scene. Massive crappie. I mean, that crappie might be 15 inches. It's definitely over 14. And then we've got three largemouth and two bluegill. In case y'all are wondering about length regulations, this is a private lake. So it's not like this is a public lake, and the bass have to be 14 inches long, and the landowner wants us to take out anything that's under 14. So that's the deal. So the bigger bass can grow. I've never had all three species like this in a cooler before, so I thought it would be interesting if we took them home and put them in the grease and saw which one tastes better in the real time. I've had all three bass, like it's been a long time since I've had them, but they taste pretty good. Not gonna lie, it's kind of surprising. Anyways, I'm gonna have all three, and we're gonna filet them same way, do the ingredients the same way, and we're gonna see which one tastes the best real time. I have my personal preference of crappies, really because of the texture, but the last time we had bluegill, amazing. Gills and grits are amazing. Let's go put these guys in the grease and see which one takes the cake. Fast forward 24 hours later, we are here at LFD's post-dangle station. This is where fish get cleaned and put into the grease. Actually, me and Pops, we went fishing earlier today. We did pretty good. Caught some certified mandos, so that video is going to be next. As you've heard on a lot of my videos, I like to let my fish sit at least overnight, and if they can sit on ice for a while, you know, really firm that meat up, just makes them easier to clean. I think it also just takes some of the gaminess away. It just seems to work for me. So they've been sitting on ice for a while. We're going to take the old knife here and chop them up and put them in some grease. We've worked up an appetite out on the water today, so it should. The palate's gonna be nice and ready for a frosty adult beverage and a golden crispy. Now we are dealing with the sunfish family of fishes. The Centrarchids, and we got them all in this cooler, and I want to do a rating system on how easy they are to catch, how easy they are to clean, and then how good they taste. The Centrarchids, that's crappie, that's bluegill brems, and that's bass, like largemouth bass, spotted bass, things like that. All these fish are within that family. Now, on the part about how easy these fish are to catch, I would say that the bluegills, that's a wasp, he's gonna be a problem. I would rate the bluegill the easiest to catch. You can just catch a ton of these really quick, but, you know, as far as like eating them and skinning them, they fall farther down the scale. The crappies, I would say, are the hardest ones out of these to catch. Got to know real specific depth. Usually they're finicky on a certain color or presentation or size that they want. That's a hammer right there, but they're usually pretty finicky. That can be similar to big, four-to-bass. I would say the largemouth bass is, he comes in the number two slot. You talk about big bass, those can be hard to catch, but smaller bass, they're super aggressive. They'll go way out of their typical strike zone, typical area, and chase down bait a lot. Just way different than those other species that really like to hide and cover, and just kind of nick things right in front of them. Now, let's see how hard these are to clean. Largemouth bass. Let's see what we got going on here. The largemouth bass, I have a clean one of these in forever, and again, these were part of an ecological biologist basically surveyed the lake and said that there's need to take out ones that are under a certain size, so that's why we're doing this. I'm going to use a little bit flinsier filet knife here. So far, been fairly easy. This almost feels wrong. Flaying the largemouth.  Pretty smooth, quite honestly. Flip them over. There's quite a bit of meat on this largemouth, and if you look at it, it looks pretty good. That's a nice solid chunk.  A little bit of bones in here I just noticed. A little bit of bones around that ribcage, so that's something we'll take out. So, difficulty on cleaning. I would say it's harder than a crappie. Once you get to that part on the bass, really easy to clean. There's just some bones right here. You can pull them out, I guess, if you want to. I would say that's pretty easy to clean, you know, and you can basically see through that bass right there, so the meat comes off quite easily. Now, let's go to the old bluegie. Bluegie, small. Not going to get a terrible amount of meat off these guys. Now, this one is good size. And me and Steph, who's behind the camera right now, we have cooked these, put them with some grits, call them gills and grits, and it is tasty. They're meat real similar to a crappie, I would say. Cleaning them is a pain. I'll just tell you right now. Now, some people, the way they cook them, they will actually just do the whole deal. I don't like that. I don't like bones in my fish. I don't like picking them out. So, what I like to do is just take a real sharp knife and be careful, and just kind of go in here and surgically take off the best parts of the meat. Definitely harder, like the bones feel harder. There's just a lot more to get around. It's a wide-bodied fish. You should feel it. Look at the difference. Huge difference there. Okay, this is the bluegie. We got one more side to do on him, and we got old Mondo crappie. Crappie, done. The fillets just come off of there easy, and that's a giant. So, we got a couple more bass to clean. I think one more bluegill. We're going to get the grease hot, and then we're going to give them the taste test, but as far as ease to clean, I would say, honestly, the bass. The bass came in number one, bluegill, hardest, and crappie right there in the middle. But I got a feeling crappie is going to be number one at the dinner table, and it's worth the effort, both fishing and cleaning. Grease is hot. Flour is ready. We're going straight flour with a little salt and pepper in it, keeping it simple, so the palette is ready to go, and these are the fillets, everybody. LFD is here to assist with putting them in the grease, making the golden crispies. It's a family tradition. Go ahead and just hit the like button for it. That's what we love to do around here. We're going to leave the fillets whole.  So, everyone is going to get a crappie, a bass, and a bluegill. I don't know how to keep them separate. This is a, what's a crappie? It's a big crappie. Yes, sir, it is. Oh my gosh. The crappies are the widest. They have the widest bodies. This is another crappie right here. That is actually a bass. So, this is the second crappie. And then when the crappies come out, just put them on one side. Okay. I think you would be surprised how many grubs and different parasites and things live in fish meats, but bass tend to get a lot of them. Crappies are normally pretty clean, and their meat's so clear. You can pretty much see if there's anything in there, but it's going in such hot grease. It's not going to matter. It's going to nuke those things anyways. It'll be a little extra bonuses in the meats. By the way, y'all, I understand. Eating raw liver, that was probably not the best move when I was in Africa. Number one, it's Africa. Number two, it was out in the hot sun. Number three, it's in the wild animal. When I was up the fishing at the Great Lakes of Jeremy Starr, so we were talking about hunting, he's a big bell hunter, and I was telling him my whole hunting story, and he's like, what? You ate the raw liver, man? And he's a biologist, and he was like, dude, that's where all the bad stuff is processed, and you probably have worms. And it so happened, I ate some really bad, like, hot buffalo wings, and my intestines were just churning. It was due to the hot wings, not worms in my system. At least I think so. I haven't had an x-ray or cat's head, but I'm pretty sure it was just a bad case of the bubble guts from buffalo wings. He's not a fan of the tongs. Everyone that watches this channel, you should know by now when to take your fish out of the grease, but I'm just going to tell you, I'm going to let LFD tell you one more time. When are your fish ready to take out, Dad? When they start to float. When they get a little crispy, a little brown, and start to float. Yeah, of course, make sure they're golden crispy in color. Something I'm not sure has been done before is a fried T-bone. LFDs bring that out. There's a little extra sustenance to what we have, because, you know, I actually have more fish than what I thought I did. Right. Like, there's some decent filets there, and crappies, they're ready. First batches of bass are ready, and then the little tiny gills and a few more bass are in there. Are you ready for the fishing? Nobody get excited. All in one. Okay, jeez. Do I have to pay you guys to get excited on camera or what? Forget about them. Okay, it's all about my taste buds. We have the fish ready to go, categorized by size, and it's beefy. So obviously the gills are out front right here. A little crispies. Then we got our basses, and then we have the crappies. OSG, would you help me out here? Sure. You know, I don't want this to be a totally biased thing here. I was going to say I'm already kind of biased because I'm kind of scared of that bass. What if we did a blind taster? What if I gave you, I just gave you something. You didn't know. Okay. So if you just turn around. I just turn around. You just turn around.  You just got to take it. First one here. There you go. Try it. There it is. The breading is pretty good. The what? The breading. Okay. That's not what we're going for. We're not judging the breading. We're judging the fish. It has a little fishiness. It has a little fishiness. Okay. What do you think about texture? This is, again, no. It's not as flaky as I thought it was going to be. Not as flaky as you thought. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, let's try another. Let's try another. Is your palate ready? It's not bad. It's not bad. Okay. I give it a seven, six, six, seven. Okay. All right. What do you got on that one? I really like it. You don't really like it? What's going on with it? Tell me about texture flavors. The texture, it's like, it's thicker. It's thicker. Like mushier. It's mushier. Okay. Maybe mushier. Mushier. Mushiers bad, you're saying. Okay. I want it to be more flaky. You want it to be more solid flakes. Okay. All right. Turn it back around. Five. Okay. Okay. Turn around. Let's see what you got on that guy. I like that one better. You like that one the best. Why? Maybe it has a good flake. It's not thick. It's not mushy. It's just kind of like buttery. Buttery smooth. Yeah. Okay. All right. Eight and a half, nine. Eight and a half, nine. Well. What was that? Was that the best? That was the gill. Oh, okay. That was the gill. I thought that was the gill. Okay. The first one you ate was the crappie. Was it? It was. Oh, but the second one I didn't really like and that was the best. That was the best. Okay. So blind taste test, bass lost. Okay. I'm going to give it a taste test myself. All right. Are you ready? I'm ready. Before we start, what do you think you're going to like the most? Crappie. 100%. 100%? Even over gills? Well, yeah. Yeah. That's what I think. You'd probably put it in my hand. I guess I didn't have mouth. Here's your first one. Just smell the bite. Wow. Really small. Just so you don't know. Which one I did. I like it. You like it? What would you rate it? I give it an eight. I like it a lot. Okay. I'm also hungry. This guy. It's a little bigger piece, but not necessarily a bigger fish. Love it. A little, a little more firmer, is that right? A little more firmer. Yeah, yeah. Okay. You're not being very descriptive in your... It's because I already know what's going on here. Okay. What's the best? You thought that was the best? Yep, that's the gill. It is. Wow. We're both the same. Crappie was second. Bass was first. All right. Bass was first. Okay. I already knew it from her description and just, you know, flavors of the past. Emmy, try to do something here. I already knew. When soon as she handed me the first one, I was like, that's large amounts, but I like it. I like the large mouth. It's good. But it had more of like a mushier taste. It was kind of like grainier, a little mushier. I like that though. I like a little softness. I know, Emmy. Come here. There you go. So um, I would say the gills are the best though. They're the hardest to clean. They come out. Number one, I would say gills, crappie, and then bass. Considering everything on the scales, I would crappie. I would go crappie because you get a lot of meat. That's right. Let me go with crappie. Because you get a lot of meat. It's easy to clean and it's delicious altogether. Okay, y'all. I love eating fish. I love the golden crispies, but if I had to fish and eat one fish for the rest of my life, I think it would be crappie because number one, they are delicious. Number two, it's a challenge. I like it. It's, it's like bass. You got to figure out a pattern to it. And then they're just, they're just easy. You can load the boat with them and they're just, they're the best, I think overall. But let me know in the comments down below what you think is the best fish to go out there and put in your mouth. And that is where I'm going to leave you today, Fish and Freaks. Don't forget to check out in the links down below the family channel, the Lake life family channel. It's linked down below. And if you want to check out all the merch that we got going on and sign up for the t-shirt or the month club, that is linked down below as well, including this guy right here and many, many others. I will see you right back here very shortly, Fish and Freaks. Catch you on the next day.


So I guess I'm here representing the ICTP and first of all I wanted to thank, well welcome everyone to this workshop. Anna actually asked me to give you a little bit of an overview of what the ICTP is and what our section is, especially for people who have never been actually here. So the ICTP was founded in 1964 by a very famous physicist called Ablu Salam and the main mission of ICTP is actually to foster research and education and science in developing countries. So essentially we mostly work with developing countries. Originally the center was born as a theoretical physics center from which the name, but over the years, especially after Ablu Salam passed away, the directors that actually followed him started building, you know, expand the ICTP in new areas and one of the areas was earth system science. Essentially our section, I was called the earth system physics section, was born in 1998, which is pretty much, well not pretty much, it's the year when I actually came here. I just wanted to give you a very quick overview of what we do, in case you might be interested in some of the activities we have here. The section now has seven scientific staff, you see there the list of them, I guess you know Ricardo, Farnetti, Fred Kucharski, but there are Adrian Tomkins, Erica Coppola, Fabian Salmon and Karim Aoudia. We also just very recently hired a software engineer, so we have let's say eight permanent staff in our section and we have about 20 to 25, what we call long term visitors, so people who come here for extended periods from several months to a year or a few years, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students, two staff associates. And is in sick here, Shukla, the noifice here actually, senior consultant and we organize every year what we call the educational or scientific activities, such as this one. We organize every year about 10 or 12 of events very similar to the, well not similar but along the lines of this one, so workshops or conferences and you should probably know that any of you can actually apply to organize one of such conferences. There is usually a deadline on 15th of February for the following year. You can send a two, three page proposal and these are evaluated for funding. So if you're interested in cosponsoring or organizing one of these activities at this point for 2017, you can go to our website to get some information or talk to me or Fred or anybody, this is actually possible. We also have a diploma program, it's a one year program for students from the least developed countries, we have about 10 students, 10 to 12. We also have a PhD in environmental fluid dynamics, I think it's the official name, maybe I guess, it keeps changing actually but at some point it was called environmental fluid dynamics more or less, it's something like that. With the University of Trieste, which again if anybody is interested and very recently we started a masters, well we are contributing to a masters in global change ecology also with the university. So we are expanding also our educational activities. Very quickly these are the areas of research that we work on, mostly we work on various aspects of our system modeling that I will mention in a couple of minutes, anthropogenic climate change of course, especially something that I've been working for a long time, natural climate dynamics and variability and seasonal to intranet predictability, oceanography, Ricardus leading a small group on oceanography and ocean climate interactions, chemistry climate interactions, Fabiansobmon is actually leading that, biosphere atmosphere interactions, also an area where we've been interested and now we're developing a lot of impact, moving a little bit more also towards the impact modeling, especially with Adrian Tomkins. And of course we have a lot of activities also in solid earth science, so study of earthquakes, volcanoes and the structure of the lithosphere. So it's a fairly broad range of activities that we deal with but our bread and butter is modeling in particular. We try to develop modeling sort of support the needs of developing countries, in particular here at CTP, we have a regional modeling system that we develop as a community model, there's something that I've been working on for the last 25 years, at least as long as I can remember. We also have a, we can run this model in a tropical band mode, so it's sort of a semi-global model if you want. We have this intermediate complexity model called Speedy that I think many of you know about, this was developed originally by Franco Molteni, who's here somewhere, there he is. He was actually one of our staff members who left with a great sort of everybody a number of years ago, but we still work with him. So this model called Speedy, I think there are a few talks on that. And as I said, we have a number of impact models. We have a malaria model, we have a hydrology model and so on. And with all these models what we try to do, we try to make them community models so they can be used by scientists, especially scientists in developing countries. And for these reasons, we try to develop some networks through developing countries. This is an example of the types of networks we have in Africa, different types of networks, a small logical network, climate network, impacts network, and so on. So we have actually a very large range of connection throughout the developing world. So this is pretty much a very quick run of what we do. If you are interested in having more detail, you can talk to me or to Fred or anybody else. And again, I welcome you and hope you enjoy your stay here. Not only the food, there are many good things about Italy. Thanks very much.


RCA Victor, world leader in radio, first in recorded music, and first in television, presents the Phil Harris Alice Faye show. For your enjoyment, here is the Phil Harris Alice Faye show, written by Ray Singer and Dick Chevrolet, with Elliot Lewis, Walter Tetley, Robert North, Jeanine Ruse, and Whitfield, Walter Sharf and his music, yours truly Bill Foreman, and starring Alice Faye and Phil Harris. This is Phil, now here's a word from RCA Victor. Soon another baseball season will be underway, and it promises to be the biggest and the best yet. It's the 75th anniversary of the National League and the 50th anniversary of the American Circuit. And these milestones attest to the enduring enjoyment we derive from our national pastime. It's the American way, baseball today, so get out to the park as often as you can. And when you can't be at the game in person, do the next best thing, root for your favorite team on RCA Victor Million Proof Television. Its quality is proven in over two million homes. That one word quality explains why RCA Victor is America's most owned television. Drop in and see your RCA Victor dealer soon. He'll be glad to show you the wide range of RCA Victor models. And once you see those big, clear pictures, you'll agree, RCA Victor Million Proof Television is the finest television today. Mr. Scott of RCA Victor has just found out that, against his wishes, Phil has been sneaking in a commercial on his program. And he's called an emergency meeting of the board of directors. Gentlemen, I have called this meeting to find out one thing. What is it, Mrs. Scott? Who gave that curly-headed, no-talent trap drummer permission to mention RCA Victor? I go away for a two-week vacation and Harris has the gall to do a commercial. Who told him he could do it? The new president of my company, sir. What new president? Mr. Remley. He told us that RCA stands for the Remley Corporation of America. I've got to do something about that man. I've just got to do something. I know. I'll have him investigated by the Caporva Committee. But, Mr. Scott, they only investigate crimes. Did you ever hear Remley play the guitar? I see what you mean. Mr. Scott, I don't know what you're getting excited about. I don't think Harris doing a commercial is going to hurt us. I rather like Harris. In my opinion, he's a good comedian, a splendid singer. Your opinion? You only know what your psychiatrist tells you. This is a deplorable situation, and I'm going over to Harris' house and make sure he doesn't put in another commercial. Say, Phil, I don't think you ought to do another commercial on the show this week until you get an OK from Mr. Scott. I'm going to do it anyway. It was my idea, and I'm not afraid of Scott. Well, that's up to you. We may all get fired, but I don't care. I don't need the job. Nobody's going to get fired. Scott, I love this commercial. How do you know, Frankie? I wrote it. We're dead. Oh, right. Now, wait a minute, Alice. I told Remley to write the commercial this week. I think this boy has a certain something within him, and I feel that it should be brought out in the open. Once we get it out, we can beat it to death. You'll change your tune when you hear the convincing commercial I wrote. Oh, I can't wait to hear this brainchild of yours, Frankie. Did you make it up out of your own little head? Practically. I took a commercial from one of our old scripts and improved it. I reworded it a little, made it fit. Well, let's hear it. We open up with a new theme song I wrote for the sponsor. It goes like this.  Remley, it don't make sense. That's the theme we used when we were on for Fit Shampoo. So? So how many television sets have dandruff? Never mind, Curly. Read the rest of the commercial. You'll notice it's different. It has a new twist to it that people will remember. Well, that sounds better. Let me have it and I'll read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, that's a nice new twist. Yeah, that's what I thought. Continue. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud of our product. And we want you to remember that RCA Victor Spell Backwards is Rat Kavacker. Which in Arabic means rub, do not blot. And so before you buy another brand of paper towels for your kitchen, see our complete sprang- Wait a minute, Remley. We're not selling paper towels. I know, but the cute way is sneaking up on them. Frankie, I may be stupid, but how do you get from paper towels to a television set? Well, it's easy. You walk from the kitchen to the living room. Right. Look, Frank, this is confusing. I just wanted you to write something that would keep him guessing. That comes in the next sentence. Read on. Okay. And so in conclusion, before you decide on a television set, let me ask you one question. What has six legs and flies? If that don't keep him guessing, nothing will. I think I got something. Maybe someday they'll find a cure for it. Oh, Alice, you don't know about advertising. Scotty will love this. When he reads it, I know just what he'll say.  Well, it ain't the top sirloin himself. Hello, Mr. Scott. I hope you had a nice vacation. It's good to see you. You're looking very handsome. I know, but I'm not here to be butted up right now. Remley, what do you mean telling Harris that he can do a commercial? I've taken all I'm going to take from you.  And there's only one thing that you're fit for. Well, I know Scotty, but I don't want to take your job. My job? You're not going to have any job. You're fired. Now, wait a minute, Mr. Scott, you can't do this to Remley. I'm just as much responsible for this as he is. After all, he's my best friend.  Curly, tell him the truth about the commercial. Tell him whose idea it was. Okay, Mr. Scott, I cannot tell a lie. I must admit that Frankie is not responsible. And, well, if you're going to fire anybody, I feel it's only fair that you discharge the person who is really to blame. Harris, you mean? Yes. Alice. I am not. Bill, what are you trying to do to me? You said you don't need the job I do. Harris, tell me whose idea was this? I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incremate me. Now, if you'll excuse me, my laryngitis is bothering me. Going home. I'm not going to answer any more questions. You come back here. Harris, I forbid you ever to do a commercial on our program again. Now, look, Scotty, let me try it once more, and I guarantee I'll double your sales next week. Double our sales? Harris, I'll try it. But remember, if our sales fall off as much as one television set, you're fired. If you sell just one, let's set them fired. Yes. And with that happy thought, I leave you. You told Mr. Scott you're going to double his sales. How do you expect to do that? Well, I can sell 30,000 television sets and Encino alone. Who are you going to sell them to? To the people I know. Now, let's see. I'll make up a list. Clark Gable, one set. Norris Gough, one set. Andy Devine, one set. Alice Fay, 25,000 sets. Gail Gorton... Now, wait a minute. I don't mind helping you out, but there's a limit. When you make a record, I buy the first million. When you make a movie, I buy all the theaters after a month. But I'm not going to buy 25,000 television sets. Put me down for 10,000. The fine thing, my own wife won't help me. All I ask her to do is spend a lousy $7 million and she'll have you. Serves you right for marrying a cheapskate. I'll know better next time. Friendly, we've got to find some way to double the sales of our sponsor's product. But how? Wait a minute. I've got an idea. Hmm? Alice and me will make a personal appearance at the biggest department store in town that sells RCA sets, and that way we'll help the sales. So, Uncle... Wait a minute. We need you too. You're coming along. Let's go. Hey, Curly. Why'd you have to drag me down to this department store? I have no intention of selling television sets. It's not in my contract. Oh, be quiet. That's the least you can do for the company. Yes, it is. Now look, here's the home furnishings. Now behave yourself, Remly, while I talk to this guy with the carnation. Pardon me, sir. Are you the floor walker? What can I do for you? Well, we came... We came down to sort of help you out.  We're a famous husband and wife team. Oh, of course. I recognize your voice. I listen to your program every Tuesday. Tell me, which one of you is Fiverr? We're not Fiverr McGee and Abner. I happen to be Phil Harris. Oh, catch me, someone. I'm going to smooth. Oh, you like me, huh? Oh, yes. You're my favorite Frost Warning announcer. This boy's got to go. Let me breeze on his carnation, Curly. You better not be allowed to put a whole knee suit. Look, mister, we do a radio show for RCA, and, uh, well, I'm here to do you a favor. I am going to autograph every television set you sell. Would you do that for me?  Oh, that's all right. I'm glad to help you out. But I'll bet since I've been on the air, you sell a lot of our company's television sets, don't you? Oh, heavens to Uncle Milton, yeah. We just can't keep him stuck since you've been on the air. Why, we had ten sets on the floor this morning, and all we have left is that one set right of, whoops, there it goes! Don't be a wise guy. All I want to know is how are our television sets selling? How should I know I'm in ladies girdle? Excuse me, I have work to do. Go already, go. Well, maybe we better forget the whole thing and go home. No, I'm not. The salesman walked off the floor and there's nobody here to sell these sets if somebody comes up and wants one. Well, who cares? You think I'm going to hang around selling television sets? You're crazy. I'm getting out of here. Young man, will you please wait on me? Yes, I want to buy a television set, but I can't wait around here all day. Well, don't wait. Go home. Punch him, Permanence. Young man, you're very, very rude. I don't like your manners. You ain't no Emily post yourself, fatso. Why don't you waddle off? Emily! What's the matter with you, anyway? Well, this is our chance to sell one of our sets. You've got to show a little enthusiasm. Now, watch me. Madam, I am at your service. What can I do for you? Do you sell RCA Victor Television sets? Ewww, do we?  Well, I heard that this make is the best on the market, but I don't know much about television, you see. And could you slain the technical points to me? Happens to me more than that. Now, there's one thing I know, ladies, it's television. Now, look at this set right here. Notice the beautiful lines on this cabinet. It has a wonderful 17-inch screen. Bill. And just feel the smooth white enamel finish. Bill! You're showing a rebendix washing machine. Oh, I'm sorry.  This is our beautiful 17-inch model. Isn't it gorgeous? Gorgeous? Oh, you know, it's lovely. But I don't want that color. Well, hon, you can have any color you want. You see, we could give you a cherrywood finish to match your ruby lips. Or perhaps a mahogany finish to match your dark, smoldering eyes. How about a bleached blonde finish to match your hair? Or would you prefer a short, squat-wide model to match your figure? This young man keeps insulting me. What on earth is wrong with him? He needs a new aerial. You see, his head is in a bad location and he doesn't get good reception. Madam, if you want a good television set, I suggest this one here. Oh, well, I certainly like the looks of this set. Now, are you sure this is the best set made? Absolutely. And you don't have to take my word for it, madam. Just, well, try it and test it yourself. Let's try our famous television test. Light up an RCA. Don't inhale.  You'll notice there are no harsh uritins. Ramley, will you... Madam, believe me when I say that our company makes the best television set in the world. Ask any one of our satisfied users. Ah, here's a young lady now. Who, me? Yes, Miss Sprinklefinger. Uh, would you mind telling this lady what you think of our product? For three years I had stomach pain and then I started drinking your product. My stomach improved but I lost all my teeth because of... All right, Alice. All right. What are you trying to do? Win an award? Why don't you fellas leave this poor lady alone? Madam, madam, if you want to buy a television set, I suggest that you take this model. I have one just like it at home and I find it's perfect. Well, now, if you like it, Miss, I'm sure I will. I'll take it. Shall I wrap it up or will you eat it here? One other thing. I must have the set installed today. Oh, of course. It will be installed within an hour. Well, thank you now. Just charge it. Here's my card. But remember, if it isn't installed today, I do not want it. Well, don't you worry, lady. You'll be seeing television tonight. Phil, why did you promise her that? They're too busy to install the set the same day it's bought. We don't need them to install it. Well, who's going to do it? Frankie and me. Remly, you and Alice grab a hold of the set and carry it out to the car. And what are you going to do? I'm going to sing and make your task more pleasant. Possibilities, possibilities. We're living in a world that's full of possibilities. Ain't no miracle too impossible for anyone who sees the possibilities. If you recall your history, then you will find that all its famous men turned out to be the kind of men who never stopped to look behind. They looked ahead to see what they could see and they saw possibilities, possibilities. They never overlooked the single possibility, proven naturally. Opportunity is for the one who sees the possibilities. Each time you try to solve a new phenomenon, the skeptics say it's just a dream I know.  Yes, there are possibilities, possibilities. If you will only make the most of your facilities, folks will idolize. Even eulogize the little guy that sees the possibilities. When Christopher Columbus proved the world was round, he called Queen Isabelle on his return. She said, now tell me, Chris, about this place you found. He said, well, Belle, as far as I'm concerned, it's your god. Possibilities, possibilities. I tell you, Queen, I've never seen such possibilities. And I really feel we should make a deal before somebody sees its possibilities. When little Abe was growing up in Illinois, to be a big success was his intent. He studied so much harder than the other boys, till one day he became their president. He saw the possibilities, possibilities. He never overlooked the single possibility, proven naturally. Opportunities for the one who sees the possibilities. I guess by now there ain't no doubt about the point I'm bringing out. So if you'll open up your eyes, you are bound to recognize the possibilities. Possibilities, we're living in a world that's full of possibilities. Ain't no miracle too impossible for anyone who sees the possibilities. Possibilities. I'm ready to go. Oh, thank you. Well, we aim to please. And tonight you can invite all of your friends and your relatives over and enjoy television. So long. Just a moment. How about my antenna? Oh, you can have her over too. And tell her to bring Uncle Earl along. I mean the aerial. You didn't put one up on the roof. I'm not taking the set until you do. Oh, the aerial. We left it out in the car. We'll go out and get it. We ain't got no aerial in the car. I know, I know. We gotta go back to the store and get one. Too late, the store's closed. But we need an aerial to make the sale. Where are we gonna get an aerial? Don't ask me where we're gonna get an aerial. I don't know. Curly. What's that on the roof of the house next door? Yeah. No, Remly, we can't take it. Why not? Those people aren't gonna be watching television tonight. How do you know? Because we're gonna steal their aerial. How can I disagree with such a logical argument? But look, we're not gonna steal it. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll borrow it and then replace it tomorrow. Sure. All we gotta do is find a ladder and sneak up on the roof. Look, come on. Well, we got the antenna off, right? Yeah. Now look, let's carry it down the ladder. Okay. Give me a hand with it. If we drop it, we'll break it. Yeah. Now take it easy. Take it very easy because this ladder's rickety. Yeah, that's it. Nice and easy and quiet. So nobody'll hear us. We don't want any noise. You don't open that ladder, you see? Hey! Hey!  What's the idea of scaring us? What are you... We're not trying to steal anything. Then what was you doing up on that roof? Well, we were... Mr. Remley got a little high, so I had to go up and get him. What's that story, Mr. Harris? The cops won't know about it. How much you want to bet? Wait a minute. We can get into a lot of trouble if you turn us in.  I resent that! The cops find out about this. It won't be because I'm a squealer or an informer. It'll only be because of one thing. What's that? I'm a soul pigeon. Well, if you must know, kid, we went up to borrow this antenna. Oh, no. Hey, Curly, look at it. It's broken into half a dozen pieces. What did you want this antenna for? Oh, well, we borrowed it to make a sale so we could get in good with Mr. Scott. You borrowed the area from this house so you could get in good with Mr. Scott? What's so funny? I don't get it. What are you men doing outside of my house? It's Mr. Scott. How do you get it? Oh. What's going on out here? I was watching television in my house and suddenly the screen went blank. I came out to see if it was my... Where's my antenna? Is something missing? The antenna is gone. Do any of you fellows know anything about it? I don't. I don't. I don't. Julia! It's a boy talk. What? What were you going to say, Julia? How much would it be worth to you, Mr. Scott, if I was to tell you what happened to your antenna? I'll give you $5. Just a minute. Mr. Harris, how much would it be worth to you if I didn't tell him? Here's $10. That's a deal. Sorry, Mr. Scott. Mr. Harris gave me $10 and therefore I am not at liberty to tell you that he stole your antenna. I might have known he did it. Harris, where is my antenna? She just left with Uncle Earl. Hey, Scotty, I'm sorry we broke your antenna. I guess you won't see television tonight. I'll see television tonight. I'll have an antenna. It's 11 o'clock. I know, I know, I know. How long do we have to stand on Mr. Scott's roof with our arms outstretched like that? What are you kicking about? He's got two lead wires connected to my gold inlay. Alison Phil will be back in just a moment. Every year the citizens of Tin Pan Alley turn out about 50,000 new songs. Most of them vanish in a day. A few have melodies and lyrics with everlasting appeal. You'll find 54 of these all-time song hits sung by nine great popular singers in the 27 records just recorded and released which comprise RCA Victor's spectacular new Singers single record series. Every record is a single, so you can choose exactly your top favorite song by your top favorite singer. All the way from Tony Martin singing Pagan Love Song to Fran Warren singing Stormy Weather. While Fran was making Stormy Weather, the engineers took down everything that happened in the studio unbeknownst to her. And the result is a gay and zany platter called recording session, which is yours for 25 cents on request, along with any record you buy from this great new series. One more reason why you should make tracks for your RCA Victor dealers soon and latch onto the song which means the world to you. This is Phil again. The future is for sale. You can buy it by saving. The dollars you put into U.S. saving bonds bring you that future. Use the payroll saving plan where you work or use the bond the month plan where you bank. Either way, you'll be buying part of your future with U.S. saving bonds. Good night and thanks. Good night everybody. This program is produced and directed by Paul Phillips. Included in today's cast were Martha Wentworth, Gail Gordon, Frank Nelson, Bob Jellison, and Leo Cleary. The part of Frankie Remley was played by Elliot Lewis and Julius was played by Walter Tetley. Here, whether you're buying a television set, a radio, a vichrolophonograph, or records, put your faith in the cornerstone of American home entertainment for three generations. RCA Victor were leader in radio, first in recorded music, first in television.