Today we're going to tackle the brain stem. This French paper mache, absolutely worthless model, could really confuse you and make it totally incomprehensible. And in addition, the key to all the numbers, of course in French, has been lost over the years. But we have a simpler way to look at the brain stem. And there are only three or four levels that you need to understand and associate with tracts and with cranial nerves.  Here we have it. And we have all these cross sections that I've fished out of the bottom of the bucket. All of these brain sections. And right now they look like total mystery. Total mystery.  So we have three regions to look at. The medulla as you see here in the mid-satrial section, the pons, and the short midbrain. And there are four cranial nerves associated with the medulla, four with the pons, and two with the midbrain. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Let's look at them and where they have their origin or termination in the brain stem. So now we're going to talk about the cranial nerves associated with each level of the brain stem. And we're also going to try to focus on what vessels supply that region of the brain stem. So here I have a brain stem that has been removed from the brain. This is the ventral surface, and this is the dorsal or superior surface. And the front end here is the midbrain. And back here is the connection with the spinal cord. But let's first look at this nice brain that has the cranial nerves, just to remind you because the cranial nerves are so difficult. Now we're not going to talk today about the olfactory bulb and nerve that come in because it comes into the cortex and not to the brain stem. Neither are we going to discuss the optic nerve, which also has connections to the thalamus in the cortex without going through the brain stem. Instead, we're going to focus on cranial nerves three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve. This brain has almost all of them. It has a very nice third cranial nerve, ocular motor nerve that comes out between the superior cerebellar artery and the posterior cerebral artery. And there's one on each side. And these are very important for controlling your eye muscles and for the pupillary response and the rounding up of the lens for accommodation and for keeping your eyelid up so you can see out. That's cranial nerve three. Cranial nerve four comes around from the backside and you can see it nicely here. This is midbrain. And here is the only cranial nerve that comes out on the dorsal surface and it curves around to join up with the third nerve and going out into the orbit. But it is rinky-dink and small because it supplies only one muscle. Now the fifth, sixth, and seventh, and eighth nerves associated with the pons, here is the large fifth or trigeminal nerve. It is both sensory and motor. It's motor to the muscles of mastication and it's sensory from the head and the face. Cranial nerve six can be seen on either side. It's another nerve that goes to an ocular muscle, an extraocular muscle, here's the other one. The abducens nerve goes to the lateral rectus and when it's not working, you have problems with gaze to the lateral side of the nerve involved. And notice it's right on either side of this large basilar artery associated with the pons. Cranial nerve seven and eight are over in the cerebellopontine angle. I'm going to pull away this vessel. Here is cranial nerve seven and out here is cranial nerve eight. You can see them over on this side, cranial nerve seven and eight. And seven is very important for the muscles of facial expression. And if you have a paralysis due to a damage to this nerve, your face will look asymmetrical and certain reflexes will be interfered with. For example, the cranial nerve five, sensory from the cornea, has a reflex that sends axons out over the seventh nerve and this is the corneal reflex and so that would be interrupted and you wouldn't blink. The eighth nerve is the vestibular cochlear and it's for audition and balance. We're not going to focus on that very much now. And now you can see a nice group of fibers here. These axons are the ninth and tenth nerves for the glossopharyngeal and vagus. Very important for sensation from the pharynx, control of the autonomic nervous system and muscles of the pharynx and larynx. Problems with articulation or speech, dealing with the innervation of the larynx. Problems with the gag response are typically signs that the clinician sees when these cranial nerves, the glossopharyngeal, the vagus, nine and ten are involved. Eleven is the spinal accessory that supplies the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius and a little bit of it can be seen, I think, on one side here. Maybe it's dried up. Here it is. It comes up from the spinal cord, runs along and gathers branches from the medulla and exits through the jugular foramen together with nine and ten. We aren't going to focus on that very much either. And next to the vertebral arteries here, which supply the medulla, you have a little groove and in this little groove are some of the cranial nerves rootlets, actually, for twelve, the hypoglossal.  So they would be coming out all along here in this groove between the pyramid and the olive. Also coming off of the vertebral artery, you can see if I pull it back and retract it. You can see the posterior inferior cerebellar artery. This supplies the side of the medulla and the inferior surface of the cerebellum. And if I lift up the basilar artery, you can see lots of little circumferential penetrating branches. So what we want to do is look at some of the landmarks that show us what the internal structure is. And I want to focus on those cranial nerves that are important for brainstem reflexes that you're going to use to tell you if the patient's problem is in the medulla, the pons, or the midbrain. So what cranial nerves you have to know are associated with each level, what vessel is associated with each level, and what reflexes you would test at each level. That's our goal. And also to recognize a classic section, cross-section, through the medulla, the pons, and the midbrain. We're going to look at that both grossly and in a stained section. Through the cerebellum and medulla, came loose a little bit. You can see the cerebellum much more easily than you can see the medulla. But here are characteristic structures associated with the medulla. This band of fibers on the bottom called the pyramid, which we're going to learn is the cortical spinal track for cortical control of motor activity. We're going to see this characteristic bulge here called the olive, which we don't need to discuss because it's not particularly important clinically. We can see an attachment here to the cerebellum called the cerebellar peduncle, which we'll ignore now since we're not learning about cerebellum. And my probe is trying to enter the very tip end of the fourth ventricle. The fourth ventricle dead ends at the end of the medulla. I can see the fourth ventricle very nicely. I can even see the roof of the fourth ventricle and a little bit of choreoplexus. And a little bit of choreoplexus here that's coming out to the side. This is that lateral aperture where the fourth ventricle communicates with the subarachnoid space. That's that space that has to be open on both sides as well as in the roof for the median and lateral apertures to move cerebral spinal fluid into the subarachnoid space and around the surface of the brain to the arachnoid granulations and the venous system. So very important that we don't plug up this little channel here.  So this is a typical section of a medulla. So when you see these landmarks fourth ventricle with choreoplexus cranial nerves coming out beneath the attachment to the cerebellum, 9 and 10 or little filaments of the hypoglossal which are missing here. Cranial nerves 7 and 8 as you move toward the ponds. These pyramids on the bottom or the hypoglossal axons coming out in the groove here which are missing. Those are all clues that you are in the medulla. Now let's look at a stained cross section. I have here a myelin stained section through the medulla. Recall that black is the myelinated tracks and light or gray are the collections of cell bodies called nuclei. Here we can see the prominent convoluted inferior olivary nucleus. It's so obvious that we're not going to talk about it. Rather let's focus on some of our landmarks that we saw on the gross brainstem. We have on the ventral surface or the inferior surface or the anterior surface we have the pyramid. This is a large track of fibers descending to the brainstem and spinal cord.  We want to look at some of the more subtle features here. This pale area here this gray area here and here represent the hypoglossal nuclei. The hypoglossal nucleus sends its axons down to emerge. You can even see one here these little rootlets between the pyramid and the olive. So here we have the hypoglossal nerve cell bodies. Here's their course through the medulla and their exit here. So if this is the left side of the medulla these axons will be going to muscles of the genioglossus which help to protrude the tongue. If the left hypoglossal nucleus nerve axons inside the brainstem or axons after they leave the brainstem are damaged then the left genioglossus will not be innervated because these go out to the striated muscle of the tongue. These are what we call lower motor neurons. They go directly to striated muscle. Then we will have a person you ask them to stick out their tongue and this is their left side. Their tongue would deviate to the left because of the strong right genioglossus which is perfectly normal and it protrudes farther and therefore makes the tongue curve to the side and we always say to remember it, lick your wound. If the wound is on the left your tongue will deviate to the left so you can lick your wounds. Another group of nerves or nerve cell bodies I should say and nerves are down here in this pale region here we have something, it's a great name, the nucleus ambiguous and it's just ambiguous it's hard to see. I'm not sure I've ever seen it but it doesn't matter. Here are motor neurons that are sending axons out into the glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves for motor control of the pharynx and the larynx so the nucleus ambiguous is very important and think of the gag reflex you want to think of the gag reflex sensor information comes in, I'm going to use the same nerve here as if it were sensory comes in and relays in this area of the medulla and then axons enter neurons connect with this nucleus ambiguous and out comes another axon this time motor going out to the muscles of the pharynx and you would gag so sensation touching the back of the throat brings sensory information in connections and relays that we don't have to concern ourselves about and exits out back to the pharynx to cause contraction of the muscles so the gag reflex is a very good reflex to test in a person who is unconscious and you want to know about the status of the brainstem particularly of the medulla if the patient is conscious and you can ask them to stick out their tongue the hypoglossal is another cranial nerve so cranial nerves remember 9, 10, 11 and 12 are associated with this level of the medulla and so we have two easy tests to test for cranial nerve function and remember cranial nerves never cross these hypoglossal neurons will always come out on this side these hypoglossal neurons will always come out on that side cranial nerves do not cross and once they leave the brainstem so that's all I want to tell you right now to remember and we'll go back to the brainstem alright so now we're ready to leave the level of the medulla of the brainstem and go to the pons we call the pons extends from here to here from the end of the pyramids to the beginning of the cerebral peduncles pons means bridge and you can see that it is like a bridge holding on the cerebellum to the brainstem so this big bridge across here has the large fifth cranial nerve right in the middle of it it's torn on this side and we're going to cut it and look through so here is our fourth ventricle and right beneath here would be the nucleus of the abducens with its axons coming down to go out to the lateral rectus muscle so if this area was not functioning you would have double vision when looking to this side nice nice demonstration of the trigeminal nerve coming in it's burrowing through this middle pontine group of fibers and it's coming up to bring sensation for example from the cornea and connecting with other neurons here for the facial nerve that would cause the blink reflex all of this is cerebellum all of this is cerebellum all of this is cerebellum this is the fourth ventricle and the sixth and seventh nuclei as well as the fifth cranial nerve you want to associate with this level facial sensation lateral eye movements facial control blinking the blink reflex five in seven out is a very important reflex because again it's unilateral same side same action don't need consciousness this is a myelin stain section through the pons our landmarks are these criss-crossing fibers down here and our fourth ventricle and the big band of white fibers connecting with the cerebellum this region in here is the region of interest and this general region this pale region remember pale means cell bodies means nuclei this is the nucleus for the abducens nerve and we can actually see some of the axons coming down remember they emerged on the ventral surface so this would be important for lateral gaze this would be lateral gaze to this side so if this was damaged the nucleus the inside the brain stem projections of the axons or the nerve traumatized inside the skull any of those would produce double vision when looking to this side because this lateral rectus muscle would not be innervated but this one on the medial side the medial rectus would be working and you would have double vision another nucleus is this nucleus here this is the facial nucleus these are the muscles for my medic expression and they take a funny sort of jog up and around and they come out here remember right next to the auditory nerve so if this nerve is damaged it is close to the other nerves in here so sometimes you have a problem with both cranial nerves 5 trigeminal and 7 facial and they come out here in the cerebellum-pontine angle we get a classic section of the midbrain with the aqueduct the bump on the top the black substantia nigra a typical midbrain structure sometimes you can see a circular nucleus here and these big cerebral peduncles which we will learn are very important for the downward travel of the axons from the cortex for willed voluntary movement the cortical spinal track runs in this region here so this is pawns and midbrain and at that level we should see here are those bumps remember cranial nerves 3 coming out down here between the cerebral peduncles and cranial nerve 4 coming out on the dorsal side right here and curving around this silly nerve is the only cranial nerve that crosses but the crossing occurs inside the brainstem so once this nerve comes out it goes to the superior oblique on the same side as the nerve there would be another one on this side and this is the level of the midbrain this is the typical midbrain features you have the two bumps of the tectum here you have the cerebral aqueduct here with the gray matter around it you have your cerebral peduncle on either side this was the black substantia nigra that we saw it's pale here because cell bodies are pale myelin is dark and here you can see a nucleus in the midline here and here with axons trickling down they're visible on this side not on this side this is the third cranial nerve the important oculomotor nerve and remember associate the pupillary light reflex with this level of the brainstem the afferent or the incoming sensory side is the optic nerve which we didn't talk about but the constriction of the pupil by constricting the smooth muscle is controlled by autonomic fibers traveling in this cranial nerve the rounding up of the lens for looking at objects up close so that you have clear sharp vision is also controlled by autonomic fibers in this nerve and lifting the eyelid and all of the ocular muscles extraocular muscles except the inferior oblique no, excuse me except the superior oblique and the lateral rectus are controlled by neurons in this region so midbrain is a very short piece of brainstem but a very important piece of brainstem so to recap there are three brainstem levels you need to remember medulla, pons midbrain there are three reflexes that you can test in an unconscious patient at each level the gag the corneal and the pupillary cranial nerves that are motor emerge from each of these levels cranial nerves supply structures on the same side of the brain they never cross branches of the vertebral artery supply the medulla branches of the basilar artery supply the pons and the blood supply to the midbrain is more variable from the top of the basilar artery the ventricular system associated with these levels the medulla the fourth ventricle for the pons and the aqueduct for the midbrain this concludes our brief but far too long discussion of the brainstem


Hey friends, Osiris here, and in today's video we're going over the best current money farming guide that we've got available in Pokemon Legends Arceus. So friends, today we are going to go over a quick money farming guide. It is going to be one of the best money farming methods that we have available to us at the moment. And it is pretty easy. You can do it pretty early on in your playthrough. So you're going to be able to do it when you're not too far into the game. And I do believe all the credit for this method is actually from a fellow YouTuber, JasonPlaysPokémon. So before we get into it, obviously just giving the credit out where it is due. And they were the one that actually discovered this kind of little method to do in it. Where you want to start off at Jubilife Village and you want to first make your way down to the Crimson Merelands. Because this is where predominantly we're going to be doing this method. Now you are going to need a Pokemon that is strong enough to beat a level 50 Alpha Rosarid. So a fire type or just something strong that you can hit it with a flying type as well can work. What you're going to want to do to speed the method up is if you've cleared this area, then you're going to be able to fly to the Brava area. Otherwise you'll be able to fly to the Diamond Settlement. It isn't as quick from the Diamond Settlement, but it is pretty quick when you go from the Brava area. It makes it a lot more efficient. So we'll head up to the Brava area now. And once you hit this area, what you want to do is just get on your weird ear, which you should have access to because of this way you are to have access to this area.  And then we don't want to throw a Pokeball at it. You want to throw a Pokemon at it, start a battle with it. And this is what you want to do. This is what you're going to repeat. And then all you do is just, you know, we've got Fire Fang on Gochum. So we should be able to do it even not in the rain. So you want to ideally one shot it. You don't need to. It just makes it way more efficient. If you want one shot, obviously the rains up at the minute, we kind of end up do one shot it anyway. And then you're going to pick up the large candy and grid dust. So you're going to get a combination of different items. Now after you've beat it, what you want to do is come back to the main camp. And then the method to respawn it is you're going to kind of change the day three times. So you're going to change it to midday first. And then we're going to change it to nightfall. And then we're going to change it back to morning. The other method is to leave this area and go back to Jubilife City and then come back to this area. So once you've done this, all you want to do again is head back up to the brava area of your heading from the diamond settlement. You want to go to that area. And then you just want to repeat the process again. So you want to come down past this first flame here, past the second one. You kind of want to come this way because then you avoid the Roselli that are there. And then just start the battle again and kind of rinse and repeat. And if you do this over and over again, you are going to gain a lot of items which sell for a silly high amount of money, especially if you get, you know, we've got the seed of mastery, which is another one. And then we just want to fly back to the main camp again. So the seed of mastery and then the large candy is the one. And then you just come back to the tent area or as I say, you leave. So just midday, then night, then morning again, go back, rinse and repeat. The interesting thing is I've actually just timed this and I've been doing this for a little bit of time just to kind of gauge what the timings are like. Because part of the reason for doing this guide is giving you the best information. Now doing the tent reset three times is incredibly, like significantly slower than just coming back to Juba life and then going back to the area. It is significantly about 15 seconds in difference. You can do the other kind of process in about one minute and 15 seconds. And you can do if you go to Juba life and kind of transport yourself back, you can do this in this whole process in about a minute, which is nuts, like crazy, crazy good.  Don't reset the tent three times. It is an option if you prefer doing that, but it is the slower option.  And you're looking for every time you beat this Roserade, you're going to get the Excel candies or you're going to get the seeds of mastery. Both are worth a lot of money. So you can go back to the trader here and once you've collected them, you don't need to go back to Juba life to kind of trade them in and just go down to this NPC character here, do some shopping and then click ZR. And this is where you can sell your items that you've got. So you can see that we've done this for like literally they've done this six times here. So 10 times in total, but if we do it the 27,000 there and then that will be 12,000. So that's like 39,000 there and then with those. So we'll say like 40,000. So maybe 15 minutes you can make 40,000. So that's not too bad. And I think that's a really good method, but this is basically it. So to kind of summarize, I would always make sure that you are going to Juba life and then coming back from there to respawn the Roserade. Now doing the tent method, it is an option. It keeps you in the same area, but it will take significantly longer. Like I say, the clock time for doing the tent method rather than going back to Juba life clocked in the quickest. I could do it was one minute and 15 seconds and then doing it with Juba life, going back to Juba life, coming back to respawn the Roserade and just flying straight up was exactly on a minute. So, you know, if you're doing this over and over and over again, that time difference is going to stack up over the longer time period that you're doing it. So you're not going to get as much as many items, you're not going to get as much money for doing it as you would have done the Juba life village method. So do that. So friends, hope you found this guide useful. Hope you have a lot of fun and use it to get a lot of money because there's a lot of really expensive items in this game. And you're going to need money to kind of progress yourself further when you're in the late game and buy some really important things later on. So if you have enjoyed it, please leave a comment down below. Let me know if you find it useful, what your thoughts are. If you've got any other good money farming techniques that you've been using, it'd be great to hear about them as well. And thank you so much for tuning in. If you found it useful, do drop a like on the video. Consider subscribing to the channel if you like this sort of content. And you want to see more of it because we've got lots of Legends Arcist content coming up on the channel. And with that, friends, thank you for tuning in. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you all in the next one. Until then, take care. Bye-bye.


Why narcissists get away with everything? How do they always manage to do something bad or wrong and then get away with it? How do they always manage to escape after doing something unethical or immoral? It can often seem as though the narcissist is getting away with everything they do and This is exactly what they would want you to believe They want you to think that they've done all these horrible things to you And now they've moved on and they're happy with someone else They would love for you to think that way Which is why they're so focused on perception management They're focused on conveying or denying selected information and Creating a favorable impression They know how to plan and coordinate the element of a situation to produce a desired effect They cannot let you see them sweating They cannot let you see them going through the struggles that they have to go through Because then no one would have any interest in them It would make them look less attractive and less desirable It would destroy their false image and reputation It would make it impossible for them to get supply You cannot get supply when your life is a mess But they play pretend They play make-believe They pretend and imagine that things are better than they really are Even though their lives are completely ruined They have mastered pretending that something bad was intentional or on purpose They have mastered acting like something doesn't bother them or that it didn't happen Because they have to display an image of attractiveness and usefulness They have to display an image of happiness and satisfaction to make it look like nothing's wrong To make it look like they're fine Like everything's just perfect Their life is getting so much better Now that they've left you and now they're so much happier They're living their best lives Or at least That's what they want you to think It may look like everything's so easy for them, but really They're just used to living in unfortunate conditions They used to being at a disadvantage They are comfortable in dysfunctional situations While a normal functional person Wouldn't be able to cope in those conditions It would hinder delay or weaken them Because you wouldn't be worried about how you look to other people You wouldn't be trying to get attention You would be more focused on how you got yourself into that situation You would be more focused on how you're going to get yourself out of it You're not going to be looking for other sources of supply to make you feel better about yourself But narcissists are used to the instability and insecurity They used to unpredictability and unreliability They're used to failure It becomes normal to them It becomes their usual typical or expected standard And while this may cause severe pain or suffering to a normal person The narcissist likes it It causes them to feel very enthusiastic and eager They enjoy it It relieves the lack of variety and interest It takes them out of tedious repetition and routine It takes away their lack of enthusiasm and lack of interest It takes away their boredom While a normal person would see it as a catastrophe They would see it as something that causes suffering, destruction and distress Something very unfortunate and unsuccessful A tragedy But narcissists are mentally ill And what you might see as a disaster They see it as something healing They see it as something that has a good effect on their body and mind Something that contributes to their sense of well-being It makes their lives more exciting It gives them great enthusiasm and eagerness But that doesn't mean that it doesn't cause them effort, trouble or difficulty That doesn't mean that it doesn't cause them irritation or impatience They're just more able to deal with it Narcissists are detached from reality They live in a fantasy world They believe that their thoughts and ideas influence the course of events in the material world They develop these coping and defence mechanisms a long time ago Before they even met you As a way of coping with their harsh reality They use it to cope with their problems and difficulties Narcissists want to be seen as more elevated and special And what they actually are They want to be seen as something desirable and attractive So they know that they have to hide their trash They have to hide their real lifestyle They cannot be seen as though they have suffered defeat They are full of pride and arrogance They will do whatever it takes To avoid looking like a loser To avoid looking like someone who has failed To avoid looking like someone who is disadvantaged by a particular situation or course of action They might display something that makes it look like they're successful at something But it's just displayed as something larger or better Than what it actually is in reality It's excessively exaggerated to make it sound impressive Narcissists have a strong desire to compete And to make it look like they're winning They will do whatever it takes to make it look like nothing's wrong But they cannot maintain any form of functionality Over a long period of time Just remember when you were with them Everything that you had to do Just so they could keep it together You will find that you did a lot more for the narcissist Than you did for anyone else Before you were with them And that's because the narcissist is so demanding They're like a spoiled child They expect to do or have anything that they want They develop these behavioural problems From being overindulged in childhood by their parents So now they constantly want more They have these insatiable desires They're never satisfied Nothing's ever good enough for them So then you're constantly trying to do more and more for them Until you're overworking yourself And you haven't even got the time, energy or money to look after yourself But despite all of this The narcissist still managed to screw it up They got everything they wanted from you They got all of the supply they wanted But it still wasn't enough for them Narcissists cannot maintain any form of functionality Over a long period of time Even if they are getting what they want Even if they are getting supply If that was all they needed to be happy Then you would still be with them You would be in a happy healthy relationship But you're not Because the narcissist was too careless and thoughtless They acted on impulse without any empathy for you Without any care or consideration for you They were completely delusional They were envious and jealous Because their disorder takes over their ability To make considered decisions And that is why they make so many bad decisions They couldn't relate to you or share your experiences Which ultimately led to failure Because they cannot be successful When they have all of those dysfunctional traits They're always trying to escape from reality Because they can't cope well with stress They cannot always have the same attitudes towards people or things They cannot always achieve the same level of success in something Because they lack consistency Even if the narcissist didn't become successful in anything It wouldn't last for long They are predestined to fail and experience nothing but misery and destruction And that is why they are so attracted to these types of things That is why it means so much to them That is why it has such relevance and significance to them Because that is where they belong It's where they're supposed to be Thank you for watching I hope this video has it with you Please like, comment, share and subscribe Click the bell icon to receive notifications for my future videos Check out the new Narc Survival website at www.narcsurvival.co.uk Where you can read my blog posts, book coaching sessions and join a support forum If you would like to donate, my PayPal link is in the video description Coaching inquiries, you can email me at coaching at narcsurvival.co.uk Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon


Let's talk about using braces in if statements. When you have exactly one statement after an if or else, you can leave out the braces as shown on lines 14 and 15 in this program. If I run this program and say I want 10 items, it charges me $80, I don't get a discount. If I say I want 20 items, which is greater than 15, I get my 10% discount. Now let's modify the program to let the user know that they got that 10% discount. This is the additional line that I've added. When I run the program with 20 items, we get the message and the discount. However, if I run the program with 10 items, I don't get a message, but I still get the discount. Why did this happen? Because line 16, even though visually it's intended as if it were part of the if statement, doesn't belong to the if. Remember, without braces, only one statement belongs to the if. Line 15 belongs to the if. As far as Java is concerned, the total really is intended out here. This is not what we want. Instead, we need both statements to be part of the if. So what we need to do is put braces around them to group them together and also indent them properly. Let's recompile. And this time, when I have 20 items, I get the message and the discount. And if I have 10 items, I don't get a message and I don't get the discount either. Another problem with leaving off braces happens when you have nested if statements with one else. What happens if you order 10 items in this program? 10 is not greater than 20. And the way it's written, your eyes tell you that you'll get a 10% discount because the else is lined up with the first if. Let's see what happens. When we say 10, we get the full price. We don't get the discount. Why did this happen? The rule is that an else is always joined to the nearest if. What we really have is this else and this discount belonging to this if, not the if on line 14. If we add braces to group things together, this is what we're really looking at. And that's why with a quantity of 10, we don't get either a 20 or a 10% discount. The book tells you to be careful when writing if statements and to put braces in where they're needed. I say no. The real solution is to always use braces even when there's only one statement because eventually you're going to want to add some other statement and at that point you'll need to have the braces. You may as well put them in from the beginning. The ambiguous else problem is always solved by indenting properly and using braces everywhere. Why do we have this no braces with one statement rule anyway? Back in the 1980s, when disk sizes were measured in megabytes or even kilobytes for personal computers and CPU speeds were on the microsecond scale, every byte counted and every extra byte or brace that you added slowed down compile speeds and took up more room. In a large program, braces on 500 if statements would add a large burden. Minimizing code size was a worthwhile goal. Now disk space is measured in gigabytes and CPUs run at nanosecond speeds. So saving 100 nanoseconds and 50 bytes at the expense of 10 minutes of your time to debug a program because you forgot braces where you needed them, not even remotely worth it. In summary, when you're writing if-else statements use braces in all the places.


Employees can be a fountain of ideas on how an organization is run, yet sometimes they might feel compelled to keep quiet, fearing conflict or controversy. This so-called defensive silence can damage both performance and employee morale. While the source of this fear can vary, new research links defensive silence to repeated structural reform within an organization. Among the most devastating examples of employee silence is the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster of 2003. The cause, a flying piece of insulated foam on takeoff, was long known to NASA engineers as a possible risk, but to avoid disputes, they withheld their concerns for management, who assumed that mission safety was insured. Research on the origins of defensive silence is still emerging. There is, however, reason to believe that structural reforms could play a role. These shifts in organizational boundaries, tasks, or position can help public organizations adapt to a dynamic environment. But repeated structural change could be too much of a good thing. For the first time, researchers have fit this concept into a broader theory of how employees respond to perceived threats, like budget cuts or political upheaval. According to the theory, organizational reactions to these threats can dampen employee morale. Researchers can become more controlling and less receptive to employee suggestions, and lower level employees can become more stressed and therefore less vocal. It's reasonable, then, that repeated structural change could strengthen this negative cascade. To find out, researchers examined the structural reform history of public organizations in Norway. Against that backdrop of organizational change, they analyzed how employees self-reported their defensive silence. That information was gathered from national surveys conducted every 10 years, specifically for the years 2006 and 2016. The team's results presented a visible correlation, more reforms generally led to employees being more silent. The findings suggest that repeated structural reforms breed uncertainty and the perception of threat among employees at all organizational levels. In turn, employees become increasingly silent, behavior that tends to be reinforced by repetitive reform. While these results appear to conform well to theory, the researchers offer one important caveat. Despite the long-term observations, the possibility that defensive silence causes structural reform and not the other way around cannot be ruled out. Research involving more data spanning a longer period is clearly needed. Still, the results offer an important warning for public organizations contemplating change. Frequent and rapid structural reforms could indeed do more harm than good.


Okay, morning guys. Hope you're all well. So, 10th of June, let's see, start of a new week and we've got some moves across markets this morning, just sort of digesting the developments over the weekend, perhaps the key one being that Trump has seemingly done some kind of deal with Mexico, so we're going to talk about that. But let's perhaps, before we go any further, just have a look at that week ahead and we'll talk about the key items here that we know are going to happen. So these are all the scheduled events, mostly by way of economic data. So a quick look through here before then, just thinking about last week, we definitely had a big, big week last week, most of it centered around the idea that the Fed are going to accelerate their rate cutting cycle, or they're going to begin it, and then it's going to accelerate faster than expected more bad data from the US on Friday with the non-farm payrolls disappointing. But if we look at the week ahead, I mean, we've already had some Japanese GDP data this morning that slightly beat expectations, so 0.6% growth rather than 0.5% expected. We've had some Chinese trade balance figures, the import data disappointed, dropping over 8% on a year on year basis.  We have some bank holidays going on in Europe, but also normally the Monday afternoon, on-farm payrolls Friday is a pretty quiet affair when it comes to economic data being innate. So today will probably, well, certainly from a scheduled news flow point of view, won't be too interesting, I wouldn't say. Tomorrow, just looking at some of the other facts, I mean, you've got a Japanese US kind of trade talks going on through the week, by the way, not expecting too much from that other than potential risk for Trump to throw in some more spanners into the works, but we'll see. But we've got some wage growth and, well, just generally the labor market report from the UK on Tuesday, again, nothing massive from the US, I wouldn't say, in terms of key data points. So we're moving to Wednesday, and this certainly becomes the biggest day of the week from an economic data point of view, in my opinion. And there's something underlined there, and it's going to happen at 1.30pm on Wednesday, and it's called USCPI. This is the absolute big one of the whole week. I'll review it in a second, but last week was a monster week for assets like equities, assets like gold, assets like bonds, rising rapidly with the back of the Fed turning a lot more dovish. Now, the only way the Fed are going to be able to start cutting rates is if inflation starts to tick down, starts to tick lower. Wednesday's reading, which will give us the inflation readings for the month of May is absolutely critical. And this will be the first item on the agenda since the payrolls data last week. This will be the big item that really tells us can the Fed start cutting in July or not. And as I'll go on to show you, analysts are now thinking there are going to be three rate cuts in 2019, or almost halfway through the year. As Ant was saying on Twitter over the weekend, I think it's too aggressive. I think that analysts have now overextended their expectations towards rate cuts. But we'll see because that inflation data on Wednesday is absolutely pivotal for that. Thursday will be dominated by UK politics or certainly here in the UK. It'll all be about the first round of ballots for conservative leadership. So we'll talk about this during the briefing. Boris and Gove having to fight off cocaine taking accusations, well not accusations, evidence in his youth, which has kind of derailed his campaign somewhat. So we'll talk about that. And then Friday, the key news here again underlined, we've got some Chinese data with industrial production, but retail sales coming out of the US will be another big one. But for me, all eyes on the US CPI data are at 1.30pm on Wednesday. And will that alter the current market's expectations with regards to how quickly the Fed are going to start cutting rates? If you're just getting to your desks, five things you need to know to start the day. And the first one happened over the weekend and if I just flip back to the charts, this is about Trump and Mexico. Flip back to the chart and let's have a look at the Mexican peso actually because it's rally quite strongly. You can see this gap higher here on the Mexican peso. I'll just draw a rectangle there, big jump higher. So the market opened a lot higher this morning to get the week going. And if I draw a line there, we just kind of jumped back up above this low point that we had on the 29th of May. And so the peso, I guess the next target would be this one here, which is that top that we had on the 30th of May. So the peso nice and strong. And this is off news that a deal has been done between Trump and the Mexicans. Some kind of, not much detail, it must be said, but some kind of deal where they'll be involving agricultural commodities and then, i.e. Mexico buying more agricultural commodities from the U.S. and in exchange they're going to stem the immigration situation. Although what I would say is the Mexicans have been less forthcoming with sort of confirmation that this deal has happened. Some of the sources over in Mexico are saying, well, I'm not sure what the agricultural deal is all about. But anyway, Trump has his headline and markets have moved. And it does, you know, with this whole global trade war risk involving Donald Trump. Obviously you go through your ebbs and flows and we're at the whim of the man and his Twitter feed. But it does seem that we've got continued positive direction with regards to some kind of resolution with the Mexican situation. You can't say that about the Chinese situation, which still remains unresolved for sure. So that definitely is still a risk on the table. But we have a slight positive this morning that's kind of feeding into market sentiment. And so the peso is the one leading the charge to the upside. If you have a look at other markets, let's just bring out the S&P chart here and make that a bit bigger. You've seen a bit of a gap open, but the market was unable to sustain that gap and draw another rectangle in there, which shows you where the market closed on Friday and then we jumped up and opened above Friday's high this morning, or I should say overnight, but then we've drifted back lower and been a bit of a flat line. I'm going to draw a line here, a bit of a flat line with Friday's high still being that key resistance that's really shaped most of the session so far. So stocks tried to go higher, but haven't really been able to add to last week's gains, which were sensational and I'll come back to that point in a second, but I just wanted to review the early movers this morning because gold's come under pressure. So here gold gapped lower. So here's the box, here's Friday's close and gold gapped lower, opens lower, and then we've definitely continued and extended on those moves to the downside. And right now we're just trading down below the kind of break of this double bottom we had on the afternoon of the fifth and the morning of the 6th of May last week. So gold under pressure. So this is just a little bit of positive sentiment as a result of the US-Mexican trade deal of sorts. And so the safe haven markets of gold and the yen as well have come under pressure. So the yen's down on the day despite obviously that GDP data that beat expectations. Let's just have a quick look at that. So one second, here's the yen against the dollar. And so we've gapped lower. Again, lots of gaps in the markets this morning. Let me just alter a couple of these lines. And for the yen, we broke them below Friday's low. And again, that's been quite a nice resistance ever since. So a slight risk on tone with regards to T-notes. Another safe haven market, obviously. Let me go to a 60-minute chart. Another gap here as the market opens lower. But for T-notes, some really not like gold open lower and extended lower. T-notes has not. T-notes open lower. And it's kind of been a bit of a chop fest around the low point that we had on Friday. So that's Thursday, isn't it? So yeah, T-notes yet to really extend lower. But certainly in the main, a general slight positive vibe. And it emphasis on the word slight and really led by the Mexican peso. So that's the situation with this morning's sentiment. Let me go back to my headlines. And we'll talk about Boris, we'll talk about Starks. So let's move on here and think about other factors. And I want to talk about last week. And I want to talk about the Fed. And I want to talk about rate cut expectations. And we'll have a quick review of the kind of key data that we had on Friday that was disappointing. So just first up though, this is a look at some of the key global markets and how they performed last week. And just a quite sensational week for US equities. Check out the top of the list Dow Jones, S&P 500. Both climbing in excess of 4% across last week. MSCI World Equity Index also 4% to the good. The Nasdaq higher gold ramping higher over 3%. Stock 600 up. So you can get the vibe here. It's basically stocks and gold up through the roof. Topics, Japanese index of course. Asia-X, Japan positives. Everything pretty positive apart from the dollar and crude oil. And crude oil particularly getting some downsides. We'll talk about crude in a minute because crude has turned and it's tried to climb higher this morning. It's finding it hard work, but we'll talk about crude oil at the end. I just wanted to put this on the table here to just show you how dramatic the movement has been last week. And why has this happened? Because it is mostly due to the fact that the Fed last week at the start of the week indicated, this was Jerome Powell's speech, the Fed indicated that the probability of a rate cut is climbing. The Fed have said that ultimately economic momentum in the US is dropping and that they're looking to perhaps start to behave in a way to be much more supportive and stimulative with their policy tools. So let's look at the data on Friday that just added more fuel to that argument because we got much worse than expected non-farm payrolls data. So this is looking at how many jobs were created in the month of May and it came in at 75,000, way below what we were expecting which was 185,000. They also chopped the April reading, they revised that down. It was 263,000, they revised it down to 224,000. They also revised down March. So from a job creation point of view, the labor market report from the US on Friday was really bad. There's no getting away from that. One caveat, it wasn't quite as bad as the reading we had for February which was down at 56,000 but nevertheless really bad. But as I was saying during the prep for the data on Friday, you've got to understand that really most economists, most investors, most traders aren't particularly focusing on job creation at this point in the economic cycle and that's because the unemployment rate at a 50-year low. The labor market is becoming tighter and tighter and when you're getting towards late cycle, then generally speaking you see a lot more volatility in job creation figures because the employment rate is so strong. So you shouldn't be particularly surprised by this and you shouldn't be particularly surprised by the fact we're going to get more volatility in this data set, the non-farm payrolls data as we go through the rest of the year. It's very much late cycle behavior. What's more interesting for me is the wage growth figures because ultimately are the Fed, yes okay, headline data like payrolls really bad, like the manufacturing ISM data bad, but are the Fed going to cut rates? Is the data bad enough is the key question and ultimately what will force the Fed's hand is the last bit of the jigsaw is that inflation needs to now weaken. The only way inflation is going to weaken is if wage growth stops happening. So what was supportive of rate cuts on Friday was actually the fact that the wage growth data, we're looking at the average hourly earnings here and for the month of May wage growth went up by 0.2%. Now we had expected a 0.3% growth rate. So this was worse than expected, but it only just, I mean it's in line with the last three months okay it's not like we're down at 0.1 or zero. So you haven't seen the change of trend here. It just wasn't as high as expected okay. So how has that panned out and how has that altered the expectation of the Fed cutting rates? So I'm looking at the CME group website here. This is quite a good something called the CME Fed watch tool. Most of you guys will know about this. This is looking at, well at each meeting at the top here the next meeting is coming on the 19th of June and it's saying well what's the probability of where interest rates will be after that meeting and at the moment there's a 79.2% chance that interest rates stay unchanged. So currently the Fed's interest rate is between 2.25% and 2.5% and we're not expecting a change. Despite all this weak data the general school of thought is that June, the June meeting's too early. So most likely 79% chance rates stay unchanged but when you move to the July meeting so there's a meeting on the 31st of July if we click on that button we'll then look at how things shift. Remember currently rates are between 2.25 and 2.5. Apparently now according to market expectations there's only a 19% chance that rates will stay unchanged by the July meeting. So it's now 66.3% chance that the Fed will cut rates at their end of July meeting okay. We've got some wildly dovish predictions over here. 14.7% think there'll be a double rate cut of 50 basis points, 0.5%. Then we check September. This is important as well. The September probabilities now indicate two rate cuts. Two rate cuts from the Fed by September's meeting. So the market consensus is the Fed cut once in their July meeting and the Fed cut again in their next meeting in September. Then we click on October and here expectations are that no more rate cuts in October. We stick at 1.75% to 2% range but then when you flick on December actually it has just changed. It literally has just changed in the last 30 minutes. 30 minutes ago we did have 1.5% to 1.75% just marginally edging out 1.75 to 2%. Basically 30 minutes ago it was an expectation that the Fed would cut three times this year. Now that has just marginally tweaked back but you can see it's pretty even. The reason why it's marginally tweaked back is because of this Mexico trade deal okay. But the point is we're almost evens neck and neck for a three rate cuts this year versus a two rate cuts this year okay. This is one of the reasons why the S&P has not been able to rally above 2,900 off this Mexico news. It's because good news now on trade means less likelihood of the Fed cutting rates certainly three times. I mean I thought three times was way over doing it anyway. But the point is right now markets are expecting one cut in July and cut number two in September and it's neck and neck for three cuts or stick at two for December okay. And these are the big influences that are moving markets. We've got a good chart here to show you how quickly expectations have changed. This is how the probability will there be three rate cuts in 2019 and the probability of this has ramped higher too high too fast. You know this is quite behavioral I would say. It's been below 10% all year. That's the chances of three rate cuts have been below 10% all year. We broke 10% now we've got up to 63%.  I think at best you're looking at two cuts and so I would expect this probability to now soften and drop back lower unless the inflation data on Wednesday is lower than expected. So let's have a look at this inflation data on Wednesday. This is the current chart looking at inflation headline inflation over the last 12 months okay. Now most of this behavior that you can see on this chart is perhaps related to crude oil. Certainly the left hand side where you saw inflation very high summer of 2018 oil prices climbing and then we had the big oil sell-off and so oil led to inflation dropping to 1.5%. Now we've rebounded marginally here. Now we've rebounded to the key 2% handle which is the Fed's target. It's all very well and good. The Fed cutting rates as inflation is trending lower but once inflation is trending back higher then the Fed have got a big problem. But if we smooth this out and remove energy costs and indeed remove food costs and look at core inflation which is the tool the Fed would look at the most well then it's been quite flat to well we had a 2% print for March which was the lowest reading in more than 12 months. So this is where we started to get a little bit more confident that maybe the Fed are not only of the ended their rate hiking cycle they may well be on the verge of starting a new cutting cycle so 2% for March but then we bounced back to 2.1% in April. So we'll see. All lies for me. 1.30 on Wednesday what is the core inflation print for May? Is it 2.1%? Is it 2%? Does it drop below 2%? If it does well right. That three rate cut idea in 2019 the expectations of that will start ramping higher. However if core inflation holds at 2.1 or let's just say it goes up to 2.2 well then you're going to see quite a dramatic correction in those expectations. So how is that going to play out in the markets and let's go flick back to the charts here because I showed you that stat all the moves last week were based off this idea that the Fed have turned way more dovish and then the data was supportive of that with the payrolls figures being so weak and so equities through the roof all these charts you're looking at pretty much are showing moves to the upside. So if you get a high inflation print on Wednesday well this will be the big moment that will be the best scenario for traders because let me go to a daily chart here for the S&P quite a phenomenal week five green candles in a row four of them pretty big ones and here we are kind of just sat testing that high point that we had back on the 16th of May and there's definitely room to move back lower off a high inflation print also we price back out rate cuts however low inflation on Wednesday and I tell you what we are not far off the high of the year we're not far off the all-time high for the S&P and low inflation print below 2% on Wednesday that could be the final little catalyst to get stocks ramping back up towards their highs for the year off the back of a more aggressive dovish-fed in terms of rate cuts okay so very critical this data on Wednesday let's have a look at gold which is also very sensitive obviously to that kind of rate cutting scenario gold's been lower this morning off the Mexico news but it's very high still when you look back over the last week last week was just extraordinary for gold let me just move a few lines here move my lines like that so we had a big test of the high of the year on Friday just broke it briefly but then we pulled back and this morning were a little bit lower keep your eye on that high point that we have back in March as perhaps support on the way back down here but for gold can it break and extend above the February high inflation data on Wednesday is low if inflation data on Wednesday is high well then gold is going to move back in here we've got some resistance down here from the mid-May high the 1300 handle around that area so certainly gold very sensitive to this data coming Wednesday finally here as we're talking about Wednesday you can't not talk about government bonds in the US which have ramped higher off the expectation of more rate cuts coming let me just adjust a few lines here let me just get rid of that one so we did make a new high for the year briefly Friday just breaking above the triple top that we had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday last week but then we pulled back and this morning were marginally lower off the Mexico news but you can see there's not much appetite to sell bonds at this point despite the slight positive sentiment in markets or reluctance for T-notes to move lower but if inflation is higher than expected on Wednesday then there's a lot of room to move back to the downside the key support of the medium term would be this high point from back in March huge amount of room to move back lower here off high inflation as we reduce our rate cut expectations but of course T-notes can punch higher and continue this upward trend if inflation is low and our rate cut expectations continue to move north okay so Wednesday that's what it's all about this week for sure okay just to finish off the briefing then we can't not talk about the Conservative Party leadership race if you're in the UK this is all that the news is interested in I mean you go onto the Bloomberg homepage and it's just all about it's about Rudd, it's about Boris it's about Gove certainly in the UK we're being dominated by this and that will continue to be the case obviously here's a little stat not sure if you can see that that well just looking at the updated numbers in terms of probabilities still the case that Boris is out in front interesting to see what happens to Michael Gove's popularity as we go through the course of this week big cocaine scandal blew up in his face over the weekend this is going back 20 years mind so in his early 30s or whatever as a journalist apparently he took cocaine several times at social events and he's defiant in the face of this media storm that's hitting what I would say is think about Donald Trump has Donald Trump changed the way political races pan out because don't forget the presidential campaign that Donald Trump went through that he ultimately ended up being successful in and there are mass scandals that hit Donald Trump was quite extraordinary and yet he plowed on in the face of adversity and went on to win it so I think Gove is trying to just play the Trump card and that is to just bat it off bat it off continue talking about his policies he's got quite an interesting policy around revamping VAT making it a lot more simple making that tax rate a lot lower making it more into a bit of a sales tax that other countries employ that would be very positive for business the quarterly VAT return that businesses have to do is a real pain and that's quite a popular idea I believe but whether it's enough to over you know overshadow the cocaine scandal I don't know we'll have to see but look Boris is still out in front as it stands something that's happened over the weekend hasn't got too much attention in some of the press this morning but definitely interesting for the leadership race definitely interested for Brexit so over the weekend the UK did a deal with South Korea agreeing a trade deal post Brexit and the trade deal says that the the UK will continue to have a bilateral trade agreement with South Korea that's in line with the trade agreement that they currently have in existence with the EU so it's like South Korea saying great Britain will keep things the same with you as they are with the EU will give you a deal certainly it's in South Korea's interests South Korea export what is it I think six and a half billion dollars worth of goods a year to the UK the UK's South Korea's second biggest European market after Germany that's just because the UK is the second biggest economy but it's an important exporting destination for South Korea so it's definitely within their interest the important thing about this is South Korea is quite a big important export market for UK businesses and with this deal having been agreed that's now 12 trade agreements made for post Brexit and 12 doesn't sound many when you're thinking the number of I think we need I think there's something like 61 62 countries we need to finalize trade agreements with for when we leave the EU and we've only managed 12 but the point is the 12 we've managed are some of the big ones and so actually 63% of trade currently covered by EU agreements 63% have now been agreed Balashree with the UK so the reason why I'm pointing this out is because the risk of hard Brexit the risk of the damage that a let's say a Boris led hard Brexit the risk of that does reduce as more and more of these trade agreements get made so this might play into Boris's hands a little bit and maybe the fears around Boris coming in being more aggressive pushing for a 31st of October no deal exit well and that's another wow 4 months away so we may well get a few more of these trade agreements in place I'm just saying this probably plays into Boris's hands this kind of development and Liam Fox has done the business here over the weekend you could say with Liam Fox I mean well better late than never would be perhaps the best way of describing this because he had a deadline to agree 62 trade agreements by the 31st of March many spectacularly failed in that but at least he's getting on with it now and South Korea was one of the final big big ones to get in the bag so this is quite an important one so plenty of Brexit news as we go through the week Brexit I should say UK Conservative Party leadership race and look towards Thursday for the Conservative leader we'll talk way more about this as we go through the week but certainly in the UK the leadership race is going to ramp up and up and up as we go into that first ballot on Thursday okay I'm going to finally finish off with a look at today's calendar just to get back into the mindset what's going on right now and as I said at the outset we've had the Japanese and Chinese data already we've got some UK figures coming at 9.30 GDP estimates for April this is estimates as well industrial output and manufacturing output I wouldn't call well maybe the GDP figure the UK now do release GDP estimates monthly most other countries do not so this is quite a new way doing things so as it stands we're not quite that confident whether this is accurate yet but we'll see at least it's a little sneak at quarter two remember April here so a little sneak into quarter two might be interesting other than that we've got some housing data out of the US sorry no that's Canada we've got Jolt's job opening data out of the US so really this afternoon forget about it from a data point of view a couple of Bank of England speakers on the mic but otherwise we're expecting a relatively quiet session from a news flow point of view we've got a slight mild tone to the session with regards to sentiment as a result of the US-Mexico trade agreement let's see how long that can continue ok thanks a lot guys that's it from the desk enjoy your sessions


Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Amanda Milligan and I am back with a part two for how to make newsworthy content. So when I made part one, I was working at Fractal and I talked about three things. Let's see if I remember them. It was data, emotion and impact as three elements you need to be considering when creating newsworthy content. Those are still important. If you haven't seen that Whiteboard Friday, check it out after this one. Doesn't need to be in any particular order. Now I work at Stacker. Stacker.com is a publication, but it's also a newswire. So like the AP for breaking news or Reuters for financial news, Stacker is a newswire for data journalism. So I work on the brand side though, where we partner with brands, they underwrite content and we syndicate it to our newswire. I've been talking to the team since I'm still relatively new and they told me that these are three additional things that they consider when they are creating content for their publishing partners. So it was fascinating to get their take on this and I'm really excited to share this with you. So let's just dive in. Three things to consider. The first is if the content is serviceable. Basically all that means is how can it help the reader? So as marketers we're actually already pretty good at this, right? This is like the how-to content of the world just with more of a new spin. So it's not gonna be your standard blog post. It's gonna be more along the lines of how do you take something practical that's happening to people that's also newsworthy which we can get into exactly what that means. This will overlap with a lot of these other different qualities. So if it's serviceable and it's also adding context to a greater story, if it's serviceable and also based on new data or it's based on emotional components or it impacts a lot of people those things will help it be newsworthy. The second is contextualized. This is something that Sack Really excels at and I find fascinating. So we can't break news as marketers. That's on our job. We're not in the business of doing really quick reporting off the backs of big events, right? That's just not what we're doing. So contextualizing is taking a look at what's trending when people are talking about what's happening and thinking about the other angles, the other perspectives that tell more comprehensive stories to that. This has worked really well. I think it's something that all brands should be considering when they're following. Like if you have those websites or blogs that you follow in your niche, thinking about what those kind of like top news stories are and how you can add to the conversation. Finally, localized. So this one's near and dear to my heart because I actually have a journalism degree even though I never became a reporter and I learned localization in college. I took a class called reporting that was extremely difficult. It was the weed out class for the journalism degree and the first time I got an A and I got my article run in the college newspaper was from localization. There was a national story about how doodling can help improve your concentration which I thought was interesting and kind of contrary to what you would normally think I called up local experts like people at the university neuroscientists and I said, hey, I just saw this report come out do you agree with it? And they were thrilled to talk to me about it and they told me all about how they absolutely believe that that's true, that they doodle when they are listening to presentations. Anyway, it's not that the data was any different or anything, it's that it was localized. It was that it mattered to the people who were reading it because it was being corroborated by people in their own community, right? So localization can be a huge asset if you're a brand that has a brick and mortar or not if you specialize in certain areas if your customers live in certain areas localizing content can really speak to them in a way that the national content might not. Okay, so I just ran through those things. So let's do a little exercise. This is a statistic I saw recently. The median home price for an existing home in August of 2021 increased by 15% compared to 2020, okay? So this was from the National Association of Realtors it's a statistic I saw and the exercise I wanna do is let's try to come up with angles not even necessarily the ones that you're gonna run with but the story but to brainstorm in that direction, okay? So serviceable, how do you take a statistic like this and consider those serviceable angles? So I have written where are the most affordable places to live? Okay, so we're finding that home prices are going up. It's a practical, helpful thing to know where it could actually be affordable to move. If people were thinking about moving they're like, I don't know if it makes sense to do that at least now they can have their options, right? And then going a little deeper or even just like a different way of approaching the same conversation is what an average home looks like in X place at X price. So if you're taking those increased prices and you can show examples of what a home looks like I've seen projects like this before you probably have two but it's a different way of illustrating the same useful point which is where could I actually see myself living, right? That's what makes it serviceable you're giving them information that they can actually act on later. So those are some serviceable angles. Contextualizing, so there's a lot to unpack in this stat and I believe this was a Forbes article I was reading and they go into a little bit of detail about some of the context but there are other ways to dive into the context and even without reading the story what I was thinking about was what is the average down payment now? So if the home prices are increasing presumably the down payment costs are increasing and what I remember the article saying was that that's always the biggest hurdle or not always most of the time the biggest hurdle especially for first time home buyers is the down payment it's a big sum of money, right? So how much is that increasing? And what does that look like for the average person? What does that amount of money equate to in the rest of your life? How long would it take to save that amount of money, right? These are all contextualizing details that make it feel a little bit more relevant to you. And then I said, how does this compare to the average student loan debt per person? So just telling a more greater financial like personal finance story the way the team at Stacker thinks about contextualizing is you're comparing it to similar things so things maybe historically is the quickest way to do it like how has this been in the past but also different things that are still relevant, right? And that's where, you know, home or student loans come in it's not just in a vacuum, right? Like your financial situations impacted by multiple elements and it's good to get a full picture of that. Finally, localizing. So how have prices changed? So this is the average in general but have they changed in different states at a different rate? Which states has the price increased more? Which states maybe have stayed the same or maybe have dropped? That's not being illustrated by a national statistic, right? And what local programs exists for first time buyers? This is a great combo of serviceable and localized.  And that is where you get the sweet spot of newsworthy content where publishers are just they're really gonna want that information. So consider these as potential angles to brainstorm when you're coming up with content ideas. Also consider what I talked about last time which is data. We're all about data. If you can use original data in your story or take existing data and tell new draw new conclusions and tell new stories with it that's gold emotion doesn't have an emotional impact and impact meaning how many people does it affect all of these things are great, great lenses to come up with fantastic newsworthy content. Thank you so much for listening to this and taking the time. If you have any questions, feel free to reach me on Twitter about Volanda and my LLANDA and my email is amilligan at stacker.com I love talking about this stuff. Please reach out if you have any questions and thank you so much again.


Busy students often look for new ways to get a quick workout in between classes, schoolwork and outside activities. But BU senior Claire Richer has taken a step further and is using those burned calories as an alternative to burning fuel. I feel like climate change is something that is the most pressing issue of our day. If we don't have a planet, the way we're treating our planet, we won't have one to live on. That is suitable for human life. It started last year when she went to a divest BU meeting and saw that the entire meeting had been taken off the grid. It was charged by a bike, like a regular bike, with a generator. Instead of the end of the meeting, it wouldn't be cool if this was an everyday thing. What if this room was always taken off the grid? The bikes provide up to 150 watts. The average person can generate 100 without breaking a sweat.  Your phone is 5. It might be easy to power your laptop or phone, but something like a microwave can take up to 1,000 watts. However, even the small effort is worth it. Changing a light bulb is a drop in the bucket. Any single action that anyone does is a drop in the bucket. So really, it's about whether it can scale. Claire hopes to empower others to actively make a difference on their own. Well, to say that, okay, I'm doing this one thing that's going to help in my little way, I think it's really empowering. Reporting for BU News at Noon, I'm Lauren Westberg.


Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson as part of our series on how to make arpeggios sound unique And develop an original flavor. I'm going to talk about using accents or you can call them as accented arpeggios Okay, I have done a lot of lessons in the past on arpeggios We will link that up and we've put together a playlist on all these so do check that out It'll be nice to see different ways of approaching arpeggios if you will okay So with accented arpeggios what you're trying to do is divide the beat okay? You cannot do this in fact all arpeggios are played a little fast, so Inevitably the beat will be divided into something so in this exercise I'm going to start with division by two one and two and three and four and and then we'll also attempt division by four Which is one e and a two e and a three and a four e and a So what happens with an accented arpeggio is Instead of playing something in a very looping pattern one and two and three and four and Which sounds rather predictable? What is also happening with this particular vibe is the one? One and two and three and four. It's always the same hit point right the ones one and two and the threes Are the same note so this is where we feel that the music is non-accented or just sounds normal So another way to count it could have been one e and a two e and a three four So you're not changing Where each note is being hit it's always hitting pretty much at the downbeat So by beats I mean one two three four would be the down beats ease would be one e To e then the ands would be one e and two e and then the earths would be one e and earth So if every note is on the same points of the bar or at the same division point of the beat It's not going to sound very original or very accented if you will right so to develop an accent I'll just play what I have to play and then I'll show you from the beginning and we are going to start by Dividing by two so before anything you need to be able to count One and two and three and four and one and try to say that with me Go one and two and three and four and one and two and three and there are two ways to count these things One is you make the one louder or the one two three four's louder and the other ways to make the ands louder So one and two and three and four and or else you could go One and two and three and four and one and you're making the ands louder Okay, or more accented so I'll play you the pattern and then show you Right so you feel that there's a kind of a grouping isn't it it's like one two three one two three one two So these are not triplets or anything This is just a grouping and how was that grouping formed if you ask me it's because of pitch It's because the pitch difference between the notes creates different kinds of cycles So if I go one two three, I've begun from E. So if I begun begin again from E So one two three one two three one two without gaps one two three one two three one two So the E becomes my pivot or my main point of reference if you will for this pattern One one one two and in an eighth note phrase it will be one and two and three and four and So it creates a system where the notes are either at the on beats or it creates a system where the important notes Can sometimes be at the on beats and sometimes be at the off beats, right? So that's the whole idea of an accented phrase. It's not predictable, right? So this could be visualized as a one two three one two three one two Imagining the division of two one and two and you could also strike the Accented points a bit louder Okay, and in this lesson, we are going to look at the four chords E minor G major D major and a major. It's a four chord exercise. So E minor G major starting from the bottom so LMH low middle note high note LMH LM LM H LM H LM LM H LM LM H LM remember for a major. You can play like this or like that. So LMH LM LM LM H LM LM Okay, now I am starting from the low note So the low note becomes my pivot or point of reference for the accent phrases So why can't I start from the high note and then it'll become Right. In fact, there's there's there's a song by Cole play, you know what it is which has exactly this vibe H. M. L Because I'm not playing the Cole play song the video may be taken down. So I'm gonna play the chord progression One two three one two, three one two, it's the same thing, right? But I have now anchored my ear towards the B using pitch high middle Low high middle low high middle So the high note now becomes my point of focus and that creates the accented phrase. So one two three one two one two three one two one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three right So, let's recap you have LMH, LMH, LMH, LMH, LMH starting from the bottom and then starting from the top. You have high middle low, high, H, M, L, H. And what should the left hand do? The nice thing about accents is, in your left hand you can either choose to play those accents. For example, this sounds really nice, very energetic, you can also play it in different styles. For example, legato, ostacato, or a combination of both. So, if you don't want to play the accents or if you want to combine accents with something else, you can combine it with something you have to do on the piano no matter what. That is the pulse. So, the pulse of this music would be or right now I'm snapping at the ones and threes of the bar, one and two and three and one and the three or you can do 1, 2, 3, 4, right. You could decide.  Something you would like to play in a chorus perhaps, so I'm combining the slow pulse now with the accents in the left hand. Even though it's the same chords, the interest is created because I have two different sections now. One accented and one pulse in the left, maybe this could be in the chorus. So all through this lesson so far we've just looked at three, three and two, right. But if you look at those numbers, 3 plus 3 plus 2 equals 8, that's eight eighth notes in a bar, which is arranged well, otherwise it would be 4 plus 4, which is not accented or 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 which is also not accented. Why not jumble the 3, 3, 2 and do something like what, 3, 2, 3, 3 plus 2, 5, 5 plus 3, 8. It works out quite well. Let's see how that works, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. So it creates a different tonality. It's good to sing the top note that can train your ear. Play the accents in the left pulse and then move forward. Okay, so that was 3, 2, 3, another variant. You can also do 2, 3, 3, which is 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. So you're just jumbling 3, 3 and 2, you know, and doing 3 options, 3 rhythms. But 3, 3, 2 ends up being most popular, I guess, because you hear it in a lot of songs. So 2, 2, 3, 3 now. 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. And observe how I am voicing it on the piano. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Starting from the top, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Or I can start from the bottom. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Okay. Pricing it, it'll really help with your ear. And as always, the left hand has the opportunity to play the pulse, slow pulse, normal pulse, as well as the accents themselves, which are created by the pattern you're making in the right hand. Okay. So moving on, now that we've sort of divided the beat by 2, what more can you do? We can do something like 5 plus 3, right? Or 3 plus 5. That's also quite cool. So how do I get a phrase or an accent sequence of 5? 2, 3, 4, 5. 2, 3, 4, 5. So a good way to do it would be to not repeat the main note, which are accenting. So if I go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. See, I never repeated this for the entire 5. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And now 1, 2, 3. I do a normal 3. So I'm using my low as my anchor. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. So I'm still dividing the beat by 2, but I've voiced it as 5 plus 3. I've created the accented phrase as 5 meets 3. So it sounds like this. 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. Let's try it from the top. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 4, 5. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1. You can also shuffle the numbers 3 plus 5. 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So just remember if you're doing it over 3 or over 5 or over 4, whatever the number of the accent is, don't repeat the first note or the anchor note. Let the anchor be as it is. 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. Now it's just 3s. So let's move forward now to a completely different division system altogether. Let's divide the beat by 4. In other words, 16th note. So now you have 16 sub beats or 16 beats in a bar if you look at it. That'll be 1 e and a 2 e and a 3 and a 4 e and a. So just using maths, you can just do something like 3 meets 3 meets 3 meets 3. How much is that? 12 plus 4 equals to 16. So you could look at your order of notes that way and you get something like dabbadadabbadabadadabadabadabadabadabadabadabadabadabadadabadabadabadabadabadabadabadabada. 1, 2, 3, 4, taqitita taqitita taqitita taqadimi. Taqitita taqitita. So that's a nice 16th note phrase. Let's try that out. I'm starting from the top note here. 1. So if I count it in numbers, it'll be 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1... Sounds also like that Brian Adams song, I'm sure you've all heard it. Okay, so, what else can we do now that we're in a world of dividing by four. we have a lot of options. It's too much actually to be covered in one video. But another thing which I'd like to share something which I enjoy playing is five meets five meets three plus three or five plus five plus six. Yeah. So you go something like I'm starting from the low note. Remember that's my five accent one two three four five one two three four five one two three one two three. So five plus five plus three plus three. Let's see how it works. That's how it sounds. I'll count it one two three four five one two three four five one two three 1, 2, 3, repeat. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 2, 3. Really love it, this is my favorite, so I wanted to share that with you, so 5 plus 5 plus 3 plus 3 and again, if you You start combining a system in your left hand where you play accents of 5, 5, 3, 3, follow only the accents and then move over to the pulse. You create two sections of a song immediately or automatically. You don't have to even change your chords. You can keep the same chord progression. Whenever you play the pulse, it can always be for a chorus. It can be the more epic or the more uplifting part of the song. And whenever you play accents, it can be more for the build-up or the busy part of the song or maybe for a bridge or something chaotic perhaps because if you play accents here and there in the bass, chaos does creep in. We've talked about accents. We first divided by 2, we've looked at all these phrases 3, 3, 2 which is very popular. Then we jumbled it, then we get 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3 and then we also ended up coming up with 5 meets 3, 3 meets 5, then we said we'll divide by 4 because that gives us even more possibilities or the 16th note domain if you will, 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e and then we can look at accented patterns. And ultimately an accent is nothing but changing the order of the fingers, not making it very predictable and not letting the same fingers strike the same beats or the same fingers strike the same subbeats. So as long as you develop a way around that, perhaps you could start with this lesson to jump-start your journey into accented arpeggios. After that I would highly encourage you to make up your own patterns and ultimately that's the point of this series, it's to make your arpeggios shine, become original and sort of be the hook of the song. In a way if you were to play the arpeggio pattern before your vocalist comes in or before you come in with the main song melody, people should know, oh it's this song, this is the song which we enjoy because of what the piano player played in the beginning. And what are we doing? We are just taking chords. Now if you played them in a normal loopable manner, people will just say, oh that's a pianist playing the piano. But the whole intention of this series is to make your arpeggios a song and use it and make it original so that it's yours ultimately. So again if you haven't already do subscribe to our channel and we definitely need your support to grow our channel, we are very very excited to shoot these videos regularly. So turn on that bell icon as well for regular notifications and I will see you in the next video. Cheers.


Woman with memory loss remarries husband, then realizes big mistake. At first, everything seemed fine. She felt sure he loved her. He was so kind and sweet, so patient with her during her recovery. But why couldn't she remember him? Why weren't there any photos of them together around their house? She ignored all the warning signs until it was too late. Still her heart pounded as she stared at the terrifying truth within her hands. One moment was all it took to change Laura Baker's life forever. It happened one fateful Sunday afternoon as she helped her friend set up a venue for an event outside. It was stormy. The stress team of coordinators raced to secure a tent over the beautifully decorated tables and chairs. Laura watched as three women struggled to erect the tent's big center pole. She should have reminded them to secure the safety latches to the ground, but she was preoccupied. She was thinking about the fight she had with her husband last night. She was still in shock and still angry.  How could she forgive him? But before she could linger further, the sudden sound of gasps and screams snapped her out of her reverie. The last thing she remembers is hearing and feeling a loud thump. She woke up in the hospital room. He was on the chair next to her, holding her hand. Panicked, she drew her hand away and pushed herself up onto the edge of the bed. You're awake, he said. He smiled warmly at her. Who are you, she asked, terrified. I'm Ben, Ben your husband, he joked. Laura's eyes widened. Then his eyes did the same. Wait, he said, you really don't remember me? All Laura wanted to do was call her parents and go home. What she didn't remember was that her parents moved to Germany a long time ago. Her home was with her husband now. Laura woke up thinking she was 17 years old. The last 10 years of her life simply vanished. She had no idea who this man was. She was weary of him and for good reason. They sat and talked for a while. He talked about their wedding day and when they met. He seemed to know a lot about her. In fact, he knew more about her than she did. Once the doctor told them that she could go home tomorrow, he left to get the house ready for her. It was the perfect opportunity to prepare for the nightmare that was to unfold. Once Laura entered their modest house in a nice neighborhood. She tried to connect the pieces. The interior definitely seemed like something she'd choose, but she didn't remember buying or choosing any of it. As she walked around, she noticed something strange. There were only a couple of photos of her around the house. There were no photos of her husband or couple photos. Something was wrong. As days passed, she tried harder to remember her past and her husband. But every morning she'd wake up screaming, petrified or confused. He'd explained to her over and over again that he was her husband. He was sweet, patient and kind. She could feel that he really loved her. Slowly, she began to trust him. If only she knew who he really was. They began to go on dates. They'd laugh and talk for hours. He proposed to her again, she said yes again. She finally felt like her world was making sense again. But the feeling was short-lived. It was after he told her that she was a photographer that things really began to fall apart. If she's a photographer, how are there no photos of him around the house? It became hard to ignore the little voice in Laura's head that told her he was lying, that he wasn't her husband. Perhaps doubts were always in her mind about him, but now, she couldn't ignore them anymore. She couldn't blame her memory loss. She was staring at the evidence she held in her hand. It was a wedding photo she found hidden away in a drawer in the house. A photo of her and another man. Her heart was pounding, palms sweating. Who would she just agreed to marry and why did he know so much about her? She ran to the bathroom and locked herself in. She needed time to think. She knew she wasn't in danger.  She ran through different scenarios in her head. How would she deal with this? Should she call 911? Maybe it was all a crazy misunderstanding. Either way, she had to confront him. That night, she confronted him. He said it started as a joke, but then he got carried away. He fell in love with her and didn't know how to tell her the truth, but that he was planning to. Then he told her everything. He told her why her husband wasn't here now, and why he was. As well as how he knew so much about her and them. His real name was Brian. He was one of her husbands, Ben Baker's best friends. Turns out, he always liked Laura and knew her before Ben did. She was the one that got away. He told her Ben sent him to take care of her since she told him she never wanted to see him again when she called things off. He said you were angry, really angry this time. He thought it was over. He continued. You said things were over before the accident happened. Then he took her hand and told her that he never meant to lie for this long. He was just scared he'd lose her. She told Brian to give her his phone, then she called her real husband and asked to meet him. Two hours later, the real Ben Baker walked through the door. Are you my husband, Laura asked.  Laura listened as he explained what had happened and how they left things. Laura then explained what had happened in the months past. They chatted for hours before Ben kicked his friend out of the house. Now, years later, they've rekindled their marriage and are happier than ever.