أعوض بالله من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم أبدأ في نام الله the Beneficent and the Merciful أحاول أسالب من الشيطان the accursed My dearest viewers Brothers and sisters from all across the world أسلام عليكم جميعا ورحمة الله وبركاته May the peace, blessings and the protection of Allah سبحانه وتعالى Be with you at all times Welcome to another episode of the Ramadan show with me your host Dr. Shabir Tijani إن شاء الله we hope to be a one-stop shop for this holy month and we hope that we can impart a few pearls of wisdom that you can use on your day-to-day life for this holy month and for the rest of the year إن شاء الله I would like to remind you to send in your videos, your pictures, your blogs from around the world to tell us how you prepare for this holy month and please join us on social media, on Twitter, on Instagram on Facebook and on YouTube إن شاء الله before proceeding on to the show I would like to just repeat a saying from Amir al-Mu'minin where he says a person would have long grief or a person's grief would be long when their hope is short This is saying to us that when you are in times of grief when you have bad things, bad experiences happen to you turn to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and put your hope in Him and when you put your hope in Him just leave all of your matters up to Him that way your grief will be minimized إن شاء الله we hope that through these nights of شهر مضان your bond and our bond in fact with Allah سبحانه وتعالى gets very strong, so strong that we can put all of our burdens on to Him and leave it up to Him to deal with them on this episode and in this segment of spiritual refinement إن شاء الله with the day of the 8th coming up I want to talk a little bit about this special day so that we could truly get ourselves ready for it understand the value of it, understand the station of it we've all fasted for this whole month إن شاء الله and we've achieved spiritual enlightenment at the end of the road we want this Ramadan, this month to be the beginning of a new start for us and إيد is the marker for that new start إن شاء الله إيد الفتر obviously marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan we say farewell to this blessed month it's beautiful days, it's fragrant nights we leave the month of seeking the anus to Allah سبحانه وتعالى the school of إيمان and an opportunity to recharge our spiritual batteries that is not to say we can't continue the things we've learnt through this holy month throughout the rest of the year in these nights that have just passed we prayed we offered charities and we attended lectures so what's going to happen now the question we have to ask ourselves is have we fulfilled the requirements of تقوى and graduated the school with a diploma in God fearing then you have to ask yourself have you done these nights just have you done everything you wanted to do in these nights have you achieved your goals that you set out to achieve throughout these nights as these nights improved you or increased your spirituality the night of إيد الفتر is a majestic night it is beneficial to keep awake in إبادة as this night is equal to the importance of that of the night of power when we think of إيد obviously a lot of people think of this as something that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan however I want you to change your thinking about this and consider it a new beginning a fresh start where we emulate our character Islamic values and we build upon what we've learnt in the last 30 days or 30 nights we want to try and improve ourselves we're on a spiral towards perfection over the last 30 nights Insha'Allah I hope that we've achieved something we have gone on this journey we've started a thousand mile journey with a single step but we have to continue walking in order to make that destination we're like a child it is said that on the day of إيد we're like a child who's just come out of the womb pure and innocent إيد is the day of victory as we have succeeded in subduing our desires and purified our souls let's not wash away our good deeds let's not revert back to our old ways the masjid in this holy month was overflowing the masjid was filled and let's continue that let's continue to keep our masjids full of people, full of worshippers let the Quran be the most essential part of our lives let's not let it gather dust on the shelves as it's been doing for the past few months our condition now should be better than it was at the beginning of the month and insha'Allah we hope that by the time for next Ramadan if you're able to make that journey if life permits that you're better than even you are now and you've improved yourself you've built upon these 30 nights and you've improved yourself as a human being a lot of us consider إيد just to be another day another ritualistic day a traditional day where we get together and eat and we get dressed in good clothes and we give presence to each other but there is such a day of إيد you see it represents important values and participating in them we seek the pleasure of Almighty Allah and try to attain nearness to Him there is a narration where Imam حسن عليه السلام saw a man on the day of إيد who had occupied his time with laughter and useless entertainment the holy Imam turned to his companion and said Allah placed the holy month of Ramadan for people so that they can compete with each other in worship and obedience in this competition some excel achieve unlimited blessings of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and therefore win the competition whereas others fall back lose and obtain nothing but losses it is striking that in such a day in which the righteous and the hard workers will receive great rewards and the culpable and ones who did not try their best will see a loss from this you can understand from what the holy and the great Imam is saying that on this day even though it's important to celebrate get together with your family you have the right to enjoy good food you have the right to have fun but like we've said in the previous nights you should always put Allah as your first priority seek nearness to Him and remember what the day of إيد is for in its entirety it is not a day where you can forget what you've been doing over the past 30 days and 30 nights it is not a day where you can just entertain yourself with things of this worldly sinful world it is not a day where you can forget everything that Allah سبحانه وتعالى and the Ahl al-Bayt have taught us إيد الفتر serves many purposes and insha'Allah before moving on to the next segment the first reason why we have the day of إيد is to thank Allah سبحانه وتعالى to thank Him for the endurance and for the strength He's given us during these days of Ramadan if you think about some parts of the world where it's very very hot or some parts of the world where the days are so long and you think to yourself how do I manage all of that how do I manage to fast for that period of time or in that climate Allah سبحانه وتعالى gives you the spiritual strength to continue through these days if you think about how you are feeling the panes of hunger you are feeling on the first day of the month of Ramadan and the panes of hunger you feel of the past two or three days you will realize that at the moment you feel much more calmer you don't feel as hungry as you used to إيد الفتر is also a day where brotherhood is built it is a day when people come together in congregation and pray together stand shoulder to shoulder with each other they demonstrate equality and insha'Allah this will form the moral fabric for the rest of time to come and for our society we also think about another significance of the Day of Eid where it is obligatory on everyone to give charity to the poor we shouldn't just take this as a single day where we give charity giving to the needy is an incumbent obligation on every true believer whether it is a guide or a template for yourself that you should continue to do month after month day after day for the rest of the year continue to give to the poor whether it is once every day once a week once a month so that you can continue this ongoing good act that you have developed during this day having done this for one whole month today is an auspicious day we should be ready to face the year that lies ahead with strength we should consider ourselves better human beings and consider ourselves close to Allah the problem is when you leave or when this month has gone away and you go back into your old ways the sins start taking over the good deeds again and everything that you have built up in this month soon fades away so you must be steadfast you must endeavor to continue the good work that you have been doing you see this month of Ramadan when it comes to sports you train for a big event and you should consider this month of Ramadan as a training period a training period for the rest of the year where you have to continue the good work now you enjoy in your daily activities your normal life but you must always constantly think about the lessons you've learnt in this month of Ramadan you see we've tried to develop good traits good qualities don't let that all go to waste otherwise you've got nothing out of this holy month Insha'Allah I hope that these last few nights have been inspiring for you I hope that you're a better person now than you were at the beginning of the month of Ramadan and Insha'Allah I pray that when the next Ramadan comes if God permits then you'll be an even better person than you are today Insha'Allah we'll continue tomorrow and there'll be a short recap about all the other spiritual refinement that we've been talking about The Holy Prophet Muhammad may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his progeny was asked O Prophet of Allah which of the two months possesses a greater reward Rajab or the month of Ramadan The Holy Prophet may the peace and blessings be upon him and his progeny replied Nothing can be compared to the month of Ramadan in terms of reward In this episode Insha'Allah we'll be talking about how people from around the world prepare for the month of Ramadan and tonight we're going to a city which is very close to where I live actually and that is Birmingham in the United Kingdom Birmingham is a city which is found in the middle of the country in the area called the Midlands and it's an area which has a very multicultural society lots of Muslims from very different backgrounds and the Shia community there as well which consists of the Khoja and the shops held every night for the young children so that they can go and learn things things that are aimed at their level and targeted towards them directly and it's like a class that they can go to and they can do specific activities directly aimed for the kids for the adults every night there is lectures, majalis within the centres and they exist in two languages English and in the language the mother tongue of whichever community is there and English is a very important language to the people there to understand the language or the mother tongue that they come from and as a result they require English so that they can understand what is being said every night within the centre there is Iftar and because of the timings of Iftar and Maghrib what happens is that if the Maghrib is very late the lectures and the Dua happen before the time of Maghrib so everybody by the time Iftar is done is ready for home the Dua and the Amal is done after the time of Iftar as the United Kingdom is a non-Muslim country the government do not change the working hours so people continue to work the usual lives and the usual routines and that doesn't really change so people try to make use of the mosque and the Iftar at mosque so that they don't have to take time to prepare the food in the evenings and therefore allows them to free up time and then they do the nighting the interesting thing about Birmingham due to the fact that it is in the United Kingdom and the people there are from a very diverse even within one community and they do different marajah and as a result the nights of the night of power differ from people to people depending on who they follow and therefore after the 19th night onwards every night there is Amal in the mosque and people are welcome to come in and join and participate and there is a kinship and brotherhood and galvanization of the community due to the fact that everyone gets together for the Amal I would like to ask you once again to send in your videos your picture, your blogs to our channel so we can air them we can see how you prepare for the month of Ramadan and we hope that this will allow us to get an insight into how varied the practices are throughout the world but we remember one thing and that is whatever practices and the objective never changes and that is that we fast and we do things we have our cultural traditions for the love of Allah سبحانه وتعالى بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم respected viewers السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته may peace and blessings and protection of Allah be upon each and every one of you today again we came to one of the market places in the holy city of Karbala what is going on during the holy month of Ramadan in the place in the store markets here in the holy city of Karbala dearest viewers let's have a word with one of the brothers here السلام عليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته ممكن تتفضل إن عن أجواء مدينة Karbala خلال شهر رمضان المبارك أولا أنا نساهم بكم أنا نساهم قناة الماب الحسين مدينة Karbala في رمضان إلا خصوصية خصوصية جميلة أجواء كربلة جميلة تكون في وقت بعد الفطور أجواء كل جميلة تعرفت تقبل الفطور هنا واجبات فطور صير بشارع المام الحسين مجانا طبعا للصائمين توزيع وأجواء جميلة جدا جميلة أخي يقول أن المام الحسين في المام الحسين بسبب بلسين أخي أخي أبالفضل العباس و here in front of their store usually before the Eftar every day they have a gathering and in which they serve the visitors of Abiy Abdullah al-Hussain with Eftar during the holy month of Ramadhan نعم ممكن تتفضل عن عملكم خلال شهر رمضان المباركة يعني تتأثر عملكم ساعتكم تغيير لوشنون عملنا ما يتأثر يعني الحمد لله وشكر بالعكس هو قلتك شهر رمضان شهر يتأثر العمل لهذا الألحمد لله وشكر يعني نتشدنا قبل نعزل مثلاً بثمانة أبو تشعر سنبقى لوحدة يعني الحمد لله وشكر فما يتغير كل شيء ما يتغير ورزق إزود و الحمد لله وشكر هو يقلتك شهر خير شهر طاعة شهر جدا جميل هو شهر يعني كل معنى الكلمة أخي أخي أبالفضل العباس في المام الحسين و يقول that أخي أبالفضل العباس الحمد لله وشكر يتغير جيدا هنا و يعملنا يقول that أولاً يعملون حتى حتى الأفطار يتغيرون حتى 1 أو 2 أم في اليوم في today's episode as we go through the stages of life إن شاء الله in this episode of the health tips in our communities I want to talk about number one the problems associated with old age number two the medical conditions associated with old age number three what we can do as a community for the elderly within our communities one of the biggest problems with old age is frailty and that's caused by degeneration of the human body over time so if you can imagine that their hearts and their lungs aren't what they once used to be and I've talked about arthritis in previous episode I will be talking about it in a future episode and as a result these joint problems and muscle problems make the old people they find them difficult to walk and elderly find it difficult to walk rather and they find it difficult to walk long distances and they get tired very quickly this is important to understand that and also with the elderly people who are associated with the old age so it's important to appreciate that as a community and as a society and also try to accommodate for that give them support and help when they need it talking about the elderly conditions that are more prevalent and illnesses that are more prevalent in older age are things like dementia dementia I've talked about in a previous episode but I think it's important as a community that we appreciate the effects of dementia so when we do that we can then start to address it secondly one of the conditions that affects the brain is something called Parkinson's disease it's a condition which is caused by damage to or degeneration of a part of the brain called the basal ganglia and this affects things like movement people with Parkinson's typically get symptoms like tremors they get rigidity of their muscles and they get slowing of the movements or the initiation of movements they find problems moving and walking then it's important that you see a GP because people who suffer from these can be treated with medication and with medication obviously their symptoms can subside other problems affecting the elderly are things like visual problems things like macular degeneration or cataracts and hearing problems as degeneration happens with the ears they get poorer hearing obviously with people who suffer from these problems it's important to see eye specialists of opticians and also it's important to see people who are specialists with hearing you can get treated with surgery for cataracts for example and treatment with hearing aids for hearing problems for example thereafter there are problems with the rest of the body so the main organs of the body things like the heart and the kidneys and the lungs and if you suffer from degeneration of these maybe once every six months maybe once every year and give you medications to try and help with these ailments of the body finally cancers are more prevalent in elderly people the reason being is that in the elderly as time goes on and the body degenerates the cells of the body also degenerate and they're more prone to getting cancerous so things like prostate cancer in men lung cancer thyroid cancers and therefore it's important to look out for the signs and the symptoms which may lead you or indicate that there is a problem going on so the symptoms include things like weight loss very large amounts of weight loss over a short period of time things like loss of appetite problems with color of the skins if someone's looking very pale and feeling tired all the time if you're getting all these symptoms and especially with bowel cancers if you find that you find blood in your stools it's important to get these seen and see a doctor as soon as possible because even though the elderly population may be very frail and they have these problems it's not to say that they can't have an operation or they can't get these problems treated so the quicker you see them the quicker you act on them and the quicker that you treat them the better the prognosis is in the long term finally I just want to talk about what we can do as a community to try and help the elderly and number one as a community I feel that because of the elderly within our population and those with mobility problems I think within our mosques and Husseinias within our centers we should have mobility aids there as they're just in case as a course of precaution in case there's someone who's old who doesn't have their walking stick with them or someone who's old and they're finding it difficult to mobilize around the mosque for example it's important to have some walking sticks secondly I feel that as a community we need to acknowledge the problems associated with the old age and I think we should try and have seminars and education sessions so we can educate the members of our community regarding those who are elderly and what we can do to help them thirdly I think one of the most important things for elderly people is social interaction if you imagine a lot of them are past retirement age so they sit at home whilst the rest of the family I think we should introduce sessions or gatherings for the elderly I know in some communities they have something called senior citizens meetings where the elderly get together in these meetings they can have social interaction develop their interests with each other and thirdly if there's any problems that they have they can discuss it and problems can be flagged up very quickly fourth and lastly I want to just encourage members of our community the young, the middle age to go and visit care homes not only the Muslims but also the non-Muslims that where we appreciate number one the problems associated with old age number two we give them social interaction something that the elderly actually crave number three it's not only good for them but it's good for us as well they have such a wealth of knowledge such experience that they can give us advice as well and number five I think with the elderly if we look after them as we age as a population the youths will start looking after us they'll have the values and the appreciation for the elderly within their hearts if you just ignore the elderly and pretend they don't exist in society when we get to that stage the same will happen to us so it's important to try and build that it forms the basic fabric of society إن شاء الله I hope that these points have been useful for you إن شاء الله I hope that as a community we can strive to appreciate the elderly more and by helping them we're helping ourselves helping the elderly and giving them appreciation value in society forms the moral fabric of society and as I've said before if you can help the elderly improve their self-confidence and self-esteem allow them to impart their wisdom impart their experience to you you can learn so much and as a community we can build the foundations for the evolution and for the improvement of our own communities إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إن شاء الله I hope إمام التقعي قمني ربعاً ، لم أكن لديك قدامة أو أستطيع أن أتساعدك في طريقك لماذا أستطيع أن أستطيع أن أتساعد؟ مأمون الرشيد كانت سفرعاً مع هذه المجردات وقال ، ماذا يسمعك يا رجال؟ مأمون الرشيد ربعاً بقول ، أسمي محمد وقال ، مأمون ربعاً لسنف هوم الإمام ربعاً لسنف علي ابنة موسى الرضا مأمون الرشيد ربعاً وقال ، وقال ، مجردت أسودة وقال ، مجردت أسودة على طريقه وقال ، أصدقائي تلعب في السوارة وقال إمام في المكان عندما أتصل إلى إمام ، أسأل ، ماذا أستطيع أن أتساعد؟


Welcome to the 1.30pm to 2.00pm session of the 2016 Open Simulator Community Conference. As a reminder to our in-world and web audience, you can view the full conference schedule at conference.opensimulator.org and tweet your questions and comments to atopensimcc with the hashtag OSCC16. In this session, we're happy to introduce a terrific presentation called Spanish Language Learning at Escape Using Virtual Worlds to Teach Language. Our speakers today are James Abraham and Martha Leno. James will be speaking first. James has been working in virtual worlds since 2006 as Callisto in Senial in Second Life, and he can correct that when he begins speaking. He created Mycasa Esucasa, an immersive interactive Mexican village with realistic buildings and over 25 learning activities. Since 2007, James has taught a college-level Spanish course in Second Life every semester, but is now exploring opportunities in Open Simulator. Martha shares her knowledge and love of her native country, Mexico, with her students in the virtual world. She also serves as Academic Director and creates rich cultural exhibits for Escape. Welcome all, and let's begin the session. Thank you, Kay. Thank you, everyone. Can everyone hear me okay? Just give me a yes in the chat if you can hear me. Great. Perfect. So we really appreciate you taking a little bit of time out of your busy schedule to hear about our project at Spanish Language Learning at Escape. Eugenia and I have been teaching in Second Life for a long time, and we've kind of had both of our feet in Second Life, One Foot in Second Life, One Foot in Open Sim, and we've kind of now just recently taken that one foot off Second Life and put all of our weight into Open Sim and continue our development in, we're using DigiWorld as our platform, and we've gone to create a Mexican village that's loosely based on San Miguel de Allende. I'm in Arizona and Eugenia's in Mexico, so we have our great team format she can provide on the ground information for me and correct all my mistakes and what I'm working on and she is using my build. I do most of the scripting and creating and the graphics and everything. You can see a little slide of the overview up here of what Escape looks like. And please, we want to take this opportunity to encourage you to come and visit us. It's hard to explain in 20 minutes what we all have to offer, so please jot down that hypergrid address and come for a visit where you can do a little bit more exploring. So like I said, I do the scripting and Eugenia is in charge of the cultural activities and has a student that come and visit. I bring my college students from Glendale Community College in Arizona and she's a private language instructor and brings her students in. So first I wanted to talk about what is Escape? And Escape is obviously an Open Sim environment that has 30 unique locations and I want to give you a website. You can take a quick browse at the different locations. I'm going to type it into the chat. If you just want to open that up, you can browse through the list of locations, pretty much all the classic things that you would find in a Mexican or Hispanic town. And within each of those locations are embedded learning activities, which you would cover in a basic Spanish beginning Spanish class college level. And the great thing is with Open Sim, this would work for a high school environment too, because it's pretty much the same information. You learn the colors or the alphabet and any language class that you take at the beginning. So this is a great platform for high school students, college students, really any age, that's the great thing that I found. It's an advantage for high schools and even middle schools to have that closed garden. And so our idea eventually is to market this for private or for schools to use on their own closed garden servers. Right now, escape is open to the public and you can go in and have a visit and walk around and complete the activities. So we also have cultural exhibitions and events. It's, I would say, John, it's a very general Spanish. It's geared for middle of the road. And within each of the white activities are the areas we have 300 learning activities and we're growing. I'm building these all the time. I think it's come up before that we can't compete with the big platform or the council games because they just have so many developers. At this point, it's me developing all the activities. I'm doing the 3D modeling. I'm doing the graphics and the scripting and the content. I'm a content expert. I'm actually a Spanish language professor. So it's kind of a self-learned thing. And so the progress is slow, but it keeps moving forward. We've been working at it for a long time. We have integrated NPCs. We have both static and interactive. I'm going to talk about those in a minute. And then we have include a variety of media types. We'll show you videos, their videos playing, their sound files playing all over the place. And then we have a HUD. That's kind of a student aid that I'll talk about a little bit more down the road to. And yeah, we do do we encourage English and non English speakers to mingling. We'd love to get more traffic so we could have more of that. And our cultural activities sneak, we do do that kind of stuff. Yep. We're looking to generate more traffic, so that's why I really appreciate your ears listening and hopefully we'll be able to generate some momentum. So here's an example of a couple of the learning activities. And you can see the one in the upper left is for conjugating the air verbs. And what you have to do is that balloon that you see is growing. And you have to click it, you have to conjugate a verb. And then that makes the balloon go up into the air. And if you don't do it in time, it explodes. So we want to kind of integrate gaming aspects into it. And that green ball that you see on the right side of next to the utmost is kind of the controller. So all of our activities have these green ball controllers that you'll see.  It's going to ask you something or, you know, ask you what you want to do. So you see the clothing activity there.  And that's mostly vocabulary acquisition. So you're going to walk in there and we'll talk about in a minute the different stages of learning. But that's what an activity would look like. So you're in the environment and then you participate in the learning process. So right up the bat, you can probably just scrolling through that list of locations. See, obviously role playing is huge here. So for more advanced students, you can role play easily in this environment. So it has that aspect. My interest is in the lower level, the acquisition, the practice. And then here you see in the third graphic there on that page is my alphabet activity. So you click on those and you'll hear the sound and then you'll hear the word and then it'll ask you to click on or whatever letter it is. And so there's games integrated into that. So good. So here's what the philosophy that we kind of use for our activities. We have three stages of learning. So each one of those green balls, you'll click on it and there'll be a space for acquiring knowledge.  And you'll see, if you see on the left, aprender is to learn in Spanish. And that's the learning. So that would walk you through the vocabulary. Or it'll give you a note card and explain a verb conjugation to you or how to use the subjunctive or whatever it is. The second, the practice is práctica. And here you get to practice as much as you want. It'll take you through practice activities and you earn XP points. So down the road we'll integrate a store system where you can use those XP, a student can use those XP points to buy clothing, buy right answers, whatever it is that's still being developed. And then the third one is the examin where there's a set store of answers and you have to get them all correct. We believe in mastery learning. So you have to get 100% to be able to get credit for that activity. So all of these activities have constant feedback. That ball will turn red if you get a wrong answer. You'll hear the boo sound if you get a wrong answer. You'll hear clapping if you get it right. And they work through the activities, work through recognition and production. So the first práctica or exam will just be recognizing the right word. And you'll just have to say if it's right or wrong or click on it. And then the second activity will be actually producing that word. So it'll say what's the word or the shirt will light up in the store, the t-shirt. And then you have to type in the word for t-shirt in Spanish. The great thing is all the questions are randomized. So you can come back another time and it'll be a different set of questions for you. So you can get as much practice as you want. And then all the results are stored into a database. So teachers can track how their students are doing it. And actually, students can track that. And they can actually see what activities they've completed. Let's see, clicked a little bit ahead there. Go back. So our NPC use, we have static MPs. So you'll see these mesh avatar or NPCs here. And here in the plaza, for example, they are asking you a question. You see that green text in the lower right picture. If you zoom in, you'll see the one male student is saying mucho gusto. So if you click on him, it would ask you in a dialog box, how would you respond if someone said to you mucho gusto? And you have to click the right answer. It gives you four. I think it's multiple choice question. You have to click the right one and then you get the feedback. And then whenever you come by again, it won't ask you. You won't see that again. So the idea is once you master that, now they're just there. They're not asking you any questions. And within this plaza, there are 10 of those static questions, 10 or 11 of those static questions. In the upper left, this is a clothing activity. So you click on somebody that's wearing a red top or a red, or I'm sorry, it's orange, orange shirt. So you have to go around and walk and look around. And then, oh, I see this person in the left. This woman is wearing a orange top. So you click on her and it recognizes that you've clicked on the right one and you get credit. So you are learning the closed vocabulary by seeing what they're wearing. And there's also a biography activity in this space where they each have a biography and they ask you questions. They tell you their story and then you have to answer questions about their biography. The next type of NPC is we use the open sim moving NPCs, the scripted NPCs. And obviously those of you that script know they're a little bit more involved but there are so many great tools out there. And other people that have made simple models that you can just tweak them. I'm kind of, that's how I learned HTML was just by going to a webpage that I liked and tweaking the HTML. That's kind of how my LSL, my linen scripting language progressed. So the great thing is Outworlds for NAND has some great scripts that you can copy or just the LSL. Wickey, you can tailor those scripts to do what you want. So this activity actually is a waitress.  They actually pop up on the table. Whatever you order, they're all hidden there. They just, they're not showing. So when you order what she brings you what you order, they'll magically appear on the table. And so that's a lot of fun. It adds a lot more sense of interaction. And we've heard complaints about Second Life and OpenSim that they're not inhabited. I think these NPCs bring that presence that a lot of virtual worlds are lacking. So it feels like there are people around all the time. There's NPCs throughout the sim and they're asking you questions, greeting you and you can interact with them. I think that's, yep. Me for a minute, Eugenia, do you wanna step in? Yes, of course. Well, okay. We were talking about immersion. One of the conditions to get the language is immersion and as we do in real life, because I teach Spanish in real life, one of the conditions is immersion. That way we organize event, we organize cultural activities in real life and we create cultural exhibition, et cetera. That the same we do in virtual worlds. I work in Second Life and now in digital world with James. And in both worlds, I have created, to get that immersion, I have created cultural activities and parties. Why not? Parties are important also. As you can see on the picture, we have some photos of the activities we have organized in escape, in our sim in escape. As we invite you to visit us, we have not only the activities have talked James, we have cultural exhibition, parties and more cultural activities. On the picture, you can see picture about Mexican independence. The picture of Miguel Hidalgo, that Miguel Hidalgo is Professor James. We perform the character of the activities and well, that is the idea. As we do in real life, we play also, we make some plays also. Dia de los Muertos, of course, Day of the Dead. Christmas season on Christmas season, we have an exhibition of information about Christmas season in Mexico. The piñatas, the posadas we organize in real life. Well, the idea is to copy, to recreate that activities on virtual world. We have specifically Casa de la Cultura, if you can see on the picture. In Casa de la Cultura, we have that cultural exhibition. We have the Holy Week information, the Day of the Dead exhibition. Christmas time, Christmas season also. And we organize parties, of course, parties. Why parties? Well, because we need social activities. Our students can come to the parties and that parties we chat in Spanish, we can practice the language. Me, like a teacher, I have to write correctly, Spanish, that way students can see the conjugation, for example, the way we use the tenses. And maybe some slang, why not? Yeah, with our advanced students, they practice their slang. And well, sometimes we say some bad words, but of course we explain what is the meaning of that bad words. We don't want to insult anybody, but we can discover that kind of cultural mind of Latin. And well, that is the idea of the cultural activities. And we get the immersion. As we do in real life, we put together as teacher with the student and we talk. And yeah, exactly. And we talk, we talk and we see what happened. Well, in virtual world, we have a lot of tools to get that immersion, that real life inside a second life. And that way we learn, we get the language. Also, we get the presence in the world, not only with the, well, like Professor James said, the NPCs, we, our avatars, our avatars inside, we get that immersion, that presence in the world. We, as you can see in my photo, day of the exhibition, I was with my student. We were at Casa de la Cultura. We were talking, we were changing his opinion about that activity, Day of the Dead. And that way, we practice, of course, we practice grammar with the activities in escape, but only with conversation, with our chat inside the world. Thank you, thank you very much. Yeah, James, can you, can you come, can you continue? Yep, yep, we'll just finish up, I think our time's just about done, but we'll be both in our expo, we're in booth number seven over in the expo, Sim. And just a little quick, you can look at this slide real quick of our learning aids, so we have a HUD.    No, it's actually all scripted, so it'll be fun. Thank you, James and Martha for a terrific presentation. As a reminder to our audience, you can see what's coming up on the conference schedule at conference.opensimulator.org. Following this session, the next session will begin at 2 p.m. in this keynote region and is entitled Applications for Expanding the Design Space. Also, we encourage you to visit the poster Expo booth as James suggested and also take a look at the hypergrid tour resources on the Expo 2 region. And then sponsor and crowd funder booths are located throughout all of the OSCC Expo regions. Again, thank you to our speakers and the audience and I think for just a few more minutes, there can be some questions and answers in the chat, so.


What's up everybody, JC over jazby's case piece calm happy mamba day. It's Kobe Bryant day here in LA County in Orange County So we did a little jazby's 11 box 824 basketball mixer where we're giving away Kobe Bryant tops of rookie card. That's a bgs 9 as pictured on the photo right there so We actually sold us out on mom days really have 20 more minutes left for mom a day But we did sell it out on mom a day Holy Bryant day and again 30 total spots are big it's a random team in the NBA Just remember no veteran common ship So that just means all the rookies all the answers all the short prints variations autographs relics numbered cards Everything else was shipped besides the veteran base. There's always an We always exclude like Luca Donchich second-year stuff if there is like 1920 stuff LeBron base Kobe base Yanis base usually those guys we will ship but the rest won't We usually donated as well to charities around here And sell the base cards in our store and the money to charity. So it always goes to a good cause Anyways, we do the break guys 11 boxes. I just wanted to make this a point in this break. So in the picture We did have that Chronicles blaster box Well, I guess a couple nights ago Joe was doing a filler and he we didn't have any more on the personal side So we had a grab from the mixer Before Nick posted it so we replaced that Chronicles blaster box with a 1718 pinning a prison blaster Which I believe the prison blasters are like $10 more So good little deal right there for you guys, but everything else that's pictured here is in the list here So 1819 optic blaster 13 fortune crusade Yanis rookie year Donner's choice all the way down to a prison blaster there 1718 and We'll do the break you get a random team all NBA teams in then at the end of the break We're randomized customer names in a separate dice roller atomizer so that's what you hear this out and Customer name at number one will win the Kobe Bryant and All the customer names in here that bought in straight up from Scott got the last nine all the way up to David are there and these Customers here from fat pack nine.  Let's roll it and we got ourselves a one and a five six times one two three four Five one six times five and six Scott down a Scott six times One two three four five and six Utah Jazz down to the Orlando magic Scott with the Utah Jazz Scott got that fat pack ten from fat pack ten Pacers Obi-Wan with the worst got with the blazers so many with the Hornets even within the king Jeremy with the rockets got with the heat Nick with the calves for Carter with the nets Got with the 76 just got with the Lakers Scott with the nuggets one with the Mavericks Got with the Celtics Robert with the pistons go with wizards Raymond with the T. Wolves It's got with the Suns and spurs guy. You have the pelicans Scott with the Grizzlies Scott with the Hawks Raptors David with the Bulls got with the Clippers and Nick's Richard you have the Bucks Obi-Wan with the Thunder and Scott with the Orlando magic So again, if anybody wants to trade, I'll keep the trade window open and in the meantime though guys Well, you guys are trying to trade I'm gonna turn on Nick Ham and Rip through some of these heavy base boxes that we have That way we can kind of Get a little head start on the mixer. I go you guys should be able to see this right here And again, if no trades then I'll close it right now In about a minute or so So we'll start off with 14-15 dollars Start ripping So actually Joellen bead rookie here. Not too bad. Hello 76ers are kind of a mess right now A lot of changes coming to the 76ers organization Started today already the coach got fired. I'm gonna send me no trades. Let's close I just ripped open the first box here Here's the Kobe. We're also gonna be giving away Save your stars Julia's Randall and that's a rookie number 299 And you go Lakers on the board Scott Terrence Jones Paul Pierce Isaiah Thomas Lebron scoring Kings Rook Lopez and there's a Joellen bead rated Ricky Jeff Green Memphis Grizzlies Edition and Ricky Rubio press proof Yandere Jordan Gary Harris Raider rookie to one 99 press proof You got a lead dominators Al Jefferson Norris Cole Marcus Aldrich Darnell Stokes Terrence Jones TJ Warren The rookies for the Phoenix Suns There's a big player in the bubble George Hill Matt Barnes scoring Kings Oscar Robinson All right, next one will be 17 18 Daunras basketball. All right guys Good luck Sizzak Got Donovan Mitchell rated rookie Terrence Ferguson Jared Allen. Sorry about that guys. I'm out of sneezing Don't sneeze on camera all over the cards All right guys Caleb Swannigan OG John Collins You got Bradley Beal number to 49 Harry Giles Frank Jackson Kuzma Unclear for takeoff Tony Bradley Tyler Leiden Lonzo Ball Dylan Brooks Dennis Smith Jr. The Champions here Robert Orr Darian Fox Markel Foltz Avery Bradley Number to 299 Luke Canard Banna DeBio Rick Berry That's an autograph number to 10 Houston Rockets That's pretty nice Next half right here Tyler Leiden Harry Giles Devon Reed Tony Bradley Derek White Shaq the Champions here is pretty nice Sammy Walker Number to 299 Josh Hart Thomas Bryant Jordan Bell Frank Mason Damian Dotson Lauren Markinen The Rookies Darian Fox Justin Jackson John Evans Josh Jackson Mike Conley Relic for the Grizzlies Last stack right here guys I've got to get one Tatum at least Malik Monk Number to 299 Ricky for the Charlotte Hornets There's your Tatum Wayne Silden Ivan Raphs Darius Thornwell Little Tatum coming your way Scott Mitchell right on the front Next one is Hoops Once we get done with this and Chronicles the rest of the boxes are not really heavy based too much at least Good luck These Hoops boxes of course are always going to be really popular just because it is the first officially licensed product with the Rookies and their NBA Uniform for Zion Rookie Cards as well There is an extremely rare card guys that I would love to pull It's a dual autograph on card and Zion Williamson that would be so awesome to pull that on Mama Day That card is also part of this here It's pretty crazy D. Lil Kevin Porter Jr. Rookie Jimmy Butler Kauai Leonard We've got a little Bull Bull and a John Marant Rookie Tyler Hero Those will all be appendiciters right now too once we go through the box Spartan James Hardin Little Zion Rookie Kyle Anderson High Voltage Julius Randle Brown and Clark Kevin Durant Cam Reddish Dylan Brown Tipoff Kalawari NBA City Rui and Begot Hoops Inc. for the Sacramento Kings Nemanja Jaylen Brunton We should have one more autograph hiding in here Rui Pink Hot Rookie Saventures Cam Reddish The Zion Rookie There you go Very nice Alright let me just kind of save these rookies guys and then we'll continue on Alright so I'm going to skip to the crown of this fat pack It's probably the one that's going to take me a little longer out of all these other boxes remaining It'll be a lot of penny sleeve cards and I'll probably skip that and penny sleeve them at the end of the break At least the not the major rookies or numbered cards we get out of there and then we'll continue on Alright this is a Crusader or a Yanis Rookie We'll do that soon Let's do this Chronicles Fat Pack box So we actually have these fat packs that are available for personals Just either one fat pack I think they're like 60 bucks a pack A lot of value in this Chronicles zone and in these fat packs I think bronze is the exclusive color you're looking for I think blasters is exclusive as pink Alright next box guys Good luck RJ, Luca, Kevin Porter Jr You got a Kobe White Rookie RJ again Kobe White RJ Hunter Luca Luca Donchich Ruhachi Mora Crusade, John Morant Brandon Clark, Jerry Culver LeBron James Tyler Hero Zion Williamson We got a PJ Washington Jr It's hard to PJ Zion Update Kai Bowman These would be Penny Sleeves Put that over there Zion right here at the top Zion from score So cool Kendrick Dunn and a Luca Marquis bronze Very nice John Morant John Morant RJ and a killer hunter walker Kelton Johnson, PJ Washington Jr Kelton Johnson again Luca Kobe White Jau Luca Crusade, Culver and Carson Edwards Actually, sorry, I was supposed to do this later So all these are the Penny Sleeves and the top loader guys I'll put these over here to the side Alright so here's all the Jau and Zion rickies that we got out of here Alright let's move it along Ah I guess we can go with some blasters maybe We'll go with these ones here I think if anything we'll leave these four to be the last ones here with the choice We'll go with status with the choice up there So let's go with this one right here Gunners Optic Blaster Kauku's not ready to rookie We got Lonzo We got Howard Brooks We got Tatum ready to rookie, nice Strong right there And the brown base Nice little Tatum Alright let's keep it mega box Or let's keep it Optic We'll do mega box next Jonathan Isaac Thomas Bryant Foltz Jared Allen Frank Jackson John Collins Devon Reed Silver Howard Larry Marginan and Kyle Kuzma Alright let's stay with 17 and go with status Alright good luck guys Jawan Evans To 1 49 Andrew Wiggins Number to 78 We got Lonzo And We got Newbreed Wayne Selden Jr For the Memphis Grizzlies It's going to Scott Magic Johnson Kowai Leonard LeBron Frank Mason Rookie credentials at 299 Little Tatum Rookie Darian Fox Yannis Number to 299 Alonzo Ball Tyler Dorsey Number to 199 NTJ Leaf Very nice Alright we'll stay with 17 guys Last four boxes Let's go prism now We'll go to Optic Blaster 1819 Chase that one box of Lugodaxia's Rookie We'll go to Crusade And then we'll end up with Choice Timur Nelson's over Little Brown base We got Terence Ferguson We got a Green Frank Mason Retail Kyle Kuzner Rookie Alright let's go guys, 1819 Kobe on the box Mamba dead, let's chase the Lugodanchich Lock it up, Miles Bridges LeBron James, Fantasy Stars Diallo Schroeder Wendell Carter Jr That's not bad Little Checkerboard Colin Sexton, Rader Rookie You want us to call him Chewness And a Marvin Bagley Brandon, what credit thing man? Alright, last two boxes 1314 Oh yeah, the Allspots Hold Break Credit No, unfortunately we cancelled it Because it didn't fill In the two, three days we had it up We extended it A couple of days but We didn't end up filling it man Rudy Gobert That's a Rookie too I didn't realize he was a Rookie in this Got a 249 Yeah, definitely man Yeah, there's a lot of this little Gunpowder Yeah, any Green Yeah, now we'll have those up again soon Antoine Walker Autograph of the Celtics 189 Kevin Love Tom Chambers Kevin Robinson Kevin Garnett Number Sean Marion Isaiah Thomas Matt Barnes Relic Kevin Durant 249 Jimmy Butler Miraseek Richard Jefferson Anderson And Radji Jackson for the Thunder Oh, Rudy Gobert I wonder what that goes for actually True Rookie right there Don't crusade Alrighty guys, last Box of the Mixer I don't really have a chance to Get some nice hits in this last box But if you don't You have a chance to win that Kobe I'm getting Kobe on the box as well here to end it all Alright, I've got Jared Colver It's a 35 It's a 99 Bojan Bogdanovich Tyler Hero Otto Look at that Rookie Autograph for the Mami Heat That's next day Autograph's own car Scott With the Heat And more for the Heat KZ Opala I've got a few modules coming up Alright, Jared Colver Deris Garland T-Style Alan Martin Tucker And Saku Damboya Alrighty guys, so there you go We'll do a little recap Of the Autograph's bigger hits Alright, so there you go Hero Otto Alright guys, so here were the Relics These will be top loaded But little Relics here, Matt Barnes Terence Ferguson, Mike Conley Paul George George Hill, sorry And Terence Jones And here were the more bigger hits Of course, the Autos we just showed you These are all from Choice Where do you go Bear Rookie? You got Tatum Rookie You got Newbreed Wayne Selton Jr. Jason Tatum Rader Rookie John Merant Rookies And Zion's here as well From the Chronicles Lugadonches Bronze More Rookies here Hoops Rookies of Zion and Jaw Cameraders Hoops Rookie signatures Fallen of a Mitchell Tatum Out of 10 Rick Berry Otto, Julius Round the Rookie Otto And there's just a whole stack right here Of Rookies, Silvers That will be top loaded as well There's a lot of hits hiding in here And Now to give away the Big prize, 96.97 tops Kobe Bryant Rookie, it's a BGS9 There you go Good luck everybody Here's the customer names that are part of the break itself So there you go From David down to Guy We'll randomize the customer names We got a three and a five Or five and a three, eight times Man, I wrote a lot of eights today on Kobe Day So good luck Eight times, number one gets it One Two Three Four Five And eight Good luck guys It's going to Raymond From Chronicles Fat Pack Ten after eight times Five and a three Congratulations Raymond You just got that Kobe BGS9 Rookie from tops, 96.97 And I appreciate you guys This was the 824 Basketball Mixer 11 Boxes On JaspysCaseBreaks.com Appreciate you guys


Thanks for checking out this movie review video So this is for the 2020 release as I'm putting this out hasn't even been released yet It is tails from six feet under it is an independent film and it will hit Amazon Prime video on the 15th of April, which is a Wednesday, sorry, so Wednesday April 15th. It'll be available. I don't know what the pricing on it's gonna be or anything like that But I was I was reached out to reached out to By the writer director editor musician basically the guy who did almost everything except some acting and some camera work Nicholas Michael Jacobs He reached out to me and he said hey, I did this independent film. Would you be able to review it? Do you have any interest and I'm like yes because I'm not gonna turn down doing a review for an independent film So one of the things I'm gonna say up front is I'm not doing star ratings for anything like this because here's the thing This is not a studio film. It's not getting a theatrical release. This is a no-budget film Just so people know going into it. It's a no-budget film It's not even low-budget like something like the headhunter which had you know It was a crazy low-budget film that was amazing, but that got thirty thousand dollars this one I guarantee was absolutely no budget whatever money was just some pocket change Basically, I understand what this is like because it actually watching this reminded me a lot of my days doing independent film Which you know, no there are no budgets. You just get together with your friends and family You do what you can you see what everyone has to contribute and you make it work And it's a fun time usually and you could tell that there was fun put into this film Especially one of the stories because it's multiple stories. It's an anthology, but let me go through this a little more methodically so Nicholas Michael Jacobs who is the visitor in this film just know that he plays the visitor He did films night and urban fears. I've not seen those because they're independent Unless I know about them, you know, I I'm not checking them out So I didn't know about those prior, but I did see tails from six feet under It's got like a 45 minute runtime So it's not a huge time commitment, which I actually like especially for an independent film And like I said on Amazon Prime video available Wednesday, April 15th And like I said, I don't know the price but consider throwing this dude and his crew a little bit of cash So they can keep doing films in the future This seems heavily influenced by creep show to be honest That's what I got immediately when you see the visitor in it The visitor is actually someone who kind of ties the whole movie together because it's very creep show like The visitor reminds me of creep show the structuring of it because it is a horror anthology Reminds me a lot of creep show it. It just feels very creep show Inspired which is not a problem because you know, we all have our influences from somewhere. I have plenty of mine But it yeah, it just hit me immediately with that. You can immediately tell it's a no-budget film and one of the reasons is the acting is Good for no budget like it's fine for no budget But you're not gonna get amazing performances when you have no budget or it's an independent film Usually, you know coming from my experience you get friends and people who are willing to just do it for the fun of it Or because you buy them lunch or something like that for the day. Literally, that's how it works. That's how I did it I was just like, hey, you want to do this for me and a lot of times people don't even show up I had times where I was doing in an independent film and people didn't show up that day for shooting So we just on the fly change the script because what else are you gonna do? You're there and you're ready to go It's in black and white, which I feel is a good visual choice for this And one of the main reasons for that being when it is a no-budget film You have a lot of limitations as far as practical effects and special effects and going black and white actually can hide a lot of Issues that you would have otherwise Mainly because like with practical effects, you can't get a whole lot of detail if you basically have no budget to it so Putting the black and white in there lets you play with shadows more you can hide The fact that there isn't a lot of detail to any sort of special effects Costuming or prosthetics or you know, whatever you're using and so for that reason it's smart One of the things with this film is you can tell that this guy Nicholas has done this before He's done no budget films before because he knows the limitations of what he's able to do And he finds ways to kind of work around it and adapt with it This is one of the reasons I like Independent film a lot because I feel like you have to be creative in order to get the film done in order to make What you want to make you have to be super creative and you have to work around things And I feel like when you get to like bigger budget films you start to get up a lack of Creativity because people have so much money to throw at stuff So I like when it's smaller budget because you get more creativity. So just saying this reminded me of that For how low the budget is I actually dig the music. That's one of the things I love the most about this the music was very interesting to me is very heavy heavily like synth driven It gave me these 80 by 80s vibes and it actually felt very much inspired by John Carpenter It had this carpenter-esque sound to it throughout and I would be interested to know if Nicholas is a big John Carpenter fan And if so if he feels like his music is inspired by John Carpenter But it really struck me that way and I really dug the music in this I really did it match quite well for regular people's actors the performances were not bad They're not great, but they're not bad. Like I said, you just you get who you can and that's what no budget film is about There's one portion that is extremely meta in this it is three separate stories that are all brought together under the anthology Umbrella by the visitor And the second story is my favorite by far and it's very meta and that's one of the things I loved about it what it's a cool story and How meta it is really made me smile because it's kind of this well Let me read how I put it down here because I probably did it better I found it fun and funny because it speaks to the struggles of a filmmaker trying to be Familiar but not unoriginal at the same time Basically, you kind of like as a filmmaker horror filmmaker horror script writer You want to be familiar enough that people are going to like what you're doing because they know what you're trying to do But not be too familiar that people feel like you're ripping someone off or just treading on ground That's already been tread too many times So for that reason I really love the second one because it kind of speaks to the struggle of horror filmmakers especially independent horror filmmakers kind of stuck in that spot of you know creative issues where you're just like I Want people to like want to see this because it's familiar to them But then I don't want them once they see it to be like oh, this is a total ripoff of this or that or it's so unoriginal and The character in that you you know It's very well driven home that that character is having that struggle and it makes it funny intentionally funny, I will say and What ends up coming together is very unique I Individually not unique, but how everything comes together is very unique And I liked it and I loved how funny it was and that was the best for me That right there sold me on the film to be honest that made me like it a lot. The first story was Fine, I didn't feel that I was like Super into it or not super into it I was interested enough to know where it's going the second one really sold me and the third one Let me talk about the third one in a minute I ultimately liked the third one the ending that is but I'll talk a little bit about in a second the second I already talked about it Some let's talk about the second one something that really hit me is the integration of cell phones in this film Which I think is really a generational gap thing and this isn't like a criticism or strength of the film It's just a something. I noticed while watching it Is it someone of it, you know being someone of an older generation now feels weird to say that but in Comparison to the age of the person who made the film being in an older generation myself There's a lot of use of cell phones in this and it's just something that people in my generation and above Would not think to do and it just hit me as this is interesting because this is from a younger generation And that just kind of baked into What they know? Societally and you write what you know like that's just how it is so it's just very interesting because I was watching I'm like I would never write a script that would have that much cell phone integration into it But it makes sense that this is being done because that's society. That's culture That's how these younger generations have grown up. So it just made me think about that and I thought it was interesting So I just wanted to share that with you guys The black and white does make it a little bit hard to read texts in this because there are is there is text Messaging throughout it when you you know, you're seeing the face of the phone as the texting is going on So the black and white makes it a little bit challenging The good thing is though the only portions that makes it challenging to see are the portions that the persons Whose phone you're seeing is typing out So you have you have to read it as they're typing it out the problem is they can go a little bit fast So you need to be able to read it kind of quick before it gets sent because once it gets sent It's really hard to see but the incoming texts for that phone Easy enough to see with the black and white. So it's just a little bit challenging visually there, but you know The other thing about the text though is for my personal taste I do not like prolonged texting in a film and actually I'm not really sure I've really experienced it before but in this film it happens it in a portion and That for me is too much downtime. It's too. It's too boring like literally watching someone text out entire Sentences and then getting sentences back and then going back and forth That's not interesting to me and it's not exciting and I I think that's something that maybe should have been changed in The film because I'm gonna give you know some constructive criticism with this I think that's something needs to be changed because it's a little too much downtime in my opinion but Maybe it's just a generational thing for me and or maybe it's a personal thing I don't know anyone who's already seen it can make a comment down there. We can talk about that The ending was a solid way to finish. I was down with it That third story is the one that has all that texting. So for that reason it kind of took me out of the story a little bit But then it comes back in getting me interested again with the very end of it I did like how it ended with that one. It's a particularly I don't know how to put it. I don't want to say tense. It's not particularly tense. It's a good horror moment I guess I could just put it that way. It's a good way to kind of bring it to a close Have a nice horror moment to end it and go to the credits. So I enjoyed that The visitors face in this actually looks pretty good I don't know if it was some it was like something that was purchased or something that was made by someone that Nicholas knew but It looked good. It looked pretty good, especially for a no-budget film to be honest Look better than anything I've used in any of my films when I was making films for the most part shots are pretty well framed And there are a few that have some cool angles to be honest It's not, you know, you won't watch it and be like, oh my god The cinematography is so inspired and amazing in the directing. Oh unbelievable, but it's good And that's the thing for someone who's younger for someone who's doing a no-budget independent film That like you don't need to have amazing like you're probably not going to have amazing and to be honest when I was watching this I saw a lot of myself in it. Like, yep, I would frame a shot exactly like that Yeah, I totally would or I've done shots exactly like that. I've done angles exactly like that I framed things like this. So, you know This the film was shot about one and a half hours from where I live I realized so which I thought that was kind of funny. So I'm not far from where these people are That's you know, considering how big the United States is that's kind of a funny thing So anyway, like I said, I'm not going to give a star rating for this because with independent no-budget films Why, you know, you can't compare it. There's just no possibility. I did enjoy it, you know, if you're looking for a Unbelievably polished, you know theater Um release type film, this is not it But if you're looking to you know, throw your money to someone who is an aspiring filmmaker who is doing no-budget independent film stuff Do it, you know, I like I said, I don't know what the pricing is gonna be But if it's a few bucks consider just throwing out a few bucks Like I said, the second story in particular, I think is a good time It is fun and the way it ends is good. So there's fun to be had with this film I enjoyed myself. I definitely enjoyed myself and like I said, it's 45 minutes, too So it's not too much of a commitment, which I like the other thing is this the horror community is Awesome with independent film. I actually have a friend who just recently got finished making an independent film that is not horror He I went to the premiere of it and everything and it's good It's well done, but I was talking to him and I said, you know What's your plan for this because as far as I know there isn't a whole lot of a of a market for super independent non horror genre films and It just made me start thinking about how good the the horror community is about Supporting and lifting up independent film within the horror community. So I said to to the friend I said, you know, if you want to try to actually make some money Doing independent film, I think you should do your next one as a horror film because that community supports it well So that said Keep that in mind if it's a few bucks on Amazon Prime video go ahead and get it give it a shot It's worth it Just to encourage these people to continue to do film because we need future filmmakers for the horror industry we do Is there a shortage? I don't know there might be with what's going on. Who knows but I Also want to say Nicholas. Thank you for sending this to me. It was fun and Yeah, best of luck to you, man. I see a lot of what I used to do I haven't touched the camera in a long time but I see a lot of what I used to do and what you did and Yeah, I kind of resonated with me for that reason. So that's cool. But anyway, thanks everyone for checking this one out Thank You Nicholas. Thank you to your whole crew and everything But um, yeah, if there are other independent filmmakers out there who want to send in and ask for reviews You can certainly do that. I'm at brutal battle podcast at gmail.com brutal is spelled Brutal brutal battle podcast at gmail.com just contact me and if if if my Schedule allows which probably it would I'll take care of that but thanks everyone for checking this out Do me a quick favor hit the subscribe if you can to show that you like anything that I'm doing do the thumbs up If you've already subscribed. Oh, and if you are gonna subscribe hit the notification bell so you know what I'm doing Posting new things especially when I'm gonna be jumping on and doing live streams It'll let you know when that's happening put some comments down there if you've seen this Yeah, and thanks for checking this out until next time keep it brutal


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The past couple of years have seen substantial discussions both in the media and outside on what is seen as the emergence of the new right. Now in India, of course, we have the Narendra Modi government, but its origins and the origins of the right-wing movement it represents, like it's even in the 90s. But it's also true that in the last couple of years, across the world, we have seen the emergence of governments of this sort in many parts of the world. We have Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and even in Europe, many right-wing governments have come to power. To talk more about this phenomenon, we have with us Prabir Prakash and Vijay Prashan. So Prabir, could you start by defining what you see as the major characteristics of this new right movement? Well, if we could do that, we'd have really solved all our problems. So I think that's a big ask. But let's look at some of the commonalities as it were that underlines the current rise of the populist right, as some people call it, also the neo-fascist right, whatever kinds of right. And let's see, let's also say there is a mix of very ugly right with just not so ugly right, but nevertheless right in different places. We have in Hungary, we have in Austria now, also similar phenomena, we have Turkey. So apart from the countries you mentioned, these are also on the table. So to say about the phenomena of the new right. I think the new right, if we see it in longer time frame, rises along with the failure of the socialist project in Eastern Europe with the Soviet Union falling and also the socialist block coming unstuck. That this is, if you see it in a larger sense, you will also see there is also the failure, if you will, of the de-colonization project that the people who got freedom from the colonial countries thought that they would get a emancipatory country in which there would be a certain development for the poor. If you see the national movement in India, all sections apart from the right wing who didn't participate in the movement at all, as you know. All of them talked about that freedom is not going to be enough, we need to feed the people, we need to have development, we need to have education, all of that. And this I think both sort of come unstuck, if you see the 90s where the promise of the de-colonization process and the socialist project, both get into a kind of crisis that they do not bring out the fruits that they were promised. And I would say that it lasts from say the crisis of both of these, last from 70s to 90s before really the right wing starts taking over through at that time the globalization project that is called, which is really the project of global capital. That capital can globalize, we no longer need to talk about the poor, the working class, we no longer need to address the aspirations of the people, socialism having failed, all that is gone so we can have unframmeled, brutal, naked capitalism. And I think the response today, you see, is a failure of that project, but the response is not again in an emancipatory direction, but the response seems to be a kind of ethno-nationalism if you will, identity-based nationalism saying problem is not capital, problem is those guys who are coming into a country taking over our jobs, outsourcing the jobs, bringing in this new fashion, the newfangled ideas of women's rights, rights of shall we say the oppressed sections like the black communities, the oppressed castes in India. So all those kind of emancipatory projects are rejected as a part of the globalization project in order to get an even more writing expression of what is coming out of the 90s so to say. So you have the failure of globalization which claimed that globalization would solve the problems which the new in newly independent countries, the decolonization project didn't solve or which the socialist project didn't solve that this will solve through capitalism. But what we have with all this crisis, the response of the right has been, we have to go more rightwards and that is what is going to solve the problem. Is there anything? Well, you know what Prabir said is correct, I think it's a good narrative and I just want to periodize it a little bit to just break it up. I mean the issue is that capitalism entered what I see as a long-term crisis from the 1960s onward. It's a crisis of profitability, firms were not able to have the kind of rate of return that they were enjoying in colonial times even in the period immediately after the war. You know they were reconstructing Europe, there was enormous gains made by capital building freeways in the United States and so on. There was a crisis that comes around the late 1960s. The immediate surface effect of that is the change in the Bretton Wood system when the United States junks the gold standard and this period of crisis is basically brings us to let us say the first period of the post crisis or sorry the crisis era and that's the time when big companies including these multinational auto manufacturers, multinational textile companies and so on in collaboration with governments of the west and Japan, the so-called triad you know North America, Europe and Japan. These countries, these big companies drive an agenda which we know by the name neoliberalism. In other words they do a lot of asset stripping, privatization, cannibalization of society to draw profit to these big monopoly firms and they increase inequality you know and this runs from the 1970s all the way out to 2007 the major crisis you know when this basically falls apart.  These are lower middle class populations in the west, in Brazil, wherever you know they find that the stability that they had got used to in the previous period was being undermined. Now when you create such a major churning to derive profit for multinational businesses you're going to set loose populations seeking jobs elsewhere and so on the migration starts to increase and the right wing feeds on this migration and produces a politics which is not against global capitalism, never against global capitalism but begins to understand globalization as migration and that brings us after the 2007 crisis to this new period where the people who pushed neoliberalism you know people who pushed the cannibalization of society they basically become delegitimized their legitimacy goes you know these are the so-called people that Tariq Ali calls extreme center you know whether it's the Labour Party in Britain in the Blair kind of character or it's the Democratic Party in the Clinton character or in a sense the Christian Democrats and Social Democratic Alliance in Germany all of them basically lose their legitimacy and they are outflanked on the right by parties that basically drive an agenda which they call you know protecting the sovereignty of their countries but really they only target vulnerable populations you know minority populations people who are trying to imagine new ways to live LGBT communities visionary communities that want you know cooperatives different forms of life but they also target migrants and this is the real edge of their wedge I mean they hit migrants hard so the emergence of the new right is not the emergence of old fascism you know you know old wine and new bottles I don't think so this new right that comes in is basically a consequence of the end of a you know sort of secular bourgeois attempt to suck profit from a system which no longer is able to provide huge profits. Vijay I'd like to take off sorry Prashant to take over your role a little in this I would like to take off take off from this point that what you are talking about is also something we should address which is the crisis of the state itself that state was looked upon earlier also as a measure of control over the too much of greed of the ruling class that the state appeared to be while of course subservient to the need of capital. It also pretended to be an arbitrator and had some redistributive role 90 sees that redistributive role of the state coming to an end not only in the West European countries of course United States as well where the the Blairite Labour Party sections or you know the Democratic Party certain sections take over and basically make the state relatively less of an engine of redistribution. But also when you talk about the third world countries you see the role of the state here was both redistribution and development without which there is no put possibility of redistribution that also comes into crisis so we also have the other political crisis when you talk about the economy which is really the crisis of the state and here I would also like to talk about you know we get too much of focus on Western Europe and the United States but let's look at Latin America let's look at for instance Africa and let's look at Asia and let's also look at for instance rise in the West Asia of the religious right-wing forces religion as an identity religion not as religion but religious as a political identity and I would like to make this very clear that I think we fall in prey to talking of it as if it's a religious right it's actually religious religion as an identity using religion to attack other sections as you know Isis was against the Shias against Alamites against the Alibis and you can see the sectarian nature of that religious right as you see it here for instance the Hindutva right is also using religion as an identity and you see it also in Southeast Asia so I think if you see all of it we also need to analyze these two issues of state and religious identity politics which are part of the larger right-wing identity politics it could be ethnic it could be religious it could be linguistic so all of this have to be also combined that while the right-wing is is clear about what it wants our analysis has to take into account what this right-wing truly represents attack on the state and you can see it from Trump to Modi to Bolsonaro all of them attack state in different forms public sector being attacked today over Hindustan diagnostics on the referral deal and Anil Ambani being brought in a bankrupt capitalist who has bankrupted all his companies being again brought in in this fashion but also what you see is also the attack on the minorities in the guise of religious religion identity and I think in Trump's case again clear it's not religious right of course does support him but in this case it's not religious right that he articulates but he articulates basically white male supremist identity so actually taking off from your question could you talk a bit more on what exactly this new right-wing wave actually intends to do with the state or is doing with the state actually on the one hand you talked about for instance the attack on minorities but as executing state policy how exactly does this function which is important also because I think it sort of feeds into the question of how to resist it as well say in my view the this is before the right emerges when the so-called neoliberals are in power you already see a pivot in the state you know it's not quite the case that the state is disappearing but the states you know maybe role is narrowing and sharpening so whereas the state previously you know had a monopoly on violence and also had some sort of regulatory framework to balance and maintain capitalism through laws and regulations and so on and it had this redistributive function the redistributive function is largely vanished except insofar as you don't want to have riots every day some soaps given here and there the regulatory framework is now instead of being relatively a neutral arbiter has moved entirely on behalf of corporations particularly transnational corporations and what is sharpened has been the security angle you know which is why the state sees the population is divided between good consumers and terrorists you know and criminals and so on so the security aspect is deepened you know as in any epoch as people are more and more alienated from their ability to make decent livings to build you know robust communities where resources are dwindling I think there are two ways in which aspirations and desires have been moving you know one way let's call it the aspirational road goes through the religious institutions and the mall and what I mean here is that people who are seeing the societies be destroyed you know bankrupt you know cultural communities and so on are increasingly entering piety movements you know whether this is tablighi jamaat in you know maybe in India Pakistan all kinds of countries tablighi jamaat growing as a piety movement rada swami satsang in haryana you know these piety movements pentecostalism it's a way for people to ground themselves socially because the kind of most secular national cultural life is dying out the second aspirational road is through malls where people are gaining a sense of dignity through commodity through buying through you know maybe debt fueled consumption as a way to you know make yourself feel feel less like you're drowning socially but the second road is the much harsher road and this is where you have you know the kind of fascistic gaurakshak hindutva type things you have the isis phenomena you have all kinds of violent groups emerging the return of neo-nazis with their own peculiar kind of you know theological assumptions because it's not like they are religious in the strict piety sense but they have a scatological view you know we're going to wipe out the planet of anybody who's not white and so on they have very you know strong ideas of how the cosmos must be arranged so this direction is the vicious direction but i think we shouldn't confuse this aspirational side where there's piety where there's malls with this second road although they are all reactions to the same crisis of society so there's a crisis of the economy crisis of the state and i think very deeply there's a crisis of society you know again when you talk about the crisis of society one response is a communitarian one and that could also feed into identities so let's also recognize that it's not a neutral expression and communitarian projects can be both at the level of community but also at the level of exclusionary politics so it could have both these aspects and we have to see how or what way it expresses itself no sweeping generalizations but i think it's important to think about the state again because at the end of it what you said is absolutely correct that the state at the end is essentially an instrument of violence that's the primary function of the state that it has the monopolies of violence monopoly of violence over society and therefore what the state does is always going to be important and i think it's again interesting to see what is happening to the state that given the fact there is this 50 60 70 years of national movement in the colonies decolonization legitimacy of the decolonization process to democrat the democratic forms in different ways in which the state power is also exercised by sections who earlier were completely deprived and who then are able to vote and decide who their rulers are going to be so as distinct from being a colony that as well as the welfare measures which gave in competition with the socialist countries the working class feel that they were also in command of their countries now that legitimacy of the state still remains and that is why it's interesting to see the right is not using a rhetoric which has throw away the state and we want a completely new state that this state is not able to fulfill your functions your aspirations we will have a different state which also fuelled revolutionary forces earlier but also fuelled the national socialist state quote unquote the Darcy state or the fascist state so this delegitimization of the state does not seem to be at the moment the primary intent of these forces the primary intent of this forces is to use quote unquote the constitutional existing constitutional framework and have a kind of creeping fascism now that also means that it's possible for us to find it fight differently that utilize different forms of quote unquote constitutional protection that we have it may be in the courts it may be in the you know going to the media the elections in different ways aligning at least electorally not in terms of programmatic understanding that means no common minimum program is very difficult for the left to have a common minimum program for instance with forces say in different countries whether it is England or whether it is India or other countries where we talk about opening the economy to completely external forces and you say any state in intervention is kind of a dirigist state so having programmatic alignments are very difficult but the same time because of the elections the nature of the elections and the fact that the constitution is not being proposed to be overthrown except incrementally changed it's possible to have different kinds of electoral strategies as well so i think that is wild for the right they would like to get rid of all of this and go back to untrammeled shall we say exercise of brutal power by one section may be may be white may be ethnic british as the british would like to call it i don't know what the scots and irons irons of the well should say on that etc and in India of course saying we are the original Aryan Hindus. Hinduism has been Aryan and us from the beginning irrespective of what the real history is so or bring back pure Islam the Wahhabi version which is what is coming from Saudi Arabia but i think the fact that they have to address the national liberation struggle and the gains of that as opposed to a colonial state structure and the at least reasonably shall we say welfare measures which were introduced in Europe by the working class movement and as a response to that it's not easy to dismantle those structures and therefore the space is more than what for instance would be in the 30s which at that point of time was threatening the entire state structure and militarizing it completely this is constitutional fascism if you will and by virtue of that you can see even in Brazil this is a constitutional coup if you will Latin America the coups have been constitutional coups Bolsonaro came in because Lula was not allowed to contest by quote unquote the judiciary playing a certain role so it is to my mind also a constitutional coup so these are the subversion of the institutions of the state but that also makes it possible to fight in different ways and not think of only a unidimensional fight i think that's the complexity of the scenario today some hope because yes the state still has some legitimacy the role of the state however much the post modernist may decry still is seen to be in some sense emancipatory redistributive nationalist if you will in certain societies at the same time the risk of the state being captured by this new right and then being used against the people i think these are the positives and the negatives and the current scenario i would not you know i wouldn't think that they are winning and there is a huge swing to the right i think that this is very shall we say very very much on the balance and the rights weakness is that it is not able to offer either a man emancipatory vision forget about that but it is also is also forced to act within the constraints of the existing state it doesn't have that kind of legitimacy to overthrow the state and reconfigure the state as it would like to we say how do you see what premiere was talking about the question of what sort of platforms right now exist in terms of resistance and what sort of coalitions do you build so see i mean it's a different time scales there is the immediate time scale where i think he's right that there is room within the you know say the political plane to provide some kind of robust and i think quite decisive you know platforms to defeat the right because there's space for it i mean you know there are still very progressive and and left movements around the the world which are going to give a stiff fight to the right on the political plane but i actually think the longer term problems are going to be difficult and this is where the left has been working on the social plane trying to undercut some of this despair you know when i said that the despair has gone in the direction of malls and towards piety movements on the one side and towards very harsh kind of politics on the other you know supremacist politics of one kind of the other i mean this has been possible because society is fragmenting society is being torn apart through economic processes through the breakdown of you know the stabilities of earning a living decent work and so on precarious employment i mean all this creates very morbid symptoms as gram she said so it's in this plane of reconstructing society that the left's long-term project has to be vested you know the long-term project isn't merely at the political level what one does in elections and so on but there's a longer project of reimagining society of recreating bonds of social solidarity of providing alternative utopian ways of building communities building economies you know trying to imagine a way where people are able to be active with their creativity without feeling you know lost i'll give you just one example see right now unemployment is seen as an individual failure people go they get a college degree and they come out not able to find the job and they go home they're depressed suicidal and so on i mean is there a way for us as a left to provide platforms for the unemployed who are often very creative people to come out there and work in society you know go and teach children in in very low income areas provide them with some sort of you know socially produced recompense not a salary but an on rarium and so on but to raise the dignity of people who are being cast aside who are being you know called failures they are not failures it's the system that's failing so the long-term thing is in a sense to reconstruct society so that we have creative action and we can build the foundations of a strong left you know the left is built on a foundation it's not built politically it's built socially it's built culturally so we have to work at different timescales and i i think that's a very valid point that what left lacks today along with all the other shall we say bush your forces as well as an emancipatory vision of society where greed is not the basis of all social interactions quite right which it is what it has become so therefore how do you have an emancipatory vision which is what always has held society together you cannot say becoming rich is the only objective in life so how do you build that and how do you build a socialist vision for the 21st century remains a challenge just as the sterility of the other side provides also the basis to do so right thank you that's all we have time for today keep watching


expansion of the public assistance cash transfer program from 2,600 households to 3,600 households, increase in the child disability grant from $200 to $300, increase in the grant for persons living with HIV from $100 to $200, increase in the grant for children to foster care from $200 to $300, provision of a COVID-19 hygiene care package for the poor and vulnerable, microfinance loans to households to diversify into small enterprise and cottage industries, small infrastructure projects within the rural communities.