Welcome, everyone, to our session, Women Explorers. What does the future of Mainframe development look like? So my name is Rochelle Ancrow, and I'm a senior software engineer from Broadcom. And today I will be the moderator. I'll be moderating this discussion with four other women technologists on Mainframe modernization and collaboration on an open community. Today I want you all to meet the women of the Zully Explorer Squad. So we have Jesse Lane Ponambaya. Jesse Lane is a product marketing engineer from Broadcom. We have Lauren Lee. Lauren is a front-end developer from IBM. We have Billie Jean Simmonds. Billie is a software engineer from IBM. And we have Caitlin Nina Bell. Caitlin is a software engineer, formerly from Broadcom. Welcome, ladies. Thank you for joining me. Thank you. Thank you for having us. So I want to start with what might be some jarring statistics for our discussion today. So based on a 2021 study by the Anita B.org Institute, the overall representation of women technologists decreased by 2.1 percentage points between March 2020 and January 2021 to just 26.7%. And aside from that, the presentation of tech women decreased at all levels except for intern in 2021. So in light of these numbers and in light of these statistics, I would like to turn to our panelists and ask each of you to describe a little bit about yourselves and describe your journey to Zully Explorer and whether you had enough women representation in your career, in your school, if you had women mentors and how did you arrive to the project of Zully Explorer. So I want to start with Lauren. Sure. So Zully Explorer is actually my first open source project and my journey into the Zully Explorer was definitely not a straight path. I actually started in the healthcare field and then over there women outnumbered men in both my classes and my workplace. But I got interested in the health information systems that were being used and the technology behind them. And so my angle of approaching to programming was more from like an informatics or information science perspective rather than like a hardcore computer science approach. And then in my master's degree program, which was in information science, there was a lot of focus on not just like how to program and code but also facets like user experience design and also things like what is the impact of the technologies and the disparities in information access on the community. And so in my program, I'd actually say there's more women than men in my class. And so I didn't have any shortage of women colleagues or mentors there. And then when I joined IBM after I graduated, the team for a project which works on Zully Explorer was still kind of forming and originally the distribution was more skewed towards having more men than women. But then after the team kind of filled out in the next few months, the distribution kind of evened out. And now I feel like it's more equal, but I also feel like I've been really lucky in that even when the distribution wasn't so even, I don't feel like it got in the way of me being able to contribute to the team or in the way of my personal or career development. I feel like I've had a lot of great mentors and role models here and both men and women. And I feel like the teammates treat each other with respect regardless of their appearance or background. That's great. So let's go to Billy. What about you? How's your journey to Zully Explorer? Hey, my journey to Zully Explorer was pretty much started when I joined IBM about three and a half years ago. I joined up and was working with the beta team that first designed Zully. And from there, my squad in IBM was formed. And when Zully Explorer was introduced, we were brought on to work on that and was also my first open source project. So like Lauren mentioned, we're on the same team there at IBM and it's a pretty even team between women and men and everybody is very respectful. And I enjoy working with everybody and working on the Zully Explorer squad. So in your university class, it was even as well for you. Is that the same experience that Lauren had? With the university, when I first started out, I was the only woman in the class. But as I went along and through the years before graduation, it started evening out more. So it seems like more women in tech were starting to join. The further I went along. It's great to hear. How about you, Gaten? How did you get started with Zully Explorer? Okay, so I guess I'll start with college as well. I studied mathematics in college and I went to a pretty small college. So our class had maybe like 10 people in the graduating group. And it was a little bit less women, more guys, but it was about evenly spaced. And then I sort of realized two thirds of the way through college that programming was really for me. And so I started taking them into programming classes, which are also more guys than girls, probably more students in general. Maybe we had 50 people in that class and maybe 30 of them were girls. And then I finished at a university. I moved to Prague and I got my first job here, which was not Broadcom. It was at another company and it was just me and one other girl. And everybody else was guys. That was more of like an engineering field. And we were both doing software, sort of. The work was designing plants that produced flour, you know, like cooking flour. And we were the only two girls on the group. And all of the guys, I think mostly that was because the guys were going on commissioning.  And some of those places doesn't really make sense to send a girl. I mean, they're going to Saudi Arabia and places in the Middle East. So yeah, I stopped working there partially because I didn't feel like I could really move further in the programming field, not because I was a girl or anything, but because they were doing a different kind of programming than I know how to do. So I switched to Broadcom and Broadcom was really, really evenly spaced. I feel like our team is pretty well split, especially maybe more while I was there. I know that two guys signed after, after I left. And everything, you know, was fine there socially. And at my current position, I'm still pretty new there. So figuring out the number of people on the team is still unsure because we're all working from home, but it's again, two chicks. And I think maybe, I don't know, maybe 20 to 30 people on the team total, maybe. No, it's got to be less. It's more like 15 to 20. So that's, that's roughly the split. And is Zoe your first open source collaboration as well? I believe so, yes. What about you, Jelly? What's your experience like? Well, for me, I believe normally in Asia, the split between women and men are kind of equal. I don't know, but when I started in university or in college, I graduated as computer science with a computer science degree. And my classmates are, I feel like it's evenly spaced. If it's not, then I'm very bad at noticing these things. And then when I joined the local bank of the Philippines after graduating, I believe the mainframe department has more women. So I would say it's a 60, 40% in overall mainframe departments. So it was kind of nice because you have, let's say, a balance between genders. But when I moved to Europe, I started when I started moving to Cornell in Czech Republic, then I noticed that there's a big difference in women and men as part of one organization. So I start, I work in Czech Republic as a support. So I have, let's say, from the Philippines, going to the Czech Republic, I'm an application developer, mainly focusing on Kabul. But then I switched to system administrator in Czech Republic. And there I would, I could see that there are a lot of men, especially in the system admin part. And most of the time, most of the men that I've worked with are from the L1 support. So these are the people who are working from night shift and stuff. And normally we're split into four shifts. And per shift we have one female. And I'm the female in that shift, or I'm the woman in that shift. And then I went to Broadcom. I am very fortunate enough to be part of, or my every team that I've joined, we have, let's say, more women in the team, maybe because I've been partnered with Grisha. So at least there's two women into the team. Every time I switch to a different team. And then when I joined Zoey, Caitlin was there. And then the Zoey Explorer squad also has wonderful women there. So I'm very, very fortunate. But if I look, let's say, if I zoom out and check the organization itself or the value stream that we have, there's definitely less women than the men in comparison. So I've heard a variety of stories going to Zoey Explorer. And some of you have less experience in mainframe than others. So let's maybe go to Lauren or Caitlin to explain your first experience with working on the mainframe and what it does in before being exposed to it via Zoey Explorer. Lauren, go ahead. Sure. So as I had been introduced by Rachelle, I'm a front end developer, which means I work a lot with like the graphical user interfaces, web interfaces. And that was what a lot of my schooling was in. So once I got into IBM, that was my first exposure to mainframes. And for me, it was like a really big change. Our interface was the TN, or the 3270 emulator. And also known as the green screen, it's very text based and it's completely different from what I was used to working with. I had a lot of trouble adjusting to it. And even now I'm still kind of shaky with it. So for me, working on a product that is made to help newcomers or designed with newcomers in mind to help them get started with mainframe development has been helpful for me as well for getting more familiar with mainframe application development and the ins and outs of that. Yeah, I think that was nice for me as well that I got to work on something that was going to help new people come in. Plus we got so much feedback from the master of the mainframe course that that was really cool. Because we were having trouble getting feedback on what we were doing and to hear it all at once, that was really great. My first experience was similar, I think, to Lauren's. I remember I read a blog article on how the mainframe works and the different basic parts of it, like the first week that I started at Broadcom. And it reminded me of my intro to computer science courses. Telling you about all the different parts of the computer and how they interact and all this stuff. And I would say, honestly, the modern tools are much better because it didn't take me very long to start contributing, even though I really don't know that much. And I really leaned on Jesse Lane on Jelly a lot to test my stuff and even understand what it was or how it was that I could test it. But it was definitely a learning experience. It was kind of cool to see how things have been done almost from the beginning of computers. I'm interested, Billy, in what you said earlier about your part of the beta project, the first work on Zoey. I wonder what that means, like the first steps of connecting mainframe with open source and what that entails. When I first joined up with IBM, I knew nothing about mainframes. I was fresh out of college and I came in and there really wasn't even a team built. I was the first member and I was here by myself for about a month, month and a half with really no team to work with. And so when I found out I was put into mainframes and working with Z systems, I just kind of crammed a bunch of education in and joined the meetings for the initial Zoey team back when it was beta. And it was really interesting, you know, trying to learn all that and trying to set Zoey up on my own, not knowing anything about mainframes and trying to get it installed and work with it. And this isn't Zoey Explorer. This is pre-Zoey Explorer. So this was, you know, the browser based Zoey installed on the ZOS. And it was really wild and, you know, joining all those meetings that Alvin Tann was running and you had Joe Winchester and Collin Stone and all of the first, you know, when they were first talking about, okay, we're going to, we're going to build this new product that makes it easier for people fresh out of college to adapt and work with mainframes. And I thought it was really cool that I was, you know, kind of a part of that as it was first talking out. And I'm more of a back-end developer. So I'm used to the terminal. So working with the 3270 emulator, it was a little different because it's not, you know, it's not the same commands as a terminal and stuff like that. So you had to learn all the new commands for TSO and everything. But it was very interesting and I enjoy it. So from that, I've been picking up more education for system administration and stuff like that. That's great. For me, it's a totally different experience because I came from a mainframe background. To me, putting mainframe and open source in the same sentence wasn't really, it wasn't heard of. So my experience with Zoys is totally different. I was excited because I, in with my background as a mainframeer, I was very interested in how I could have used it when I was still a cobald developer, an application developer for a brand. So that's my journey to Zoys. But now, maybe let's dive deeper into what, let me see, I've mentioned Zoys a lot, but let's maybe define it a bit more. So I would like to ask Jelly, I'd like to ask Jelly to give us an overview about the project. Sure. Zoys is a modern open source interface for the mainframe. It is hosted by Linux Foundation's open mainframe project, we call that OMP, and it's the first open source project based on ZEDOS. And the initial contributors for this came from Broadcom, IBM, and Rocket Software. It has five components, as you can see here on the slide. It has a command line interface.  It has an IDE extension or a VS Code extension, which is, we are part of that squad. And it also has a web UI component where you are allowed to have a web desktop browser. And it has a software developer kit, software development kit. And this kit allows you to extend all of these four components and create your own plugin.  Zoys opens mainframe securely to enterprise DevOps. It builds community around mainframe DevOps, and it makes mainframe an exciting career choice. And today, Zoys has a big community, and we are all collaborating and helping each other through Slack. Exactly. I think let's talk about the mainframe community and within the Zoys open community. So let's talk about collaborating within that. So how would, Jelly, let's start with you. How would you define that collaboration? I think that collaboration for me is really great. They are very friendly, you know. They're very helpful, especially our squad. I'm very proud of our squad. We are very friendly when we want to help people to discover what Zoys really means and how can you integrate all of these open source tooling to mainframe. So in our community, we write blogs, we connect to our users. In collaboration with master the mainframe and also the open mainframe projects, cobalt programming course, we are providing support for our students, you know, so that they could have a better experience while using Zoys Explorer as well as the extensions built on top of Zoys Explorer, which is the FTP or the kicks, even our internal, let's say, own project or own VS Code extension. We are also providing support for them. So I do love our collaboration and our community because it's a very, let's say, collaborative experience. Lauren, did you see any pros and cons to the collaboration you mentioned that the Zoys community consists of different companies? So do you see any pros and cons in the experience? Sure. So like Deli mentioned, our particular community in Zoys and the Zoys Explorer squad, I found it very welcoming because, as I said before, Zoys Explorer is my first open source project. And I was kind of intimidated by it at first because, you know, I hadn't worked on it before or any other open source project. So when I ever had heard about these, you know, open source during my classes or during hackathons or whatever, it always sounded like a very individual endeavor. Like you would sit in your corner, you'd program and you'd make your pull request and, you know, you would just hope that somebody pays attention to you. But when I joined Zoys, I found that it's, as Deli has been saying, it's a very welcoming community. And I was really surprised by how organized it is and how much there is a community. So, you know, it's not just people sitting in a corner programming. You've got, you know, squads for each component. We are the Zoys Explorer squad. And we have squad scrum meetings, you know, that are actually people getting together on a Zoom call and talking through issues together and pull requests together. And for me, that's been very engaging and very encouraging. And I think that really helps keep Zoys, the community and also the products itself, you know, very active. So that's the pros. As for cons, I don't really see any that are really specific to Zoys. I think, you know, we do have people from different companies and sometimes you have like, you know, different companies may have different interests or different directions they may want to take Zoys or Zoys Explorer. But I don't think these differences are, you know, they don't cause more problems for Zoys or Zoys Explorer than you would see in a different open source project that also is collaborated on by different companies. So, you know, you just, to resolve the issues, you know, you kind of just think at the core what benefits the community as a whole, not just the company, but, you know, your users that you're developing for and the wider Zoys community. And I think going back to that core vision or shared value helps kind of smooth over those differences that we may have even though we come from different companies. Well said, thanks. Kepin, what about you? How was your experience with open community of Zoys? I would say it's quite similar to what the others said. I will say I learned a lot at Broadcom and I really liked how friendly the community was. You know, it's a lot different from going to Stack Exchange and asking a question and have everyone bark at you. It was really friendly.  Although I was definitely afraid when I started, like, okay, I shouldn't ask something that would be stupid, but, you know, everybody on the team is really friendly and willing to explain things impatient. And I think maybe part of that also comes from the master of the mainframe that people do ask questions. And Jelly and Rochelle are, you know, there to answer and to help out. So that was really nice. I liked how fast things went. So, you know, you open a pull request and you're going to get a review within the week. I mean, unless we're like right about to release the next version, you're going to get a review almost right away. So that was really nice to get feedback very quickly. Cons, yes, as Lauren said, there were sometimes some priority differences based on, you know, which company you came from. And sometimes it would be hard to work on Zoey Explorer because you had other priorities, you know, for whichever company you work for. But I think that was mostly it. I remember there were some problems with the meeting times that it kept waffling. It wasn't really a problem, but it kept waffling between, you know, because the American group and the American team wanted it to be, what was it? I guess, I guess later. And the European team wanted to be earlier so that it wasn't right at five. But as far as problems go, that's pretty minor. It was just kind of, you know, funny at the time. Yeah. It's just about communication, I think. So Billy, how about you? How was your experience? And do you feel like the community has a passion for mainframe modernization as Zoey community itself? Yes, I think there is a passion for the mainframe and that's what really drives all the community collaboration and everything. I do agree about, you know, maybe a con on, you know, the companies with their own processes and everything. But that's the best thing about the open community squads and everything. You don't go one way or the other with the processes. We decide together how we'd like to go. We may even create a whole new process so that it stands alone and isn't just like the separate communities, the separate companies that are all aligned with the project. I think, in my opinion, it really boils down with just communication, you know, whether or not like different companies have different priorities. If you communicate with each other, you will find the middle ground and what Billy said, they're going to go through that middle ground so that all of you will benefit from that. I would also like to add, yeah, for sure, communication definitely helps. And speaking of communication, I remember that it was sometimes difficult to get feedback on our products from customers. So if you're using our products, please tell us what you think. It'd be super useful. Definitely. And yeah, for me as well, I think the common theme is all of the squads, especially during our program increment planning, I feel like in the community itself, everyone is working towards mainframe modernization and making that transition from the legacy and old style of working with the mainframe with the new ones. I think I really feel that in the passion. So now let's go to the section on how Zoey Explorer contributes to that, to the mainframe modernization. And I would like to ask Lauren to describe the user experience in Zoey Explorer. Sure.  And this is a really big difference from the traditional more text-based 3270 emulator, also known as the green screen, which has a much deeper learning curve as I had mentioned before. So for Zoey Explorer, we really want to make interacting with the mainframe more intuitive by placing these mainframe interactions into the more user-friendly tree browser in the VS Code views inside the integrated development environment or IDE. For Zoey, as an organization, one of its main goals is to make getting started with mainframe development easier, more familiar, simpler, and more attractive to developers. And because many of today's developers tend to be more familiar with the graphical user interfaces of popular IDEs like VS Code, which happens to be one of the most popular IDEs out there, Zoey Explorer is a really great tool for these developers to jump into the world of mainframe development. Sounds like a great product. Of course. So now let's move to Kate then, and I would like to ask you, Kate, then to explain how this Zoey Explorer squad communication works in your experience, what that looks like. Yes, ma'am. Usually, let's talk about it from like a day-to-day or week-to-week perspective. We usually have one meeting every day or one meeting every other day, stand up to talk about what we've been working on. And basically we talk about all of the pull requests that we had open at that time. So all of the squad chat is on Slack. And also it makes it really easy to communicate with the mainframe community, especially the master of the mainframe people, because they also are communicating with us on Slack. And yeah, it was really open. I would say that communication happened whenever you wanted it to. You could communicate with the entire squad at once, or you could communicate with one or two, however many people were interested in some issue that you were talking about. Thank you, Kate then. Billy, do you feel like there's a positive culture in the squad, even though we come from different companies? Oh, definitely. Everybody is very respectful of each other and open here each other's ideas and collaborate on that. And we all learn from each other and share our knowledge. So yes, I really think the squad has a very good feel about it. So, you know, when I first joined, I'm probably the newest member of the squad on the call here. I've been with the Zoey Explorer what, maybe a year, a year and a half now.  But, you know, once I got into the calls and got working on the project and everything, it was really smooth transition in and I felt very welcoming. That's good to hear. Both you, Lauren, how do you manage internal priorities and contributing to open source in terms of balancing that work? So a lot of this is making sure that Zoey Explorer is like a robust product that we can build upon. Zoey Explorer is extensible, like Jelly was saying during her overview of Zoey. And so you want to make sure that as a base product, it's strong and, you know, it caters to the needs of its users. So even though your internal commitments might be different or they might want to take Zoey Explorer in a certain direction, you have to kind of make sure that the basics are covered. Regarding things like, you know, your user experience, you want to make sure that's good for everybody. You know, nobody's going to benefit if a company takes it in a direction where the user experience is bad. So you want to make sure, you know, keep the user in mind at the forefront and making sure that you communicate again within your squad or, you know, with the Zoey Explorer squad and that really helps kind of balance the priorities between your internal commitments and the more, you know, open source ones. It's kind of, yeah, just making sure that you're putting the user first and making sure that Zoey Explorer is just a strong extension that other, you know, whether it's IBM or Broadcom, other companies can build upon. It's about a good user experience and not just for new main framers, but also for experienced main framers who want to be more efficient in their work. I think it's definitely a good direction to go. So I want to go to Jelly and you mentioned earlier connecting with Jelly when she first joined the squad, connecting to Lauren when she first joined the squad. Do you think that these connections you made with these other women in the squad help you to have healthier debates in whether we agree on a certain direction? I think so. I think really communication is the key to all of these things. And I think one of the great things that we have, at least for what we've been trying to say is that we have one goal and that is to provide the best user experience for our users and having that mindset and having the ability to communicate to each other and explain our goals, then we are able to do, it's a form objectives that is beneficial for all of us. I remember when IBM started joining our group and contributing a lot more, they were thinking about extensibility and I truly love that idea because for me personally, I don't know how to do it. And so when Billy and Lauren started refactoring our code, organizing it, making it easier for us developers to read it, and then they provided this API so that others can create their extensions on top of Zoey Explorer. I think that's a really great move, that's a really great features because now not just vendors, mainframe vendors, mainframe users and even individual contributors can now create their own extensions on top of Zoey Explorer. So if let's say I want some feature that nobody wants to create, I could create my own. And this kind of communication to different companies, different people and having that one mindset still, it's the important key to have this great user experience implemented in Zoey or Zoey Explorer in general. Yeah, Rochelle, I don't know if you wanted to add your thoughts. I just have one more thing to add before we switch slides. Go ahead. I just want to say, working there, it was super easy to collaborate with other people and it was really nice because I felt like I learned quite a lot just by some issue would come up and it was related to, I don't know, CICD or it was related to tests or it was related to building some larger part of the products like profiles. And maybe I didn't work on that by myself but even just getting the opportunity to try and to work on it with other more senior programmers in a certain area, it was a really great learning experience and I really got to try just about everything that I wanted to try. So there wasn't any limitation like, oh, you don't know enough about that so we're gonna choose somebody else who can do it faster and you just work on what you know. It was really great to be able to just sort of spread out and be like, oh, I'm interested in CICD this week so I'm gonna try that. I totally agree with that and having everybody with the different backgrounds and everything when we did have these discussions, you've got multiple perspectives and ideas and it was really great to collaborate those ideas and find a good solution that you may not have thought about on your own. Yeah, for sure, absolutely. Yep, 100% I agree. I'm a cobal developer. I don't know how to code in TypeScript and when I joined the squad, I learned how to do it so it's really, really helpful. I learned a lot as well. Yeah, I think our squad really embraced our diversity and not just in terms of geography, in terms of gender, in terms of all these other things but even our experiences, whether if it's distributed back and front and mainframe, I think it's the lesson there is to embrace that. It's a strength and not a weakness. So I think we can move to the next topic which is representation in the broader Zoe community. So our panelists, four out of five are represented in the Zoe community leadership. So I would like to ask Billy to explain what that means, what that entails. Sure, thanks, Rachele. I myself am the Zoe Explorer Technical Steering Committee representative and the Zoe community believes in transparent and open implementation of processes and deliveries. They like to say open first, developing transparently with an inclusive environment where anyone willing can easily find a way to participate and contribute. So with this in mind, all status updates, squad meetings and demos of progress are open to the public. The Zoe community is stakeholder-centric where stakeholders include end users, exploiters, deploying enterprises or the Zoe advisory council. The Zoe community use stakeholder feedback when planning future work during our PI planning and iterations and we keep them informed on how the feedback is received and responded to. Lauren is our Zoe Explorer Security Group representative and this group deals with the security issues raised and coordinate remediation of the vulnerabilities with the affected squad or squads. Thank you. So I want to ask Billy about your TSE representative for Zoe Explorer. I wonder if you've encountered any barriers in you feeling confident about decision-making as part of that group for our squad. I'm really new to the position and being our representative. It has been interesting. I joined the weekly calls and I brought up a few questions and stuff we would like to get insight in. So especially when it is in regards to our Zoe Explorer extenders and then just keeping our community statuses up to date with our committers and everything because the OMP community presents badges to Zoe committers that they can use. They can have those badges on their LinkedIn accounts. It will show that they have this experience with the open community and with the modernization of the mainframes and helping out there. I've been to a few of the other calls, the architectural call and got some feedback there. It's been a lot of fun talking with all the other representatives from the squads and listening to what they want to share and how the progress on their products are going as well. Learn can you talk about your experience with the security work group? Sure. So like Billy, I'm also quite new to this position and in fact the security work group is kind of evolving right now. So we are hoping to make our practices for security more robust, more transparent for our users. And so right now we're kind of gathering perspectives from the different squads on how to handle security issues you know, what's, we actually do like scans on a regular basis for security issues. But we are trying to coordinate how do we handle our process for approving a release? What's our process for how security is factored? Like how does the security squad communicate with like say the technical steering committee to let them know whether or not they think our release is ready to go out in the perspective from a security perspective. So that's what a lot of the work right now is as well as also around trying to improve the way we communicate how we do security at SOE. We were trying to improve the way we do that as well. It's good to hear. I think we've touched on this earlier but making decisions and feeling confident about those decisions. I think it's easy if we know that it's about making things better for our users and for the community in general. I think it's a good point. So in closing, I want each of our panelists to describe briefly what you think the future of the crime development will look like. Let's start with Bailey. Okay. The future of mainframe development. I believe it really depends on the feedback we get from our users and the people that are adopting our products and everything. That feedback really helps form that future. And they may be seeing issues or want enhancements or something that we haven't even thought of. So if you feel like there's something missing, definitely let us know. And we'll discuss it as a team and see how relevant that is and keep a conversation going about it. I think that will really frame that future development. Other than that, it's more of just making everything cleaner and work a little bit better. Just finalizing and getting stuff going like that. That's very helpful. What about you, Kaitlyn? What do you think future of mainframe development will look like? I think that the Open Mainframe Project is going to play a big role. Just because as somebody coming into it, it definitely affected how I worked with mainframe. And I'm doubtful that it will be easy to get enough mainframeers into mainframe without it. And I'm not an experienced mainframeer. I know that sometimes it can be hard to convince older members of the community that it's actually worthwhile to do this because they didn't need it and they were just fine. And I'm not sure all of the reasons behind that, but I would say that from my perspective as a younger mainframeer who's used to using Git and VS Code and using tools that sort of work with a mouse, for instance, or work from the command line and you don't have to use weird function keys to navigate around. It's definitely been very helpful for me to use the modern mainframe and I honestly can't imagine using mainframe without it. So I really see that as the future that we're moving towards. So let's go to a more experienced mainframeer, Jenny. Let's see our perspective. So for me, as somebody who started with mainframe for like 13 years, about maybe 10 years, using the 3270 screen, I think really the future of mainframe, I agree with you, open mainframe will have a big role in this. And I do like that with our project, with the Zoey Explorer, I could use a mouse, I could use a right click to do this navigation and to connect with data sets and stuff. And so I think the future of mainframe development is good and it's bright, it's going to be beautiful. If a lot of people will try and use Zoey, I think that the modernization part is quite innovative in this way. I remember my manager said that it's very weird for him to hear mainframe and innovation together as connected to each other. And with Zoey and open mainframe in the picture, those two things are something that's very possible. So I think it's a good future. That's why I'm an ambassador for open mainframe, because I truly believe in this project. And if I am going to use it as an experienced mainframe developer, I think it's very useful for me. Alright, why don't you close us off? So I totally agree with what Billy, Katelyn and Jellie said. And because I come from a similar perspective as Katelyn, I will kind of hook into that and say that Zoey, because it's got these goals of trying to make the mainframe development more attractive to new people, it's going to be a big part of it. Like I agree with her on this, just because we're kind of doing this outreach to people who might not usually be thinking about mainframe development, and we're starting to kind of reach these populations of developers that maybe weren't going to be part of the pool of people who would be contributing to mainframe development. So for things like Zoey Explorer, for example, I think that's really important. You know, we don't want to scare people away from mainframe development. The mainframe is really powerful and it's, you know, we need people to be able to maintain those programs that will keep them running and doing what they're supposed to be doing. So I think one indicator of this is the way that Zoey Explorer has been integrated into quite a few COBOL courses, at least three, master the mainframe being one of them. It's now called IBM Z. I think it's now called IBM Z Explorer. They changed their name, but essentially it's still using Zoey Explorer to get people into mainframe application development. And I think it's really important because, you know, when you start people on these tools and you start them on tools, you know, things that they're familiar with as a jumping off point to get into the world of mainframe development, you know, once they become familiar with those tools, they start wanting to use them for their jobs. So I think Zoey will play a big part of that. The development mainframe project will play a big part of that. And that'll be good for me because I still struggle with the 3270 emulator. So, you know, I like seeing it move in this direction that's more intuitive for me. And also, you know, our other users too. Thanks for all your thoughts. I think what really stood out from all of you, what you said is that it's about always improving. It's about always learning. And that's true as well, not just for mainframe development, but for collaborating within community and an open source community at that. So that's it for our panel discussion. If you want to continue the conversation, these are links that you can go to engage with us. All of us are active on Slack, as mentioned earlier. So if that's the best way and the quickest way to reach us and talk to us, all our scrum meetings are open. So you just subscribe to the mailing list and you can join us and talk to us there as a squad as well. Our squad values feedback and the quickest way to give us your thoughts is to via our GitHub repository. You can open issues or submit bug reports. So finally, I want to thank you again. Thank you, ladies. And thanks for the lively discussion and I've learned and I've enjoyed learning from all of you. Thanks. Thanks. Bye. Thank you. Having us, Rachelle.


So I'm going to read from my story The Memory of Water, which is part of a linked collection I've just finished working on. And the linking element is the setting, which is pretty much the place I grew up in, which was a tiny college campus town in Bangladesh during the 80s. And the stories are kind of a tribute to that place and that particular moment in time. And they're also kind of an examination. And so one of the things that fascinated me, fascinates me about where I grew up and how I grew up is this idea that we were all kind of, that we grew up in an egalitarian community, which was true and not true at the same time. And so one of the things I tried to explore in my collection, and in this story in particular, is this idea of insider and outsider, who belongs and who doesn't. And also this construction of different hierarchies, which we can so very easily dismantle, but we don't. So my story is called The Memory of Water, and I'm just going to read the first couple of pages. The year the waters rose to submerge a third of the university campus was the year the school hired Anisul Alum as the music teacher. The floods came almost every year, but not everywhere. On the campus, the university students raised funds for flood relief. The university itself made a donation, usually to the President's Relief Fund. The actual handing over of the check from Vice Chancellor to Chancellor usually merited a captioned photo in the national dailies, perhaps five seconds on the evening news. Teachers and officers donated a day's wages. Students and teachers joined forces in distributing relief materials to nearby villages. The campus itself never suffered much beyond a few parcels of lowland becoming ankle deep in malodorous green water and the dearth of fresh produce in the markets. Housemates and their mistresses suffered extra from the sludge being tracked into houses. The planners had built the campus on higher ground for a reason. Anisul Alum hailed from the low lying lands of the Southeast, where some flooding was an annual occurrence. The rivers and the swamps swelled with the advent of the monsoons and were awaited as much as they were reviled. In its wake, the overflowing water left silted over land. Earth so rich and warm and moist, you could breathe on it and grow something green, people said, stand still in it for an instant and you could feel your feet take root in the loam. But it had been years since Anis had seen any of that. The way his home became impassable during the rainy months. During their weekly calls, his father told him point blank that he was not to jeopardize his studies or himself trying to visit. Even in the years of mild flooding, people would drown or be electrocuted from the unfortunate conjunction of live electrical wires and swaths of water. Launches capsized, boats upturned, electrical poles toppled, vortices formed. Who didn't know about the vagaries of flood season? Anis liked imagining home during those calls. His mother had probably served dinner early so his father could take a leisurely pace in getting to the tea stall that had the phone. At the stall, his father would sit right beside the counter to be on hand when Anis called from the pay phone at his student's hall. He would order a steaming cup of milky tea and sometimes his words were punctuated by loud slurps. He would linger afterwards for gossip and neumes. The walk home would be amid darkness but maybe he would find someone to walk with, at least part of the way. He would have his heavy aluminum cased flashlight. It's beam able to cut through even heavy rain. His mother would be waiting to hear of her son. On those evenings, her worn prayer mat served merely as a waiting station. Anis felt caught. His years of study and work in the city had left him unready to fit back in his village. But he was worried of the frenetic city life of cobbling together a subsistence through private tuition gigs, seven to a room living, and the interminable twice a day meals at the nearby chapara. This existence was not what his father had hoped for. When he had packed Anis off at 17 to a distant relative in Dhaka. His father had sent Anis whatever they could spare. They did well enough in the village. The city was a different beast. Neither father nor son had ever imagined the ability eventually leading to a degree would be singing the Nambi Pambi skill that had always been an irritant on his father's skin. Whoever had heard of going for higher studies to the city to study music, that the university even allowed it seemed a joke to the old man. How could this be a serious thing? And Anis was certain this would make him employable? Where other aspiring families had only sent their sons to public college in the town or perhaps even east to Kumilla. He had reached higher and sent Anis to the capital. His bitterness seemed to make his beardy burn faster and the stench of it more accurate. At least Anis had a fallback, he would sigh. He could always come back and oversee the men plumbing their land, reduced as they were by having to finance him. The campus seemed perfect before Anis even visited. It seemed his degree might indeed lead to a regular job. He pulled in every favor he was owed and some he wasn't to get an interview which went well. He had acquired reading glasses on the advice of a sidewalk quack and he thought the square black frame made him look intellectual. He felt confident. It was the interview board comprising the headmaster and three school committee members who seemed more anxious and shift-eyed. They had never interviewed a music teacher before. His academics were in order and he came with good recommendations. But how did one decide who sang well and who didn't? What if a student had an awful voice but sang well? How would he deal with girls and boys trying to mingle too closely? The headmaster had more solid questions about curriculum and grading, but these dried up soon and the board members seemed to be fuddled by his answers to their fumbling questions. The headmaster called the following week. They thought he would fit in well. But you must understand, Anis Shahib, as an optional subject, you might not always have a full load and we will expect you to take on other responsibilities. Anis already knew that. All he could think of was the red earth, the sun striking still waters through leafy branches and the smell of freshly cut grass as he had waited for the bus. He said yes. Thank you.


Hello and welcome to the session. In this session we are going to discuss the following question which says that two unbiased dice are thrown and the sum of the numbers which come upon the dice is observed. 1. Find the probability that the sum is even. 2. What are the odds in favor of getting sum a multiple of 3? 3. What are the odds against getting sum greater than 11? Let a be any event. Probability of occurrence of event a is given by number of favorable outcomes upon total number of outcomes denoted by m of a by m of s in favor of a is given by number of times a equals by number of times a does not occur. What's against a is given by number of times a does not occur by number of times a equals. This key idea let us proceed with the solution. As two dice are thrown there are 36 elements in the sample space. Sample space s is given by x y such that x y can take any value from 1 to 6. Therefore total number of elements in the sample space is 36. We shall find the probability that the sum is even. Let a be an event getting sum as an even number. Therefore a is given by the set of ordered pair of elements that is 1 1, 1 3, 1 5, 2 2, 2 4, 3 1, 3 3, 4 2, 4 4, 8 1, 8 3. Therefore number of elements of a is equal to 18 as there are 18 elements in the set a. Therefore probability of occurrence of event a that is of getting sum as an even number is given by number of favorable outcomes divided by total number of outcomes that is n of a by n of s that is n of a is 18, n of s is 36 which is given by 1 by 2. Therefore probability of getting an even sum is 1 by 2. Now we shall find odds in favor of getting sum a multiple of 3. Let b be an event of getting sum a multiple of 3. Therefore elements of b will be set of ordered pair of elements having sum a multiple of 3. That is 1 2, 2 1, 1 5, 5 1, 3 3, 2 4, 4 2, 8 3, 4 5, 5 4 and 6. Number of elements of b is given by 12. We can say the number of times b occurs is given by 12 then number of times b does not occur is given by total number of outcomes minus number of times b occurs. Total number of outcomes is given by 36 and number of times b occurs is given by 12. Which is equal to 24. Therefore number of times b does not occur is given by 24. We know that odds in favor of an event say a is given by number of times a occurs by number of times a does not occur. Therefore odds in favor of event b is given by number of times b occurs upon number of times b does not occur. Number of times b occurs is given by 12 and number of times b does not occur is given by 24. So we have 12 by 24 which is equal to 1 by 2. Therefore odds in favor of getting the sum as multiple of 3 is given by 1 by 2. Now we shall find odds against getting sum greater than 11. Let's see the event of getting sum greater than 11. Therefore c is given by the other pair of elements 6 of the sum of the elements is 12 which is greater than 11. Therefore number of favorable outcomes for the event c is 1. Or we can say number of times b occurs is 1. Then number of times c does not occur is given by total number of outcomes minus number of times c occurs which is given by 36 minus 1 that is 35. Therefore number of times c does not occur is given by 35. Now we know that odds against any event say a is given by number of times a does not occur by number of times a occurs. Therefore odds against even c is given by number of times c does not occur by number of times c occurs. Number of times c occurs is given by 1 and number of times c does not occur is given by 35. So we have 35 by 1 that is 35. Therefore odds against getting sum greater than 11 is given by 35. This completes our session. Hope you enjoyed this session.


Amen. All right. Happy Father's Day. First Samuel chapter 15. Let's take a look at this story in the Bible and see what we can come up with as far as application for Father's Day. I know we've looked at this story in a couple of different ways before. You know, it's a good story to demonstrate, you know, the importance of taking responsibility in your life and not passing blame on to others. I know we've looked at that in the past, but I want to look at a little bit different aspect of this story this morning, especially for Father's Day. There's a lot in this chapter, a lot of good lessons in this chapter, but look down at First Samuel chapter 15. Saul was given a command here. Saul was given a command on something that he was supposed to do from God with regard to the Amicolites. And in First Samuel chapter 15, look down at verse number three.  So that was direction directly to King Saul, directly to the leader of the nation.  That's pretty harsh. A lot of people would say that's pretty harsh command there. You know, go and smite, basically destroy everyone, not only all the people, including men, women and children, but all of the livestock, all of the animals, everything, okay? So first of all, you know, it's a command from God. So if you're reading the Bible and you read things like that, you should just be like, okay, well, you know, it must be right. But let's go ahead and look at why God gave that command, just so we can get some context this morning before we get started. So let's go to Exodus chapter 17. We can find out why, you know, God said that, well, God has a reason for everything that he does, everything that God does is just, it is right, it is correct. So we know that and, you know, we don't have to see the reasons for it, but let's go to Exodus chapter 17 and just look at what these amicalites had done in the past to deserve this judgment that God had passed upon them. Look at Exodus 17 in verse number 8. So this is, the children of Israel have just come out of Egypt. Look at verse number 8. The Bible says, then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Raphidim. And Moses said unto Joshua, choose us out men and go and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses said unto him and fought with Amalek. And Moses and Aaron and her went up to the top of the hill. And it came to pass when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, that Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands were heavy. And they took a stone and put it under him and he sat there on. And Aaron and her stayed up his hands, the one on one side and the other on the other side. And his hands were steady until they're going down in the sun. And Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. So, you know, this is a famous story in the Bible as well where Moses holds up his hands and they win the battle and he needs help holding up his hands. And Joshua, we just studied this a few weeks ago, in Joshua chapter one, Joshua was the one, he was the one down on the field that prosecuted the battle against Amalek.  But here's the thing, Amalek, this nation was the nation that we're talking about in 1 Samuel chapter 15. This is what they did. Okay, we get a little bit more detail about Amalek and what they did to the children of Israel after they left Egypt in Deuteronomy chapter 25. So, turn to Deuteronomy chapter 25. Basically, they were the first people that attacked Israel out of Egypt. So, Israel, they were not going into the promised land at this point.  They were just attacked by the Amacolites, all right? They were attacked by these people, unprovoked. And Israel, you know, they ended up fighting this battle in a battle of defense. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 25. We get a little bit more detail in verse number 17. Deuteronomy 25, 17. And look what the Bible says. Remember what Amalek did unto thee, by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt. So here Amalek did something, how he met thee, by the way, and smote the hind most of thee. Even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou was faint and weary, and ye feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord God had given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God had given thee, for the inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven, thou shalt not forget it. So this whole event in 1 Samuel chapter 15 is just, it's prophesied. God's telling you, this is what's going to happen. And this is it actually taking place. But what did they do? They were, look, they were killing the innocent people, the innocent women and the children and the weakest people of the nation of Israel. They were, you know, whatever that mean, they were ambushing them. And then Samuel gives us a little bit more detail in the end where he says, to him, as thy sword have made women childless, shall thou that mother be childless among women. So look, they were attacking, you know, unprovoked the children of Israel and they were killing the innocent people. They were, they were, they weren't attacking the nation. They were being sneaky coming up from behind, murdering people and all this kind of thing. So this is why they're being judged in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Okay, that's just to give you some context on God's harsh judgment against the Amicholites. Okay, go back to 1 Samuel chapter 15 in verse number nine. So the point I'm trying to make is, you know, the head it coming. Okay, the head it coming, it was a just punishment.  But, you know, that should be enough. But God even gives us in the Bible details of why they had it coming for us. Okay, look at verse number nine in 1 Samuel chapter 15. Now we'll get to the point I'm trying to make this morning. But Saul, and the people spared ag-egg, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the lambs, and all that was good. And they would not utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile and refute, they just, they destroyed utterly. So, first of all, a little side note here.  Okay, this is just a little mini sermon in the sermon. Okay, Saul went and he went and he fought against the Amicholites. And he killed everybody, except one person, except the king. He killed, just imagine that. He killed the men, the women, and the children, just like God said to do. But he spared the king, and he spared some of the livestock.  So that is God's standards.  Okay, so just think about that in your life, different areas of your life. God's standards are full compliance.  Saul didn't listen, looked down at verse 14, 1 Samuel 15, and verse number 14. And Samuel said, what meaneth then this bleeding of sheep in mine ears, and the blowing of the oxen which I hear? And Saul said, they have brought them from the Amicholites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen. To sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. So what happened here was, first of all, Saul didn't take responsibility, and we've talked about that in the past. Okay, but what actually happened here was Saul listened to and pandered to the will of the people. Go to verse 32. Saul had direction from God, and instead he pandered to the will of these people. Look at Samuel in verse 32. What does Samuel do here? After Samuel, you know, rebukes Saul and talks to Saul about, you know, how he has not done, what he's supposed to do, and this is considered rebellion against God, and rebellion is as witchcraft. That's how bad, you know, we're belling against what God wants you to do is. Then said Samuel, what's Saul knew? The worst thing of it is Saul knew what God wanted him to do. Saul knew, Saul willingly went against what God wanted him to do, you know, and pandered towards the will of the people that he was supposed to be leading. Look at verse 32. And then said Samuel, bring ye hither to me, Agag, the king of the Amicholites, and Agag came into him delicately. And Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is past.  That's what he's saying. The battle's over, you know, they've taken me captive.  He's like, everything's gonna be fine, is what he says.  And Samuel, here's the pastor of the people, folks. Here's the pastor of the people. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord and Gilgall. He took his own sword and chopped him into pieces. So, the point I'm trying to make is, who carried out God's will here? Who carried out God's will? It wasn't Saul. Saul listened to the people and Samuel listened to God. That's what happened in this story. Saul pandered to what the people wanted and he ignored. He ignored God's commands. Maybe, look, maybe the people wanted to keep the value. Maybe they were like, oh, you know, we're all, we all raised livestock and we came this long way and, and, you know, maybe the people had some pretty good arguments. Maybe they were just like, you know what, we're poor and, you know, our things haven't been going well. And look at all these, these beautiful cattle and these beautiful sheep and all these, these, you know, they kept the best of them.   And, and I, and I love the people. And, you know, the, and, and then he gave into them. And then he spared the king. Maybe he didn't have the stomach for it. Maybe Saul identified with King Agag. He's like, you know, I'm the king. He's the king. Maybe, you know, he sympathized with him in some way. Obviously he sympathized with him in some way. He didn't, you know, maybe he didn't personally remember what the amicolites did to the children of Israel. And then Samuel comes along and not only does he rebukes all, but he finishes the job that God wanted done. So what I'm trying to get at from, for this morning is this, from a leadership perspective, Saul did not lead, he followed. Saul did not lead, he followed. He pandered to the will of someone else besides God. Look, when you go along with what somebody else wants, you are following them. That's the definition of being a follower.   There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is, is that Saul, as Romans 13 would say, was not following the higher powers. He was given a command. Look, if he wasn't given a command by God, if God just said, hey, go and win this battle and do it, you know, make your own decisions, then there's nothing wrong here. But the problem is that God gave him a specific command of something to do and he followed somebody else. When God had anointed him to be the leader. Now, do you see where I'm going? God had anointed Saul to be the leader. So on Father's Day, let's talk about spiritual leadership. Turn back to Joshua chapter four. On purpose, didn't bring this up on Wednesday night. I skipped this part. Maybe some of you were thinking, why did he not mention that? Now you know. In Joshua chapter four, there was a statement that was made twice about making these monuments and they just crossed the Red Sea after this great miracle had happened and they made two monuments. They made one in the midst of the river and then all the men of the tribes, they carried these 12 stones and they made another monument in Gilgal. And twice, Joshua says this. He says in verse number six of Joshua chapter four. He says that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come saying, what mean ye by these stones? Look down at verse number 21. And he's baked unto the children of Israel saying, when your children should ask who? Again, their fathers in time to come saying, what mean ye these stones? Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. The point I'm trying to make is that the children, it is the responsibility of the fathers to tell the children about this event, about these monuments, about these markers that were placed. And we know about all the markers that you should have in your life from Wednesday night, but it is the job of, it is the ultimate responsibility of the father to make sure that everybody understands what those markers are. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Look at verse number three. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse number three. The Bible says, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. So look, the Bible is clear on the man, on the father being the spiritual leader for the family. The Bible is clear on that. On Mother's Day, I preached on how women are the weaker vessel, but they are not to be weak. But they're weaker than the man. They're the weaker vessel. But the Bible is clear that the man is the head of the woman, is the head of the family. Spiritual and otherwise. And what leadership means, first of all, as we saw Wednesday night in Joshua chapter four, is that there's gonna need to be some hard lines drawn. There's gonna need to be some hard lines drawn. Some hard decisions are gonna need to be made.  Sometimes, look, dads, sometimes the people may not want what the leader prescribes. That is going to happen. You say, if that never happens to me, well then you're not leading, you're following. That's why it doesn't happen to you. Sometimes the people that you are leading and other people may not like what the leader prescribes. Leading means following through, period. Samuel led in first Samuel chapter 15, Saul followed. Look, men today are too weak. I'll just come out and say it.  I mean, think of this man. Turn to first Samuel chapter 13. Here's another man in the Bible. I mean, this is a man that made mistakes, but he's, you know, it's also a man that the Bible says, God says, it says twice or maybe more than twice, but twice that I know for sure that he's a man after God's own heart. But with David, David was multi-dimensional. He had two sides, he was very spiritual. David was very spiritual.  Turn to first Samuel chapter 13. Look at verse 14. Saul actually lost the kingdom a couple of chapters before and he was just kind of sealing it in stone in first Samuel chapter 15, but the Bible says in first Samuel chapter 13 verse 14, it says, but now that kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought him a man after his own heart and the Lord commanded him to be captain over his people because thou hast not kept which the Lord commanded thee. Turn to first Samuel chapter 17. Look, David, David was super spiritual. The Bible says that throughout his life he sought God's heart. I mean, but he was also very tough. He was also a very tough person. In first Samuel chapter 15 or 17, I'm sorry, look at verse 51, the Bible says, this is right after David, you know, fights go lieth. David wasn't even really famous at this point. Therefore, David ran and stood up upon the Philistine. This is after he's already knocked him down with the stone and supposedly killed him, but he took his sword and drew it out of the sheath thereof and slew him and cut off his head therewith. And when Philistine saw that their champion was dead, they fled. Turn to first Samuel chapter 18, one chapter over. I mean, how's that for a Sunday school lesson? You know, you don't see that in the Sunday school lessons. That's why Sunday school was garbage, by the way, because it turns the Bible into a cartoon. The Bible is not a cartoon. The Bible is about serious people in serious situations, and it's teaching us all these lessons from the word of God. And look, it's not, it's very graphic in some points, just like first Samuel chapter 17. David cut off Goliath's head. In first Samuel chapter 18, look at verse 25, and Saul said, David wanted to marry Saul's daughter. Thus shall you say to David, the king desired not any dowry, but 104 skins of the Philistines to be avenged of the king's enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines.  What does David do? He goes, and he told him this word is, please, David, well to be the king's son-in-law, and the days were not expired. Look, David heard that, and he didn't say, oh man, that's dangerous. David heard that, and he went out, and he killed 200 Philistines. Wherefore, David arose and went, and he and his men, and slew of the Philistines 200 men. I mean, look, he went above and beyond. David was fearless. David was a fearless warrior, and he killed Goliath. He was a fearless leader, but look, he was very compassionate and merciful as well. You will find that throughout David's life, where many men were like, let's just take vengeance on these people, and he's like, no, no vengeance. He's like, we're gonna have mercy. David was a fierce warrior. He was tough, but he was compassionate and merciful as well. It's a great combination, and he was never unwilling to do what needed to be done for fear of anyone. I'm not saying he always did the right thing. We know there's some stories about David that aren't flattering. Turn to Acts chapter 13. And that's why the Bible, even in the New Testament, looking back on David's life in Acts 13, verse 22, the Bible says, and when he had removed him and raised up onto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave their testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. And by the way, this shows you, David was a man after God's own heart, and we saw, look, God's will will require, as in the case with Saul in 1 Samuel chapter 15, God's will, God's heart, what God wants will require a man to carry it out. God's will, that's how God works. God wants men to carry out his will. And you men, fathers, are to carry out God's will for the leadership position that you have been put in for your family. And look, I would think that every man here knows, you know, as you're in this church, what the right decisions to make in most cases are. I would hope so. I would hope so. I would hope that, you know, as you are going through your life and leading your families, that in most cases, I know you men know the Bible. I know you men read the Bible, study the Bible. But look, there may be times when those decisions are not popular amongst the people, both the people that you are leading and other people. If you just pander to the people, either one of those groups, you are following and not leading. Draw lines in your life. Draw lines in your family's life and hold to them. That is your job. You must have standards for your family. I think you men know what's right and what's not right. How to raise children. Maybe your children and your wife themselves will not always want to stand out. Maybe the people in your own family will not want to be so peculiar, as the Bible says, in the Old Testament and the New Testament. As you separate and draw those lines, look, maybe they won't want those markers to stand out so clear and out in the open. But if you pander to that, you're following, not leading. Especially, look, especially if you've gotten things right later in life, look, I'm one of those people. If you've gotten things right later in life, you know, you might have some difficulty here. Look, I believe, and I hope that you've gotten this idea and this culture from me, I believe in listening to your wife. I believe in, you know, the collaborative relationship between a husband and a wife. It's a beautiful thing. I believe in the value, in the value of, because a lot of times, you know, Christians that believe what the Bible says about the family, a lot of people will paint them in this corner that say, oh, you want your wife to stay home, barefoot and pregnant and all this. Look, I believe in the value of a mother. I believe in the value of a wife. And I hope that you get that from the preaching that I do here, because I believe that that mother is that core of the family. I mean, I believe that success in the family rides on the mother. You know, I believe in all that. You know, it's kind of like I was thinking about this idea and it's kind of like, you know, safety at work. If you ever have safety meetings at work, you all have different types of jobs. I know a lot of you are working in construction. But let me tell you something. As a leader in the workplace, one thing I will not compromise is safety. I will compromise safety for speed of getting the job done. I will compromise safety for making more money on a job. I will compromise, and look, I will compromise over deadlines. If there's something that is not safe, deadlines mean nothing to me. And look, you might make people upset, especially at first when you make those types of decisions. But look, what everyone will begin to understand is that you care about their overall well-being. And that, look, I'm not tossing anybody that I work with, you know, to the wolves or putting them in an unsafe situation for money. I mean, that's crazy. Well, people will do that. Look, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, that's what everybody, that's what a lot of Christians are doing, though. They're tossing their families to the wayside. They're tossing their families to the side. And many times, it is for money. They're tossing their standards away. Look, set up your markers in your family. Set up your points. And then, look, collaborate. Listen, talk with your wife. Be caring and be sensitive. But at the end of the day, you must hold the line. That is the difference. People say, you know, we just wanna keep a few sheep. No, you have to hold the line at the end of the day. These are the markers. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter two.  But at the end of the day, we hold to these markers. That's it. That's leadership. And at the end of the day, the people in your family will realize that the things that you do are for their safety. And for that, they will respect you. Turn to 2 Timothy chapter two. Look at verse number one. This is great advice to a spiritual leader, Timothy. Therefore thou, or thou therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou have heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. What Paul is telling is telling Timothy some things here. The first thing he's telling him is, you know, be strong. He's saying be strong.  It's that simple. But that cannot change your direction. You need to be strong. If it does, look, if it does change your direction, once again, you are following them. They're leading you. If you have set standards in your home and those standards are optional, you're following, not leading. That's what I'm trying to get at here. And look, and that means you're not strong. You're not being strong. But it's difficult, you say. Look at verse number three. Verse number three. Look what the Bible says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Look, you're like, it's difficult though. People don't always wanna go in the direction that I'm telling them to go. But here's the thing, endure hardness. If it was easy, everybody would do it. You ever heard that? I mean, endure hardness.  Think of the men of the Bible. If Joshua would walk in here today, he would laugh at all of us. You think of the men in the Bible and the things that they did to carry out what God's will. These men, David and Joshua, were carrying out God's will at all costs. That's what they were doing. And then in verse number two, he tells them, pick faithful men to teach. Because you know what? That's what the kids need. That's what your wife needs. Look, your wife, let me tell you something.   I'm telling you that, blanket statement. She wants a leader. At the end of the day, when people know that you're making the hard decisions and you won't back off those hard decisions for their safety, that's when they'll begin to have faith in you. And that's the irony. That's the irony, folks. That's the irony is that pandering to the people, well actually, it's ironic. I've seen it many times in the business world. Pandering to the people, the boss that gets the job, he's just like, he just gives everyone a raise and he's just trying to give everybody everything so they like him. Pandering to the people, it never works. It will get you nowhere with the people. Maybe in the short term, you think it will, but it doesn't work. The boss that comes on board and has no spine, it might work in the short term, but he's probably gonna get somebody killed. In some situations, people need to be led in the right direction. They need to be protected. And that takes hardness. That takes hardness. Following is not a leading philosophy.  As Saul knew, you must lead and you must defend that to the end. Like the standards you take are not always many times not gonna be popular with the people because another thing I was thinking about yesterday, I talked to my wife about this, it's not really our beliefs that people have a hard time with. I'm sure you know people in your life that have a hard time with how you lead your families and maybe even where you go to church. But you know, the funny thing is it's not really our beliefs that people have a problem with. You know what people have a problem with? It's our beliefs in action that people have a problem with. You know, it's us acting on our beliefs. You know like, taking stands against homosexuality. That's belief in action. I mean, literally we're a whole month in this nation. You know what I mean? When is biblically married and working on my marriage and raising godly children? When is that month in the United States of America? When is that month? I mean, look, turn to Romans chapter one. Look at shocking how backwards things are. I mean, we're literally pandering to evil in this country. That's where it's at. You think you need to take some stands? Dads? You think you need to have some belief in action in your life? Dads, look at Romans chapter one. Look at verse number 28. Let's see what we're celebrating in June. What are we celebrating as a nation? Even when they did not like to retain god and their knowledge, god gave them over to a reprobate mind, a rejected mind, to do those things which are not convenient. Hopefully you've got not convenient underlined as equals unnatural in your Bible.  It's funny how the Bible's true always. Boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God that they would commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Turn to Isaiah chapter five. I mean, we're literally celebrating Satan. I mean, that's what we're doing. By the way, if you haven't noticed the connection between homosexuals and devil worship, like just straight up Satan worship, you're not paying attention.  It's all black, everything. And these big pentagram earrings, they're that big. And it's always right in your face all the time. And I'm just like, look, I know where corporate America is going. Corporate America is afraid of its own shadow. But I mean, we're literally allowing just open devil worship. I mean, what in the world? How is that okay? How is that okay to allow someone to go into the, look, if I went into the workplace and I just started spewing the Bible and just preaching to everyone, look, I'd be out of there. Yeah, you got open satanic worship in a workplace. What in the world? Isaiah, look, it's no surprise though, okay? It's no surprise. That's one thing about being a Bible-believing Christian. You don't have to be surprised about anything. But back, you know, you think you need some lines. You think you need to educate your children. Look at Isaiah chapter five and verse number 20. This is what's happening.  Isaiah wasn't written in 1982, folks. This is just more of the same. God's looking down on this, but look, what we can do is we can get a gauge on where we're at. Because as nations haven't changed as they fall in the same way, guess what? God hasn't changed either. So look at Isaiah chapter five and verse number 20. The Bible says, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. Look, people would call us evil for believing the Bible. That's where we're at today. That's where we're at. Look, that's why our rights to come to church and our rights, that's why they're important. Because I mean, I want to be able to read the Bible and soul in out in the open as long as possible. But look, a day's coming where that's not going to be possible. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. And put darkness for light and light for darkness and put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink. Withjustify the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. Boy, that's exactly what's happening. Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble and the flame consumeeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness and their blossom shall go up as dust because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts and despised the word of the holy one of Israel. That's what's coming to us. I mean, it doesn't take me, it doesn't give me great pleasure to think about that coming to us because we're gonna get hit with the, there's gonna be collateral damage, unfortunately. So I mean, what can we do? I mean, what can we do? I mean, what we can do is we can go and we can get as many people saved as possible. That's what we can do. That's what we can do. We can go and get as many people saved and hopefully get people into church so they can learn the Bible and what the Bible has for their families so they can protect their children and their families from this satanic influence that everyone's heading in. We can convince people to accept Christ and get into a church and be part of a church that actually does something. That's what we can do. And that's what we're doing here. But look, these are all things. These are all things that people will not like. And it's verse number three of 2 Timothy chapter two says, we have a responsibility to teach our children the truth. When we see all this world going in this direction and teaching all this, they have to be out of public school. There is no choice. Because all of this unnatural everything is being taught in public school. Look, I've not been there for many years. I've heard stories from some of you though. It's worse than you could ever think. These kids today have no chance if they're in the public school system, you gotta get them out. That's why we push homeschooling here. And guess what? A homeschooled family needs leadership. A homeschooled family needs structure. A homeschooled family needs to be part of a church. And a homeschooled family needs a father that's gonna lead that family. Look, there's gonna be some growing pains as you set standards and as you hold to those standards.  I've had all these conversations. But here's the thing, who cares? That's why God gave the leadership role to the man. Because look, women are just, they're not, they're less tuned for confrontation. They're less tuned. There's gonna be some confrontation, guys. If you're doing your job and you're leading your family, you are going to have to confront people. Maybe even within the walls of your own house at times. Look, it's the same philosophy with the matters of the church. It's the same philosophy. Your family in many ways is the same biblical philosophy on the matters of this church. Look, if there's a problem in this church with one person, I'll talk to the person in a nice way. If there's an overall issue in the church, I'll probably preach on it. But look, here's the point. At the end of the day, I will take care of it. I mean, that surprises some people. But at the end of the day, it must be done. Because guess what? I'm accountable to God for what happens here. When I say a couple of weeks ago, I don't care what you think.  It's that I'm accountable to God, not to you.  I would basically be Saul.  I mean, that's the problem with churches today. That's how Christianity got where it is today. It's because no man would stand up and lead according to God's will. That's it, there it is, right there. But your family is the same way. Everything depends on leadership. It rises and falls on your leadership. This, look, I want you to think about this today. I want you to think about the markers that you've set in your family. I want you to think about, am I holding to those markers? I want you to think about, have I structured my family? And am I holding that structure? Basically, I want you to just think about, am I leading my family this morning? And if you're not, make some adjustments and start. In that, that's gonna take some strength. It's gonna take not always doing what everybody wants, everyone to like them. I get it. I want everyone to like me. I don't like it when people don't like me. But, oh well. Who likes that?  You know, but what that is is really your flesh, right? It's really your flesh when you care about what other people think of you. That's your flesh. It takes hardness and enduring that hardness to lead your family. And make sure you're doing it. Think about that. Happy Father's Day. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.


Ladies and gentlemen silent mic back with another video today We're going to talk about bench press how to increase your bench press and more importantly Maybe the variations or accessories to help you get further bigger Stronger faster better looking and big pecs because that's what we're here for if you like the video Be sure to give this thing a thumbs up subscribe for future videos We're dropping three a week my friends. You can find me on twitch every single night. We're streaming We're hanging out live streaming twitch.tv slash silent mic with two K's. Let's hop in The bench press in particular. I think is actually a great place to really throw in a bunch of good variations Now when why and how should we throw in? Variations and maybe what's the difference between a variation and an accessory to me sometimes it can break down to Semantics, but when you're talking about a variation, I'm thinking something. That's very very similar to the main movement With a couple obviously variances rather than an accessory might be like an isolation movement building your shoulders to help the bench Building your tricep to help the bench or even building your back to help the bench There was a weird era in powerlifting where everyone's trying to figure things out for the raw Lifter and what's best to build muscle and build strength over time. Maybe five Ten years ago the last ten to five years now people agree a lot more on what the basics are and what can really help People because there's this era of big back big bench big back Big squat big back big deadlift and bench with your back bench with your lats bench with your triceps all these type of cues and all These information being thrown around and I'm not going to say the back isn't play a role in every movement We do I think having big lats big rhomboids big traps is a great thing for power lifters or any strength athlete maybe any athlete ever For symmetry injury prevention in general stability in all of the lifts You know where you hold the bar on the squad it helps a lot pulling the bar in And being a huge stabilizer in the deadlift and also controlling your shoulders and being a stabilizer in the bench press But it's not a main mover if we want to get better at the bench We probably just have to bench more as a beginner you can bench two to three times a week Probably make a lot of progress weekly adding a little bit of weight or a couple reps a week as you get more advanced You might have to bench three four maybe even five times a week and vary the reps the sets as you want to get better the time to throw in variances are There's a layer of them how you choose a Exercise variance or an accessory one is to an address a problem in your lift Whether that be a weak point whether that be musclarly or in your bar path Even though those things can also potentially be fixed with technique or just a bench press Another reason is is so you don't plateau if your bench in four times a week and all you're doing is competition bench press We don't want our progress to slow. So what we can do is find other lifts that are very similar Changing your grip. That's one of my favorite and the most basic especially with the bench press a closer grip for a longer range of motion You have to use more muscle moving the bar further puts a little bit more on the triceps a wider grip Sometimes is a little bit more difficult for people to get a lot of power out of but still Handling decent amount of weights. Both of those are easy variances. You can throw in a couple times a week Again, if you progress in the closed grip and the competition simultaneously not eliminating one for the other It's not if and there's another way to progress and then the last I Guess is to work around any kind of injuries or issues that we have one of the big differences between Really power lifting in any any other sport is your mandatory to do these three lifts squat bench deadlift And although everyone lifts slightly different and looks slightly different different musculature different limb length, etc We may not all be perfectly built to do those three lifts. So Sometimes you might have to work around an injury or an ache or something like that And that's another great time to throw in a variance if you're you know pecs are hurting a lot Hopefully not injured, but just hurting you might be able to do a little bit more closed grip Reduce the range of motion use a reverse band or some chains something like that talking about Changing these variances to avoid injury or to avoid pain if you have tendonitis something like that And they're basically workarounds and that's a great other option in time to add in the variances now What's the best exercise variance to increase your bench? There isn't one you all know it hopefully by now And if you don't the best is getting better at the movement of the bench press with a good progression and a program to Get you better over time Again, hopefully the more advanced you get the more knowledge you gain or the coach you have or the program you have and there will be different variances Added in again to avoid those plateaus if we were making progress multiple variances, then hopefully the variations Will add up to a bigger bench over time Now the closer we get to a meat if we want to peak for one rep max just like everything else in life We have to get more specific getting more specific using just the bench press is probably the best option You can still you know There's a there's a spectrum of how many variances or excuse me the variations to the lift itself, right? If we're talking about the bench press in particular the close grip is a pretty close Variations so to use that during a peaking prep as your fourth day of bench isn't the worst idea It's potentially usable Using a reverse band one day chains the other day close grip one day and floor press the other day as you're trying to Peak for the competition bench press probably not your best option because we need to practice the movement of the bench press We need to build the musculature that's involved with our technique in that lift as well as using The tools and the practice just like a basketball player shoots free throws and a golfer goes to the driving range We need to work on the mechanics and the specificity of that skill now What are some of my favorite variations? Well, those are just that the close grip the ultra wide grip and both of those just depend on where your normal grip is Just move it two to three inches in move it an inch or two out from normal extra long pauses if you plan to compete in powerlifting the Spoto press which was by Eric Spoto where you're basically really being as tight as you can and hovering just off your chest Think about doing a board press except there is no board and you have to control yourself Board presses are a pretty decent option I actually really enjoy bands and chains not only are they fun mentally for the lifter if you're coaching them or yourself to Change up and still progress But it allows you to be a little bit more explosive sometimes handle less overall load and sometimes using bands or something like that is a Little bit easier on your shoulders and elbows if you choose the proper band strength There's tons of variations that can help There's tons that you can maybe practice with again If you're benching three to four times a week and you want to throw one in to test it for a training cycle Doing them in blocks is a great idea if you do a variation You know say your bench in three times a week You have one close grip day one competition day and one variation day Changing that variation every four eight or twelve weeks is a great way to gauge your progress If you're doing a band you could do it for eight weeks Slowly progress up and sets reps or weight and then Rotate back around and try a different variation. These are great off-season builders and that's basically why I made the free Kaizen training Infinite off-season totally free program. It's just four weeks, but it's made so you can throw in variations So you can start to build up different musculature have fun and continue to make progress number one goal is always to make progress Let's not just use variations for the sake of using variations for quote-unquote muscle confusion But there is a time and place to not plateau to continue to build them And to work around different injuries or address weak points that you may have Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video give this thing a thumbs up I appreciate you guys new video coming every Monday Wednesday and Saturday Catch you guys the next one