Hey guys it's Tilly and thank you for watching today. Today I'm going to be talking about my June wrap up. I absolutely smashed my June TV red pile. I actually read all the books I wanted to and some more which is really exciting because I haven't read very many books in quite a long time so it's really good to get back into reading and enjoying some good books and not enjoying some. So the first one that I've got which borderline was actually from last month but since I haven't actually done much reading I wanted to include it in this month's one otherwise I wouldn't really talk about it and that was House of Hollow by Crystal Sutherland. I read this for the Demix Jindala YA book club. The book itself I didn't really know what to expect were going into it. I decided to go into this book blind and there were concepts of it that I really liked. For instance the writing and the descriptions were very vivid and written really really well. I found myself getting dragged into the story however I wasn't a huge fan of the characters. They didn't feel very fleshed out and deep. I didn't really form a connection with them and the story itself was very very slow. The story itself follows three sisters when they were younger they all went missing and then they returned one month later and things started to change about them like their hair color and their eye color.  The oldest sister is kicked out of the home and we don't know why. The middle sister eventually decides to leave home as well and it's just the younger sister and the mum and one day they find out that the oldest sister has gone missing so the other two sisters reunite to try to find out what happened to the missing sister. I would give this book a 2.5 stars out of five. I did enjoy parts of it but overall the story just wasn't enough for me to fully enjoy it. Next up is a book that I probably liked the least out of any books that I have read in quite a long time and that is Layla by Colin Hoover. I'm a big fan of reading romance especially because they helped me to get out of reading slumps and I picked up Colin Hoover at the start of the month to try to get through some books and I really really did not like this story at all so this book is a romance. It follows a guy called Leeds who falls in love with a girl called Layla and they have a whirlwind romance. Everything happens very fast. They develop a lot of feelings for each other and then one day there's an accident and he decides to stay with her during this accident and down the track he's trying to rekindle their love so he takes her back to the place where they met but in the place where they met there was a girl called Willow who he starts to fall for. I believe I did do a Goodreads view. I don't know if it was spoiler free or not but there's parts in this book that I really really dislike um and the characters just feel really flat and the storyline itself was really really ridiculous. I currently say too much without ruining the story for those who do plan on reading it but I would give this one a one out of five stars. The next one that I read has easily become one of my favorite series and that is the Fetch Phillips series. It's the first two books. I've got The Last Smile in Sunday City and Dead Man in a Ditch by Luke Arnold. So these follow a character called Fetch Phillips. He is a morally grey character which I really liked and you get to watch him grow over these books and you find out his past, what he's currently doing and it's really really fun. He's a man for hire so you get into all these different situations but there's a lot of side characters as well that are really really great in this book and I found that when I read this book that this entire world that Luke Arnold has created is very vivid and like you know that you can walk down any of the streets in this city and it would be fully fledged out and that these characters all have this backstory and it just puts you right to the middle of this world with this character and the feelings that they feel and it's really really good. It's a fast paced book as well so it's very action packed and it's both character and plot driven so I really enjoyed it. Plus it also has magical aspects in it as well. It's basically like a really cool fantasy crime novel but set in a world similar to ours. Another one of my favorite reads from this month was Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Taylor Jenkins Reid is an automatic buy for me. Any of her books I have absolutely loved. My favorite of course is always going to be The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, then Daisy Jones in The Six and then Malibu Rising. I really resonated with the story because I have a lot of siblings myself actually the same amount in the book including myself, there's two sisters and two brothers so I could really relate to how these siblings all interacted and I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I liked having the parallels of her parents story and the kids being born to what they currently are like now in their lives and watching everything come together was both dramatic and fun and interesting and emotional. So this book follows Nina Riva who is the oldest of her siblings and it follows her story as what's going on in her and her siblings lives whilst also paralleling with how her parents met and how her parents' relationship grew and what happens with them and it would explain what's currently happening in their lives and things like that. All of these characters were just really really really well written and I really enjoyed watching them all interact as well so I think this book for itself is very very character driven and you either love them or you hate them but either way you get a lot of emotions from this book. The next book that I read was The Light of the Minutet Stars by Reena Rossner. I didn't enjoy this one very much. I think I went into this book expecting too much as the plot of this book sounds really really good but it was actually very slowly written and I found that the plot didn't really peak very much in this book. I do have aspects that I really liked like the folklore telling of the story and the magical and whimsical way it is written. The characters I didn't really relate with too much. I found that there wasn't much death to them unfortunately but there are definitely parts in this book where my emotions did get involved with the story. I think I ended up giving it two and a half to three stars out of five because I did enjoy the story I can't doubt that but it also just fell short for me. So this book follows three sisters and their father who is Rabbi Isaac. They live in this beautiful countryside and all the daughters have these magical abilities that differ from each other but are along the same lines. They live in Europe and there's a darkness spreading over Europe which is affecting how Jews live and so they all have to make a decision on what they're going to do to try to survive this. This book also has a lot of Jewish folklore in it and I really appreciated the way the author wrote about this and the research that was put into the book. At the end of it she does have references to a lot of the terms and stuff that she used to make it really accurate in the story which I really enjoyed. I learned quite a lot through that but I did still find there were aspects of the book that just didn't give it a high rating for me. Next up I read the audio book of Stormblood by Jeremy Zhao and this one I really really enjoyed. It's a really fast paste sci-fi book and I really really liked that. I read this very very quickly and I really eagerly am awaiting for the next one as well. So I have my Goodreads open it's probably going to give you guys a better description than what I could do at Justice so it is a vibrant and talented new voice in sci-fi fantasy. Alien technology, addictive upgrades, a soldier determined to protect his family and a thief who is prepared to burn the world down. It's very very good, very fast paced and the fighting scenes are very well written and I really enjoyed it. The next book is Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Melinda Lowe. I enjoyed this book in parts and other parts I didn't enjoy so much. The characters felt really flat for me which really upset me because I wanted to love them so much and parts of the story were really really slow but the book overall had a lot of emotions for me. So this book follows Lily who is 17 and she has been questioning a few things about herself but it's until she meets Catherine Miller underneath the light up sign of a lesbian bar that she realizes who she really is and her and Kathleen become friends and start to learn things about each other and take their relationship to the next level. However this book is based in 1954 and it's also set in Chinatown and so these two girls risk everything to have their chance at love. This book 3 stars out of 5. The next book that I have is a very very big book it is called Plain Bad Heroines. This is by Emily M Danforth. I read the physical copy of this book but I did switch to audio because I was really really struggling to finish this. This book had the potential of being really really really good and there were concepts just that I absolutely really loved but unfortunately I just did not enjoy the writing style of this book and it made it very very hard for me to keep picking the book up and enjoying it as much as I probably could have. This book has some parallel timelines and one of the more important ones is in 1902 you had two girls who fell in love that's Flo and Clara and they were also obsessed with the book called The Story of Mary MacLean. However after they started reading this book they had both found dead in the woods a month later and because about the school of croquants ends up closing down and over a hundred years later they decided to do a big film shoot retelling the story of Flo and Clara. However it is believed that this school is haunted and it still is to this day so you have this parallel plot line some going back about why the school is haunted and to the present time frame where these girls are now filming at this place and what is happening to them whilst they're there. Don't know if I gave it as much justice as it probably deserves. The storyline from the blurb is really really cool it sounds like it's going to be amazing but there is a lot of writing in here that was kind of pointless. It does build up to making the characters very well written though. I did enjoy the character aspect quite a bit but it did fall flat for me so I think I gave this one a two and a half three start reading. Next up is The Midnight Library by Matt Hague. I read this book really really quickly it was not what I was expecting at all but I have seen quite a few people give it quite high reviews. I think I gave this one four out of five stars and it came with a lot of emotions which I really liked. This book follows the main character who's Nora and Nora basically realises that her life is not where she wants it to be. She doesn't really have any meaningful connections or any drive to succeed in her life and that she has no prospects for her future so she decides one night to end her life. And when she does fall asleep that night she wakes up in a library and in this library every book is filled with where her life could have gone. As you can imagine she's going to read quite a few books and you get to step into what her life could have been with small changes or big changes. Basically Nora has to choose what she believes is the best life to live whether it's one of these books or one she could write for herself. I also fell very deceived by this because there is a cat on the cover and I thought there was going to be a library cat but unfortunately it's just a cat. It's in the book for like five pages it was very sad. The next one that I read is called The Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth McNeill. I took a while to realise that my cover was misprinted. I've tried to take so many beautiful photos of this book because it is really stunning with the gold foil but it is slightly misprinted from the indents on the actual book so it makes it really hard to photograph without the words looking kind of weird. I was pretty sad but I actually read the book and it was average. I read a lot of books this month that were just very average and it kind of sucked because I was like am I just picking the wrong books? But anyway this book is set in 1866. You follow a girl whose name is Nell and Nell was born with these birthmarks all over her skin that makes her look like a leopard. She lives with her father who she dislikes and her brother who she really loves and when this circus comes to town her father ends up selling her to the circus without telling anyone so she is basically kidnapped and taken away from her home and forced to perform in the circus. However once Nell is in this circus she realises that she loves the people who perform in the circus who are all different just like her. However that also leads to other problems like the ringleader not enjoying that he is no longer the star of the show but Nell is and it follows different storylines. It's got three different point of views. You had the ringleader, Nell and the ringleader's brother. I would rate this one three out of five stars. There were aspects that I enjoyed like some of the characters but the actual storyline fell very slow in parts and there were some choices in the book that I wasn't a huge fan of. However I did find that the ending of this book was really redeeming. It did not end how I expected it to end and I really enjoyed that. My second last book is Piranesi by Susanna Clark and I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. This is an arc of the book so it's not the actual complete cover. This did come out last year but it has just taken me that long to get around to it. I had no idea what to expect when I went to this book and I was really blown away by it. I don't really know what I read. I literally tried to explain this book to my boyfriend after I finished reading it and his response was that he can't comprehend the books that I read all the time because they're just so weird. Which tells a lot about the story and I also think it means that I like this book quite a lot because I like weird books. Basically this book follows Piranesi and he lives in a house and this house has infinite rooms and hallways and he has his whole system for how he explores this house and learns things about it. He also knows that there are 13 dead bodies in this house and he knows that he is a 14th person and that there is a man called the other who is the 15th person. He meets with the other twice a week and the other is trying to learn the great knowledge. Correction, a great and secret knowledge. However, as Piranesi tries to help him discover this knowledge, he finds out that some things just aren't the way it seems and he also learns there's going to be a 16th person coming to his house. He does not know if the 16th person is good or bad but regardless, the 16th person brings out some secrets that Piranesi has to come face to face with. I think that got it. I really enjoyed it. I would rate it 4 out of 5 stars. And the last book that I read is for the Dimmicks Joondalup YA Book Club of this month which is July. Hopefully we actually get to have it because Perth is currently on its last day of lockdown and fingers crossed it stays on its last day of lockdown because I would love to discuss this book. It took me so so long to actually get into this book but then I couldn't put it down last night when I had to finish it and that is The Ones Were Meant to Find by Joan Hee. I still don't really know what I would rate this book because it took so long to get into and you kind of get thrown into this world and you have to try to pick up the pieces and figure out what the hell is going on and it was very difficult to enjoy it at the start. So this book follows two sisters. You've got See who was the oldest sister. She went missing and she has washed up on this like little island by herself where she's now been living for three years trying to find a way back to her sister. She has lost a lot of her memories. She sees the world in black and white and has a lot of unanswered questions but all she knows is that she wants to build a boat and get off that island. Then you have Kay who is her youngest sister. Her timeline follows I believe it's like three months after her sister has disappeared and she's obviously trying to get answers on where her sister's gone and in that process she also learns some dark secrets about the world that they currently live in. So they live in an eco city which is a world that floats on the earth's surface. It's off the actual land because earth has been completely reduced due to how humans have treated it. There's mega quakes, there's tsunamis, there's heaps of things happening and the world is suffering. So it created these eco cities where selected humans could live knowing that they would survive such destruction. It's currently happening to planet earth. That's like a loss taken and that's just basically what's on the blurb. The actual story itself is a lot crazier and there are a lot more plot twists than that I expected. I still don't actually know if I enjoyed this book or not. It's literally like halfway or over halfway into this book before I actually started to enjoy it and I did really feel like I had to force myself to read it. I think the book itself was just very unique idea but all of it together was just kind of average but the cover is beautiful. So that's the 13 books that I've read in June. I'm currently reading The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant. I'm really enjoying this one and I don't know what I'm going to be reading after it. So that is all that I have for today. Thank you guys for watching. If you've read any of these books and enjoyed them let me know down below and if you have written any recommendations for my July TBR please let me know. I will also be putting up reviews for a lot of these onto my Goodreads. Some of them will be spoilering and some of them will be spoiler free. If you wanted to see any particular reviews of these books please let me know in the comments as well. Thank you guys for watching and have a lovely bookish day but oh no wrong way around.  The people were assholes but there was a lot of writing to get to this point.  Come here.


Well, this initiative is very important from the perspective that mobile today is not merely a tool to communicate, it is also a tool to transact, it is also a tool for getting information. So, it is actually a very versatile tool in the hands of the people and if we are able to you know ensure that this tool reaches everybody in the world, then every citizen of the world is empowered and therefore, I joined this group. I am the chairperson of the working group on access and affordability and we have done a significant amount of work to ensure as to what kind of steps are needed to ensure affordability and accessibility and that I think will further the basic goal of reaching everybody, reaching the unreached and connecting the unconnected. Global development goals are you know absolutely essential for us to and we should focus continue to be focused in that direction and as I said you know this is mobile is not merely a instrument of talking to each other, it is also an instrument of empowerment, information, dissemination, transactions and all these three things will ensure that we are able to create a world where we can achieve the SDGs.


This is going to be a very different video from what you usually see on my channel. You usually see me screaming, jumping around, having a time of my life, screaming tatakai or talking about chatarou, but I have been going through a lot in these past six months, mentally. And it's not about you guys, it's not about anime. Anime is like the best thing that's ever happened to me, let me be honest. So first and foremost, let's make that clear. It's not that I don't know what it is, but it's like, I want to be the person you see on my videos. I want to be that person.  But it's like when the camera turns off and I'm not doing a video, I'm laying down on my bed, looking up at the ceiling, asking myself, what am I doing with my life? Who am I? Why am I depressed? I have everything I want or at least what I think I wanted. Why am I not happy? Why am I so lost? You know, with streaming, I noticed a lot. With a video, when I do a YouTube video, I could bottle up my energy for a day and then record that video, and it takes about 20 to 30 minutes, unless I'm doing a longer episode, then it's like 40 minutes, maximum 40 minutes. When I stream, we're talking two, three hours, and I'm not faking my reactions. I'm not faking my excitement and happiness, because I have to go to my job, I have to put on a smile. I'm not doing that. That's the only time I am happy. So it's like the opposite. I'm not faking it. I'm putting it on. I'm being my true self. I don't know if that makes sense, but. I've realized with streaming, it put a lot of things into perspective. Like is, could I do this? Could I use this energy for that amount of time? Because I'm exhausted after a stream.  I am at like my maximum amount of communication at that time. And I don't want to be like that. I don't. And I thought if I kept doing it more and more, I would get there. But it just gets worse. And I want to stream. I want to do more. I want to talk to you guys. It's not like I'm forcing myself to do this, but I just can't right now. I can't. And I hope you understand.   I would not be here if it wasn't for YouTube and the amount of people that watch me and message me. But with all that being said, I don't know if I can stream right now because it just takes too much out of me, especially what I've been going through these past six, seven months. It's like I have to get to the point where I have to fake. Not not fake, but where I have to push myself over the limit. And I already do my videos and I'm fine with that. The videos will continue. I'm fine with doing videos. YouTube is easy for me. And I'm doing YouTube videos, but Twitch streaming, it really put things in a perspective and highlighted my real problem. And I told you guys I would do this one piece Saturday stuff where every Saturday I would do 10 episodes and then I lowered it to five and it wasn't because of copyright. It's because I just can't do 10. I can't be live that long right now without having a nervous breakdown and a panic attack or even worse. So if I feel terrible not being able to commit to something like that, because I know people get excited to watch my streams. I know people get excited to watch one piece with me and to see my reactions. But I think right for now, for now, I need to take my focus off Twitch and put it all into YouTube, continue my daily content, react in the episodes of animes, animes that I dropped because of streaming, Vinland Saga Arcane, Full Metal Alchemist. I dropped these animes on my channel because streaming just took so much out of me. But I don't want to be like that. I want to stream. It's been my dream to do that. I want to be a YouTuber, a streamer. I want to be one of those big streamers and YouTubers. That's my goal. I live for that. And that might be a childless dream, but you know, it's mine. I want to do that, but I can't do it right now.  But I hope you understand that not everything you see is what it really is. You know, you see on Instagram, these people have an amazing lives, but that's just that picture in the moment. And with my videos, it's like the video in the moment. Once that camera's off, I'm just like the rest of the people. Rest of these stressed out kids in the world. I'm not even a kid. I'm an adult. I'm just stressed out. And I need to work on this. I need to work on my mental health. And I hope you understand that, but the videos are not stopping. YouTube will always be here for me. Twitch is just going to be on pause. I don't know for how long. I don't want to give schedules out because then I feel so bad when I don't fulfill the schedule. When I say that I can't do a day because of the way I feel because of what I'm going through, but I just can't even look myself in the mirror nowadays. And I need to fix that. I need to work on myself for the first time. I need to put myself first. And I love to put it you guys first. I'll always make you my main priority, but I think right now I need to just work on me. I just need to make sure I'm healthy and I don't do anything that could hurt people. I've become bitter. I've become very pissed off at everything.   I'm on edge. I'm on the edge and I don't want to fall. I don't want to fall. I'm right at the end and I can't. I can't fall. I got to step back. I got to take that step back, reevaluate things, come back to reality and understand that it's okay to feel like this. And I shouldn't have to ask people if I could put my mental health first. But I just hope it's okay with you guys. But yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't want to lower a mood. I didn't want to ruin a mood. I just needed to get this out. My heart's been beating all day. I just had a family vacation for like three days of my family and I just had a lot of time to think about this and it just made me realize that I need to fix myself. Not only for me, but for you guys. I want to make better content for you. I want to be genuine. And like I said, this isn't me putting on an act to do a video or to stream. It's me being myself.  So being on camera is a distraction for me. When I'm distracted, it's like I'm happy. And I just need to find a way not to fall into that. I don't want the only time to be happy is when I'm on camera. I want to always be happy. But now it's affecting my personal life. I don't go out my friends. They always invite me out like every other day, every week. And I don't go out. I haven't been out my friends in months. They invite me out almost every day. I haven't been out with a girl since last November. I should be living my life, hanging out with my friends, seeing family, having fun, going on vacations, meeting a girl, starting a family. I should be doing all of this. But I'm not. And it's this. It's my mental.  And I got to fix that. But yeah, I'm sorry again. But at the same time, I'm not sorry because I got to put myself first. But you guys mean everything to me. And I don't want to let you down. And I know this is going to turn a lot of people off from my channel because they think I'm faking now. But I hope they watched the entire video to understand what the real problem is. But yeah, guys, videos continue tomorrow. Spy family. We got tomorrow. But right now, I'm just putting streaming on hold. We'll be back though. And when I come back, I'm going to be at my best. I'm going to take over. And I'm going to be one of the best to do it. That's my plan. I think one and three are the exact same thing. So even when I'm doing an emotional video, I have to make a joke. I'm so sorry. It was so hard not making a joke during this video. Yeah, whatever, man. I love you guys. But yeah, I got to learn to love myself too.


Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the mind in its processes. It examines the nature, tasks and the functions of cognition. Cognitive scientists study intelligence and behavior with a focus on how nervous systems represent, process and transform information. The human brain weighs approximately 3 pounds or 1.4 kilograms, although it only makes up about 2% of the total body weight of an adult human being. Brain tissue consumes a large amount of energy in proportion to its volume. Most of the brain's energy consumption goes into sustaining the electrical charge of the neurons. Cognitive vertebrae species devote about 2 to 8% of basic metabolism to the brain. In primates, however, the percentage is much higher. In humans, it can rise to as much as 20 to 25%. The mind is composed of approximately 100 billion neurons, connected together into a neural network. Neural networks are made of neurons and connections between them called axons, which have synapses where the different neurons meet. Neurons generate electrical signals that travel along their axons. When a pulse of electricity reaches a junction called a synapse, it causes a neurotransmitter chemical to be released, which binds to receptors on other cells and thereby alters their electrical activity. The property that makes neurons unique is their ability to send signals to specific target cells over long distances. They send these signals by means of axons, which is a thin protoplasmic fiber which extends from the cell body and projects, usually with numerous branches to other areas sometimes nearby, sometimes in distant parts of the brain or body. Each of the 100 billion neurons has on average 7,000 synapse connections to other neurons. In its functioning, a neuron is a form of switch, that is to say a cell that is either on or off. Any given neuron has a number of inputs from other neurons. If those inputs are above a given threshold, then it is activated and fires. If a neuron is activated, it then sends out signals to other neurons that it's connected to. Its output then becomes the input to other neurons. Where the output to one neuron meets the input to another, there is a synapse. These synapses change in their chemical composition as one learns in order to create stronger connections. In such a way, the cognitive system can develop and changes over time to form new patterns of neural networks. The brain is physically built as a neural network and cognition happens in patterns. Every pattern corresponds to an idea or memory. If two neurons are turned on when a pattern is stimulated, then the synaptic connection between them becomes stronger. If they are not on at the same time, then the connection between them becomes weaker. Over time, if the same pattern keeps getting excited, then the connections get stronger between the neurons that are activated. After a time, a pattern can form that remains there even when not excited. By repeating something over and over, a pathway is activated to form a pattern. This pattern is a memory or concept that one can then use for cognition. The brain is hardwired to discern patterns. Humans have a well-documented tendency for pattern recognition. It is both a great cognitive strength, but also can be a weakness because we may see patterns that do not actually exist. Humans are generally very good at pattern recognition, so good in fact that we may often see patterns that are not actually there. Brain processing is based largely on processes of pattern cognition, which matches the underlying biological structure of the brain as a massive parallel processor with many connecting neural networks. One of the advantages of this is our innate strength at making connections between different ideas, visual patterns, words, events, objects, etc. Pattern recognition is filtered through a particular module of the brain that undertakes what is called reality testing. We see many apparent patterns in the world around us, and then we run these patterns through a reality testing algorithm to decide whether it agrees with our internal model of reality. Once one has formed a pattern, exciting one part of the network may then stimulate the full pattern. For example, a slight aroma of fresh bread in the kitchen can trigger a whole network of connections associated with some memory in a cafe a few years earlier. We identify and learn about things in relation to pre-existing patterns within our conscience. This means one can only learn something new or understand something if one can associate it with something one already knows about. If we want to communicate with someone, we have to accommodate the fact that what we can say has to be associated with something they already know for it to be effectively interpreted. We can learn something new very quickly if we can associate it with other things and fit it into a larger pattern. We can readily identify a new type of dog as an instance of our pre-existing pattern of a generic dog. Likewise, we think and learn by association, and thus when explaining something new we typically give an example as this helps to create the associations. The mind is a hierarchically layered network structure with this hierarchy being based on abstraction, that is to say more basic patterns on the lower levels are used as the building blocks for higher, more abstract patterns. Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process by which general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of more specific examples, that is to say more concrete forms. In the development of the brain more basic patterns are formed and then grouped to create higher level patterns. The patterns to one layer become the input to another layer. The lowest level of abstraction is connected directly to the senses, providing the data or facts that are inputted. We then build up higher level patterns through a process of abstraction and synthesis, abstracting away the specific instances in synthesizing them into generic forms.  It is possible for our brain to hierarchically control lower level functions from higher levels all the way down to the most basic primitive levels down to our brain stem. We can directly control very basic functions within our brain stem, such as the regulation of our breathing and maintenance of balance from our most abstract and advanced levels of consciousness. Much of our cognition takes place subconsciously in the more primitive parts of our brain, where the emotions take place. Emotions make quick decisions for us that are mainly adaptive, including such states as fear, lust, hunger, happiness and sadness. Emotions provide us with a very direct behavioral motivation. It is much easier for us to feel repelled by something like a piece of rotten food rather than for us to have to reason through it to generate a response. Without these emotions, we would have to reason everything through, but with them, we simply experience the emotion, such as fear when presented with a dangerous predator, and then we can react quickly based upon that emotion, without need for advanced cognition. Our decisions seem to be conscious, but they are often made subconsciously by an evolutionary neurobiological calculus that we are not aware of. Emotions are subconscious and involuntary. We do not choose to feel fear, we just feel fear and then invent a reason to explain why we feel it, with varying degrees of correspondence between the emotional cause and the rationalization. In addition to decision making, intuition is a form of subconscious processing. For example, emotional processing, social cues and the monitoring of our internal state are largely subconscious processes. An interesting piece of research in this regard is a 2008 paper published in Nature magazine using fMRI scanning to look at brain activity while subjects were undergoing a decision making test to reveal the degree of unconscious thought processing involved. What these tests showed was that the decision was often present in the subjects brain 10 seconds prior to them actually being conscious of it. Approximately 60% of the time, the researchers were able to tell what decisions the individuals were going to make before they were conscious of it. This piece of research illustrates how subconscious activity may often come to decisions before we're even consciously aware of them.


Around Dodge City and in the territory on West, there's just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers, and that's with the U.S. Marshal and the smell of gun smoke. Gun smoke, starring William Conrad, the story of the violence that moved West with Young America, and the story of a man who moved with it. I'm that man, Matt Dillon, the United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet. It's a chancey job, and it makes a man watchful, and a little lonely. And it has been a pleasure riding with you both, too, and that's a fact. Where, Mr. Dillon? Hello, Chester. Well, I'd say are you meeting somebody on the stage? As a matter of fact, I am. Well, I'd be glad to point him out to you. I got to know everybody real well.  Well, thanks, Chester, but I see him, all right. Well, maybe I can introduce you. Which one is he? Follow the name of Chester Proudfoot. You got to know him fairly well. Well, Mr. Dillon, you mean you come down here just to meet me? Well, any law against it? Well, no, sir. Well, say, now, that's awful nice of you, Mr. Dillon. That's awful nice. Do you have a nice trip, Chester? Yes, sir. I sure did, Mr. Dillon. Just as nice as can be. Why, they couldn't have treated me no better if I'd have been a friend. Well, that's good. You find your family all right. Well, sure. They were right there for us, looking for them. Well, that was kind of a little joke, Mr. Dillon. It was just a way of speaking kindly. I didn't really mean it.  Well, sir, we did do a lot of joshing. I'll say that. Uncle Wesley, he might have come for me. And Magnus was home and well. He was just cutting up all the time. Must be dangerous, rather. How's that? Never mind.  Yes, you did. A guy would come down right over there. All right. No, no, no, no, now, Mr. Dillon. I can handle him all right. Oh, well. Before I forget, Chester, do you have any trouble picking up those papers in Dahlhardt? What papers is that? The papers in Dahlhardt, Chester. Me? You forgot them? Yes. Chester, you said you'd pick them up for me on your way back through the panhandle. I know I did. I swear I must have clean forgot. I was having such a good time there as my people and all, and it just must have knocked it right out of my head. I guess too much cutting up could do that, all right. Oh, now I just feel terrible about that.  Well, don't worry about it, Chester. We'll get him some other way. If you want me to, I'll turn right around and go back. No, no. No, me not. Never mind, Chester. I'd really kindly enjoy it, Mr. Dillon, taking another long ride. Come on, Chester. I better take you to the office before you forget where it is.  All right, Denny Marshall, I'm riding out that way tomorrow. I can swing back by Dahlhardt just as easy as not. I'll pick up your papers for you. I sure appreciate it, Joe. I don't know how Chester could have forgotten them, but you know how he is. He must be. There's just no telling about Chester. Oh, excuse me, Joe. I didn't see you coming out. Don't hurt to keep your eyes open, Chester. Do you ever think of that? Well, they was open. It was just around here. I'll see you later, Marshall. So long, Joe. Thanks. Mr. Dillon. Would you close the door? Chester, the wind's blowing these papers. I'm trying to get signed. Oh, yes, sir. Mr. Dillon. Yeah. Was you and Joe free talking about me just now? What? Well, I could have swore. I heard you saying my name when I come in. Joe's going to pick up those papers. You forgot, Chester. Joe's getting it. He's going clear to Dahlhardt. Yeah, he's going clear to Dahlhardt. Well, for just your sake, Mr. Dillon, you haven't already got somebody else to do that. I could go just easy now. No, Chester. It's all been arranged. But now, I can do anything Joe Freese can do. I can get them papers for you myself. Don't worry about it, Chester. Now, Mr. Dillon, why don't I just be online? I've been trying to get through this paperwork all afternoon.  Well, I will, but I don't see why. Go on, Chester. Yes, sir. Go on. I got things to tend to. Yes. Beer? Whiskey? Well, thank you, Sam, but to tell the truth, I don't think I want a thing. Sure? Yes, sir. I just think I'll just kindly stand here for a little bit. It's all same to you. All right. Wouldn't you think now that anybody taking up room at the bar ought to at least buy a drink? Never mind, Lund. It's all right. Everybody else comes into a saloon to buy a drink. Not that Chester, though. He just comes in to lean on the bar and look like a two-fisted drink. Ain't that right, Chester? Well, yeah, I guess that's what it looks like. All right. Wouldn't you think now that the marshal would get himself a real man for help of somebody that could do a decent job for him? Well, Lund, I'd do a lot of things for Mr. Dillon. Well, I'd like to hear about that. Come on, boys. Chester's about to tell us how he runs the marshal's office. No, I ain't saying I run the office. I ain't saying that at all. Well, go on then. Tell us what you do-do. Well, there's a lot of things that are due. I go for the mail and I see that the horses get took good care of and I go along with Mr. Dillon on a good many of his trips. Go on, Chester. Tell us what else you do for the marshal. Well, I help every way I know how. I make a pretty good cup of coffee and I keep the lamps clean and filled up with coal oil. Yeah, that's what a U.S. marshal needs. All right, somebody to keep his lamps filled for him. Now, I don't see what's all far and funny about that. Oh, and something I forgot to mention. Sometimes when Mr. Dillon's too busy, well, he sends me out to do things for him to save him the trip or the trouble you might say. Like bringing them papers from Dalhottes? Because you couldn't even know about that. All right, it's all over town, ain't it, boys? Our Chester come all the way back without them papers. Yeah, don't seem like Mr. Dillon to go around talking like that. Well, now, he didn't, Chester. Joe Freese was in here for a drink a few minutes ago. He told me about it. And I guess it was some big ears listening. Now, come on now, Chester. Have a drink. It'll make you feel better. No, no thanks, Sammy. I guess I better be getting along. Don't worry too much, Chester. Everybody needs something to laugh at. You sure do a job for the marshal that way. Is this a professional call? You look kind of seedy. Oh, my no, Doc. I ain't sick. I just thought maybe I'd pay a little visit and see how you're getting along. Well, that's nice of you, Chester. Now, I'd be glad to tell you. I'm getting along real bad. Well, I'm sure I'm sorry to hear that. It's a cold miserable day. The supplies I sent for didn't get here. I've got calls to make at different ends of the county. You want to hear any more? I don't know, Doc. That sure does sound troublesome. It is. You've settled down from your trip yet? Oh, of course, Doc. Once I get my boots off, I'm home. And I suppose matters managing to get used to having you around again? What do you mean? Oh, I don't know, Chester. It's just that you take some getting used to. Oh, good lord, it's three o'clock. I've got to get going. Hand me that bottle, will you? Oh, well, sure, Doc. No, no, no, not that one. That's the other one. Thank you. Uh, Doc? No, no, I haven't had the time to talk to you much, Chester. Now, you can come back some other day. Would you just let me ask you one question? All right, then. What is it? Well, Doc, I just wondered if you've got any idea at all just what Mr. Dillon really thinks about me, I mean, having me around for help or not? What do you think? Oh, for heaven's sake, some of all the food is time-wasting. Could you please tell me, Doc? Yes, sir, Chester, I can tell you. He thinks you're the most adorapated, no account, Siv had an excuse for a helper than anybody ever had.  Oh, sure. I don't want to be in your way. You want to waste no time getting back on the job, Mr. Jonas? What do you mean? Well, if I don't do nothing else around here, I can at least see Mr. Dillon don't run out of stores. I come in for some coal, some coffee, and a couple new wicks for the lands. That's what I was telling you. What? You're too late. Marshall was in here, oh, I expect about half hour ago. He was? Was he looking for me? I just been up to Doc's office there. It wasn't you he was looking for, Chester. It was some supplies. Well, a new lamp chimney? Coffee? Well, forevermore, I could have got him for him. Then Marshall was looking at it that way too. He was saying he sure didn't know why you'd let everything run out at once. I sort of got the impression that he didn't think you were doing your job, Chester. He couldn't have been funding about it, could he? He didn't sound like it to me, Chester. Sounded as though he was real provoked. I guess he ain't even laughing at me no more. How's that? Well, never mind, Mr. Jonas. I guess he ain't no call for me to buy nothing after all. Have another whiskey, Van. All right, London. Well, look who's just come in. Marshall Dillon's right-hand man. Well, he's got two left-hands. Why don't you leave him be, London? He's not smart enough to know the difference. Hello there, Chester. You've been out on some big job for the Marshall?  This hand's Miss K. Reynolds. Yes, she is, Chester, sitting at the back table over there. Thank you. I want to see her for a minute. I can't believe it. That sounds like too much even for Chester. No, it's true, Kenny. You're right. Nobody in the world but Chester would do a thing like that. Oh, hello, Chester. Come on over and sit down. No thank you, Miss Kitty. I got things to tend to. What's the matter, Chester?  No, sir, Mr. Dillon. I think I've ever been moving along. Oh, I guess you think this is too important for us.  What's the matter, Chester? Didn't you find her? I found her, Sam. I found her all right. Hello, Jim. Is Matt in the long branch there? Yeah, he's in there all right. I got a telegraph message for him. That's so... Oh, he's in there, Jim, at the back table with Miss Kitty. Oh, I thought you'd want to take it to him. I got things to tend to. You take it in. Oh, all right, then. It's from Joe Freese. Joe Freese? Yeah, he's heading for Arizona. He ain't coming back from down hard after all. I don't know why the Marshal didn't care about that. He ain't coming back. Well, that's what he said. Uh, give it to me, Jim. I'll take it. Well, choose a section.  You belong back in that office, Jim, watching that telegraph key every minute. Give that message to me. Say, it's from some pie mat. It's elderberry. That's a good thing Chester isn't here. He's eating up the whole thing by now. Yeah, it's a wonder to me how Chester's stomach keeps on working at all the way he loads it down. He must be doing something mighty important. This is a meal. Where'd you send him, Matt? I didn't send him anywhere, Kitty. I haven't even seen him all day. Yeah, it's funny. I haven't seen him either. Well, that's kind of strange, isn't it? He's probably sick. Well, it was him to see me yesterday when he was saying about being sick. He acted kind of funny, though. Oh, how's that got? Well, he was pestering me with darnful questions. He wanted to know what you really thought of him, Matt, as a helper. Well, what you're telling? Well, I told him you thought he was an adorapated, shiv-headed, no-cow, of course. How else would you answer a full question like that? Yeah. What about what got into him? I'm not sure with such a full question. What do you mean, Kitty? Well, I'm just remembering. Sam told me the boys at the bar were giving Chester a bad time yesterday.  Oh, Mud Hope was writing them hard about his job with you, but how nobody could figure out how you'd put up with a man like Chester. Oh, Chester can usually take a joke. Well, I don't think Lud was making a joke of it, Matt. He was making Chester look pretty silly. He said you only kept him on to laugh at him, and before he was finished, the whole saloon was laughing at Chester. Well, that explains it, huh? I wish I had been a little more patient with him. The way he was feeling what I said couldn't have sounded very funny. Well, I have better sense, Doc. Well, Chester's sensitive, Matt. You know that? Yeah, but he should know that if I got any complaints, I'll make him myself. Well, you were complaining to him quite a bit yesterday, weren't you? Well, sure. But he was still miles away on his trip. I had to bring him down to Earth a couple of times, and so on. Well, I guess everybody was bringing him down to Earth at the same time. Poor Chester. I even laughed at him when he came into the long run. Well, I'll say this, if he was going to choose a day to hold up and not make an appearance, this is a good one. That wings bitter cold. There isn't any sense to it, but I guess I better look him up and straighten him out. Maybe some of this cry will help his treatment. Yeah. I'll see you later, Kitty. Doc. Hi, Matt. Business must be bad at the telegraph office. No, I've trained my boy to spell me. I just wondered if you got that wire all right, Marshal. Which wire was that? The one I gave Chester yesterday. The one from Joe Freed. Joe Freed? You know, saying he wasn't coming back from Balehart? Oh, oh, oh. Yeah. Yeah, sure, John. Thanks. Thanks a lot. That's the way it was, Marshal. He'd come in for his horse early this morning and rode out. Did he say where he was heading, Marshal? That's the funny thing, he was just getting back and on. He said he was heading for Texas. Subtle up my horse, will you? I want to go pick up a few things. Sure, Marshal. And I'll tell you like I told Chester, this is a poor time to be on the plains without no other common dump. Yeah, I'll be back for the horse in a few minutes, Marshal. Afternoon, Marshal. I'd like to talk to you. Not now, Mr. Just take a minute. Huh? I've heard of you. I'll walk along to your office with you. Listen, Holt, do you have anything to say to me you say it fast? Well, sure. It takes a little talking over, though. I was thinking maybe you could use a good man. I mean, a good one. Real man who can handle a gun. I got him, Assistant. Oh, I know. Marshal, you got Chester to behave by nose. He ain't... I'll say one thing for you, Holt. You got plenty of nerve. Sure, I have, Marshal. I could do a lot of good.  Well, you know, Marshal, everybody knows Chester's only good for laughing at him. Well, there's going to be one less person laughing at him. And that's you. Let's give up. From now on, Holt, you stay out of my way. I'm back there. That's why I pulled up. People I know who are darned fools enough to be out on a day like this. Well, if he isn't my chewy, I'll say that. Yeah, I said, what are we didn't both freeze to death in the night? Uh, Mr. Dillon, ain't none of my business, but just why are you riding out this way? I'm trailing a man. Oh, would you like me to help you? No, I won't need any help, Chester. I won't have any trouble finding him. He doesn't have any more sense than you do getting out of a storm.  That's so? Yes, sir, that's so. I'd just like to know how you're going to get them papers back from Dalhart if somebody don't go to him. Why didn't you bring me that wire from Joe Freeze? Because I know you give me some silly shali about not making the trip in Mr. Dillon. I just got to make it. I'd like to do something right. After all, I forgot them papers once, and they're important. Chester, a man's life is important, too. Yes, sir, I expect it is. An ad-opated, no-accounts-siv-headed so-and-so. Mr. Dillon? Who lets the lamps run dry and runs out of coffee. Mr. Dillon, you... Can't sing a note and even whistles off key. And everybody laughs at him? Let's get back to dusk. Directed by Norman McDonnell, stars William Conrad as Matt Dillon, U.S. Marshall. The story was specially written for Gunsmoke by Marion Clark with editorial supervision by John Meston. Featured in the cast were Ken Lynch, Harry Bartel, Joseph Kearns, Frank Cady, and James Muthers. Barley Baer as Chester, Howard McNeer as Doc, and Georgia Ellis as Kitty. This is George Walsh inviting you to join us again next week for another story on Gunsmoke. Over the CBS Radio Network.


cried and I cried and I cried right in front of my new boss. It was one of the most embarrassing things ever to happen in my life but also one of the most defining moments of my entire career. I'm telling my story today of how this once corporate meeting planner gave up her planning career and embarked on a scary and new adventure in the meetings and events industry. Want to take a peek behind the curtain? Hey friends it's Leanne and the meetings and events industry knows me professionally as a site selection professional but that wasn't where my career started. In fact I was a corporate and association meeting planner for almost nine years before I embarked on a new adventure and decided to join the scary world of site selection. And while I was still in the same industry that change in my job description was a huge learning curve and quite scary at the time. And as I see a number of professionals from our industry trying to redefine who they are as they either seek new employment or their job descriptions are changing in their organization. I wanted to share with you some of the things that I went through when I had to make the huge switch from being a meeting planner to being in a sales position in the meetings industry. When I was a meeting planner I had a great job with a corporate company in downtown Calgary. It really was a meeting planner's dream come true job. But there were a few things missing in that role that over the months and the years it started to take its toll on me. I didn't have a lot of access to professional development dollars to hone my skills as a meeting planner nor was I provided any opportunity to join professional associations and bring back that knowledge back into the corporation. And to no fault of the corporation's own it wasn't a priority for their spending dollars to enhance the career of a meeting planner in one of their departments. But those challenges did take its toll and so I decided to leave that corporate job and go on a journey to really discover what it was that I loved about meeting planning and maybe even discover some things that I didn't like about meeting planning. First thing I did was I enrolled in some of those career training courses. You know the courses that teenagers and high school students take to learn what they want to be when they grow up. Well at 35 years of age I found myself doing it again and trying to redefine what it was I wanted to do with the rest of my career. And I also joined a professional association. Meeting professionals international had a Calgary chapter and I wanted to get involved and really see if meetings was the place for me. And so I joined right away. One of the biggest things I learned through that exploration of career options, the exploration of options in the meetings industry and through MPI was that as much as I loved being a meeting planner it was the post-event depression and the post-event feedback and forms and reports that really dragged me down. In fact I would fall into a depression for days even longer if it was a large event. I the build up to planning a big event and then have it all be over in a matter of hours was just too much and I found myself extremely sad and depressed and not looking forward to anything once that big event was over. So through that discovery I realized I needed to find a role that wasn't going to depress me at the end of a large event. But I wasn't sure how to do that in the meetings and events space. Then I started attending the MPI meetings in Calgary and I believe it was the second meeting when I found myself at a round table with a gentleman from Texas of all places who had come up to Calgary to try and build a team for his organization ironically in site selection. After chatting with him and chatting with my husband there were two things that really stood out about this potential opportunity. Number one it was the opportunity for me to build something from scratch. I was always an entrepreneur at heart always someone who loved to work from home and thrived in a work from home environment and this role provided both for me. But secondly it eliminated that post-event depression that I was starting to fear by going back into a full-time meeting planning role. So I decided to take the leap and I moved from being a corporate meeting planner into a full-time site selection entrepreneur. I was self-motivated, I was energized, I was excited about this opportunity. There was something that I just wasn't getting a handle on especially in those early days and it caused me to fall into an even bigger depression. You see prior to joining site selection I had never been a sales person. Even my roles as a young adult they were in the hospitality industry as a server at a restaurant but never as a full-time sales professional like our hotel sales professionals that you work with today. And so my training in sales began and my first experience was with my new boss down in the Houston office where we were doing some sales role playing and some flashcards about objections. We started a role playing exercise and I just stopped and started to cry. I felt in my core there was no way I was going to learn how to do this. It was so overwhelming. Now keep in mind for you ladies I was pregnant at the time so that may have been playing around with my emotional state as well but the point is it was terrifying and I was absolutely horrified at the thought of now trying to build a business using sales. I just could not do it and I thought I was going to quit but I'm not a quitter and so I came back to my Calgary home office and I started to hit the proverbial pavement and try and build this site selection business with no sales skills under my belt. But here's the thing about facing a career change and a challenge. It gives you opportunity to of course learn new skill sets and so as the days the weeks the months and now years have gone on I have honed my sales skills and I keep changing them and it's still a learning curve. Some things I try they work phenomenal some things I try they fall flat but the point is is that you need to keep trying and trying new things. So wherever you find yourself in your career journey during this incredibly weird season of life I'm hopeful that my challenge and struggle in trying to learn a new skill set and all the complexities that came with that even being in the same industry you might find yourself with a similar mountain to climb but the view at the top of the mountain is spectacular and I'm very hopeful that you do even have a mountain that you need to climb because there's no better feeling than adding another skill set to your resume and adding another challenge to your things that you've conquered in your lifetime and this is definitely one of these times. Stick around for future blog posts because I am going to explore how you discover your strengths your skills your passions in life and how you can weave them into your next career position. It's something I did 13 years ago but it's something I've also been doing through COVID as I've also redefined how I provide service and value to the meetings industry. Friends wherever you find yourself on your journey today and it may be polishing off a resume and hitting the pavement please be encouraged that you have an incredible skill set and you have the ability to change and grow and adapt to whatever challenges may come your way. Best of luck all of my friends please stay safe healthy and happy. Bye for now.


Hi, I'm Gavin Smith from the School of Sociology in Cass Research School of Social Sciences. I'm very honoured to be alongside Professor Michael McRobbie, who is among many things the 18th president of Indiana University, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, an officer of the Order of Australia and significantly the ANU alumnus of the year 2015, which is fabulous. Professor McRobbie, welcome back to the ANU and many congratulations to you on your receiving this prestigious award. Thank you very much, Gavin. It's a delight to be back at ANU as always. Fabulous. So you graduated from ANU with a PhD in philosophy 35 years ago or so. Can you perhaps describe in brief terms the key events that have propelled you to your current role as president of IU, a university that has over 7,000 faculty and nearly 115 or maybe up now over 115,000 students? So I'd just like to ask you some of the key events as you see them that's led to this. Oh, I think one of the key events was that right towards the end of my PhD research here, I started to get interested in the application of certain computational techniques in the work that I was doing. There were a number of other people who were working in related areas who had just started to use computational techniques in other ways as well. One thing led to the other and basically my career moved into information technology very rapidly. And when I came back here as a faculty member in 1983, I really started to pursue those areas and I got involved due to a request from the then deputy vice chancellor Ian Ross, a man who I have an enormous opinion of and very sad he passed away some years ago. But he was a great mentor to me. But Ian really asked me to take on some significant administrative roles in building up information technology. And then the other piece of great fortune was I became very close friends with Robin Stanton, who I think his last position he was as provost chancellor, one of the truly great servants of ANU. And he and I became extremely close collaborators for the rest of my time at ANU. And I think there were a number of things that we accomplished there. So I was more and more involved in aspects of information technology and some of the things we had done here it attracted the attention of people in the United States and in particular at Indiana University where I had connections for other reasons going back many years. And when the position was created of chief information officer I was invited to apply which I did and was appointed actually at the end of 1996 but I took up the position at the beginning of 1997 so for nearly 20 years now I've been at Indiana University. Thank you very much. Let's return to Sunny Canberra for a moment if we may. Can I ask what were some of your fondest memories from your time at the ANU? What are some things that really stand out about what makes ANU such a fabulous place to study? I mean the intellectual atmosphere at ANU, I mean I can't speak about every Australian university I haven't been a degree at Australian University but the intellectual atmosphere here is as good as the best American universities in my experience. The time when I was an undergraduate there would be one legendary speaker after the other in different fields and I would take advantage of it when you're a graduate student you at least have some free time to do these things to go and listen to people and rather feel. So for example I heard Paul Dirac, the famous physicist then alive since passed away, come and give a number of lectures here. Sir Ozair Berlin was a resident here I think for a couple of weeks so I heard him give through four lectures and it just went on like Roger Penrose was here for a period. So people like that would come through all the time and I think the ability to be able to see people of that quality in a whole range of different disciplines was wonderful. Also I think because of I don't know whether they still exist but the ANU PhD scholarships which I had one which were used to attract very good students from around Australia and around the world I think attracted really extraordinary students here and I had the great fortune of working with some then students but people who went on to do good things in their careers and just the quality of the faculty here really was the case that in the Institute for Advanced Studies where I was by and large the people who were faculty there were just world class figures and had many cases world class reputations. So all of that made this just a superb intellectual environment and on top of that it is and I'm happy to say this on here it is the most beautiful campus in Australia it really is it's stunningly beautiful campus I walked around this that afternoon for a few hours and it is just as beautiful and has got some really interesting innovative architecture and all credit to those responsible for pushing the architectural envelope a bit. Thank you very much. College of Arts and Sciences of Indiana University and ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences have recently extended this very exciting exchange agreement for faculty and students. What are your thoughts on the importance of exchanges between university, something I know from looking into your biography, this is something you're a proponent of, internationalisation, these kinds of outreaches and what can people coming to Indiana University expect in terms of Bloomington as a place to work to study and to live? Well Bloomington Indiana is the quintessential American college down. I mean there are dozens probably hundreds of college towns like Bloomington Indiana. We of course are a very very large university we're a member of the what's called the AAU, the equivalent of the group of eight in Australia. So student coming to Bloomington goes to a large university extremely high quality university we've had eight Nobel Prize winners there including recently the first woman to get the Nobel Prize in Economics. And so they have this really outstanding intellectual environment as well with again the same kind of enormous diversity that ANU has. But you get in a small town in the rural Midwest which is a very different environment than being in a big city, even Canberra certainly than being in a place like Sydney and certainly being in a big American city, Chicago or Detroit or New York or something like that. And that I think has proven to be just enormously attractive to students to have that experience. It's an experience frankly not unlike that that you have at Oxford or Cambridge. It's that kind of an experience where by and large you're in a relatively small city in a kind of rural environment. That sounds very attractive. You have a background in both computer science and the liberal humanities. Could you maybe talk a little bit about the role and significance of interdisciplinary and trans institutional scholarship in a world that's becoming infinitely more connected and complex? Well, I just, I'm a huge supporter and proponent of interdisciplinary multidisciplinary studies. I just think that many of the most interesting problems and the most creative solutions to problems come out of multidisciplinary collaborations. But having said that, I always want to emphasize that you still need the disciplinary pillars. People still need the deep education in one or more areas. But then have the flexibility and the breadth of interest to be able to consider the techniques and knowledge and expertise that they have in the context of broader problems that may involve dozens of other people. I mean it is, I know it's a feature here of many programs that I knew. It is certainly the feature of many programs at IU and of course many other great American universities. Looking forward prophetically, how do you envisage the university system of 2050? What do you anticipate to be the key dimensions, structures and features of higher education delivery to move through the 21st century? Difficult question, but I just love to gather your thoughts on that. It is an interesting question. I'm a great believer that the best predicted to the future is the past. The university system we have today and the structure of universities, although modified immensely in all kinds of different areas, is not that different to what it was a thousand years ago. It consists of people who are acknowledged expertise in some field of study. They profess certain views and beliefs and do so with a great rigor and a great level of depth. And then students who wish to acquire that knowledge for their life experiences work with those professors to achieve that. And that's been the model going back, in fact, 25 centuries to when we have the earliest records of the first universities. And it hasn't changed a enormous amount. What you can think of as the infrastructure has changed, we now have pervasive information technology. We have completely secular education at least in most institutions. We still have academic freedom, certainly in many universities, certainly in the United States and here in Australia, sort of guaranteed by tenure and so on. But I think the basic experience is still the same. So I still think the university of the future is going to be similar to what it is today. Now online education is touted as maybe going to revolutionize that. I'm skeptical of that, although I certainly acknowledge that the impact of technology as it gets better and better and as the virtual experience gets better and better is going to incrementally increase the role that it plays. But I don't see ever the talking head, no matter how good the technology ever really replacing firstly that direct connection between the student and the instructor. Or in any way really replacing the interaction between students themselves as I said before is just such an important part of a student's education in the kind of residential experience that you get here at ANU for example. That's a fabulous answer and I fully agree with your sentiments there. Last topic if we may, you and I evidently share a mutual interest in the emergence of big data as the new oil of information rich societies and your last response has beautifully led us on to this. And as a resource that is increasingly used profile, social life and activity, I might understand that you see the use of digital technologies and the preservation of digital knowledge as a solution to some of the economic and social problems currently burning America and global society and thinking here of issues in health education and security context. Can you perhaps tell us what role you see information technologies and digital infrastructure playing in the educational realm in particular and you have mentioned some of these things. But in society more generally, how can the university use these kinds of platforms to really engage and mobilize communities more broadly? Well, I think one of the most important things that what is called generically big data has enabled is to be able to aggregate the mass data on such a scale that you can actually start to extract useful information from that data. I think there was a point where databases simply didn't have enough information in them to be able to extract interesting new information. Obvious stuff could be extracted. That's what they were set up for in the first place. But it's when the unexpected connections occur or when you're actually making genuine sort of discoveries based on big data, no matter what the field, that's where I think it can be really impactful. I know that one of the motivating arguments about the future of online education is that the amount of data that will be collected monitoring the online learning experiences of students can in turn be mined for ways in which that experience can be improved. And I think up to a point I think that's exactly right. Whether those improvements are other than incremental or whether there's some people would claim sort of seismic directions forward there, I think is yet to be determined. But there's no doubt that that will have an impact on learning in ways that probably aren't even clear completely at the moment. But I'm also interested in another problem, which is not at all glamorous, and it's the problem of the long-term preservation of data.  And most of the formats in which data stored today are highly perishable. Data is thrown away or is inaccessible for a whole range of reasons, and frankly I think at an alarming rate. So in the US we set up a number of years ago an organization called the Digital Preservation Network, which I chair the board at the moment, which is focused on this issue of the ultra-long-term preservation of data, so that one starts thinking about data in the same way that one thinks about the preservation of books from medieval libraries. And that's the kind of model here. But why did the Platonic Dialogues, or how did the Platonic Dialogues still exist today, given they were written 25 centuries ago, and all the tumultuous events that have taken place between now and then? And how can we ensure that the very best work that is now only available digitally, as you know in many of the sciences, all new data, is only being generated digitally? How can we ensure that that is around petabytes of it, exabytes of it? How can we ensure that that's around in another 200 years? That's a fabulous thing to think about, and you make a very good point about the Platonic and the maintenance of particular forms of knowledge. And I think that's a fabulous way to end, think about how the university might be the custodian and the archive of that kind of knowledge in the future, and how we can use these digital technologies very productively in order to achieve that end. Gavin, would you mind if I just came back as I realized there was a question earlier that I didn't fully give you an answer to, and that was when you asked me about the collaboration between IU and ANU. Let me just say just a couple of words about that too. About five years ago, the then Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ian Chabonay, agreed to set up what we called a Pan-Asian Institute. And this institute basically takes the whole of what we call Pan-Asia, which really goes from Turkey through to the Pacific Islands. And it tries to leverage our complementary expertise. For example, ANU is very strong in Southeast Asian studies, probably maybe if not the best, one of the best places in the world for Southeast Asian studies, Indonesia, Vietnam, et cetera. We are very strong in particular in Central Eurasian studies, the stands into China. And we teach languages that are hardly taught anywhere else in the world, the languages of Central Eurasia. And of course you have expertise in the languages of Southeast Asia. So the goal of the center really is for us to access your expertise, in particular in Southeast Asia, but in other areas, and for you to access our expertise in Central Eurasian studies and so on, where we're among the top three or four places in the United States in that area as well. And it has been, in my view, very successful. We've had multiple exchanges between our institutions. We've had a number of joint conferences. A lot of publications have come out of it. We've had students visit both institutions. And because of that, because of its success, Chancellor Young and I are signing an extension for a further five years of that agreement this afternoon. That's a fabulous way to end. Thank you so much for your time Professor Michael McRobbie, and congratulations again for you being the 2015 ANU alumnus of the year. Thank you very much. Thank you.


Russians started having problems on the left bank of Kursan region. On the left bank of the Kursan region, our soldiers act boldly and tactically, competently, sometimes even defiantly. Problems began with the Russian occupiers. This was stated by the spokesman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Andrew Kovalev. The Russian occupiers have started having problems. As a result of heavy losses, they are forced to transfer units here from other directions, he said. Also, according to Kovalev, the significant losses of the occupying forces are due to the fact that the invaders are trying to knock out the Ukrainian soldiers from their occupied positions from these bridgeheads. Almost every day the enemy makes from four to ten such attempts. The occupiers on the left bank of the Kursan region use the entire arsenal of weapons from mortars to large-caliber artillery, rockets, weapons and aviation. However, our soldiers act bravely and tactically competently, sometimes even defiantly, he added. Russia has escalated shelling on the left bank of Kursan Oblast, fearing an expansion of Ukraine's bridgehead across the Nipro River, Oleksandr Tolokhonikov, spokesperson for the Kursan's Oblast Military Administration said. As for air bombs, they have started shelling the left bank. I understand these are chaotic shelling incidents. The Russians are very afraid of a counter-offensive. They are trying to halt the counter-offensive by our guys, Tolokhonikov said.


So, Alan, I bought us a little extra time here. Alan Roth is going to come up. I want to introduce Alan. He is a former board member for the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy. He is an author. His book is called How a Second Greater Beats Wall Street. And it's a great Bogleheads book. I think Alan is going to be giving away a few of those books for people who will make a donation to the Bogle Center. Alan is a columnist in several places, AARPETF.com and financial planning. He is just such a generous and thoughtful person. And he has made huge contributions to Bogleheads over the years and we're excited to have him here as part of this track talking about the basics of investing.  Thank you. Christine, that was incredibly nice. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm going to start with, well, it was planning on starting with the two most important lessons in investing. But I've got to start with something very embarrassing. I need to borrow $1,000. I haven't managed my money very well. So, I need to borrow $1,000. I'm going to return every penny a year from today, lots of witnesses. Who will lend me that $1,000? Christine, Mike, you're the nicest people in the world. You're not going to lend me the $1,000? Why would no, somebody's nice back there. You would lend me the $1,000? Well, obviously there's some really nice people in here. But who logically and rationally would lend me $1,000 and why would you not? No interest. You want to make money off of my misfortune, not being able to manage my own finances? That's pretty reasonable. You want to make more or less than inflation? More. Absolutely. Which gets me to the two most important lessons. Oh, by the way, if you lent me money versus lending the US government money via treasury, would you want to charge more or less me versus the US government? More. I'm riskier. I'm a financial planner. That means I'm not very good with my money. So the two most important lessons in investing are you want to be compensated for taking on risk. The second is a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. Has anyone noticed that things are costing more than they did a couple of years ago? That's called inflation. So you want to make more than inflation. The million dollar coin flip. Is betting a million dollars even money investing? Is there an expectation of profit? No. What about betting a million dollars on a coin flip? Whereas if you call heads and it's right, you get a million $20,000. It is investing. I wouldn't take that bet. I would recommend that you not take that bet. There's a fellow by the name of Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for Prospect Theory that shows we're going to get twice as much pain from losing money as pleasure from making money. But third is, would you do a million $1 bets? What have I done? I think I heard a yes. I saw a yes back there. I would, because what I've diversified is over the number of coin flips. I should make $10,000 in a very, very low probability I would actually lose money. And even if I did, it would be very little. That's an example of diversification. So there are three types of risk. There's default risk. Let me just say lending money to Honest Owl has huge default risk. There is interest rate risk. If you lent the US government $100 for 10 years at 5%, then you're going to get $5 a year back. If interest rates went up to 7%, then that means you're getting a below market rate. Interest rates have gone up. The value of your bond has gone down. And holding it to maturity doesn't help. And then you have liquidity risk. It would be a lot easier to sell somebody your treasury than it would be to sell the $1,000 loan to Honest Owl. So three questions. Why do people invest? Because they want to grow their money, obviously. How do people invest? We buy stocks, US, international, large companies, small companies, energy, tech. We buy bonds. We buy investment grade, or one of the few terms the industry has gotten right. Junk bonds, high yield bonds. We buy gold. We buy Bitcoin. We buy all sorts of things to invest. And where do we get investment advice? From our friends, from our neighbors, from TV, mad money. My personal favorite are newsletters. If I knew how to beat the market, do you think I would try to create a newsletter and try to sell it one by one for $299 a year? Jim Kramer, mad money. I'll let you in on a secret. The head of his foundation once shared their investment results with me. He earned half of the return of the US stock market. So financial versus real assets. First of all, if you don't save, investing doesn't matter. So you've got to reduce current consumption today to have a better financial independence in the future, or even a better thing to do is get the best deals on what you do consume. And I will say that Clark Howard is to savings as Jack Bogle was to investing. So I'm just absolutely thrilled. I've gotten to know him over the years, absolutely wonderful guy for planned consumption later. Real assets are used to produce goods and services. I could buy a new car so I could make money. I could invest in a new car to become an Uber driver. That's an investment in a real asset. Or financial assets, which are claims to real assets. If I buy a stock, I have a claim on that company. So major classes of financial assets. There's debt. There's bonds. There's CDs. There're money markets. There's common stock. When we think of a stock, we generally think of a common stock. There are some stocks that have preferences known as preferred stock. And in spite of the name preferred, I recommend against them. And then there are derivative securities, futures, energy futures, options, puts, calls. Anybody know how much has been made in the history of the futures and options market before costs? Zero. Was that you, Mike? Yeah, well, Mike knows everything. Yeah, absolutely. That is not investing. That is gambling. That's like betting on the Broncos. Oh, it's painful. So stocks and bonds are the two principal areas where people invest. If I buy a stock, I am one of the owners of that company. I have upside if it does well, Nvidia. I have downside if it doesn't do very well. Like General Motors, it was at one time when I was small, viewed as safe as the US government. I'm glad that wasn't true. So goes GM, goes America. I'm glad that wasn't true. And a bond is you're lending money to a company. And that company is going to pay you interest and the principal back. You've got no upside, no claim on how well the company does, but you have more protection than a common stock on the way down. Choices are asset allocation. Yes, in general, stocks are a lot riskier than bonds. You've got security selection. If I'm going to own some stocks, which ones should I buy? Is Exxon going to do better than Chevron? Is Amazon going to do better than Walmart? Those are the choices. So valuation. Why does Exxon Mobile, my first employer out of business school, by the way, why does it have value? Because it is going to pay us dividends and we hope that it will pay us more and more. And then we are also buying their cash flow. This is more rather than investing 101. This is more investing PhD, but a stock buyback is a far more efficient way, tax efficient way, for a company to return money to shareholders, even though it has a terrible name in the press, in the media. Now what I have here is a genuine, real, completely fake gold coin. Why does it have value? Because we say it does. It's rare and it's pretty. Belly button lint is pretty rare, but it's not so pretty. Bitcoin, why does Bitcoin have value? A lot of value. There are actually some utilitarian uses for it, whether or not it's over or under value. I certainly wouldn't bet much on it, but that's why it has value. So what is riskier, a portfolio of 100% in one stock or a portfolio comprised of thousands of different companies? The latter. And by the way, does that mean a diversified index fund owning thousands of companies has no risk? No, it has risk. But it has a lot less risk than buying any one company. So I'm old. When I was in grad school, shortly afterwards, the largest 10 companies, the most valuable 10 companies back then versus the most valuable 10 companies 40 years later. And by the way, things changed. That list of 2020 is no longer valid, and Vidya is in there. By the way, what do you notice about most of the companies, the most valuable companies today? Did they exist 40 years ago? They did not. So there's this big debate, active versus passive. Active is finding undervalued securities, timing the market, which by the way, I'm going to admit I'm a market timer. Passive management, which Jack Bogle brought us, no attempt to find undervalued securities and no attempt to time the market. And then holding an efficient portfolio. What is the efficient portfolio? Which stocks should you buy? All of them. So there's this whole active passive debate and efficient market hypothesis. Is the market efficient or not? And I argue, doesn't matter a bit. What matters is arithmetic. If the US stock market earns 10%, the average investor is going to get 10% minus what they pay in fees. If the market loses 10%, the average investor is going to lose 10% minus what they pay in fees. So owning everything at the lowest cost. And by the way, this year, you may have heard of the term the Magnificent 7 tech companies like Alphabet, Apple. They are 0.2% of the US companies and maybe 0.1% of all companies, including international. And they have driven the entire return. Now, when it comes to market timing, when I was in business school, I was taught we couldn't time the market. But it turns out we're really, really good at timing the markets really, really poorly. And Morningstar's Mind the Gap does an amazing job of showing that shortfall year after year after year. If you look at fund flows into stock funds, rather, that we hit the dot com bubble and people panic and sell, then it goes back up and we buy. Then the financial crisis hits and we panic and sell. Then it goes back up and we buy. Then COVID hits. This has never happened before a pandemic. We panic and sell. That was the shortest bear in the history of the US stock market. But we are really, really good at timing markets really, really poorly. So what I do for myself and my clients is to set an overall asset allocation target and guess what that means? When stocks go up, you have to sell. When stocks go down, you have to buy. Really, really simple and really, really hard to do. And let me tell you, when I bought stocks in March of 2020, when stocks fell 35% in 33 days, that was anything but easy. It took 10 minutes, but it was really hard. So in conclusion, investing is really, really simple. Taxes aren't, and Mike Piper is really an expert on helping there. It's simple but not so easy, especially when money starts meaning more to us. And the older we get, by the way, the more money means to us because the less the human capital we have and the more the investment capital we have. Never take on uncompensated risk, own every stock in proportion to the market. Now, nearly 15 years ago, I wrote this book, How a Second Greater Beat Wall Street, and cap-weighted investing, meaning that you buy more of the large, most valuable companies like Apple and Amazon, and less of the smaller companies, was out of vogue. Everyone was factor investing, smart beta. It didn't work going forward. So in every stock in proportion to value, and something like the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, we've got a great speaker who runs that fund at a 0.03% expense ratio does the trick. And then when it comes to fixed income, take your risks with stocks. Your fixed income, you want to be very, very safe. So in conclusion, investing is really simple. In eight words, anything that you do ask, are you minimizing expenses and emotions? And are you maximizing diversification and discipline? Simple yes, easy no. And when you're eight years old and money doesn't mean anything to you, duh. The older we get, and like I said, I'd be lying through my teeth if I said it was easy to rebalance and buy more stocks in March of 2020 when our lives had changed and suddenly we weren't going to the office, we weren't socializing, who knew what was gonna happen. It's really, really hard. So anyways, that is investing.  Thank you.


For more videos and people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. On April 14th, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. along with NATO allies and operational partners will be withdrawing all the remaining troops from Afghanistan before September 11th. This year will be the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks and 20 years of direct U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The withdrawal of all foreign troops was part of a deal signed between the Donald Trump administration and the Taliban last year in February. Though the deal set May 1st, 2021 as the deadline for the withdrawal, the U.S. is most likely to miss it now. The U.S. Taliban deal signed last year had also imposed certain conditions on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The two main ones were intra-Afghan talks and non-cooperation of the Taliban with Al-Qaeda in ISIS. However, according to reports, Biden administration has decided to withdraw the troops anyway. The U.S., which had more than 100,000 troops in the country in 2011, has gradually reduced it to around 2500 troops due to the rising cost of the Afghanistan war. Most of the troops were withdrawn during Donald Trump's presidency. While Biden and other NATO countries have announced that they will be withdrawing troops, it does not mean an end to U.S. presence in the country. Reports have stated that the United States military will remain in Afghanistan in the form of special operations and CI personnel, along with manned attack aircrafts, drones, etc. Air strikes alone have caused a heavy number of casualties and destruction. According to figures released by the U.S. military, U.S. and its allies dropped 81,638 bombs and missiles on Afghanistan between the years 2001-2019. Data from 2019 to now has not been made public. Even these figures do not include several categories of air strikes, meaning the actual numbers are much higher. Moreover, only a fraction of the deaths and damage caused by these strikes is reported in the media. It is estimated, however, that at least 31,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in total in this war and 360,000 civilians have died due to indirect causes from the war. Redrawal of ground troops alone cannot signify the end of war in Afghanistan when such possibilities continue to exist. So what did the U.S. achieve in all these years that cost so many lives? The U.S. has failed to realize one of its main goals of destroying the Taliban. It is leaving the country after what is definitely a defeat. The Taliban, in fact, is stronger than it has ever been since 2001. U.S. had also stated that it will defeat drug trade by ending the circulation of opium and heroin from Afghanistan. But in the past five years, Afghanistan accounted for 84 percent of global opium production. Meanwhile, certain sections are demanding that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan must continue for the sake of the advances made in women's rights, such as education. The truth is, in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, half of university students, 40 percent of the country's doctors, 70 percent of its teachers, and 30 percent of its civil servants were women. Today, after 20 years of U.S. occupation, in half of the country's provinces, fewer than 20 percent of teachers are female. In many provinces, fewer than 10 percent are females. Only 37 percent of adolescent girls can read as compared to 66 percent of boys. More over 54.4 percent of Afghanistan's population lives below the poverty line. 98.2 percent of workers earn around 3.10 cents a day. Over two-thirds of the country's people lack access to clean drinking water, and the literacy rate is a dismal 38.2 percent. The presence of the U.S. has done nothing to help Afghanistan and its people. Now the withdrawal of the foreign troops is happening without any sort of peace process or structure in place for future governance, as talks between different parties have failed to reach any conclusion. Meer Rahman Rahmani, Speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament, has stated that this could mean a possibility of the return of civil war.