Last class we have seen technical comparison of the various hydrogen production route. In this class we will see the economics associated with the different hydrogen production methods and what is the global and Indian status. So, this is the last class on the hydrogen production and thereafter we will in the next class we will start with the hydrogen storage methods. Before we go on to the economics we will quickly revise some of the definitions or terms which we use in energy economics. The foremost term that we use in energy economics is simple payback period. So, this is the number of years in which an investment pays itself. However, this term it does not use the time value of money or the life of any plant. So, in order to include that there are other terms which are used like the net present value or life cycle cost. When it is net present value it takes into account the savings and the cost. So, savings minus cost and then in the denominator is the discount rate. Discount rate considers the time value of money. So, when some investment is done today what is the expected gain or what will be the worth of that money which is invested in future. So, that is considered by the discount rate and this is summed over the number of years. So, for a kth year this is bk the benefits minus the cost ck in the kth year over 1 plus d to the power k, d is discount rate k is the year. Now, when we have to find the life cycle cost of a plant of a energy plant energy producing plant then that can be obtained by adding the initial investment and the present value of all the expenses summed up over its life time. So, this is the present value of all the expenses during its life time to that we have added the initial investment. Now, if this expenses remain constant over years for this uniform C we can write the life cycle cost by the initial investment plus expenses over capital recovery factor that depends upon both the discount rate and the years. Now, the annual cost associated with owing as well as operating an equipment can be obtained as annual life cycle cost which is the initial investment times the capital recovery factor plus the annual fuel associated operation and maintenance cost, non-fuel operation and maintenance cost. So, this is how we can get the annual life cycle cost of a energy plant energy producing plant. We can find out also the levelized cost of energy by dividing the annual life cycle cost by the amount of energy that plant is going to produce over its life time. So, the life cycle levelized cost of energy is given by annual life cycle cost which we have seen is the initial investment times the capital recovery factor and the expenses associated with the fuel related and non-fuel related operation and maintenance divided by the total energy being produced during the life cycle of the plant. So, that gives the levelized cost of energy. On the same pattern we can also calculate the levelized cost of hydrogen and that levelized cost of hydrogen is the discount rate levelized cost of hydrogen is the discounted lifetime cost of building and operating a production system and it is expressed as the cost, total cost of the plant divided by the total amount of hydrogen which is being produced over the lifetime of the plant. So, the total cost divided by the total amount of hydrogen that is expected to be produced by that plant over its entire lifetime. And this is the only the production cost is included while calculating the levelized cost of hydrogen not the storage or the transport or the end use cost. We can also find levelized cost of hydrogen as net present value of the total costs which includes both Kpex and Opex. So, it is the net present value of the total cost summed over the number of years for which the plant is operational from commissioning to decommissioning divided by 1 plus discount rate to the power n. And similarly we can find out the net present value of the hydrogen being produced and the ratio of the two net present value of the total cost to the net present value of the hydrogen production will give us the levelized cost of hydrogen. So, these are some of the terms we should know before we look at the cost analysis of the hydrogen which is being produced through different production routes. Now, if we look at the current global status in the year 2020, 90 million tons of hydrogen was produced globally out of that 90 million tons 79 percent of it 72 million tons was produced in dedicated hydrogen production plant. Another 21 percent which is 18 million ton was produced as a byproduct hydrogen in refineries primarily in refineries. Now this 90 million tons out of that 72 million tons was used as pure hydrogen in ammonia synthesis and in the refineries. Another 18 million tons used as mixed gas with other gases basically for methanol production or for DRI for steel production. Now in the various production routes natural gas is the dominant fuel which is used for producing hydrogen and steam methane reforming is the dominant process for producing hydrogen. So about 59 percent of the production of hydrogen was using natural gas and approximately 240 billion cubic meters of natural gas was used for producing hydrogen which is approximately 6 percent of the global natural gas consumption. 19 percent of hydrogen produced using coal and about 115 million tons of coal equivalent is used for producing hydrogen which is 2 percent of the global coal demand. 21 percent obtained as byproduct, 0.6 percent produced using oil and the remaining using low carbon technology which includes electrolysis which includes fossil fuel plants with which have carbon capture used in sequestration. Now out of this 90 million tons we have seen most of it is being produced from fossil fuels and without CCUS and because of that there is a, there are 900 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions which are related to the hydrogen production which corresponds to 2.5 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions in the energy and industry. Now there are various technologies which exist for low carbon hydrogen production like production from water using either thermochemical cycles or from electrolysis or it can be produced from fossil fuel plants with CCUS or from biomass gasification. But the current status is only 30 kilo tons of hydrogen is being produced from water electrolysis and there are about 16 fossil fuel plants which have carbon capture use and sequestration producing 0.7 million tons of hydrogen in these plants. However, it is expected that the scenario may change and in the net zero scenario the production of hydrogen from the current 90 million tons will increase to 200 million tons by 2030 and it is projected that out of that 200 million tons 70 percent should come from electrolysis and fossil fuel with carbon capture use and sequestration. Remaining will come from plants which are not integrated with CCUS. By 2050 this number will grow to 500 million tons and all this 500 million ton is expected to come from low carbon technologies. Now if this is the forecast for providing that much amount of hydrogen as it as we move in the net zero scenario the requirement of electrolyzer capacity which is currently 0.3 gigawatt installed capacity will grow to 850 gigawatt by 2030 and it will be 3600 gigawatt by 2050. So this is the requirement in terms of the electrolyzer capacity. At the same time when it is net zero scenario the fossil fuel plants needs to be integrated with CCUS. So carbon dioxide capture will be required. Currently the status is 135 million tons of CO2 is abated with using CCUS at the production plant site which will grow in 2030 to 680 million tons and in 2050 it should grow to 1.8 giga tons or 1800 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. When these renewable methods or water electrolysis or plants integrated with CCUS these all will be used for hydrogen production or in the net zero scenario the water that will be required for these technologies will also grow. Now currently if we see if the hydrogen is being produced from electrolysis roughly we require 9 kg of water per kg of hydrogen being produced. When it is steam methane reforming integrated with CCUS there is a requirement of 13 to 18 kg of water per kg of hydrogen being produced. In coal classification depending upon the mining method it varies from 40 to 85 kg of steam requirement per kg of hydrogen. However this requirement will be in net zero scenario of 5800 million cubic meters of water which is 12% of the water being consumed in the energy sector. It is also possible to use sea water because most of the places which are water deficient may not be able to supply or meet this much requirement of water. So in that case sea water can be used through reverse osmosis desalination method which will require 3 to 4 kilowatt hour per normal meter cube of water and that could add an expense of 0.7 to 2.5 dollar per normal meter cube and there will be a marginal increase in the cost of hydrogen being produced. So in that case the cost of hydrogen will increase by 0.01 or 0.02 dollars per kg of hydrogen. Now if we look at the plants which are coming up the plants which are being already under construction or at later stage of planning for commercialization development then roughly about 350 such projects of electrolysis are there which could account for 5 million tons of hydrogen being produced through electrolytic route. There are currently 16 fossil fuel based plant with CCOS and total that will account for 56 such projects where the production of hydrogen from fossil fuels integrated with CCOS will account for 9 million tons of hydrogen being produced by 2030. Now if we also include 40 more projects which are currently globally at an early stage of development then the electrolytic hydrogen production capacity can increase from 5 million tons to 8 million tons by 2030. By 2050 they as per the pledges the strategies the road maps which various countries globally are coming up the different announcements that they are making the pledges which are coming up in the clean hydrogen production scenario by 2050 it is expected that 250 million tons of hydrogen will be produced and out of that 250 million tons 51% will come from electrolysis and 15% will come from fossil fuels plants which are integrated with CCOS the rest is going to come from plants which are not integrated with carbon capture use and sequestration. Now if this is the scenario then this 51% of hydrogen which is coming from electrolysis will account for increasing the electrolyzer capacity to 1350 gigawatt and the carbon capture that needs to be integrated with the fossil fuels has to increase to 0.4 gigatons of carbon dioxide capture per year. When it comes to cost analysis we know that the fuel which is used widely we have seen is natural gas for hydrogen production and the method is steam methane reforming. This is the most cost effective method so the levelized cost of hydrogen which is produced using steam methane reforming it lies in the range of 0.5 to 1.7 dollars per kg. Now there is a huge variation in the cost the reason is the variation regional variation in the cost of the feedstock natural gas however this is without any carbon capture use and sequestration if it is integrated the plant is integrated with CCOS then there is an additional increment in the cost of hydrogen produced levelized cost of hydrogen produced by 0.5 dollars per kg of hydrogen and this is higher than the without the CCOS but this price is still much lower than the cost of hydrogen which can be produced from renewables. So if it is produced from renewables the cost lies in the range of 3 to 8 dollars per kg of hydrogen being produced and in this cost range the major component is of the electricity which is being used for electrolysis. So the renewable power its cost accounts for 50 to 90 percent of the total cost of hydrogen being produced and that depends on both what is the electricity price at which we are getting that power and the full load hours of electricity supply for how long we can use that surplus electricity for producing hydrogen or for how many hours is the electrolyzer running on the supply of that electricity. Now there is a requirement of reducing this cost from 3 to 8 dollars so that it can become compatible or comparable with the fossil fuel based hydrogen production. This cost reduction can come only when the price of the renewable power or the cost of electrolyzer comes down and it is expected that with economies of scale with more deployment of renewable the renewable cost the renewable power cost will come down and this gap between the cost of hydrogen being produced from reforming and from renewables will decrease with the reduction in the cost of renewable power as well as the decrease in the cost of electrolyzer the Kpex cost of the electrolyzer. There is another way in which we can see that the cost gap between the two methods will reduce which will be when the carbon dioxide emissions are priced. So price associated with the carbon dioxide emissions will also reduce this gap between the fossil fuel based production and renewable based production. For example, if 100 dollars per ton of carbon dioxide cost has added for the carbon dioxide released in the environment then the cost of production from natural gas will increase by 0.9 dollars per kg. So this is one more method by which the bridge the gap between the two prices can be reduced or shrink. Now when it comes to production from steam methane reforming and carbon capture use and sequestration the price typically lies in the range of 1 to 2 dollars per kg. So important is to produce hydrogen in a sustainable manner from renewables for that the cost of renewable electricity should come down and that will be crucial towards reducing the price of hydrogen from electrolysis. And there has been several initiatives globally to bring down that cost like one of the initiative is US hydrogen earth shot initiative wherein they are considering to bring down that cost by 2030 to 1 dollar per kg of hydrogen being produced. And it is expected that the cost of renewable electricity when it is considered like 20 dollars per megawatt hour then it can come down to 1 dollar per kg of hydrogen being produced that was 20 dollar per megawatt hour was without including Kpex and OPEX. Now if it has to further come down if that also needs to be included. Now this price of renewable electricity can come down at places where there is more of deployment where there are more number of sunshine hours like Middle East like in country like India where we have ample amount of renewables source which is available we have ample sunshine hours solar insulation available. Similar to that a project a utility scale solar PV project that tendering has been done in Middle East and the bid that has been done in 2019, 2020 has even shown prices as low as 14 to 17 dollars per megawatt hour of the electricity price renewable based electricity price. So all these will be crucial towards bringing down the cost of renewable electricity at the same time requirement is that there should be improvement in the efficiency of electrolyzer and the other balance of plant. So it is expected that in long run the scenario will change there will be reduction in the renewable price there will be economies of scale bringing down the cost of electrolyzer and we will have a learning experience with these scaling up that will further lead to better understanding but currently there is lot of uncertainty associated with the how the price and the deployment will take place in future. If you look at the current electrolysis status around 0.03 percent of the global hydrogen is being produced using water electrolysis. So out of the 290 megawatt which was produced using water electrolysis in 2020 40 percent of it was in Europe the installed capacity of 290 megawatt global out of that 40 percent in Europe 9 percent in Canada and 8 percent installations were in China and out of this 290 megawatt if we see the different technologies which we have already studied in this course alkaline water electrolysis accounted for 61 percent of the total hydrogen production using the electrolytic route. PEM electrolyzer 31 percent and rest are either unspecified or SOEC solid oxide electrolytic units. The cost of alkaline water electrolysis lies in the range of 1000 to 1400 dollars per kilowatt hour for PEM it lies it is around 1750 dollars per kilowatt hour. It is expected that by 2030 this capacity will increase considering whatever plans which are under construction or plans which are projects which are planned this capacity will grow to 54 gigawatts. Now if we also consider all the projects which are in their early stage of drafting or development then this capacity can even grow to 91 gigawatt by 2030. So the 2 major contributors will be in Europe about 22 gigawatt Australia 21 gigawatt Latin America 5 gigawatt and Middle East 3 gigawatt and remaining from the rest of the world. It has also been seen that the average plant size over a period of time will increase. So currently if we see the average plant size of an electrolyzer lies in like is roughly about 0.6 megawatt in 2020 but now there are projects which are coming up which have plant size of 100 megawatt. There are plants which are even planned which will have capacity of 1 gigawatt like a plant in Australia which is under the green energy hub. It has 50 gigawatts of solar PV and wind installation that will be used for hydrogen production and that will have a capability of producing 3.5 million tons of hydrogen per year. So what is expected is that there will be economies of scale as the deployment will increase we will have a better learning that will further lead to cost reduction from current which is say 1000 to 1750 dollars per kilowatt. But there are certain installations in China where they have reported this cost range to be something between from 750 to 1300 dollars per kilowatt. Then there are reports wherein they say the cost can be the capex can be as low as 500 dollars per kilowatt and all these will make a difference in terms of the electrolysis price. Now out of the major manufacturing which is going on globally the largest manufacturer being Europe with 60 percent of the manufacturing capacity, China being the second with 35 percent manufacturing capacity. And now there are several major companies which are entering into expanding towards their manufacturing capacity of electrolyzers like the thyssen group, IETM, Cummins, NEL, hydrogen NEL. So there are several other companies which are expanding but then when the capacity of manufacturing will increase the requirement of materials will also increase. But we expect that in future with more technological advancement the materials which will be used will be the amount of material, precious materials that will be used will also reduce. Now the major factors which contribute towards the total cost includes the electricity cost which is the major component 50 to 90 percent of the levelized cost of hydrogen, the capital expenses, conversion efficiency and the annual operating cost. We know that with the grid electricity considering that the electricity price being 50 to 100 dollars per megawatt hour this may not be, this may not reduce the cost of hydrogen and the cost of hydrogen will be roughly lying between 3 to 5 dollars per kg of hydrogen being produced considering the capacity factor of 90 percent and capex as low as say 500 dollars per kilowatt. So the cost will reduce if it is being produced from renewables and let us say if it is being produced at a zero cost and considering an operating hour of 750 hours per year still the cost will be 3 dollars per kg. So it is expected that with using the renewable power say solar or solar or wind power the cost should further go down as the economies of scale work well. Now at places where there is larger sunshine hours there is high solar insulation available like Middle East, like country like India the cost will go down in the zero emission scenario. Now considering the current status say 2020 where the cost of renewable electricity is like in Middle East it is taken as 20 dollars per megawatt hour. The cost is 3 dollars per kg of hydrogen being produced with a capacity factor of the plant 32 percent considering a capex of electrolyzer being 1000 dollars per kilowatt. Now it is expected that in 2030 the cost of renewable price electricity price if it reduces to 70 dollars per megawatt hour the cost of hydrogen will go down to 1.5 dollars per kg considering capex also will come down to 320 dollars per kilowatt and then it will become equivalent to the hydrogen which is being produced from natural gas integrated with CCUS. Further price down of the renewable electricity to 12 dollars per megawatt hour will bring down the cost of hydrogen being produced to 1 dollar per kg and then it will become equivalent to natural gas based hydrogen production without CCUS. In Europe the hydrogen production could be from offshore wind and then from there it could be taken through pipelines and that will reduce the cost of transmission and distribution which could be any one the losses associated with that. Considering that if the current price is associated with the wind power the cost of renewable electricity currently are higher 60 dollars per megawatt hour and that is responsible for 4.5 dollars per kg a higher cost of hydrogen being produced considering a capacity factor of 50 percent but it is expected that by 2030 the cost of renewable electricity from wind will come down to 30 dollars per megawatt hour and then the hydrogen production cost will be 2 dollars per kg. Considering the capacity factor of 57 percent considering wind turbines which are larger in size and then in 2050 this price renewable electricity price may go down to 25 dollars per megawatt hour resulting into the cost of hydrogen being produced to 1.5 dollar per kg of hydrogen considering a capacity factor of 60 percent. So this is how the scenario will change. Now we know that the other possibility could be in a for a sustainable hydrogen production that we can produce from the fossil fuels and then integrate CCUS along with it. So steam methane reforming and coal gasification we know that these are very well known technology but then they can they are the major polluters also which will release carbon dioxide emissions during the process of hydrogen production. So it is essential that CCUS should be integrated. It is not only to reduce the emissions associated with the hydrogen production but at the same time when CCUS is integrated we can still use these low cost technologies we can scale them up and meet the growing demand of hydrogen. When CCUS is being integrated then the cost of hydrogen being produced increases roughly about 0.5 dollars per kg of hydrogen. With steam methane reforming if we consider the emissions then it is 9 kg of carbon dioxide is released per kg of hydrogen being produced. We have seen in detail that the emissions are taking place on both the end when it is used as fuel burning in the burners and providing the reactor the reaction heat. So 30 to 40 percent of these emissions occur when it is being used as fuel rest of the emissions 60 to 70 percent comes when it is used as feedstock. So in the product gas stream that is more concentrated. So if we capture both at the fuel end as well as at the product side 90 percent of that capture is possible and that for that the cost will be 50 to 70 dollars per ton of carbon dioxide being captured. Another method which we have seen was autothermal reforming we can achieve higher capture rate because in autothermal reformer the entire carbon dioxide which is being produced is concentrated in the same reactor the fuel is burnt and the product stream is obtained so we can get concentrated carbon dioxide. So if we capture that so we can increase that capture rate from 90 percent to 95 percent or we can have the same capture rate but at a relatively lower cost. In case of coal gasification the amount of carbon dioxide emission is 20 kg of carbon dioxide per kg of hydrogen being produced. Now the current situation is there are 16 projects with carbon capture use and sequestration integrated with the fossil fuel production plants producing 0.7 tons 0.7 million tons of hydrogen and abating 10 million tons of carbon dioxide which is produced in the process. Now if we consider that there will be a carbon dioxide price penalty that will be levied in the future on the uncaptured carbon dioxide and that will be about say 5 to 10 percent then the production cost with CCUS will slightly increase. Now these 16 projects are existing there are 40 more projects under development these are 35 integrated with natural gas based production 4 with coal 1 with oil it is expected that by 2030 when fossil fuel plants these plants will be operational with CCUS then we will be able to produce 9 million tons of hydrogen from these plants where carbon capture will be done considered. Now there are certain future technologies which are at not at commercial scale at a higher TRL level like solid oxide electrolysis which we have seen this is the high temperature electrolysis or steam electrolysis currently this is at a TRL level of 6 to 7 this is for producing synthetic fuels like it is used with renewable power and of capacity 720 kilowatt wherein even the waste heat is used for producing hydrogen for DRI in steel production. There is one more plant which is coming up of capacity 2.6 megawatt in Rotterdam. Methane paralysis is another technique which is a future technology having a TRL level of 3 to 6. So there are plants like monolith materials in US they are using thermal plasma for the cracking of methane. There was a pilot plant in Nebraska and now they are planning for an industrial scale plant. There are several plants which are coming up in Australia, Germany and Russia US. So the technology will grow in future an ion exchange membrane based electrolysis which is at TRL level 4 to 5 and then kilowatt scale electrolyzers are being developed by Napter Germany. It can be also electrified steam methane reforming which is at TRL level 4 Helder Topsay they are using this technology but the demo that it is still at a lab scale using the low carbon electricity steam methane reforming is being performed. Now if we quickly look at the cost of hydrogen production from the different routes which we have seen in this course the cost of hydrogen production from SMR we have already seen 0.7 to 1.5 dollars per kg without CCS if it is with CCS 1 to 2 dollars per kg partial oxidation 1.35 dollars per kg auto thermal reforming 1.3 dollars per kg without CCS with CCS 1.48 dollars per kg if it is coal gasification 1.34 dollars per kg without CCS and that increases to 1.63 dollars per kg with CCS. Methane decomposition still it has not been commercialized with biomass paralysis the cost lies in the range of 1.59 to 1.7 dollars per kg with biomass gasification 1.77 to 2.05 dollars per kg dark fermentation 2.57 to 6.9 dollars per kg photo fermentation 2.83 dollars per kg thermochemical cycles based on whether the energy required for high temperature cycle for providing the heat for the high temperature cycle is by means of nuclear then it is 2.17 to 2.63 dollars per kg if it is from solar 7.98 to 8.4 dollars per kg and the different cycle costs when electrolysis is from grid electricity then 5.73 to 8.54 dollars per kg from PV 5.78 to 23.27 dollars per kg from wind 5.27 to 9.37 dollars per kg photolysis 8 to 10 dollars per kg bio photolysis 1.95 dollars per kg. So, these are roughly the costs of hydrogen production through all the routes which we have studied in this course. I will quickly look at the Indian context in India 6 million tons of hydrogen is being produced annually 3.2 million tons for ammonia production 2.6 million tons for refineries 0.2 million ton is obtained as a by-product hydrogen from chloralkyl plant. So, if we see the levelized cost of hydrogen from electrolysis this cost is higher 400 rupees per kg of hydrogen being produced from natural gas this lies in the range of 140 to 160 rupees per kg of hydrogen. This variation is because of the varying natural gas prices and it is expected that by 2030 this will be 150 rupees per kg of hydrogen by 2050 it will be 80 rupees per kg of hydrogen using coal gasification the price is in between 150 to 300 rupees per kg without CCOS however if we integrate CCOS then the price goes up to 240 to 400 rupees per kg. Coal gasification is promising in the Indian context because we have huge reserves of coal but the problem is we have a high ash coal. So, either the technology should be developed so as to use the Indian coal or then we will depend on the imports for low ash coal from biomass the price is 200 rupees per kg of hydrogen being produced. Now to summarize this part we have seen that hydrogen production from fossil fuel is the most cost effective route for hydrogen production economical but then it is not a sustainable method. For sustainable hydrogen production it should be from either come from the energy which is required for producing hydrogen should come from renewables or it should be produced from fossil fuel with CCOS. Now there are several advancements going on globally there are different countries which are coming up with their road maps their strategy documents they are pledging towards reducing the emissions and it is expected that the scenario will change in future. Thank you.


Hi, I'm Leo, the Founder CEO over at Graphistry, and I'm going to be talking today about Project Domino, which is not even at Graphistry, but a community open citizen data science effort against COVID misinformation. And before we go into it, I do want to say thank you to the DEF CON staff, AI Village staff, and the Project Domino volunteers, and also AI Village in particular, Sven. And this is a crazy time for all of us. And so to be able to put this together, a big thank you for that. I'm honored to be giving this as a keynote. I'm hoping folks here will benefit from hearing what we've been learning and also if you are impacted somehow by COVID and want a way to give back, this might actually be an opportunity for you as well. With that, I want to start with a kind of an example. This is about three months ago. It might feel like three years for some of us. And around the time when the Seattle breakout was happening, our friends were kind of dealing with the hospital situations over there. I think it was already like people were actually dying already in Seattle. Governor Kevin Stitt from Oklahoma posted this strange tweet, eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the collective OKC. It's packed tonight. Support local Oklahoma proud. Basically, and then he clarified in next day in a press release. We encourage Oklahomans to go out to restaurants.  Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and unfortunately for Governor Kevin Stitt and his family, he tested positive for COVID and unfortunately for his constituents who are relying on him. They have about a thousand per day infections at this point because kind of what we fear would happen is exactly what happens and now Oklahomans are dying. So it's, I do want to do kind of some some disclosures and stuff in a bit, but to us it's not about a left or right thing. It's like we're, you know, this is the medical health emergency. We need to do stuff. And that's kind of a good note, like kind of where this project came from. We're kind of looking at kind of what can we do. And there's this interesting statement by the from the World Health Organization saying we're not just fighting an epidemic, we're fighting an infodemic. And kind of the reasoning that we kind of believe in here is until there's a medical cure, a pill, a vaccine, it's been tested, it's safe. Kind of the only thing we really have is behavior change. So for that, unfortunately, you either need to get top down policy enforcement or bottom up kind of citizen voluntary compliance. And unfortunately, we have folks standing in the way of that. And, you know, for Seattle, for Oklahoma, for all of us at home, where we're seeing kind of the effects of failures to win that fight. Some quick disclosures here. We are going to talk about real people. We've published, actually, we haven't directly published, we published through partners, so we empower researchers to do through our tech. So they've published on some of this stuff before and based on some of the results today, I expect to see some accounts going out and hopefully some takedowns. Likewise, this is a volunteer organization. So the views expressed by us, me, this talk, they're not necessarily representative of the employers of the volunteers. Likewise, you should expect some bias here. So a lot of us, actually some people on the team were even affected by COVID and then had their lives impacted by that. Family members do their work, work life has been impacted. Misinformation is a broader topic. I'm personally in a place some folks may remember called the Soviet Union where propaganda was a thing and surveillance was a thing. So conflicting thoughts on that. But I do want to point out for on the team, I do especially when I call out some of the kind of folks on the leadership team. Sean Griffin's been involved in pandemic response. Actually, he helped both Obama and the Trump administration with pandemic planning. Anita was over at the NSF and looking a lot of digital crime, blockchain and stuff like that. She's at UIUC now. And Cody Webb has been just kind of this like research powerhouse for our team and researching misinformation for a while forever. And I shared the names of some of the kind of engineers helping on our backbone. The first example today will be actually Jeff Goldberg over at Social Forensics and David Nickerbacher independent researcher been helping us a bunch on. And I think, oh yeah, and then tomorrow, if this is interesting to you, kind of the same types of stuff we're doing for for COVID. Andrea is going to be talking over at the biohacking village about managing your cancer patient.  So it's important stuff. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about basically three things. First, I just want to take you down the rabbit hole through an example from anti vaccination misinformation. Second, I want to then give you more of a security data science perspective and how we're actually going about it, trying to figure out scale and our response and all that stuff. And then briefly, but incredibly important, why we're doing this as open citizen data science and why we're actually pretty hopeful about where this is going long term. And maybe this could kind of give you a chance or give you ways to kind of help out the community. Okay, so let's dive in. So we're doing an investigation and this name popped up, Sherry Tenpenny, and we decided to see where we go for the purposes of this talk. And for some folks, if you're from Australia, this may be a familiar name. She's Twitter, she's Wikipedia famous or infamous at this point. So her 2015 lecture was canceled in Australia because apparently she is involved in a lot of vaccine misinformation and private organizations in Australia wanted no part of that. And so they didn't support her. For our purpose and purposes, I do want to point out like there is kind of an ecosystem with different incentives here. And so if we look at somebody like Dr. Sherry, we see that she does teach courses like hence the book tour. She sells books, trains folks. She has about, you know, 50, 60,000 followers on Twitter, not shown. She also big presence on Facebook and also on newsletters of stuff that you don't even see. And she gets paid to do it now. It's kind of like her beliefs and her livelihood are the same thing. So she's very invested in us. But once we start looking at it, there are kind of a few things that looks a little strange. So she talks about Nazis in her profile. Like that's the first thing she does the first word she shows you. And so that kind of kind of like a whistle to one side of the house and then talks about abuses by the state. So that's kind of like a different kind of thing. So it's kind of just ask like who like who's the community around her. So let's take a look. So what I did here is loaded in busy Dr. T. And so we're looking at her and what we see in colors around her are basically she's only following a couple hundred people, but she has 50,000 people following her. And so when we look at a sample of that, what we see up top is a bunch of folks essentially public basically anti-vax, natural medicine, a lot of kind of medically minded folks that you'd sort of expect to be here. But then surprises is once we start seeing the other colors. And so the tools here just kind of automatically colored and laid it out and everything like it's kind of just traditional graph analytics. So we see Donald Trump. We see Michelle Malkin. We see Candace basically like in the dark green. We're seeing these public figures kind of national conservative public figures on the right. We were seeing but a bit on the right and then actually especially down here. We're seeing a mixture of QAnon, which is a conspiracy group we're hearing about a lot nowadays. We're seeing a lot of MAGA and Trump supporters. So not super surprising given we had Trump. And so it's kind of interesting that we have on the top we have like who do you expect with anti-vax, but on the bottom we have like the whole MAGA thing. We have conspiracy theories from QAnon. They're actually even like UFO stuff going on on the bottom. It's kind of like interesting to see that mix. So I want to point out another phenomenon here. When we're looking at each community, the question is like how are they interacting? Is it like they all really love our Dr. Bizzy T. She just wrote this wonderful book. What we actually see is like for example from the QAnon zone, they're reaching into the medical zone. So they're following folks there. Conversely, if we pick somebody big in the kind of this top region, sometimes it's localized, but other times you see it's reaching into the QAnon zone. No matter which cluster I do, you're going to see those reach-outs. Excuse me. So that's actually kind of strange where there's no reason to believe one conspiracy has anything to do with another. And so we're actually kind of almost like in this other world. And what we're seeing is the networks do crossover. And the first thing is what we're seeing is the question is why? And that's basically to support influence. Sometimes that could be direct where you're just retweeting from each other. Other times it might be to trick the Twitter algorithm. So for example, here is actually a Fox News reporter. So it's someone on TV. They have 40,000 followers, which is reasonable for a personality. But they're following 30,000 people back. And that probably suggests an inauthentic and automatic action of following back somehow. We don't know what order they happened in, but in general, that's prohibited by the Twitter's terms of service. But they get clicks. And so even though it violates terms of service, there they are. And that's basically the welcome to the Vax network misinformation network. And I realized that I glossed over this. But the reason we care about Dr. T and that she's talking about this stuff is the she and her community are already pushing messages against a COVID vaccine, even though one hasn't even passed trials yet. She's against it before it's even been tested, like just by principle. And so Twitter's been supporting her in doing that essentially. And I'll get to that in a second. So I do want to take one more. I want to go a little bit deeper into our Dr. T. And so in particular, I want to understand the communities, like what they're doing. So here what we're going to do. And I want to see if there's kind of extra coordination structure. And so we're getting a bit more of the data science side. So what's going on here is we took the accounts. We actually took a look at about 100 million COVID related tweets to see if there's kind of organized behavior within it. For each account, we just tried to look at for known sort of misinformation topics. What's sort of the signature? Like, you know, how many times did it like activate on different topics? And for each account, we now have that sort of like misinformation fingerprint essentially. And then we ran something called UMAP. I think it's a universal manifold approximation or something like that. But basically tries to smooth out and assume structure behind that. And then we took a look. So let's try it out. So yeah, so what's going on here is we're taking a look at those accounts. And we only are showing from all the accounts we're looking at the 5000 or so that we actually saw active across multiple misinformation topics. And so these are kind of the really the ones that have kind of that behavior going across topics like are just like what's going on. And we ran UMAP. But then what we also did, you're seeing here, I'm drawing these little edges. We also ran a afterwards K near sneeber and put them on screen so that whenever we see accounts kind of tweeting on similar topics and similar intensities. So it's really, for example, imagine two bots program to kind of talk about the same thing or controlled by the same person to kind of retweet someone else. That's when we're going to draw that edge. And so again, they're not necessarily following. They're actually just on certain topics. They're actually pushing those topics in the same way. So it's entirely content based. And what we're seeing here is some interesting structure pops out for across COVID Twitter. And then the second thing I did here is coloring. You're seeing some of these are a bit pinkish. So if we jump, let's take a look at this one. So for this kind of group of activity, we're seeing a lot of this QAnon stuff. And so what I'm doing here is if in those tweets talking about COVID, they also talk about QAnon and we have a couple of words on that. We call that out too. And so what we're seeing is like, you know, for this general topic, a bunch of accounts never explicitly mentioned QAnon, but it's definitely. Maybe it's like two coordinators or who knows or like something like that. But we're actually seeing a lot of QAnon influence across these different organized groups. And actually in particular, almost all of these have a bit of QAnon. So you're seeing it's not all white.  And then what's more, you're seeing some of them are seeing these pockets of heaviness. When we calculated it out, it's about 15% of these accounts spread throughout our QAnon. At least for COVID Twitter. That's actually kind of interesting. For us, that's a surprise. So that kind of put put QAnon in terms of medical misinformation on our radar. So that's not good. Okay, so jumping ahead. So okay, so we're looking at our busy Dr. T. Clearly blatant activity going on here. The last thing I wanted to point out was then we look on the right here and Twitter saying, hey, you should probably now that you're here, should also check out this Judy Mikovits. This PhD sounds authentic, right? Sounds smart. You may have also known about this Judy as a video going around called pandemic, which got pulled down as a pretty bad misinformation. And so that was pretty shocking to see like, I was like, oh, that name sounds familiar. So that was a little crazy. That was like the number one recommendation of Twitter as soon as you go to this webpage is to learn about pandemic. So, and this is like, you know, way after the fact. And so kind of, in summary, what we're seeing in this basic, pretty basic, honestly, analysis. Very blatant anti-vaccine misinformation, a lot of it about COVID in particular. We're seeing it's not just anti-vaxxers, but we're actually seeing a lot of cross community support by misinformers. It's pretty blatant. It's pretty, pretty obvious how they abuse like the very few terms of service Twitter does have. So it's a little strange. It is a little disappointing to see Fox, the Republican Party, MAGA, and a lot of them kind of involved in this anti-medical misinformation. And again, type of so blatant. And then on the platform side, it's when we saw that overlap and like, oh, wait a minute. Twitter makes money off of some of this stuff. They're clearly looking the other way for the terms of service violation. And then like, what was the, the, the pandemic promotion just, that was just that blew my mind. So this is not, this is not a healthy situation. So from a data perspective, we're actually a security analytics perspective. I do want to step back. If we think about attackers defenders, ultimately the targets are individuals and organizations going on a radicalization journey. And so every time Twitter recommends you do another crazy thing that just takes you deeper. Interesting extra level on the threat model here is that folks are essentially influenced based on their life conditions. So maybe they're going through a hard time, maybe they're elderly and don't really know what's going on.  And so being able to infect communities with this stuff is having mastery over that and platform level support. It's not good for actors. It's a lot of what you'd expect. I think that the surprising thing for threat actors here is we actually consider the, at this point, the platforms to be part of the threat. In particular, we, we break down for the platforms as the social network system.  A few are just big on the right like Reddit and Twitter.  But here we are. Little less obvious to folks is messaging. And again, actually a lot of the same companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, own essentially the messaging channels. Those are completely unmonitored. And so a lot of times the radicalization actually hops over to newsletters. So that's stuff basically dark data. And also the local news, I think like Fox and folks like that. A little surprising is there's kind of a monopoly effect where because you do have regional different ways of having monopolies on people's attention. That's all reason these companies got so big. Same reason we're basically at the whimsy of these companies. And so when you kind of calculate it out, like the 80%, essentially is just about 13 of these groups. And so we're, if we have a fickle Silicon Valley CEO, if we have employees who just go along for the ride, so we have advertisers who keep feeding them money. So that's kind of the threat model perspective. Shifting gears a bit to more like kind of like security, data engineering, data science. In order to do the data science, I did want to talk a little bit about this. We end up having to build a lot to work at kind of the speeds and scales we're targeting. So if you want to have an instant response pipeline, that means you have to kind of have streaming. You know, can you take hundreds or thousands of things a second? So our V1, you're kind of seeing the performance of that and we're architecting to a V2 so that we can actually go to arbitrary scale. Just have essentially budget limited. You are noticing we're doing a lot of graph technology. And so basically that's a nice way to deal with a lot of heterogeneous data and a lot of like linkage of data. Even actually in a machine learning world where instead of just direct links, you might have vectors, future vectors. Two other interesting things about the stack I did want to point out here. One is we do do end to end GPU computing just to be able to, you know, you can actually, if you want to have a building now graph and in memory, you actually could do that stuff with, for example, the Rapids AI stack. Likewise, neural nets in this space graph neural nets are getting interesting. We actually do more today on the traditional ones, but we're looking at those. And the last part and I think most important is kind of division of team. We have basically heroes for data engineers. And then a big part of this is figuring out ways to get out of the way just given it is an open volunteer effort. And so we actually do a lot on the self service. And that's a big theme for when we look about powering. So think notebooks, streamlet dashboards. Graphs to reduce visual analytics and automatic ML just the increasing ability of people just to go and handle the stuff. As a from the data science side, I kind of wanted a fun example here. For example, we had a news organization ask us about Obama gate. And so one of our analysts Cody did a good job of using basically hashtag analysis to basically connect the dots to about a month back to some Q and on stuff. And it was kind of impressive because the Trump tweet made no sense at all by even when I read it today. All these kind of code words. But once we move to more modern NLP techniques and go away from exact, you know, match of terms. So Cody currently had to look for Obama gate. But with NLP, we can now do things like, well, let's just look for the word Obama and the word conspiracy, but actually not the word, but the top and just the fuzzy topic. And when you have those things, then we could kind of more loosely kind of walk back. And so that means we can do kind of traditional analysis more easily. And so we've been building out a lot around that one point out FICE indexing from from Facebook and Bert modeling from basically what everyone does now. And then the other thing I want to point out here is this is also opening up types of analysis that just were straight up like you couldn't even think about. So maybe one example could be for looking at masks in a community where you might ask like who which messages are against mask use. That's kind of a strange that's kind of a get sense of semantics and meaning a bit. And that's hard to do just by by keywords. And then could you summarize it? Could we actually have a demographic breakdown? There are just certain things that with traditional NLP you couldn't have done. But over the years over the last like five years and actually even two years, it's just been really not so it's been going on. Then kind of last piece I'm going to share here is kind of just where we are where we're going. You're kind of getting a sense that we can now you know bring in a research researcher on a topic and if we have the data or help them pull in the data and kind of do this kind of analysis. The next level of empowerment we're looking at is like as we're building this out is could we actually partner with less technical organizations and if we have to kind of do this to protect their community. Imagine like a local civic leader talking about the cancer community with Andrea with combat risk patients. And there we're looking at could we start helping them to kind of figure out is are there folks who are not even maliciously misinforming in their community but people are just confused or are there people kind of targeting them. They're just tapping out and building tools and stuff around that. So that's kind of the phase shift we're starting to go into so that's pretty exciting. You're kind of seeing as you build out at state of capability all this stuff unlocks. And then finally I just kind of want to close out and tie together some of the stuff here. So the beginning as I was kind of sharing that investigation hopefully what you got across is like yeah like the analysis is cool and we're able to like do these giant analyses. Ultimately a lot of the important stuff is so in your face and so huge numbers that like again that analogy fishing with dynamite and it's you know those 13 companies that they shouldn't be gifting essentially millions or billions of dollars and free targeted ads to these groups and targeted recommendations. It's kind of that stuff that I think is more systemic. I am disappointed to see kind of these otherwise legitimate groups appear to be corrupted by misinformation. So call out essentially we're seeing MAGA is just so ever present here. We're seeing social media companies, regular media companies. So there are things you could do if you're an employee. If you are anywhere near the advertising spend of your company, all that stuff's important. And then kind of turning it around. That's all kind of social policy. A lot of folks tuning in are technologists of different stripe. And bad news is we're seeing these monopolistic media companies are not able to self regulate like the left hand or the right hand are always at each other and it's kind of brought us to where we are. Likewise, they've kind of gutted investigative and journalist teams of just because they have companies sucked all the money. Likewise, we're seeing private companies are sort of compromised as they're kind of trying to deal with revenue. So that's bad. What's good is we actually have an open source community. We I mean just like the technology community on that is huge. And now at the same end data science is, you know, our Python that's almost like built into the DNA. So I see strong potential and gathering potential for that. I encourage that you're seeing some of it happen here with project domino. And so on that point, if you are into this kind of stuff and you could help out with coding head into our slack. Likewise, as we launch in the coming months, these kind of more self serve and tears for folks sitting on top. We chat for partnering. And likewise, while we are looking at doing sustainable approaches to our growth, any like in especially a sort of a bootstrap phase that we're in for the next year or so. We're definitely, you know, grants, whatever that stuff does help with the core team do what they need to do. Likewise, you know, serverless compute time, anything like that. With that, thank you for your time. And hopefully this changed a little bit about either how misinformation is working in practice in the COVID era, and also even more importantly, that we actually could do things and we actually detect it and then can actually build tools for it. Thank you.


Should you charge higher fees so that your clients will take the work more seriously? Let's talk about that in this video. I was actually asked this question from one of my blog readers and I'll read you the question and you could Let me know what you think in the comments below if you'd like So the the person wrote we often hear that we only commit to things that we pay a dear price for Today a coach tried to sell me a 20,000 pound Program twenty thousand dollars slash pounds almost equal these days to work with him one to one Weekly sessions for a year and he justified the price with the need to commit if you pay for a cheap service You won't likely commit the change and as a healer I wonder if selling high-priced packages might actually help my clients stick with my healing programs Instead of being distracted by the next thing they find online. I remember you've talked about self-worth and money But I'm not sure about the relationship between the money we pay and the client's commitment All right, so if you want to share your thoughts on this question below Before we move on you can pause the video if you like and comment below I'd be very curious to know what your experiences. Maybe you've been charged a high price and Did you commit more? Were you glad that you were charged that high price or Were there things that you paid little for that you did commit to I'm curious I'm wondering is that a good mechanism to get clients to commit more So I'll first start with my own history around this and then I'll go on to what I think Is my position today, but again, I'm all of us have experiences with this This kind of thing from both the client's perspective paying a lot or paying a little and how that affects our commitment And from the from the service providers perspective that have you charged a lot and how have you felt as Clients have clients committed more to the work or has it been the same etc. So I used to sorry something in my nose here, but So when I started my business in 2009 I didn't know any better and I was just listening to the the big boys of online marketing who are all Charging $2,000 per course. Yeah, you buy a course and you barely get access to them and you pay $2,000 for it And they justify by saying well, that's not right then you get money back guarantee you can always it was it was And and some some of them upwards of 50% refund rate. This is what some of them got and they just it was very Like a bowl in the china shop kind of business and marketing. I just churned through a lot of people And don't care if it's the right fit or not. You just you know sell a bunch and then get a bunch of refunds requests and all that stuff and I I guess what I paid dearly for multiple programs like that and I Noticed it didn't affect my Commitment very much, but I thought well, that's the way you do it. Okay, so I charge $2,000 per course Okay, so let me repeat this as of this recording my courses are somewhere between the one to $200 range one to $200 That's 13 years later. I'm charging one to $200 per course back then I was charging $2,000 per course and plenty of people paid it plenty of people I Got rich in the first, you know year or two or I didn't get rich I mean not forever. I gave a lot of the money away just FYI because I felt guilty afterwards. That's another story, but But I didn't make a lot of money. I remember One webinar where I was presenting and selling a program, of course I made $75,000 on in a single hour webinar $75,000 for an hour per hour not bad. Of course, I could have gone out and said I make $75,000 per hour. Let me show you how to do it but of course it's BS because you know I paid half of that to an affiliate partner and then and then that only happened like once that month and and you know, I Lot of people who use high numbers are not telling you the full story and if you knew the full story be like That's not that impressive actually And of course, I got a lot of refund requests too just like the big boys of internet marketing did so it was very profitable but Was it good for client commitment? Well, like I said today I charge around $200 per online course so one-tenth the price I had to charge 13 years ago even despite inflation Okay, and guess what? It's about the same level of commitment Yeah, it's slightly less But not that not 10 times less commitment from the clients from the students I don't know what percentage less I would say I mean because commitment level it's hard to measure But I am getting Well say this I'm getting a lot of comments on my online courses that I know for sure I'm making about this. I'm making slightly. I'm making more sales That's true in terms of the number of units sold number of students who are signing up but but in terms of the show-up rate the Attendance rate for my live sessions. I would say it's about the same so basically what happened was I Was charging a lot of money to people 13 years ago 10 to 13 years ago And I noticed that a lot of them still weren't doing much with the program they bought And so I started developing this guilty conscience like I'm taking a bunch of money from people and They're not doing much with it and Some of you may you don't have to comment below if you don't want to out yourself But some of you may have had the experience to you learn from you know, these High-priced coaches that you got to charge high prices. I mean when you do you're maybe a little frustrated that the clients aren't taking the work as seriously as You think they should based on the price that they paid Okay, so Because of my guilty conscience, I kind of had eventually, you know, 2012 2013. I had this Spiritual breakdown breakthrough, you know, my conscience got louder and louder over the those years And I said I can't do this anymore. So I closed down the previous version of my business stopped charging the $2,000 per course price and I started 2014 I just did one-to-one for like a year just low price one-to-one because I wanted to really be with the people I'm gonna start over in a more humble way or see what that meant to me and then 2015 I started charging for courses again. It was at first 2015. I think I did it for free 2016 I started charging $25 per course now these courses were much less time than the $2,000 one $2,000 was much more comprehensive, but still I started charging a little bit $25 and then $45 and then 60 and then 90 and then 120 and then 150 and then, you know, these days it's somewhere around $200 per course And it's not still not as comprehensive as it was back then, but it's still it's very targeted topics It's about around the same amount of engagement as I did got back then and the other thing is when you pay all this money, right? These $2,000 courses they come with You know in such a short amount of time you barely get contact with the with the leader the course creator and You know, you're overwhelmed with you know, 85 modules or whatever it is And it's like not only are you overwhelmed with a fee that you have to pay but overwhelmed with the amount of content they expect you to integrate so all in all That kind of model is not good for the client or the student In my opinion, it's good for the service providers bank account. I Doubt that it's good for the service providers conscience if they had a conscience or if they listen to their conscience They'd say people are paying me all this money. What kind of value are most people actually getting? Are they getting at least that amount of value of not two three ten times more? That's what I would have wanted right to see my clients and students get that so basically I Today now that I'm charging ten times less per course than I used to I'm much happier My conscience doesn't yell at me first taking a lot a lot of money from because my courses these days as you can tell Compare my courses with a price of other courses you paid in the business and marketing arena Most of you're gonna say George you you know your stuff is cheap Yeah, my stuff is much lower price than and for the kind of value I think I deliver then compared to other people who charge a thousand dollars 500 a thousand two thousand easy per course, right? So Here's the here's the very here's a very important I'm glad you're still here with me because I'm gonna share a very important psychological dynamic for For you as a student and you as a client that you need to pay attention to which is When you pay a lot of money Your mind gives you the illusion that you've made a lot of progress. This is really key actually one of my clients Kind of told me this that that they realized this was happening for them They like my god every time I pay money. I feel like I've made progress I feel like maybe even the program that was so hyped up is gonna do it for me rather than me having to work through the creative discomfort the The discomfort of being consistent blah blah blah blah all the habit development that's needed to succeed with any project or any skill growth Paying a lot of money has a mental illusion that you just made progress You didn't You're just poorer. That's all your two thousand dollars poorer.   No, you didn't you pay money. You're poor now Just that's all you should know that now I got it I got a car about the time. Did you carve out the time? That's what a lot of people do they pay the money and think oh great The program's gonna somehow solve like no, it's not you're just poor and then did you carve out the time? To actually consume the program's materials and then do stuff with it make mistakes take the risk Get come up with the questions go to the Q&A calls if the program allows or has that kind of thing get your questions answer and then do and then to make more mistakes ask more questions make more mistakes ask More questions until you actually develop the the right kind of skill to move forward in the area So if this is the only thing you remember from this video Hopefully I will have saved you thousands over the years because again This is the key illusion that so many students and clients have now Back to the original question of okay So George are you saying that we shouldn't use the price as the motivational method for our clients? Correct because if you now that I have all this experience I can tell you from this grounded perspective and you may need to go through the experiences yourself that no It makes almost no difference It certainly does not make the difference that the price suggests that you charge more therefore the clients have a higher commitment No, that's not what I found. It's not what I found. I mean in fact some of my most dedicated students and clients When I write a book, I mean I Was heard this from a from a from a client the other day. I was so honored They had bought my five dollar book And they said that it's on their nightstand. They read a chapter every morning and reflect on it Like it was the some sacred Book that they used to have on the nightstand or something. I mean I was like, okay, that's not compare it that But but that's what they do. I mean so so so the most dedicated students and clients Will take seriously even a five dollar book Even a five dollar book. They will take it seriously It's not the price people It's the right fit of the client to the program The client to the product the client to the service if it's the right fit They're going to naturally feel energized to do things with it So How do you find those clients? Well, there's two pieces here one is you got to design your program well enough to motivate Well, you got to design a program well enough So that your marketing is getting the right people in and turning away the The people that are less right for the program So they don't waste their money and you don't waste your time. They don't waste their time Okay, so your marketing needs to be clear about Okay, this is this program is for this type of person And uh, it's not for this type of person perhaps But it's for this type of person and this is what you're going to get blah blah blah. Okay, and and the higher the price you charge the more Aware you should be about this weird dynamic Of they're going to think they got something done by by paying a high price And you are going to have a conscience problem Over time if you're not seeing the value that people are getting you're going to feel Bad that and rightly so you're going to feel like you're taking a bunch of money from people and not giving the value back At first you feel great like god making all this money, but then it's not sustainable over time your your conscience That which is always with you in my opinion our consciences are The connection to divine source That is educating us maybe even past lives and lessons we learned the past lives are embedded in our conscience Which then educates us in this life Uh about what is what is good for the soul and that's good for the soul. So So How do we get the right how do we how do we motivate clients number one? It's in our marketing of the product or program Are we are we do we understand what the what the client the right client is for this program? It's not for everybody The more you say oh this thing is for everybody the The more you show me that you don't have is that that much experience yet And who it's really for it who is really not for because but that's okay And that at the beginning you don't know you have to just take a bunch of different clients and see what happens But that's why at the beginning you don't charge as much. That's why I have the tapering strategy for getting clients google it tapering strategy for getting clients and you'll find my blog post about about this where you You you as you grow your skills you grow your prices And that's the right thing to do because you understand who you can best help And the more you take money from people the more value you should be giving back Not should but that's just how the way business good business that's sustainable Works, okay, so first your program has to be described properly, but secondly your program has to motivate properly The people who say no i'm using money as a way to motivate my clients is i'm like come on really You know you're using money because you're making money and you haven't had enough experience with your conscience Over time to know that you're gonna this is bad for your soul You're gonna you're gonna be miserable in a couple years and wish you hadn't done that Right. No, let's not use money to motivate our clients our fees our hyphen.  I'm sorry But that's true. It's not as smart as it could be.  You may have Uh, well live calls obviously where you have them share their celebrations or whatever So there's different ways of motivating clients and i've been learning a lot over the years about how to do this Well, you know in a program. So um Let's not use fees To motivate clients. Let's use fees As a an indicator Of how much value We can see that we are giving to people who pay us that that money Okay, so, uh, you know, I think that's pretty much all I want to say. Um, I guess the final thing Is to say that the more consistently You do your authentic marketing authentic marketing is the act of caring enough For your audience That you talk with them about their wants and their purchase patterns You know, what are they spending the money because that gives you a good clue into what they're wanting to You know, what what they're what they're seeking from someone like you So the more you can understand your your audience's wants and And purchasing patterns the more you can shape your program to be right for them Okay, and then secondly the more consistent you are showing up with content that serves Your audience from an authentic place in your heart the more people find trust and will The trust actually is what leads to commitment To working with you no matter your price so I hope that this is helpful and I look forward to very much to seeing if you want to share What your experience has been paying dearly for coaching and healing and mentoring programs And uh, and maybe charging for that if you want to share that as well So i'm always open to your feedback and your questions and comments and thank you so much for watching and joining me for this


Hi and how are you all today? My name is Priyanka and the question to be discussed says D and E are points on side EB and AC respectively hope angle ABC such that area of DBC is equal to area of EBC. Prove that DE is parallel to BC. Now this is the figure that we need to refer. Now here we are given in the question that area of DBC that is this area is equal to EB that means this area and we can see that this portion is common to both of them right. So let us start with our solution since triangle DBC and triangle EBC are equal in area it's given to us that their areas are equal and have the same base that is BC therefore substitute from E of triangle EBC is equal to substitute E of triangle DBC right this implies altitude will be equal to this altitude let me darken this line then this implies that triangle DBC between the same parallel lines and the altitudes that means they are between the same parallel line and therefore E is parallel to BC right so this was the proof that if for the question that was given to us I hope you understood it well take care and bye for now.


The use of exogenous ketones has been getting a lot of buzz lately, especially since they're reportedly being used by world tour teams like Yumbo Visma, the team that won both the yellow and green jersey at this year's Tour de France. This is obviously quite an endorsement, but, and I know this is going to be hard for some people to believe, just because someone fast does something does not necessarily mean that that thing will make you fast. As always, we're going to be taking a look at what the science has to say about the topic at hand, and on the chopping block today is ketones. Are ketones just another fad or marketing gimmick like so many supplements before them, or are there some real benefits to be had by taking them both for performance and recovery? I'll get into all of that, but before I do, I want to ensure you that this is not a sponsored video. Ahem.  Are you seriously not going to let me plug it? I'm not being paid, and this is also not a review of my own personal experience using ketones. Because to be quite honest, a lot of these supplements, including the ones that actually work, have such a small effect that if somebody is telling you that they can feel the difference when they use it, it's probably just the placebo effect. Let's start by discussing what ketones are and what exactly they do. Endogenous ketone bodies are derived from fatty acids in the liver and transported to peripheral tissues where they are oxidized for energy and have the potential to serve as an alternative substrate to carbohydrate during endurance exercise. Essentially, ketones are another source of fuel that your body can use for energy other than carbohydrates. Ketones are often associated with the ketogenic diet, which involves eating a high amount of fat and a low amount of carbohydrates. After a ketogenic state when your body is deprived of glucose, ketone bodies are produced to replace glucose as the primary fuel. Now it may be at this point that you say, wait a minute, I thought that the ketogenic diet was bad for exercise performance and you need carbs to ride fast. And research definitely backs this up. The ketogenic diet simply doesn't seem to hold up in the literature.  I look forward to your comments on this video. I don't have time to get into the weeds on the ketogenic diet in this video, but if you're still unconvinced or you just want to learn more, then I've left links to my keto videos down in the description below. The failure of the ketogenic diet, however, is by no means a nail in the coffin for ketone supplements. The problem with the ketogenic diet is that in order to elevate your ketone levels, you have to severely restrict carbohydrates, which, surprise, surprise, hurts your performance. But what if there was a way to not restrict carbohydrates and still get those elevated ketone levels? Could this be the best of both worlds? During a race or a hard ride, would you be able to spare your body stored carbohydrates as it uses ketones instead and then use those carbohydrates later on when you really need them, like in a final sprint or an attack? This is one of the theories behind taking ketone supplements. Certainly makes sense in principle, but what does the research have to say? First of all, it does appear that supplemental ketones can be used as a fuel source, as demonstrated by this study which had subjects consume carbs, ketones, or fat before a one-hour cycling test. When compared to ketone levels taken at rest, it appears the body is in fact using ketones to fuel the one-hour bike ride. Now, it's all well and good that the body is actually using these ketones for energy, but let's remind ourselves of why we're taking this thing in the first place. It's to perform better on the bike. This is the same argument I use when keto diet fans show me a study where ketosis allowed athletes to use more fat for fuel as if I didn't cite that very study in the video that they just watched. Okay great, keto athletes use more fat, but why should I care? The real question is, did it actually make them go faster? Cycling is not a contest to see who can burn the fewest carbs, it's a race to see who can cross the finish line first. You guys sensing a bit of anger? I think the keto people finally got to him. Thankfully, the previously mentioned study on ketone supplements did test for this so we don't have to speculate. The study consisted of a one-hour submax ride followed by a 30-minute time trial. This kind of test simulates what you might see in a race where you're hiding in the peloton all day until the final climb. And what they found was that those who consumed both ketones and carbs did in fact perform better than those who consumed carbohydrates only. This does look promising, however there's a detail of the study that I do take issue with and it's that these tests were performed after an overnight fast. Sure the subjects consumed carbs or carbs plus ketones right before the test, but this isn't exactly what I would call a pre-race breakfast and this could certainly skew the results in favor of ketones, seeing as the subjects had reduced glycogen or stored carbohydrates from the get-go. I gotta say, it's very weird to me that the researchers would even set up the study this way. It's almost as if they were trying to design a study that would, oh, oh I see. That being said, this test was only an hour and a half long and a lot of bike races are a lot longer than that. Having reduced glycogen stores at the end of a bike race is actually fairly common, so this could be a point in favor of ketones. This study did increase the interest in ketones as a potential performance enhancer. However, we never want to rely on just one study and unfortunately further research looks less promising. For example, this study which also looked at ketones and time trial performance actually had subjects consume a carbohydrate breakfast before testing. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. The subjects then consumed either a ketone diaster or a placebo drink 30 minutes before the test and this is what they found. Slower times and lower power outputs when the subjects took ketones. Given the previous study, this may seem unexpected. What's the reason for these results? Gut discomfort and intolerance among the participants with symptoms ranging from mild to severe. And this is not the only study coming to this conclusion. Other studies have found similar results. There are potential explanations for this discrepancy in results though, and the first one is the type of ketone supplements that were used. This systematic review on ketone supplementation found that of 16 studies identified, 3 showed positive results, 10 showed null results, and 3 showed negative effects of ketones. And a big part of that may be the concentration and type of supplement used. Consuming ketone monowesters seems to result in the highest concentration. What ketone diesters, ketone salts, ketone precursors, or even consuming ketone monowesters under fed conditions don't. Alright, just look focused and not.  Basically, the type of ketone supplement that you choose and when you take it makes a difference. You want to go with ketone monowesters and consume them under fasting conditions. Also, there is research that suggests that using bicarbonate in conjunction with ketones may unlock the potential performance benefits of ketones. There's also another potential confounding factor here, which is the type of test used. Remember that the purported benefit of ketones is to preserve glycogen, so in long, low-intensity tests they may perform better while in shorter, higher-intensity tests the impaired glycogen flux may actually be detrimental. Whether or not ketones will work for you could very likely be dependent on the kind of racing that you do. If you're an ultra-endurance racer who's depleting your glycogen stores, then they may be beneficial. However, if you're doing 45-minute cyclocross races with a lot of punchy efforts, eh, probably not. When we take a step back and look at the balance of evidence on how ketones affect performance, the results look mixed at best. This mixed evidence led this review to state that there's insufficient evidence to conclude recommendation of consuming ketone supplements on physical performance, and this meta-analysis comes to the same conclusion. However, this is not the end of the ketone discussion. Up until this point, we've been talking about how ketones affect performance, but as with many supplements, there's a second question, which is how do they affect recovery? And this may be the area where ketones start to shine. This study on ketone supplementation looked at just that. They had subjects undergo a three-week training period while consuming either ketones or a control drink. At the end of the three weeks, they tested the subject's 30-minute power at the end of a two-hour ride. So the subjects would be going into this final session fatigued after three weeks of hard training, and then be even more depleted on top of that before the crucial 30-minute test. If ketones had in fact improved the recovery in these subjects, then they should perform better in this final test. And this is exactly what they found. The subjects performed better in the 30-minute test and saw less suppression in their heart rate over the training period. Certainly promising results, but one critique that I do have is that there appears to be a substantial difference in the number of calories that the two groups took in during the training period. We can see that the ketone group was taking in significantly more calories than the control group. Now, ketones may actually be the reason for this, as their effects on the appetite hormones would suggest an increase in appetite. This increase in appetite could certainly be a benefit to taking ketones during a hard training period, but it's also a confounding factor. Did the subjects recover better because they were eating more or because of the ketones themselves? If you had both groups consumed the same number of calories, would the results be different? Unfortunately, we don't have that study, but there are other studies that show positive effects of ketones on recovery. For example, this study showed an increase in muscle glycogen synthesis. That being said, the data right now is limited. There just simply aren't a lot of studies on how ketones affect recovery. This review on the matter agrees, however, the current limited evidence would suggest that there are potential benefits to be had. I do have to mention, though, that one of the authors of this study is the research lead for HVMN, which is a company that sells ketone drinks. Ugh, freaking corporate shills. My final take on ketones given the research that we currently have is that it probably won't help for the majority of race applications if it's simply taken right before the race. However, I will be on the lookout for any research on ketones and ultra endurance athletes. As far as recovery goes, there are some very promising initial findings. So again, this is an area of research to keep an eye on. Maybe the world tour teams have some information that we don't have, and this could be a game changer for recovery. Or maybe not. Well, the Yumbo Visma guys are faster than you are, so... I'm not going to say conclusively whether ketones help with recovery or not right now until more research comes in. This may call for a part two in the near future. Thanks for watching. If you're interested in coaching, follow the link below. I also have training plans available, also linked below. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like, subscribe, and share this video with your cycling friends. I'll see you in the next one.


Oh, and welcome to this session. This is Professor Farhad and this session we would look at the unified tax credit, which is part of the transfer tax. This topic is covered in a corporate income tax course, the CPA exam regulation section, as well as the enrolled agent exam. As always, I would like to remind you to connect with me on LinkedIn. If you haven't done so, YouTube is where you would need to subscribe. I have 1,600 plus accounting, auditing, finance and tax lectures. This is a list of all the courses that I cover. Please connect with me on Instagram. On my website, you'll have access to additional material, such as PowerPoint slides, true, false, multiple choice. If you're studying for your CPA exam, 2,000 plus CPA questions. If you're studying for the exam, I strongly suggest you take a look. So let's go through the estate tax formula, which is the fair value of gross estate, which is what I call line one, minus the deductions, the expenses and the losses on line two. And if you wanna see the lectures for line one and line two plus examples, see the link below in the description, so you can view those because if you don't understand how we compute gross estate, how it's deductible and what's not, it's not very helpful for the session. Those will give you taxable estate. We're gonna add to the taxable estate any taxable gift, which I would also put in the description link to the taxable gift. If you don't know how to compute the taxable gift, then that's gonna give us the equal, the estate tax basis. So notice what happened here. We have the estate and the gift tax added together because they are practically the same thing. Gifts are when you are alive, you gave those gifts.   So I'm trying to emphasize the unified tax credit here because that's the big thing, the unified tax credit less any other tax credit than if anything left, it's the estate tax do if that number is positive. So we need to understand how this unified tax credit fit into this whole picture. Before we look at numbers, let's take a look at the tax, the tax table. So this tax table is for gift maids and for that after 2012, after 2012. And I am doing this recording in 2020. I don't know, you could be, if you want this recording in 2022, it could change, but the concept will be the same. So what does that mean? If you happen to have the amount with respect to which the tentative tax can be, to be computed as 10,000, then you pay 18%. Between 10,000 and 20,000, 1,800,000 plus 20% of the amount over 10,000, so on and so forth. I'm gonna be working always with over a million to illustrate the concept because my formula, it's gonna be that. So if you have taxable income over a million, your taxes 345,800 plus 40% of the excess amount over a million dollars. So to illustrate this concept, to illustrate this concept, I'm gonna show you how it works. So let's assume, no, let's not assume anything. Let's clarify one point before we proceed. Then if you don't know this, you are giving a lifetime exclusion. This is a lifetime. This is not one-time thing. This is throughout your lifetime, when you are alive and when you pass away. You can give a lifetime of 11,400,000. What does that mean? It means when you were living, you could have gave $5 million in gifts. Then when you passed away, your estate had $3 million in value. Well, three plus five equal to eight. Guess what? You don't have to pay a penny in taxes because there's an exclusion of how much? Of 11.4 million. So up to 11.4 million, you don't have to worry about paying taxes. Let's translate this. Let's translate this a little bit further. What does that mean? Let's assume you had to pay taxes. Let's assume there was no ex-occlusion. Let's assume you had to pay taxes. How much will you pay taxes if you had 11.4 million of gross estate and gift tax? Let me show you the computation. So if you have 11.4 million of gross estate and tax, your tax bill would have been 345,800 plus the amount and access of a million, which is 10,400,000 times 40%. What did I get this from? This one right here. I told you I'm gonna be working with the amount over a million. So assume you have 11.4 million. When we compute your taxes, your taxes are 4,505,800. This is your tax credit from the unified tax credit.  Basically the same thing. It's either simply put, as long as my gross estate and gift tax don't exceed 11,400,000, I don't have to worry about anything. Or another way to say it, if I have a bill of 4,505,800 dollars, that I can wipe out my taxes with this tax credit. So it's saying the same thing. But the best way to illustrate this is to actually look at few examples and I will change the numbers to show you how this works. Because it's very important that you appreciate it. Just see how it works, okay? So let's go to the Excel sheet to see how this all fits together. Okay, let's take a look at this Excel sheet. I created this Excel sheet, very similar to the formula that we have gross fair market value of gross estate less the expenses deduction and losses equal to the taxable estate. Add the post 1976 taxable gift equal to the estate tax, compute your taxes less any gift, less gift tax paid on post 1976 gift, less the unified tax credit, which we already already computed for you, 4,505,800, it just ignored this number for now negative 54, okay? So this is basically the formula. So I'm gonna start with the simplest example and tell you, assuming we have a gross estate of 11,400,000. We had no deduction, therefore our taxable estate is 11,400,000. We had no gifts, no gift, we did not gift any gift during our lifetime, that's zero. So our estate taxable gift is 11,400,000. Our tax liability is 4,505,800, I did not pay any taxes on gifts because I didn't give any gifts. I introduced my unified tax credit, which is already told you how I compute this, I don't have any taxes because that 4,500,800 dollar is wiped out, taxable is wiped out by my unified tax credit, okay? So let's work, I'm gonna always be working with that amount over a million because my formula is over a million. So if you wanna use an amount less than a million, you have to go in here and change this. So if your amount is between 750, your taxable, the tentative tax is between 750 and a million, you have to change the formula to 248,300. So you have to change this to 248,300, plus, this will have to change to 39% rather than 40, plus 39% of the excess over 750, so you have to change the formula here, the formula here, B5 minus 750. But I'm gonna be working with an over a million dollar tax bill this way, I can use the formula. So let's go back and let's assume you have fair market value of the grossest state is 15 million, you have fair market value of the grossest state is 15 million, you have expenses and losses deductible of a million. Now we have taxable a state of 14 million. Let's assume during your lifetime, you gave 2 million worth of gifts. That's gonna give us a state tax basis of 16 million. And let's assume you did not pay any taxes on those gifts, you paid zero because you didn't have to because they were below the exclusion, you paid zero, let's assume that's the case. Now your tax bill is 6,345,800, you have a tax credit of 4,505,800, so your tax bill is 1,840. Let's assume when you made those 2 million of gifts, you happen to pay 10%, which is 200,000. So if you paid taxes 200,000, that taxes will be counted and your tax bill now will be, your tax bill now in red will be reduced. If you happen to pay 250, on those taxes during your lifetime, now your tax bill is 1,590. So you could now, based on this formula, let's change the number, let's assume your grossest state was 13 million, you have 1 million in expenses of 13 million, you have 1 million in expenses, now you're down to 12 million. And let's assume, yes, 12 million, and let's assume your tax, you did not have any taxable gifts. Let's assume you have taxable gift of 2 million, that's fine, you have 14 million of estate tax basis, 14 million that's gonna give you a tax of 5,545,000, assuming you paid nothing during your lifetime. Then, that's 1040, wow, what a coincidence. So your tax bill will be, your tax bill will be 5,545,800, 4,505,800 will be wiped out because of the unified tax credit, what you're left with is 1 million and 40,000. So hopefully, you will, with this formula, it will help you. Again, if your estate tax is less than a million, you have to change this formula. I'll be posting this, I'll be posting the formula on my website, so you can download the formula from my website. So I hope at this point, you are comfortable, you see how the unified tax credit work. If you are looking for additional resources, I always suggest you visit my website and if you're studying for your CPA exam, use your resources. This is a lifetime investment, you're making a lifetime investment. Make it properly because the CPA will pay dividend for years. Good luck and study hard. In the next session, we'll look at a few CPA simulations that deal with what's included in gross estate.


So let me tell you about indicators, okay? Indicators is just as good, is only as good as the person that programming the information in there.  There's a lot of indicators out there that help me.  So I'm not here to bash indicators. I'm just here to explain the fact that indicators are nothing more than a tool.


One of the most regularly used developer features in WordPress is its hook system. Hooks are what make WordPress so extendable and allow you to build anything on the foundation of WordPress, from a blog to an online e-commerce platform. Let's dive into what hooks are, how they work and how you can use them in your WordPress themes and plugins. Hooks allow your theme or plugin code to interact with or modify the execution of a WordPress request at specific predefined spots. There are two types of hooks, action hooks and filter hooks. These are more commonly known as actions and filters. To understand how hooks work, let's look at how a hook is defined in WordPress core. In the WordPress front-end request lesson, you learned about the wpsettings.php file and how this file sets up the WordPress environment. If you scroll down to about line 643 of this file, you will see the following line of code, do action init. Here, the do action function defines an action hook with the hook name of init. You can read more about this hook in the init hook documentation. As a developer, you can hook into this action and run your own code when this init action is fired. Essentially, like being able to add your own code inside the wpsettings.php file at this point, but without actually modifying the core file. You can use hooks in your WordPress themes and plugins to add your own functionality to WordPress or to modify the default functionality. To see this in action, let's create a simple example of how you could use a filter hook to modify the content of a post. To do this, you're going to create a small plugin. Don't worry if you've never worked with plugins before, but do check out the introduction to plugins module to learn more about them. For now in your code editor, browse to your wpcontent plugins directory and create a new file called wplearnhooks.php. Then add the following code to this file. Now browse to the WordPress admin of your local WordPress installation, go to plugins and activate your new plugin. So we click plugins and activate wplearnhooks. Then browse to the front end of your site and view any post or page. In this example, I'm going to view the sample page. You will see that the content of the page now has the text, thanks for reading, added to the end of it. If you deactivate the plugin, the text will disappear. This is a very simple example of how you can use a filter hook to modify the content of a post. Don't worry if none of this makes sense right now, as we will cover this in more detail in the following lessons on action hooks and filter hooks.


So we're looking ahead to this Saturday, obviously our match against Oldham. Last Saturday obviously the disappointment of the Fleetwood match. Is it some frustration though that the overall result kind of overshadowed what for 80-85 minutes was a really good performance? Yeah, I mean we played very well throughout the game, ourselves down towards the end, which is obviously frustrating for us. So as well as we've got to rectify that, we've got to also take a lot of good stuff from the performance and I think that's what made it even more frustrating because there's a lot of individuals played very well on the day but for us it's a cool game and we'll take that disappointment on the chin and we move on to the next one. And the next one as we say, obviously Oldham are playing another home game, another chance to take, as you said, plenty of positives from last Saturday into this weekend's game? That's right, it's a good opportunity for us to concentrate what we need to do against Oldham, obviously they had a good win in the midweek but lots of training work but we're looking good and we're looking forward to continue how we played for 85 minutes against Fleetwood. And a new face in the building, Tony McMahon, I suppose he had something extra to the squad, obviously he could play in a number of positions. Yeah, pleased with Tony, obviously he felt with Alan Sheehan, I know he had a number of times, I keep calling him saying he's not on the team, leaving him out again and you know he wanted to go and play somewhere and Tony was really keen to come and join us till the end of the season and I just felt it was the right move for us all. Tony's a player, he's played a lot of football at right back in his career but he can play left back, he can play centre midfield, play right midfield so he's a real utility player for us and he comes and adds competition in the squad. And competition in places we believe Andrew Davis is back on there as much as back as well so as you said there is that competition, have we? Davos back, you know he's been training this week and trying well obviously within the concern was it was the arm which he broke in earlier the season so we were throwing our investigation and I think more to put his mind at rest that there was pain there obviously but you know there's no damage, long-term damage so he's keen to get back on with it, he's been frustrated to miss out on the last few weeks every player wants to play but you know he's ready.


So, you got your rig, but you want to understand and control it easier. And that is exactly why you wanted to learn custom shapes in the next 60 seconds. Alright, let's do this. First, create a new collection by right-clicking here, click New, and name it Custom Bones. Click the eye to turn everything else off for now. And in this collection, press Shift-A to create a mesh of your choice from scratch. Or if you have a 3D shape you've already created, you can import them here. Just make sure that you name them and that they are in the middle of the scene. I'm just going to use a sphere for my knees and a pyramid for my elbows. So, here's how you put them in. Now, turn your armature back on by clicking on the eye, select your armature, go to Pose Mode. Click on the bones you want to change the shape of. Under the Bone tab, go to Viewport Display and Custom Object. Select the name of the object that you want it to look like, and look at that. Now, it looks like your 3D object. If you want to change the size, shape, or angle of this at any time, go back to the object, make your adjustment, and then apply it with Ctrl-A. If you change rotation, apply rotation. If you change size, apply size, and so on. And you're done. Now, it'll be much easier to recognize the difference between our elbow eye caves and our knee eye caves for easy animation. If you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to like and subscribe. Thank you so much for watching. Hope you have a fantastic day, and I'll see you around.