Good evening and welcome back to Byline. This is a public affairs show here at Amherst Media, co-sponsored with the Amherst League of Women Voters. And it's a weekly show where we sit down with our elected officials, mostly our town councilors as we're getting to know them, and our newly elected state legislators to learn more about what's going on on Beacon Hill and right here in town. And as we know, we're transforming from a charter debate and the adoption of the charter into putting that into effect and making a government that works for us. And today we have the chair of the ad hoc rules committee, Alyssa Brewer. And Alyssa you'll remember was on our select board for for quite a while and has been very active in town. But today we're focused on this ad hoc committee because no legislative body can operate effectively without clear rules of procedure. And this committee is actually called the ad hoc committee on rules of procedure, right? So it covers both the rules and procedures under which the commission, sorry the council is going to do its work. So let's start briefly with the charge. So people who are hearing this for the first time about this committee for the first time will understand what your committee is supposed to do. Well I was going to say if we can delay the broadcast of this long enough we'll be done with our charge in May. And then you can just look back and say this is what we did. So we are an ad hoc committee because we're supposed to, according to the charter, we're supposed to have adopted interim rules which we did in December and revised them in January. And then we're going to have permanent rules in May is the idea and which our committee will bring back to the town council for adoption. And then after that, and he changes after that unless it's some minor scriveners things, would end up moving into a standing committee which is the governance organization and legislation committee. And but this way there was a group that was focused purely on the rules of procedure whereas governance right now can be looking at things like committee charges that's more specific and helps get that day to day work of the council done. But eventually we'll move under that umbrella and we will no longer have to exist as a separate committee once we've completed the task that the charter sets out for us. Very good. And then the rules can be reviewed and revised periodically through the governance committee which happens in the state legislature at the beginning of every two-year term they review and adopt a set of rules. We always do the interim first which is the rules from the last term and then usually within a month or six weeks we can settle on the rules for the upcoming two years. Not a lot of changes from cycle to cycle but you can review and revise to address things. So for example in recent times we had to address technology and electronic devices. What do you do with those? Hey a hundred years ago nobody was thinking that and now we have to think about somebody's sitting there while the debate's going on and they're texting. What are they texting? Who are they texting? Blah blah.  So rules of procedure. Rules of procedure are about what? Well they're about a whole bunch of different things. So the charter says that the rules have to at a minimum include like six elements which are interim temporary rules too which refer to things like the town council has to meet at least once a month. The town council as opposed to general record keeping in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the town council actually has to take note of who voted which way if it's not a unanimous vote whereas normally if it's not a unanimous vote you just say it's all to do and you're done. So it turns into a recorded vote so that the public knows. Right and so that's something that's very specific called out in the charter so they made sure that it was put into our interim rules. It says things like that we take minutes well obviously every public body takes minutes. Then when it gets into some of the more specific. Except for the state of the state. Right yeah we could talk about the state of the state not being subject to an open main law. We actually have a journal of the House and a journal of the Senate which is quite detailed. Right but not quite the same situation. That's true. And so it and so but then there are other references to rules throughout the charter sprinkled throughout the charter associated with for example the finance committee. So the finance committee is obviously a different kind of finance committee than we used to have under the old charter and it's a finance committee of town councilors period. The charter does say we could also appoint residents. Could a must. Could. Could. Okay. Not a must. May I believe probably is the word. And so immediately because of a focus on transparency I think everyone carried through this entire campaign is that we said yes that's a good idea let's go ahead and do that. Let's have residents who have a voice but no vote I don't know where they got that quote from but that's what's in the charter voice but no vote. And so then it says council rules will determine how those residents are appointed. So yeah rules committee needs to figure out how those rules are done and then what would happen is we're going to have actually that meeting by the time people see this will have had that meeting because we're having that meeting next Tuesday. And we will then discuss some ideas that have come up for example will it go through the would we just have the president go ahead and appoint those resident members even though normally the president only appoints counselors or would we have I don't know say the chair of the finance committee who is of course a town council appoint the residents or would we have it go through the appointment process that outreach communications and appointments also known as OCA is going to be managing as in other town council appointments you know is it is it like this or is it like that and that's what rules will be grappling with next week and then making a recommendation to the town council based on that and then town council will decide whether or not to take that recommendation and then that will eventually become written in a rule in a document. It'll be written down and how you do how it will be done until until you revisit it and say we can make it work better if right based on experience we need to tweak this or tweak that but again this is a place where there's sort of overlapping jurisdiction yes absolutely with the appointment the outreach communications and appointments committee and therefore you need to coordinate with that committee so the two chairs and presumably the council president would be in that conversation as well right because you want to make sure everybody's talking to each other about how that's going to move forward and you don't want anyone to feel like you're taking something away from them that should belong under their jurisdiction but of course remembering that aside from things like the finance committee that are already defined in the charter all the other committees that we have governance okay that they're just made up things I mean this council president made them up in the council said sure let's tweak this and that those sound like good kinds of committees but those aren't in the charter so it's different than when for example under mass general law you have a historical commission like a historical commission is a thing an agricultural commission is a thing these things you know we may decide later to carve up the charges slightly differently for some of these committees so we're trying to make sure everybody is talking and there's only 13 of us so we do overlap in membership amongst the different committees and so then it plays out and you have to start somewhere and so the fact that the town council president came up with some proposals somebody had to tweak them adopted them but they're not in the charter therefore and they're totally within the control of the council and therefore they can be changed dropped eliminated added to later and some days some of those may end up in the charter because people decide that it should be permanently in and because the charter will come up for review periodically I think there's a five-year review if I remember incorrectly in the charter I think but yeah a little bit longer so but in a few years not so many years from now it'll go through revision and who knows some of these committees may or a version of some of these committees may end up actually in the charter although legislative bodies tend to hold control of their own committee structures so that they can be nimble charters take a long time to change therefore you need to have the flexibility and so legislative bodies tend to hold that kind of power within the council and that's why I think the charter was wise in leaving those decisions to the council okay so now so you've given us a couple of examples of things that you'd be working on let's talk about something like let's say public hearings so should there be consistency with public hearings and how they're conducted and when they have to be conducted meaning under what circumstances do you conduct them and then if you conduct one the rules by which you will actually conduct the hearing so that the public knows what to expect etc what's the committee and by the way we should remind the listeners that we're recording the show on march 1st it may not be seen for another two three four weeks right and a bunch of decisions may have been made by then that we're talking about now except you'll know and understand some of the context of what they were thinking and wrestling with because understanding the thinking behind things is actually very important and understanding why that decision might have been made the way it was so we hope it'll be informative even though some of these decisions will already have been made but but tell tell me what the committee is thinking about with regard to hearings and when they have to be held and how they have to be held so in large part and and I really do appreciate you making the reference to and not using the overtired metaphor I'm about to use about the sausage being made or the plane being built as it's being flown but we are doing those things and so we will have sorted more of this out within a few weeks and other things will take longer and then other things will change after we think we've sorted them out because again generally we're not really working from base documents and so it isn't just let's tweak a thing it's like oh let's create a new thing and what should it include and how much detail reflecting back to something you said before in terms of maintaining control without putting too many specifics down sometimes you want to have an envelope to work within but not have it be too precise but you want to be transparent about it at all times so people understand why you're doing it it isn't that you're hoarding power right you need to make things work and you need enough flexibility to make them work it's so important because one that was one of the big discussions no matter where you came out on the charter proposal itself was transparency and people understanding how government works so it's all well and good to talk about order and efficiency and predictability all of which are super important but transparency is also really important too for people to understand how we got to that point and how we continue to move forward so yes the words in the charter say this is how you do a free petition the words in the charter say here's how you do an initiative position but there would also be rules that didn't just repeat those words but might have some things around the edges to help explain it better so for example if you have a concern try taking it to the town council president first or your district representative maybe you don't even need to collect signatures maybe they'd say i'm happy to champion that for you i want to file something on that in the council right and champion it and it will then go through the process within the council and you can be part of that right as the proposer so you don't have to feel like you have to go out and collect 200 signatures before whichever threshold of a particular thing that are all laid out in the charter that you feel like you have to do that first right you don't have to do that first you can just come ask and you don't even do it in public you can talk privately with direct democracy is great but this is a representative democracy first and that's safety why not ask petition is a safety valve if you can't get the attention of the governmental body right where they act in a way that you feel is not appropriate i don't mean behavior i mean a decision that they make a decision or a policy they adopt then the petition becomes your safety valve to bring it to the council if you can't find a counselor to carry your message absolutely and so people would say well i don't know how to get this on the select board's agenda or i didn't know how to get this in front of town meeting and so having processes where we simply explain that and so then that reflects back to rules that will say how to get something to the town council's attention before you have to move to the safety valve i mean you're welcome to do that process but you may not have to do all that work you may be able to just follow these three steps get what you want and then everything moves along a pace but we don't know yet i mean we we are writing those sections we are obviously looking at examples from other communities and of course one of the things you find looking at other communities rules is that in many cases unless they've changed forms of government recently they do it that way because they've always done it that way and they don't necessarily even look at their own rules anymore as to how to do things and so they're not necessarily the freshest examples of how to explain things to the public because of course when most of these rules were written we didn't even have open meaning law in the form that we have now so again just trying to make it really clear to people if you want to do x like our town website currently says how do i and so that that's the kind of thing that we're trying to incorporate into this rather than it just being a very dry recitation of it says in the chart you have to have a hearing and you post a notice and you do this and then this other thing happens and then this other thing happens we want to make it a little more engaging so that both counselors many of which are unfamiliar with our previous government processes will know what to do with this and themselves and then also be able to share it out widely in the public so that everyone knows how they can approach issues that are really important to them but that they don't see that are just naturally appearing on the town council's agenda and it's one thing to know and understand the issue that you want to advocate for it's another to understand the system into which you are entering and how it works to try to advance your your proposal so let me summarize and see if i've got this right so part of your job is to figure out the operational rules by which under which the council will actually conduct its own meetings part of it is the rules and procedures under which the committees of the council will operate and part of it is to work with the appropriate entities to make sure that what is what is allowed under the charter for individual petitions that there is a clear process and set of procedures where the charter is silent where the charter is silent where it's not silent those are the rules right but where the charter is silent and there are open questions then your committee's job is to try to find those open questions come up with answers and hopefully have a set of procedures and rules adopted for each of those i think i did three buckets there and so it's basically how how do we do this and how do we do this transparently and consistently in each case and so by the time your committee your ad hoc committee dissolves in may we will have a set of procedures and we'll know how the town council is going to conduct its meetings we'll know how the town council committees are going to consider legislation presented to them either by members of the council or by the public through the petition process so that's roughly what you're going to be doing over these next still a couple more months when people are watching this okay um so um there are going to be some things that will come up and i know i have one example that has already come up and so i'll use that one and and see what the update is on that but then maybe you can give us some other examples of things that i may not be aware of that the public should be aware of that you're wrestling with so public comment at the town council meetings right the council the charter talks about transparency it talks about civic engagement so clearly public comment is an important element where's the committee at this point in its thinking with regard to public comment and how does that interact with what's actually been happening in these first couple of months that you've been operating right it's been it's been really challenging to try and figure that out so it seemed very simple in the past that various multiple member bodies meaning things like historical commission planning board select board etc not town meeting but all this sort of standing committees that you think of would almost always have some sort of public comment during their process these were not hearings right just a chance for the public to come in and say something usually at the beginning or the end of a meeting and it depended on the committee as to when usually not about actual agenda items so actual action items that the body was going to take action on that could either be mentioned you know through email phone calls letters or a comment in one fashion another at a meeting but normally most committees do not just invite public discussion during each of their agenda items because you would be there forever and it also is not particularly accessible i mean if it's a meeting that's at 10 in the morning there's a lot of people who can't come to that if there's a meeting at 7 o'clock at night there's a lot of people who can't come to that either and so we didn't want public comment to be the only way and that's why i continue to emphasize those other methods of getting in touch with us but also what what is public comment and so we have forums in the charter that specifically call out that you have to have half the time devoted to public comment so we were actually trying to calculate this out the other day and say well if there's a 20 minute presentation and then there's 10 minutes for counsel questions do we have to stay there for half an hour even if no one's there do we say normally under you know typical government process and typical amherst process people have between one and three minutes to give their public comment town meeting was typically three minutes for example even though that's not a public comment process but it was a standard people were used to and you can say a lot in three minutes and if you're organized and have your thoughts in order so then the question becomes if you're actually setting aside a block for public comment what if there's only two people there do they each get to talk for 15 minutes and so again because that accessibility factor we know there's people who aren't coming in on the bus who have two jobs who have childcare who have elder care responsibilities who are not there so then you're turning in into kind of a show for the two people who were able to come and then it's like well that's not really what engagement means although it's open so opens good so we're trying to balance all of those issues and we want to ensure there is public comment so for example town meeting was not required to accept comments from the public typically did but also would vote to shut down discussion when they were tired of listening we are trying not to put ourselves in that position of shutting things down so we're trying to proactively provide the right amount of public comment when we first started we were having it at the end of meetings but unfortunately our meetings were running very late and so that wasn't really very workable for the public or for us to listen on the other hand if you put public comment first and if you allow people to speak about any topic then what happens is you might have a topic that you're not going to get to till 8 30 that night you're sitting there at 6 30 and you as a council have never talked about it before the council president's planning to make a presentation at 8 30 and at 6 30 somebody having read the one line on the agenda says well i think this and it kind of changes the whole flavor of the conversation before any of us ever got to it before it got framed for us or the public so you don't have the context in which consider the individual's comments and so then that's really frustrating for them and for us and so then what do you do so the hybrid we've come up with so far and again everything subject to change is to have a public comment period near the beginning of the meeting if not right at the beginning we had a little rescheduling snafu but generally at the beginning that's about items not on the agenda and that the agenda will specifically call out there will be public comment during this topic and during this topic that are particularly sort of hot items that are being discussed at a certain point in the process and so that's our sort of compromise to try and cover all the different bases of the ways public comment might be used without having to make people wait till 11 o'clock to bring up just a topic for a future meeting that they wanted to talk passionately about but also not derail a conversation before it starts it's interesting because some things become so obvious when you're talking about running a meeting you know are we going to use parliamentary procedure roberts rules of order masons how are we going to you know what are our rules and if we don't have a written rule what are what's what's our fallback going to be that's pretty straightforward you can get your head around who would think that you would have to spend that much time and there would be that many complications over the question of when to do a good deed and an important thing like having public comment and giving people that opportunity and we've had public comment as you say a town meeting and it's like board meetings for years right but it's a new form of government and you have to rethink these things and so some of these things can be pretty complicated do you have any other examples of other things like that that you're wrestling with to give us an additional flavor we have a super simple one that we're wrestling with to help give people an idea of things that we don't don't keep us awake at night like public comment does form of address and so you know many places you go where you were things are very formal things not so formal in Amherst in general right we don't do the pledge before we start meetings we don't all rise we don't do a whole lot of things and so we over our first couple of meetings it became clear that we didn't know how to address each other or we we knew we didn't want to do councilman and councilwoman probably we had you know we had changed a select board member so many years ago so we say town counselor and it was just getting really complicated because we were calling each other by first names last names counselor preference or preface or not and so finally we said you know what let's just try doing the informal thing and then we said to the president the rules committee came up with this proposal and we said to the president you can call yourself whatever you want because you're the president if you want to be president ground up that's that's fine with us but we were thinking you could call us all by because of course one of the options was whatever people want to be called by and we were like no you do not have to keep track of what 12 different people want to be called so we went with how about trying first names and she said sure very graciously and i'll even go by my first name okay fine so that'll be great then we're reminded that and that seems to be working okay and so we're kind of evaluating this trial and see if it needs to be different but we haven't really gotten into a situation yet where we've had a lot of public testimony right and so we haven't really had hearings yet we haven't really had our official public forums yet no one's coming up next week and so then how we want to make sure it's clear much like town meeting was you're addressing the moderator so a town meeting you're addressing the moderator which obviously not everyone really listened to that rule and at one of our meetings public forums hearings the public is addressing the president and rather than saying oh you district one counselor remember how i told you exactly and so we don't want to be put people in that position but we also want to be clear right so that they know what the expectation is so we still have to do a little more tweaking to that to figure out how that's going to work when we're in a more formal setting because it's an actual hearing rather than which you know is kept track of in a different way than just i'm coming in to tell you about a future agenda item i think you all should think about yeah so that's an interesting area because you can actually make rules around that you can also have traditional practice that's not in the rules but you can also have a category which i don't have an exact name for but i'll just dub it decorum yes at this point because the the tradition in legislative bodies because there's a large gathering of people who are addressing each other and in the case of when you're serving on a committee or in the case of a public common period the public is addressing you um there are times when things can get a little bit hot and heavy and what you need to do is to remember that you know these are elected representatives working with each other and talking with each other and they are all equal no matter what their titles and then when it's the interaction between the public and the elected officials that you have to respect each other i mean we respect our constituents as elected officials and we hope that they will respect the office even if they didn't vote for you and don't like you personally whoever you is in that sentence it doesn't matter you are the elected representative of the people and so legislative bodies historically the right honorable gentlemen yes we see that right anytime you see the parliament a vittish parliament and in the massachusetts legislature the lady from mr president through you to the members right madam chair through you to my distinguished colleagues always trying to keep the conversation at a level to remember and recognize that you know people have titles they have positions but they are you know that that we have to do business together in a respectful manner and so it doesn't seem like a big deal but it actually is a pretty big deal so with that we've run out of time and i want to thank you again for being here and good luck with your work and thank you for listening and we'll be back next week with another guest thank you thank you


this summer the city of Fort Worth has teamed up with Reliant Energy to make sure that we have three community centers open with their lobbies with air conditioning and more to beat the heat. Those community centers are Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, the Como Community Center, and the Northside Community Center. They'll have summer day camps going on so we just wanted to make sure that there's accommodating spaces for people who just want to come inside and stay away from those hot temperatures who need cooling off.


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you, including Brandon Brooks, Hector Bones, Dan Crafton, and our new patron, Priscilla Lucia. Welcome, Priscilla. On this episode of DTNS, our final favorites from CES, including Shannon Morse's favorite laptop announcements, plus Rob Dunwood looks at why Microsoft just passed Apple as the most valuable tech company. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, January 11, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. One more time, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Animal House, I'm Sarah Lane. From Columbus, Ohio, I'm Rob Dunwood. And from the DTNS CES booth, I'm Shannon Morse. And the show's producer, Roger Chang. Did you almost forget who you were? I did. Because we did, definitely, over here. We're feeling that way. We've got less of an avalanche of news, but still a lot of stuff to go through. We're kind of picking up some of the pieces that maybe got missed earlier in the week, because it's such a flooded CES. So I'm kind of excited to show some good stuff. I like the last days of CES. They feel more fun. Yeah, yeah. Because you kind of go like, OK, let's take a breath and give it a second look. Yeah. Maybe I want to talk about that bird thing, or those weird glasses. Tom, don't ruin it. No, it's just a little tease, just a little tease. All right, before we tease too much, let's start with the quick hits. Shortly after its X account was hacked to say that it had approved a Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund, or ETF, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it was, in fact, this time for real approving 11 of the first Bitcoin ETFs, which are used for lots of collections of investments from gold to K-pop stock. Tom, you're probably excited about that one. The idea is a company invests in the resource, and you hold a share of the value of that investment, so you don't have to hold the actual item yourself, like gold. The SEC resisted approving Bitcoin as an appropriate resource for an ETF, but after a court loss, it had to change its tune. It's seen as a moment of legitimacy for Bitcoin. Google confirmed a round of layoffs affecting hundreds of employees across multiple units, including hardware teams responsible for Pixel, Nest, and Fitbit, its voice assistant team, and the majority of employees at its Augment Reality team. Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman are also among those departing the company. Google said hundreds of folks in its central engineering team are being impacted as well. The company is also discontinuing 17 Google Assistant features it calls underutilized, starting January 26, features like playing audio books with your voice, managing a stopwatch or smart speaker or smart display, and using your voice to send an email will prompt a notification that the feature is winding down with most set to stop entirely February 26. Google does have some positive news, though. It's no longer charging switching fees for clients that are leaving Google Cloud in order to entice more folks to come over from Azure and AWS to try them out. Google wrote, Google Cloud customers who wish to stop using Google Cloud and migrate their data to another Cloud provider and or on-premises can take advantage of free network data transfer to migrate their data out of Google Cloud. The company also formerly endorsed Right to Repair and will testify in favor of a strong Right to Repair bill in Oregon. In a white paper, Google's Steve Nicholl described access to the same documentation, parts and tools that original equipment manufacturer or OEM repair channels have. He also wrote that Google should ban parts pairing. That's a tactic that restricts what kinds of parts can be used in devices from iPhones to John Deere tractors. Heard said it will sell about a third of its electric vehicles, mostly Teslas, and replace them with gas-powered cars. The number one rental car company in the US says the demand for EV rentals was lower than expected and that combined with falling resale value and higher repair costs brought about the decision. That may be surprising, giving that EVs generally have lower repair costs because of the lack of a combustion engine. But Heard said that Uber drivers, which used about half of its EV fleet through a partnership program, drove the cars hard and repair costs were higher than expected. Amazon launched Badge Pay, which uses its Just Walkout technology to let a company's employees pay for things with their badge without having to go to a cashier. The first client is St. Joseph's Candler at its Candler Hospital campus in Savannah, Georgia. So instead of scanning a credit card if you want to buy a Coca-Cola or something, as an employee, you scan your badge on the way into the hospital, you get what you need, and then you walk out. The system tracks what you take and applies it to the payroll deduction system that's already in place. And hospital visitors, they just use a credit card as usual. I mean, you could use your badge to pay otherwise, that makes sense, kind of an interesting thing. All right, there's always way too much to cover at CES, but as the announcements begin to subside, we thought we should take a moment to let you know some of the things that caught our eye that might otherwise slide under the radar. Sarah, your first thing is for the birds. It is for the bird enthusiast in your life, or that might be you. Swarovski showed off its Optic AX Visio binoculars, which use AI to identify over 9,000 species of birds, and even other wildlife that you might not be able to otherwise identify yourself. Maybe you're far away. When you've got a bird in focus, you press a button and integrated operating and object recognition system, as it's described, plus onboard neural processing tells you what you're looking at. The binoculars have a 1,000 yard field of view, built-in GPS, so if you take a photo or something you know where you were later, also takes 13 megapixel photos, also can do 1080p video, transfers to a companion app if you wanna keep that stuff. It is $4,799, but if this sounds up your alley, or I don't know, a real nice gift for someone else, come in February. That's less than one of those small cars that we talked about yesterday. It's more than a Vision Pro. I mean, it is Swarovski after all, so this is probably a little bit more like, ooh, very nice binoculars, rather than the rugged binoculars that you might be using today. For the fashionable birder in your life. There you go. Nick from Australia pointed this one out in our Discord. Thank you for this, Nick. LKTT's Short Circuit, I'm sorry, LKT, wow, how'd that L get in there? LTT's Short Circuit channel covered VO's interesting use for a transparent display. We've been saying those transparent displays are pretty, but do they have a practical use? Here is one. The company VO took an LG display, one of the transparent displays, because remember, LG display just makes the panels. LG TVs sell TVs with the LG display panels in them. So, VO took an LG display transparent OLED and put a camera behind it. So you can look right at the monitor during video calls and also be looking right at the camera. You could try this yourself with a transparent display, but the camera would show a lot of distortion from the operation of the monitor, right? So you can't just put any camera behind it. There has to be some software that filters out that distortion and creates a clear image. So that's VO's trick is they built the camera in and they built it so that it's gonna filter out that distortion. The camera and monitor combo is expected to be available in 30 and 50-inch sizes for pre-order in Q4 2023. This kind of reminds me of a teleprompter. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. That's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. But instead of glass, instead of glass that's mirroring a display underneath it, it's actually the display up there. So that's kind of cool. You can have the display right over it. In fact, I wonder if that's another use for it. It seems obvious, right? I think it would be. Yeah. Health tech pioneer Barakota has unveiled the world's first AI-powered smart mayor, BeMind, designed for mental wellness, powered by generative AI for conversation and coaching experiences, as well as natural language processing for sentiment analysis. BeMind identifies mood and helps manage stress by providing light therapy sessions and personalized auto-generated mindfulness exercises. So this sounds pretty cool. My first question, as always, with anything that is AI and facial recognition type stuff is who did they test this on? You know, how many of the first data sets who did they train it on? Yeah, yeah. Because there's just differences in how people look and express themselves based off of ethnicity. So I'm really curious as to how many different ethnicities that they test this on. Yeah, yeah. And to that point, what range of moods? You know, what range of mood disorders were used? You know, how accurate is it at that part of it too? A lot of questions there. It's an interesting approach. Yeah, it's like, if I'm looking into the mirror and I'm having a real bad day and I'm crying, you know, it's like, well, you would want it to be able to pick up on that. But I could also just be smiling through the pain. We all do a little bit of that too. So, you know, how smart is smart, I guess. Or maybe it gets to know you better over time. What if I have a facial condition? What if I had a stroke? What if I have a mental condition? You know, that it needs, you know, is it aware of all of that sort of thing? It is nice looking, though, just as like a bathroom mirror, you know, wherever you want to put it. China-based company Derucci, which makes a line of sleep products, ranging from smart mattresses to bedding to curtain tracks, showed off what it says is the first smart anti-snoring pillow at CES this week, which it claims can reduce snoring by up to 89%. There was an internal clinical test that it went through to get to that number, but that sounds pretty good, right? The pillow monitors for slight movement and can indicate snoring, just based on kind of vibration stuff. Then it adjusts the loft and moves the position of you as the sleeper's head. The idea reduced the risk of sleep apnea along with snoring, because sometimes they go hand in hand. It also pairs with an app and a remote so you can get yourself into a comfortable position before you fall asleep. It's come into the US sometime this year, no specific date yet, but it will also cost around $972. So, yeah, better work. Let's just say that. I mean, I kind of want one. It's not for me, but for my husband. I prefer a non-snoring bed fellow myself, but yeah, that's an expensive gift. I want to follow up on my previous one where I said it was coming out in 2023. There's no time travel involved. I meant 2020. Oh, man. I thought you had slipped in something pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. And thank you to the reverb mic for pointing that out in chat. All right, next thing. Esalor Luxotica, one of the many companies showing off smart eyeglasses at CES. These kinds of things are all over the place in all kinds of different configurations doing different kinds of things. The nuance frames that Luxotica showed off demonstrate the ability to increase your ability to hear when you're in a crowded room, a loud room, by using multiple mics that will amplify sound coming from the direction the frames are pointing at and therefore should correspond to what you're looking at. That way, a lot of people with mild hearing loss will just have to kind of turn their head. So they're talking to my good ear. Have you ever heard somebody say that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so this would obviate the need for that. Sound is delivered through speakers that are in the frames to help you hear better and you can control the volume in a companion app with a remote or by touching the frames. I feel like I'm gonna wanna touch the frames but it's interesting that they have these options. Keep in mind, these are not hearing aids. If you need a hearing aid, you're gonna have to go another route.  They're just a helper if you have slight hearing loss. I like that. I'm glad that we're seeing so much like accessibility this year. Yeah, it's pretty cool technique and almost reminds me of those commercials you would see late at night where they're not hearing aids but they're just things that help you hear better. This is kind of what that reminded me of. Well, I think a lot of people who aren't, whether they've had an actual diagnosis or not, like aren't under the impression that they have extreme hearing loss but maybe are suffering a little bit too needlessly in that in between phase. This is a product that might work for them. And Joe Hunter is like, I just want it for crowded bars. I think it might be helpful for that too. Yeah, yeah. AirDrop Gaming has announced that it is now shipping its audio radar, a gaming accessory that transforms video game sounds into visual signals for deaf and hard of hearing gamers. Audio radar visualizes key sounds such as footsteps and alerts and works with Xbox, PlayStation and PC. I applaud them for this because I actually have a coworker whose son is deaf. And the things that young man would go through to actually be able to play games like he literally would have like subwoofer sitting under his chair and turn them up like extremely loud. So it's loud for everybody else in the house but for him he could actually feel explosions and things like that when they were coming that would give him the cues that he couldn't actually hear. So this is actually really cool tech for folks like that. This is kind of the equivalent of visual description on streaming.  This isn't reading it though. This is showing the audio. It's really interesting. Well, super high end custom built TV maker C seed showed off the 137 inch N1 TV at CES which folds down into a rectangle bench of sorts and that stores the TV away when it's not in use. Now I did say foldable. When you are using it though the N1 screen can rotate 180 degrees and uses a proprietary system that the company calls adaptive gap calibration to measure the distance between the unfolded edges with sensors that detect offsets and calibrate the brightness of adjacent LEDs. CNET said we could not see where it folded when the TV was actually in use. Now there are a few versions of this. The 137 inch indoor N1 goes for $200,000 but that includes installation and setup and outdoor version for $240,000. If you want to go bigger, there's a 165 inch version for $300,000 and I know what you're thinking, money's tight these days so we have a 103 inch version for just $110,000. Wow. The economy brand. Such a bargain, such a bargain. I mean, it is cool. It is just, you know, I always say this. I don't have a room big enough for this. Why do rich people want to hide their TVs? Have you ever noticed this? There's always a TV concept at CES like LG's Rollable, right? Maybe it's for cleaning. Goes down and they're always crazy expensive, yeah. Well, you figure if you've got the money and the space, maybe that TV room is a ballroom also. I don't know. I don't know why they want to hide their TVs. Yeah, I've never really understood that. Yeah, maybe it is. Yeah, or maybe it's just to impress their other rich friends. Yeah, like look at my TV, it folds down to a bench.  Yeah, sit on it. Yeah, there you go. So Microsoft has surpassed Apple's market cap to once again become the world's most valuable company. For the past several months, Microsoft's stock has rallied due in large parts of the company's investment and announcements in artificial intelligence. Apple, on the other hand, has been trending downward, suffering four consecutive quarter over quarter stock drops for the first time in over two decades. And Apple's stock was recently downgraded, wiping out $162 billion in market cap in 2024 alone. So the problem for Apple seems to be that its fortune is tied to hardware sales, which especially post pandemic, simply have not rebounded to the levels the analysts were hoping they would. The iPhone 15 has also seen weaker sales in China, which is the primary reason that Apple stock was downgraded. And even though the global premium smartphone market has rebounded, Apple's market share has dipped 4%. So, all right, Tom, Apple's reliance on Mac and iPhone sales, it's a pretty big part of the company. Consumers are buying fewer of both. Is this a longer term issue for Apple? We're gonna have an interesting Apple year this year. Yeah, it could be. It could be, but it could have been in 2016 when Google passed Apple. It could have been in 2018 when Microsoft most recently began passing Apple again and they passed them in 2020 and 2021. So I look at this and I think, you know what? I bet this has more to do with fluctuations and Microsoft's just getting a little closer. I think it says more about Microsoft than it does about Apple to me, which is Microsoft's killing it. Azure is remaining strong, AI is doing great for Microsoft and getting Activision Blizzard, whatever you think about it as a consumer is a positive for Microsoft investors. So that boosts the price again. Whereas Apple's been in a little bit of a fallow period but they stay in those periods for only so long and the Vision Pro is the first salvo out of the gate. I'm not saying that the Vision Pro is gonna save them but we are moving to Apple, starting to rev things back up again. The clock is ticking on that though, right? Services have been what they are pivoting to and services have been growing but are they going to grow fast enough to overcome the iPhone thing? And then the China situation is another question, Mark. You don't know whether it's gonna bounce back in China which it looks like it might or are we gonna have some other unexpected thing that's gonna cause a backlash against US companies and then Apple's gonna suffer there too. I'm kind of glad to see that Microsoft has been rebounding so greatly and they've been doing such positive numbers because as a Microsoft user myself, as a Windows user, it's really inspiring to see them putting so much work into all the different things that they've been working on lately, especially like AI. Even in the security and privacy sector for Microsoft and for Windows, they've been focusing on that a lot and maybe people are starting to trust them more, maybe they're getting a better market cap so it's really nice to see. Yeah, I'm wondering if Apple is, as we're going through all these hardware issues, I guess if you can call them that, if they are gonna start thinking about maybe we should pivot more into services which it looks like they definitely did last year because services was great. And just going forward, it's like, their software runs on their stuff so if their stuff doesn't sell, then that causes a problem for them. But I think as time goes on, what people are figuring out is that MacBook Pro runs pretty well five or six years from now. That iPhone, you don't need to get one every year, you don't need to get one every other year, maybe you can go every three. So I just think maybe people's buying preferences are just slowing down because their hardware is so good and now everything is moving back into the cloud. All this AI stuff, most of it's gonna run in the cloud and be sent to your screen so you don't need to have the highest in device in order to utilize and capitalize on all this AI stuff that is gonna be coming. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. You saw that with iPad, right? The iPad tanked, everybody talked about the iPad being dead and it had a really good quarter last quarter because we finally got to the point where people needed to replace their iPad but it took a while, right? So Apple's gonna have that kind of stuff that's gonna drag things down. That's worth paying attention to, you're right.  Well folks, if you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show, we are all over the internet in all kinds of places. Of course you can email us feedback at dailytechnewshow.com but we are on X, the formerly Twitter known thing that's still at twitter.com sometimes depending on what URL you're looking at at DTNS Show. We're on Mastodon, Twitter. We are DTNS Show, nstdn.social, Daily Tech News Show on TikTok and DTNS Picks with an X, DTNS PIX on Instagram and Threads. Laptops may feel like a pretty boring form factor at this point. Last CES they stood out by adding new Nvidia cards but they don't have new Nvidia cards this year. So they're messing with the form factor to try to stand out. Shannon got some hands on time with a few laptops. They're trying to buck that boring label. They're bright. They have lit hinges, screens in their lids. Shannon, what have these laptops caught your eye? Yeah, you know, I kind of feel like laptop manufacturers are trying to focus on like, what's going to wow people? What's gonna make it pop? And we saw some really, really interesting devices this year. So ASUS Zephyrus G14, that was one of ASUS's big name ones this year. It has a G-Sync OLED display which is absolutely gorgeous in person and it's 16 by 10. It's an OLED screen, of course. 2080 by 1800 at 120 Hertz. So not only is it going to be great for content creation but it's also going to be a really good one for gamers if you want something that looks a little bit more sleek. So one of the interesting things about this is it's the very first OLED laptop to support Nvidia G-Sync which we've never seen before. So that's a really, really interesting component. If you are a gamer and you want something that looks kind of streamlined and maybe you want to take it into a business meeting or something like that and you don't want a bunch of LEDs on it, this would be a laptop that you might be interested in. The G-Sync technology will match the display's refresh rate with the GPU's frame rate so you're not gonna deal with any kind of tearing or any issues like that. ASUS also said that it worked with Nvidia and Samsung Display to increase the OLED's panel pixel emission rate to 480 Hertz for the G14 which is huge. Yeah, they had to work with Nvidia to do the G-Sync thing but they did the work. Yeah, they did and it looks so nice in person. It's one of my wish list laptops for this year. So one of the really interesting ones and I don't know if I would be the market for this but it was so cool to see it in person was the ZenBook Duo. So this one, we've seen a lot of folding laptops and things like that with two displays and you unfold it and you get to both of those displays. This one is interesting because it is a dual screen laptop but they revamped it for 2024 so now it has two equally sized 14 inch screens which is great so you don't have to deal with any kind of confusion there and it has a lot of different configurations. So when I was checking it out I got to see it in like a standard laptop mode where you still have the keyboard on the bottom. You can also have the bottom screen is covered by a traditional keyboard and trackpad. So the fun thing is you can actually take that off. So you can have two screens arranged vertically or horizontally with the keyboard and the trackpad on your desk. I was also able to see it with a digital keyboard like on display keyboard instead of the one that you were using in front of you, the physical keyboard. So if you wanted to use like a digital keyboard instead on the bottom display, you could totally do that too. And then do you get a little more screen down there in the bottom that could do other things? You do. Yeah, yeah, you do. And you can make them sync with each other so you can like browse the web on two displays at once. You can share the screen so that they kind of mirror each other if you're presenting something to somebody on another side of the table from you. Like if you need to sign a contract, for example, you can like double it so they can meet along. Yeah, it's really cool. Each screen is OLED and it's also the same resolution. So that 2880 by 1800 resolution with a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hertz again. So that's very similar to the Zephyrus. This one we do have a price point for it's $14.99 and it will be available in the U.S. We don't have a date yet. Okay, we've seen the duo before but it just keeps getting a little more tweaked a little more refined every time. It's much more refined this year and it was really fun to watch it being used and be able to use it in person myself because I noticed that sometimes you see these demos in the booths and it doesn't necessarily work very well but this one worked really, really nicely. So it felt really good to use and I was like, oh, I can actually see a lot of people buying those if they were. It's not terribly expensive either. Yeah, no, it's not. This is very, very affordable and I'm just thinking like you could get one of these and not have to buy an external monitor that's just taking your laptop bag and just it all comes together. So yes, I like this. So Acer also had some pretty cool laptops. If you still want to get something that's more gaming they had a couple of different laptops that I really liked. There was the Predator Helios 18 gaming laptop. This one has an 18 inch display. It's ginormous with a 250 Hertz mini LED. So this is going to be like your desktop replacement. It is still a little bit heavier but it's so sleek and it's so pretty. This one did not have a bunch of LEDs on the back of it. So it would be something that you just leave on your desk if you don't really care about all the LEDs and everything. But if you wanted something fancy they also had the Helios 16 which had that full RGB keyboard and had all those LEDs on the back of it that you could customize to your preferred settings. So this one is up to a Core i9-14900HX CPU and the RTX 4090 graphics 90 which is excellent. And it also has, and I love this, I got so excited about using this, swappable mechanical keyboards or switches for the WASD keys. Oh, switches, not just the keyboard. Switches, yeah, switches. Oh, cool. Isn't that cool?  So if you're like screwing them up, if you're getting them dirty, if you just wanna switch them out and use different kinds of switches, you can totally do that. I loved it. Yeah, that's cool because it's one thing to be able to swap the cue to another style cue. Yeah. You know, it's another thing to be able, that switch is starting to go or I just don't like the feel of it or whatever, be able to customize it. So the pricing is pretty good for both of these. I think for a gaming PC, especially an upgraded one with like 4090 graphics. So the Helios 18 will ship in March for about $2,000 starting and the Helios 16 will ship later this month for $1,900. So a slight difference there. And yes, it is more expensive than like the ZenBook Duo. But again, these are like your upgraded gaming machines. And you've got LEDs on the hinge in 16. Yeah. I don't know why you need them. Hey, why not? I love it. They look cool. So the last one I really wanted to check out in person was this, this is a concept. So it's not coming to market but it was really interesting to see is the Lenovo 13X Gen 4 and it has this concept e-ink prism color cover.  No, it is not. It's actually built into the laptop. So you have this really fun e-ink display back there and you can customize all the animations, et cetera, et cetera. The Thinkbook 13X Gen 4 is a 13 inch notebook with a 74 watt hour battery and it's powered by Intel's Meteor Lake processors which is great. And this is also a smart personalization experience which I thought was kind of cool. It's like a QA that Lenovo is allowing you to customize it for your own personality. The e-ink prism technology lets you also change the exterior color and the pattern of the laptop lid. So if you say I wanted to do a sailor moon pattern, I could totally do that. And you would. And I would. Yeah. So do you think this would be annoying to see all the time or would you use it? After about 20 minutes, please, please turn that on. I'm just trying to imagine somebody in a co-working space and that thing is just going, you know, just like, it's just going mad. You don't notice it because you're on the work side. Everybody else is on the other side. They're going to see it. It seems like a cool, like the sailor moon thing, it'd be like, it's cool.  But if it's moving and especially in a setting where everybody's got laptops. Well, I'm the kind of person that has like stickers on the back of my laptop. Yeah. So I feel like this would just be something that I could customize and it would be aesthetic. It looks like animated stickers. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if the company would be willing to pay me to get one of these and put their advertising on the back. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Sponsorship opportunities galore. Well, cool. Thank you, Shannon, for sharing your insights with that. I think a lot of people are like, eh, laptop's just a bunch of spec upgrades, but there's some interesting stuff out there. It's so interesting. And I just love watching what laptop brands are doing. And even when it's really minute detail that they're changing, like they listen to users and they listen to our experience. And I always see them implement that in like the next year's model. So it's cool. All right, let's check the mail bag. Feedback at DailyTechNewShow.com. Let's do it. Alan from Chili Montreal wrote in and said, Scott Johnson was asking on Wednesday show about the build quality of the Rabbit R1 device, saying it resembled the Playdate console. The reason they're similar is because the Playdate and the Rabbit R1 are both designed in collaboration with Japanese tech brand Teenage Engineering. They're famous for their excellent audio products, digital music instruments, such as the beloved OP1 Synth keyboard. Their stuff usually has very vivid, wacky and fun UIs too. I did not know that. And that's why he said, that's why he, that's why Scott noticed that. So Tony Ronan regarding the Rabbit R1, I love the hardware design and the 360 camera reminds me of a Chinese phone a few years back that only had one camera, the main camera in a rotates to take a selfie. I think the Rabbit AI is more digestible for early adopters than the Humane AI pin that is designed to replace your mobile completely. I can always pop the SIM out of my phone and stick it in the rabbit. I can't do that with the AI pin. I hope the rabbit survives and continues to breed. Yeah, the Rabbit R1 got a lot of people scratching their heads and saying, how does this work? But I like the idea of it. And quite a few did in fact, because Ellen and Tony are not the only people intrigued by this thing. Pre-orders have already opened for a second production run of the large action model handheld device. Goes for $200. After a quickly sold at 10,000 units following its CES debut on Tuesday. Rabbit says, I know. Rabbit says, we were hoping to sell like 500? So the first pre-orders are still on track to be shipping in March, the second run sometime between April and May. So yeah, I mean, we've got interest out of the gate. That's for sure. Yeah, for sure. I did get an opportunity to speak with them this week, speak to Rabbit. And I'm very interested in reviewing one of them. So hopefully I can get one in and share it with y'all and give you kind of an experience. Oh, very cool. Very cool. Speaking of- Hope they have something left. I know, right? Yeah, yeah. Better get those pre-orders in. Speaking of sharing stuff with your audience, Shannon, what are you doing when you get back from CES and where can people follow along? First thing I'm gonna do is take a bath, but you can find me at youtube.com slash Shannon. I know all our feet are so sore from walking around the CES Convention Center. YouTube.com slash Shannon Morris, I am posting a whole bunch of shorts this weekend, as well as a long form video all about my favorite things from CES that are actually going to come out this year. Patrons stick around for the extended show Good Day Internet. A generative AI model has created a comedy special called George Carlin, I'm Glad I'm Dead, hosted by an impersonation of George Carlin. And his daughter hates it. Oh boy, we're gonna get the full story in just a few, but just a reminder, DTNS is live Monday through Friday and you can catch it live at 4 p.m. Eastern, 2100 UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. And we're back tomorrow with all the big home theater news from CES with Robert Herron and Len Peralta drawn the top tech stories. Talk to you then. The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand. The Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.


So planning is the process of thinking about the activities required to achieve a desired goal. It is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought and the capacity to think ahead is considered to have been a prime remover in human evolution and a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. It involves the use of logic and imagination to visualize not only a desired end result, but the steps necessary to achieve the result. With inflation in double digits and the seeming freefall of the Naira against the dollar, the spending power of the average Nigerian, whether rich or poor, has been significantly impacted. As we approach the festive season with its associated increased expenses, prudent planning is more than a nice to have. It is an absolute necessity. What are your goals for this season and have you put plans in place? Please let us hear what you have to say. Remember you can join the conversation and send us an SMS or WhatsApp to 0818 038 4663, tweet to us at WeShowAfricaOne with the hashtag WeShow. So, joy to the world. Oh, that has come. Oh, come on, you're faithful and all of that stuff. Yes, my favorite is driving you for Christmas. And of course, we know Mariah will soon come. Ah, yes, so the Christmas. Oh, hold on, I want for Christmas. Every year.  It's a few weeks. It will be December. And it just creeps up on you. And I remember this time last year I said to myself, ah, once I get into 2023, every month I'll be saving money towards 30 December, because to be fair, last December, I felt like we had, we started from December 1st. And enjoyed it. We had an incredible, the usual, or should I say an amazing Lagos, December, so it was really a lot of fun. But it can get very expensive, right? It does. Plus the one you planned for, plus the one you did not plan for, the, I was going to say the obteners, the receivers, the beggars, you know, there's just so much that brings to that for the thought process of how much you have to spend. And it might seem like it's early, but I mean, 15 days or 13 days, these are very short periods of time, right? And people have to sort of start thinking about what Christmas means. So let me throw the question out there. Since we are all planners, have we added the festive season to our planning mode? I, Alaydeh, would like to say that I have not planned a goddamn thing concerning Christmas. All I know is I hope my family, my nuclear family will be together and God will cover us with His mercy and His graces and let them return safely. That's my only hope. I find that you really can't plan for me when it's Christmas. Like you said about, it's a given period. As much as you think, oh, this is what my budget is for giving, I have an attitude that I am training myself continuously about that if anybody asks you for something, pray to God that you're able to let them smile away when they're leaving you. Because I believe God would always reimburse you and restock your household. So while you're planning that, oh, this 50K, we're going to use it to go buy tickets for dirty December concert or something. Someone may have a need that is more important than what you want to spend the money on.  Give it to them. Not because you are doing double for your money with God.  We've got testing. If I'll give you 10K, you'll return 20K by tomorrow. Give it to them and let God use what He does to bless you back in a way that you will see that it will all end in place. Back in the day, we used to do Christmas. I had kids who were in the rainbow. I wanted to excite them. One day I couldn't afford it. I saw cardboard, Christmas tree cut out. And I put it in one corner. What do you want for Christmas? What did I give it? I do stress myself unnecessarily. Well, you see, that example you gave is a good one because abroad, you can have a quiet Christmas. You can sort of, you know, but I think culturally here, right? Because I remember growing up, Christmas was that thing that we waited. It's not like now, sorry, I show my age a little bit. And some people only ate chicken at Christmas.  We used to have a feast.  Chicken and ginger, yeah, there's rosemary. Exactly. So it was a big deal. And you know, it was that thing that took so long to come around. I mean, from a child's perspective, it took so long to come around. But it seems like it has blossomed now into something that you really, really have to almost put a box around it and say, okay. If I'm disciplined enough not to step out of this in my planning. But you've even spoken about it or we've talked about it only from an expense point of view. Yeah. But in this town, December is wedding season, party season, event season. So even when we're talking about planning, for those that are lucky enough to have a, you know, an enviable social calendar, let me put it that way.  Change into another event. So even that comes into planning. So what does your social calendar look like in December? It's a time I spend with family and friends. So because of my job, I really catch up with friends on the beats of the homebody during the week. So my December is the best time people can see me. So I, I map out, well, my boss. Okay. So my boss made us every year when we, when we start our strategy session, she says, oh, come up with your vision calendar. Vision. You know? So we do all our financials and all that. And that has helped me to identify what my needs and then what my wants are, you know? So, and then again, it allows me to prioritize, you know? When I'm thinking December, I'm thinking security. I'm thinking financial expenses. I'm thinking replenishing myself in terms of how I connect with family, how I connect with friends, you know? So all that for me is a lot of planning. But I can say I'm ready for December. It's my favorite time of the year. Absolutely my favorite. There is no, I never get angry with anyone in December. I'm always happy jumping from one place to the other, you know? Anybody wants anything from me in December, they almost can get it. Really? And I plan for that. No, plan me. I'm just going to say that I'm ready to plan. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. I'm coming to you. We're coming around to you to make sure that we we insert ourselves in your planning. In your planning. In your planning. In your planning. Exactly. What are your, what's your Christmas plans looking like? I started, not started. Oh. I started already. I have, I'm not in Egypt. I have six wedding in December. I don't know why all my friends decided to get married in December. But then it's been like that. So finally, December for us is the time to actually, that's when everybody's together. So since I was a child, Christmas has always been that special season. We all, because we now have family for two shows. It's just very special like that's for us. I know that there's that already. And then as I came an adult and I started to live by myself, I, well, I'm not a social butterfly, but then in December, be sure to catch me and be sure that it's up. On Instagram. And as it sees now, my faves are having shows here and there in December. So I don't know how I'm going to, I've not been able to because two of the weddings are outside the Lagos. So I'm like, okay. And then there's one concert after. Yeah. I'm like, how am I going, I'm still trying to figure it out. But my social calendar is facts. I hope if you're going out of town, it's a nice segue where you just mentioned, I hope if you're booking flights. So I think it was last month, someone shared with me the potential prices of local flights. And he's like, you can't do that. 85,000, 190,000. And guess what? You can't book. So I wasn't. I'm going to. Yes. I'm going to yield for my cousin's wedding. Right. And then I checked and I couldn't find it. He cares for 27. I called and I'm like, what's going on? And they told me, oh no, it's too early. I have to hold on one or two weeks before my travel day. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. Because it means that I'm going to spend as much as 100,000 for one week. So I know that that one is already because it happens two years ago as well. I'm going to go to a wedding in December. And it was at the end of the day. We had to go by road. We decided to the group trip myself and my friends. And then we were coming back. Because it was terrible. We're going to spend 120,000. Just flights away. This doesn't include coming back to Lagos. So I can imagine what's going to happen. Yeah. And the airport. Someone asked me to come and go to Iqiti on the 2nd of December. And I said, travel. You know the superstitious beliefs. That's one thing I also want to talk about.  That's one thing Nigerians have always had. I don't know if anybody knows that. That thing of you don't put every single family member in one car to go somewhere. You go out early, come back early and just protect yourself. Because as festive as it is, there's the side of the people who are living in abject poverty and that is when they see you, theft, editing. And they can easily identify and grab. So I'm very conscious about that. Especially because my children don't live here. My greatest prayer is, God please help me take them back when it's time to move. Everything is with a leap of faith. So that's my festive planning. Calculations are hired. They will be the IJGBs. That's a different part of the conversation because some people plan to attach themselves to the IJGBs. I thought it's been too long and I can't claim IJGB anyway. But in those days, you spend money from the minute you arrive to the minute you leave. But for the people that want to start planning, I said all of a sudden there will be a bad plan. You may have a close friend coming. Exactly. So it's all part of the planning and assessing your situation, opportunities, threats. It's a whole sort of analysis. Income streams. Making hampers. For my business to speak at engagements, weddings, birthday parties. That means it's nice. So you guys are going into work mode. Yes, we are. That's what I keep telling people that what you call working days are not my working days. Especially when we're trying to calculate when the gen comes on in our coma. I said that's when I'm sleepy. So you have to consider me as well. Industries differ and timing also differs. December for people in the entertainment industry is the busiest period. So maybe like Valentine's Day and then we chill again till Easter. It does get quite busy. So I actually want to now come back. I think we've touched a little bit on everything. But for those who don't have events, everybody's got to eat. Right? And when we talk about smart planning, it's really important that some people might say I don't have money. So I'm not really thinking about it yet. But you'd be amazed how much you can save when you start to take opportunities. I mean Black Friday has become a whole thing in Nigeria that a few years ago it was not. Right? So there are opportunities as we get closer to you know even before we get. So I typically when I'm doing my Christmas shopping I'm a bulk buyer. I typically like to do my shopping at the latest the first weekend in December. So everything usually I go for end of November. I try and you know buy the stock up and just because I mean the price of staples just like rice. The other day I saw someone posted on social media a picture of a particular brand of a bag of rice and nothing could have prepared me for the fact that I raised $82,000 for rice. It's not even a full 50K bag. That size is about 45 kg. Shop to eat for Christmas. $2,500. So when we even think about it some of these things in terms of cost savings and being able to make it as cost effective as possible because we know that once it gets into that period again it's supply and demand. You first of all have things that are out of season. So I like to buy my vegetables and things when they're in season. So you find that you're not coming in and rice has gone up, meat, chicken, all of these things really do go up. So in terms of that smart planning that's one place where I think people can also look at starting early and it doesn't have to take a lot. It's not within your means. But the earlier you can buy the better you can actually say. I just came up with something. I thought of something. When we're talking about Christmas and shopping, don't put the pressure on yourself alone. If Uti, Lide and Adiola and Chinilo decide let's buy a bag of rice together. We know that we eat our chicken in 20K as opposed to stocking a whole bag for a longer period and then it will be fresher when we're buying because people share cows. They share goats. They share all kinds of meats so that you take smaller portions and you get a bit of everything. Absolutely. So let's take a short break and we'll be right back. Stay with us. So if you're just tuning in it's our 80s night out and we're discussing the topic smart planning for the festive season we still love to hear what you have to say. Remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS 0384663 or tweet at us at West Show Africa one. Our phone line is also now open so please call us on 0702 5007749 so you can tell us how if in fact you have started planning and how you are planning for the festive season. So I love the suggestion that you just gave because I think when we also were going to talk about this topic in my mind I thought a lot of people would be like there's no money to do. We're going to start planning for the future but the idea that you actually just mentioned it reminded me of something we did I think it was Christmas of 2020 right because of COVID and all we were kind of not sure what we were doing there was no going out at least for me and my friends anyway so we all just decided that you know what we were going to have a Christmas day at home and that was in the craze of Bridgerton when the first Bridgerton came out so we decided it was going to be a binge watch of Bridgerton but what we did was that everybody ordered something so we didn't even cook so it was a bit like a potluck just bringing stuff and everybody hung out and it was nice because of course all the kids were then together and could play and all but there's something we haven't talked about gifting and presents My kids and I my daughter came up with it she said this year can we all gift one another something you know about it now everybody gets somebody but you don't tell them you got them so I said I don't want to get you because I don't have bone straight small hair because that's what she's been putting on her birthday is coming up and she's telling us combine the birthday and the Christmas so I said my god let me get my son because I am buying no bone straight for Christmas came doing nothing but it's true we used to back in the day when I grew up National Theatre always had events and things for kids I was talking about the other day I was standing in front of City Hall and I was like I mean back in the 80s National Theatre was where you went for Christmas it was where the Santa Grotto was that's where you went and sat I think I almost have like year on year maybe Kingsville would feature or something Santa would be in the UAC you know all those things Leventis and all that there was enough to do to occupy your time and then you remember those people that I used to walk around back in the day I can't remember the country they come from those swords that I don't cut you never saw them not that I can remember oh you guys must be young when it was Christmas time back in the day Christmas back in the day this meant from wherever Uganda Ghana I don't know used to walk around the streets and the choir come in to sing Christmas carol we used to look forward to them and what they used to do was have swords of all sorts and be cutting themselves and we didn't see if they would cut so even when that wasn't really necessary because entertainment was coming to meet you but back again to back in the good old days there was enough food I mean it wasn't about chicken there was turkey there was chicken there was beef there was lamb there was ginger there which was a Christmas drink we need to find a way to get our children those memories we used to have I think the memories are just changing right because again this conversation there's sort of feeding itself actually because it's good to say that planning as well for the children because you have them on holiday they're closed maybe by the first second week maybe second week in December and then you've got to entertain them on holiday until December you've got to also entertain the kids and whilst we may not have those staples like we have then with National Theatre and Papa and Museum and Park and all of those things we are in made time yes we're in a time where we still have but we also do have a lot of activities for children as well because interestingly enough not mentioning brands and all but some companies have been consistent they've managed to build consistency in activities for children so from that planning perspective as well it's something to add to your plans researching activities for your children whether it's going somewhere to get Santa gifts and play and paint all of these different activities but it's also part of the planning because your children need to be involved in the festivities right because to be honest your own version of Dirty December is so, so completely different their own version is to go to a wedding there for all them concerts so there's just so much that you have to think about because even when we're talking about gifting I was having a conversation a few weeks ago and I said last year my team was a lot smaller this year I'm like where do I begin because in fact I had a boss a few years ago who as we were coming around towards the end of the year for the Christmas holiday he just walked in and said your gifts and he had Ankara for each person and I thought it was such an innovative idea and I said to him I said how did you plan it and he said well when he thought about it he thought about the size of his team and he just found an Ankara vendor and said you know what just pack give me and supply and he had started paying her all the way from about September so that he would just pay and pay and pay and so last year I did something similar and just was like chicken life chicken ah they send images to tell us that we have we do youngest old man youngest old man is he there welcome to the show welcome to the show welcome to the show welcome to the show yes I think the lady there or the mom there because with her analysis is like she's the youngest old mom I don't even know what I'm talking about they start cutting onions first before they take the knife to their body yes they cut them the entire they are some of them are cannuris they come from the farm lot they do those things for money and sometimes they will scare you I remember in those days man how are you doing they don't even go through this now but not for me they don't know the situation the inflation we are smart you're smart planning so that is not the problem because no matter how you plan anything you budget the inflation will just come and cut out all the thin and it gets to the brain in fact it gets to the inner part and the pain is different in these days you can't even plan you can't even project because of the inflation in my project of 40000 the inflation double these days but the good news there is that we are being created to stand the toughest of times and right in us we are built with love no matter how difficult it is we are different people in this life so I know that we will do the right thing and we will try our best to survive and at the same time we should not forget to give to the I think the mother the motherless those people are very very important because with all your planning somebody don't even have parents to help them plan some are not even seeing their daybreak they don't even know how it's going to happen they are not even thinking Christmas they are thinking on how to exist how to even survive it's a luxury for them so for me in all we do it takes a lot out of our pockets but at the end of the day it takes a lot of challenges that we don't even know that's all I need to say but I really like the memory of the the memory of the having a nice day thank you so much I'm glad he said what he said I was quite impressed with my daughter well not today but she's turning 25 in November thinking about having a dinner having friends plan music, plan car, plan everything and then all of a sudden she called me and said mommy I decide I want to do an outreach find me a charity that is reputable that we know that when we do something for them the kids are going to feel it and I was so impressed because I'm not that charitable I believe my charity is around me but she's actually planning a printed t-shirt telling her friends if you're for me on my birthday we're going to spend time in a home spend time playing with the kids apart from giving them things and then probably start a cause where we can do it every month so it's not just for the Christmas and they don't see us again until the following Christmas I think that, I mean it's so important but one thing that I also notice which is something that I do what I was talking about before is we often everybody focuses and it's not a bad thing because I think we have another phone call we have Jeremy on the line hi Jeremy are you there from Abuja okay I think we lost him so yeah in given to in this aspect of giving right people tend to give so we think when we think given we think the orphanages we think the motherless babies homes and I remember going to one right and the feedback was in fact they opened the room to show us I said look rats are here eating the noodles eating the rice because everybody is coming here and what it actually showed me was look you don't have to go to these symbolic places there is so much need because when you just said that around you so it doesn't mean that in your own little sphere there are people who are needy yeah exactly there are people who are needy so you think about it your security guard your domestic stuff people around them so in December it's like I have a process so in December my nanny I pay for her there's money when she's going home and then I give her rice oil and all these things to take home so we realize that we can make such an impact it doesn't have to be grand gestures where we say oh we're going to present bags of rice and then we take pictures you know but we really need to identify people around us that we can feed and then if we you know go the extra mile and say okay yes I want to go to an orphanage and things but I think it's also important to just bring it home to say you know we can help those around us I also wanted to say the fact that most people go at the same time at times they run the risk of having to stock those things which they will eventually not even be able to consume because it's the pantry rats are there cockroaches are there also instead of we really have to practice this when we say we want to do an outreach not really just an outreach take care of someone okay just hold that I think Jeremy is back hi Jeremy are you there yeah I'm still here guys good evening welcome to the show yeah so talking about making my choice here was Christmas celebration you look at basically what I want to say is you cut your coat up for this to your size not everybody can do okay well I think we lost him there but he does make an important point in fact I think we've moved on from apart from even cutting to your size now you cut to your cloth to the material that you have right so important that we're not spending beyond our means and when we talk about and that's why we say smart right it's because it's not everybody's capacity is different so what is it that we're going to actually be spending we're almost coming to the bits where we're starting we're running out of time we're running out of time but what kind of what else should we have our viewers thinking about today in terms of planning for Christmas we've touched on the food we've touched on the giving security absolutely right right so in terms of improving your security I think like they gave the suggestion of not going far from home but we also know like you don't have a choice you're going away you don't have a choice yeah Christmas and New Year's Eve I don't go anywhere I don't even do all that to the watchover service you don't jump straight except the people who wants to collapse on my head and in my house crossing over I have a slang I'm so sorry I just want to teach people this thing I have a slang that I call bowling on a budget bowling on a budget means you're smart to achieve the same effect without expanding yourself okay so for me it's um I like to say that if anything were to happen to me it should never be on a Christmas day right right right I don't want anybody to have to mourn or be sad because of me on Christmas day I am at home right now I go home I just like to mind making lovely days but you know it's funny that you actually mention not actually going anywhere on Christmas day so for me that was how I was raised right it wasn't a it wasn't a not go but that was just we didn't go anywhere because we were home everybody was home you eat until you are almost so yeah people might stop by but it was really a family thing and then of course there's no movement as well so people don't like moving around well when I say there's no movement there are no buses there's no public transport so people really have to plan and all of that so it was really for me always a family holiday so I found it weird when I came to the journey that people were having a party on Christmas day why are you having a party on Christmas day yeah okay so I was going to say when planning for Christmas you should also remember what happens in January January is the longest month and then there are a lot of expenses so there's school fees for people that have well you know and you're starting a new year and you have to down start putting yourself so that you don't come and start complaining generally a drinking gallery and start running so there's that superstitious belief also that if your January starts on the Cray level but it's such an important point because January is really that longest month and this is where 6 is long and this is where you come back to that element planning that you really really need to not only plan for December but plan for how you're going to get to generate the success so at least to payday on January if you have a job too that's also another very very important point I like that you touched on security but I think that we have another call coming through okay Jeremy back okay I think we may have lost him again the typical telco phone networks and the rest one thing I want to say please plan less bangers this year let me tell you fireworks and bangers there should be with the security anxiety that everybody has how are you when I hear I'm telling you I'm telling you for someone that has fireworks I mean you know I'm half cast so something has to be but for some reason my spirit has never been able to get used to bang bang bang bang bang but how would you know it was December that's like culturally that's how you know it's December in fact funny enough as a child you have to try to distinguish because I mean what security used to be back then in those days you'd have to try to distinguish between conscience and gun guys that used to also be a thing but I mean one key thing that we I think we haven't talked about as well because these were people to fight and to swear for people why are you going to the wedding the planning of the outfits is another matter tell us you will swear for them oh oh oh oh oh in fact she told me three weeks ago she said oh no I'm not taking anything because no those are the ones that love themselves and I love when they say we're fully booked we're done for 2023 we're still taking bookings for 2023 but we're done for 2022 it's not the ones that was here don't get them don't get them the morning of the wedding all of these ones what you said just now I swear for the best of them she's never done that so that's another aspect of planning I think we've done a good job of running through all the things that people need to plan but more important than that is having a safe secure festive season we know that ember months typically the heightened security concerns of course we're also approaching elections so there's so many reasons why even in whatever movements that we're making and the fantastic and wonderful part of the season please please please let us look at our security as like they said keep us, God keep us into the new year and everybody have an amazing festive season but it's been such a wonderful and enriching conversation I hope that we've been able to give our viewers some great ideas before you go I think there's a message that says good evening my dear beautiful sisters what are you saying it's not planning for the festive season like they say if you fail to plan you plan to fail let us apply wisdom when planning for the festive season because it is very key we do not have to wait for December to come before doing our shopping because of the increase in price of things considering those who love travelling let us suspend travelling for now because of the recent killings and kidnappings it is only someone that is alive that can enjoy Christmas we may even have financial challenges but God is in control God bless you beautiful sisters in Jesus name amen my name is Daniel where is regular 5 okay there's another comment here from Austin from Delta and Austin says a good topic to discuss it is unfortunate that most people going to unnecessary stress during the time because they want to belong or be asserted and mourn inwardly after we must remember the reason for the season and not time to display false affluence by going a step further to borrow or overspend your budgets please be yourself and remember the bills waiting for you in January considered as the longest month if you cannot afford chicken on Christmas it's calm if you cannot afford Brazilian hair go low cuts God bless you all Uncle Uti you are doing well but please wear it she will be back next week yes she absolutely did but thank you so much ladies I enjoyed you Uti I was scared because I was like Uti thank you so much before we go do ensure you follow us on instagram at we show Africa you can interact with us further drop a comment and most importantly follow all our social media engagements remember to like share comment and invite your friends and family to watch us and follow us so if you missed today's quote here it is again a dream written down with a date becomes a goal a goal broken down into steps becomes a plan and a plan backed by action becomes reality so we look forward to seeing you again tomorrow at 8pm as we bring another great conversation to your screen bye bye