Coming up on DTNS, Patrick Beja has some early impressions of Apple Arcade. Amazon targets the sophisticated music listener and space elevators on the moon. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, September 17th, 2019 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Feline, I'm Sarah Lane. And from the Finnish countryside, I'm Patrick Beja. And on the show's producer, Roger Chang. On Good Day Internet, the wider conversation, our expanded show. We were just talking about the locally sourced photons I'm using on today's show to power my camera. We were looking at Sarah Lane's Fitbit Versa, the new Livewithit product that she's testing out. If you want to get that show, you've got to become a member. Patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a view of tech things you should know. Snaps Spectacles 3 have a 3D feature that show immersive filter effects through the lenses. And now the Snapchat app itself, at least the one for iOS, is getting a 3D camera mode so users can create and share images with those depth effects that move when you tilt your phone. The feature works on the iPhone X and above once you update the Snapchat app and found in the cameras mode right hand drop down menu if you're looking around for it. The pictures can be viewed although not created on Android and also older iPhone models. Apple has awarded 250 million US dollars to Corning as part of Apple's advanced manufacturing fund which aims to encourage technology manufacturing in the US. Corning received 200 million dollars from the fund in 2017 as well. Corning makes the Gorilla Glass used in many smartphones including the iPhone. Investors have filed a lawsuit against AT&T alleging falsified numbers for Direct TV Now were given ahead of the merger with Time Warner. Those investors were saying I don't know if we would have believed the stock price. If we'd had the right numbers, the suit alleges that employees were pressured to secretly add Direct TV Now to existing customer accounts. And that seems to have happened and that user growth was emphasized at a time when executives knew that users were about to leave because promotional prices were ending. SEC obligations would require risks like that associated with a business like Direct TV Now to be disclosed. AT&T calls the claims baseless. Google's data saver feature is launching on Android TV. Features like saving a YouTube video for offline viewing and data alerts are coming to those using mobile data for Android TV. Been on Android since 2016 I believe. The data saving features will roll out in India in the next few weeks with a global rollout to come. Separately, XDA developers reports a slide that was presented by Google at a conference indicating that Android 10 will get custom phrases for its assistance. Also an in-menu ads test and Play Store redesign all this year. The slide also indicated that Google's Stadia integration and an Android TV Hero device with smart home features also coming in 2020. All right, let's talk a little bit more about a new feature from Uber. Indeed, Uber has released RideCheck for all drivers and riders in the US with plans to bring it to other countries as well. RideCheck uses GPS accelerometer and gyroscope in a driver's phone to detect unusual behavior like a long stoppage or crash. If it detects such things, Uber sends a proactive notification to the driver and rider with quick access to the emergency button and Uber's safety line. Yeah, so the idea here is there's a little machine learning to tell the difference between a driver just dropping his phone and one where she had a crash and like an actual crash. And if they think they detected a crash, then they'll send an alert to her phone asking if everything is okay. But also to the rider. If there's a rider in that driver's car, the rider will get that notification as well. The reason the driver is focused on is because the driver is likely to have his phone on all the time, whereas the rider might not. The rider might be on Twitter. In other words, the Uber app will be on for sure in the driver. But again, the point here is to try to detect if something's wrong and proactively help both the rider and the driver notify someone about it. And just to be clear, because this confused me a little bit at first, this will not proactively be like crash up ahead. Everybody panic. This is something already happened. It's been indicated within the app and the app kind of goes like, Hey, you need help. Yeah, we think we detected a crash. Are you okay? And it's not, my understanding is it's not calling emergency services by itself. It's just asking the driver. I guess at some point, if they have enough data, maybe they could say in some cases, we noticed that people did not respond in these scenarios. So maybe in these cases, we can call emergency services, but for now it doesn't. Yeah. For now it does not. NBC announced its streaming service will launch in April 2020 under the name Peacock. With about 15,000 hours of movies and back catalog of TV show, there'll be some connection with NBC's Olympics coverage as well. The back catalog will include episodes of The Office and coming in the autumn, it'll get Parks and Rec back from Hulu. Peacock will launch originals in the autumn, including a Battlestar Galactica series run by Sam Esmail. That's right. A new Battlestar Galactica series with the guy who did Mr. Robot, Sam Esmail. A comedy series from Ed Helms and Mike Shore, both who worked on The Office. Their comedy is called Rutherford Falls and a limited series called Dr. Death, starring Jamie Dorn and Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater, among others. There's some other originals in here. There's Saved by the Bell return original series as well in the offing. Wait, wait. A follow up to Saved by the Bell? I don't know if it's a reboot or a follow up. That I didn't get the. Oh my God. All of a sudden, you have my interest. Really? That was the one I left out of here and I just ad-libbed it because I'm like, I don't know. Maybe somebody cares about Saved by the Bell and I was right. I think Saved by the Bell already had a spin off show, although you could reboot it as many times as you like. It is called a reboot according to the press release. A reboot is less interesting to me than a where are they now type of show similar to what Cobra Kai is doing with Karate Kid, which is a great show. But Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkeley are involved. Yeah, but if they're like principals in the school and the focus is on the kids, I'm not sure I would be interested. But regardless, the news is about a new streaming service. First of all, Peacock, not sure about the name. We get used to everything though. It seems like the most obvious name for anything with the logo. For those who don't know, network is associated with the Peacock. We'll get over the challenge. Everybody laughed about the word I've had for a while too. That was the end of that. I know a lot of people are saying yet another one. Oh my God, I don't want to subscribe to a million streaming services. And this will just usher privacy back in. And I think that's not wrong that it's starting to be a lot of services. But first of all, all of them have to do it. We'll see what happens a few years from now. And if there's some consolidation, second of all, in Europe, I'm sure we're not going to get the NBC service. So we'll get all of those on Netflix probably. Or somewhere. Yeah, Amazon. Amazon or HBO, Nordic or something like that. And thirdly, yes, it will lead to privacy. But I think most people, or in large part, the people who will end up pirating some of these shows are people who probably wouldn't pay for all of the services anyway. So I don't know how much it impacts. The only increase in piracy we've seen are in countries that don't have the streaming services. So I have not yet bought the idea that, man, with all these streaming services, it's causing piracy. It's causing piracy in places where they couldn't get the streaming service. So to me, it's people who are thinking they have to have everything. It's completionists who are like, I can't afford to have all the services. And the fact is, no, you can't also afford to buy all the books, but you don't want to read all the books. You can't read all the books. So you're going to have to make choices. You're not going to be able to just have what you've been used to, which is all you can eat, everything in one bill that you complain about because on average, it's $120 a month. Well, you can't listen to all the music either, but Amazon would like you to try with Amazon Music HD, which offers lossless audio files for streaming or downloading. Amazon said it's catalog of 50 million high def songs applied to songs with CD quality bit depth of 16 bits and a 44 one kilohertz sample rate. Also says it has millions, which is probably under 10 million, or it would say tens of millions of songs that it's calling ultra HD. That's the really good one 24 bit with sample rates from either 44 one kilohertz up to about 100 92 kilohertz. Amazon Music HD uses the lossless FLAC file format, not the MQA format that title uses. It's also cheaper than title out of the gate. Music HD will be accessible in the Amazon Music app for Android, iOS, the web and Fire and Echo devices, of course, launching today in Japan, Germany, the UK and the US at $12.99 cents per month for prime members and $14.99 for everybody else. Yeah. And like I said, titles what? $19.99, I think? Yes, you're safe. I mean, it's not as if title has a huge user base anyway, compared to the other streaming music services, but it's claimed to fame was always, but our quality is better. So if you can't claim that and Amazon is undercutting you, I don't know what you do, besides lower your prices. The fact that this is available on devices that I own, the fact that it is at a reasonable price point, started to make me excited that maybe I would get it. And then I remembered that I have a tin ear and I can't tell the difference between high quality music and MP3s, much to people who cans chagrin. So I am not the target market for this. I doubt that Amazon expects to have a huge number of subscribers, but if they can capture that niche, that's another one to add to their gamut of services that they provide that you capture enough niches and you've got yourself a big audience. Do you think or do you know if that level of quality is what audio files would consider proper? I don't want to say optimal, but at least proper. I seem to remember, maybe I'm wrong, but I seem to remember Patrick Norton saying that the high quality Spotify version is okay. But if you're using this one, let's say the Amazon Music HD on a phone with decent headphones, with good headphones, will that be actually improving your listening experience or do you need to run it through the whatever, Firefly, Dongle and on a computer or I don't know, the everyday use cases actually going to be improved by this. Roger? So real quick, yes and no. Well, part of it is that if you have a crappy sound system or something that doesn't really necessarily give you a flat audio signal and you don't have headphones or earbuds, that can... No, but let's assume the setup that most people who would like to try it will have, which is phone, a decent phone and good-ish headphones. I would say this.  Well, what if you had noise canceling headphones? I think answer the first question, which is the most important one, is this encoding the right encoding? Yes, Flack. That's all I will buy. 24 bit with sample rates from 44 kHz, Flack. So this is good. Then let's get to like, so what equipment do you need to be able to tell the difference? Will a phone in the right conditions be okay? Or do you need better equipment than a phone to play it? The thing is, if you have an iPhone or if you have one of the higher end androids, yeah, it'll be good. If you have one of the cheaper ones, then it's kind of an iffy proposition because a lot of those are more based on price point of meeting the phone to like... I assume if you're the kind of person that's going to subscribe to this that you have good headphones. Yeah, like, so this is the thing. If you have a phone and you want to listen to a high quality audio, you're going to buy a separate dongle that's basically a sound card that plugs into the bottom of your phone. You plug in your $300,000, $400,000 headphones into that to get the quality. $400,000 headphones. That's amazing. That's how you can tell it's good. There are people that buy tube amps just for their headphones and they make them specific. I don't think you have to have $400,000 headphones to take advantage of. I meant like $400,000 to $1,000 headphones, not $4,000 headphones. You'd be able to hear it, but those are a very select group of people and I think if you listen to most of your music on a commute, the quality will be lost on you because I used to do this. I used to commute. What about noise canceling though? No? Still not? When you use noise canceling, it's actively sending out waves that cancel out the ambient noise which interferes with the audio that goes into your ear. Got it. Okay, that makes sense. All right. Let's get to the space elevators. Zephyr Penroyer from the University of Cambridge in the UK and Emily Sanford at Columbia University in New York have written a paper describing a feasible space elevator. Space elevators based on earth have been considered unachievable because the material needed just isn't strong enough. You have to have them keeping pace with the rotation of the earth and that puts a lot of stress. People have been like, well, we need to find the stronger material. But Penroyer and Sanford have proposed basing the elevator on the moon, not earth. The slower rotation of the moon once a month compared to once a day for the earth reduces the centrifugal force. It also would then pass through the Grange point, an area where lunar and terrestrial gravity cancel out. They make a big deal about how at that point there's zero, there literally is zero gravity. You hear zero gravity talked about in low earth orbit, but it's not actually zero gravity. The Grange point is actually zero gravity and that would make a great base halfway up the elevator to create some construction. And then carbon polymers like Xylon would be strong enough to handle the forces if it stretched from the moon's surface to just at geosynchronous orbit of the earth because the moon keeps pace with the earth. So that reduces the stress. A proof of concept line about the thickness of a pencil lead would cost a few billion dollars. So it's not cheap, but when you're talking about billionaires or governments, it's relatively inexpensive compared to other projects underway. You'd still need fuel to reach the end of the cable in orbit, but after that solar power would take the cargo the rest of the way to the moon, cutting the fuel needed to a third of what you would need to get to the moon right now. So this is mostly moving heavy space cargo back and forth? I mean, it could move people too. My guess is it probably wouldn't immediately be used for passengers. It would be used for research and industry and stuff like that. Yeah. So you would need to send stuff. You still need to leave earth's orbit to reach that thing. Yes. You have to send a rocket up to the beginning of the elevator, but then the elevator takes the rest away to the moon. And like they said, you need a third of the fuel to do that as you would to take it on a rocket all the way to the moon. So that's if you really want to go to the moon very often. Because I think the interesting aspect of the earth space elevator is that it reduces the cost of sending stuff in orbit. In that case. That has been one of the things people were hoping, but what these writers are saying is we're talking about heading to the moon. We have more countries, space agencies sending things to the moon. This would reduce the cost and make us able to go to the moon more frequently to do mining and research and all kinds of stuff. Right.  And that's not what this is for. You would still need rockets, but it's the rockets that we're launching regularly, right? We've figured out the rocket thing. We're launching from Baikonur and SpaceX and Blue Origin. That doesn't seem to be an issue right now. That's taking off, if you will. Well, this might take off as well. LinkedIn has launched a feature called Skill Assessment that gives users short multiple choice tests in English to verify knowledge in 75 skills, such as computer languages or software packages and the like. The tests were created by subject area experts who already worked with LinkedIn and other areas like writing content for LinkedIn learning. Users who fail a test can try again in three months, just kind of study up a little bit in the meantime. Tests need to be retaken every year to keep verification that you already have. More skills and languages are planned. LinkedIn is trying to stay ahead of competitors and it's important to note it's not the only company doing this. TechCrunch noted that Triple Byte focusing on engineering jobs does offer online skills tests to match applications with potential jobs as well. Yeah, this is interesting because LinkedIn, as a place to get hired, has become a thing. We all thought it was going to be a job board and LinkedIn became the place where more people are looking for jobs because of the social networking aspect. It's also one of the more successful social networks, but it is vulnerable to specialty job application sites like Triple Byte because Triple Byte can super serve just that niche. This is an example of LinkedIn saying, all right, but we're going to still try to serve that area for everybody. I wonder if you can take the test for someone. Oh, you could. You absolutely could. And I don't think LinkedIn expects this or even Triple Byte expects this to be a perfect system, although Triple Byte has some actual coding example questions and essays and such, whereas it's all multiple choice on LinkedIn. It's a weed out factor. You're still as a hiring manager going to have to interview someone and make sure that you get them to prove that they do know the things they said they know. But by and large, people won't do that because they will be worried they'll be caught. Yeah, there's not a huge incentive if you get hired and then can't do the job. But then maybe you can send the person to you. No. Okay, if you talk about one can one person game the system? Yes. As a hiring manager, will this become a useless tool? No. Then yeah, they get hired and you send the person who took the test to do the job and no, that breaks down. Okay. Yeah. And then they then you have to give them your paycheck. Yeah. But no, it's seriously like this. This is a good indicator to say like, Oh, well, this person at least seems to have passed the test that helps you narrow down the pool. And that's an improvement over right now where you have nothing but their own self reporting. People can also say they have a skill that they don't have right now. So it is an improvement on that. I'm a person who would want to take these tests just to see if I could pass them. They might not be very fun, but I would like to be able to say, yes, I have passed my computer language skill and I will be updating it yearly. And last point, I can't wait for Tinder to implement the same system to make sure that you are indeed an excellent guitar player. Was that really you at Machu Picchu? Thank you. Folks to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to our sister show, DailyTechHeadlines.com. All right. The Apple Arcade, as we mentioned yesterday, has become available for some savvy folks a little earlier than its September 19th launch. And one of the savvy folks we know was Patrick Beja. Patrick, you were able to get in. First, tell us how you were able to get into the Apple Arcade. Well, as you said, I am quite savvy. So what I did was that I turned on my iPad with iOS 13.1 and I tapped the App Store icon and it asked me if I wanted to subscribe. So I did because you had the iOS 13 beta. Yes. So apparently a number of people who have the iOS 13 beta have been invited. I'm guessing this is load management and maybe early testing on Apple's part. Was it on an iPad or an iPhone? It's on my iPad. I don't have iOS 13. So it's iPad OS. You are correct. Okay. Good. Yeah. So a few early impressions. First of all, I was kind of, I guess for every service like this, you're always wondering how it's going to go, the process is going to go. This is incredibly simple. You just open the App Store app, go to the Arcade page. It says, do you want to subscribe first month? It's free. Click yes and boom, you're done. And then you have a list of games. You tap to download and they download to your iPad. And that's it. And then when you want to... The list is there's not a separate app for Apple Arcade. It's a list of games in the App Store. It is a tab in the App Store. The second game tab, by the way, there's the regular game tab and the Apple Arcade game tab. And you have some pretty lovely presentations for the apps and you just so select them just like you would any other app. And then you have a button to install. Once you install the game, you launch it and it has an Apple Arcade splash screen and then the game runs. It's as simple as you could imagine it to be. And then playing the game is just playing the game. So if my contention has been, if you're someone who likes playing games on an iPad or an iPhone, then this sounds like a great deal. Does that feel right now? So this is the really tricky part of the equation. No one is really sure who Apple Arcade is for. A lot of people are thinking, well, it's fun games, that they look like good games, but they're not what the traditional phone games or mobile games have become because those are very much based on the free-to-play model. So it's a different type of game design. These games don't have any in-game microtransactions, so you just get what you pay for. In this case, the subscription. It should be noted the games are often available on other platforms. They might be exclusive to iOS on mobile, but many of them are also available on PC or consoles. And so they're quote-unquote traditional gamers games, but traditional gamers already have traditional game devices. So some people are arguing, well, they don't really need them on this. Families might be interested because you don't have the temptation or the possibility of paying more and children. They're more wholesome health, safe games in that sense. I think, ultimately, it's kind of a little bit for everyone. It's not a service that any group is going to say, I absolutely need it, but between the price, the offering and the advantages, I think a lot of people are going to say, why not? And then give it a try at least. So I think there's a narrow, not narrow, but a shallow niche there that is actually spread a little bit wide. Gamers who don't absolutely need it might be interested because it's finally games that don't hammer you with microtransactions. Families, casual gamers will experience a different type of game or casual mobile gamers. So it does enough to be interesting to almost any gamer group. Now you can play this on the Apple TV too, right? Can you play it anywhere else? Is it also on the Mac? You can play it on the Mac, on the Apple TV, on the iPad, on the iPhone. And so all the games are available on all the platforms. And very important, you can now also connect any Xbox One or PlayStation 4 controller, and that might seem a little bit unnecessary for people who are used to mobile control schemes, but for people who are used to traditional consoles, this is kind of a deal breaker if you can do that. And now you can very easily. So we've figured out what you can do with it, who it might be for. Are there enough of them? Like, is this thing going to catch on? What does it need to do to succeed anyway? That's the thing. I think the bar it needs to clear is relatively low. And I mean, no, maybe that's not the right way to put it. I think the bar needs to clear for people to be convinced to get it is relatively low. So a lot of people might get it just for the sake of it. Now, beyond the first, let's say, six months to a year, I don't think anyone could answer that question. We really don't know. It's a new type of gaming experience on mobile, and that has a lot of unknown that comes with it. And we don't need everyone to subscribe to it for Apple to keep it. Just enough people that they can pay the developers to keep good games coming into it. Well, thanks for giving us the first impressions. Of course, folks, if you're not lucky enough to get in through the beta, it will be launching in a couple of days, like we said, for $5 a month. Thanks to everybody who participates in our subreddit, maybe some gaming stories, maybe some arcade stories will show up there soon. Submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com and join our Facebook group. If you haven't already, lots of good folks in there chatting about all sorts of stuff, facebook.com slash groups slash Daily Tech News Show. What's in the mailbag, Sarah? Yaro in Malaysia had some thoughts on our story yesterday about free trial surfing service and the whole idea that you could get around ever having to pay for a subscription that you never were going to pay for and just do the free trial. Yaro says, for hard car pirates, it's just easier to access unlicensed streaming sites or even just Torrent. Torrents now allow you to stream video to directly from P2P. Trust me, it's not as difficult or as much of a hassle as it seems. So they're not going to bother with this. That's not the worry, Yaro says. He says, I'm hoping that tools like this will help change the industry practice and make more trials opt-in. Opt-in seems to be fair. After all, the ideal situation is that the customer finds that they like something and once they do, they will want to continue to subscribe. Yes, it's better if the tool is not needed, but in this world we live in, it's such a counterbalance option that is needed. Now that's a great point. If this would put pressure on companies to change how free trials work to give us a little more control over whether we want to continue or not, I think that would be good. But it's not exactly opt-in or opt-out.  The question is, do they automatically assume you want to continue once the free part is over or do you get to make a choice at that point? And that has to be either on or off.  You have to change something to turn it on. I think that's too high of a bar. I think if the free trial surfing service made it so that you were changed it to opt-in, we won't change anything if you say no, but we'll make it easy to change your information to keep the service if you want it. That was my point. I think it's a little too far in making it so that you're just stealing. It's not helping you to opt-in, I don't think. I will mention, though, that Yaru says the ideal situation is that the customer finds something they like, basically that it's his version of opt-in. That's the ideal situation for the customer, for the company. That's not the ideal situation, which I think means don't get your hopes up. But at the same time, and I know we'll move on in a second, but as a company, I understand that the opt-in thing is like, well, we're just not going to get enough people that we can charge for automatically who we're kind of going to forget, or it's going to fall under the radar. But I also sometimes will be like, I don't want to sign up for this free trial that I'm actually really interested in because I'm going to forget and it's going to be a hassle later. I'm going to lose money. That happens more than the alternative. Yeah. If there was a way to say, we will make it very easy for you to end the free trial without being charged, but also give you a chance to continue it, like we'll do that, then that would be the ideal for both, for both the company and the consumer. It's just really tricky to make that happen because you have to have a default option for what happens if nobody does anything. Well, thanks, Yaro, for spraying this interesting conversation. It was a good one. People have opinions about this stuff. Also, thanks to Patrick Beja for being with us today. Patrick, what's new in your world? The Phileas Club. If you don't know what this is, I'm just going to say the latest episode basically goes over what China in Africa is doing. It's my show, but honestly, I thought it was really interesting. If you've heard about China in Africa and kind of wonder, I'm not really sure what that's about and what they're actually doing and what people in Africa think about it, go check it out at Frenchspin.com, the Phileas Club. It's the latest episode. I honestly think you will enjoy it. I think you will, too. I'm a big fan of the show, so go check it out. Had some good guests for that one, too. Hey, folks, we're changing our Patreon rewards starting October 1st. Thanks to everyone who gave us feedback about the new rewards. The current rewards that we haven't changed will be delivered at the end of this month. This will be the last month for the old system. New rewards will first be delivered November 1st. So if you want to know what's changing, head to dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon. Our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Send your questions, comments, photos of your pets, whatever. They're pleased. We love your feedback. We also love the folks who are able to join us live Monday through Friday at 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 2030 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Back tomorrow with Scott Johnson. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com.


My fellow Americans, not long ago I received a letter from a woman in the Midwest. She wrote, Dear Mr. President, in my humble way I am writing to you about the crisis in Vietnam. I have a son who is now in Vietnam. My husband served in World War II. Our country was at war. Now, this time, it's just something that I don't understand. Why? Why, Vietnam? Why, Vietnam? Why, Vietnam? Why, Vietnam? Munich, 1938. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler arrives for a conference to be held here with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. This meeting will long be remembered, for it opens the door to the dreams of dictatorship. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. Peace in our time, a shortcut to disaster, but even then this was no new lesson. It had stared us in the face with Mussolini in Ethiopia. Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie, made his protest to the League of Nations, but nothing was done. We'd also seen the Anschluss in Austria, then in 1950. Aggression was again unleashed, this time across the 38th parallel in Korea, but free men had begun to learn the lesson and something was done. The lesson had been learned and President Johnson had phrased its meaning well. Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed. Why must young Americans, born into a land exultant with hope and with golden promise, toil and suffer and sometimes die in such a remote and distant place? The answer, like the war itself, is not an easy one, but it echoes clearly from the painful lessons of half a century. Three times in my lifetime, in two world wars and in Korea, Americans have gone to far lands to fight for freedom. We have learned at a terrible and a brutal cost that retreat does not bring safety and weakness does not bring peace. And it is this lesson that has brought us to Vietnam. For the background to our involvement in Vietnam, we must go back to a shell-created place called Dien Bien Phu, supplied only by air, completely surrounded by the opposing Vietnamese. French troops are fighting the last battle of a long war over what had been called French Indochina. It's a strange three-cornered struggle, non-communist Vietnamese fighting communist Vietnamese and some of both fighting the French. By 1954, the inevitability of French defeat has become clear. Hanoi in 1954 reflects the ravages of long and bitter warfare, but for now the fighting is over, the French are leaving. The red star flies over Hanoi as the communist forces move in. After a conference in Geneva, an agreement has been reached. It divides Vietnam into north and south, turns over the north to the communists and marks the end of French colonial rule. The agreement also provides the machinery for bringing true peace to Vietnam if the communists act in good faith. This is a bright victory for the communist world and there are smiles, but not on the faces of the more than one million Vietnamese who desert their homes and flee southward rather than live under a communist regime. From then to now, the basic story of United States' help to Vietnam is simple. The communists have steadily increased their pressure on South Vietnam. South Vietnam has asked for greater support to resist that pressure and has received it. So increasing communist aggression has called forth increases in the scope of the United States' counteraction, but United States policy has remained the same. We are committed to helping a free people defend their sovereignty. Let us trace the history of that commitment. In 1954, Vietnam is divided at the 17th parallel, as Korea was divided at the 38th. She faces the future with an imaginary line running from border to border, symbolizing a separation which is far from imaginary. In the north, Ho Chi Minh, communist leader of North Vietnam, plays the kindly smiling grandfather. But behind the smile is a mind which is planning a reign of terror in South Vietnam, in which children and adults alike will be the victims. In South Vietnam, peace brings a fresh beginning. The people set about building new homes, new hopes. Free elections are held in the South alone when it becomes clear that the communist regime in the north has no intention of permitting genuinely free elections in its half of the country. Also in 1954, President Eisenhower pledges economic aid to assist the government of Vietnam in developing and maintaining a strong, viable state capable of resisting attempted subversion and aggression through military means. The reforms redistribute farmlands in the south so that farmers own their fields and reap for themselves the fruit of their toil. With American economic aid, the south begins to prosper and the hopes of the people are for peace. These hopes, shared by so many in Southeast Asia, are reinforced in Manila when in 1955 the United States and others signed the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, forming CETO and guaranteeing the mutual security of Southeast Asia from armed aggression. But even as the people of the south build, North Vietnam is creating in their villages political action centers with trained agitators infiltrated from the north, often in the guise of refugees. The Communist plan also includes acts of terror and subversion to disrupt the legitimate government. If the south cannot be brought under Hanoi's control by less forceful means, a new phase of the Communist plan is ready to go into action. Open guerrilla warfare, furtive and remorseless, aimed at destroying the government and subjugating the people, it is called by Hanoi a war of liberation. It does not seem so to the hundreds of anti-communist leaders, teachers and their wives and children who are visited in the night by Viet Cong persuasion squads. This is the prize the communists are after, South Vietnam, rich in rice, and standing at the gateway to the rice-rich nations of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and East Pakistan. And the Asian communists have said, a grain of rice is worth a drop of blood. There are also natural resources, coal, phosphate, zinc, tin, manganese, the raw materials on which to base industrialization or feed a war machine. Natural rubber, South Vietnam has this too, and the latex processing facilities which make of raw rubber, the vitally important material it is in today's world. This then is another aspect of the South Vietnam, which the North cupits, a nation moving toward greater industrialization, a rich prize indeed in the eyes of communist strategists. At Gettysburg College in 1959, President Eisenhower clearly recognizes the danger. We have learned too that the cost of defending freedom, of defending America must be paid in many forms and in many places. They are assessed in all parts of the world, in Berlin, in Vietnam, in the Middle East, here at home. Unassisted, Vietnam cannot, at this time, produce and support the military formations essential to it, military, as well as economic help is currently needed in Vietnam. By 1960, every area of life in the South has become a combat zone. This is a different kind of war. There are no marching armies or solemn declarations, but this is really war. It is guided by North Vietnam and it is spurred by communist China. Its goal is to conquer the South and to extend the Asiatic dominion of communism and there are great stakes in the balance. No people see this more clearly than the embattled, hard-pressed Vietnamese. By 1961, they send out an urgent call for help. The answer to that call is prompt in arriving. America promises substantial military and technical aid, machines and equipment to resist aggression and the trained men to teach Vietnamese fighting forces how to put them into effective use. The American advisors are specialists, highly trained and motivated, often able to speak to trainees in their own language. Instructors and advisors willing and able to teach, find men whose freedom is at stake, eager and quick to learn. At this time, however, the Americans in Vietnam are there only as advisors. There are no United States combat units as such. The advisors' primary job is to train and encourage the South Vietnamese fighting men they have come to respect and admire. This guerrilla warfare is the latest tactic in the global communist plan. Korea showed that the free world would meet and stop conventional invasion and communists' efforts to dominate newly emerging nations through trade, aid and political subversion had little success. Now a new kind of politically camouflaged invasion must be faced, the so-called People's War of Liberation. As months go by, the communists lose a lot of men, but there are many more in the North who will be sent South to replace them, and others can be kidnapped and forced to serve. Meantime, in addition to training Vietnamese fighting men, American advisor teams are working constantly to help relieve the human suffering of remote villages. Under pressure of growing communist aggression, the flow of American equipment and advisors is increased. It is the only means of meeting the rising tide of infiltration and attack from the North, especially since aggressive guerrillas with no citizenry to protect can tie up forces ten times their own number. Their equipment and mobility are used to full advantage to carry the fight to the enemy, swiftly, wherever his presence becomes known. The Vietnamese soldier is quick to grasp the techniques involved in copter-borne counteraction to guerrilla raids on country villages, and he uses his new knowledge well. Even with superior equipment, however, this is a difficult war to prosecute. There are no front lines here. The war is everywhere against an enemy that has seldom clearly seen. In these scenes of casualty evacuation, the enemy is not far away, certainly within shouting distance. The enemy is not seen, but American and Vietnamese fighting men bear on their bodies the painful evidence that he is still here, still determined, still deadly. Throughout this time, the combat capability of South Vietnam's military forces is growing. American advisors work to bring the level of training and combat readiness of these forces as high as possible. But as North Vietnam continues to send in fresh cadres, there is a growing need in South Vietnam for fighting men. The losses suffered by the South in combat are cruelly heavy for a nation whose population is no larger than that of New York State. The fact is, in proportion to population, South Vietnam's losses in combat are 10 times as great as those suffered by the United States in Korea, greater even than our total losses in World War II. Then in August of 1964, the communists again enlarge the scope of the conflict. Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas and the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply. That reply is being given as I speak to you tonight. Air action is now in execution against certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations. Never until now have American men and machines struck directly at communist North Vietnam. Later in August, Secretary of Defense McNamara sets the record straight. We wish to emphasize we seek no wider war. Our response will depend upon the action of the aggressors, in this case the North Vietnamese. The key to the situation remains the cessation of infiltration from the North into the South. We seek no wider war. But we find ample evidence that there is no remaining on the part of the North. In this one-captured shipment of Viet Cong arms, there are a million rounds of small arms ammunition, 3,500 rifles, submachine guns, and some 4,000 anti-tank and mortar rounds. And there's no doubt about the source. The Chinese markings are unmistakable. In meeting the aggression so clearly evidenced here, we have sent strength to meet force. But we have also repeatedly sent word that we are willing to talk, as Secretary of State Dean Rusk makes plain. Our war aim in South Vietnam is peace. President Johnson has directed me to do everything possible to bring this matter from the battlefield to the conference table. And so we've been utilizing all of the existing and available political machinery for that purpose. We've attempted to use the machinery of the Geneva Conferences of 1954 and 1962. Last year we brought the Vietnam problem before the Security Council of the United Nations at the time of the Gulf of Tan Ken Affair. But Hanoi refused an invitation to come to the Security Council to talk about it. But a single Secretary General of the United Nations, Utat, considered a peace mission himself to bring about peace. But Hanoi and Paping, I told him not to come. Britain has made many efforts to find a path to a settlement. First by working toward a new conference in Geneva and then by a visit of one of their senior statesmen, Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker. But the effort for a Geneva conference has thus far been blocked. And Mr. Gordon Walker was told that he should stay away from Hanoi and Paping The Commonwealth attempted to send a Committee of the Commonwealth to various capitals to explore the possibilities of peace. We welcomed that initiative, but Hanoi and Paping told them not to come. We've made a number of efforts on our own, both publicly and privately. President Johnson and Baltimore, for example, offered unconditional discussion with the government's concerned. But Hanoi and Paping call this offer a hoax. Seventeen non-aligned nations publicly appealed for a peaceful solution by negotiations without preconditions. We welcomed this proposal, but it was rejected by Hanoi and Paping. The distinguished President of India made a constructive suggestion that there be an end of hostilities and an Afro-Asian police force established in Vietnam. To us, this proposal was full of interest and hope. But by Hanoi and Red Shiny, it was rejected as a betrayal. So all of these abrupt and violent rejections of peaceful settlement are just what they appear to be. Clear proof that Hanoi is not yet prepared for discussions, unless it be accepted in advance that South Vietnam be subjected to communist domination. And so the record seems very clear to us. Hanoi is presently resisting the road to peace. Paping, even more so. The declared doctrine and purpose of the Chinese communists remain clear. The domination of all of Southeast Asia. And indeed, if we listen to what they're saying to us, the domination of the great world beyond. The United States will continue to make every effort toward reasonable negotiation, and there can be no doubt as to our intention. We do not seek the destruction of any government. Nor do we covet a foot of any territory. But we insist, and we will always insist, that the people of South Vietnam shall have the right of choice, the right to shape their own destiny in free elections in the South, or throughout all of Vietnam, under international supervision. And they shall not have any government imposed upon them by force and terror, so long as we can prevent it. We do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can foresee. Nor will we bluster, or bully, or flaunt our power. But we will not surrender. And we will not retreat. The answer to American offers to move from the battlefield to the conference table continues to come in the form of high explosives, aimed at American air bases and other troop installations in the South, including the barracks of American servicemen. But in this war against people, the high explosives are not only aimed at men who bear arms. The American embassy in Saigon itself becomes a grim battleground scene as Viet Cong terrorists single it out for a bomb attack. It is all part of the carefully planned and continuing campaign of terror against both American and South Vietnamese civilians. Increasingly now, Americans are functioning directly in the fight for freedom in this far, foreign corner of the earth. The risks are real, just as the stakes for which they are taken are real.  If freedom is to survive in any American hometown, it must be preserved in such places as South Vietnam. And as President Johnson has pointed out, it is up to us. Most of the non-communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism. Because this is true and because we are a nation which honors its commitments and are people committed to our honor, we intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression? He has told me. And we will meet his needs. For the first time, combat units of the United States Marine Corps arrive in Vietnam, joining other Marines already there. It is the first time that Marines in full combat gear have hit the beach in an active combat zone since Korea. Army combat units also arrive, and the message of their presence on Vietnamese soil is plain. Whatever the present or future needs of the fight for freedom in Vietnam, they will be met. American forces in Vietnam know that the communist so-called war of liberation is no less a form of aggression than was the conventional attack in Korea. And they know that this new form of aggression must be defeated and proven unprofitable. Or the communists will be encouraged to try it elsewhere with greater confidence and resources. So the war goes on. Clearly it is the communists who have made that choice. And as always, the innocent suffer. For the children of Vietnam and of all Southeast Asia, the future is in the balance. If they are to realize their heritage as free men tomorrow, there are for us today hard realities to be faced. I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest young men, into battle. I have seen them in a thousand streets of 100 towns and every state in this union working and laughing and building and filled with hope and life. But as long as there are men who hate and destroy, we must have the courage to resist. We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else. Now I would surrender in Vietnam, bring peace, because we learned from Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression. Moreover, we are in Vietnam to fulfill one of the most solemn pledges of the American nation, three presidents, President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your president president. Over 11 years have committed themselves and have promised to help defend this small and valiant nation. Strengthened by that promise, the people of South Vietnam have fought for many long years. Thousands of them have died. Thousands more have been crippled and scarred by war. And we just cannot now dishonor our word or abandon our commitments or leave those who believed us and who trusted us to the terror and repression and murder that would follow. This then, my fellow Americans, is why we're in Vietnam.


So you two singer Bono is literally just doing illustrations for the imperialist propaganda rag the Atlantic now because that's a sort of thing that happens in a dystopian civilization during the death throes of a globe-spanning empire. A Washington Post article titled Bono likes to sketch Atlantic cover so the magazine hired him reports that Bono is into Atlantic cover fanfic. So much so that he was invited to illustrate the magazine's June cover featuring Ukrainian president Voldemire Zalinsky. Bono's latest contribution to the mountain of cringe-inducing Zalinsky moments we've been seeing for the past year provides a cover image for an article by lifelong war propagandists Ann Applebaum and Jeffrey Goldberg. The article endorses a Ukrainian offensive to recapture Crimea which experts largely agree would be the move most likely to trigger a nuclear war in this conflict. Here's a paragraph from the Applebaum and Goldberg article just so you can have a taste of the infantile good guys versus bad guys framing that western liberals are being fed by mass media war propagandists these days quote Sometimes the war is described as a battle between autocracy and democracy or between dictatorship and freedom In truth the differences between the two opponents are not merely ideological, but also sociological Ukraine's struggle against Russia pits a heterarchy against a hierarchy an open networked flexible society One that is both stronger at the grassroots level and more deeply integrated with washington brussels and silicon valley than anyone realized Is fighting a very large very corrupt top-down state On one side farmers defend their land and 20-something engineers build eyes in the sky Using tools that would be familiar to 20-something engineers anywhere else On the other side commanders send waves of poorly armed conscripts to be slaughtered Just as Stalin once sent penal battalions against the nazis Under the leadership of a dictator obsessed with ancient bones The choice Zalinsky told us is between freedom and fear and quote Many westerners felt their first stirrings of youthful rebellious passions while listening to you two songs like sunday bloody sunday and pride in the name of love But nowadays bono's voice has heard saying that he has grown very fond of war criminal george w bush praising capitalism at the world economic forum teaming up with warmonger lindsay graham to promote us empire narratives about syria And singing stand by ukraine in support of us empire narratives in a key subway And just when it looks like he can't become any more of a tool of the empire He gets hired by one of the world's worst militarist smut rags to draw a cover image of zalinsky Because that's just how things go in a highly controlled society where mainstream culture is designed to serve the powerful A society where the minds of the public are continually being shaped by mass scale psychological manipulation To ensure that they keep thinking speaking working consuming and voting in ways which serve the rich and powerful Everything that gets elevated to the top of mainstream attention facilitates this agenda or is at least harmless to it And as soon as it becomes potentially threatening to this agenda, it is either corrected or marginalized away from mainstream attention This dynamic can cause some truly jaw-dropping flotsam and jetsam to surface in the roylings of our cultural waters Like simpsons characters waving ukrainian flags Or an opera about a drone operator sponsored by general dynamics Here's responsible state crafts connor eckles on that last one quote This fall dc denizens will be treated to the world premiere of grounded an opera following an air force ace Named jess whose unexpected pregnancy forces her to leave behind her beloved f16 and join the chair force Throughout the show the hot shot pilot wrestles with the mental impact of firing rockets from a drone in afghanistan From a trailer in las vegas As jess tracks terrorists by day and rocks her daughter to sleep by night the boundary between her worlds becomes dangerously permeable an ad tells us The production is brought to you by presenting sponsored general dynamics one of the world's largest weapons companies And wouldn't you know it the maker of jess's favorite plane? Playwright george brant wrote the libretto Which will be brought to life by mezzo-soprano, emily d'angelo and tony winning composer jenine tesori and quote You'll also see things like humanitarian intervention champion samantha power enthusiastically tweeting about Collaboration between the sesame street franchise and the cia cut out us aid in iraq Here's a tweet by samantha power great to hear from basma and jad About the new friends they're making in iraq through alan simsum A us aid and sesame workshop early learning activity that promotes inclusion respect and understanding by showing Children from all different backgrounds coming together You see things like this all the time under the shadow of the us empire and individually they don't look like much But once you start noticing them you come to recognize them as symptoms of the profound profoundly diseased civilization that we are living in One where our heartstrings are pulled in the most obnoxious ways imaginable to get us to support capitalism empire and oligarchy Where we are manipulated into espousing values systems which benefit powerful sociopaths under the cover of noble sounding causes Where we are trained like rats to support systems that are driving our species toward extinction Because our rulers gave lip service to humanitarianism and waived a rainbow flag This is what dystopia looks like Like a bunch of thought controlled automatons mindlessly marching toward ecocide and omniside To a beat played out by screens who tell them every day and in every way that there is no higher purpose than this Like military industrial complex funded feminist rock operas about drone operators and cookie monster helping Samantha power psychologically colonize iraqi children Like bono coming home from singing a heartfelt number about the assassination of martin luther king jr To illustrate a cover for a war propaganda piece in the atlantic It's like they're pouring concrete over our hearts Sewing blindfolds over our souls numbing us distracting us sedating us So that the local riffraff won't interfere in the workings of the imperial machine They're killing off something beautiful and sacred in humanity and they're doing it to roll out the ugliest visions This planet has ever seen


Next we are going to bring up Dr. Brett Goodman from the Mayo Clinic. Brett Goodman, excuse me, from the Mayo Clinic will be talking about neurological presentations of ATTR. I promise to be a friendly neurologist. It's a privilege to be here part of the discussion today. My task is to focus on TTR and neurology. If I could break it down to maybe three take-home points. Really, I would have three take-home points. Number one would be this really does begin with carpal tunnel syndrome and we need to figure out how to identify patients with carpal tunnel who are going to have or have amyloid. Second, unfortunately we need to rely on neurophysiologic testing when evaluating and caring for these patients. I'll talk a bit more about that. And third, as has been mentioned earlier, we need to get treatment started as early as possible. Neurological improvement or at least stabilization that really relies on early diagnosis. And so those are my three main points today. With amyloid, particularly with TTR, this can do about anything to the peripheral nervous system and we've seen that, including carpal tunnel, radiculopathy, spinal stenosis, neuropathy, autonomic neuropathy. It truly can do about anything to the autonomic nervous system. Important to recognize it may be the first part of the body to be involved if you consider the median nerve running through the carpal tunnel to be a neurological symptom or sign, I would. Important to recognize that once there is significant neurological impairment, it may be difficult or impossible to reverse, to significantly reverse neurological impairment. So we need to get these folks diagnosed quickly, early, and get them on treatment. And then many of the patients need symptomatic treatment as well. The different forms of neurological impairment may provide clues to the different forms of amyloid, or perhaps even the different genetic subtype. So the different neurological manifestations, the most common that we see would be carpal tunnel, which you could consider orthopedic or neurological. Lumbar spinal stenosis, peripheral neuropathy, autonomic neuropathy. These are the most common things that we see. Our tools are the history, of course, our neurological examination. Most of these patients really do require neurophysiologic testing. They need nerve conduction studies and EMG to make these differentiations. And I'll talk a little bit about why here in a second. I would advocate for autonomic testing. We have a busy autonomic lab at Mayo. And I've cared for a number of these patients over the years. It can be very difficult to differentiate autonomic impairment in these patients from cardiac impairment. And sometimes, particularly if they're on antihypertensives, et cetera. So what's medication effect? What's cardiac? What's the result of an autonomic neuropathy? Autonomic testing can really help with that. We do skin punch biopsies. And many of these patients, and the role of that is to establish whether a small fiber neuropathy is present. But that skin can also be stained for amyloid. So that can be helpful, particularly in the pre-symptomatic or maybe minimally symptomatic patients in whom you're considering whether to start, let's say, silence or treatment on. Lumbar MRI, of course, is important in diagnosing lumbar spinal stenosis. But remember, after a couple of decades, nobody has a normal lumbar MRI. So that needs to be put together with the clinical story and then, of course, genetic testing. So as a neurologist, we consider these different forms of amyloid, as has been discussed. I would like to highlight, though, this study out of Mayo Clinic Rochester, some of the differences between what they called at the time, this was a number of years ago, familial amyloid versus AL amyloid. And you can see here in their retrospective study, peripheral neuropathy was much more common at presentation in the familial amyloid patients as opposed to AL amyloid patients. So important to recognize that. And then autonomic neuropathy, also much more common during the course of illness, familial amyloid, of course, this was largely pretreatment. So these definitely differences clinically between these two forms of amyloid just generally. So I find wild-type amyloid a challenge. Oftentimes, the patients are older. They may have a number of different medical comorbidities. Most of the patients, or really all of the patients that I see with wild-type amyloid on the neurological side of things have carpal tunnel and spinal stenosis. I can't think of a single patient over at least the last four or five years who hasn't had that history. So that's very typical. It can be very difficult to differentiate a neuropathy from spinal stenosis. I'll talk about that in a moment. And while it's not clearly established, I do think that these wild-type amyloid cases can develop a very mild neuropathy, although again, that can be very difficult to distinguish from lumbar spinal stenosis. If they develop an autonomic neuropathy, it's subclinical, meaning they don't have symptoms, but they may have some abnormalities on autonomic testing. Carpal tunnel syndrome, this is hugely important for us to recognize, and I think we spoke a little bit earlier about healthcare systems and how we might do a better job diagnosing earlier in someone's course. The important thing, I think, with carpal tunnel is this precedes the development of other things by sometimes many years. It can be five or ten years. So we really have to ask, all right, did you have carpal tunnel in time's pass? Did you have numbness tingling in your hands? Did you have surgery for carpal tunnel? It may not be concurrent with their current cardiac evaluation that a person is getting worked up for. So remember with carpal tunnel, it's numbness tingling in the hands, it may be pain, not everybody has pain, and it's often weakness. The helpful clue, possibly, is that it's bilateral, but it's also typically fairly symmetric. The problem is that carpal tunnel is so common and it's often bilateral. If we do an EMG on somebody who comes in with carpal tunnel in their right hand, their chance of having it in the left is upwards of 80%. So that bilaterality is helpful, but in amyloid it's often symmetric. The symptoms are often the same in both hands, but one of the things that we certainly need to be working on is perhaps what cardiology has done in looking at perhaps some AI techniques for identifying possible clues to carpal tunnel. What are the signatures for amyloid on EMG testing, for example? Lumbar spinal stenosis also extremely common, often precedes the development of other neurological issues, cardiac issues. Classically, this is back-and-leg pain that's present when upright, with ambulation. That gets better if somebody leans forward, but not all patients have that complaint. They may just complain of numbness in the legs or feet, which can make this very difficult to distinguish from neuropathy. So to make this diagnosis, we really need lumbar MRI and then an EMG to try to differentiate between neuropathy and spinal stenosis. The other thing that I look for clinically is asymmetry. Typically in the lower limbs, neuropathy related to amyloid is symmetric. So spinal stenosis is going to be any sensory symptoms related to spinal stenosis that are fixed, that are present all of the time, that aren't positional, are going to be asymmetric. They'll be worse on the right foot, worse on the left foot, worse comparing side to side in the legs. So those can be clues to differentiating between lumbar spinal stenosis and amyloid. So it is important to make that distinction. Is this multiple lumbosacral radiculopathy secondary to amyloid, or is this a peripheral neuropathy? So important to make that distinction. And the amyloid, what it does is it infiltrates the ligamentum flavum, so it results in narrowing of the spinal canal. I should have mentioned earlier with carpal tunnel, the amyloid infiltrates the flexor retinaculum within the carpal tunnel, and that's why people experience these issues. So peripheral neuropathy and amyloid. Now with amyloid putting carpal tunnel aside, amyloid involves the small fiber nerves first. So these are the nerves that send in pain and temperature information into the body. That's in distinction to the large fiber nerves which send in light touch, joint position sense, vibration. These are the nerves that help us out with balance. The small fiber nerves are the nerves that send in pain and temperature information. Small fiber nerves are involved first in amyloid. So if I'm seeing somebody with burning in the feet, they may actually have a normal EMG, they may have a small fiber neuropathy that's early due to amyloid. The only way I would diagnose that is with a skin punch biopsy. So important to recognize that somebody can have a normal EMG very early in the course because they have a small fiber neuropathy. So important to recognize that. Typically then if the amyloid progresses it will involve the large fiber nerves that will affect sensation more generally and then affect the nerves to the muscles and cause weakness in the legs. This is typically, it will start in the feet and then ascend. The general rule of thumb for neuropathy is that you expect the hands to be involved once the sensation gets to the knees. In amyloid it would be common to hear that history of carpal tunnel first and their hands may stay numb in spite of having carpal tunnel surgery five to ten years ago. So this is what you're looking for historically with a neuropathy with amyloid. Important to do an EMG again to distinguish electrically with EMG for us as neurologists to distinguish that from spinal stenosis can sometimes be difficult. And again remember the epidermal skin punch biopsy may play a very important role increasingly for us as we decide who to start treatment on. In my opinion it should be started on patients sooner rather than later. So I've mentioned difficult sometimes to distinguish between these different clinical syndromes. Autonomic neuropathy can be difficult to distinguish from cardiac related impairments. We're looking for a history of orthostatic intolerance so basically any symptom that's present when upright that gets better when somebody sits or lays down is a potential autonomic symptom. So typically that's postural lightheadedness. They may have syncope as a result of orthostatic hypotension or near syncope. They may have gastrointestinal disc motility. They may report heat intolerance. So important to do if not formal tilt table or autonomic testing postural vital signs. So I would have somebody supine for five minutes measure their heart rate and blood pressure then stand them up take immediate heart rate and blood pressure and then you test them at three minutes. So immediate and then at three minutes. Three minutes if they have a decrease in blood pressure without any significant change in heart rate then that's typically compatible with neurogenic orthostatic hypotension. Important to do that. Sometimes it can be difficult to differentiate between those who are on antihypertensive medications. Most of the time patients with orthostatic hypotension will have a drop in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure with standing so that can be helpful. But ideally these patients really I would encourage formal autonomic testing because sometimes quite often we will pick up things that you might not have necessarily expected based upon your history. And I would also say that these autonomic symptoms the orthostatic intolerance they don't correlate super well with what we find on autonomic testing. So I would advocate for autonomic testing particularly if you're wondering all right what systems are involved with this disorder. And then also of course think about GI motility testing and those who may have symptoms of abdominal bloating early satiety which is feeling like you fill up more quickly than you ought to when you're eating a meal. Many of these patients may develop a horrible diarrhea which may be due to amyloid infiltration of the GI system or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or result from overflow from constipation. So this is a very significant problem if it develops it can be very difficult to treat. As a neurologist if I hear a history of peripheral neuropathy plus orthostatic hypotension and they don't have diabetes I'm doing genetic screening for TTR amyloid after doing serum immunofixation working up AL amyloid. So and then as a neurologist if I have somebody with an antecedent history of carpal tunnel syndrome and a neuropathy and I don't find some other cause of neuropathy I'm doing genetic screening for TTR amyloid the stakes are high we have to make this diagnosis and ideally we have to make this diagnosis early. So this was I just wanted to show this case we just had this come through one of our autonomic labs just a few weeks ago and I think it emphasizes what I'm suggesting which is the benefits or importance of early treatment. This is a 44 year old female she was diagnosed with TTR amyloid her dad had died after a liver transplant done for amyloid. She reported sensory symptoms and also postural lightheadedness which was present when standing still. She had actually quite an unremarkable neurological examination normal strength, normal reflexes just very mild sensory loss on her feet and her cardiac testing was unremarkable her EMG was kind of borderline abnormal her autonomic testing which I'll show in a second was abnormal. She was started on patissiran infusions due to the abnormal autonomic testing and the early signs of neuropathy this probably hopefully this comes across okay I included EMG in upper left which was only mildly abnormal heart stuff was unremarkable and here's her autonomic testing up top is sweating and so she had abnormal sweating up top those are the I don't know if I have a cursor here anyhow up top is abnormal sweating we put capsules on the skin Iontaferis acetylcholine and make people sweat at four sites forearm proximal leg, distal leg and foot this is one of the ways we diagnose an autonomic neuropathy and so she had abnormal sweating on the foot which would be suggestive of a peripheral neuropathy or an autonomic neuropathy in the middle is cardiovagal testing so we ask people to breathe at six breaths per minute and then measure how much heart rate variability they have we have normal values for that and that was reduced so these are very typical early signs of an autonomic neuropathy and then her tilt table is down below and you can see that she supine was 116 over 76 with heart rate of what is that, 51 and then so she drops her pressure a bit with tilt table testing so she was diagnosed with an autonomic neuropathy this in conjunction with her exam and the borderline abnormal EMG prompted the initiation of ptesiran and so we just recently got her autonomic redid or autonomic testing this is about a year and a half to two years ish and so her heart rate variability has improved, her sweating has improved and her tilt table study it ain't perfect but I would argue that it's better so I think an important demonstration of the peripheral nervous system can regenerate if you catch disease early enough and you treat it so I think it's super important and I think this really shows also the value of doing testing and allowing that to sort of factor into decision making in some of these cases so thank you very much, appreciate being here


This video is sponsored by Ironside Computers. They don't have a slogan, so I'll come up with one for them. Our deals are as juicy as our PCs, which look like juice boxes. I'm gonna be unboxing this Ironside PC, which was very generously provided to me by Ironside Computers. There's a great video of them showing it off that I made some animations for as well. I'm so excited, you guys. This will be my new work from computer from now on. Apparently it's very beefy. It's got a 3080 Ti. Okay, many, many packing peanuts.  And there's a box inside of the box. Oh no, there's peanuts everywhere. I'm not gonna have fun cleaning this place. Okay, I'm just gonna be streaming with a bunch of packing peanuts in my room. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Oh my gosh. Look at it. It's my logo. That's me. Oh no. Oh no. It's okay. I can glue it. I can fix this. No, I can, I can fix it. I can fix it. I'm so sorry Ironside Computers. Oh, oh, it's Ironside PC. Okay, lay it on its back. Okay, thank you. Oh yeah, that's what I was trying to do. That's what I was trying to do.  We can make another bow and send it to you, only if it's not too much trouble. It's not too much. Okay, thank you so much. So freaking cool. I can't wait to hook this thing up and continue to run Final Fantasy 14 on it.


From the SAP Center at San Jose, home of the San Jose Sharks. Extracting the signal from the noise. It's theCUBE, covering HGST, SportsData Silicon Valley. Brought to you by HGST. Now your hosts, John Furrier and Jeff Frick. Okay, we're back. We're back here live, special presentation theCUBE. Never dull moment. I'm John Furrier with SiliconANG, and I'm going to introduce Jeff Frick, General Manager at CUBE, Bill Schlau, the CIO of the San Francisco Giants. Great team, congratulations on another great year. You were defending champions for one day. Last night was the World Series, but hey, you guys got a great organization. So give us the update. Besides the Kansas City Royals, beat the Mets, which I'm happy for. I'm not a Mets fan, but you know. So the audience, you think is aware of that though, for the last night? Yeah, they are. Okay, so my hands are bare. I'm sorry, I know you like it when I wear hardware. I know. But we are no longer defending champs. The update for us is... You do better when the patch is on the shirt though, I noticed. Yes, that's correct, yeah. So every other, every other, that's the plan. And today's main activity in the office was we shipped 25 pizzas to the Kansas City Royals front office, following a tradition started by the Boston Red Sox when they were defending champs, and we won, they shipped us all pizzas because there's a heck of a lot of work to do in Kansas City as they're planning the parade. So we shipped them all pizzas to greet them when they returned. But yeah, I'm not wearing the hardware because I just out of respect for the new champs. So just explain to the audience out there the tradition about the ring and why you're not wearing hardware. Yeah, so the players on the field, when the ring, when you win the World Series, but also everyone who works for the organization gets a ring as well. So the entire front office gets a ring as well and fortunate enough to have three of those now. And you could wear the ring until, is that kind of an unspeakable? You can wear it, you can wear it. I'm just, you know, last night, I mean they won like 18 hours ago. So I don't really want to wear the ring right now. We're not defending champs anymore. That's baseball etiquette. Baseball etiquette. It's honor. But the good news for us is we are defending even year champs and we seek to defend that title again next year, so. All right, how about a round of applause? Good job. Good job. SportsDataSV in San Francisco, obviously great stuff. So what's some of the priorities? You guys have a great organization. We've been on theCUBE now three times talking about SportsDataSV. Really appreciate you coming on. It's a CIO, you know, transformation. These are terms that are kicked around corporate America. And even last week at Oracle Open World, the Gold State War is another great local organization going to have a stadium. Talking about the things we talked about. Fan experience, managing your players and managing your employees, those three priorities. So what's new? What's the update? Give us the CIO perspective. Sure, so one of the benefits to not making the World Series, and there are very few when actually we want to, but we do have a little bit more time during the off season to plan and prepare for the coming season. And we do, you know, it's exciting time here in the Bay Area with all the new facilities. The sharks have their new, sorry, of course the earthquakes have their new facility, the Niners have their new facility, the wars are building a new facility, and our park, our place is kind of old.  And so every off season, we want to continue investing in that fan experience and make AT&T parks still feel like a brand new ballpark. We want it to be around a long time. You know, what's crazy is Atlanta Braves will be retiring Turner Field after 20, 20 years. That's it, that's the shelf life of a new stadium, 20 years for the Braves. And for us, we want to be more of the Wrigley Fenway model where we're around for a century or so. So this off season, we're focusing on a lot of the areas that, you know, from a fan perspective and from a business perspective, we're focusing on meeting the demand when it comes to technology. We call it the Cathedral Model where it's more like a church, it's more like a sacred place, great experience. What are some of the things that create more longevity there? What are the key things that you talk about? Obviously, fan experience being comfortable, Fenway does have a little short seats, but you guys are more comfortable, obviously, modern. But the Turner, that's a great example. Was it, did they not do their work on the front end? Is it, was they not technology enabled? What are some of the key things for longevity? I don't know that it was a technology thing. And I don't, I can't really speak to the situation in Atlanta. I just know that they wanted a new location. And that's the, we don't want a new location. We got a pretty good spot right here. And what's cool is the city is growing around our ballpark. Tomorrow will be a historic vote in the city of San Francisco. Proposition D to hopefully enable us to build out lot A and build out a huge entertainment district there and affordable housing and other things there to kind of expand the city around AT&T park between AT&T park and the Warriors new facility down there. So it's kind of cool to watch the city grow around our ballpark. And that's, we hope it to be that way for the longterm. And I don't think most people know, Bill that you have a significant tech initiative every off season. And I know we've been friends for a long time. You had the scoreboard and scoreboard update and software update last year. We were up talking to you about the high density wifi and the high density LTE. So you do something big every single year to keep it fresh. Sure. What are you looking forward to this off season? Yeah, and that was a, there was a quote that my counterpart at the Seahawks Michael Johnson many years ago. He was also a high school football coach. He said to me, and I like to visit all the other teams as much as we can. We compare notes, we're all friends. And Michael always said, don't give them all the good rides up front.  And so that's how we look at AT&T park and we want to continue investing. There's no season when we want to do, you know a hundred million dollar renovation of our ballpark. Every year we want to put more and more into it. So each year it feels fresh. So this, this off season we have three kind of major initiatives on the technology side. One is, as it is every year, continuing to invest in that Wi-Fi network. And so all this past month, we've had scaffolding up in the upper deck. It looks like we're expanding the ballpark and building another deck on top of our upper deck because we're doing so much with the Wi-Fi and the upper deck this year. So that's a huge initiative moving from 1400 access points to 1700 access points and really serving the upper, upper bowl, the last phase of the latest renovation for Wi-Fi. That's number one. Number two is upgrading our video boards because our fans, you know, first of all on the Wi-Fi, our fans are continuing to demand to stay connected and continue to drive more and more high bandwidth content. So that's number one. Number two is our fans are continuing to look for, you know, more high quality video. So first it was standard F, then high def, future will be 4K or whatever the next thing is. So we're upgrading our video boards, not the main board, but all the other boards this off season. That's project number two. And project number three is just expanding and upgrading our storage infrastructure to handle all of the data needs that we have. So talk about how that's evolved as you guys have continued to put more data available. You're shipping more information. You've got all these access point. How do you watch kind of the throughput and the data throughput grow over these 15 years? It's been wild to watch. And it started for us in 04. That's when we became a Wi-Fi hotspot. So this is 12 years in. And in the early days, our ramp, well in the very early days, 04.07, you know, we were 100 fans a game, not doing much. But then the iPhone came out and we started ramping about 100% per game growth, or per, sorry, not 100% per game. That'd go real fast. About 100% per season growth in terms of demand.  The others are using our LTE network. But what we're seeing the growth in now is actually the bandwidth per fan, the consumption per fan per game. So now we're at about 75 meg per game per fan. And total over the course of this past season, we drove 100 terabytes of fan connectivity, fan bandwidth used during the season. So it's kind of interesting to watch that. It's still ramping at about 50 to 100% growth per year for fan demand. And ultimately, at our office, our fan demand and our fan use of the network will actually outstrip our business's use of our own network. They need a fatter pipe. So that's back to the fan usage, video, obviously, Snapchat, Instagram. What, do you guys have a pecking order of app usage or an or iPhone, Android, fan, affinity? I'm sure Uber's pretty popular on the stadium, search pricing around game time. But what are some of the, can you share any data? Yeah, I don't know, I mean. In a total feel? In a total, I can say that Apple's still pretty dominant. So you still see a lot of iPhones at our ballpark and other tablet type devices. So I'd say iOS is definitely dominant in terms of the type of content folks are accessing. What's cool for us is our philosophy is very open. Our goal is very simple. We want fans to keep coming to the ballpark and keep enjoying the experience. And if that means they're going to Uber or going to Lyft, going to wherever they want to go, going to ESPN.com, going to MLB.com, we're open to all that. We just want to enable them to stay connected and to share that experience. And a lot of times folks will challenge us on, well, how are you monetizing this huge investment you're making in Wi-Fi at AT&T Park every year? And we say, well, it's pretty straightforward. 408 straight sell-outs. That's how we're monetizing it. Keep the fans coming back, yeah. Yeah, it's a great experience. What's the holy grail for you? What are the things that you're trying to get at that you can't get at today? Is it business analytics? Is it questions about the fans? Is it captioning that data? Is there a 360-degree view of the customer? I'm just throwing out ideas. What are some of the things that you think of the holy grail for? There are definitely two holy grails. Why don't you say holy grail? I just like think of that Indiana Jones movie too. All the different hurdles you got to jump over to get these holy grails. But there are two holy grails. One, on the business side, is to know who's in our ballpark. Every single fan who sets foot in our ballpark know who that is. Because once we know who's in our ballpark and how many games they come to, we can get a much better understanding. Sure, we know who our 32,000 season ticket holders are, our 31,000 season ticket holders. We know who those guys are. But are they actually coming 81 games? No, none of them are actually coming to all those games. So who's physically in the ballpark? Those are the people that are our most ardent fans. And some of them may never pay for a ticket. They just mooch off people every game. And that's fine too, but they're the big fans that we want to target. Number two, that's one holy grail. That's great. We love you.  So that's number one. And number two, number one holy grail, who is actually in the ballpark? We know the tickets, but we don't know who physically is there necessarily. There's a lot of different ways to get at that, but we're not 100%. And number two is on the performance side, being able to predict future performance based on past performance. There's a holy grail somewhere there. We take a look at, whether it's a kid in the Dominican Republic or another free agent in baseball, how do you know if they're worth that $100 million deal? Will there be injury risk? Their performance today, what will it project to in the future? There's a holy grail out there somewhere. And there's a lot of variables there, but trying to leverage statistics and big data to make better decisions. Baseball is different from some of the other sports. Football, they sign a $20, $30 million contract a year with somebody and doesn't work out, they cut them. For us, we sign a $100 million contract and he breaks his leg the next day. We pay him $100 million. All right, so I got to go on the other side of the coin. What are the biggest phone calls you get? Hey, Bill, I need more. Fill in the blank. From the players, the fans, and the employees. We'll start with the players. Bill, I need more. Wi-Fi, I need more. Hits. Yeah. I need another phone. I need my PlayStation to work and dug out. I'd say for the players, on the baseball side, it is about bandwidth and it's about bandwidth on the road. And it's tricky because there's no real standards for bandwidth on the road. And so there's somewhat of an incentive for us to make it difficult for the opposing team to connect when they're at our ballpark. Not that we would ever do anything like that. What an inconvenience, that might cause. No water. To rest? Turn out the heat in the locker room. There's no standards for that, really. And so we would love to have a consistent standard across all of baseball because having bandwidth on the road enables us to access all of that data that we use to make better decisions in game. We can control our environment at home, we can provide terrific connectivity. And so this is something we're talking about in baseball, is providing some sort of standard. So I'd say that's the biggest call we get. So you have a traveling base station, LTE, comes with the bus or put up a monopole outside the stadium, it sounds like you've got to be creative.  It's funny, when you ask who the phone, I mean honestly, we've gotten calls that are the Giants IT helped us from the opposing teams in their locker rooms saying, hey, can you help us with the bandwidth? We're down there in about two hours. Hold on, don't go to the field. We'll be right there. So but it's an interesting kind of evolving space in terms of connectivity on the road. So that's players. What do you want to do next? You get players, fans. That was my number one question. Oh you just wanted to hear about the fans. No, fans, obviously fans and employees. Yeah, fans, I would say, you know, what's cool about the fans here in the Bay Area is, you know, whatever's the latest and greatest, they're already experiencing it at home or in the office and so they want to see it when they're at the ballpark. And I've always, I've said for years is our biggest competition is the couch.  We got to be able to provide a very compelling experience at the ballpark. So that's why one of my favorite things about our ballpark is as you walk around, you know, these are small things.  TVs and connectivity to me. And we don't have as many TVs as a Niners Stadium or Yankee Stadium, but it's the positioning of them. Wherever you walk around the concourse, we never, you never want to be separated from the game. And those TVs aren't showing random things. They're showing our game wherever you walk because you're going to get up during our game.  Now people wander around. When you wander around, you want to see those monitors and know what's going on wherever you are. Real-time information, that's the mobile user. Bill, thanks for coming on theCUBE. I really appreciate you getting the wraps on here. Final message to give you the word. What do you want to say to the fans out there that are watching about the Giants next year? What are you pumped for? What are you excited for? What do we expect next year? Man, I'm excited honestly for the next few weeks and a couple of months here to see what our team looks like for next year. We're going to make some changes, I'm sure, and augment the pitching staff. I think you can expect that. And it's an even year, man. So this is our MO. Get that ring. CIO here of the San Francisco Giants. We're here, special presentation. Sports data SV here in San Jose Shark Tank. That's theCUBE. We'll be right back. Called theCUBE Tank. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.


AI has become increasingly important in music education due to its ability to provide personalized learning experiences for students. It can be used to analyze musical data, create interactive lessons, and even compose original pieces of music. This technology allows teachers to better understand their students' needs and tailor their lesson plans accordingly. Additionally, AI can help students learn more effectively by providing individual feedback and encouragement. This article was authored by Xia Feiyu, Ning Ma, Lei Jing, and others.


So here we have this is a Pico projector that you have right here With 50 lumens, right? Yes, 50 lumens. Like this we can see how it looks. Can you hold it right here? What connector you have on here? This is KFCA and here is Puyo's B-Pord and DC in and airfoam All right, and this is how it looks Projecting to a huge display Even if it's just 50 lumens if it's if it's dark room, it's fine So dark room or if you get closer also can focus on the side. Yes to change the size of the Just get closer or further away. Yeah and built-in audio and it's a smart projector. Yeah, smart mini projector So let's go out so you can go out in menu right here There Let's go back and we can focus right here This is Android. So what is CPU? RQ3128 3128 so This is ARM Cortex 32-bit CPU A7 quad core 32-bit and then we have here version of Android 4.4.4. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 1GB RAM. Yes, 1 GB and 8 GB MMC Nice and all these apps many apps can just run shortcuts and settings All right Cool. What's the price? 130 line 139 dollar. How many pieces? 100 pieces is enough 100 pieces people can just order and you already have mass production. It's totally already shipping Three months ago have much protection. So it's already stable and many customer. Yes Satisfied and the overseas sales more time. How long is battery life on this small projector like this? Because it has batteries just running on a battery. So how long is battery life? Sorry the battery life is Two hours no or three hours Three hours three hours battery life. Yes, and it's small like this. This is some kind of fan running inside Can you hold? Yeah and You can you can mount it on the tripod The tripod mount here. Yes, you can have it as a tripod mount And then we can see some more how it looks and this is a DLP LED. Yes, what's the resolution? What's the resolution? 854 476 476


Good morning Hick, it's Tuesday. I missed you so much that I green screened myself into your background. Just kidding! Ah! I don't like when you do the thing where you put your chair up slightly higher than mine so you appear taller. Lower? Lower? There we go. Hello, welcome to Question Tuesday. What is your favorite TikTok sound? You can really dance. Wow. You can really dance. Sarah told me actually she had a dream last night that you and I were trying to make a TikTok to the wow, you can really dance. Oh no! Sounded while they were trying to get us to leave to go do family stuff. What is your favorite essay in the Anthropocene Reviewed book? The first one that got me that made me cry was the, was it, is it the first one in the book? The Liverpool one? Yeah, you'll never walk alone. Man, it must be so enjoyable to uncover that there is a depth there. Oh yeah. That even the people who really enjoy it don't know about it. The thing about nonfiction that I prefer to fiction is that in fiction the things that happen have to make sense and in nonfiction has like fit the theme. Yeah, yeah. In nonfiction the things can just be true and in the case of you'll never walk alone the true story of the song is so phenomenally good. What would Hank and John from 10 years ago say if you could time travel and tell them everything? I think myself from 10 years ago would be like, oh that sounds cool, that's awesome. That's, that sounds, that's a little scary. That sounds a little harsh. Too many slices. Too many slices. That's enough slices. I don't need another slice. That's, that's what they would say. Yeah. How about you? I think I'd say, what is doge? And why do you want me to buy it and then sell it? And then buy it again and then sell it again. At a very specific schedule. How do peppers work? Which kind? I think, I don't ask the questions here. Oh, is the less ripe ones green and the most ripe ones red? Oh no. No. They're different varieties. Different kinds of peppers. Yeah. Would you rather have mint flavored gum or fruit flavored gum? Mint? Yeah. First off, fruit flavored gum does not taste like any fruit. It tastes like you described fruit to an artificial intelligence that then ran a thousand simulations of what fruit might taste like and then was like, here's some fruit flavored gum. Hank, what's going on with the Crash Course coins? So yesterday we just launched this new project, The Crash Course Coins. I have them here in my hand. Cut to a close up. Cut to close ups. Crash Course reaches like 70 million students a year and we are looking to continue to be able to do that. There's a $100 one that will allow us to reach 2000 learners and a $500 one that will allow us to reach 10,000 learners. We're only making 500 of those. What kind of inconsequential brotherly arguments do you get into? Hank acted as if I stole money from his trophies which he did, he would roll up the money into his trophies and then I would steal it. I would definitely steal it and I bought all kinds of things. So you're saying that I acted as if a thing that happened happened? Yeah, yeah, but then you didn't contextualize it properly. I used most of the money to buy baseball cards which you sold without my permission when we were in college. I believe, I believe you. I can't, and like it does seem like a thing where I would have convinced myself that that's okay. My baseball card collection on eBay. It was, I learned so much about business and commerce. It was very valuable lessons. You use those lessons to found dftba.com, right. I'm sure if you hadn't seen my baseball card collection on eBay, you never would have known how e-commerce works. Did you get emotional when you saw each other in person? Yes. During the pandemic, I have like struggled to feel emotion when the thing is happening. Yeah. And I kind of let myself feel it later. Thanks for coming to our video. Hank, I will continue to see you now. Hey, what are we gonna do on Friday for your video? I don't know, John. I don't have any plans. Oh, I guess I do have a plan.


I mean, I'm from, you know, average lower middle class family in Cookeland, Bushback Ridge. But I made it. You know, where I come from, there's no opportunity. So you need to always think out of the box. Once you become an interpreter, it means identifying problems and coming with solutions. While you're solving those problems, you must find means to make money. So you are helping people to solve that problem by also making money. So the book, it teaches a lot, because when I wanted to invest in prosthetics, there's a lot of books that are obvious, not people that are recommending me, a lot of information out there that can mislead you. So I compare it based on my experience and my research, everything from one book. So it covers the mindset. I can just give you a few, let's say, a few topics that the book covers. So it's just about motivation, property, my genius and entrepreneurship, the mindset you have as an interpreter or as a person. I mean, it's a hustlers' buy and go. It covers a lot. And I would just share the topics, the books it has that it covers, so at least you can understand what are the things to expect from the book. And by the way, we sold 3,000 copies. Currently it's sold out. I mean, I self-published my book. I need to help others who want to write a workbook to publish a book. That's absolutely amazing because it's a book that self-made, it's millionaire, self-made, self-made author. Absolutely amazing. If you can just quickly, just for time, maybe like three chapters what the book is about because I see we're running out of a little bit of time. Okay. So I'll just share the chapters that we have. The mindset, the work, the life.