As-salamu alaikum. Welcome to Virtual University of Pakistan. My name is Ms. Swaleha Nagmi Habibullah and, inshallah, I will be with you in this course for a span of about 15 weeks. This is the third semester of your BCS program. And in this semester, I will be delivering to you the course on statistics and probability. The objective of this course is to inculcate in you an attitude of statistical and probabilistic thinking and to give you some very basic techniques in order to apply statistical analyses to real-world situations. Statistics haikyachis. It is that science which enables you to draw conclusions about various phenomena on the basis of real-life data. Real-life data that you collect in a scientific manner on a sample basis. It is a tool for data-based research. It can also be called quantitative analysis. Statistics students haik asha subject hai jiski pohot zyada application hai. Duniya kya koi shoba aap lele je. Koi shoba jisme aapne scientific tarike se conclusions draw karni ho based on real-life data. You will be applying statistical techniques. Agriculture, anthropology, astronomy, biology, economics, engineering, environment sciences, geology, genetics, medicine, physics, psychology, sociology, zoology. Virtually every single subject from anthropology to zoology, A to Z. Statistics can be divided into two broad areas. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics wo hai jisme aap, wo data jo aap initially collect karthi hai usko aap describe karthi hai. Usse data ko describe karthi hai. Sbse pehle aap usko summarize karthi hai. Ek ambar hota hai. Humare paas numbers ka, figures ka, data ka. Usko hum, sbse pehle compile karthi hai aur summarize karthi hai. Humare paas tables banjati hai. Hum uski diagrammatic aur graphic representation karthi hai. Humare paas mukhlif kasam ke bohot se diagrams available hai. Bar charts hai, pi charts hai, histogram. And we will be discussing this at length in our upcoming lectures. Aap ussi agar bo quantitative data hai to aap uski, uski average value, average compute karthi hai. Usme jo variability pae jati hai, jo sari values ek baraabar nahi hoti, vari kar rahi hoti hai. Usse aap measure karthi hai. Ye sab kuch descriptive statistics ke under aata hai. Inferential statistics wo hai ki jisme aap iss data ko, jisko aap ne collect kia aur compile kia aur summarize kia. Usse aap istimal karthi hai to draw conclusions about that phenomenon about which you have collected that data. You see basically the data that you have collected that is only a sample out of a large population. And inferential statistics gives you a set of techniques, a set of tools by which you can utilize the sample data to draw conclusions about the population. Ye jo conclusions aap draw, chunke ye real life phenomena ke baare me hai. Isliye they are going to be probabilistic in nature. They are not going to be deterministic. Iski andar chunke randomness ka element bohat zyada act kartha hai. Isliye aap jo kuch bhi kahenge, aap you will be saying that in terms of probability. Aap yeh kah sakenge ke iss baat ka imkaan pachanwe fiisad hai. Ke aisa hai, jo mai conclusion draw kar rahi ho ya kar raho hoon. Ye aisa hone ka imkaan pachanwe fiisad hai. Lekin aap yeh nahi kah sakenge ke jo kuch hum kah rahe hai, we can be absolutely certain about it. Miri iss baat se aapko andaza ho gya hoga ke ye jo subject hai statistics. Iska probability theory ke saath, chole davan ka saath hai. Probability is the foundation on which the entire structure of inferential statistics rests. Aaye, aap me aapko iss course ki text book ke baare me batadhoon. The book that we will be using is Introduction to Statistical Theory by Prof. Sher Mohammad Chaudhry and Dr. Shahid Kamal. This book is in two volumes. Volume 1 contains chapters 1 to 13 and it covers the various concepts of descriptive statistics as well as probability theory and volume 2 which starts from chapter 14. It will be giving you various concepts relating to inferential statistics. Yeh to aapki text book hogi jo aap throughout this course isthimal karenge. Lekin iss ke ilawa mai recommend karungi ke aap aur bhi bohot sii kitab me jo ke bazaar mein dastiyab hai. Both local and foreign aap unko bhi zorur consult kareng. Kyunke jitni zyada kitab me aap parenge inshallah utna hi aapka horizon widen hoega. Let us now start our discussion of the subject of statistics. Yeh love statistics kahaan se aaya? Mai aapko thoda size ka ek background dena chaati. Actually this word is derived from the Latin word status S-T-A-T-U-S meaning a political state. And as such statistics this word statistics originally meant information that was useful for the state. For example, information about the sizes of the population and the armed forces. Lekin aap aaj ke doar mein yeh jo loves hai statistics iss ke teen waze mani hai. In the first instance statistics means data, numerical facts which have been systematically arranged. Yani adado shumar iss sense mein it is used in the plural sense. Statistics of births and deaths, statistics of crime, unemployment statistics and so on. In the second sense the word statistics pertains to that subject that we are going to discuss in this course. That science, that discipline which enables us to draw conclusions about various phenomena on the basis of real data collected on sample basis. Jaisa ke main aapko pehle bataya yeh wo subject hai wo science hai. Jiske zariye hum real life phenomena ke baare mein bohot se conclusions draw kar sakti hai in a scientific way. And then there is a third meaning of the word statistics. Yaha pe istra samjiye ke ek love hai statistic. Yani eske baare sirf statistic. And that means any quantity such as mean, median, mode, proportion, any quantity that you compute from a sample. Ek sample aapne draw kiya. For example, students ki heights aapne collect ki. Aur aap interested hai ke mean height, yeh jo bhi students hain ki mean height kya hai. Wo jo mean aapne kaalingi that is a statistic. Phir aap kahte hain ke hum yeh bhi jaana chahate hain ke in students me se, kitne urdu medium schools se aaye hain aur kitne English medium schools se to aap uska proportion nikal na chahate hain. Ke proportion of students who come from urdu medium schools. To yeh jo proportion aapne kaalingi that is another statistic. To iss tara se jo aap mukh talif statistics compute keringi. This is the third meaning of this word in this sense. Jitni guftabhu main abhi tak ki usse aapko andaza hogya hogya. Ke statistics ek aisa subject hai which deals with aggregates. It deals with samples, populations. It deals with collection of individuals and objects. It is not concerned with just any one particular individual. For example, agar aap ek college ki baat karein. Agar aap yeh jaana chahate hain ke iss college me jo students admit hote hain. Unka jo background hain, wo kya hain. Unka jo urdu medium schools se hain, bohat zyada English medium se. To aap wo jo proportion nikalingi that will be giving you an idea of this phenomenon as a whole. Kisi ek particular student ki baat nahi ho rahe ho ghi. That will be an overall indicator. Or yeh ek statistics ka ek baat basic characteristic hai. That it is that science which deals with aggregates and not about particular observations. Another very important point is that statistics deals with those aggregates which are subject to a number of random causes. For example, the height of an individual, agar aap height ki baat karte hain. It is affected by so many things. The genetic element, the diet, the kind of diet this person takes, the climate of that country and so many other things. Isi tara agar aap marks ki baat karein, marks of a student that will have to do with his IQ, the kind of training, the kind of education that he has had proper unki tutoring hui hai kaini hui hai. And so many other factors. So, this is a very important point. Ki chunke hain, hain real life phenomena se deal karte hain. Isli hain kisi bhi, kisi bhi statistical problem mein, jis variable ke saar deal kar rahe hote hain, ush cheez, wo cheez, bohat se aur cheezon ke saath related hote hain aur depend kar rahe hote hain aur cheezon ke upar. Students, I have been using the word data in this discussion. I think I have used it many times. Let us see what this word implies. Data kya cheez hain? Actually, I think it is used in different senses, in different context. Lekin pehle hum dekthin ke iska origin kya hain? It is Latin for those that are given. Latin mein iska mafum hain, those that are given. Iska jo singular form hain, that is datum. Aap kahinge ki ye kya hain? Ye to hum bilkul use nahi karte. Lekin it is data actually is the plural of datum. Datum hoega ek piece of observation aur data, a number of pieces of observation. Jaisa ke main hai pehle kaha, ke ek sample, ek population, not just one individual. So, lukbe lubab sari baat ka ye ke hum ye kaisakte hain ki data can be thought of as the results of observation. Let us consider some examples. Statements given to a police officer or a physician or a psychologist during an interview, this is data. The correct and incorrect answers given by a student on a final exam, that is data. The time required by a runner to complete a marathon, that is data. The number of errors committed by a baseball team in nine innings of play, this is going to be another set of data. And of course, data is obtained in the course of scientific inquiry. The positions of artefacts and fossils in an archaeological site. The number of interactions between two members of an animal colony during a period of observation. The spectral composition of light emitted by a star. Ye mukhli f ja main examples aapko diye, iss se shayad aapko andaza hoa hoga ke there are different types of data. And actually, it is extremely important that we be able to classify that what type of data is it that we are going to deal with in any particular research problem. Isliye aaye abis tisko ham zara formally discuss karte hain. Data, that is basically of two types. Quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data se murad hain ke jis main aapki jo ris jo result se aapki observation ke wo numerical form mein. For example, height, weight, blood pressure, marks, income aur koi bhi aasee situation ke jis main aapki jo observations hain wo number form mein. Aapki height, 5 for 10 inch ho sakti hain. Aapka weight 150 pounds ho sakti hain. Ye jo numbers hain, 150, 5, 4 to 10 inch. This constitutes quantitative data. Qualitative data wo hain jo iss tari ke se numerically express nahi ho sakti hain. For example, agar aap kisi shak se yeh puchein ke are you married? Now, you know he or she can give you different answers. Yes, I am married. No, I am not married. Or he can say I am divorced. Aap ye jo jawabat hain, inko aap us tari ke se number form mein express nahi kar sakti hain. Jis tara se aap height yeh weight ko kar sakti hain. Ishi tara eye color, hair color, color of your dress. Color ko aap 1.7 ya 2.3 is tari ke se to express nahi kar sakti hain. Ye jo main aapko misaalein deen, in main aapko bakhubi andaza hain. Ke when you are trying to collect this kind of data for a sample of people, you will be getting different replies from different people. Yani wo jo jawab aapko masool ho raha ho ga, wo veri kar raha ho ga. Har shaksto ekhi jawab nahi dega. Kisi ke height 5 foot 10 inch hain, kisi ke 5 foot 5 inch hain. Ye jo variability hain, ishi ke bhaja se jo bohot important concept yaha pe aata hain. That is the concept of variable. A variable is that quantity which varies from individual to individual. Variables are of basically two types according to what I just said. The quantitative variable and the qualitative variable. Quantitative variable jaisa ke main pehle bataya, height, weight, blood pressure, body temperature, atmospheric pressure, income and so on and so forth. Qualitative variable, as I said earlier, color of your dress, the amount of satisfaction you have with a certain facility that the government is providing to you. Satisfaction ko bhi aap us tarika se to numerically express nahi kar sakte na, jis tra ke aap height your weight ko kar sakte hain. Aap yeh kahenge ke I am very satisfied. Ye aap kahenge ke I am not that satisfied. I am not that satisfied ke ye matlab to nahi hain ke satisfaction is 1.7. Sari guftu ko sevazhe hua ke it is extremely important that we categorize and classify the kind of data that we are going to collect and the kind of variable that we are going to deal with. Jaisa ke aap screen peh dekh rahe hain. Variables ki doh kisme hain. Qualitative variable and quantitative variable. Qualitative variable to jaisa ke main patahi chukhi hoon. Ishi kisam ki cheese hain. Jisme aap usko numerically express nahi kar sakte. Quantitative variable jo hain uski mazeed doh kisme hain. The continuous variable and the discrete variable. Aaye humin ko ek ek karke discuss karte hain. Continuous variable wo hain jaha pe aap measurement karte hain. Jab aap kisi ki height measure karte hain. Ya kisi ka weight measure karte hain. Ya temperature measure karte hain. In tamam situations mein aap ka jo variable hain that is a continuous variable. Isko continuous variable kyu kahte hain. Aaye ish baat ko ek example ki through samajne ki koshish karte hain. Supposed karein ke aap ek shaks ki height measure karna chaat hain.  That depends on the accuracy of your measuring instrument. Agar aap ka measuring instrument bohat hi crud sa hain toh hosakta hain ke aap you may be able to measure only correct to the nearest half of an inch. For example, aap kahe ke iski height 5 feet 6 and a half inches hain. Lekin in reality wo usse thoda sa tall hain. He is a little taller than 5 feet 6 and a half inches. Lekin jo ka aap ka wo measuring scale jo hain. Usse sref aadhe aade inch pe wo nishan hain. Isli aap kaheenge ke it is 6 and a half inches. Agar ek aap usse bahter instrument le hain. Jispe wo nishan jo hain wo half inch pe nahin hain. Balke har one tenth of an inch pe hain. Then you will be able to measure his height correct to the nearest tenth of an inch. So, you might then say that his height is 6.7 inches, i.e. 5 feet and 6.7 inches. Jab ke se pehle jab aap ke paas wo instrument tha jisme sref aade inch ke faas lipe wo nishan tha. Uswakta aap karethe 6 and a half inches i.e. 6.5 inches. Aap ek bahter instrument le hain to uski wajah se wo zyada refined. Aap ka jo measurement hain wo zyada refined hoge. Aap aap tasavur karein ke aap usse zyada bahter ek aur usse bhi bahter instrument le hain. Jisme wo jo nishan hain wo har tenth pe bhi nahin. Balke it is such an instrument that you are able to measure correct to two decimals. Goya aap kaise kain ke his height is 5 feet and 6.73 inches. Then you can think of another measurement instrument by which you are able to say that his height is 6.731 inches. Is tarike se agar aap theoretically is tis pe gaur karein to aap note karein ke there is no end to it. A person's height can be 6.73 inches. 5 feet to of course that goes without saying. But then it can be 6.731 inches. But then it can also be 6.73129479 inches. There can be an infinite number of decimal points, decimal places after the decimal point. Is hawale se agar haan dekhayin mukhtle flogon ki heights aap mejar karein hain.  In other words, height is varying in a continuous manner. Real line ke upar pehle shakhs ki height agar ek particular point pe hai to usre shakhs ki height usre agle point pe aapko nazar aaye. Is sathmiyaar aaye is sathmiyaar aaye ke aapko maeshus ho ke yein donoh ke darmean koi gap nahin. This is the concept of continuous variable. Yehi wajah hain ke hain mejreable variable ko continuous variable kehte. Iske baraks, dosera variable, the other type that we will be discussing is the discrete variable as stated earlier. discrete variable means discontinuous variable. This is the variable in which numbers are not connected. There will be gaps between various values and that is why it is called a discrete variable. The easiest example of this is that in any situation in which you have to collect your data through counting, not through measurement, but through counting, that is a situation where you are dealing with a discrete or a discontinuous variable. Yes, it is like a joke, but this is exactly the concept of discrete variable. Your four variable cannot assume the value of 4.25. It has to be either 4 or 5. So, as I said just now, this is the easiest and the best example of a discrete variable. Speaking of variables, measurements and counts, there is an important concept and that is the concept of measurement scales. We have four different kinds of measurement scales, the nominal scale, the ordinal scale, the interval scale and the ratio scale. Nominal scale kya cheez hai? The classification or grouping of the observations into mutually exclusive qualitative categories or classes is said to constitute a nominal scale. For example, students are classified as male and female. Similarly, the color of your dress could be classified as white, blue, gray or black. Ab zahir hai, students, case ke andar, there is no ordering of the various categories and this kind of a scale is called nominal scale. Iske baraks, there is a property of ordering or ranking of the measurements. For example, the performance of students can be rated as excellent, good, fair or poor. Ab aap note kar rahe hain ke yaha pe, there is a relation of order. Excellent is better than good, good is better than fair and fair is better than poor. Both these scales that we have discussed just now, they do not possess a constant interval between two values. For example, I gave you the example that rainfall can be heavy or moderate or light. Ab iske matlab nahi hai ke heavy aur moderate ke darmean jitna fasla hain, utna hi fasla moderate aur light ke darmean hain. Iske baraks, ab jodho scale aap hum discuss karne wale hain, the interval scale and the ratio scale, unke andar ye khasiyat pahe jaati hain, ke aap you have constant interval between any two values of your variable. The interval scale is a measurement scale possessing a constant interval size, but not a true zero point. Temperature measured on either the Celsius or the Fahrenheit scale is an outstanding example of the interval scale. Jab aap Fahrenheit me mesher karte hain, to aap kate hain ke it is 104 degrees at temperature. Jab aap centigrade me wohi temperature me mesher karte hain, to aap 40 degrees kate hain, 40 degrees centigrade is equal to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Lekin in donohi scales me aap agar gaur karein to aap ko idea yeh hoga ke jo zero hai uska jo zero hai that is not the true zero point. Yani agar zero degree Fahrenheit ki baat ho rahe hain, to iska matlab yeh nahi hai ke haraarat ki mik daar sifar hain. Aap ka temperature minus 10 degrees bhi ho sakta hain. Aur jiswak minus 10 degrees hai uswak bhi haraarat ki ek mik daar faza me maujood hain. This goes for the Fahrenheit scale as well as the centigrade scale. So yeh jo baat hain jo main aajya se pehle kaha ke jab aap ke scale me constant interval to maujood hain. Yani 40 degrees aur 41 degrees ke darmean utna hi fasla hain, jitna ke 41 or 42 ke darmean hain. Lekin uska jo zero hain that is not a true zero, aise scale ko kate hain, interval scale. Racial scale wo hain ke jisme zero, jisko aap zero kate hain that is the true zero. Yani for example height, agar aap kaheen ke kisi cheez ki height zero hain, to iska yeh matlab hain ke uski bilkul koi height nahi hain us cheez ki. This is of course a theoretical point, kyunke aap ki koi bhi material cheez jo hogi uski toh ek particular height hogi. Chahi wo bahot hi yani come chahi kyun naho. Lekin theoretically aap is baat ko understand kr sakte hain. Ke jab aam kate hain ke zero height, it means ke it is zero and then you can have other heights. But also the other example is of age. Agar aap time of birth se start karein toh an moment of birth jo hain uswakta aap kaisakte hain that the age is zero. Zero year, zero month, zero day aur uske baat jayse jayse din guzarthe hain. You can say that the child is one day old and two days old and so on. Let us now consider an example that illustrates the various types of variables and scales that may be encountered in a real life study. Chemical and manufacturing plants sometimes discharge toxic waste materials such as DDT into nearby rivers and streams. These toxins can adversely affect the plants and animals inhabiting the river and the riverbank. A study of fish was conducted in the Tennessee River in Alabama and its three tributary creeks the Flint Creek, the Limestone Creek and the Spring Creek. A total of 144 fish were captured and the following variables measured for each one. Number one, the river or the creek from where the fish was captured. Number two, the species of the fish that is channel catfish, largemouth bass or smallmouth buffalo fish. Number three, the length of the fish measured in centimeters. Number four, the weight of the fish measured in grams. And number five, the DDT concentration in the bodily system of the fish. We would like to classify each of the five variables measured as quantitative or qualitative. Also, we would like to identify the types of measurement scales for each of the five variables. Students, the variables length, weight and DDT concentration are quantitative because each one of them is measured on a numerical scale. Length in centimeters, weight in grams and DDT in parts per million. Also, please note that all three of these variables are being measured on the ratio scale. Now, why do we say that all of them are being measured on the ratio scale? Students, whenever we speak about the weight of an object, obviously if our measuring instrument reads zero, this would mean that the object being measured has zero weight. In other words, it is weightless and in this sense the zero would be a true zero. An exactly similar argument holds for the length of an object. So, I hope that it is clear to you that weight and length of the fish are being measured on the ratio scale. As far as the DDT concentration in the bodily system of the fish is concerned, obviously if there is absolutely no DDT in the fish, then the DDT concentration reading will be zero and this particular zero reading will be a true zero. As explained, the three variables length, weight and DDT concentration are quantitative variables measured on the ratio scale. In contrast, the other two variables that is the river or the creek from which the fish were captured and the species of the fish are qualitative variables and students, I hope that you will agree with me that both of these variables are being measured on the nominal scale. Students, why do we say that both of these variables are qualitative? The reason is that in case of the river or the creek from which the fish were captured as well as in the case of the species of the fish, obviously these cannot be measured quantitatively, they can only be classified into categories. Also, obviously there is no ordering of the various categories such as the various types of species of the fish that we have and since there is no ordering present, therefore each of these two variables pertain to the nominal scale. Now, students having had a fairly detailed discussion regarding the various types of variables and scales that we encounter in real life, it should be obvious that the statistical methods for describing, reporting and analyzing data depend on the type of data that has been collected. We will be discussing a number of such methods in the forthcoming lectures of this course. A few minutes ago, when I talked about continuous variables, I told you that your measuring instrument depends on the refinement of how many decimal places you can measure it. So, from here, the concept of errors of measurement begins. When you say that a student, we have measured his weight and it is 60 kilogram, so in reality it is somewhere between 59 and a half and 60 and a half kilogram. If you say that I have measured correct to one decimal and his weight is 60.3 kilogram, so in reality it is somewhere between 60.25 and 60.35 kilogram. So, the point is that there will always be some difference between the true value and the value that you have measured. And this difference is called error of measurement. Errors, you can have biased errors or random errors. Biased errors are when your measuring instrument is faulty. You are saying that I have a guzz, but in reality it is less than one inch from a guzz. If you do not measure five guzz clothes, then at the end of it five inches will be less. These kinds of errors are cumulative. Every time, the error of one inch will be added. And there are random errors that you are doing wrong intentionally or in a faulty instrument. Your instrument is correct, you are measuring it. If one person will measure the height of a different off-road with the same instrument, then sometimes it will be a little more than its true height. So, these errors are compensating in nature. The positive errors will cancel out with the negative errors in the long run. These errors are purely due to chance factors and that is why they are also called chance errors or accidental errors. Students, as explained in the earlier part of this lecture, the goal of the science of statistics is to draw conclusions or inferences about populations on the basis of samples. So, let me now explain to you some fundamental and vitally important points pertaining to the concept of statistical inference. A statistical inference is an estimate or prediction or some other generalization about a population based on information contained in a sample. That is, we use the information contained in the sample to learn about the larger population. A population is the collection of all individuals, items or data under consideration in a statistical study and a sample is that part of the population from which information is collected. And the picture that you now have on the screen displays the relationship between a population and a sample drawn from the population. Let us now concentrate on the five elements of an inferential statistical problem. The five elements are a population, one or more variables of interest, a sample, an inference and a measure of reliability. Students, in order to explain the concept of reliability, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that making an inference about the population from the sample is only part of the story. We also need to know its reliability that is how good the inference is. A measure of reliability is a statement usually quantified about the degree of uncertainty associated with statistical inference. The point to be understood is that the only way we can be certain that an inference about a population is correct is to include the entire population in our study. However, in many, many practical situations because of the resource constraints such as insufficient time or money at our disposal, we are not able to work with the whole population and we need to base our inferences on just a portion of the population that is a sample. Consequently, whenever possible, it is important to determine and report the reliability of each inference made. As such, reliability is the fifth element of inferential statistical problems. Let me explain some of the concepts that I just presented with the help of an example. A large paint retailer has had numerous complaints from customers about underfilled paint cans. As a result, the retailer has begun inspecting the incoming shipments of paint from suppliers. Shipments with underfilled problems will be returned to the supplier. A recent shipment contained 2,440 gallon size cans, the retailer sampled 50 cans and weighed each one on a scale capable of measuring weight up to four decimal places. Properly filled cans weigh 10 pounds. Now, in this problem students, we would like to describe the population, the variable of interest, the sample, the inference and last but not the least a measure of the uncertainty of our inference. In other words, the reliability of our inference. So, let us address the various questions one by one. First and foremost students, it is obvious that the population in this example is the set of units of interest to the retailer, which is the shipment of 2,440 cans of paint that he received. The weight of the paint cans is of course the variable the retailer which is to evaluate. The sample is a subset of the population and in this particular example, it is the set of 50 cans that were inspected by the retailer. As far as the inference is concerned students, it involves the generalization of the information contained in the sample of the paint cans to the population of the paint cans. In particular, the retailer wants to learn about the extent of the underfill problem in the population and this could be accomplished by finding the average weight of the cans in the sample and to use it to estimate the average weight of the cans in the population. Students, as far as a measure of the uncertainty of our inference is concerned, the point to be noted is that using statistical methods, we can determine a bound on the estimation error. First, what do we mean by estimation error? Students, the difference between the average weight of the sample and the average weight of the population of the cans, this difference represents the estimation error or when we bound on the estimation error, we are simply talking about a number that the estimation error is not likely to exceed. This bound is a measure of the uncertainty of our inference or in other words, the reliability of our statistical inference. With reference to this example, how are we going to measure the reliability of the inference concerning the weights of all the paint cans? To answer this question, note that the weights of the 50 paint cans which are in the sample, their average is not going to be exactly equal to the average weight of the entire population. For example, if our sample yields a mean weight of 9 pounds, it does not follow that the mean weight of the entire population of the cans is also going to be exactly 9 pounds. Nevertheless, we can use sound statistical reasoning to ensure that our sampling procedure will generate an estimate that will be almost certainly lying within a specified limit of the true mean weight of all the cans. For example, such reasoning might assure us that the estimate of the population mean from the sample is almost certainly within 1 pound of the actual population mean. This implies that the actual mean weight of the entire population of the cans is almost certain to lie between 9 minus 1 that is 8 pounds and 9 plus 1 that is 10 pounds. This interval of 8 to 10 or in other words, 9 plus minus 1 pounds represents a measure of reliability for our inference. Students, let us now review what we have discussed in today's lecture. I discussed with you the nature of the science of statistics and the importance of statistics in various fields. Also, we discussed some technical concepts such as the meaning of data, various types of variables, various types of measurement scales and the concept of errors of measurement. I will be dealing with the concept of sampling and I will be talking about the difference between random and non-random sampling. We will be talking in some detail about simple random sampling and also I will give you a brief introduction to some other techniques of random sampling. Also, we will be talking about various methods of data collection. In other words, students, inshallah next time you will begin your journey in a discipline about which it has been said that statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write. Best of luck and until next time, Allah Hafiz.


We all pretend we know a lot about Internet, but compared to the future, we know so little about our future, we know so little about the Internet. So I think governing the Internet is important. We have to take good care of about security, privacy, intellectual properties. But we should govern it in a new way, not in a traditional way. We should govern the Internet like a zoo, that means all kinds of animals. We should not govern the Internet like a farm, same kind of animal, chicken and ducks all the same.


We are here today at Case Gym, where the Boston University women's basketball team celebrated a special moment days ago. Senior Sarah Hope became the all-time leading three-point score against Bucknell and was honored at our home court last Wednesday. It was really a relief when I finally did it, but just need to thank my coaches and my team for putting me in that position and really having my back when I finally broke it. She worked so hard and she's definitely dedicated herself to this team for four years, so it was pretty awesome to see somebody, especially in your own class, accomplish such an amazing feat, so that was great. Coach Katie Sedding explained that Hope's ability from the three-point range is underrated, and Hope knows her leadership is vital for the Terriers at the tail end of their season. Focus on what we need to do, just really focus on us, and then it'll take care of itself. The Terriers will take on Army West Point tonight at 7 p.m. before heading to American on Monday for the Patriot League quarter-final match-up. Hope's focus? Take it game by game.  For BUTV News at Noon, I'm Rachel Blauner.


Daily Tech News Show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Hi-Tech Oki, Logan Larson, and Mike Aikens. Coming up on DTNS, Google Play makes exceptions to its in-app payment requirement. Does Amazon want to become a delivery company, plus tech might wipe us all out, or it also might save us. Or both. Aaron Carson helps us understand. Daily Tech News Show starts now! This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, May 23, 2022 at Los Angeles on Tom Merritt. And thanks to the Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Joining us, senior reporter for CNET, Aaron Carson is back. Welcome back, Aaron. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you for helping us come to grips with existence on today's show. We're very excited. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Reuters sources say that Broadcom is in talks to acquire VMware. The talks turn into a deal. This would be Broadcom's third big enterprise-related acquisition after acquiring the B2B software company CA Technologies for $18.9 billion back in 2018 and Symantec's enterprise security business for $10.7 billion in 2019. The UK's Information Commissioner's office fined Clearview AI $9.4 million for violating its data protection laws and ordered the company to delete all data on UK residents. In recent months, privacy watchdogs in Australia, France and Italy have also ordered Clearview to delete data on its residents. At Computex, AMD announced its desktop Ryzen 7000 series processors. These are built on TSMC's optimized 5-nanometer process and will use a new AM5 socket, support PCI-3 5.0, and offer up to 16 Zen 4 cores. AMD claims some chips in the series will offer 5 GHz plus max turbo clock speeds with a 15% increase in single-threaded performance. Ryzen 7000 also includes integrated RDNA2 graphics as part of the IODY, meaning that it will ship on virtually all CPUs. The CPUs will come out in the fall. AMD also showed off Mendocino, a new APU for low-priced high-volume Windows and Chrome OS laptops. The chip will include four Zen 2 cores, RDNA2 graphics, and offer up to 10 hours of battery life Mendocino will launch in Q4. Yeah, so if you have a server farm made of those, that would be a Mendocino farm. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction against a Florida law that would prohibit social media companies from de-prioritizing posts to buy or about political candidates or removing any content by a journalistic enterprise. The court ruled that the law violated the company's First Amendment protection saying these protections, quote, do not vary when a new and different medium for communication appears. The court did allow one provision of the Florida law to stand. That's the one that would require platforms to have clear content standards and require users to have access to their data. This does set up the potential of a circuit split. If you listen to DTNS regularly, you know what that is because there's a similar law in Texas that was upheld, whereas the Florida one was struck down. That law is awaiting Justice Alito's decision about whether an injunction should apply to it or not before it goes to trial. The ad plans to share targeting data on individual ads with pre-vetted researchers through its Facebook Open Research and Transparency Project. The company will also offer more information on political ads in its ad library, showing aggregate data about the number of ads a page has running, targeting a given demographic, including ad spend. Ad library data is open to all users. All right, let's talk about this Play Store. We talked last week about changes to Google's Play Store, which requires apps to use Play Billing going forward as of June 1st. Last Friday we mentioned that Bandcamp had received a reprieve, if you want to recap on that, Epic bought Bandcamp in March. So Epic owns Bandcamp. Of course, Epic is suing Google over the requirement to use Google Play's in-app payment system. So Google and Epic agreed that Bandcamp will put 10% of the in-app payments it gets through its own system in escrow until Epic's court case with Google is settled. In the meantime, Bandcamp can keep using its own system, and Bandcamp said that it will not reduce the cut it pays to artists. That all that stuff going into escrow will be from its own finances. And Sarah, we have a new player in the game. Yeah, Bandcamp is not the only company that is dealing with us, because when Google announced that in-app payment enforcement was going to begin match group, which has a variety of apps, filed a legal complaint that Google illegally monopolized the market for distributing apps with its Play Billing requirements. Now Match had asked for a temporary restraining order on the policy change, but now it has reached an interim agreement with Google. So we're fighting, but let's agree for now. Seems like losing the biggest dating apps in the Play Store was not in either party's best interest. I guess not. Google has agreed not to remove match apps from the store for using third-party payment systems, while it makes a good faith effort to create additional billing system features for Match. For its part, Match will offer Play Billing as an option and will keep track of all fees it would have paid through Play Billing, backed up by a $40 million escrow fund until it reaches an official agreement. So similar, but not exactly the same as Bandcamp. Yeah, there's no indication that official agreement of some kind is forthcoming, at least in the near term, or the trial between Match and Google, set to begin in April 2023, almost a year away from now. And Google is planning to countersue Match for breaching its developer distribution agreement. Yeah, it's a good point. So even though we have these temporary agreements, neither Bandcamp nor Match have settled things with Google, just kept the status quo or some version of it until the legal wrangling is done. Well, yeah, because it's, you know, let's say, use Match as an example. If Match says, all right, no more Tinder, no more Match, I guess that's an official app that would be in the Play Store as well and a few others, then that just hurts Match more than Google. Yeah, but it wouldn't have to be this way, right? Yeah, so if you look at Spotify, who along with Epic and Match is a member of the Coalition of App Fairness that's organized around fighting App Store payment system requirements like these. Spotify isn't assuming though, because it's the first platform to test its own payment system on the Play Store and that's in partnership with Google. So that might be something going forward for other companies as well. Yeah, so Erin, I don't know if you're watching this ping pong match over there, but it does feel like all this means is we're gonna have to wait till these lawsuits are done, right? Right, and that's something that I was thinking about is it seems like Google is going to keep finding itself in these types of legal battles and kind of like Sarah alluded to earlier, this trial is not even gonna start until next year. So this is just something that's gonna be happening increasingly like in the background. And I'm kind of curious if there will be a cumulative effect eventually as some of these smaller companies kind of get tired of playing in Google's world and if so, and what that'll be. It does feel like Google saying they're going to work on additional features might mean that they're gonna do for match what they're doing for Spotify. Well, what would be the reason that Google and Spotify would come to an agreement such as this that match wouldn't also be allowed to do? Well, reason number one would be Spotify didn't sue us. So let's start cooperating with somebody who isn't like actively pursuing court action. Yeah. I guess reason number two would be Spotify is also a loud objector to the system. So let's try to get them on our side. And if we get them on our side and they're like, yeah, we actually like this new plan that would go a long way to swaying somebody like match to come over. I don't think you're gonna sway Epic. Epic has made it very clear that they just wanna win this court case on principle and they're more focused on Apple than Google anyway. Well, moving on here, a lot of tech companies have been feeling a bit of a pinch because we've had a boom in users during pandemic lockdowns for particular companies. And in a lot of cases, those have receded as people start going back to regular life at least in some cases. We've seen this from some streaming and productivity companies. Of course, Amazon as well, because for a long time Amazon was enjoying nobody leaving the house and buying a lot of things from Amazon. So they needed to increase warehouse space because they were shipping all that stuff. They didn't have anywhere to put it. But that is not true. Bloomberg any more. Bloomberg sources say Amazon is looking to sublet at least 10 million square feet of warehouse space in New York, New Jersey, Southern California and Atlanta. So they've got this space and they're looking for someone to sublet it from them. If you're wondering how much that is for a company as big as Amazon, that's about equal to 12 of its large fulfillment centers. So quite a bit of space. Amazon added a lot of warehouse space during the height of the pandemic demand. So you might expect to see that dip now or go away. Yeah, but these sublets only represent about 5% of the square footage that it added since March of 2020. So it may be letting go of more space because Amazon is reportedly looking to end some leases even more of its warehouses that it currently has leases with. Yeah, but even so, they're not letting go of all the space they added. And while this seems to be a response to less demand for warehouse space, Amazon's also making some interesting moves to potentially not need as many fulfillment centers at least for rapid deliveries. Bloomberg sources say Amazon's running a pilot program since last year to have its flex drivers. Flex drivers are drivers that are contracted directly with Amazon to do deliveries. Those flex drivers usually go pick up stuff from Amazon fulfillment centers, but they're using the flex drivers to pick up and deliver packages from malls. Now, it's not exactly clear where this is happening, but Bloomberg reports that malls in Chandler, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada and Tyson's corner, Virginia at the very least are participating. Also, if you listen to the show regularly, we talked earlier this month about Amazon's pilot program and that's to pay smaller businesses in more rural areas in the US a per package fee to deliver items within a 10 mile radius. So both appear to be trying to speed up that last mile delivery model, especially if you're talking about same day delivery. Yeah, we've talked before. Yeah, we've talked before about the idea that Amazon wants to make delivery logistics a platform that it makes money off of just like AWS has been. They needed to create data centers for amazon.com and then they parlayed that into a separate business. They're kind of doing the same thing with delivery and logistics, but this makes it look like they might even be trying to short circuit warehousing and say, you know what's faster than storing something in a warehousing and then repackaging it is just bringing it straight from the source, from the store. Yeah, and I would assume that, well, it depends on the business, right? But if you're a smaller business, being able to work with Amazon in this capacity could be pretty advantageous. It's less competing and more working together. Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of speaks this need for flexibility. I was reading a report from the International Monetary Fund that came out a little while ago that was talking about this very persistent narrative throughout the pandemic that the pandemic essentially accelerated digitalization. All kinds of consumers who had not previously had much to do with e-commerce, like how to learn how to shop online and do all this stuff. And there was this idea that, well, all of that is going to stick. That is now going to be the way that things work and that we're moving forward, but clearly we don't really know exactly the answer to that. And so it makes sense that a business would try and figure out something between radically changing its model back and forth depending on one point in time. Yeah, I think people are going back into stores and I don't think we should have expected that people would never go back into stores, but people have also learned the convenience of delivery if it's cheap and convenient enough. So it makes sense that malls would say, yes, come into our stores, but also keep shopping when you're not in our stores. And if Amazon could deliver it for us, great, we could do delivery that we couldn't have done before. That all makes perfect sense. I guess there's two ways to look at this story though as far as whether this is a good thing or not for the stores themselves. Amazon is either doing you a favor by making it easy for you to reach new customers and sell more stuff, or Amazon is trying to do to physical stores what it has done to stores on its online platform, which is get all their data, see the trends, and then sell the same things on Amazon.com and run them out of business. I mean, I'd like to say, oh, no, that's not what we're doing here. But I mean, we've seen quite a bit of evidence of Amazon doing this and getting in trouble in certain cases. They're going to have to be careful with that. And stores are gonna have to be careful with participating. There is a way that this ends up just being a good thing for everybody though. I'm also interested, I know it probably wouldn't be just one single company subletting these big old warehouses in various states across the US, but what would those companies be? Who are the companies that go, you know what? We're gonna sublet this big old warehouse from Amazon. Yeah, I imagine we have some folks in our audience who are like, oh, I work from the company that needs that warehouse space. So send us an email feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. And the other thing you can do to get us to talk about something on the show is vote it up in our subreddit or just submit it at all. You can submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. All right, Erin, when we look at the state of the world today, we've got some various conflicts going on in the world. We have climate change, we have pollution issues, supply chain shortages. We talk about all this stuff on the show and we can't help but think that if we as a species have much of a future ahead of us and if so, how does it get better? So you published a piece on CNET called Human Extinction Could Be in Our Future. The main thrust of the story is this existential threat facing humanity itself. Technology is at the core of these threats. Technology can be very helpful, but it can also be very detrimental. Variety of solutions that we might be able to make things more helpful than detrimental. So let's get existential. Erin, the idea of human extinction is not new. It's something that people have feared for quite some time. But how long has it been around? Yeah, so this is one of the most, I don't know, interesting things that I sort of discovered in this whole reporting process is that if you go back to like the 1700s, that's when you first found these first, like fringe whisperings that like, hey, maybe we could wipe ourselves out somehow. And nobody really wanted to talk about it. When you get to the 1800s, you've got folks like Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man, which was a story that had to do with like a plague wiping out humanity. Did not sell very well. And really the sort of one of the big important inflection points of when we as a species started to self reflect on the idea that we could wipe ourselves out is the atom bomb, right? And so it's kind of funny to think about in the course of human history, it's maybe a little bit more recent, even though we're talking about hundreds of years that we've kind of had this concept at all that maybe the planet would keep spinning and we're just not around for it. So all right, there's a term calling Ridge Dilemma that you may be familiar with. If you're listening right now and you likely are not. So what does it mean? Yeah, so the calling Ridge Dilemma is basically this idea that when we discover a new technology, we see all the benefits to it and it's really exciting and we integrate it into our societies. And at the point that we do that, we start to realize like kind of the ways that it can go wrong. So for example, take something like fire, you know, as we think of just this very fundamental kind of, you know, human tech in a way. And it's great for cooking stuff, it keeps the predators away, it keeps us warm, but you can also burn down a village, right? And so the reason that people in the existential risk space talk about this dilemma is that, you know, they argue that some of the technology that we're working with and building at the moment poses enough of a threat that if we make a mistake with it, we really don't have a second chance.  Right. Okay, so fire is a great example of something that can be used for good and can be extremely harmful. So when we're talking about existential threats, especially in the technology sector, what are we talking about? Yeah, so, you know, one of the groups that I talked to is called the Future of Life Institute and they're essentially kind of like a nonprofit that focuses on the ex-risk and all this. And therefore, areas of risk that they've identified are, you know, artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, biotechnology and climate change. And sort of like what they do is advocate for governments and policy makers, law makers and whatnot to look at those categories of risk and at least start to try and consider what could happen. You know, we're doing all these really interesting, cool, innovative things, but what kind of comes down the line and those are the areas that they are most concerned about, shall we say? Yeah, nuclear weapons is one where I think we all understand that a mistake could wipe us all out. Certainly those of us who grew up at the Cold War very clearly understand that hiding under your desk is not going to save you. But things like climate change, while we understand their existential, don't feel like they're the kind of thing that we could just make a mistake and wipe it out. It feels more slow motion. Does AI and biotechnology fall somewhere in between those two? Or in the course of talking to these folks, did you get the sense that even with AI or biotech, we could just accidentally create something that turns us all into gray goo? Right, yeah. I mean, this is one of the big challenges that when I was talking to these folks that they were kind of trying to explain is that we're in this place and time where we have so many problems in the world. And when you are walking into the office of some lawmaker or something and trying to explain to them that, hey, we could have this really massive problem with something like AI, it's not a thing that feels like it's gonna happen tomorrow. And that kind of lack of sense of urgency or whatever you wanna call it is a huge hurdle. But in their minds, there's like this interesting kind of nebulous space where I don't think any of them are arguing that like, hey, tomorrow, an algorithm that somebody built to optimize the production of paperclips is just gonna go rogue and decide that the best way to optimize paperclip production is to just take out humans? Or like, I don't necessarily think that anybody thinks that's gonna happen like in a month, but on some level, they're like, we know that there is enough uncertainty built into this risk and the risk is big enough that we should at least try to prepare for the idea that something could happen at some point. Well, that's the human problem, right? Trying to figure out to prepare for something before it becomes a risk. We only are ready to run from the tiger when we see the tiger. We're bad at planning ahead as a species. Yeah, that's actually, that's a good way to put it. I think that, Erin, you kind of used the example of walking into a lawmaker's office and saying, hey, we have a potential really big issue. You're the one who can make some decisions here. That happens all the time. The lawmakers aren't always listening because they're not necessarily thinking about human existential crises all the time or even something that they truly believe is going to offer imminent harm. Right, and it's kind of like Tom said too. I mean, it's this matter of like, well, whose problem is this really? Is it my problem right now? Or is this a problem for like 50 years down the line? And it gets kind of sticky when you're trying to think about like allocation of resources and this and that and how do you actually tackle it? Interestingly, one of the folks I talked to was saying that in some ways, some weird way like the pandemic kind of has made his job a little bit easier because there's this recency bias, right? That we have now seen an event that completely upended the world, changed our lives overnight. We're lucky that it was just one thing. It wasn't like the convergence of say like several strains of something, but it kind of creates a more colorful, more urgent immediate picture that like, hey, there's no guarantee that the way that we're living right now is just going to kind of, we're gonna like continue to shamble on and be okay. Yeah, and the other aspect of this that strikes me reading through it is, you need the technologies to help save you from the technologies, right? Machine learning, deep learning, neural networks are a great way to model and try out solutions to climate change. Biotechnology may be able to create new and interesting ways to capture carbon and cool the planet. Technologies that you create for climate change might also be the kind of thing that can help limit biotechnology from becoming an issue. So it's all interdependent. It's not like, well, we should just stop, you know, messing with any of it. Nuclear weapons, obviously not a good thing, but nuclear technology, especially nuclear fusion, could be something that helps solve climate change as well. So it's all fairly interdependent, right? Absolutely. And that's part of what makes this such a challenge is because I don't think any of these people are kind of sitting around going like, well, we should just not do anything with tech ever. Like let's just go back to living off the land, you know? So it kind of, you know, we're in this spot that we do have all this convenience, all this sort of innovation, you know, there's so many good benefits to the things that we've made over the years, but it's that sort of challenge in trying to look all of these sort of like chess moves ahead and see like, what are these potential outcomes that we might not account for? So, you know, for example, if we are messing around with the idea of genetically modifying mosquitoes, you know, because mosquitoes carry disease and plague and we need to do something about that, right? So if we managed to genetically modify them and sort of like tamp down the population, when we're doing that, are we considering like, do we know all the different sort of outcomes of what happens when you start affecting with a population of a critter that is plugged into all these other ecosystems and whatnot? And so it's, yeah, it's an interesting dilemma. Yeah, because the species that eats mosquitoes suddenly doesn't have as much to eat and then that species also eats other things and if it goes away, because it can't get enough food, does other things start to multiply and you know, you have all kinds of fallouts, which is why you named the algorithms that can help you model that so you can see what effects that will happen, so. Well, there's hope, right? There's hope for this because people are trying to get us to think about it early. In the meantime, you can distract yourself with a brand new typeface. Yeah, just to make a hard left here, Instagram has created its own typeface called Instagram Sans.  This is what the company says was inspired by Instagram's logo with a combination of squares and circles. Instagram is calling them squircles, so you haven't heard that term. Now you have. Instagram said it worked with linguists to make sure that the typeface works in as many languages as possible. That includes script languages, think Thai or Japanese, for example. Instagram is hoping users try out stuff like this in stories and reels. That way, if a caption is using Instagram Sans as a font, it's gonna look a lot different than, say, a TikTok video. We all know, if we hang out on Instagram long enough that a lot of TikTok videos are repurposed on Instagram, Instagram wants to set itself apart from the rest. And I actually asked a graphic designer friend who's very into fonts this morning, like, what do you think about this? And he said, all big companies do this now. In fact, I'm surprised that Metta didn't do this quite some time ago. It seems like they're catching up. That's okay, yeah. And then, of course, the word squircle reminded me that Apple made popularize that term when they implemented the squircle in their design. But I went and looked it up. It goes back to 1966, the word squircle. Squircle, yeah. I kinda like it. It's a classic. Yeah, it sounds like, I don't know, like a fun dessert or something. Well, if you're wondering what London Zoo's baby penguins and HDMI have in common, you're not alone. Nate Langston explains more about what they do have in common in the latest episode of Text Message. Hey, thanks for having me back. There's surely only one podcast this week that's spent as much time talking about penguins as the history of HDMI cables, which turned 20 this year. And that's my show, Text Message. London Zoo decided to name some of its baby penguins after tech and science luminaries. And we go through the history of the world's favorite high-definition multimedia interface. All that and more at uktechshow.com. Look for episode 276. Or just look for the word penguins back to you. Yeah, would you like to find out how many of them were Linux expired? The answer may surprise you. Thank you to you, Nate Langston. Bring in, these are good stories. Also, thanks to Aaron Carson speaking of good stories. Wow, thanks for letting us know what you've been working on lately. And I know you're working on stuff all the time. So let folks know where they can keep up with that. Yeah, you can always find me at cnet.com. I'm also on Twitter at Aaron Carson. Perfecto. We also have a brand new boss, got Darren joining the crew over the weekend. Darren just started backing us on Patreon. Thank you, Darren. There's also a longer version of this show. It's called Good Day Internet. We roll right into it after DTNS wraps up available at patreon.com. Reminder, we are live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 20 hundred UTC. You can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live and we're back doing it all again tomorrow with David Spark joining us. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.


All right. So welcome everybody. I want to welcome those who are just joining us to the Thursday Amherst Community Chat. Today we have senior services director of senior services, Mary Beth Ogilewicz and assistant town manager and director of conservation and development. David Zomek joining myself Brianna and your town manager Paul Baucherman. So before we launch into questions from the room and those that have been submitted, I want to give Paul Baucherman a chance to give any updates he has. So thanks Brianna and thanks for doing this and thanks to our guests today. They have a lot. They are here mainly because they're addressing the most current things. I hope that they can launch right into what's happening. There's a lot of things happening and they're both at the center of it. So I don't have anything to add to that. Okay, so with that being said I'd give both David and Mary Beth a chance to introduce themselves for those who do not know them so David why don't you start off. Sure, good afternoon everybody Dave Zomek assistant town manager. I'm happy to be here today with you all and talk about a variety of different town projects. My job is exciting every day chance to work with a number of different departments collaboratively and with residents and committees and board so when when the time is right here today love to update you on a few few projects we're working on. Great. Thank you. And Mary Beth if you don't mind introducing yourself and any updates that you might want to share. Sure. Good afternoon everyone Mary Beth Ogilevitz here director of senior services. And we have a couple of things that are pressing that are happening. First of all, if you are interested to engage in in person early voting please come down to the bank center. So we are open seven days a week for in person early voting, including on Saturday and Sunday. During the week the hours are eight to 430 this morning when I was here, probably by 745 we've had a line forming outside the door, we've had a really robust response, I think it's really quite unprecedented. But we have a capacity to really safely make sure that you can cast your vote in person should you choose to do so. We have a number of poll workers who are here they're cleaning the area after each person votes. Sorry persons. They're cleaning the cleaning pens and pencils they're cleaning the voting ballot areas, admitting persons one at a time so they really have some wonderful protocols in place, people have remarked uniformly that they feel very safe. So this is a challenge of having a having a live broadcast here so come down and vote and don't forget to come here to the bank center the entrance is through the front door only. And then, more importantly, if you had a chance to read the Gazette today, we have some really exciting news working in cooperation with the Unitarian Universalist Society and Craig's Doors that we were able to announce that we're providing a new location shelter that will be open and available 24 seven for those who are experiencing homelessness. And this has been an incredible endeavor, really led by Kevin noon in who was unable to be with us today but Kevin noon is the executive director at Craig's door and has done a really phenomenal job of reinventing shelter services during coven. He's had to face a number of challenges around safely spacing people, which caused and prompted us to assist him in looking at some other venues. We have been located as many of you are well aware at the first Baptist church for a lengthy period of time, but the site was that footprint was really too small to accommodate the number that we anticipate. So the Unitarian Universalist Society have welcomed Kevin to locate the shelter this season there. And we're very excited. It's going to improve services and a number of ways. I mean, it will be open and available 24 seven so our guests will be able to be housed and have a really safe space for an entire day so it's not going to be just an overnight experience. And with that comes a whole host of, of healthy outcomes that we think will be able to produce for those residents. So the town's been working we've been advocating for resources we've been a partner and an ally around securing public health resources to make sure that it's a safe setting, everything from testing to working with code enforcement and the fire department emergency management. So we're really hoping that this provides another opportunity and some momentum for some safe, safe location and also some healthy outcomes for the entire community. And we've also seen on that Dave and Mary Beth were the lead for the town on this and just a number of steps and a number of mental work it takes to get to his this meeting with the church meeting with the entire congregation of the church. And again, you know, credit to Kevin new name Craig stores board for pushing this forward, they really have just done incredible work to get to where we are today. And we're happy to have been provided to provide some support along the ways as well. Great. Thank you for that for that update Dave is there anything in that vein that you wanted to add on about that. I think Mary Beth covered it very nicely but yeah it's been a team effort and a collaborative effort and it feels really good. We're not there yet but we are the pieces are coming together for for November one so we're feeling very good about it and as I said on an earlier call this morning all of this is really it's a marathon not a sprint but we are, we're in this together with Greg's doors and lots of partners in the community the you use been fantastic so we just got to keep pushing forward. And so do you think they'll open November November 1 which is a Sunday do you think they'll open on time they'll hit that dark target. I'm very hopeful. I am. We've got a few last things that we're still pinning down but that is certainly the target. They are hiring staff and doing, we're all doing what's required to get it to lift off so that is the intention. That's fantastic. And I think you know just to, as Paul said this is a multiple people, both inside the town, organic, you know, services as well as Craig's doors, but you know, a lot of credit to inspection services and fire department, you know, these people need to be ready to serve the function that that we're asking them to serve in this case the you use so you know the inspection services and fire team will be in there working with Greg's doors to make sure this is a safe, clean, a healthy and not only to start the season November one or very close to that, but throughout the winter and of course Craig's doors will be working with the fire department, the police department to make sure, you know, collectively we all are in a good place. And if I just would add, you know, because I, Dave and I did attend the UU congregational meeting. The response of that community was nothing short of spectacular. And I think the, the generosity of spirit and the way in which they're embodying their mission wholeheartedly and and quite unanimously is just something that to me is so representative of Amherst and was part of the reason I wanted to work in a community like this. It was just incredibly inspiring and so I hope that we're going to be able to build on that momentum of these new relationships, certainly bringing along the first Baptist community as well, and acknowledging their long term commitment, but also taking an opportunity to recognize we have an opportunity for new relationships and new ways to challenge ourselves, expand services be more inclusive and connected within the community. So I just wanted to really call out their representation in this project. Great, thank you for adding that Mary Beth I think that's really important for for the community members, especially to hear. I'm going to take a quick chance to remind the folks who are attending in the room. We'd love to hear from you live if you have a question you can do so by raising your hand and zoom, or by using the q amp a function and popping your question in there. We'll have some questions here that I'm going to pose to our special guests, but feel free to submit your questions all along for the remaining session. So I have this, this person asking that they, they saw some changes happening in downtown. I think they might be referring to some of the lanes being restriped in the lane adjustments. Can you talk about the changes and how it relates to the, the grant that was received for those improvements. Sure, I'm happy to start. I may want to chime in as well but yeah it's a great question and again we have been working extremely hard and closely with the with our friends and colleagues at the bid in the chamber to try to do everything we can to help downtown businesses be they retail or restaurants. So what people are seeing out here is is, you know, throughout the last two, three months, we have been making adjustments, we've been hearing from the business community and trying to make adjustments to help them be more successful in reaching their, their clientele and so we've done things like work with the bid in chamber on getting obviously the areas for them to expand out into the street to have tables to have umbrellas and most recently we added heaters so that they could extend their their dining season farther into the fall. And we did just get a grant from the mass Department of Transportation to make some additional adjustments and some some different adjustments in our downtown to give more space more space for pedestrians to make sure the pedestrians and diners are safer with wider sidewalks and in more area to move around. So we're trying to make those adjustments as we can before winter sets in. And we're also looking ahead to say what post pandemic what what what can Amherst downtown look like what can we do to be a more welcoming environment, where businesses restaurants are even more successful than they have been in the past. So we're really looking at the width of our sidewalk and our bike lanes to make our downtown more walkable, bikeable and safe, and, and, and inviting for people to come out. So it's, it's been great work with the bid in the chamber we've heard a lot of there's been really good feedback and really good dialogue with our restaurants and with our downtown businesses. It's, it's challenging for them we have to acknowledge that it has been very difficult. And the road ahead is unclear but we want to partner with them as best we can.  And because we're public because it's procurement because they're it's commercial because there are safety things that were responsible for. It was pretty a pretty arduous task and we had people driving out of state and trying to find heaters for our business and they were successful and it was like just a credit to inspection services and fire and everybody who came together to make that happen. And, you know, people saying well it's going to get cold so fast and it's like that's true, but we're also looking to the spring. So we want to have all this setup for the spring so when we emerge from the winter doldrums. We want people to be able to have some place to come and attend to have dinner have a drink be outside have our downtown set up to ready to receive people in a safe way. So all this work, you know, people saying you're only doing it for a few weeks but it's really for a much longer period of time. And again, as Dave said we're looking for long term like maybe this is something we keep for a long time and that's it's a bed it's a real benefit to the town so it's an exciting project I think the grant your your division got Dave is like $180,000 to do this so it's not chump change here. So that'll include planters and and a number of different pieces of equipment for DPW to help with with downtown. As I said, safety for pedestrians and vehicular safety, we've got heaters now in our downtown for those restaurants who wanted them, and then as far as south as Mission Cantina in the south and the harp up north so and we're hoping to get more heaters to really extend the season as Paul said, these are now town property and we will store them over the winter and we hope to bring them out as soon in 2021 as restaurants would like to start serving out outdoors. And that includes we'll be putting out probably a little bit later today. I'm working with one of the planners that that works. And Dave's functional area to put out a little bit of an explainer video about some of those elements that were just described, and as well as other things that the grant will will cover so you can look out for that shortly. All right, Rihanna do you mind I mean I've got a couple of quick updates, you know, that I could fill people in on projects. Absolutely. So yeah, you know despite the pandemic. We are we are pushing forward on a number of different fronts and I'll only touch on a few things that are happening out there but you know just projects that that are exciting they're new they're their projects that have been in the pipeline for a while. I think most people know that we did the town did open the new playground and spray park at Groff Park. I think it's been a huge success. We, we completed most of that work. The spray park was turned on for about a month. And I think the response we got was very positive hundreds of children and families came down there socially distance and enjoyed that. So we look forward to 21 when we can fully open the spray park in in spring and have it be open for a number of months in 21 so kudos to all the departments that worked on that from planning and DPW was instrumental in bringing that project home.  And again, DPW came through the planning department and other departments and now DPW is is really going to help work with the construction firm to build that two acre dog park. And people, if you're traveling out that way toward belcher town, take a quick detour on old belcher town road and you will see the construction company working there very soon. They're doing some of the early grading work or protecting some of the wetlands that are adjacent there. And that project will really take shape before the, before the snow flies. When will the dog park open do you think, Dave. Well, a lot of that will depend on growing grass. Part of a good portion of the dog park is is a grassed area. Another part is a piece stone. And we're going to look to DPW to really their expertise. If we can get grass growing this fall wonderful. We'll definitely have to wait through the spring. So I would see a leader in 21 opening. The key is you don't want to have that brand new grass get dogs and people out there, and then have to replant and and seed again so we're going to we're going to lean on DPW to help us make that call. The dog park task force is still very engaged they're still raising money. And I think they have a meeting coming up in a week or two where we're going to do kind of an update on the project. A lot of folks have asked about Hickory Ridge and the town's plans to acquire Hickory Ridge. Those plans are still moving forward. In fact, I was corresponding with with an attorney on that project this morning and in fact, we are we are moving forward we hope in the next, you know, a couple of months here before the new year. So we're working with the owner of the property. As most people know there will be a solar development out on that site. So we're coordinating some of the solar elements to the site. We're also making sure that the site comes to the town in the absolute best condition that we require in other words that it is a clean site there are no 21E issues or contamination on the site. So the site needs to come to us with with a number of different conditions and the owner is meeting those conditions as we speak. And then we'll go into in 21 we'll go into a master planning process where we'll bring together community members and committees and boards and really look at what the town wants that property to be in the end I know I get emails people stop me on the street they want to be involved in that project. People talk to me about the health of the Fort River about community gardens about hiking trails about affordable housing there's a whole suite of ideas that people are, I think are going to come come forward in that process. It's interesting because one of the challenges that Brianna and I have been talking about is how to involve the public during the age of pandemic and she's come up with some creative you want to talk a little bit about bang the table and some of the other things you're you're looking at thinking about. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking when when Dave was describing that project so we are in the in the process right now implementing a new public participation platform and the it's the company is called bang the table but it will be great because it is very good. So, we will make it specific to Amherst will be an online portal, where there'll be any number of town initiatives and projects that you can go into follow specifically the progress see the timeline of the entire project. And along the way will build in different opportunities for public participation from a very small poll, yes or no to to more involvement so we get that kind of ladder of engagement so people can express their opinion or collaborate in ways that they have time for in different ways that they're comfortable with. So we kind of we look at being on a border committee as kind of higher along that ladder but there are a lot of other opportunities for us to build consensus and gain opinions and so probably in the next couple of, I would say a month and a half we might start seeing that take shape and come online. And so I would imagine that the Hickory Ridge project would be a perfect opportunity to use that and engage with our public so there'll be more to come on that when we're ready to launch it. Explainer videos invitations to join and we'll probably start with some sort of fun lower stakes activity in order to get people signed up and engaged through that platform but we're very excited about it. And I have a graduate student intern who's working with me on that project as well right now so I'm tuned for that it would be a lot of new ways to connect beyond, you know, sending an email or making a public comment we want to make sure that we have a diverse array of ways that people can connect with us. One of the things that offers that you don't have to. You don't have to show up at a certain time at a certain meeting you can it gives you that facility but you can come in at any time. You're feeding the baby at night and you want to check in on what's going on with this project you can check in, you can lay it out put in a comment or vote or things like that so. And then all the information for the project is gathered in one location so is something we're going to try see how it works it's perfect timing for what we're what we need to be doing since we're in the zoom world anyway. And people can, we think it provides more access to folks so I'm really excited about this too. Yeah, I think we'll hear from a lot of new voices who who may not be comfortable with the you know the traditional format of making public comment or showing up at a meeting we'll get to hear from some of those more reticent voices and give them a way that they feel comfortable with contributing to to our projects so really excited about that we'll probably have to do a whole session on that once it's launched. I did want to mention also Brianna there's been a lot of focus this year with coven on on kind of outdoor recreation particularly passive recreation and you know there's there's a lot of reason to feel optimistic as we move into 21 and hopefully get through the pandemic but you know I did want to give credit our town staff have done a terrific job on our trails up at Puffer spawned. I think the the work we did up there with with staff from various departments from we pulled staff from from LSC from the senior center from conservation and from a few other departments here in town hall and they did a terrific job at meeting and greeting and helping people do to enjoy Puffer spawn while at the same time being safe with social social distancing and I think, you know, overall, I heard overwhelming support for the, the impact that had the positive impact that had on the experience out at Puffer spawn. So I think we'll kind of take that information as we look forward and how to manage the pond and manage the people who love it and use it and want to be there every summer. You know, I think in 2019 we worked my staff work collaboratively with DPW to redesign or reimagine the the and make State Street one way and redo the parking and I think that was kind of phase one and we learned a lot about the importance of having a presence there during the 2020 season so I think we'll look to kind of build on that in future years because everybody loves Puffer spawn. Can you talk a little bit about it. It seems like it. It's getting shallower and shallower. What's going on there. It's, it's filling in Paul absolutely yes it is. It's a, it's a natural process for an unnatural pond let's put it that way it's a mill pond so so it's a it's a built pond, and what happens behind any dam for for a pond that has a water course entering it is that sediment naturally comes down sand rock stone come down soil come down the stream and eventually fill in the pond. So we are looking at that we've had some studies done we did some some interesting work with UMass and some of their graduate studios there to take a look at historic depths of Puffer spawn. We know kind of how much the pond is filling in every year and we do need to do something about it. If we want to keep that as a passive recreation area we're going to have to dredge it. We do have a little money set aside through the capital plan from years ago that we really need to get in the permitting pathway to move that project forward. I didn't realize until you told me was that the last time you dredged it you didn't truck the fill away you just put it on a hill next to the pond, and so it made it much more efficient and created a nice little parking area, in addition to the pond on the north side of the pond I think it was right. Yeah, the north side of the pond is an old gravel pit so in kind of an interesting twist that gravel was mined many years ago by the puffer family for road projects and home projects throughout the valley and my predecessor this predates me when we dredged the pond last probably 20 years ago to save money because a lot of a dredging project is the trucking cost. We just trucked the sediment which is all clean up to the west and everyone calls that kind of the north or northwest beach, the beach on the far side of the pond the smaller beach, and we trucked it right in there and we saved a tremendous money on trucking costs. So that could be an option for our next dredge project up there. I did also want to give note to the conservation staff as as DPW been very busy with all these storms we've gotten this summer we've lost a lot of trees. We've lost a fair number of street trees but I would say, right now we probably have 40 to 50 down trees on trails so anybody who's listening or who sees this. We know where they are we appreciate all your reports please keep them coming. We've logged in where those trees are it's just going to take a while for my two person staff to get to all of those trees. Some of them are literally 100 foot white pines, and we try to clear the trail we're not removing a trail out on the conservation area like you would on a public shade tree on the on the common if that went down you have to remove everything. And clear the trail, move things aside so that people can use the trail for hiking biking running dog walking, whatever their purpose, but 40 to 50 trees is a lot and many of them are in very inaccessible places so Brad border weekend Tyler peas are going to be working through that this winter trying to get those trees removed and clear all those trails. It's a big job. There's some down on the trail behind my house so I'll have to send an email to somebody. I do want to give we're coming up to our time here, which always goes so quickly. Last chance for for any attendees in the room to pop in your question. Otherwise, I am going to allow a chance for everybody to say what they didn't get to say or any parting words, Mary Beth you want to start. Sure, number one come down and vote early in person voting is going on so either drop it at the town hall you can mail it or come and do in person voting were open seven days a week. Two, challenge your views of ageism and how you view older people Friday night there's going to be a fantastic photography exhibit behind the Amherst cinema that we've been working with a local photographer Isabella Delolio. And it's featuring Amherst seniors and how we view aging and that it is also part of living and vibrancy. It's all about yourself around ageism and then lastly what I would say is we can't do the shelter work without you. So please feel free to contact Craig's doors, donate. They need things like socks raises toothpaste as well as financial contributions and we're in this together, what a resilient community looks like we are defining daily so thanks. Wow. That's impressive. I'm not sure I can really follow that but I didn't know this was the final question know what I would say is I really want to thank town staff for all of their work during 2020 it's not over yet we realize that but they've been doing a terrific job under under challenging and trying times. And I also want to thank you know the public for their patients with all of with all of the work we've been doing. We are trying to meet as many of your needs as we possibly can that's our jobs we recognize that. And I think overall from DPW to fire to police to to the clerk's office to accounting to to all of the people we serve out there, as well as, you know, you know committees and boards. Thank you everybody for their patience and for sticking it out and we've got a long way to go. But I think with patience and understanding we will get there as a town so thank you all. Great thank you Dave, Paul. Yeah, my, my, my last one will be Mary best number one which is vote early at the bank center mail in your ballot, you can also just drop off your ballot we have three reserved parking spaces right on the main street side of town hall you can park there for 15 minutes drop your ballot into the mail into the little box that's right there. That box gets empty multiple times a day by the town clerk's office. So it's it's really easy to do so make sure you do it much better than trying to vote on election day. And we've had a lot of people taking selfies and videos of themselves dropping off the ballot so don't hesitate if you want to if you want to do that please tag us and we'll, we'll share the voting the vote early love. All right, so I want to thank everybody who's joining us and everybody who's watching this. After the fact, we'll put this on our community chat playlist, and we will be back be back next Thursday at noon and every Thursday. After that except for Thanksgiving, we won't be here then. All right, thank you. Thank you all.