Okay. Well, if you don't like what Plato has to say, if you're not willing to commit to these platonic forms, which are utterly mysterious, that's fine. You don't have to accept what Plato has to say. I mean, Plato was a wrestler and Plato, the name Plato means broad shoulder, but that doesn't mean Plato's gonna appear and strong arm you into accepting the forms, right? So, but if you're gonna reject Plato's conception of the form, then you're rejecting, I mean, maybe you're rejecting truth altogether, right? In which case you're back to Gorgias.  So I say it is true that 2 plus 2 equals 4, but I'm not pointing you to an object that's 2 plus 2 equals 4. If we're going to say that there's some kind of forms of some kind, right, there we're going to reject at least one of the four characteristics that Plato's provided. You're either going to say that forms are not known through reason, that forms are not objective knowledge, that forms are not universals, or that forms are not eternal. Well, let's see what happens when we try any one of these. Okay, well, let's say we reject the first kid, you know, the first way, the first characteristic of Plato's conception form, that they're known through reason. I mean, he probably rejects Plato's notion of it. And frankly, any other notion of reason is probably going to be equally mysterious, right? We don't have a good grasp on how we rationalize or, you know, through reason come to know truths, right? We, you know, we say people do it and we point to examples, but it's not like we know what's going on in the head. Well, but what's the alternative if we give up on reason what we know forms through perception? Well, if we know forms through perception, then somehow they're seen. Well, that's not right, because you can't see the number two, you can only see a numeral two. You can't see truth, you can only reason to truth, or judge that something is true, or interpret that something is true. So if forms are known through something other than reason, what's your candidate perception? You'll have to explain how you can see form, which is like saying you have to explain how you can see the unseen. And I'm not talking metaphorically in some mystical way. I mean, literally unseen, unseeable, invisible. Maybe you say that it's through emotion, but that's not right, right? I mean, motion is really opposed to reason. So if it's not going to be reason, then perception, in which case you're not committed to, you know, seeing the unseen, talk about a rocky start. Well, let's try the next one. If we're rejecting Plato's characteristic form that it's objective knowledge of which knows the thing, the form itself. Well, okay, so if that's what we're doing, rejecting objective knowledge, it sure seems like we're right back to subjective truth. All right, we're right back to at best, protagonist, that all truth is subjective, is just whatever you say it is. But we've seen the problems of that and results in contradictions results in a lot of nonsense. And, you know, you get to say such things like, ah, to me, that's a dog. Yes, sir, that's a dog. That's, you know, the best difficult. It's either that or, I don't know, try to explain how subjective, subjective knowledge somehow equates to what's happening out there or translates to what's happening out there. How is it that, you know, even at best, if we get inter-subjective agreement, right, we all point to that and say that's a tree. At best, you know, we have some kind of claim that, well, we all think it's a tree, right. But, you know, even that may not work because I don't have objective knowledge of other people. You know, I got subjective impressions or whatever, subjective sensations, which I interpret as a person. But it's not as if my mind grasps that other people are doing. So that, you know, even inter-subjective agreement has some deep, deep problems. So, you know, if we reject objectivity, objective truth, frankly any kind, then we have to say that, you know, when there were probably active antagonists or we have to explain how subjective knowledge somehow connects to the, you know, outside world. All right. So, suppose you want to reject Plato's characteristic that forms our universals. I mean, first of all, I'm wondering why you want abstract things of just particulars and only particulars, right? There'll be no universals at all.  That would be extraordinarily weird at best. But, you know, despite all that, right, you now have to explain, if you say that, you now have to explain what we even mean by tree. If there's no universals, right, there's nothing that all these things have in common. There's just that thing, that thing, that thing, that thing, that thing, that thing. There's not like there are kind at all. So, if you give up on universals, you give up pretty much on all abstraction. I'd be impressed if you could figure out a way to say that there's no universals and yet there's abstraction.  Truth is really an abstraction. Numbers, yeah, that's an abstraction. There's no particular number two. There's no physical concrete thing that is number two.  And if you're going to utter sentences, wow, do you need abstraction? Well, last one, eternal. If you say that, if you reject Plato's notion that forms are eternal, then you're claiming that they are temporary, meaning they have a beginning, they have an end. Now, let's ignore the problem about whether temporary things also must be physical. I mean, according to modern physics, right, anything temporary, anything temporal is also physical. So, let's leave that. If I'm understanding butterflies this correctly, I think I am. Let's ignore that problem for at least existing within spacetime. Anyway, so, if we say that forms are not eternal, right, we're saying they come in and out of existence with the particular object. So, the first particular object that starts to exist of that kind, that's when the form begins. And when the last one goes out of existence, that's when the form ends. Now, if you're going to do this, okay, right, that's your choice. But you now have to explain how we have form of things that no longer exist. And we talk about this all the time. We got no problem talking about forms of particular things that don't exist. Dinosaurs. Dinosaurs don't exist anymore, but we talk about their form. We say, oh, well, we got fossils. Okay, well, that's the fossil. That's a form fossil. And we even say the form of what? And fossilized dinosaur bone. Okay, but it's more than that, right? We think there's an animal that was using that bone and grew that bone, that sort of thing. And we talk about these things a lot. The dodo bird. The dodo bird. It's also another animal that no particular dodo bird exists. But we think the form does. We talk about extinct species, contemporary extinct species. Well, and we think we know this really well, right, because they were around long enough for us to look at them. But so the rhino, right, rhinoceros is probably on its way out, probably going to end in terms of particular rhinos. Or it's one of the rhinos. I think it's white nose rhinos, something like that. Well, if the last particular, last of those animals die, well, there's no longer any form. Hmm. Let's forget the problem about, I don't know, how, how is the number two a particular thing? When did it come into existence? When does it go out of existence? Let's leave that alone. Much less negative numbers. Because there is, if there's no two, there's definitely no negative two, right? Yeah, you have all kinds of problems answering the question of how a form exists without a particular thing. And, you know, maybe a backtrack. I say, well, you know, once it existed, now it, you know, then we have the form and now the form continues to exist, even though the extinct animals are gone. I mean, I guess you could try that, but why, it's what's called an ad hoc solution, right?   But now you have to explain why the forms even begin to exist for particular things when they don't exist and dependent of them to begin with. I mean, this is Plato's point. The reason why forms are eternal is because they're independent of these particular things. And if you say that they're not, I mean, okay, but why would they begin to exist even with the particular things?


I thought she told me it's two months ago that you were gonna pass the bill for me. That's right Well, what happened?  Corporation for you. We couldn't pass a billion two hundred million for school kids Now you know I'm for you and you know that I'm gonna have anywhere I can I've got nothing to do with What you're doing in the house investigation, but you've been there to pay you the best education bill I've got and I hope you're gonna be proud of it The damn thing to do is you if you have you come in and let us handle the other one Yeah, but there's a cause of name.  Just very despondent. I'm at the president. Don't you think I haven't had it with me? No, I don't think you entitled a damn thing that you did I think you told me and let me straighten the eye and said I'll report this bill And I'll get it on the floor and you didn't do it and you did not do it I want me to have an education bill ready on Appalachia.  Don't get sucked into it I want that bill reported out tomorrow morning like the administration wanted and what you want me to do I'll try to do. Okay, and you are worried about it. I'll have it. I'll use it at 11 o'clock tomorrow. Thank you


Alright, so just in continuation with the background of the book of facts, we've looked at what we, the themes that we will find in this book, but I also quickly want to show you a map. This is, okay, I will share my entire screen. Sorry everyone, I'm not able to share. There seems to be some issue. Okay, please excuse me on this one. I'll try and share it in the next class. So I basically wanted to show you the map of the seven churches in Asia Minor, which is talked about in the book of Revelation. And you will notice that all these seven churches are in the legions where Paul did his ministry. So you see, whatever happened in the book of facts, right? It's not, it wasn't really forgotten, but God chose these seven churches to talk about in the book of Revelation and you know, also John wrote more about this later on. So the book of Acts that way is very significant. Even the episodes, when we study the episodes, we will relate it to one or the other churches that the people in the book of Acts planted. So this is the significance and the importance of this particular book. So how does this book begin? I told us that the book of Luke, he ended with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and the commissioning of the disciples. So how does it pick up from Acts of the Apostles onwards? So let's begin from Acts chapter one and verse one. And then I'll try and expound as much as possible from this chapter. You could also, if you are able, you can open up and your word and go to the book of Acts there and begin with chapter one. So obviously, I'm not going to go through all of David Kuznick's content, but then you know, some key things that he has mentioned, I do will mention in my explanation here. So in Acts chapter one, it begins with the former account I made Otheophilus of all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen. We see that Jesus, even after his resurrection, ministers to his own people. So primarily, his ministry was to the disciples and the believers. So Luke wrote about this. So he refers to a former account I made, that is the book of Luke that he's talking about, where the rest of Jesus's ministry is recorded. And he also has mentioned the name of the audience, which is Theophilus. And I talked about Theophilus. So he was probably a believer and he could have been an official who was associated with the trial of Paul. So that is who Theophilus is. And he tells Theophilus that, you know, I wrote an account about Jesus. And now he is writing about what Jesus, the resurrected Christ is doing and has done. So of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. Now, this is very beautiful. Now, he talks about the ministry of Jesus and it's a takeaway for us as believers and those who are in the ministry. There is an integration of doing and teaching. You know, just one wouldn't suffice. We need both. We need to do or demonstrate the works of God as much as teach the word of God. And that is the proper way of doing the ministry that God has called us to do. So we also see here that the Lord Jesus, you know, he made that effort to serve his people. The resurrected Christ, he could have just been happy. Sometimes you wonder, Lord, why did the resurrected Christ choose to be on the earth for, you know, scriptures say 40 days, he was around. Lord, what did you want to accomplish through him walking the earth? But it just tells us that God cared so much about his own people. But he, first of all, revealed to them his glory through the resurrection. But he also ministered and strengthened his own people before the moment of ascension. So this is how Luke writes. I'm going to read that verse one again. The former account I made, O theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach.  So it's talking about a definite ascension of the Lord Jesus and Luke is giving witness to this event. After he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen. So he's saying that Jesus ministered through the Holy Spirit. Okay, amazing. Right. So this is another account where we understand the setting of the Trinity. And there is a Trinity. Jesus by the Holy Spirit, Jesus through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles. So the Godhead is working in harmony and in agreement. That is very obvious in the very beginning of this book. So Jesus working with the Holy Spirit gave commandments or big ministry to the apostles whom he had chosen. So the apostles, again, they were chosen by the decision of the Lord Jesus and we know how he prayed and picked these 12 men and he equipped them during his lifetime here on the earth, preparing them for something that was to come. So it's amazing that the intention which God had was to do more than demonstrate his glory and power and make his disciples dependent on him. We are dependent on him, but there's also that element of empowering us that is seen in them through the ministry of Jesus. So those three, three and a half years seems like a very short time, isn't it, that Jesus is working with these disciples, but he taught them, he built them up, he did his ministry, he demonstrated the works of the supernatural, but he prepared them to carry on when he's gone. So it's an example of exemplary leadership that in just three, three and a half years he has picked the people that he trusted to be the future leaders and that he equips them enough to hand over the work to these 12 men who he had chosen. So the first two verses, simply talk and describe the, talk about and describe the ministry of the Lord Jesus. So before he ascended, verse 2 says that he gave commandments to the apostles. So what kind of commandments did he give? Of course, we know about the great commission, we know that he told them to demonstrate the power of the kingdom, these sons will follow those that believe they should lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So the fulfilling the great commission and how to fulfill the great commission was some of the commandments that he gave his disciples. Now let's move to write along, verse 3, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So here, since it's referring to the 40 days, it's most definitely the period of his resurrection and we are told that Jesus presented himself to his disciples and he gave them sufficient proof, infallible proofs. So that shows us the heart of God towards us that, you know, God is, he's sort of on a convincing mode.  However, that sorrow was quickly turned into joy because as Jesus had spoken to them, he resurrected on the third day. But even after that, you know, God cared enough to provide many proofs to not just the disciples, but other believers as well. If we look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 6, you know, that scripture, I will quickly read it out for us. It says, after that he was seen by over 500 brethren at once of whom the greater part remained to the present, but some have fallen asleep. So Jesus was seen by more than 500 people after his resurrection and, you know, that in itself is very encouraging. That there was evidence of the resurrection of Christ and not only that, an additional truth that we can make note of is these people who saw Jesus, you know, at his resurrection, if they were, if they were young people, the book of Acts is only over a span of 30 years, isn't it? So when Luke was writing about all that the Holy Spirit did through the early church, these people who saw the resurrected Christ were probably alive, you know, and they could affirm that what Luke had written as a historical account is correct. So the resurrection of Jesus, it's a historical fact. And Luke as a physician, who we would expect him to be very logical and intellectual, a man like Luke, he's talking about the resurrection of Christ. So it's not a myth, it is a historical fact. And Luke records here that he gave infallible proofs being seen by them during 40 days and also Apostle Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians 15, that indeed the resurrected Christ was seen by many people. Now what did Jesus do during that phase when he was ministering in his resurrected body? We are told very clearly that he was speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So whenever it comes to subjects like this, the ministry of the resurrected Christ, people can come up with all kinds of stories and obscure things that don't have secondary information that affirms what they are saying. So Luke has put it down very clearly and he has mentioned here that the subject that Jesus thought was not a new subject. Jesus, even during his earthly ministry as a human being, he was talking about the kingdom of God, he was wanting people to repent, he was talking about heaven and hell, he was talking about many other subjects like good stewardship, his teachings revolved around all of this. After his resurrection, he continues to talk about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So that way, it does not give opportunity for people to come up with, if I may use the word weird teaching and say that, oh, this is the hidden revelation and Jesus was actually talking about X, Y and Z during his days of resurrection because the Bible very clearly says that he was speaking about things pertaining to the kingdom of God, which is a repetition of what he did during his earthly ministry. So let me just pause for a moment and check with all of us, are you doing okay? You could give me some feedback, whether the base is okay, you're able to get what I'm saying or if there's any challenges that you're encountering. Okay, so I can see here on the chat that you are doing fine. Okay, praise God. Let's continue if you have any questions or you just want to interrupt to tell me anything about the way I'm, you know, the format that I'm using, please let me know so I can always correct to make it better for your learning. All right, so moving ahead, right, so we've seen, we've talked about these 40 days. Okay, so again, this is very interesting, 40 days, what 40 days, Jewish festivals of the Passover and then, you know, the day of Pentecost, the duration in between this 50 days. So 40 days after Jesus's resurrection, he appeared to more than 500 people, including his own disciples and then, you know, he ascended. So there were about 10 days between the ascension of Jesus and the day of Pentecost where the outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place. So Acts chapter one, Acts chapter two, the period is something like 50 days, 50 days or, you know, one and a half months is the duration that we are talking about. So moving on to verse four here. So I said that Jesus continued to minister during his period of resurrection to his own disciples. So that's what is happening from verse four to verse eight and being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father which he said, you have heard from me for joy truly baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So Jesus already equipped the believers with the word of God. The believers, the disciples, they were also we would say born again because in John chapter 20, we see him breathe on them. So after his resurrection, after the work of the cross, he breathes on them and he says receive he the Holy Spirit. Till that time the disciples were not born again but once the Holy Spirit came to dwell within them, they were now born again. But even after being born again and even after being equipped with the word, what is this that the resurrected Jesus is talking about? He's telling them don't depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father. So there was something more which was required for them to accomplish the commandment of the Great Commission. What was that? The promise of the Father and he explains himself, this is nice because scripture is interpreting itself which he said you have heard from me for joy truly baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So Jesus is telling them that the promise of the Father equals the baptism of the Holy Spirit which is to he gave them an estimate. He said not many days from now so they knew that it is going to take place in a matter of days and this is a requirement for us to continue to do the work that God wants us to do. The baptism in the Holy Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit even for believers it's very interesting. Why is Jesus doing this? Isn't the word enough? Isn't them being born again enough? What do you see here? He's telling these people no you need something more and that is the baptism in the Holy Spirit and I want you to wait for it in Jerusalem. Don't step out just yet wait for this to happen verse 6 therefore when they had come together they asked him saying Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? So you know the disciples many of us can relate to this isn't it? Here Jesus is saying something so important and we have our own questions. Is it related to what he said? He talked about the promise of the Father the baptism in the Holy Spirit and here is you know the set of disciples asking him another theological doubt. They say Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? So they had their own perception of what might take place probably after the baptism in the Holy Spirit and here is the answer that Jesus gave them and said and he said to them it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. So it helps us understand as believers. Yes we are asking so many different questions but God has chosen to reveal what we need. There are if you want to term it as unrevealed you know unrevealed mysteries that even if we approach God with those questions he feels that hey you know you really don't have to whatever I have told you till now is sufficient for you so you can work with that. He had spoken so much with the disciples about the kingdom of God and how the kingdom comes and how they need to move with the authority which is given to them so he had actually already spoken about the kingdom and he had made statements you know about the kingdom being with them and the kingdom coming but still the disciples had a doubt about the literal kingdom of Israel. Now obviously they knew from scripture that there would be a time when the literal kingdom of Israel would also be restored but for some reason you know Jesus did not find it important to answer their question with the kind of clarity that they wanted at that point in time. So he simply tells them it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. So there are certain things that the Father alone knows and if we go searching for those mysteries answers to those mysteries it's likely that we may not you know get the information. So for us to know everything is not possible it's only what God has chosen to reveal to us and in this case the disciples were not given the date and time of the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. So he comes back to the point he was making about the promise of the fag which is most important for the disciples at that in that season okay probably even they did not understand the importance of it but he goes back real focus and he says okay that you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So I'll quickly share with us okay right yeah so the word witnesses there in the Greek it is the word martyrs okay martyrs it refers to a martyr you shall be my witnesses in all of Judea, Samaria even to the ends of the earth. So interesting it's the word martyrs from the Greek which means a martyr. So what does Jesus say? So is he saying that those who follow him those who are baptized in the Holy Spirit will all become martyrs in the case of the disciples most of them it happened isn't it but the point that Jesus was making it's not the not a little martyr that's not what it means it simply means surrender you know a martyr what what is the characteristic of a martyr a martyr gives it all for the cause and in the same way he is letting the the disciples know that when the Holy Spirit comes upon you you shall be my witnesses in that manner that life that is yielded to the work of the Holy Spirit where the power of the Holy Spirit is revealed to such an extent. So you know it's surrender it's surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit and that's what Jesus was telling them that when you wait in Jerusalem you know another few days you shall you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. So the disciples needed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit or in other words they needed a separate experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit to bear witness to the resurrection power of Christ to the ends of the earth and Jesus knew that very well and he knew that that was the subject of importance at that point in time and he's telling them please wait receive this then you will be able to do what I asked you to do without that it'll be very difficult for you to be a witness for me. So he speaks to them about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and later on verse 9 Luke writes now when he had spoken these things while they watched he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their psyche we could just talk about the theological aspects of this one scripture okay basically it's about the ascension of the Lord Jesus after he had spoken of all the important things which he wanted to know when somebody is leaving home or you know out to going to travel they they usually let us know give us those important instructions isn't it because they know that these things are very important okay the keys are kept here switch off the lights do this do that and more so when someone's completing their journey if someone's leaving an organization or if someone knows that they're at the end of their life here or not they will reveal what is most important to the people who are left behind and we see that Jesus continued to talk about the things pertaining to the kingdom he did not find it so important to talk about the timing of the restoration of the kingdom of the nation of Israel but instead he focused on the baptism in the Holy Spirit and it was that important for the ascending Christ to make mention of this to his disciples and so once he had spoken about these things scripture say while they watched he was taken up quite dramatic a cloud received him out of their sight so you know we can imagine this right Jesus he just spoke to his disciples he was with them and then you know he's being lifted up okay it's supernatural and they are watching Jesus being taken up and finally cloud comes and receives him and he disappears and they understood that you know Jesus in his resurrected body has now entered a different realm or a different soul and we know from the rest of scripture that but he seated at the right hand of the Father until the day that he comes back so he's still there but just that he's not here on earth in his resurrected body he is up there in heaven now we might ask why is it that God even thought of letting the disciples see the ascension of Jesus why not maybe after all the meetings that Jesus had for the disciples he could have just disappeared isn't it and the disciples could have said oh I think Jesus has ascended okay and that would have been fine with all of them because Jesus would have told them that one day I'm going to the Father but God is very wise in the way he orchestrates you know events the ascension of Jesus before the eyes of the disciples ensured that they all had evidence to what had taken place otherwise you know the disciples could have come up with all kinds of parallel stories and said oh no Jesus is here Jesus is there yeah sorry I can hear somebody okay right so to avoid that it was a very clear event the ascension of Jesus and being received up by the cloud and while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up behold two men stood by them in white a bell who also said men of Calilee why do you stand gazing up into heaven this same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will soon come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven okay again through the wisdom of God while the disciples thought that whatever has happened till now it has great bearing you know on our lives and we just want to focus on the ministry of Jesus the teachings of the resurrected Jesus the signs and wonders of you know Jesus through the entire time and his ascension they just wanted to focus on that and it would have been easier for them to do that at that point in time and God really spoke to their hearts and it says there were two men who stood by them in white a bell again there's this tension about who these two men are you know scholars say that these two men where Moses and Elijah who appeared at that time or some scholars say no no they they were just angels who spoke to the disciples but whoever they were now they brought godly wisdom and they told the disciples stop staring at the past you have work to do what Jesus needed to do he has done and now he has ascended up into heaven you go do your part stop being like fixated on what has just happened right so they were being awakened to the call of God on their life it was as if Jesus passed the you know Baton or Baton however you want to call it and he was telling the disciples it's your turn now you need to go and you need to fulfill the great commercial through your lives and we know that you know that's not just applicable to the disciples it's so applicable for us we can read the Bible we can meditate on scripture and say oh how wonderful you know I'm coming to know God and all that's that's great it's really beautiful and that's how it should be we have to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ but also we have a work to do we need to go and do our part for the kingdom of God and the book of acts as I have shared earlier is that it's the evidence of the power of God through the lives of believers who stepped up so it was a call to step out and do what God called them to do and notice here another very encouraging point is we are told this same Jesus so there's no doubt in who ascended and who's going to come back so the way the disciples saw Jesus go up into heaven they were assured this same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner as you saw him going to heaven you know and that is such a highlight for us as believers the second coming of Christ we are going to see him come back in glory you know and that is an encouragement as we go ahead and do what God is calling us to do so all of this you know unfolded in those moments when Jesus was reassuring them and he ascended so let me pause for a moment and look at all of us here so yeah what thoughts are running through your minds is there anything that you know really touched you from what we have seen so far okay so you're probably just digesting you know all of this we'll continue then let me look at the following verses here from verse 12 so after Jesus was taken up and the disciples had the assurance this same Jesus is going to come back in the same way they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives so Jesus was taken up from the Mount of Olives and it was a Sabbath day as a journey so it was not too far and they come returned to Jerusalem and when they entered they went up into the upper room where they were staying so there was this this place known as the upper room where the disciples were along with other believers so then you had the list of the disciples it's listed out for us Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the zealot and Judas the son of James okay so we have all those disciples who Jesus had chosen except for Judas Iscariot and these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers so very interesting again that you have the disciples you have some other disciples okay women it just says and with the women you also have the mother of Jesus and the brothers of Jesus and if you remember the brothers of Jesus were not that supportive of Jesus in his earthly ministry they had lots of questions about whether he is the Messiah and Jesus said you know people who are familiar with us don't see the call of God on our lives so you know he made statements like that because his own people and his own family had trouble accepting the Lord Jesus Christ okay for the fact that he was the Messiah so let me quickly refer yeah so John 7 5 is a reference that you could jot down Mark 3 21 is another reference where you see that his brothers were not supportive at all but what happened to these people after the resurrection you see even the resurrection proved to his own family and we were actually walking with the Messiah and the Messiah was part of our household so they came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and that is so valuable isn't it so all of these disciples with some other disciples the family of Jesus they all came back to Jerusalem and they came to this place called the upper room and what are they doing what they knew to do best which is to pray and to seek come on so scriptures also tell us that they were in one accord okay and yeah just in the Greek this word one accord is homo tomadon okay so one accord is together united so they were united in prayer that is the understanding from what we see here so we can imagine how Jesus has ascended and the disciples come back and they are in one accord why are they in one accord they just heard the instruction of Jesus that in a few days from now you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit and you will be my witnesses so they were aware that there is a promise that we are living for and while they were waiting for the promise what did they choose to do as a community they prayed you know when we are aware of the promises of God sometimes we just want to dismiss ourselves and say okay God is sovereign he will do what he needs to do there is no need for me to pray but you see the posture that the believers took even after they knew what God was going to do through their lives that God would send the Holy Spirit God would make them witnesses to the ends of the earth you know they chose to pray they chose to seek God and so they were in an they were in a posture of obedience they were in a posture of worship they were in a posture of prayer seeking the Lord and then you know at that point we we see that Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and scripture records here that the number of names was about 120 so 120 disciples had gathered together Peter stood up in the midst of them why did Peter stand up you know again you would see in the book of Acts that God works through people now sometimes people say uses people okay but uses people doesn't sound very good God works through people God also works through who we are naturally so Peter if you know the way he behaved earlier he was just quick to talk he was quick to give his opinion and somehow you see that God continued to use him for who he was and Peter quite naturally takes leadership in this case and thankfully you know after the resurrection of Jesus before the resurrection of Jesus he was a coward he escaped the scene when Jesus was being tried but there was a rear and genuine transformation in the heart of Peter and God also Jesus also comforts him after his resurrection so now Peter is courageous he is you know his heart is if you want to call undivided he's very focused he takes on leadership and it comes naturally to him so he just stands up in the midst of these 120 believers or disciples and you know he quotes from the scriptures he says men and brethren I went verse 16 this scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry okay so Peter realizes that as scriptures mentioned you know Judas was the one who betrayed Jesus so then he goes on he goes on to describe what happened to Judas he says that he he saw Jesus and then he got the wages of his work which is he died right falling to the ground and you know the the gory details are also mentioned over that and you know he says that now that he is gone we need to pick someone else in that office so I'll read from verse 20 for it is written in the book of Psalms let his dwelling place the desolate and let no one live in it so he's talking about Judas and let another take his office so Peter for some reason he knew that what Judas did you know it was already spoken about in scripture but it is now time for another person to take that position because Jesus wanted 12 disciples okay so he goes ahead with leading the choice of somebody in the place of Judas so from verse 21 therefore of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection so Peter says we are going to choose but we are going to choose from this in a circle there were 120 people and Peter was well aware of the men and women who had walked with Jesus through his ministry and who also were with Jesus you know during that period when he was resurrected so he did not want to pick somebody who was an outsider so he wanted to pick somebody who was an insider so at that point you know it's like an election time and we are told that two names were proposed Joseph called Barsovis whose surname was Justice and Matthias so two people were proposed and then you know the people prayed together asked God who God would want to take the place of Judas and then we are told that they cast lots and Matthias was the one on whom the lot fell and he was numbered with the 11 apostles so in chapter one what do we see we see the instructions of Jesus before his ascension we see the ascension of Jesus then we see the obedience of the disciples in going back to Jerusalem and maintaining a posture of prayer and worship we see the rising up of Peter as one of the leaders of the early church we also see the choice of Matthias led by the Holy Spirit and prayer of the disciples so we will stop here and we will pick up from Acts chapter two in the next class we have about three minutes here so quickly take up any questions Yashnikumar please go ahead I just have a small doubt like in the book of Acts it says he the Peter says that we have to pick someone who was with us from the beginning and and we again you know and it means that I just want to know that Matthias name was suddenly coming in the book of Acts chapter in the Acts before that even when the disciples name is mentioned hello okay Ashnikumar we lost your voice there okay gone again actually yeah it's like interrupted thank you thank you thank you thank you I want to know that you know the Matthias name comes in the book of Acts but before that if you read the entire gospel you were never able to find the name of Matthias and second thing and even the Peter is saying that someone who was from the beginning it means that Matthias was Matthias was someone who was from the beginning and so even when we read about read when Jesus was establishing the Lord's tables when we think maybe it's maybe I'm maybe wrong or something that it is only 12 disciples were there so is it possible that all these other disciples who they was not mentioned they were also there at the time of Lord's table because Paul is Peter is saying that someone who was from the beginning means like how Matthias name was there and so many other disciples were also there whose name was not mentioned and what we are assuming that only 12 disciples or 12 apostles were only there at the time of communion I want to ask you thank you okay sure sure Shri Kumar would it be okay if I answered your question in the next class because we've we've we've run out of time that is the first thing and also very specifically you asked me if Matthias was there at the communion I think I'll have to study this a little more to to give you an answer so I just don't want to say something okay so yeah I I'm assuming you'd be okay with that so let's wrap up class sure thank you let's pray Heavenly Father we thank you Lord for your grace Father God we we continue to commit ourselves Lord and we ask that Lord you will reveal your heart Lord through the acts of the apostles to us Father God and Lord I pray let each one strengthen that each one we empower by your Holy Spirit Father God Lord we give you all glory and honor in Jesus name we pray amen amen thank you God bless you have a wonderful weekend and we shall eat again in our next week God bless


Good morning and welcome to Vermont House Judiciary Committee. It is Wednesday, March 10th, and we are considering our deliberation on H 87 and act relating to establishing a classification system for criminal offenses. We do have a draft with highlights it's draft 2.1 to show the changes that were discussed yesterday. I am hoping that we can bring this to a vote this morning as planned. So in the absence of council I'm going to ask representative Martin Lalonde to to walk us through the changes. Martin, thank you. Yeah, thank you. The changes are relatively straightforward from yesterday from the conversation yesterday. They can be found on page three of the bill, either with the highlighting or, or the clean bill either way, take a look at that. It is, it is a new subsection, it's subsection C, and it comports with what the discussion was yesterday regarding what the court should consider in determining whether to include a fine as part of a penalty for a criminal offense. It states that when determining the amount of a fine and the method of payment, the court shall consider, and this really is the new language is the next phrase, based on all financial information available to the court, including information provided by the one, the defendants present and future financial ability to pay the fines and two, the nature of the financial burden that payment of the fine will impose on the defendant and any dependence of the defendant so that that would be the language just to ensure that the court is looking at essentially the ability to pay and the language that was added really is to set forth what basis the court should be making this determination on that is the financial information available to the court including that provided by the defendant. So that so it's not just being made up out of, out of the air there's got to be information before the court on which the court would make that determination. And other than that the other changes, you know, Eric went through yesterday. Great, thank you. These, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was just going to say so and Martin some of this language is I think Selena has suggested. Right is that true some of this language to track the was the restitution. Yeah, the idea is that is to track closely with restitution. That's correct. And that language that is you know the based on all financial information available to the court including information provided by the offender that comes right from the restitution law. Okay, thank you. Tom. Yeah. On lines 16 through 20 with the, with the fines. Is this is this new since yesterday those numbers. Is this the on page two on page two I'm sorry. No, this is this is what we went over yesterday. I explained that we were that I had met Kate Donnelly and I had met with Eric the day before break and kind of looked at the various crimes that we have on the books and tried to make the the fines in these classifications closer to what we already have in the books. Now, the one thing I mentioned yesterday is that there are, there are very limited number of crimes that are not categorized in this bill at this point, that are much higher fines, most everything else is in the no more than $50,000 range, but certain drug trafficking crimes, human trafficking, as well as another one have $500,000 million fines. When we get to those crimes down the road as we continue to categorize these. We can make a clear exception in those instances that the fine can be higher and it would make some sense. And we heard yesterday as well from. I believe it was David share talking about DUI crimes are one where one might want to have possibly higher crimes or fines, because of the ability to pay. It crosses the socio economic categories really, but those were not dealing with those those we get to deal with on the road, and we can make those exceptions on those few crimes that really call for a high fine, but but the property crimes we're dealing with here. There was a concern on the, as far as that these fines actually are increasing for some of them and that is true. And I think we largely have taken care of that issue by ensuring that the court take into account. The ability to pay when they are levying a fine if they levy a fine which from what we also understand from testimony they don't do very often so courts don't do very right. So with the discussion yesterday about the amounts and some are going up. So none of the amounts changed since yesterday. Correct. Okay. Great. So, I guess if anybody else has got any questions I'll wait I'll hold on what I want to say. Well, I'm not seeing any hands. So I guess I'm up. So, just with, I'm not going to get into any big detail. Just what was some of the things that happened yesterday. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how it went away. Some things. Played out. I wasn't happy. And again, I'm not going to go into any detail. I don't think it's necessary. And I, and I was seriously. Up until, you know, it was one of those times where you wake up in the middle of the night and you think about things and I was thinking about this bill.  But there was just, there was just something that was, I guess, a term could be sticking in my car. And, and what it came down to is, I want this vote to come out 11 oh, and, and the reason I wanted to come out 11 oh is, is for Maxine. And the reason I wanted, I want to do it for Maxine is because we've been working on this thing for what, two or three years.  And because it is important work it is good work and I think it needs to just move forward with as as little resistance as possible but I don't know if I articulated very well what I wanted to say but I will be a yes. Thank you I appreciate that time. Thank you. Bob. I have a question it may not be germane to this bill here, probably from Martin. I noticed we in the hate motivated crime bill today there was there was a fine and a sentence behind that. I'm just curious as to when we reorganize all the such as we're doing now. How does that work with bills that we're looking at voting on and potentially passing here Martin. And you make a very good point and and we have tried, I think in the last couple years as we've had this bill, moving along when when we've and we haven't dealt with a lot of new crimes in the last couple years, but we've tried to put whatever the conditions are to comport with what this categorization is for when we actually get to the point of categorizing those particular class of crimes it'll be much more straightforward to do so so we have been paying attention to that. The hate crimes a little bit different animal it's an enhancement, which, which we'll see how the sentencing commission. How does fit that into this cat into this whole scheme it's it's one of the things that they are continuing to work on. But I will say that we do have recommendations from the sentencing commission for the different categories of crime sex crimes the crimes against people or violent crimes. And they're working on a few more. But as we're looking at stuff again we're, I think we've been trying to make sure that whatever we put in as a penalty of the new penalty, you know, because the hate crime is that's, that's already on the books but any new penalty. We've tried to be consistent with where we know that this is heading where the where the train is going so does that answer. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. That's a really, really good and important point. Tom your hand is up. I think it's always. Okay. Anybody else. Any other questions. So I'm not hearing any, anything in terms of what folks need in order to vote. So pause for a minute. I'm ready. Okay. All right. Okay. Great. Well thank you. So, let's see. So we will be voting on draft 2.1 right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. H 87. Ken, when you were. Ready, please. Oh, actually, I'm sorry. So we didn't have that we. I had it myself. I need a motion and a second. I guess I'll make the motion since nobody else is. I'll approve it. Okay. Great. First and second. Okay. Any discussion. Okay. So now clerk shall commence to call the roll. Thank you. Over. Yes. Donnelly. Yes. Me. I can get back to me, right? Not really. I think. If you're in your seat, you need to.  If we were in the committee room and you were in the committee room, you would need to vote. Members in their seat. They need to vote is my understanding. Sure. I'll go through all along with it just to get rid of it. The lawn. Yes. Love flower. Yes. Norris. Yes. Not. Yes. Rachel son. Yes. Christy. Yes. verdict. Yes. Madam chair. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And can just to respond to your. To your, um, to your vote that. The bill will move. It has enough boats to move. So, um, I. They all do. I know that. Okay. But I'm just responding. I'm not trying to be.  It's best I don't say anything. Um, I'm just responding to your voting. Yes. To get. To get rid of it. That, um, No, my response is all bills are going to move through. We're in a massive crunch to throw everything through. Whether anybody wants to agree with it. I said I wasn't going to say it, but I'm going to say it. We're rushing everything through. And I have a real problem with this. If this is this goes against my basic principle. I don't agree with this. I don't agree with this. I don't agree with the proper legislation. And it's, and that's not a slide on you, uh, Madam chair at all. It's just, I don't agree with this. Uh, way of doing of, of. Of, uh, Of, uh, being a lawmaker in this state. It goes against what I stand for. And I'm not. And I'm not very happy with myself right now. So. Okay. Well, I am giving you the opportunity to change your vote. Not to get rid of something. But as we know, it won't matter. So I'm good. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, I'll be, uh, Martin, you're going to report it. Correct. Happy to. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. So we are ahead of schedule and it's a beautiful day. I wouldn't mind taking a, just a few minutes to get folks thoughts about, uh, the testimony this morning. And, um, again, just. Informal discussion regarding the, um, The study and the, uh, The hate motivated crimes. But, um, I think that should be the only time. That folks want to. Way in now. Otherwise we certainly have time later in the week. We'll be discussing it, but Selena. Um, of course there's, in fact, 35 just started flying over how it, but, um, hopefully you'll be able to hear me. I think it stopped. Um, I just met with really briefly with James Pepper and Robin a in section one, but about the neighbors incident reporting. And we came up with some proposed language that would would try to get at the whole universe of offenses that were coded with an offender bias motivation. So both the number of incidents and the types of offenses by category and that Robin Joy said that they had really federal. So Robin Joy from the crime research group said that they had federal requirements around protecting victim identity and because some of these subcategories are so small that that demographic some of that demographic information or even linking like the category of offender bias with the crime itself might really compromise victim confidentiality, which is like a federal requirement around their funding in their work. And so we have are working with some like mirroring some language with going to propose an amendment just to that section that mirrors some language in I think the next draft that we'll see of H 183 that similarly gets at you know that we were asking for this report, but that it needs to to the fullest extent possible protect victim confidentiality. And I don't know I then I would just so that's just a report back to the committee. And hopefully I'll send that language along to brand and you all can see it in the next draft. And I would say some of the bigger questions that came up around how to really get at that demographic data and how to get at the demographic data of all of the players in the system, not just not even just victims and offenders, but prosecutors and police officers who are helping to bring charges and so on. It just it seems to me like there's so much to figure out there that it perhaps best belongs in the I'm hopeful that we are going to see movement this by any of them on the Bureau racial statistics bill and concept and it seems like that might be the place to tackle some of those bigger questions because they're really systemic, you know, and needs probably some resources behind them in terms of solutions. Right. Thank you. And any discussion about taking two out or any or in terms of the concerns about that I'm right now it is just regarding the defendants and whether or not that's weighted unfairly as the Defender General's office spoke about. We didn't talk about that. I'm just pulling I'm just pulling the draft, the existing draft language back up right about to that it's just about the defendants. We didn't talk about that. We were we were really focused on the Niver's question, but we probably should have talked about that. Yeah, I did put that question out to to pepper. I think it's something worth worth considering. Yeah, I can share this language with Robin and pepper right now and so I can try to circle background on that question too. Okay. Great. Okay, well, thank you for thank you for working on that. Bob. Yeah, just a quick question. Bren had brought up the fact about having a prosecutor speak on the addition of or the change that Falco had recommended as far as intentionally. Was that question actually answered? Did I miss it or can someone elaborate on that a little better? David Shearer spoke about it briefly. He also he really didn't have much time to prepare his remarks, but but he did speak in in opposition to to that proposed language. Okay. And also, Bren also spoke about that she didn't think it was was necessary. I think we would need a fair amount of testimony on that section. Or more testimony. What's going through my mind, but I'm gonna hear from others. And that's the only hands. Okay. All right. Well, let's keep thinking about it. And then Selena, let us know what we'll get back. And that is it for this. So, Selena and Barbara, you're ready for this afternoon and have what you have what you need. And Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, we're super helpful to me and Bren as well in preparing. Okay. Great. And so I think Eric and Brinn can be around. I'm sorry, Michelle and Brinn can be on Zoom because of that way they don't they avoid the lag that that YouTube has. And then but certainly you can if you have questions can email them and no committee members we could text each each other if you get any help and certainly always can take a break if you if you need to for a quick question. I feel like every time I've seen it happen it's happened a little bit differently. So do you have any sense of what if we did need to take a recess to consult with legislative council? Like sometimes we've seen that move into some kind of weird breakout room and sometimes it's like I just wouldn't, you know, go off to the side and do it as a reporter of the bill. Do you have any sense of how I can ask the clerk to if that would be helpful? But yeah, I mean, I'll have to work at this point. I don't know, but I would I would think you should be able to to meet with council. It's not like there's a point of order where there's a breakout room where we where we go up to the podium or something like that. I think this is Madam chair. Yes. In the rules they did allow for us as committees to confab, especially on floor amendments and questions. So the clerk can constitute a breakout room for us for that purpose. Okay, thank you. And how about for just one member and an attorney? I mean, well, they they would have that same that same option because the speaker did offer for that consultation capability.  I'll email Betsy Ann and Brent just in my case to see what the protocol would be and then I'll share their response with the court committee. Right. But that way, Barbara, you'll have a sense too. You know, and because they've they've done it and it's just a question of request, but, you know, it's just that we haven't had to do it. That often, you know, yet, but I have a feeling this week we will see a lot more of it than we have. Okay. All right. Okay. Great. All right. Well, thank you everybody. Thank you.


Hey everyone we get to talk today a little bit about PlayStation 5 and some maybe troubling signs for what people were hoping the PlayStation 5 would be capable of and why it might not matter. I don't know we'll get into that but before we do before we do I got to remind you that we are giving away a copy of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles remastered edition. All you have to do to enter the contest is to comment on this video like the video subscribe to the channel hit that bell icon also we are on a road to 50,000 subscribers if we hit 50k before the month of November 2020 we will be giving away an Xbox Series X a PlayStation 5 or a Nintendo Switch to one lucky winner if we hit 50k after that we'll still do something special for it but it won't be quite the big launch system celebration that I'm hoping it will become that being said let's get into the news and this comes from a guy on twitter who is actually a game developer he goes by at aesthetic gamer one his name is Ryan he works for ya gameworks who's you know made games like cryptic and stuff like that so kind of an indie dev but has worked in the industry for a little while and he's got some connections and somebody on twitter asked him this at Diego 70884986 asked him any news about the performance of PlayStation 5 on Capcom's graphic engine because Capcom as we all know was actually one of the reasons that Nintendo doubled the RAM and switch even though Capcom ended up not really bringing much over anyways who knows maybe there's a monster hunter or something in the works there could be something but he had a long little twitter thread here three tweets explaining what he's heard from Capcom's side of things but let's just get into it because this doesn't sound great for Sony but again things aren't sounding great for Microsoft right now either something's up with these next gen systems but let's get into Sony here first it says I'm going to hate myself later for responding to this so I can feel it people attracted to this sort of topic are horribly toxic but a lot of people misinterpreted what I said which is partially my fault of course Resident Evil 8 will run fine on launch that was never a question by me and this is in response to an earlier tweet that Diego was responding to but people should be ready for the real possibility that the ps5 is going to end up being more expensive console between the two I'm trying not to say much here as I was asked not to but prepare yourself which does put Xbox X in a position that it'll be the less expensive and more powerful console I used Resident Evil 8 as an example but I've heard from other devs that PlayStation 5 struggles with 4k games in particular so you'll see a lot of fake 4k that doesn't matter to some but get ready for that too Xbox X doesn't have the same problem so what he's basically saying is in direct comparison on the developer side especially for Resident Evil 8 and the Capcom's game engine in particular that the PlayStation 5 really really struggles running native 4k especially if you probably want 60 fps it's it's just it's not that it's not possible it's that you really have to dial back the game to do that where you don't actually have to do that the Xbox X and it's curious because Xbox Series X of course is what he means and it's curious here because there is technically a power gap between the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 while the PlayStation 5 might have the faster of the of the SSDs everything else is basically leaning Xbox Series X's way they have a faster CPU they have a more consistent faster paced GPU and it allows them to attain a higher performance level and that performance level difference which is almost almost two full teraflops on the GPU side is definitely enough to make a difference in the resolution now remember resolutions have to be all end all this doesn't mean that suddenly Sony's games are not going to be any good that's that's just hogwash anyone who's shilling out there that the Sony's in trouble and you know they can't do 4k like let's just be honest here most people are not going to notice a difference between a checkerboard rendered upscaled 4k game versus a non you know a native 4k game most people most consumers are not going to know the difference even if you got that big 65 75 inch TV most people are not going to see the difference but I'm obviously not most people I do notice resolution differences and I'll be able to tell personally but it doesn't mean the games are going to be bad we've already seen checkerboard rendering and you know that's just one technique there's other techniques as well in this current generation where it takes an image on like you know the Xbox one X or the PlayStation 4 pro and then you know makes it into you know quote unquote 4k but it's not really 4k we've seen this with Assassin's Creed and some other games so I think that it is interesting that on the developer side it definitely appears that the Xbox Series X that power difference matters on development side maybe more so than the SSD speed difference at least for multi-platform games so it definitely looks like the Xbox Series X has a massive advantage over the PlayStation 5 and that's that's pretty interesting this is obviously in addition to the news that came up before where you know PlayStation 4 controllers work on a PlayStation 5 but won't work with PlayStation 5 made games not true with Microsoft granted there is a bigger difference between the DualSense controller and the DualShock controller than there is between the Xbox you know one or Xbox Series X controller versus the Xbox one there actually isn't that much of a difference between those controllers at all which is fine as they say don't fix you know don't don't fix what isn't broken uh Xbox has been lauded for their controllers for quite some time so why fix it you know Sony was lauded as well so they stuck with the DualShock design for a long time now there is bad news on Microsoft's side of the aisle of course uh if you haven't heard I don't know how you haven't at this point Halo Infinite as delayed to 2021 uh they put out a post three four three put out a post talking about you know needing to to meet expectations and and do more work on the game and people viewed this as supporting uh the rumors out there that there was development hell with Halo Infinite which haven't been substantiated by anyone by the way I have to throw that out there there actually is no real evidence that there was development issues other than the delay now it's interesting with that delay because literally it was a month ago Xbox and Phil Spencer were adamant this is coming out on launch uh so to see that change a month later makes me feel like it's the public backlash that that made it happen um I've heard some things behind the scenes I'm not going to get dabbled too much into it because I don't want to get people in trouble but uh what I will say is it sounds like the backlash over the visuals uh really hit three four three and Microsoft hard so hard they're willing to delay the game to try to make it more visually appealing uh the next time that they show it so uh yeah that seems to be uh what's going on at least uh and I think the evidence supports that as well like people feel like oh it's being delayed that means there's development issues I'm like no the game's probably ready to go right now it's just hey there was a huge backlash over the visuals they're gonna do something about that because this is their tentpole franchise at Microsoft they're not gonna let the tentpole franchise release when people think it looks ugly uh I didn't really think it looked as bad as people made it out to me but I also recognize it was an Xbox one game originally not an xgen game so uh you know to me it's kind of like complaining that Breath of the Wild didn't look next gen because it was a Wii U game I you know what am I supposed to complain about there now that being said uh this is a very very interesting because obviously they talk about the price difference here and how PlayStation 5 is actually going to be more expensive than the Xbox Series X and that he can't really go into details because he's not supposed to he doesn't want to get anyone in trouble but I find that very very interesting that uh some dev developers I guess already know what the cost of the platforms are going to be for the end consumer and uh it's crazy to me to think that the more powerful system is going to be cheaper again it actually happened this current generation PlayStation 4 was more powerful than the Xbox one and it was a hundred dollars cheaper at launch granted it was because Microsoft forced connect in the box but still it was the cheaper system and the more powerful one it appears like for a second generation in a row though technically more powerful system is going to end up being cheaper won't go into what those prices are are we talking 499 PlayStation 5 versus the 399 uh Xbox Series X are we talking uh 399 PlayStation 5 versus a 299 Xbox Series X you know Microsoft going to be that aggressive with the price you remember Microsoft can be really aggressive with pricing because they don't need uh to make money on the systems they sell because the money that they make all comes from subscription services like Game Pass and obviously they have a beta of xCloud actually coming on an android today or tomorrow uh for Game Pass Ultimate members uh so you know Microsoft is already starting to test that to get it out in the market this holiday so yeah Microsoft got a completely different approach now obviously there's been concerns over uh with Halo Infinite delayed what's Microsoft got in uh you know it slotted in for launch um I have heard that there is something else uh that Microsoft kind of I guess had kind of like a backup plan um game that they could bring out it won't nothing's going to be as big as Halo for them so let's just you know put the kibosh right there that nothing really replaces Halo Infinite it's like uh you know Nintendo's got multiple IPs in the barrel they could throw it there at launch you know whether it's Zelda whether it's Mario um you can get a Mario Kart out there those are really the two big franchises they could have a Pokemon game at launch now based on you know the fact that Pokemon games come to their main systems but um I do think that uh Microsoft's gonna have something it just might not be super impressive but uh what I I gotta caution people on is do you guys remember the launch of PlayStation 4 and the Xbox one I mean what were the killer apps back then what Rise Sonorome what you know a new uh Far Cry or whatever or what what was that what was that game uh follow not a follow game I keep forgetting what was the kill zone that's right it was a kill zone game on PlayStation 4 those were the tentpole launch games for PlayStation 4 and Xbox one and we're supposed to freak out because Halo Infinite's not going to be there supposed to freak out because you know maybe Sony doesn't have you know Sony's got the the Spider-Man game right so that's like this big deal this Miles Morales game and that's great it is a big deal but it's also you know I I I guess it's we just came off a generation that didn't have any killer apps for a long time so I don't know why we're freaking out here I do think that no matter what what advantages the Xbox Series X has it's not going to sell as well as the PlayStation 5 Sony has a lot of momentum and a lot of markets I do think the Xbox Series X is going to sell really well in the United States however and I think that's uh the market that that Microsoft personally uh worries about the most anyways they want to own the United the US market over PlayStation 5 um but obviously they would love to uh you know extend their reach into uh Europe and the Asian countries uh and then really try to get into Japan if they can but uh they they struggled penetrating Japan for some time uh so we'll see if they could pull that off maybe x clouds that are way into there I don't know but um it's uneniable that there's different approaches here um because even though uh Xbox Series X is more powerful now sounds like it's going to be the cheaper system um it sounds like it's going to be able to run games in in true 4k way more often than PlayStation 5 10 uh and uh they have the one of the greatest deals in in gaming and game pass where you can buy this pass you know for one fee per year or a smaller fee per month and get access to all of the exclusive games dating back to the Xbox One library and moving forward day one on the Xbox Series X plus they add in third great third-party games in here and there as well it's almost becoming like a Netflix uh kind of delivery of games uh you know even though it's not streaming you know back when Netflix used to send send out DVDs and you can rent things and all that well hey here you're not renting you just get it as long as you're subscribed so I like uh that strategy and obviously uh Sony seems to be going more the traditional route uh we're going to sell packaged goods uh and digital goods and we're not going to offer a cheap way to get all our stuff uh and to me fair Sony is technically the market leader in home consoles uh so they are going to do what they're going to do because it's proven and they're going to keep doing it I think until it doesn't work anymore and I think it's going to work just fine this generation um now we could get into the Nintendo but actually have a separate video I'll be doing on them uh so we'll we'll get into some of the stuff going on with that but I just really wanted to talk about this because it's it's a interesting point thrown out there by an uh what appears to be a developer he's also a moderator at Reset Arrow for anyone who actually thinks that matters um so yeah I don't know you guys let me know what you think about all this down in the comments below obviously commenting liking subscribing hitting the bell I can get you an entry into our giveaway uh let's keep spreading the stuff around let's get the 50k because I would really really want to run that giveaway for you guys I thank you so much for tuning in and I'm gonna catch each and every one of you in the next video


With thoughtful planning and clear explanation to participants, Moodle's workshop activity can provide a very powerful peer assessment tool. Participants may assess each other anonymously, they can practice with examples to review, they may have a chance to evaluate their own work, and the peer reviews can be random or teacher-defined. In case of any conflicts, the teacher can retain overall control. In this workshop activity, participants must submit information about their home region and then evaluate the submissions of other participants, according to set criteria. You can see that the workshop has four different phases and then it is closed. Let's explore these one at a time, from the teacher and student point of view. Setup phase, teacher view. Our teacher Sam adds the workshop activity to their course by enabling edit mode, top right, clicking add an activity or resource and selecting workshop. Workshop is an activity because learners interact with it. Click once to go straight to the setup screen or click the I icon for more information and then the add button bottom right. Sam then gives it a name and a description, which can be displayed on the course page by ticking the box. Other settings can be expanded by clicking their links. Grading settings, here you can decide how you want the submissions to be graded. There are four standard methods and clicking the help icon gives more information. We'll use the simple number of errors, which is good for a basic workshop. Note workshops have two grades, the grade students get from submitting and the grade they get for the quality of their assessment and as a teacher you can change the ratio here and also set pass grades. Submission settings, here is where teachers add the instructions and decide how many, if any, files may be uploaded and the types and size of these files. You can also decide to allow submissions after the deadline if this is important to you. Assessment settings, give basic instructions for the peer assessment here. Tick the box if you want students to have a chance to assess their own work. This is not a certainty, it just means their submissions will be included during allocation. Feedback. Teachers can choose to add an overall conclusion and or file attachments at the end of the workshop activity. Example submissions can be useful, especially if your students are new to a workshop and need practice assessing. You can add examples of good and less good work for students to review and decide how and when you want these example submissions to appear. Availability allows you to set opening and closing times for the submissions and assessments. You can also choose to start the assessment phase, that is, the time when students are peer reviewing, automatically at the end of the submission phase. We'll look into that shortly. Other settings are similar to other Moodle activities. In activity completion, to track that students have accessed the workshop, do we want them to manually click to confirm they've seen it or do we want it automatically marked complete when they've simply viewed it or obtained a grade? Students need to have only one of the two grades to complete the activity and no need to select view as well as other criteria. To alert course participants that a workshop has been added or updated, we click Send Content Change Notification. Clicking Save and Display shows two items are done but there are still two tasks remaining. One is to edit the assessment form. This workshop is using a simple number of errors so we can write a short phrase explaining what the student must look for and choose our word for wrong or correct. Some items can have more weight than others if desired. Setup phase, Student View While the teacher is preparing the workshop, here's what our student sees. She can't access the workshop until the teacher switches to the next phase so make sure as a teacher you remember to do this. Submission phase, Teacher View When our teacher switches to the submission phase, students will then be able to submit their work. We check the green arrows to ensure all our tasks are done and see that we must allocate the submissions to the assessors. We'll do this shortly. Submission phase, Student View Now is the time for students to submit work. They must write three sentences about their home area, add a link to a relevant website and upload an image and then wait until the next phase is available. Assessment phase, Teacher View During the assessment phase, students will review each other's submissions but before they can do this, our teacher must decide how the submissions will be allocated. Manual allocation means we decide who assesses whose submission which is fine if it's a small class or you know your students well and want to control certain allocations. We can use the dropdowns to choose the reviewers and reviewees. Random allocation is useful if you have large classes or don't want to be personally involved in the selections. You can choose either a number per submission or a number per reviewer. We can also allow students to assess without having submitted anything. As only one grade is required for activity completion, this at least would allow them to complete the activity. Scheduled allocation means that as soon as the deadline for submissions has passed, the workshop will send out the submissions to be assessed. Again, there are settings to choose from for the submission allocations. Now it's time to switch to the assessment phase and depending on your decisions, this might be manual or scheduled automatically. And this is where the peer assessment becomes really valuable because the students are doing the work and our teacher can simply monitor the process. Note, if you want your students to work anonymously, make sure from workshop activity navigation, more permissions, view author names and view reviewer names are not allowed for the role of students. With the assessment phase open, our student clicks into the workshop and must then scroll down and click to open and view her allocated submissions. Now she sees the assessment form set up by the teacher before. It is essential the assessment criteria are easy to understand and unambiguous. Much of the success of the workshop activity depends on students' understanding of the peer assessment criteria and their ability to correctly implement them. Here's where teachers check the grades. The assessment grade is calculated by comparison with the best assessment, which means the grade for assessment is determined by comparing the grade a student gave for each submission with the grade other participants gave. If everyone agrees and gives exactly the same grades, then everyone gets an assessment grade of 100%. If not everyone agrees, the amount that they disagree is reflected in a lower grade for the assessment and this comparison can range from very strict to very lax. If you're not sure, leave it as the default. Fair. Here too, after the calculation, is where our teacher is able to edit any grades if needed. Perhaps one student was over-generous or too unkind. The overridden grades appear in a different colour. During this phase also, we can publish, that's make visible, selected submissions at the end of the workshop. These could be good examples or poor examples but are useful for students to peruse and submissions can be published by clicking into them and ticking the publish submission box. Grading evaluation phase, student view. During this time, which can be a few minutes or a few days depending on our teacher's workload and the number of students, students are prompted to be patient and come back later. Close, teacher view. When the workshop is closed, the two grades will appear in the grade book and if activity completion is used, the activity will be marked complete. Close, student view. With the workshop closed, our student sees that the activity is marked complete, she can read any conclusion given, access her two grades and see how others peer assessed her. To summarise, workshop is an advanced peer review activity which empowers learners.


Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to another book haul. This one is for October. First, I'm going to start off with a shout out to Jen Bernardini. If you want to check out her channel, and I suggest you do, link is up there. Wait a second for that, go away. First, she sent me an amazing card, Halloween card, very cool of her. Left me a little note in here. I'm not going to read the note, but she also sent me some bookmarks. If you guys don't know, I love, absolutely love bookmarks. I don't know why, but I collect them. I have a massive collection, probably over a hundred bookmarks. She sent these. This is all of her own photography. This isn't stock stuff. She posted this, she goes for walks quite often, and she posted these up on Instagram, and I really, really love this one. This one's of train tracks. The full image is even better, but I do love the bookmark.  And the other one, this one, sorry, this one says, Courage does not always roar. Sometimes Courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow. And that's all writing really is. So she's a writer, and that's great advice, period. So we're going to jump into the books now. I'm going to try and get through this as quick as possible. If you've read any of these books, let me know down there in the comments below.  So first off, we got the bridge over the River Kwai, I'm not sure. But I got this for free at the library.  It's a very, very old version before even the UPC codes. I think there was a movie about this, I'm not sure, classic film. Next up we have The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I was going to research this before I did this video, but I think there's a Daniel Radcliffe movie that just came out. And I wondered if this is, if that movie was based on this, because Radcliffe does a lot of stuff that's based on books. Harry Potter, the horns, the Joe Hill adaptation, and what was the other one? The Woman in Black? That one. So I'm wondering if this was a book first also. Then we got The Stranger by Albert Camus, whatever. You guys know I can't pronounce anything. But again, none of these have the UPC codes. Next we're going to get into what I picked up at while I was in Hoover, Alabama, doing my talk. If you want to watch that, a link down there in the doobly-doo, it'll send you over not to my channel, but to the Hoover Public Libraries channel. You can watch that there. So while I was in Hoover, Alabama, I stopped by Second and Charles, which is an amazing bookstore. If you have one, let me know down there in the comments below. It's like Disneyland for readers. So first off, I got, and these were all insanely cheap too, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. This is one of my favorite books of all time. It was only $2.95. That's nuts. It's like $8 on Amazon. And it's in great condition. They rarely have anything that's in trash condition. They have an entire department, is the word I'm looking for, an entire department that just goes through and checks the quality of books before they decide to buy them used. Next up, I got Piercing by Ryu Murakami. I have long since put up buying this because I knew how short it was. I knew how small it was. And online, something like $14. This was $4.25, so I snagged it. I loved In the Miso Soup. And if you guys have seen my most disturbing scenes or books, In the Miso Soup was on there. So I'm really looking forward to reading Piercing. Next up, I finally got a hold of this. I've read this, but I don't own a copy. I read the e-book version because it was on sale for $0.99 at one point. It is The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pension. Me and Shell are currently struggling our asses off trying to get through Gravity's Rainbow, so we may stop that one and read. I'll reread this one. I'll read this one to her instead for the smartening. If we can get over the hump of Gravity's Rainbow, we'll continue on with that. But right now, we're not enjoying it anywhere near as much as we did Infinite Jest. Next up, my buddy Jake on Twitter. Not Jake LaFrance, I got another buddy. His name's Primordial Super, something like that, on Twitter. But I was ranting and raving about how terrific One Flow of the Cuckoo's Nest was, and he said, you got to read Sometimes a Great Notion. So I picked this up. It's by Ken Kessey, Kasey, whatever. Sometimes a Great Notion. Uh, the, this is not the cover that was shown on Amazon, and I'm glad, because that cover was some blue abstract art. The colors didn't even go well together, so I'm glad I got this one. I far prefer this cover over the other one, and that usually doesn't happen on Amazon. Usually I get to cover a really terrible cover version, especially of classics. So next up, one that I've had on my Goodreads TBR. Oh, by the way, this one was a quarter at, uh, no, this one wasn't a quarter. The next one's a quarter. This one I bought used on Amazon. It was like seven bucks, I think, something like that. But the Pinchin, the Mirakami, and the Slaughterhouse Five I got at Second and Charles. This one I got off Amazon. Next up, this is basically my quarter book haul. It looks like I do have one more that I got off Amazon. But Dreamland, by Kevin Baker. I love stories like this. It is not, I don't think it's a story. It might even be, no, it is. It's a novel. So it's fiction. One of my favorite books is Palisades Park by Alan Bernard. Brenert, something like that. And it's all about the, what are they called? I can't remember. It's the, like, Boardwalk kind of deal. I forget what they're called, but the Boardwalk Amusement Park, I love reading stuff like that. It's just like carnival stories in general, but I especially like the ones on the Boardwalk by the water. So I grabbed that. Next up was a quarter. This was only a quarter. After Dark by Haruki Mirakami. I own this one, but it's the new Rainbow Edition. And what I mean by Rainbow Edition is he has a very colorful line, but I missed out on the ones with just people's faces on them. And I'm going to try and collect those next. But this one is probably my favorite cover from him, other than the hardcover version of 1Q84. It's very simplistic, but I love it. And it fits really well with the abstract nature of the story. So next up, this is one I got for a quarter also. I'm meaning to read it forever. I want to watch the movie, but it's The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak. I can't imagine his name is pronounced any other way than Zuzak. But Zuzak? Just to stay on the theme. The Book Thief. This one, I know it's narrated by Death, or at least I think it is.  I can't remember. I haven't read too much about it. I like the idea of it from the reviews that I've read about it. I'll have that one for a quarter. This one is another one I've been hunting forever. I've been trying to get through all of John Irving's stuff, but I have been stuck on a widow for a year. I can't seem to get into that one. I can only get about 5,200 pages and then I put it down. But this one is last night in Twisted River. Funny little story about this one. I know how this one ends, unfortunately, because John Irving is not one that cares about spoiling his books. So when he was doing the press conference for this one, I was watching interviews with him. When he was doing the press for this book, when it first came out, he gave away the ending. The man has no care in the world for whether or not you're spoiled. Anyways, and I think it's actually a twist ending, which makes it even worse. But that's last night in Twisted River. Next up is another one that I ended up finding for a quarter that I'm blown away that I found all of these. I've been searching for them forever. I didn't want to pay full price on them because I'm not all that certain I'm going to like them. But Shardik by Richard Adams. This book, if you watched the channel and you're a Stephen King fan, you know I've been looking for this one because it is mentioned in The Wastelands at the beginning of the book. This one is, it's huge. This is another reason why I put off reading his other book. What is it? Watership Down. I put off reading that one because that one's pretty big too, but this one I think is even longer. It is 606 pages and it is very small type and it's a pretty big size book. It's not 6x9, but it is a good size book. Next up, the last one that, no it's not the last one, but I got this one off of Amazon. I got one more off Amazon. But this one, Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. I spent an insane amount of money on this book because Keelan Patrick Burke recommended it. So many people recommended it. I got that far. See that? I got that far in the entire month of October. Nothing about this book called to me. I didn't have any fun with the opening parts of it. Maybe I'll try it again next year. I don't know. Maybe I'll even try it outside of Halloween. It just didn't evoke any at any autumnal emotions in me or any seasonal offerings, which is funny because it's supposed to be one of the best Halloween reads ever written. But we'll try again next year. Next, you got another quarter book, Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. I am a big John Green fan. I know a lot of people say that he's sentimental and modlin and he's also manipulative. That's fine. You can think whatever you want about the guy. But I enjoy his stories and I really don't care what anybody else thinks. I'm looking forward to this one because this one is about OCD, excessive, compulsive disorder, which I have a bit of, especially when it comes to my writing. Next up, I'm going to leave a certain book for last. This one was also a quarter. All the ones that I said are a quarter from the thrift store here in town. The story of Edgar Sawtale.  And that's why I like John Irving. And this one has been great so far. I'm about that far into it. I need about 250 pages. Might be more than that. 246, so I was almost right on the money. This one's good, but it's not something that I'm going to read fast. I've been reading this all month and I've only made it that far. I read about a chapter a night, right around there. The chapters are anywhere from 10 to 30 pages long. But I'm enjoying it. It's just not going anywhere right now, but that's literary fiction. It's more about the characters than it is about the actual story. It's more about following someone's journey through life. And last, but not least, one of my most anticipated books of the year. And I say that, but I'm concerned because I was super hyped up for Neverworld Wake, and that was terrible. I was hyped up for Elevation by Stephen King. Sorry, Mercer Pacell did Neverworld Wake. I hated that one. Gave that one star. Elevation, I gave one star. That one was by Stephen King. But my other favorite author, Haruki Murakami, just released the English translation of his novel, Killing Kamendintore. Or Killing Kamendintore? I don't think it's... I think it's Toray. I think... I don't know. I might be wrong. Who knows? Anyways, this is a beautiful, beautiful book. Okay? You see the eye right here? The yellow? All right. There's a nice feel to the texture, to the actual dust jacket. But then you take off the dust jacket and you have this very cool... And this is just a standard... This is the standard hardcover from Knopf. This isn't a special edition. This thing is gorgeous. Nice glossy hardcover binding. I'm super excited to read this. I'm going to be reading this with my buddy Gregor Zane. And I'm waiting for him to get his library copy. The price of this book is a little steep. Usually all of Murakami's stuff is steep because of the translation. The audiobooks, the hardcovers, even the e-book. I think the e-book is like $14.95, which is insane for an electronic copy of a book. $10, I would say, should be the norm for a traditionally published novel. But like I said, I am so tentative about reading this because everything else I was looking forward to this year pretty much sucked except for the outsider. So if you have your own hauls, I love to watch book hauls. And I love to see you guys put your book hauls down there in the doobly-doo, especially you Dustin. Dustin always has the best one. So if you go through any of these book haul videos, definitely check out the comment section for Dustin's book hauls. He gets loads of stuff. And I really wish he would start his own YouTube channel if only to show off what he buys every month. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been another book haul video. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!