Hello, welcome to the next episode of the TFR community if you are keeping an eye on the Linux word you might be aware of the $200,000 donation that was made by the pineapple fund to the KD community Now that's a decent amount of money So do you wonder that? How is the KD community planning to use that money and and the bigger question is who managed all these funds that come to the KD community There is an organization behind the KD community is called KDEV and Today we are going to talk to two amazing people from the KD community. I have known them forever But interestingly I have never met them in person and I have met a lot of KDE people but not these two so today we are going to talk to Lydia who is the president of the KDE board and formal vice president Sebastian, so Let's meet Lydia and Sebastian So here we are we are talking to the KDE community. We have Lydia with us and we have Sebastian with us before we kind of Deep dive into this interview Lydia, can you please tell us a bit about what is KDEV and what is EV stands for? I have lived in Germany, so I do know but just for our you know viewers So KDEV is the organization that supports the KDE community for example in legal matters in financial matters organization of events and similar things and Do you really stands for Eingertagnerfein? Which is generally roughly for registered non-profit And and when you said that you know to to support the KDE community, what kind of support are we talking about? Mm-hmm So for example, we are paying for the servers that the code is being developed on and hosted on We are Helping to organize academy or annual event Development sprints other contributors sprints Those are among the things that the EV does Okay, and and before we talk about this, you know mysterious and magical $200,000 donation What kind of funding and sponsorship is already there? What kind of model do you have to a sponsor and fund the whole project and operation that you're running there? Because KDEV is one of the I think one of the oldest and also one of the most mature and one of the biggest, you know open source projects out there mm-hmm, right so KDEV gets its funding from a number of different sources The one that's closest to my heart is individual people contributing Five-year-old ten-year-old a hundred-year-old because they like our software and they want to Advance our course and and make that software available to more people and another way that KDEV is financed is through the membership fees of our patrons. So those are companies that that value our code and the work we do and and want to support that financially and A third thing is sponsorship of Academy our annual event so There it's mostly companies who who want to support the event and and the meeting of our contributors and and allow them to work together right Is there any kind of participation or funding from any? public bodies like Governments or local administrations or something like that or it's all everything is totally privately funded We were part of You research projects in the past, but right now we're not Okay That's another angle to that story because There is hardly any direct financial contributions by government governments or Non-profits, but they do Contribute in kind so for example, we have the lemoks project, which is the Linux operating system group In the city of Munich, which has switched to open source fully They've been contributing for I think these five years actively stream by providing feedback but also by By fixing things by actively participating and They've also Directly or indirectly been contributing a code by fix by paying contractors to To do so another really good example for that Is the German government where there's a group under the ministry All this they say digital security group and they've been funding Work on a mail on the email client security infrastructure on strong cryptography So there there is actual participation by governmental organizations, but it's not in hard cash Okay, and I Don't want to kind of discuss but with the Linux Linux project We heard that because the mayor changed and he's pro-microsoft person and they are planning to go back to So how does that affect the project and they're involved in with the KD community I'm so far. It's Well, this is a political process and it's going rather slowly. So The news has reached us but the consequences haven't so there's still active contribution To upstream plasma we still receive bug fixes So while on the one hand, we are actually very sad for For all the politics involved which well seem to be fishy We are still Working with them actively to actually achieve their goals. So the new the rollout of the new client is waiting they've been switching to plasma 5 of the past years and This is what's actually going on behind the scenes when you ignore politics for a while. So there's a very fruitful healthy relationship Okay, yeah To what to what Seba said like the politics behind this is a shame, right? But the nice thing about this is this is not the end of all work, right? Can you spread out over so many people so many organizations? That one organization pulling out isn't the end of kitty and we will continue to put right great Right, yeah, yeah, that's that's a nice thing not to put all the X in the same basket or whatever you say Well, and of course another really interesting angle is that The work that has been done as part of as part of the demox project isn't lost. It's actually Benefiting the the general public because it doesn't end up in some Proprietary code base that's never going to be used again It is available for for all users and in fact That's one of 5.12 which has just been released contains a whole number of improvements that have been directly Sponsored by the demox project Screen support for for a photo view Right. Yeah, the way I see that, you know, you there are two ways to contribute to any open source project Either cash or code so either you are contributing to code or you're gonna do cash and that's what mostly happens that it's company or I think that's a way to limit a view because There's a whole lot More work that we're doing. Yes. Yes. I I agree. I totally agree. Yeah, there is a lot of other work. Yeah, totally It's not a school but in the larger the skill is in some kind. Yeah. Yes. Yes now Then I mean When we look and you talked about the latest version of plasma There was a time when there was used to be confusion around the naming and the versioning But everything has settled down now people still talk about. Hey, I'm a Katie user. No, you're a plasma user Katie's a big community But when we look at the new version of plasma of plasma Okay, this is Sam. I'll jump too much on too many for because I'm a fiction writer Jump around a lot of things because I cover a lot of enterprise is space And when I go to all these conferences with this open stack or Docker, I see, you know, we are the word is moving And sadly what I see on a stage Unless it is a red hat Summit or a Susie con whether it's Docker con or open stack summit or no matter cube con all I see is Mac Where says or even on the no, there was no Mac West on Linux foundation So that whole garbage was nonsense No, he was not no He may be using it privately everybody uses, you know, Mac OS privately even I am recording right now on Mac OS But what I mean to say is that all the developers they use Mac OS is that I have talked to a lot of people So so my question to you is that when you look at the the desktop What what is your target audience and when you look at all these events that they are using Mac So how do you What do you feel about it? And how do you plan to actually understand their problems and then try to solve them so that When I see them using Mac OS, I actually don't see their failure I see failure of the desktop that is not capable to handle their workload So so my question to you is that how do you plan to change the landscape so that more and more such open source? People are use, you know, Katie or Linux desktop on their systems and not Mac OS is um, so that's that's actually to To really important though fairly general things that we're that we're concentrating on One is on somewhat the conservative angle that we're trying to make the software more solid Um So we are we're polishing a lot and I think in that regard We've been actually doing really well and our public perception shows that as well. So we've been really getting Good reviews. There's lots of positive vibes around around plasma and our our users and future users really seem to appreciate the the strategy of Polishing the current code base making it faster making it slicker fixing bugs and then starting this process over and fixing more that in fact I think this really speaks to one of the core values in Katie which we actually haven't been doing so well in maybe in the past years, but now we have Overhauled our platform for a few years with the introduction of Katie frameworks and to the plasma 5 architecture we are having a Series of years So to come where we can keep polishing without larger architectural changes because we have actually invested a lot of time and effort in future-proofing the underlying code base so my positive takeaway from that is that with the hardship we we faced especially when we introduced the first version of plasma We now have a long streak of What really matters to to use us and what's what gets us positive feedback we fix in fixing fixing improving and and polishing and By the feedback we're getting now, especially about the 5.12 release, which is really about stability and performance this is exactly what what users expect from us and This is also a message that they can really appreciate while it's much harder to communicate to them that There is underlying work to be done because before we can actually reach this this stage where we can build upon a modern stack for for a few years That is the the retrospective the conservative angle on that, but we're also looking looking forward and There's one aspect which is really close to to my heart and to my belief system actually. Let's see privacy angle I Think that What this world really needs is? tools to to protect Yourself You right the tools that give you the possibility of leading a private life because complete Openness and exposure of private data has become the default and while the situation isn't that bad right now I think things like Identity theft Are going to become a really huge problem We already saw in the past three in the past year that large governmental organizations Have have their computers kidnapped and they were hospitals which had been pretty much remotely shut down and this is this is the the cyber war which most people actually Do not fully understand right now, but which is going to be a really big problem And that's the anticipating angle. We're building the tools right now and rallying the community behind ourselves to To build strong software that can help you thank you against these things. I Totally agree with you on the on the privacy and security a lot of things are going on But the the bigger challenge and the big question is that No matter how good the tool is if nobody's using it. What is the point? You know, so so as as much as you know, your focus is on I mean, for example, if everybody's using Facebook, it doesn't really matter You know whether you're running on Katie or norms, you know, or you're logged into a Gmail account So it defies the whole purpose so But desktop Linux has always been you know kind of Not that much of success Linux is successful everywhere else So so how do you plan to put? Katie desktop in more people's hand because people want the they use computer to get the work done That is their primary goal, you know, everything else comes secondary so So so so when you look at all these users, how do you really plan to make it easier for them? To to get their work done so that they can once they use the platform and the the the mind share of that platform increases Then you can actually help people with their privacy things because otherwise everybody will be running Windows and macOS Maybe 1% people are using the desktop Linux desktop, but that defies the whole purpose right so where we where we see this going is that that the class of desktop computers and and full-scale laptops is actually decreasing and They use cases are becoming more limited But So where where are people moving they're moving to smartphones, but they're also moving to more purpose-driven embedded hardware and this is actually where one of the focus areas especially of plasma, but also the underlying libraries Is lying so we've been doing a lot of work on Creating the plasma mobile platform Not much of that is visible right now, but to make our software run really well on on smaller and embedded devices There's not just a different UI needed Software needs to be a lot leaner. So we've been Spending a lot of time on optimizing Plasma on optimizing startup time on optimizing memory usage, especially in the in the last month To make it easier to run plasma on these on these smaller systems and that is very much Work that will benefit us in the future, but the good news is it also improves the software today, so for example a small group of us of about 10 people had a meeting in December where we sit down in a really nice castle someone in somewhere in snowy Germany and Spend a week on optimizing the hell out of out of plasma made it made it start up a lot faster and Optimized memory usage. This is the kind of Kind of boring work to be general public But it's actually really important For people that have high expectations of their software And that may want to run it on smaller and and embedded devices that said I agree with you. We're not really Good enough at getting the word out right now We are professionalizing our marketing department a lot more, but in the end it's just so much we can do How much effort do we went do we want to spend on? marketing and how much effort do we want to spend on actually improving the software and then In my opinion, and that's I think the right thing to do improving the software should always win because Once you have a really good product It will spread itself Right. Yeah, I mean, I think it's it's a tricky situation that you have too much money towards marketing but not but at the same time if Sometime what happens is if if marketing world works and like look at Elon Musk from you know from SpaceX and you know Tesla He is great at marketing. He I mean, I don't know what he thinks or what he really believes in but I think moving to Mars I mean when there is a drought in California, you cannot fix that and you think about moving everywhere to Mars But I think what he's trying to do is he's just getting everybody excited about his SpaceX company That's what he's doing Alan Musk for the SpaceX who sends the rockets in the space Yeah, so he's talking about moving everybody to Mars But I think he's just getting us excited about science one more. He doesn't plan to go to Mars same thing he's doing with the With his boring company, which is digging actually they are starting in the DC also So from DC to New York will be just 29 minutes. You know it takes hours and then he sold that frame flame thrower You know and he made like 10 million dollars in like two days The whole idea is to getting people excited when people get so when you do put money in marketing It should not it's not like money, but when you get people excited about something Then you also get mind-share when you get mind-share then you get users when you get users You get developers when you get developers then they work on the ecosystem and when you get the ecosystem That's what you want in the end So I think it's yeah, it's you do need to know smart people like him or Steve Jobs who can get people Excited about technology without actually making any compromises with the technology in general So I do think you know marketing, but you have to be smart enough to do that. Otherwise you might end up making a lot of mistakes that Unfortunately canonical made in past with their phone as project very be created too much hype, but they fail to deliver it Anyway, why we're why we're spending our European Friday afternoon talking to you to you And second thing while talking about castles Yeah, because I live in Germany Garmisch and it's like every time we open a car. There'll be a castle next door Let's get back to the money part. So now you guys just got an you know, huge pile of money I don't know where it came from. So can you talk about that? What's going on there? Um, yeah, I can talk a bit about this. Um, so the pineapple fun is a Guy who made a lot of Bitcoins in the early days of bitcoins and now is giving you the way to no profit that he cares about and Katie is one of the organizations that applied and were selected for for for a donation and we we got 200,000 dollars From from him and that is the biggest donation Katie Evey has ever gotten And that is pretty cool We're very excited about that and hope to put it to produce for the community So should I should I set up an organization as a nonprofit and I may get some check and bits for him So, how are you? Okay? I don't know whether you can you can talk about it or not But I do think Katie shares stuff.  Um, I would have to look up the exact numbers. I don't have them here, but this this is About doubling our current Money Okay, and from what Sebastian told me earlier that most of this money goes toward actual development work and not too much Towards marketing and all those stuff. So when you say development work From Katie's perspective the way I look at it. It's mostly, you know volunteers are there So where do you use this money? How how does I mean for the I mean you talked about events are there But do you also have like full-time developers or graphic designers or, you know, you know, so can you talk about that that? Right. What is the yeah Katie's current money and does not go towards development We have one person paid part-time to assist the board and the community with organizational Matters and two people contracted to support our marketing team Beyond that, there's no people who are paid by Katie. We need to work on Katie topics now with this money We are having the discussions now How to use this money in the most impactful way for for Katie And among the things that are being discussed is hiring to people to do specific things Or contracting people to do specific things For example doing documentation cleanups or doing Usability tests or helping us with marketing research and things like that When you say documentation, I am not because I have actually not looked much into documentation because I don't need any kind of documentation It's kind of Is it just in one language or multiple languages as well? And we do have some of the user documentation translated in many languages. Yes Did you ever documentation? I believe this mostly in English Yeah, because that's kind of universal language. So In addition to that as we were like talking to Sebastian earlier and that there are some core areas Which do need to be addressed, you know to make, you know, the next desktop more appealing And since now you do have a big chunk of money. So Why do you think documentation is that important instead of let's say Getting a developer who can, you know, really do a lot of dedicated work on either mobile platform Or maybe a graphics guy who can, you know, improve the whole stack Because I don't really know how many people actually, I mean, I never read any manual to be honest I buy a camera. They send a big thick manual, but I never read it. So how do you really prioritize that? Okay? This is more important than this and that What we're trying to do is invest in multipliers If you've got $200,000 And you invest it into c++ software development, you won't get very far What we are trying to do is make it easy And appealing for volunteer developers to To chip in and then $200,000 can actually get you very far. So that's true We look at these these areas that are that are weak that Can get a big boost from from a one-time or perhaps longer term, but Rather low-key amount of money And we try to Use these as multipliers to get the word out to people and Documentation happens to be one of these areas that is underrepresented underrepresented and that really eats the developer time. It also Needs a different skill set So if you ask a software developer to write user documentation, you get incomprehensible documentation Also, I know you you are wasting the time of someone with a different skill set To do something which that person really doesn't like so much You're making on the one hand You're going for a Best and optimal result and on the other hand, you're boring A volunteer developer leading to a quicker burnout So we want the people that are developing to be able to concentrate on development As much as possible So the money will typically go into organizing meetings for these people on Running a smooth organization on running infrastructure that can make these people productive because Um, the funny thing is that um, there Are actually enough people Around that really like to do software development. It just needs to be appealing. It doesn't it must not be something that you could do Where you're lacking documentation where you where you're Working with really slow under maintained infrastructure where you're Running into political issues all the time so we're trying to smoothen out the organization To make development as much fun as possible and that allows us to get the really talented people in our community to be to be really productive Right. Yeah. Yeah, please go ahead So exactly as Seba said, right if we enable What if we pay one person to to write code for example, um Then that only gets us so far But if we pay someone to make it easier for a hundred developers to join us and and Write code, right that that gets us much much further. Um, so we're looking exactly into those things that have much more long-term and um, organizational impact Yeah, and then it has always been a community driven project.  It will also be I think it may also discourage a lot of people That somebody's getting paid to do the same code that I'm writing in my free time. Yeah Okay, uh documentation is there we have covered our monies So now you have tested this much money Um What other efforts are there? Uh, because Katie is still I think mostly Europe centric How do you plan to kind of Grow beyond Europe so that people, you know from north america or australia or other, you know rich countries Can also kind of participate and give more money which can help it So That just other question is how do you plan to grow beyond Your traditional, you know strong castle is which is in europe and So there is like actually already a pretty strong community in india for example. That is regularly organizing conferences that are Yeah And really successful and try to get a lot of new people in. Um, there is a brazilian community for example that is Doing conferences look at meetups and and so on. Um, so There is that already and we one of the things we're trying to do is make that much more visible right and and um Encourage more people to to do that and to train them I mean north america has has always been a big market for a computer, you know So how do you really plan? I mean look at red hat. They are so big because you know, they are king of the north If I can use the analogy from game of throne Uh, so how do you really? Uh, I mean do you have any plans for moving? It kind of increasing The u.s market has been Very much a problematic thing for us all the time. Um I I agree with lydia. I wouldn't say that um, kd is certainly europe Has a strong community in europe, but uh, just looking at it. There's europe and there's uh, there's the u.s is Missing a very large part of the world So, uh, yeah, we got a community in india and uh, um in latin america Um, especially latin america tends to you know, we also see that In spain this tends to be its own ecosystem Because there's actually a critical mass Of spanish or brazilian portuguese speaking people so It doesn't need to be very outward looking. Um, it can be very uh very much, uh self contained brazil is huge both in terms of um Of actual geographical size, but also in terms of Software and having been uh to uh to brazil for a few times Free software is huge there. Uh, that said you're completely right and um, we Really haven't been able to get a foot in the door In the u.s. And a lot of that has to do with a critical mass um, I Have a number of projects that I know about that We're trying to actually get a critical mass going In the u.s. Or uh, or in north america. None of that has really Has really been successful So far, um I I honestly don't really know at this point how How we can Approach that uh that market. Um, because then It's also very hard for us For us to grasp. Um, it seems very close by culturally, but then um, Especially in terms of community involvement The differences are are huge and something that works really well In europe, uh, for example presence, uh at events. Um, it's completely different In the u.s. And I guess that that we are really at the strong cultural divide which doesn't help us a lot So, um, yeah, we need some really cool people in the u.s. That really understand these community dynamics and that Can help us get going Yeah, I mean, then I look at all the commercial open source. Uh, They they are, you know, all they are mostly us-based They are growing a lot in asia But the thing with us is that uh, even if brazilian market is big It's not an influential market for the rest of the world, you know But us kind of becomes an influential market I mean ellen musk is a south african, but he moved to us and now everybody around the world talks about a space Axe, you know, because it's uh, india does isro european have their own but nobody talks about that So somehow you just also becomes an influential, you know, kind of, you know, big influence over everybody else So so being active in us. Yes, it can help a lot in the growth of the project as well But it's a hard net to crack. But the thing is us is a is a place. I mean not in the current political situation Because yesterday just the the they removed that us is a land of immigrants from there, you know The part I think the homeland security or whatever it is. They removed it from their official statements. So things are changing here It's funny because suzay con is moving to vancouver linux con is moving to vancouver And then open his tax summit is moving to vancouver. So nobody wants to come to us anymore Because of this current as so there is a lot of political, but yeah But I think north america because of the english language. It can be helpful honestly You know, I can actually appreciate the the irony in that because I was talking about the The privacy and security angle earlier on and probably the countries that would Need software that can solve these problems most Is the us exactly and that also has this Radiating effect on the rest of the world because the weak standards about privacy and data security from the us easily bleed over into other countries through trade agreements, but also through Just, you know cultural influence that is um that the that us culture has seen as As an example of how it could be done or In the worst case what you can actually get away with right Uh, I would just like When we do talk about us influence. I was at open his tax. I mean australia the last year And of course, it's the austin, you know, it started from austin texas And uh, I met the director of it of china railways.  I meant 10 cent Which is, you know, three major chinese vendors that they are the one who powered vchat, you know platform And they use open stack and open source So everybody is moving because as I said once again, you know, for some reason americans somehow know How to how to the language plays a big role They know how to market package and when I go to all this conferences I get amazed that, you know, at one and we have desktop linux, but nobody talks about And at the end everything else everybody using is open source. I mean, they don't even talk about Close source technology at all They they won't consider anything which is not open source period China is building their own public cloud to compete with amazon based on, you know, open source Private cloud, so it's amazing That's actually a huge success story because when I when I started getting into open source, it was It was basically open source against proprietary, uh, code and, um And outsource of free software is very much the underdog and If anything we've clearly won Won this battle But instead of celebrating that, um, there is no way around The development the open development model and actually reading your your source code We need to look at the next challenge and that in my opinion is data security and privacy Well, we can make a real impact on people and um when we When the free software movement started out Nobody was aware of the challenges that it would solve and right now everybody has moved to it So it's it has open source become the industry industry standard And yes, um in order to to win the next battle and in that case it doesn't matter if it's going to be or other These are free software that solves these things We need to make make an impact there is to solve real problems because in the end I'm not doing this to advance plus more the kd community. I write because I have a strong belief and Um that there are real problems to solve Right while you do talk about, you know the next stage When we look at from the from the perspective of platforms, uh We are moving towards the word which is moving towards VR virtual reality I have a PlayStation and everything which is VR. I watch VR a lot We are moving towards an iot driven word which we are more and more devices are becoming smarter uh, so so When we look at the future where you know everything will the tesla The cards will be you know the computers on wheel, you know, basically So so when we look at the future, this is the future we are going to live in So how prepared are you as a kid? You know kd community one to either be running in the devices Number two to become a platform for developers Which they can use to create either services or software or content for these platforms. So these are two so So from your point of view, where do you stand in that future? Yeah, um, so um, there's a few uh, there's a few interesting projects, uh projects going on which One of which we um, actually I've talked about a lot already, which is plasma mobile and the general effort on making The kd frameworks and plasma technology more friendly to embedded systems But and we haven't actually talked about that a lot. We also started the discussions to partner with a um company that is building smart speakers Which is one of the huge Quickest exactly that. Yeah Quickest growing markets, uh right now. So um, I can't actually talk a lot about that but um Probably within the next week. Um, there will be Within the next week's news will be out that kd is going to partner um with a company that that builds smart speakers on based on open source technology and um There are some efforts In this field going on. But yeah, we're um, we're looking at these new markets that are That are popping up developing. We're looking at how it how we can contribute um to the Goals of the companies that we believe get it all right that build on free software that respect privacy and data security Trying to make an make an impact there Yeah, I mean like I think even mobile phone is just a placeholder before you know, like I'm wearing the airpods So I actually don't need my phone at all. It just sits in a corner I just veered across the home and I veered a watch and I don't need my phone And one these and then you we have these, you know, smart speakers I have never actually bothered to to open the web to ask for something, you know, I just talk to it and I get my answers and But when you talk about uh, uh these platforms Machine learning and artificial intelligence is going to play a big role in this space uh I think what you're talking about is building the platform, but you know, uh, like google has open source tensor flow Which is their machine learning deep learning platform. They've also released cube flow, which is to manage your What you're talking maybe we can talk next week Because the platform itself is not good enough unless until you have some machine learning capabilities or data to actually, you know Feedback into the the smart speakers So that could be another area where we can talk about, you know, that is software stack is not as important as that having data So if you don't have data That's actually different aspects for us. Um, uh, we We're happy to work with people who are directly contributing to what's our long-term goals of Basically creating a better world for uh, right providing more freedom to people. That's also, um for the midterm benefits like if we can collaborate with companies that Um aren't building everything using our technologies, but that just need a library to solve a certain problem for example to download a calendar and To pass the data out of it. Um, then these companies, um Could be interested in one of the the Literally hundreds of libraries. We're we're providing and contributing Um back to that and that that also has huge benefit, uh for us both in terms of contribution but also in terms of In marketing terms because that actually gets the word out. Um, if this company is using it, then this must be kind of Um useful. So others will do so as well. So we're actually growing our ecosystem With that and we're creating network effects. So, um There's really a lot of different. Um Sometimes more subtle ways where we can benefit from the uh from collaborating with others Right, right, right Oh, yeah, because that is a word. Uh, that's why I I run a platform called tf. Fire, which is the fourth industrial revolution Which is all powered by software driven stuff and uh, so this is an area where I'm Keeping my eyes on, you know, the emerging technology that are coming up So that will be an interesting and we can certainly we should talk about it when you have something more concrete about it And kd has always been kind of, you know, uh from the early days also A lot of in the desktop space, you know, you guys were doing a lot of things Which were like later on implemented by apple in macOS and microsoft in windows and everything else So you guys have always been ahead of the curve because you know, it's a big diverse community from people from all around the globe You know, they are bringing, you know, their ideas to the community. So no one can match that either way, you know That's your strength, you know And it's open source. So anybody can just come in and join in and throw the idea and start writing the code Yeah, interesting thing is that we are um and some areas were very much ahead of the curve, but um Also, our core business is being just, um Behind the curve the commoditization uh of technology. So, um, we see that that um Some innovations are At first only available to a very small group of people that um that uh pay threat or Whether software has huge restrictions on either geographic spread or the demographic that it that it reaches and um, then people come along and implement a free software solution that is At first solving the same problem. Um, and then regard it to be more flexible and a better solution. So In that light we are Making we are behind the curve in terms of technology but um We're making, uh, this technology available to a much much larger group of people That's true. Yeah. Yeah Before anything else that you think we should discuss about in terms of this Big funding or I think we have we have covered a lot of broad topics And we should always leave a lot of things for the next one so that we can continue to have more conversations. Yeah Um, first, I'm sure we we won't run out of topics anytime soon. Yes. Um, right. Yeah Then with respect to the uh, to the funding topics where, um, We're very much looking into how we how we can use it In the best possible way right now. Um, You're not Just throwing money Out of the window. We're really looking at where where can make the uh, the biggest impact and um So this isn't the thing that uh, just plays for For a week Yeah, and if you do plan to throw the money out of window, just tell me where you are throwing it I'll be there behind the window standing I think the general consensus is that Lidia gets, uh gets her own. Um, Katie the Ferrari and Uh, we'll be done with it Yeah, I think she has a private jet or something like that in Berlin. Yeah I've got children now Much bigger donation for that, but I think if we're running through it reachable now Okay, so Lidia any more closing words before we wrap up this interview Thanks so much. Um, we should definitely Continue this at some point. Um, hopefully soon when we, um, Decided on the first things to invest in and, um, Let's see what it brings for Katie Okay, awesome. Thank you so much for your time and I look forward to meeting you all in I have met a lot of committee members in person, but not you too So I am looking forward to coming to academy and you know, covering it and doing a lot of videos there and talking all the stories Yeah, thanks for your time and uh, see you Very cool. Bye Thanks for watching. That was a great discussion about Katie and as we discussed in future We'll be talking a lot to the kd committee members So that we can continue to tell all the great stories all the great work that the kd community is doing And uh, so far now Thanks for watching. You know the drill. Don't forget to like this channel Don't forget to share this video with your friends and colleagues and Keep watching Thanks for watching. That was an interesting video and as you saw that we are going to discuss A lot about what the kd community is doing in the coming weeks in the coming months Most probably I'll be going to the academy also to bring a lot of amazing videos that I have been doing at all these commercial conferences So that's all for today and thanks for watching and you know the drill now Please Like and share this video with your friends And don't forget to subscribe to this channel if you are not a subscriber already and also, uh, just just a reminder that I started a patreon channel a few days ago. It's still there. So please go there and support my work Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye for now


It's that time again. This is Katnie with your weekly Python on Hardware News. Every week, we put together the Python for Microcontrollers newsletter. It is available through AdafruitDaily.com. Head over to sign up and see all of the past and current newsletters. Or tune in each week to hear what's going on. Adafruit is continuing to operate as an essential business under New York City Executive Order to provide assistance with the COVID-19 outbreak. Most employees are working remotely, while a few are working in the Adafruit factory to help manufacture and ship desperately needed PPE to the surrounding area and beyond. Adafruit is also assisting local businesses with their PPE needs, as well as sharing the protocols that have helped keep our on-site team safe as we've operated as an essential business. This week, Adafruit has started shipping regular non-COVID-related orders once priority orders are filled. If you've been waiting to place an order with Adafruit, feel free to submit your order now. Be aware that the fulfillment time may be longer than pre-COVID. Note, there may be a number of out-of-stock items as manufacturing has been disrupted. We suggest if an item is out of stock and needed, consider searching one of the many Adafruit resellers. In the U.S., DigiKey is suggested. Blinka is the software compatibility layer which provides Python on single board computers like Raspberry Pi, which run on Linux, the ability to use CircuitPython libraries. It brings all of the drivers in ease of use in CircuitPython to the powerful Linux single board computer world. This week, Blinka is now compatible with 50 single board computers. Write code once and run it on the computer of your choice. See all of the Blinka-compatible boards on circuitpython.org slash Blinka. In the fall of 2019, the Python Software Foundation and JetBrains together conducted the official third annual Python Developer Survey. Much like the previous surveys in 2017 and 18, they set out to identify the latest trends and gather insight into what the world of Python development looks like in 2019. The insights from 24,000 Python developers from more than 150 different countries have helped get a picture of the Python community. Some interesting results include 84% of respondents indicated that Python is their main language and 58% said they use Python for both work and personal projects. For the full results, visit JetBrains.com. CircuitPython 5.4.0 beta 0 was released last week and includes many new features, improvements and boards since 5.3.0. Please download the beta by visiting circuitpython.org slash downloads and downloading the latest unstable release. Testing is invaluable to us. If you encounter any problems or bugs, please file an issue on github at github.com slash Adafruit slash CircuitPython and let us know. Are you enjoying CircuitPython and want to follow the progress on GitHub? Join the over 1,700 others who have starred CircuitPython on GitHub. Visit github.com slash Adafruit slash CircuitPython and click star. The new Adafruit BLE Adafruit CircuitPython library defines many Adafruit BLE services for talking to sensors, controlling new pixels and dot stars and playing tones. The current list of services includes addressable pixel service for working with new pixels and dot stars, color sensor service, light sensor service, temperature service, tone service to play tones, and much more. Check out the library by downloading the latest CircuitPython library bundle from circuitpython.org slash libraries. Learn about CircuitPython, Device Simulator Express, and PiBadge in a Twitch stream held by Michael Crump with Nina Zakarenko. Check out mbcrump on Twitter for more details. Microsoft has an entire video channel dedicated to the use of their make code block language. Recently some make code environments, notably make code for Minecraft and make code for Microbit, have added Python as an additional programming method. With their educational streams, Microsoft has been introducing Python and make code. Check out the videos by visiting mixer.com slash make code and clicking on past streams. Translating CircuitPython is now easier than ever. One important feature of CircuitPython is translated control and error messages. Translations make the project more accessible to a broader range of folks. Adding or improving translations is a great way to get started contributing to the project. With the help of fellow open source project WebLate, we're making it even easier. Since opening this capability last week, we've received hundreds of contributions, including a finished Swedish translation. If you write another language, visit hosted.WebLate.org slash engage slash CircuitPython, sign in, and start translating. You can create a new account just for WebLate or sign in using other sites like GitHub, Google, or Facebook. From the desk of Lady Aida this week, Lady Aida tested out RGB matrix support in CircuitPython for the STM32F405. Check it out on YouTube. Adafruit has always been an open source hardware company predating the open source hardware association certification process. We have finished submitting all of our hardware to Oshawa for certification as open source. The application process for roughly 390 Adafruit boards that were submitted was finished two weeks ago. Of the 390 submitted, 384 of them have been approved so far. There are currently 858 projects certified by Oshawa, making certifications for Adafruit projects almost 45% of all projects Oshawa has certified. See the open source certified projects in the certified projects directory on certification.Oshawa.org. The open source hardware association requires submissions to list the three licenses covering a submitted project, those for the hardware, software, and documentation. To list these, Jeffrey U. Warren wrote a program to generate an SVG graphic with the same classic look as US nutrition facts on foods with the three licenses as entered by a user in a web page. Check it out at jywarren.github.io slash certification dash mark dash generator slash facts. For the last three weeks, IOT makers Israel has held a stay at home challenge to encourage people to create a hardware or electronics project. Sponsored by Adafruit, participants were asked to make an interesting project that you want to do using Adafruit Circuit Playground Express using the board or simulated in software. The challenge ended last Friday and they announced the winners via Facebook. Karen Chechik, Dor Alt, and Amit Edvi. Karen's entry, recreating the piano scene from the movie Big with Circuit Python and the Circuit Playground Express. Learn about the Adafruit Trinket M0 and Circuit Python from Gary Explains on YouTube.  While that was very easy, flash the Arturo 182 tiny UF2 and then Adafruit Circuit Python, which I didn't even have to compile and could just download the UF2 from CircuitPython.org. Best vendor dev board experience without even having touched the vendor tools. Learn how to remote control your Raspberry Pi camera from the web in this article on Tom's hardware. Flamie's wrote a blog post about creating a Pokemon insulin reminder light with Feather and Circuit Python. Code is available on GitHub. Visit flamie's.blog for all the details. Create a dual color bar graph using Circuit Python by following along with this Instructables written by Tony Go Too. Check it out on Instructables.com. Command a NinaB30280111 with an Alexa voice assistant using Circuit Python. Awesome MicroPython covers everything MicroPython in an awesome list. Find a curated list of awesome MicroPython libraries, frameworks, software, and resources on GitHub at github.com.mcauser.com. Voidloop, Robotech, and Automation post to YouTube, logging DHT11 data into Google Sheets with MicroPython and ESP32 and ESP8266. OctopusLab posts to Twitter a video of playing a WAV file using an ESP32 and MicroPython. Check out the video on YouTube. TechTutorials posts to YouTube installing MicroPython on the ESP8266. Check out displaying the MicroPython REPL to a TFT display in this blog post on blog.buchao.com. Welcome to the Jungle post-in interview with two of the .py conference speakers, Victor Stinner and Julian Danju discussing the performance of the Python programming language. Visit WelcomeToTheJungle.com to read the full interview. Les P's Friday Fun blog post this week is a comparison of BASIC on the Commodore 64 and Python on the Raspberry Pi, including Sequence, Selection, and Iteration. Check it out at bigl.es. The Humble Bundle presents the Learn You Some Python Humble Book Bundle this week, including books like Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, Python for Kids, Python Crash Course, and more. Check it out at HumbleBundle.com slash books. Tech with Tim posts a six plus hour complete Python course for beginners. The course is designed to take you from beginner to pro. It assumes no prior knowledge and is perfect for beginners. Find it on YouTube. Check your Python learning progress and take your skills to the next level with interactive quizzes from RealPython. Each quiz has a series of questions, some multiple choice, some requiring a typed in answer, and some requiring writing Python code. Visit realpython.com slash quizzes to get started. The number of Circuit Python supported microcontrollers and single board computers grows every week. This week, there were 11 new boards added to Circuit Python.org, including the GreatFet 1, Odroid C4, ThunderPak, and FOMU. Are you interested in adding a new board to Circuit Python? Check out the Adafruit Learn System for a series of guides about getting your board added to Circuit Python and CircuitPython.org. There were three new Python on hardware related guides in the Adafruit Learn System this week, including create a metal detector using an Adafruit clue with a few common components and an easy to make coil in this guide from Kevin Walters, and add cellular connectivity to your Circuit Python project using Phona to build projects that can transmit and receive data from just about anywhere using cellular data in this guide from Brent Rubel. The current number of Circuit Python libraries is 230. There are two new libraries this week. Adafruit Circuit Python BLE Adafruit and Adafruit Circuit Python LAS331, as well as a number of updated libraries. As always, visit CircuitPython.org slash libraries to download the latest bundle. Included in this week's updates from the Circuit Python team, Dan finished up the Adafruit BLE Services Library. It provides BLE services that work with the Blue Fruit Playground app and the Web Bluetooth dashboard. You'll also be able to use the library to build custom clients and servers to send whatever sensor or control data you want. He's written Circuit Python programs for the Circuit Playground Blue Fruit, the clue, and feather Blue Fruit scents that communicate with the app. Stay tuned for new learn guides about this library. Along the way, he worked with Antonio, the app developer, to debug and fix some minor bugs on both sides of the code. This week, he'll start looking at implementing underscore BLEIO using the Bleak library on host computers. Jeff is continuing his quest to make SD cards work better in Circuit Python. He's putting his attention on the STM32F405 feather. This board uses SDIO instead of SPI to communicate with the SD card. Right now, he's studying how the code needs to be restructured to allow both kinds of connections. He also worked on fixing several bugs in the last beta release of Circuit Python. These bugs were related to audio and gamepad functionality, and the fixes should be in the next release of 5.4.0. Melissa has been working on adding support for the Great Fet 1 to Blinka. This board has more than just a lot of GPIOs. It supports pulse width modulation, analog input and output, I squared C, SPI, and UART. She was able to write a wrapper for the Great Fet library, so Blinka is able to use many of the libraries available. She is hoping this helps anybody who also happens to own a Great Fet and wants to get started with unlocking its potential. Python US 2020 online continues with many talks, tutorials and more already posted. Visit us.pycon.org slash 2020 slash online to find links to all of the currently available content, or sign up for the mailing list to receive updates. Virtually Maker Faire, featuring makers and projects primarily responding to COVID-19, will be May 23rd, 2020. It provides an opportunity for makers to connect, share their projects, and talk about what they do and how they do it. It will take place completely online through video sessions over a 24-hour period and is a curated collection of Maker exhibits. Visit makerfaire.com for more information. EuroPython 2020 this year will be an online conference from July 23rd to 26, including two conference days with keynotes, talks, lightning talks, and poster sessions, and two sprint days with multiple sprint teams. Attending the conference will require a ticket, and participating in the sprints will be free. Check out ep2020.europython.eu for details. Pycon AU has announced they are holding Pycon Line AU in August. Check out 2020.pycon.org.au for more information. Pycon India 2020 will be held online from October 3rd through 5th 2020. A call for proposals is open now through the 14th of August. Visit in.pycon.org slash 2020 for details regarding the CFP and the conference. Looking for more Python on hardware all week? Join the Adafruit community on Discord and check out the Help with Circuit Python and Circuit Python channels, where over 19,000 strong and continuing to grow. You'll find a supportive, positive community filled with like-minded folks. Join at adafru.it slash Discord. And that is your Python on hardware news for this week. Visit adafruitdaily.com to subscribe to the newsletter or tune in again next week.


Welcome to Cooper Union. Today we'll be having an exciting conversation about some of the most important issues taking place around the world, and we're going to be looking at the title of today as the whole world is watching human rights in the United States. I'm fortunate enough to be joined today by two amazing advocates, Greg Jackson, the National Advocacy Director for Community Justice Action Fund, and a gun bound survivor in Washington DC, and DREC Ingram co founder of Warriors in the Garden. Both of them are speaking with us today because it's an important event happening at the UN. Today, we will be on the eve of the High Commissioner presenting her first oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on the preparation of the report on systematic racism and police brutality, especially those incidents that result in the death of George Floyd, and of other African American people of African descent, as well as government response to anti racism peaceful protest. The High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland will share her initial findings, and that will take place tomorrow. So we're excited to be able to meet today to discuss the state of systemic racism and police brutality, and more importantly, what we can do about that. I'll want to thank Greg and introduce him and ask him to please share his story a bit, and why it's important that we focus on this important issue. Well, thanks for having me, Josh. So I'm Greg Jackson, the National Advocacy Director for the Community Justice Action Fund. Our entire mission is to end gun violence and black and brown communities by lifting community based solutions and really centering the people who are most impacted by violence. I come to this work, frankly, because I'm a survivor of gun violence. And I was shot in 2013. And even seven years ago, there's still some really big memories that stand out to me. One, you know, when I was shot, my nurse shared with me that every day, there are young black men like me that come through those doors. In America, over 100,000 people are shot or killed by guns every year. And over 70% of homicide victims are black or brown. Another big thing that stood out to me was as a survivor of gun violence, there were so many challenges and trials that I faced, whether that was mentally, financially, housing, economically, etc. But the services provided to me were purely medical. And over 66% of people who are shot in America survived, but the resources they receive are typically only medical. So we also know when we think about this cycle of gun violence is happening. In order to reduce violence and reduce the pain and trauma there needs to be more resources invested in those people that are impacted. The last big thing though, that really stood out to me was that gun violence, even as old as 2013 was seen as a political football and something that was passed back and forth as a hot topic or an issue. But in the African American community, in the black community, in our brown communities, our Latinx communities, it's not an issue, it's a reality for us. Unfortunately, I was nearly shot four other times growing up here in America. And I knew that this was a crisis that was a big deal, but I didn't understand that it was only as big of a deal to us, unlike our white comrades in the country. The other big thing I wanted to share is that, you know, when I entered the hospital I was met by three investigators before I could meet my doctor. And when we look at gun violence in America, the approach to addressing gun violence and just violence in general is not to proactively prevent it, but as to pour in more policing more crime control more law enforcement, higher prison sentencing, and really the incarceral approach to addressing gun violence. But we've seen that move before. We saw that with the war on drugs, we've watched this for decades, where policing and higher sentencing and law enforcement is not the way to end a crisis like gun violence. The way that we do it is by investing in proactive solutions and proactive community based solutions on programs that focus on those who are most at risk to committing a violent crime, and helping them get out of that situation and away from the desperation that creates that conflict programs that support people who are most mentally impacted or socially impacted by gun violence in their community.  The last thing I'll just share, you know, a lot of what we're seeing during COVID-19, we're seeing big spikes in gun violence across the country, and it's not because of more police, it's not because of harsher sentencing. The reason we're seeing spikes is because people are really hurting. They're hurting when it comes to housing when it comes to finances when it comes to lack of education lack of access to safe spaces. The way that we can reduce violence in our country is not more policing. It's not more law enforcement, but it's investing in these communities to uplift them. And so I would love to talk a little bit more about the challenge with policing and law enforcement. I think we've seen some of the crazy and dark shortfalls of a focused approach to supporting communities are dealing with violent crime, but I'm sure we'll come back to that after my fellow panelists. Absolutely. And I think what you're talking about there is also the human rights based approach. It's a proactive participatory, but also trying to prevent that if we actually focus on prevention, instead of punitive measures and this police state, we'd actually have a much safer society for everyone and can eliminate a great deal of the violence as well. So I really think we'll get into that and discuss it. If there's one thing you'd like to add to that, I'll definitely let you continue. Yeah, I mean, I think the major thing that I'll share is that we've seen the outcome of decades and decades of policing communities that are hurting the most. And that results in one, the ineffective ability, the inability to reduce violent crime, especially gun violence and homicide. But most importantly, we've seen how the instances of police violence, police brutality can not only harm people, traumatized communities, but also take lives and destroy the trust between a community and government.  And I think it reinforces the need to do more than police these neighborhoods. I mean, my neighborhood, you know, in every block you can find a cop car, but the high school four blocks down the street is literally falling apart. You know, we have a 41% dropout rate. There's the one grocery store we get to never has fresh produce. You know, we don't have a rec center that's walkable. Our school systems are struggling. The actual economic opportunities are non existent, but yet we have police police officers with cars bicycles, even horses, sometimes parading through our neighborhoods of folks who are struggling with poverty, struggling with desperation and struggling with interpersonal conflict that a lot of it is a byproduct of the neglect of these neighborhoods. I really want to push back on the concept that violence is happening by criminals or gangs or no it's not these are a lot of these incidents are interpersonal conflicts to escalate out of frustration out of stress, out of, you know, inability to resolve conflicts. And then most importantly, pain, you know, people that are in pain and conflict is one of the worst things you can do. And our government can change that by simple things like investing in our communities investing in our schools investing in programs investing in our mental health, investing in our access to health care. There's little that's being done that there's there's nothing too small that can be done to invest in these communities to make a big difference and we've seen certain cities like Stockton California. We've seen just different areas across the country who have started to invest and have seen drastic reductions in violent crime. And it's not because the the the actual neighborhood members have changed it's not because the community has changed it's because the community has actually focused on lifting every person in that state or in that city. And that's what we want to see all over the country. And you highlighted so well in this country focused on civil and political rights, but also that economic social and cultural rights, the right to housing the right to health care the right to education. It's essential. And if we focus on those we could see changes that are positive in people's daily living. And I think that's one of the other aspects is also this pandemic COVID, because we had been with each other in Washington DC, meeting with embassies, preparing for this universal periodic review in February, and really this pandemic just exposed all of the cracks in the society, and all the challenges that were being ignored. And gun violence is definitely one pandemic and so is racism. And that's really what we're getting into next and at the Human Rights Council, they organized an urgent debate and reorganize 144 families of victims of police violence and over 360 civil society organizations from around the world. They sent a letter to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, saying that there must be an examination of human rights in the United States, and it must look at systemic racism and police brutality. And because of that advocacy, the Nations of Africa put this on the UN Human Rights Council agenda and there was an urgent debate this summer. And of course it was focusing on George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Philando Castle and Michael Brown. And it was an important first time ever that the whole world is watching and the US would receive such scrutiny. Normally the US loves to talk about being so exceptional. But this was an example that the world said we must be really focused on the human rights situation. Our next speaker, D-REC Ingram has an amazing amount of experience as an advocate from Ferguson all the way unfortunately until most recently, organizing in Hell's Kitchen in New York. And I'd like him to share a brief bit about some of the reasons he got involved and what he's still doing today and why we have to continue organizing. Yeah, first I wanted to respond to like something that Greg said. Just, I believe it's a mentality that we believe in and that we push a lot in terms of investing in communities. But a lot of those systems, even once we invest in them, they're inherently racist. Our education system, our housing system, our political system. In a lot of economic sectors, even if we funnel all of this money into them, they're Eurocentric, they're still going to be discriminatory against black people and we still won't get equity. So I think it should be focused more on reinvesting but also reimagining these systems completely. People ask if Warriors in the Garden, the organization that I help co-found is reformist or abolitionist and I don't like to use either one of those words. I believe that, you know, it's way more nuanced than that. But I also believe that funneling money into systems that are already broken, that are already inherently biased and racist against black people, doesn't necessarily activate the equity and the equality that we want in those systems. But yeah, I agree with everything I'll say you said. So, my name's Dirac. I co-founded Warriors in the Garden. It's a collective of progressive activists. We're all 20 to 29 years old. And we came together on the front lines in New York City on May 29, the first day of the George Floyd protest. And we all came together and connected over this visceral pain and trauma of just becoming used to seeing black bodies vilified and killed by police on social media as well as the news. I started my political journey personally in Ferguson while I was in college completing my MBA in St. Louis, Missouri. And I became very active in the Black Lives Matter movement. I got to meet a lot of important influential people like Cory Bush, who just was nominated for, she's the first black woman in Missouri to be nominated for a congressional district, which is super excited. But I left there and since leaving St. Louis, I moved to New York and I've immediately become active in this community here. And Warriors in the Garden has led countless nonviolent protests, like I said, after George Floyd's death. And we've been featured on every major news outlet. And we've activated our community, done a lot of community events, engagement, and things of that nature. And we were on the grounds for three months straight, holding rallies, sit-ins, demonstrations, engaging our community for food drives to everything. And what happened to me after that was on August 7. I had been surveilled by the police for a little bit before that, but it came to a forefront on August 7th at 7am. I was awoken to police banging on my door. I immediately called other people in my group and informed them that the police were banging. They told me that they had a warrant. And they told me to go on Instagram live. So I did. I returned to the door and asked the officers to slide the warrant under the door. And they informed me that they did not have a warrant. For the next five hours, dozens of officers harassed, berated, and terrorized me by taking over my street, neighboring buildings, and demanding without calls or warrant that I surrendered to them. They were on rooftops. They brought drones, dogs, fire trucks, emergency vehicles. There were sharpshooters in the building across from me. They set up barriers and shut down traffic. I was filming the incident the whole time. People came out, including my neighbors and other people in my group and other activists to stand in solidarity. And they began chanting and marching up and down my street and stood in solidarity with me, but the police were unrelenting. I was on the phone with my attorney trying to get everything figured out to arrange a peaceful surrender. And to say I was terrified is a complete understatement. That incident reminded me of one of my friends, Thaddeus Mercuro, who was also an activist in the Ferguson movement, who was having a mental health issue answered his door. The police tried to enter without a warrant and he ended up being shot and he passed away in 2015. And that moment and his spirit were definitely with me during this incident. But thanks to the support of my neighbors, my community, my organization, Warriors in the Garden, my attorney, the news media, and as well as Amnesty International, the NYPD eventually backed off. I was able to surrender the next day. I marched to the precinct early in the morning. And everybody was outraged by what had happened to me, especially when they found out what I was being accused of, which was allegedly screaming loudly into an officer's ear with a megaphone. To me, it was obvious that this was an act of intimidation. It was inherently political. And our police department and law enforcement are supposed to be apolitical. And it was Tennessee all fear and me and other activists. And sadly, I'm not the only activist that has been targeted by the NYPD. In the decades-long history of doing this, of harassing and disappearing activists without due process, police departments across this nation have paid millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements. And yet people like me, black people who are fighting for racial justice continue to be targeted, arrested and persecuted for demanding the right not to be killed by the police because of the color of our skin.  At Warriors in the Garden, we have a vision statement that talks about us warning a prosperous nation where empathy and justice is paramount. A progressive society where all lives are valued in each citizen, giving the opportunity to succeed without having to navigate any form of systemic oppression. A nonviolent republic free of police brutality and all other forms of violence against people of color. A world where young black boys and girls can live freely and fully without apprehension or fear, a nation where there's truly liberty and justice for all. And to me, until we have that, until the next generation of black boys and black girls don't have to fear walking down the street or interactions with police, we have to fight for justice and we have to fight for that equity and equality. And yeah, it's a continued fight and I think we need to focus on strategic dismantling as well. That's perfect and I think that gets to the point of human rights is it's really a minimum that no one should have those rights violated and anyone's life should not be go below a certain level of dignity. You said it's also horizon. It's what we're aiming for and what we want in this world and how things can be so much better. And I think that's really the point of what we're looking at as well as the Human Rights Council meets three times a year. They never looked just at the United States before so this urgent debate this summer was quite significant because you did see the marches take place even here in Honolulu 10,000 people on a weekend. I know direct you were born here so welcome home again. It's amazing to see that 10,000 March tier in the middle of covert but in a safe way as you talked about and organize using those human rights the rights freedom of assembly freedom of speech to then demand dignity and use these tools to transform the society and we know when the High Commissioner for Human Rights presents her report tomorrow, it'll be a first step, and we know that we should still push for a commission of inquiry, looking into systemic racism of police brutality in the United States. I was quite a poor news. We were on a side event today in Geneva, and that was at the UN Human Rights Council, because that is what will happen tomorrow but then on November night, the universal periodic review will take place in the United States will be reviewed for three and a half hours. So for three and a half hours, all 193 member states can ask us questions and make recommendations. Are there any recommendations that you would like to see countries make to the United States to change the daily conditions here. We have to acknowledge that police brutality is just one piece of a corrupt puzzle like it's literally just one bolt removed from a racist apparatus, known as the American criminal justice system. Our lives are bound to dismantling that system while creating new ones of equity in a way. So I think acknowledging that there's that there's just progress that needs to be made that black people have been historically victimized by this country, because of what we've gone through and a request to reimagine policing and I think that starts with reallocating a lot of the police funding. I know in St. Louis, Missouri, black man have the highest death rate out of the top 50 major cities in terms of their interactions with police, but St. Louis police officers are one of the highest paid in the Midwest. So I think looking at how we structure policing, how we fund policing, as well as reallocating not only some of the funding, but reallocating some of the responsibilities. Being a police officer is hard.  And I think some of those duties and things that we're asking police officers to do should be reallocated to individuals who are more properly trained. So those would be my two requests to kind of deconstruct our current police system, reimagine it, and reallocate funding as well as job duties as well. Thank you. And the good aspect is universal periodic review. It allows countries who are doing policing in different ways. Many would say also better, also a human rights based approach to actually make the suggestions showing what's worked in their country and why that could be applicable to America. Greg, I'll hand it over to you. Yeah, I just, I think it's important that we recognize that America is going through two public health crises right now. Gun violence, again, over 100,000 people are shot or killed by guns every year. And when we had similar numbers with COVID-19 the entire country shut down. But this type of crisis has been going on for decades and we haven't seen any major political policy or financial adjustments to address this. And so the first big thing is we really need to bring home the urgency of this crisis and remind folks that because this is majority black of brown folks impacted it does not mean it's an acceptable crisis for America to overlook. The second big thing is, you know, I think direct talks a lot about policing and law enforcement how we can allocate those funds to people better equipped. I want to just reinforce that because there are community based solutions that work that will reduce violence that will address crime, especially violent crime, more effectively than law enforcement, but puts the dollars in the hands of the community. And invest in the people who are most at risk to help them lead a healthier lifestyle, and not just let's just arrest them and put them away. No, why don't we get to people before something bad happens, invest in their life and their situation, and help them have a healthier and more positive pathway to their future. And these programs exist. They're highly underfunded America puts over $3 billion federally into law enforcement that does not include state level funding or local level funding. But when you look at funding and community based violence reduction programs is less than $100,000. So that just shows you very clearly how we are trying to address this problem and the incarceration approach is simply not working. And here, politicians on both sides of the island all over the country parade their law enforcement statistics, but never parade how these communities are starting to thrive the never parade the live saved the most at risk youth who, who now is an over performer either in school or in the workplace. And there are programs that are committed to doing that that are effective at doing that and most importantly, cheaper, cheaper and easier and more cost efficient in ways of reducing violence. So please don't let folks continue this, this cycle of feeding to us to the world that law enforcement is the way to address violent crime because in reality it is the lead it is not the most effective way to do it. And at this stage, it's just me of our community. I think yeah law enforcement is the quickest way when communities are already struggling to to keep them disenfranchised and disengaged. And to me this system like again to talk about how systems work. I believe the criminal justice system is working exactly how it's supposed to, which is to keep a minority group disengaged and uninformed about exactly what's going on across this country. And for me, this gun violence is a public health crisis, but it's not being addressed because of who the victims are black Americans are disproportionately impacted by gun violence they experienced nearly 10 times the gun homicides 15 times the gun assaults and 15 times the fatal police shootings of white Americans. And I believe if it was white children dying at those rates. This address, this would be this crisis would be addressed. Very, very quickly, very quickly. Can I just add one thing. It is the number one cause of death for black youth. Think about that. If there was anything preventable that was the number one cause of any type any demographic of you, we would be jumping through every who possible to address it. And it's been like that for decades. And so I definitely want to thank direct for just highlighting those different statistics but this is not, this is not, you know, some crazy, you know, crime television show know these are our kids are children our future that are dying by something that's preventable. And we have failed as a country to address it. And so there's anything that you can bring home is just pushing forward. The urgency of addressing this public health crisis with public health solutions and not more law enforcement. Thank you so much and I think what you're talking about really does address the situation those statistics are stunning 100,000 but more powerful are your stories and speaking truth to power. I would like to thank you both for joining us on Cooper Union. This is the whole world is watching and human rights in the United States episode, and we thank all our viewers, and we definitely hope this isn't the last time that we can meet and discuss maybe we can have a follow up after the UPR and more importantly maybe after legislation is adopted that improves the situation in the country. And I know we will be part of that solution with the organizing that both of you are doing and thank you for dedicating your lives to human rights. Thank you. Thank you. Mahalo. Mahalo here. Thank you again for tuning in to Cooper Union.


Shores of strength, strategic ballistic missiles, armed and ready, stand guard over our lives and liberties in a threatening world. Survival may depend upon the ability of a single warhead to reach and destroy its predetermined target. To deliver that warhead requires a vast complex called a weapon system. Part of that weapon system is the air vehicle itself, the missile with its nose cold, the airframe that contains the tons of fuel required for flight, the precise flight control and guidance packages, and the mighty rocket engines that boost this missile into the sky, sustain it in flight and keep it on its course. Ground support equipment is part of the weapon system too. There is the launch pad with all its service facilities for fueling, firing, maintenance. The complex and far flung ground guidance and tracking installations. There must be facilities for missile receipt, storage, check out and issue, and special purpose missile transport and handling equipment to move them to the launch pad. These are just a few of the ground support elements that have to be designed, built, provisioned, installed, maintained and manned if the warhead of this missile is to reach its target. These are direct support items. Without them, no missile can be launched. The specially trained officers and airmen who man these direct mission facilities are also a part, a most important part of the total weapon system. They have only one goal, operational readiness. In the launch control room when the red light flashes and the countdown stops, a missile must stand waiting for the right part in the right place at the right time. A radically new logistic system can get it there fast. A hotline from launch control room to missile squadron supply triggers the emergency action. A specially designated expediter officer takes over. He passes the word to the stock group. Here, only minutes away from the waiting missile on the launch pad are the end products of logistic support management. Spares, provisioned and kept up to a predetermined stock level are the key to operational readiness. Only by maintaining a predetermined stock level can each missile squadron be self-sufficient. Standard procedures speed up the supply routine at the squadron. The part so urgently needed is located by bin or shelf number. Already packaged for shipment, it can be quickly selected, checked out and delivered to the waiting expedite vehicle kept always standing by for the short run to the launch pad. Average time from malfunction to delivery of a new part, 30 minutes and maximum allowable time, 60 minutes from squadron supply to any launch pad in the strategic missile squadron. More often than not, the defective component is quickly removable because of modular design. In this case, it can be immediately returned to squadron maintenance shops for inspection. An important function of squadron maintenance is to determine by inspection and bench check whether it has the capability to repair the assembly. If it is judged not squadron repairable, it is shipped immediately and directly from the squadron to a contractor or Air Force depot repair facility. A simple series of supply transactions, but without data processing it could have taken hours or days to record and transmit, weeks or months for resupply action. What can be recorded in minutes, transmitted in seconds and resupply action will be initiated immediately and automatically. Essential facts of the transactions have been penciled in on pre-printed worksheets called Variable Data Forms. Now they have reached the skilled key punch operator. He goes first to the squadron master card file. In this deck is a card for every direct mission item which supports the weapon system. These master cards have been code punched before issue with all the fixed data available. In the key punch machine, all this fixed data is reproduced automatically on the various transaction cards. Next, the operator punches in the variable data required for each transaction card. They report on parts issued to the launch site. The resultant drop in squadron supply stock balances. Inspection report on the failed part and the repair which is generated. And the fact, time and method of its shipment from squadron direct to repair depot. These carefully registered holes represent reality. The interaction of human beings and hardware that is called logistics. To be sure that the story these punched holes will tell is accurate. They are independently verified in another machine that will reject any discrepancy. Only now can this basic input that may influence expenditure of millions of dollars or the effectiveness of our advanced weapon systems go forward from the squadron to the electronic data processing center. This input provides the basic information which is refined into logistic support management. It flows in from many sources. Missile squadrons, contractors, Air Force depots. It reports in code each detail of hundreds of different types of transactions. The key punched cards are fed into a card to tape converter. Each tape reel stores the information contained on 2500 cards. Saving space, time and money. The tape reels are read by the central processing unit, the nerve center of this electronic data complex. Actions taken by the computer depend upon previously prepared programmed instructions monitored by the computer operator. To select the proper tape run, the operator need only press a button. For example, one run can sequentially check stock levels, update the master file, prepare requisitions for automatic resupply to the squadrons, schedule damaged assemblies for depot repair and set up a suspense file for their return. All this in a matter of minutes. To do these things, the computer must have accurate data carefully prepared. If the facts are wrong, the machine will give wrong answers. Take wrong action. Cards must be correctly punched at the squadron level if logistic support is to work at the management level. To feed information to this electronic data processing center requires fast, reliable, versatile communications to each of the squadrons so that field transactions can be immediately and fully reported. Communications run to the weapon system storage site so that the Air Force stock from many commodity class depots is available at a single point. They also run to the contractor storage site at the factory so that contractor peculiar items can be resupplied to the squadrons on a source-to-user basis. Finally, they are installed at maintenance and overhaul facilities. Contractor and Air Force so that items to be repaired or modified can be quickly returned to the stockpiles. Fast, reliable, versatile communications. Transceiver to transmit the punch cards upon which all data is coded. Teletype to send supplemental verbal instructions or to clear transceiver circuits for transmission. Telephones for exceptional situations or standby emergency use. Together, these form the ComlogNet linking the electronic data processing center with every element of the resupply and maintenance cycle. All this results in greater operational readiness at the launch pad. Smaller stockpiles at the storage site. Faster maintenance, modification and overhaul. This applies equally to contractor or Air Force storage and maintenance sites. Reduces procurement and inventory. Saves money and time. Speed and accuracy in getting all the facts to the electronic data processing center, taking action, communicating that action to the right place. This is the first step in logistic support management. But now this action must be converted into hardware and the hardware must get to where it is needed. It moves through what logisticians call pipelines. Several factors influence pipeline time. It is lengthened when transportation is slow. Shortened if transportation is fast. When the pipeline is shortened, for example, by fast air transportation, smaller stockpiles are needed at the storage site. This cuts down on procurement, inventory and obsolescence. A shorter pipeline will provide a more effective weapon system as well as dollar savings. Keeping missiles from going out of commission for parts means greater overall operational readiness at the launch pads. Electronic data processing keeps pipelines short by automatically setting up the best routing and packaging. Automatically monitoring and expediting in transit items. Transportation scheduling is only one of the major processing runs. These runs provide constant, updated, correlated data on inventory control. All shipments and receipts. Adjusted stock levels. Items due in, on order, in repair or in transit. Technical data, current and precise item descriptions. Configuration. The exact items which make up each individual weapon system. Failure analysis. Frequency and causes of failures by item. Usage and attrition rates by item. Cataloging. The weapon system stock list. Dollar reporting. The current financial status. And requirements computations. Including procurement and provisioning status. A single complete set of logistic books using a common coded language correlates every logistic support function through electronic data processing. But it does not eliminate the need for human judgment. Human decision. Human responsibility. This is the job of the logistic support manager. To carry out his mission of timely support and effective management of an advanced weapon system, he integrates on his staff each of the key logistic functions previously under separate organizations. Documentation of logistic support management is also integrated. Weapon managers, contractors and squadrons. Separate responsibilities and procedures are set forth in individual manuals. Staff officers provide policy input on budget, procurement, transportation, maintenance, supply and liaison with using commands. These are combined under one logistic support manager to provide the fully integrated logistic program that today's and tomorrow's advanced weapon systems must have if they are to get and stay operationally ready. Electronic data processing takes care of all routine transactions in each of these functional areas. But the machine also recognizes problems it cannot solve. The exceptional situations. It calls attention to these problems by making a printout on the high speed printer that is part of the data processing system. Printouts like these go directly to the manager who can make the decision. Take the action needed. This is a printout on a supply problem. It goes at once to the item manager, a member of the supply staff. Decoded, it tells him of the slower consumption rate of an item that had been planned for in initial provisioning. Other information to aid him in making his decision is also printed out as needed by the electronic data processing center. Quantities on order, in transit or being repaired. This is management by exception. Making decisions based upon electronically processed data but requiring managerial judgment. These decisions save money by preventing overstocks or ensure operational readiness by maintaining an adequate supply of spares. Management by exception conserves executive talent by bringing to the manager only those problems the machine has not been programmed to solve automatically. A different example of management by exception also begins at the electronic data processing center. This time, Iran reveals a failure rate for a given part much higher than the programmed tolerance. This is printed out by the machine together with a tabulation of the causes of the failure. The data sheet is delivered to the maintenance manager, another member of the logistic support manager staff. Starting with this information, he moves to confirm and amplify it by test and analysis. The kind of expert and specialized knowledge that must come from men, not machines. To the missile assembly site come the maintenance people from the missile squadron, the contractor's technical representative, the AMC maintenance specialists. They analyze the fault that is causing failure and determine it to be a design deficiency. The findings result in further studies by research and development people and by the engineering group on the staff of the logistic support manager. Their joint recommendation results in an engineering change proposal to correct the design deficiency. This is monitored by the chief of weapons engineering, another staff officer of the logistic support manager. The specification resulting from early computer detection will reduce the chance of missiles out of commission for parts. Remedial action began at the electronic data processing center with a printout, but it required human technical skills, human judgments, human decisions to solve this special and complex problem. The electronic data processing center has stored on its reels millions of facts constantly updated, about thousands of direct mission items in an advanced weapon system. How these items got there is a story in itself. The story of provisioning, the determination of required spare parts and ground support equipment to make a weapon system operational. Logistic support management of advanced weapon systems incorporates new techniques made possible by centralized management control and electronic data processing. These are designed to obtain the greatest dollar mileage for the taxpayer and the most effective support for operational units. To explain them to the contractor, the logistic support manager schedules a provisioning guidance conference. His staff covers such specialized concepts as periodic ordering. This breaks down estimated yearly requirements into quarters or even months, permitting constant reevaluations on the basis of actual consumption. Production responsiveness. This calls for the contractor to maintain many items as unassembled parts. These can be rapidly assembled for replacements or used in production if no replacement requirement develops. This is only the beginning of the long, complex and continuing provisioning process. Through provisioning action, the logistic support manager of an advanced weapon system is given a timely, well-documented, flexible stock of direct mission items and spare parts. He manages these through an integrated staff representing each of the logistic functions. Supply in weapon system storage sites, contractor storage sites and squadron supply areas. Maintenance and tech order modifications performed at contractor or Air Force maintenance sites or in the field by squadron maintenance or mobile maintenance teams. Funding and accounting operations, specially geared to the needs of a single logistic support manager and the contractors. Procurement, whether for end items, ground support equipment or spare parts, is also responsive to the logistic support manager's deadlines. Transportation, including specialized packaging and record keeping, will ensure safe arrival within the fixed time set by the logistic support manager. All of these logistic functions are tied together by shorter pipelines. This means smaller inventories, less dollars tied up in spares. Electronic data processing. This means assured and timely support for the missile site. Comlognet communications. This means rapid and versatile data flow from squadrons and storage sites to the electronic data processing center. Here the actions are taken that support the missile on the launch pad. A tower of strength. An advanced weapon system in all its complexity. The ballistic missile. The ground support. The spare parts. The trained men. It must be ready. Logistic support management makes and keeps it that way.


What's up everybody, Jason here for JaspiersCaseBrace.com 2022, Panini obsidian football six box picker team number one, RMB just sold out. This sell out of the break and you get a piece of these nine teams guys. Titans, Bengals, Eagles, Ravens, Texans, Panthers, Bears, Broncos, Giants. Again you get a piece of these teams via a serial number break which is a random number block. So you get a block of numbers guys, you get a randomize from zero through nine. And as an example here guys, let's say you get a randomize block three, you'll get any card from any of these teams that do hit where three is the first number on the left side of the serial number dash. So for example, we hit a card that's 243 out of 299 since it is the first number on the left side. That'll go to block three. Other examples, 13 out of 99, three out of 25, 43 out of 99, et cetera. As long as the three is the first number that'll be yours. Now if we hit a redemption card for any of these nine teams it'll automatically go to spot zero. Even if we know it's a one on one it still goes to spot zero. And of course if there's any non numbered cards or if there's opportunity at non numbered base or potentially at color blasts we'll randomize that to the group of customers in this break. So if it's a color blast that'll be its own randomizer. If it's just base cards we'll do that separately all together just cause they're gonna be non numbered base anyways. Nothing too crazy valuable. But yeah, for the most part most of the stuff should be numbered. And let's do the randomizer now and see what numbers you guys get matched up with. So we got dice roller here, let's roll. We got a three and a four seven times, good luck. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven times, seven, seven. Matthew down to Andy. Now again those teams right there don't worry about that. That's for the sorting team just to know that nine teams that are in there. If you match up with it that doesn't mean you get those teams, it's just for the sorting team. And there you go seven times, seven times. Let's randomize the numbers here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven times, seven, seven. One down to zero. All right, so seven, seven. Let's see how you guys matched up with really quick. So Matthew you have block one. Any one of ones would be yours. Rex with lucky number seven. Andy with eight. Matthew with four. Dean with nine. Gabe with three. Joshua with six. Gabe with two. Jeremy has five. And then Andy, any and all redemptions would be yours at zero. So let me just delete this really quick just so I can alphabetize the numbers. Border that right there. Make it look nice and pretty. Same thing here as well. Awesome guys, so now I'm gonna print out this sheet and coming up next is to break itself guys. Good luck everybody.


Next up, I'd like to welcome Ben Yee. Ben is from the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, and the title of Ben's presentation tonight is Controlling and Shaping Social Power in Groups. Between April and June of this year, many of you in the audience, like me, rushed home from work every single Monday to watch the latest episode of The Game of Thrones. And apart from the gratuitous amounts of sex and violence, what really captivated me was that in a fantasy show, we could see real-world behavior. People outwitted and outmaneuvered each other to gain social power. And my PhD investigates this behavior. I'm studying how individual social power within a group of people can be shaped and controlled. You can think of individual social power as the amount of influence someone has in a group discussion. In the example behind me, King Joffrey, the handsome man in the middle, has by far the most social power. If he claims in a discussion that he's the greatest king in the history of Westeros, unless you want to be shot with a crossbow, you'd have to agree. Using the existing DeGroote-Friedkin mathematical model, it's possible for us to calculate each person's social power in a group. It depends on factors such as who talks to who and the strength of their interpersonal relationship. For a group shaped like a star, all of the individual social power collects at the center with our king. In other words, we have an autocracy. So, motivated by the Game of Thrones, I then asked, how could we break that autocracy? Well, it turns out you don't challenge the king unless you want to be shot with a crossbow. Instead, you begin by influencing one of his subjects, which I've shown with a green arrow. What I discovered is truly remarkable was that as the strength of their influence increased and increased and increased, the king's social power decreased and decreased and decreased until at a critical point, he was no longer socially dominant. But which of the four subjects surrounding the king would you pick to influence? How much influence is required exactly for the king to lose social dominance? We all intuitively guess at these questions, but my research uses mathematical analysis to give us the answers. And because we as humans naturally form communities and groups, the research will apply not only to an autocracy, but an army general might ask, how could I structure my soldiers so that I exert the most amount of control over them? But at the same time, I don't have to issue commands to every single one of them like in a star group. Should it be 10 groups of 10 soldiers or two groups of 50 soldiers? Understanding how to shape and control individual social power within groups allows the general to answer that question and many more just like it. So keep an eye out for my thesis and you too could win the Game of Thrones.