Wonderful. Great. Thank you all for attending. I see we have a lot of people here. I really appreciate you tuning in to hear about Jeff's new publication, The Perfectly State. We're really excited to hear from him today. Before we start the conversation, I wanted to quickly introduce Tech Congress and the organization where both Jeff and I have served as Congressional Innovation Fellows. Tech Congress is a technology policy fellowship on Capitol Hill. And it takes, I apologize, something stuck on here. We take mid-career or advanced technology professionals, and they spend one year shaping technology policy with relevant members of Congress. We are based at New America right now, and I will quickly introduce Jeff. He's an award-winning correspondent. He is an author, a technologist, and he most recently published Samsung Rising, which was long-listed for the 2020 Financial Times and the Kinsey Business Book of the Year award. He's a former correspondent at The Economist. He's a regular commentator in the Wall Street Journal of Time and the New Republic, and he's a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and Bloomberg. He's also a term member on the Council of Foreign Relations. And his newest book, The Perfect Police State, is an undercover odyssey into China's terrifying surveillance dystopia of the future. And I really enjoyed the book. And so first of all, I wanted to congratulate you on you and thank you for writing it and letting me read it before this talk. Jeff, I think it would be great if you could first tell everyone what the book is about before we go into questions and what led you to write it. I spent a lot of time in this western region of China called Xinjiang. As a technology reporter, I had traveled through there. I had flown out from Beijing. I had spent time in a town called Kashgar, which is not far from parts of Central Asia. And what I observed there in my most recent trip in 2017 was just this all-seeing, terrifying surveillance state that I had never seen anywhere else. My specialty is actually writing about authoritarian regimes. So I spent time in North Korea. I covered the genocide of Myanmar, spent a lot of time in Vietnam, other parts of China, Turkey, Russia, the Trans-Siberian Railway. But of all the authoritarian nations, I've tried to go inside and tried to document.  You feel like you're going back into the Cold War to this Soviet dynasty. And there are the kooky, goose-stepping soldiers. And it's intended to look scary, but it looks a little bit goofy in so many ways. But when you go to Xinjiang, it is just an all-pervasive, all-seeing, artificial intelligence, facial recognition driven concentration camp populated police states. And just the efficiency and the sinister efficiency with which the Chinese Communist Party has perfected this police state just really terrified me. I also had a lot of friends there from the Uyghur ethnic group who populate this region. There are about 12 million of them. And when I started writing the book, about 1.8 million people had been taken away to a network of hundreds of concentration camps. This was happening as I was writing. These numbers were continuing to swell. The situation was starting to get more and more out of control as I was writing it. Eventually, these concentration camps, they housed about one-tenth of the population of this region of the ethnic minority population. Imagine if you're in America, one in every 10 of your friends disappeared, went to a concentration camp where they were tortured and brainwashed and forced to undergo political propaganda training. So I set out to write this book because I knew that this is a story that needs to be told. It has huge implications, not just for China and the Uyghur people, but really for humanity. Because it is a worst case scenario in what technology can do when placed in the wrong hands, when not governed properly and when used for nefarious racist means. I really wanted this to not just be a story about China, but a warning, a story about how we also use predictive policing programs and various police technologies in America. What does it mean to use them? How do we govern them? How do we manage them to ensure that they're justly and fairly used? And this book is really diving into the underbelly, just the worst case, the George Orwell 1984 outcome in which technology controls all our lives in terrible ways. Great. So before we get into the technology piece, I am curious how you became a foreign correspondent to begin with and in particular how you focused on technology throughout your career. Yes, so I graduated back in 2008 went to the George Washington University out here in DC. And my first assignment so I was actually an anthropology student and I had traveled out to Cambodia I was doing anthropology research near the end of my studies. I, I fell in love with Cambodia. You know, I, it was a place that always that that just always attracted me. And as I finished up my anthropology research. It just so happened that the genocide tribunal was starting this was the genocide tribunal of one of the mass murderers in history of men named like who had run one of the major torture centers and put on pen so I began writing for a number of publications. I spent time there was an old publication called the far eastern economic review which no longer exists. I, I covered this for them, you know, when I went to the economist for a while as a Southeast Asia writer, and I really built a specialty over time as, as a reporter who looks at some of the atrocities looks at the tries to get inside the minds of some of the people, you know, who who commit these these genocidal acts what what is it you know how is it that a man and in this case do you know a former math teacher in a high school who was a volunteer for world vision at one point the Christian aid nonprofit you know how does this man also happened to be a mass killer. So, so you know I continued this beat I was on the you know I was on the North Korea beat for a long time I you know spent time in Turkey. And one of the things I found on the speed was that there was you know as Americans were having this discussion. You know about a decade ago about you know the rise of big tech and you know the four horsemen Facebook, Amazon, Apple and all those companies, their role in our society they're emerging influence over our government and politics. There were similar movements happening in other parts of the world that I was watching, one of which was China, in particular, where China was also having the emergence of this. It was sort of a government, a state government, you know business nexus that was just, you know, deploying some of these new technologies that the difference being that in China. These technologies were being deployed under a strictly authoritarian one party government. I wanted to dive in and cover more about the inner cover more the intersection of government and technology, the intersection of, you know, what does it mean to be either a democratic leader or an authoritarian leader and when you're when you're in a set of new tools that humanity has never really seen before I think AI is a great example. How do you make decisions over how to deploy this tech and who is watching you who's watching the watchers. And you know how do you write, say good laws good policies to ensure that the technology is being deployed appropriately, and that's what brought me to this beat so I'm a tech and authoritarianism writer you can call it that. Great. I really love in the book you kind of thread together a number of narratives from different characters. Could you tell us a little bit about them, how you came to know them and then sort of what role they play throughout the book and in the narrative that you're trying to tell. Yes, so, you know, I think that as technology writers, we run a risk of getting too absorbed in the tech itself and the software and the hardware and how it's made. And I very wanted, I very much wanted this book to be a human book, you know, this is a book that doesn't just explore, you know, the political side of the technology and how it's being deployed in Shenzhou. How it shapes, and you know, even at times it raises the psychology of the people who are being surveilled. One of the chief protagonists who I met was a young woman named may some that's a pseudonym.  There are family members in this region, you know, who are still in danger from refugees talking out to the media so may some was a young woman in her kind of mid to late 20s when I met her. And she was actually from an elite family so she was from a respective family that had access to the Chinese to the Chinese Communist Party that was considered. You know, one of the families that you know would not be targeted under a mastervalent system she was of the Uyghur ethnicity, a secular Muslim. She had this deep love instilled by her family of reading and poetry books literature. And, you know, this is very sophisticated literature I mean she she could read anything from, say like George Orwell to the to the recent history or Jane Austin she was a big Jane Austin fan, but everything back to ancient Greek and Persian ethics and you know the whole region of Xinjiang has a long colorful beautiful history of engaging in the storytelling of ethics and poetry and in an oral fashion. And so you know she came from this tradition. She was, you know, one of the top people in her high school tapped to become a diplomat attended a very good university in Beijing the capital, and what also went to graduate school out in the Middle East in Turkey she wanted to study international relations and return to her home. And, you know, to be this bright young the bright young star of the Communist Party but I'm over time the, the, the surveillance state in in Western China began getting more and more intense there were a series of terrorist attacks and there was many years ago in 2009 that prompted the Communist Party to, you know, to, to change course and to, you know, to announce that it was essentially going to do a drag net of the region and to, you know, was going to start treating more and more people as potential enemies because young men in particular were targeted young men with beards in particular because beards are a Muslim symbol, and they were targeted they were you know often taken away they were beaten with rifle butts, you know many were arrested. There was a campaign in the early 2000s that started getting more intense and Mason, who was overseas in Turkey returned home every summer, and observed just the effect that the growing surveillance state had on the people of her hometown cash of, you know, her friends and family. She saw the, the tactics that the Communist Party used to divide and conquer to, you know, to treat everyone as a potential target who's being surveilled. And then in the process to turn them against each other to, you know, to convince them that, you know, if you're not with us you're against us and your neighbor, you know might be with us and your neighbor might snitch on you for supposedly being against us so you better, you know, get get on the same page and watch your neighbors and you know make sure that they're in line with the Communist Party to so it really became a society for a long time where everyone was watching everyone where it got terrifying for me some was when this old school surveillance, you know, human surveillance network started escalating into a massive artificial intelligence driven dragnet and it was called the IGOP the integrated joints operations platform this was a massive system that the authorities were set up in which they would put in data on every citizen using surveillance cameras monitoring what they buy, you know how they act in public do they go through the front door the back door of their homes. You know like what are their mannerisms what religion do they come from did they get to work on time in the morning where they did they check in did they get sick one day. And literally just everything that they could gather and this artificial intelligence system began trying to make predictions about every citizen and declaring who was likely to commit a crime in the future and in particular a crime of the terrorist nature you know the jihadi terrorist nature.  She was in 2016. Very suddenly, suddenly but over time she didn't see it coming but it did happen kind of suddenly she was labeled an enemy of the state, first taken to indoctrination lessons for a number of hours every day. And then she was brought to a more intense security compound where she would study for even more hours a day and then within a day of being brought to this more intense center. She was summoned to an actual concentration camp or a detention center, as they're often called. She spent very lucky. So she was very lucky she spent some time in this camp, just before things got a lot worse. You know, using her intelligence and her which she was able to figure out some of the inner workings and some of the weaknesses of the system, and she gained the system to find a way out with the help of her family. There were lots of, you know, so, you know, one of the ironies of I call it the perfect police state but one of the ironies of the perfect police state is that it's very much imperfect and it's arbitrary and you know, it's like, if you are. If you are someone who is, you know, being targeted, like you don't totally know why always. And she was able to use that to her advantage because she found holes where it's like even the authorities didn't totally know why she was there. It turned out she wasn't properly in one of their systems to be registered at the camp. And, you know, using some of this knowledge and and her family's connections to she was able to get out. Literally just before the whole region went on lockdown she escaped through a very complicated escape route with the great help of many people and now lives in Turkey. So she just a harrowing story but along the way she documented in particular many of the psychological. Jeff, I think we lost you again. You can't hear I. The book does document the psychological impact of this survey. Can you hear me. Yeah, I can hear you. So, I don't know what's going on with my connection today but you know so. So she does so she does document the psychological effects of you know what it, you know what what what it what it does to your psyche and your mindset to be in this system and you know I wanted to tell her story and she wanted to tell her story in the end originally she wanted to tell you, because, you know, she wanted to kind of go inside herself and rediscover, you know what had happened to her and you know what it was like to be in a camp where you're constantly being indoctrinated to have sort of your, your psyche and memory erased your your sense of heritage and history and identity to have it erased and how to escape the camp and then to reconstruct, you know, to kind of reconstruct her identity to remember that she is a weaker and that you know she did get out and you know there is hope for her and you know there is potentially hope for the weaker people so that's what the protagonist story is about in this book. She was struck by how much she thought about the technology, observing her, even more so than the people that were committing these essentially crimes against her and her people. So throughout the book you you chronicle that but you also talk about the China's acquisition of various surveillance technologies, their accelerated efforts in AI in particular after the after Google created deep mind and the defeat of the chess champion about a year and a half ago. And during, you know, between the period of 1997 and 2017 and 2017 China announced its national AI strategy, but it's global share of research papers in the field of AI increased from about 4% to almost 30% of all the AI. They're a leader in AI patents. They currently have around roughly 1200 AI firms compared to about 2000 AI firms in the United States. So largely accepted that the US leaves the world and AI technology development, but that China also has some advantages both in terms of talent pool and computer science and engineering and its ability to capture and process large amounts of data and you touch on that in the book. An example of their access to data found in DD the Chinese version of Uber and it processes more than 70 terabytes of data with 9 billion routes being planned a day and 1000 car requests a second. And as you just kind of pointed out, and then you also say in the code of the book, despite all of their sophisticated surveillance technology to China failed to identify COVID-19 in a timely manner with devastating global results, obviously failed to keep her from escaping. So what is your view on China's AI capabilities and their ability to further develop the technology and put in place the right incentives for major breakthroughs, which is some experts suggest that they don't have the right incentives like we have in free societies, open societies, because, as you know, AI is most effectively done with open research so I'm curious in a closed society and in some of these spaces how you how you see China's AI capabilities currently and then how it will develop in the future. Yeah, so I think it is widely accepted that America does lead an AI, you know, there is China does have a vibrant AI scene that this is something that I document in the book that sort of the creation of China's AI ecosystem through through firms and laboratories like Microsoft Research Asia which is very influential over there. But ultimately, you know, I think that as I've documented in some of my interviews in this book with the technology workers from Xinjiang, weaker technology workers who were involved in creating the surveillance state. I think that there is a huge problem in China with that old adage of garbage and garbage out, you know that if you put in bad data or arbitrary data that maybe doesn't really make sense then you're going to get bad outputs you're going to get bad, you know, advice from whatever system, you're using that that is, I think the the catastrophe of what's happening in China right now with people's human rights. So you know I'm sure the Chinese surveillance state, you know it does it has gathered a lot of data on a lot of people. But we don't totally understand, you know, how it gathers that data, and you know how does it use that data to train the algorithms, I mean from from what I can lean from my interviews, the algorithms that have been used in Xinjiang are actually quite crude.  I think that the algorithms. I think that there is a good deal of evidence, you know, from a mixture of testimony but also some of the, just some of the software that has, you know, come out of China that you know I've actually tried before. You know, it's, it's not really built necessarily for, you know, a quality, quality output or a quality kind of, you know, like, like a quality AI system that can kind of that can go across data and piece together things on its own without a human hand.  Maybe you should go check on him knock on the door at the neighbors what's going on. And then, you know, if, if, like, put the data back in like report back to the system and will tell you whether or not to take this person to a concentration camp and you know it like if they're in a camp. And it means that the, you know, the state has determined them to be enemies absolute enemies and that they need to be completely perched of their, you know, they're thinking of their thoughts and the end, and what the government calls the ideological viruses of the mind they use all this kind of medical language to science language to describe what they're doing operating on the mind. I think that that is really the major failure of AI in China. But I think that that is what ironically makes the Chinese state so so strong in so many ways and so so feared by so many people in China. It's because nobody knows for sure, you know what the system is going to decide against them. It's arbitrary. You know, if the system were too perfect, then, you know, people would probably be able to figure out what the parameters are what the criteria are you know why are they going to be sent to a camp and they can alter their behavior to, you know, to not be sent to a camp here. It's simply, you know, for whatever reason the system decides you're going to a camp and we don't know why. And that's why people, you know, just just living in that constant state of uncertainty it just it crushes the psychology of so many people in Xinjiang it really it just makes them, you know fearful every day for their life is this going to be the last day I see my family and my kids my spouse, my, you know, my partner. And that, like, that is the irony of this perfect police state that it's perfect from its imperfection. So I have a two part question for this one. I'm sure you saw the New York Times and ProPublica recently published a report on widespread, what they claimed were widespread online propaganda campaigns to counter former Secretary Pompeo's assertion that a genocide was occurring in Xinjiang. Right on the Hill, we looked at a lot of what Facebook calls coordinated and authentic behavior, or what we called the artificial amplification, and the various technical efforts that make narratives look organic and widespread and essentially make it seem as if there's an audience that isn't necessarily there, that's called perception hacking. This is the type of behavior that this article and this research was documenting these campaigns as they point out in these articles rely on technologies that are US US technologies, like YouTube and Twitter they sometimes start in on websites in China and then migrate onto us platforms, and they're not always easy to spot or amplify. My first question is, do you have any thoughts on how US tech companies should respond to these behaviors or what obligations they have to marginalize and oppress communities like the Uyghurs. And then secondly, I on my own went down into a rabbit hole a lot of these videos and you find English speakers and others who will argue that the US sanctions efforts and efforts to, you know, label what's happening in Xinjiang as crimes against humanity or genocide. You see them saying that it's simply an effort to control a region with, you know, 12 million people that would otherwise be impoverished without the changes and developments that have made in Xinjiang. The argument is that the United States wants to kneecap China from succeeding essentially not that it cares about concentration camps or force we are labor and supply chains. And you even highlighted the US role in China's oppression of the Uyghurs based on the stakes meeting during the war on terror and US designation of Uyghurs as a terrorist organization so what are your thoughts on those arguments that the US wants to handicap the region economically as well as those are being propagated on US technology platform. So I don't. So I, so yes, there's a lot to that question, and I'll take it piece by piece. So, yes, you know, it, we do live in a real politic world now with these, these trade wars, and you know what's happening with China I think that, you know, no one denies anymore that China is a major strategic rival, and that you know it will continue to be as long as it grows.   I think that these do play into, you know, major strategic policy decisions in the US. But at the same time, you know, I don't think that that erases, you know, the fact that, you know, there are crimes against humanity and, you know, major human rights abuses happening in China, perhaps on a scale that we haven't seen in this country.  We're not, you know, like China is not gassing the Uyghurs. It's not, you know, setting up mass graves. But, you know, what is so terrifying about this particular crime against humanity is that it's, it's a it's a postmodern version of what happened in the 20th century. But China has found a way to, you know, erase a people's identity and population through more subtle means and slower beans, you know, and using with the help of some of these technologies. One great example is the use of forced sterilizations and birth control, which under international law is, you know, one of the major markers that would that would be used to determine whether this was a genocide. There was actually a report, I mean, we can go beyond so the State Department and a few of parliaments out there have declared this a genocide, but even among independent academic experts, I could, I don't have this report handy but a group of them publish a major report a couple months ago that went through internet that UN and international law and showed why actually this would meet the threshold for genocide. So, you know, America does not have a wonderful sparkling history of responding to genocide around the world. I think that, you know, as we've seen in Rwanda and Cambodia, and you know, even Nazi Germany early on before, you know, before the war started getting worse and that, you know, America and its policy makers and leaders have wanted to close their eyes because when you use the G word, that means that you have to do something about it.  And that says close to the original quote I can get I'm paraphrasing but it's just, it's just truly shocking. So, you know, I think that, you know, like, I think that so the question you're asking, there are lots of these very complicated angles and I think that, you know, what the US does the US does not, you know, always act out of the kindness of its heart to the world, you know, going to, you know, to China and condemning the treatment of the Uighurs. I mean, I think we also saw in John Bolton's memoir he mentioned this briefly that, you know, that the Uighur human rights issue was kind of seen as one of the chips on the bargaining table. You know, it's like you can use that to get leverage and negotiate trade negotiations against China human rights is always tied to trade. So, you know, I think that, you know, the question you're asking like it depends on, I guess, you know, which government you're asking which leader you're asking which policymaker, you know, some of them like maybe Samantha power or more focused on the idealistic side of the policy and the humanitarian intervention for purely, you know, altruistic reasons whereas you know you go to the Bolton side, and it's you know these are the chips on the table, you know put human rights there, and you know make sure that, you know that we can advance American interests as they should be. And then about Bolton in the book you noticed, you noted that he said the President Trump didn't care about the camps and in fact told President she go ahead, you know build the camps however you want at the time in that in their summit. And by the end of the administration you have this declaration of genocide, which as we could discuss further is very complicated. I'm curious if you could talk a little bit more about that arc of change going from, sure go ahead do what you need to do, and know a lot of it had to do with the trade wars to labeling and genocide before they left office could you talk a little bit more about that transition. All right, so actually, so I spent a lot of time covering some of these trade wars back when they were just starting. And I just remember, you know, very just vividly when the Trump administration had entered office, you know some of the, the virulence, you know, in China, I mean it was like, you know, he would be on a campaign trail and China's the boogeyman and there were the funny YouTube videos of him saying, you know, China over and over a zillion times so like rat music it was kind of funny and you know back then I mean, we all knew journalists policy makers people in this sphere, we all knew that, you know, China was not going to become more democratic that you know there there wasn't really hope anymore that you know the government was going to open up or maybe make a friendlier or amicable stance to America. But then, you know, President Trump came in, and I think he really upped the ante and he actually, you know, brought China from, you know, something a little, maybe more on the side of policy circles to something that's the centerpiece everyone in Washington is talking about it you know and like under under President Trump I remember kind of there was this thing that happened where everyone, everyone in Washington DC was like kind of now an expert on China and like you know giving their hot takes on China and social media and everywhere. But you know that at the beginning that was very much a, you know, that was very much kind of a, I guess, a blunt object you know it felt more like rhetoric and you know it was it was yelling to one upmanship who you know President Xi would say his own things that were equally kind of blunt against America, you know he would say it to Chinese audiences usually. And you know I think that there was a transformation over time, you know as his administration, you know, changed very rapidly with its huge turnover. And I think that, you know, there were some figures in the White House, especially in the National Security Council, who did. Yeah, and this is, I mean this is like these this is from interviews I've done with them so this is not my speculation this is, you know what they say, who actually care who were following the situation of the Uighurs who were following the human right side to and began urging the presidency to incorporate that you know in this kind of blunt foreign policy so these these forces of you know trade wars, plus human rights and the Uighurs and I think that we saw a convergence over the period of the Trump administration and now we're in, you know, like I don't think much has changed. I think that we're really now in part two which is President Biden and we're seeing the same convergence of trade considerations with human rights considerations that were not really as strong before. Why don't we try and turn to the audience for a few questions before I keep pestering you with other questions. We have one from. So, I'm asking about government issue digital currencies, and the author is concerned that they will replace cash and digital IDs, and will be woven into everyday aspects of life and not just in China, and primarily concerned about the anonymity online could appear. And the question is will any country resist the temptation to design digital currencies and digital ID systems for surveillance and not privacy. What is the counter pressure. So, so the question is just to clarify so essentially about Bitcoin and whether these currencies will. Are you asking whether they will converge with, I guess with regular markets with respect to China. I think so I believe that's what they're asking. Yeah, so actually, to be totally frank, I haven't been following the recent Bitcoin saga with China as much I've actually been a little more involved. I've just been, you know, busy getting this book out so I kind of had a blank space where I know that Bitcoin is getting really big in China right now but I just don't know as much as I should about that topic. You know, there is, I can talk about, there is the whole Xinjiang element, I mean a lot of Bitcoin is mined and produced in this region. And I think that, you know, like, I think that it's always surprising, you know, just going back to the perfect police state and what's happening with the Uighurs it's always surprising how this region of China seems a bit far off and remote. But then, you know, so many industries are, are manufactured there I mean there's Bitcoin, you know, major producer of Bitcoin which is terrible for the environment and that you know just uses up so much energy in Xinjiang but then also this region is a major oil power. I mean it produces has huge amounts of oil reserves and minerals and various various rare earth metals strategic, you know industries for the 21st century, for 21st century geopolitics. So yeah I mean that's, you know, I like I just think so, like whatever China is doing with Bitcoin, like I don't really I don't fully grasp yet what its strategy actually is in the long run I don't understand quite yet whether China is simply trying to rain back, rain back control back to its actual currency and not allowing people to, you know, launder money through Bitcoin, or whatever it may be, I mean Bitcoin Bitcoin based money laundering is a massive problem in China. You know that's something I just I feel that this this recent Bitcoin news in China it's it's a it's kind of recent and I just haven't had a lot of time to process it and to figure out talk to people and kind of figure out what's really going on behind the scenes. Okay, thank you. So, another question was how much time did you spend in that region of China and how many people did you interview were able to gather official reports photos etc. Another audience question. Thank you all. So, my most recent trip to the region was to cash car, which is the heartland of the Uighurs in December 2017. I was told in no uncertain way that I'm not welcome back there so please don't return, you don't want to know what happens then. I've gone back and I've instead been based in Turkey mainly and also out here in Washington DC, where a lot of my interviews come from recent refugees. So, you know, refugees who have left in the in the years mainly 2016 and 17 which is really the, I would say really the final wave of people who were able to escape before you know the the passports were taken and the lockdowns happened. So in total I interviewed about 168 people who were not just Uighurs but also Kazakhs and you know Kyrgyz people from other groups the Kyrgyz group. You know Uzbeks people in Turkey to who work on human rights issues related to Xinjiang in that on top of that, I interviewed a number of government, former government officials. There was one intelligence officer who had defected, who was actually shot twice in the back survived in Turkey because of his defection and because of the fact that he was trying to leak state secrets to various media outlets. Also, you know, in interviewing some of these insiders I interviewed some of the technology workers and spent a lot of time with them who were actually working to build the surveillance state and one of them is a character who appears named Irfan, who was involved in kind of putting together this this piecemeal AI system that watches everyone. And, you know, in interviewing them they provided official documentation they provided the leaks. I had also received a lot of official CCP government documents that were leaked through other sources that were kind of going around. Other journalists had gotten these two there were the Xinjiang papers published in the New York Times. There was the ICIJ papers I mean there were a number of leaks that prove this but then on top of the interviews that I did, we, you know me and my team. We, we spent just years going out just going around the Chinese language, Internet, gathering procurement documents and, you know, various official documents and press releases and official media reports that, you know, that's that in very specific terms described what was happening and described, you know how a camp was being built and you know the supplies that they needed the materials they needed from contractors and, you know, like how do you build a watch tower and you know how many people are going to be surveilled in this region or that region at which companies are involved. Some American companies appeared in this documentation and this is now well known I mean one example is thermal Fisher which does, you know, biometric major scientific firm in America that does biometric gathering that has pulled out of Xinjiang since then but you know was found to be deeply embedded in in this system of DNA collection of, you know, not just not just DNA collection but DNA collection without a consent of people so they could be put in a database and surveilled, you know with their, their genetic makeup to so. So yeah I mean I think that one of the things I try to do with this book was to make it as exhaustive as possible and provable as possible with you know what is now available. But, you know, my book it's I don't intend it to be the exhaustive final word on everything that's happening in Xinjiang, I think there's still a lot more that's going to come out. The region is on more and more lockdown and so you know I don't know when when more documentation is going to come out but you know it will come out. I think over time, as there, there is more descent within the ranks of the Communist Party of China and they're actually saying that there already has been some discontent, you know with among official circles in Xinjiang and that's why these leaks already happened so I'm, I'm just conjecturing that more of this is going to happen in the future. So, just to expand on that a little bit in terms of the exporting of this technology by China you talk about Huawei talk about other, you know, sort of the geopolitical considerations can you elaborate or at least just touch on what China is doing from an export perspective on putting surveillance technologies in other countries and who's taking them who wants them what some of the complexities are involved in that. So, Chinese companies are eager to export their technologies and this goes beyond just surveillance technologies but you know Huawei has emerged as a major supplier of smartphones and various components around the world in particular like middle income countries they're very popular. I actually, I used to have a Huawei phone for a little while when I was in, when I was living in Asia in the Middle East that you know just out of curiosity. I wanted to buy this stuff and try it and you know kind of see what is it like if I were, you know someone who uses these products like what do these products do. And I wanted to kind of test them and see you know like our like is there, are they surveilling me I mean is this what is this app here. You know that's just what we journalists do we're trying to kind of, you know, experience the things as people would experience them. So, you know, Huawei is a major name, and you know a lot of it's a lot of what it does around the world is, you know, I think it's just normal, you know, normal the normal sales and normal technologies like smartphones that people use, but many of these Chinese companies they do get wrapped up for both profit purposes but also the need to cooperate with the Chinese government in, you know, exporting and selling, you know, major surveillance technologies and say camera technologies AI surveillance technologies facial recognition to mainly authoritarian nations that are contributing to the or are involved in the Belt and Road program that I'm sure many of the audience have heard about. So, you know what example I got I went through many examples in the book.  I was actually reading a really just Orwellian article it was in the Wall Street Journal a long time ago but someone in the government of Uzbekistan said that they, they sought to use this Chinese technology to quote, digitally manage political affairs quote unquote.   When you're looking across the world and looking at some of these, you know, kind of semi quasi authoritarian nations in places like Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa and South America that really depends on these kinds of, you know, these kinds of these imported technologies, like you see a lot of, you know, a lot of official materials that kind of dodge the question or phrase it in a different way.  And that's, that's a fine thing to do. And that's what, you know, that's what China has done for many countries that actually need to fight crime. But the problem is when, you know, these companies take it a step further with the connivance of the government to, you know, to actually set up like an authoritarian system that would benefit an authoritarian government somewhere. Great. An audience member asked what's something that you learn that surprised you while writing this book. Great question. Yeah, good question. So the book was an endless. And you froze. I feel like the best questions right when you're going to say something really exciting and just freezes. Hey, Liesl. Yes. Hey, okay. Okay, start over I didn't hear anything you froze as soon as you started to answer. Okay, so. I'll just repeat the question. What was I surprised with something that surprised you with something that you learned that surprised you while reading this book. Yeah. So the book was an endless series of surprises. There was nothing in this book that seemed normal or anticipated or expected. And that was one of the just most fascinating things about, you know, just just writing it is that I've never, I've written a lot of stories in my career so far and I've never, I've never written a story where it's like you go, you start at a certain point and you just start going down the rabbit hole and everything gets weirder and darker and stranger. And by the end of the writing process, you know, you're just wondering, you know, what the heck just happened and then you just, so I actually had to go back through a lot of my material and think about it again and just make sure that I understood what was really going on here because this the surveillance state just, it became so bizarre over time so, you know, specifically what surprised me. Well, I mean, you know when I started writing the book, you know I had booked a ticket out to Xinjiang I was going to fly there. And now the government of Cambodia, where I have a long history obtained my flight information. I wasn't even in Cambodia I wasn't flying from Cambodia and posted it all over the news and tried to make it tried to make me look like I was like a CIA spook going to overthrow China and they like they use this evidence in the trial of their own opposition leader who was under house arrest and went to prison for a while. You know, I mean like that's just one example of something that I've had to, you know, grasp it with well writing the book and you know that's the thing is that if you know if the government of Cambodia which is a strong Chinese ally is, you know, doing this monitoring me in this way, like I just can't imagine how, you know, a regular Uyghur person, you know, like either in the region or having left China is being surveilled just day in day out I mean it's not just in China but you know that the Chinese agents, you know Uyghur agents regularly call and harass and kind of cajole overseas Uyghur refugees trying to get them to come home or to, you know, promising them to take care of their families back in the region if they become spies. I mean just the level of intensity of surveillance, it just surprises me because I just I still can't even wrap my head around how, you know, how there could be enough people in the entire nation of China to surveil so many people at such a deep level. Fascinating. I was curious to know how you decide what your process was for leaving all of these different stories together it seemed like it would be very complicated because you kind of take these threads and braid them throughout the book. Can you talk a little bit briefly about that before I ask the next question. The first process is finding a good editor at a great publisher. So, I, I do have to give great credit to my editor, my publisher, you know public affairs because they did a great job of you know taking taking drafts and elevating them to a level, you know that would make me look smart, smarter than maybe I am. So, my publisher, you know, I think that leaving those stories together they were extremely helpful. But you know even even before I was working with my publisher I had spent a lot of time. You know just going just just trying to figure out the chronology of what exactly has happened here I think that the chronology is the most challenging points of writing this kind of story because there are so many. You know there are so many major social and geopolitical forces at play that go beyond the characters themselves that you know once you venture to for far off and in your narrative. The book can just become something else that you didn't really intended to be so I would say that it just comes down to really good planning, you know lots. If there are any writers in the audience, you know it's it's just planning. You know not being satisfied with one draft with you know rewriting things going back, you know, not accepting, you know, just kind of mediocre writing is something that you know it's worthy of publishing so it's hard work but that's that's really all it comes down to. The next question from the audience is that many companies are facing scrutiny over their products being created with labor from the Xinjiang camps, and many have committed that they will not use materials created using human rights violations for their products. Does this type of economic divestment have an impact or place any pressure on the Chinese government. It does. Yeah, it does. And I believe that the Chinese government, especially its top officials, I think that they are terrified of having, you know, their their supply chains their assets their, you know, their way their way of doing business exposed and open there in the world there's been a lot of pushback from the Chinese government and various embassies against, you know, these kinds of stories there have been lots of you know flat out denials and there's been lots of double speak coming from embassies about you know why this is this is necessary and it develops the nation it develops people economically and it gives them a good, a good life and prosperity but essentially what they're doing is defending forced labor and potentially slave labor. You know I do think that you know sanctions to a degree. I mean I think that they work to a degree when they're when they're targeted when they're effectively targeted. I think that you know our government you know I don't I think that we have not actually begun to even scratch the surface when it comes to the potential of how far sanctions can go because, even though many people have been exploring supply chains there are still many dark areas. And it's not even clear. You know just just the nature of how our global supply chains work we don't totally even understand them.  And a lot of that is a black box and they're had you know they have even been reports from the State Department now that supply chain auditors flying in from overseas to you know say represent a big company that's concerned about slave labor infecting its garments they they arrive in Xinjiang and they're detained by authorities and told you know not to do this kind of work so I think that there's there like I think there are still many unknowns and I think that the scope of the problem is probably bigger than what we understand it to be now. Traditional of a lot of data coming out of China. This next question asked, can the US claim a moral superiority here the documentary 13 highlights the US prison system of mass incarceration of black men and women to use as prison slave labor with the expectation that prison is supposed to rehabilitate. Do you have any thoughts on this. Of course so you know the US also has a history of you know historical atrocities of slavery of, you know, the, the some of the atrocities against the Native Americans, which I see as a similar, a similar story of what's happening to the Uighurs, you know the displacement of an indigenous minority group, you know in efforts to kind of, you know, to turn them into Han Chinese or in America's case to turn them into Protestant Christians and all that sort of thing you know I, you know you mentioned in that question a specific example, you know incarceration so. So one of the things you know so there are differences, you know there are stark differences between what's happening in America today, and in China today, you know there is a race there is an element of racial inequality. The one of the biggest problems, I would say there are two big problems in China that are more magnified than what's been happening in America and the first is the extent of the extra just judicial concentration can't system. So, you know, for, for whatever problems we have here, I mean, ultimately, you know, people are going through a system of courts, you know there there is a system set up of trying people and you know a jury that looks at them that can make some of crime. The thing in China is the it is the completely arbitrary based on, you know technology systems that we don't understand just the arbitrary detention and disappearance of 1.8 million people as an upper estimates into concentration camps where you know I think they, they just simply disappear from the system they're not, they're not being accused of a crime they're not being tried for a crime they're simply being told that you need to cleanse your mind you need to cleanse your viruses and you need to spend all these years in a camp. So, the magnitude of that is just, it's truly startling and terrifying. The other thing going so this goes back to technology that I talked about before there have been, you know, especially with the George Floyd protests. There, there have there has been a major discussion in our country over the role of various say predictive policing programs and algorithms and whether they discriminate against minorities more than you know they more than against whites and especially white men. So, you know that, like, that is happening on much more massive extreme in in China right now. So, first of all, the thing is that over there in Xinjiang. No one can have these discussions no one can, you know, ask the questions and say, Well, wait a second, what, what kind of technology are you using and why does it discriminate so much against people from Muslim fates and related ethnic backgrounds. If you ask that question then they're simply going to go to a concentration camp. So, yes, so I mean I think that there are some comparisons to be made but you know I think that what's happening. You know what's happening in this particular region of China is just it's it's an atrocity beyond the scale of you know I think what humanity has seen in a long time. Can you talk a little bit more about what you think the global response should be you see calls for change from the private sector based on legal forced labor. The United Nations has shown some movement Human Rights Commission has shown some movement toward doing conducting their own investigation. Obviously the United States State Department declared a genocide. What is in your view, should the international community be doing to address this issue. And in particular, what should the response of the United States be. So, you know, this is something that always gets me because I think that you know, like the international community often has limited power, you know short of actually invading a country, which is completely off the table. Limited authority limited influence to really, you know, make these situations change I tend to think that changes, changes in political systems I tend to think come from the inside first I mean I think that I do believe that there is discontent with the presidency of Xi Jinping in China and I do think that you know there might be some kind of shift happening in the coming years I don't know when that will happen but I just I don't foresee this, this personality cults continuing forever personality tend to consume themselves. And it's just not something that you know can easily be kind of continued and built so you know I think in the meantime, you know as change, you know as we wait for hopefully a hopeful change to happen in China and with its government. I think that in the meantime, you know I think that targeted sanctions do work, and you know these are sanctions that target specific business interests that are employing slave labor that are that are essentially making it impossible for you know people who use slave labor to sell their goods to the American market or the EU market. You know I think that there is a lot to be said for you know making sure that markets do reflect the values of democracy, you know I do I don't think that markets are separate from that you know there are many people out there now who argue that you know with the trade wars, we should keep trade and human rights separate but you know I think that that that you know protecting the market and protecting it from being corrupted.  You know I think that they work to an extent. I also think that I mentioned this before but you know many Chinese elites are quite scared of their assets being revealed and exposed overseas I think that we also have a I mean just generally in the world I think that we have a weak anti money laundering regime I think that it's it's very easy to longer money, you know through various Caribbean islands and you know through Bitcoin, and I think that finding ways also in the US state of Delaware is a major laundering concern. I think that you know finding ways to just make the market more transparent to make sure that we have good data and more data on where the financial flows are going from you know from places like Xinjiang and also other you know human rights abusing entities, just just being able to see where they put their money and where it flows and then looking for ways to act against it or to block it or even to freeze it to seize it I think that these are all, you know effective tools in at least advancing causes of human rights. Do you another audience member asks if you, if there are any leaders fighting for human rights and Xinjiang. There were not so much anymore to my knowledge I think that the region has pretty much been cleansed, so to speak of descent. I don't think that anyone there can can stand up and lead any protest any kind of any kind of mass gathering anymore I just think it's it's We lost you again. Jeff we lost you. Sorry. Hey, please. Yeah, can you hear me. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry about that I don't know what's going on with my connection today it's just acting funny on the day that we have a talk. Always always on the important days. Yes, and the most important question so you're saying that there aren't any human rights leaders in Xinjiang anymore, but there used to be but I think So in the book, I document one of the major stories of a famous activist and scholar named Ilham Toti who has been sentenced to prison in China. He has now started serving a sentence. I believe the sentences changed once in a while but I think it's a life sentence now and you know he's it's just a terrible situation for him but this is an example Ilham Toti is just a man who is deeply respected among the Uighur community who you know people even here in Washington DC. I remember him and talk about him and talk about what what a great figure he was.  He favored a path towards moderation. You know he was more like a Nelson Mandela type figure and he often held students that is he would bring weaker students and other students to his classes and Beijing on the weekends and he would you know tell them stories about how nations are built and how nations are formed and the importance of having, you know minorities and various groups that, you know that we that understand each other that respect each other that all see themselves as one part of a bigger whole. He would talk about various figures like this, you know in Asia but also he would talk about people like Nelson Mandela and you know some of the major social movements of the post Cold War world. And because of this, he was, he was tried for sedition he was just arrested one day, and the Chinese government just sentence him, and you know he's now he would be I think the best example of a major activist who, you know, had a great going in a great cause who has been kind of removed from the scene and I think it was a strategic, you know attack by the Chinese government because I think they realized that so many Uighurs just so deeply respected him and wanted him to be their leader, but that just just to clarify that from I've spoken with a lot of his family members and old friends and they all say that he actually did not want to be a leader he was you know he was a pretty simple man he enjoyed the intellectual he wanted to, you know, read books and talk about history he did not want to, you know, rise up and become this Mandela figure for the Uighurs but that's sort of how the Chinese state saw him and feared what he would become.  Okay, well we are a little bit over time so I wanted to quickly ask you so people read this book. They start to pay attention to these technologies. What should the average American who reads this to uses us technologies that are amplifying information that might not be true or that you know the question whether or not it's true. Should they do how can they help what how should they respond to this, the situation and to your book in particular. You mean to to helping the cause to improve. If they read it it's great to be informed but if they think okay so what do I do now. Do you have any thoughts on how people can be involved. There are numerous excellent groups all over America is out in DC and also in Europe in places like Norway, also in Turkey that exists to help legal refugees and refugees from other groups. And you know what they do they will they will help them, you know, kind of undercover to help them find ways to escape this region as much as it might be impossible anymore.  So, you know, there, there are many groups that help Uighurs get through these tribulations that help them, you know that give them therapy that you know help them, kind of transition and you know I think that volunteering for one of these groups or giving them to another nation is always helpful there's the there's the weaker human rights project here in DC, they do great investigations into this topic. There's a group called weaker help out in Norway, and they do a lot to, you know, to kind of help people rehabilitate into, you know, into society. And also there are, there is a new group and I wish I could. I don't recall the name now but I could if anyone's interested and you know, email me later. There's a new group that's actually working specifically on mental health issues for Uighurs arriving in America. And I think that's the most important part that's been neglected so far and that's the I think that's the area that's going to start growing in significance in the coming years. Yeah, your description of Mason's mental health progression was really fascinating in the book I thought it was really interesting to see the impact that had on her psychology. And I think that's the most important part of it. So thank you so much for all of this. For those of you who are still on the perfect police state can be purchased at the link in the chat. Thank you all for attending and for your great questions. Jeff, thank you for your work and for writing this great book and Angela and New America, thank you for all of your work and Alina for all of your help with this. With this effort we really appreciate your attendance and for making the time. Alina, thank you so much. Thank you, Liso.


It's time again for my half-year update of my reference setups. There have been small updates this time, but also considerable price updates. The economic situation worldwide is under pressure. COVID-19 is still a concern in China, the workshop of the world. Russian aggression has dramatic consequences for the Ukrainians, but it also has risen energy prices. Add to that Brexit and trust having their effect on the British economy, component availability still being limited, shipping costs being extra high and you understand this will have an effect on the equipment prices. For instance, components in my setup 1A went up 2000 euros on average, so a price update in my listing was needed. For the rest you might have seen parts of this video earlier, but I wanted to make a complete sum-up of my reference setups again. You can skip the parts by clicking in the timeline. Why reference setups? A reviewer needs them to anchor his findings, at least I do. It is therefore important to limit changes in these setups to the bare minimum for it can make comparisons to earlier reviews difficult. At the same time you need references that are relevant and especially digital audio equipment still is improving rapidly. When I started this channel 8 and a half years and 463 videos ago, I focused on equipment for the digital front end of a stereo setup. Each component should cost no more than 2000 euros. I had to set up my references in that price category first before I expended more upmarket. After a few years I slowly lifted 2000 euro limits. So reference equipment in that price range was needed. At the end of 2020 I finally replaced the amp in my setup 1 and halfway 2021 a true high end DAC with upscaler was added to setup 1. The network player in my setup 1 and upscaler were replaced by a combined rune server and player and finally the loudspeakers in setup 1 were upgraded. Given the limited physical and monetary space, I decided to keep using my mytech DAC in my setup 1 as a reference for more affordable DACs, renamed the top setup 1A and the combo with the mytech 1B. I like this AB approach so setup 2 is now also divided in 2A and 2B to keep things in line with each other. New here is digital to digital converter, an affordable way to clean up the USB audio signal from for instance a computer and send it to the DAC over speed if, Toslink, AES, EBU and even I2S. The reference equipment has been chosen to facilitate my work as a reviewer. If that wasn't the case I probably would have bought more integrated systems. But how do you judge the quality DAC if your playback system also does the digital to analog conversion? By choosing for separate components things get slightly more complex to setup and to operate. Plus the cabling cost might add up seriously. On the other hand upgrading is easier since parts can be added or exchanged like I described above. What happens to the equipment that was replaced? That is sold to make someone else happy. For I would like to stress that it remains very good sounding equipment. For instance the Aurelix Aries G2 would still be my choice in that price category, as are the SOTM SMS-200 Neo and the SMS-200 Ultra Neo that preceded it. They were very valuable stepping stones in my way up the high end ladder. Time to look at the current setups and let's start with setup 3. If you want to skip to other setups just point at the timeline to see the chapters. In setup 3 the amplification is done by the great NAD C316BEE. This class AB amp isn't the most powerful but combined with the right loudspeakers it surely sounds great. I combined it with the more than short I found 902 loudspeakers that I bought years ago at a sale for €200 a pair. The current version will set you back €400 a pair. They can be assisted by the RLT5 subwoofer that then is connected to the loudspeaker terminals of the NAD. The Argon Audio Solo with integrated DAC is the streamer, aka network player. I use it mainly as a rune endpoint but it can easily be used with its own app. Connection to the network is made of a Wi-Fi to a nearby ZIGO smart Wi-Fi pod access point that is part of a mesh network. The setup's total price is €1248 without the subwoofer or €2147 including the sub. All prices are including 21% VAT, the European sales tax. In for instance the US prices are excluding sales tax, keep that in mind when comparing. Setup 3 is located in the studio on the third floor and the equipment is housed in a target rack. Don't be mistaken, this is a very musical setup that has impressed many people it was demonstrated to. Setup 2 is split up into A and 2B. Both use the same amplifier, loudspeakers, subwoofer and cabling. Only the digital front end differs. The amplifier is the Marantz Ki Pearl Lite, a great class A-B amplifier tweaked by the legendary Kenny Shibata. It's an older model but amps in this class and above last very long. It drives the acoustic energy Radiance One loudspeakers, connected over Kimber 4PR loudspeaker cable. They are supported by the RELT-5 subwoofer that is connected to the loudspeaker terminals of the Marantz using the same cable that came with the sub. Setup 2A and 2B are placed in the studio at the third floor and the loudspeaker switch places with Setup 3. The network switch is the Uptown Audio Ether Region with Uptown Audio UltraCaps 1.2 power supply. The equipment is housed in a target rack too. The Bluestone Note 2i is the network player with integrated MQA DAC. It is a versatile all-in-one solution that can function as a network player or rune endpoint. Does Apple Airplay and stream from about any streaming service you might be subscribed to? It has Bluetooth as input but can also send audio to for instance a Bluetooth headset at the same time. It was end of life in 2021 and followed up by the new Note N130 that looks and sounds about the same. It has added features like HDMI input and being able to have an external DAC connected over USB. See my review. I still use the Note 2i but since my review of the PD Creative power supply for the Bluestone Note 2, the internal power supply is replaced by this power supply. See my review. It is connected to the Uptown Audio Ether Region switch over a CAT6 patch cable and to the Marantz amp over the no longer available Siltek London RCA's. This setup adds up to slightly over 3800 euros without subwoofer and almost 4700 euros including the sub. This setup has clearly more resolution and more authority than my setup 3. This setup also uses the Marantz amp, acoustic energy loudspeakers, Kimber cable and rail sub. But now the source is the Allo US bridge signature with allo shanty power supply. It uses Roopy Roon Endpoint software but can easily be converted to being a streamer by inserting a microSD card with other software like Volumio. The output is now sent to the Syncster Audio SU6 USB Audio Bridge, a digital to digital converter DDC for short that sends a cleaned up digital signal to the Denafrips Aries 2 DA converter over AES-EBU using van der Hul AES-EBU cable. The Aries 2 is basic in features but sounds great in its class. See the show notes for the review. The total setup excluding cables adds up to almost 5600 euros excluding subwoofer and 6400 euros including the sub. Due to monetary and placement limitations, setup 1A and 1B also share the digital player, amp and loudspeakers. They are placed in the living room on the ground floor. The Air Acoustics AX5-20 amplifier drives the PMC FAC12 signature loudspeakers on Isoacoustics GAIA 2 isolators and connected over AudioQuest Robin Hood 0 loudspeaker cable. The digital player here is the Grimm Audio Mew 1, that is a Roon Server, Roon Endpoint, ReClocker and Scaler in one. But because the Grimm is based on an Intel i3 processor and I own a very large music collection, I don't use its Roon Server function. I rather have an Intel NUC 10i7 F&H running Roonrock as a server. It gives me the speed of the Intel i7 while I have the unbelievable sound quality of the Grimm Mew 1, as Roon Endpoint, ReClocker and Scaler. It is connected to the SOtM-SNH 10G network switch over CAT6 Ethernet cable. When other network players are tested, the new on-filter and cable can be added. All is placed in a Creative Twin 3 rack. The first DAC is in setup 1 for quite some time. The Mitek Brooklyn MQA enabled DAC, powered by the Ferrum Hipsis power supply. It is connected to the Grimm Audio Mew 1 over Siltek ASEBU cable and to the amp over Grimm Audio SQM XLR cable. The Mini DSP SHD Studio DRAC processor is no longer in the system, since in contrast with the Audio Note amp and Audio Physic loudspeakers, the Air amp and PMC loudspeakers sound best without. I have noticed before that when the setup reaches a given level, the room often is only a minor factor in the sound quality. That level is reached with the new amp and loudspeakers. As such, this setup is out of balance, the Air, PMC and Grimm Audio being of a higher class, but it is very well possible to compare other DACs in this price range on this setup. When testing DACs I always switch off the scalar function. I also often test the USB input by connecting it to the Grimm Audio USB output. This is equal to a normal Intel Nock i3 output. The total setup will add up to €58.500 but the DAC would already show its best in a setup south of €10.000. For comparing DACs in this price category, this setup works fine though. Here the Chord Dave DAC is used. It is connected to the Grimm Audio Mu1 over Siltac AES EVU cable and to the amp over Grimm Audio SQM XLR cables. I changed the mains feed, it is now properly grounded. This made it possible to use the transparent power isolator again. That stayed over for my earlier job but I couldn't use it since it needed to be grounded. Both the Grimm Audio and the Chord Dave are connected to it. The total system including cables adds up to slightly over €71.000. I can imagine it's a lot of information and since I use these setups to give an indication of the sound quality, let's look at them next to each other. All these setups are based on an amplifier and a set of loudspeakers, while there are two classes of digital front end in setup 1 and 2. Let's start with setup 3 that uses an Argon Audio Solo Streamer that is connected to the NAD C316BEE amplifier over analog RCA cables. The amp drives are more than short, around 92 loudspeakers. If necessary the RLT-5 subwoofer can be added to this setup 2. When we go to setup 2BEE we see the Bluesound Node 2i powered by the PD Creative Power Supply as source. It is directly connected to the analog inputs of the Merence KI Perlite that drives the acoustic energy radians want loudspeakers and the RLT-5 subwoofer. Set up 2A replaces the Bluesound by a combination of the US Bridge Signature Streamer, the SYNCSA SU6 DDC and the Denafrips Aries II DAC. Setup 1B starts with the Grim Audio Mewon Digital Player driving the Mitrex Brooklyn DAC with Ferrum Hipsus Power Supply, connected to the Air Acoustics AX5-20 amplifier that drives the PMC FACT 12 Signature Loudspeakers. In setup 1A the sound quality is brought to true high end level by replacing the Mitrex Brooklyn DAC with the CORE DAVE DAC. The transparent power isolator 8 was added to slightly further improve the sound quality. Then the network. On the third floor outside the studio we find the system GS-1900-10HB switch that, using fiber optics, is connected to the Upturn Ether Regen switch with UltraCAP's Ultimate 1.2 Power Supply in the studio, that's on the 3rd, 4th, 2nd and houses setup 2 and 3rd. It is also connected to the SOtM switch downstairs over fiber optic connection. From the SOtM there is a CAT 6 to the internet route. That is also downstairs. It is further connected to a set of three ZiggleSmart Wi-Fi Pod Network Wi-Fi access points, one on each floor. The Intel NOC 10i7 FNH runs RoonRock on a M.2 SSD and has the music stored on the 10TB Western Digital USB drive. It is connected directly to the Zistel switch over a CAT 6 patch cable. Next to the NOC is the Synology DS1819 plus NAS with DX517 extender. It mainly functions as a backup for my videos but also used for testing DLA audio service software. On the other side of the spectrum I use a sub 100 euro single drive NAS, the Synology DS119J, since that is more realistic for domestic use. The RoonRock server shares its volume holding the music as Samba's share so that can be used for self indexing streamers like those by Sonos, Bluesound and Aurelink. But I can also use one of the Nassas as well. The DS119J holds a terabyte of music. The advantage of using a simple NAS is that it consumes less power than a computer and can do all kinds of other things, like backup and making files available to, for instance, your smartphone on the road. But it is also slower of course. I stock quite a bit of other equipment that are used for research, like for instance the Sonos Connect, the Sonos port, several Raspberry Pi based streamers, a Mini DSP SHD studio room correction system, the NAD T758 version 3 receiver, a PMC DB1 center speaker, four times Mirage OS3 sans surround speakers, reference set of one is used for left and right. Less used are the Linsundek LP12 with SME5 tonearm and Van der Hulgrats hopper cartridge, a Studer A807 tape recorder that is currently defective, a Reevox A700 tape recorder, a Squeezebox Duet, a Philips CD recorder and many more. They all have their purpose, otherwise they would have been sold. For instance the CD recorder is a great tool since it is quite jittery. Using it I can audibly test to what degree a DAC can reduce jitter. Other gear might still be around for sentimental reasons of course, like the DAT recorder and the TAPE recorders. It often helps to look at somewhat complex matters with graphics. That was the motivation for making and maintaining this series of videos. The complexity at the same time is the versatility, although I understand that it can be hard to imagine what sound of variants lead to what sound quality. Talking about quality, although it looks very convenient for you to publish absolute quality ratings, things in audio aren't that simple. If you want to know a bit more about this, you could watch my video Q&A which device is better. Please let me know when things are not clear, but also realize that it's not always a matter of better or worse. There has to be a match with your requirements and wishes. A good line to end this video with. As usual, there will be a new video next Friday at 5 p.m. Central European Time. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to my channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumb up or link to this video in the social media. It is much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I'm Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHPproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.


When most of you created a living trust, the estate planning attorney prepared the deeds to any real property you owned. She or he went over the proper titling of assets and also went over what assets you should add to your trust and how to do that. After you left that meeting, the problem is so many of you stopped after you've put the house in the trust. You've neglected to put other things in the trust that should have been added, like bank accounts, life insurance, and other trust assets. So what happens if you've forgotten to add assets to your trust? Well, usually I can catch those mistakes at our estate planning review meetings. I go over the assets with a client, find out why assets have been omitted, teach them how to retitle those and put them in the trust, and that's no problem. The real problem occurs if someone is incapacitated or has passed away. That's where the real attorney work comes in. There are usually several options available to get omitted or left out assets into the trust and under the control of the backup trustee. Our first choice is for our office to use the incapacitated person's durable power of attorney for property. If that's up to date, it's usually fairly simple to work with the trustee to add omitted assets into the trust where they should have been at first. If there is no durable power of attorney or that durable power of attorney is inadequate or out of date, then our office will petition the court to approve the transfers of omitted assets into the trust. Where it becomes more difficult and expensive is if a person has passed away and there are important omitted assets that should have been a part of their trust. Let me give you some representative examples. If the only omitted asset does not involve any real property and all omitted assets add up to under $150,000, our office can prepare what's known as a $13100 petition or also known as a small estate affidavit. This is a non-court affidavit that permits small estate assets to be transferred free of any court proceedings into a person's living trust. This document can save hassles and money. In cases involving any real property or assets totaling above the $150,000 threshold, in California we generally have two options. One is a probate using the poor over will that is associated with the person's living trust. Or two, we can petition the court through a Higgs dead petition. Both options involve the superior court. Both involve time and expense, but one of these two options can usually ensure that all omitted assets are added to a trust once a settler dies or a trustee dies. The key is prevention. With regular estate planning review appointments and the advice of your estate planning attorney, there's a good chance that there'll be no omitted assets in your estate plan. And that's a good thing. If you're unsure, please call your estate planning attorney for a review appointment or call this office. I'm estate planning attorney, Hollis Logue.


This next section is going to cover an aspect of our jobs that has been gaining attention over the past few years. The problems we face in the wildland-urban interface are rapidly becoming more and more complex. To deal with this increase in complexity, many urban areas have implemented some interesting and effective cooperative agreements with local municipal fire departments, which include shared radio frequencies and cross-training. To get us thinking about the various safety concerns when wildland fire approaches an urban area, let's go back to the rough diamond fire in Idaho. You're about to see a clip from another operational briefing that was addressing the threat of fire on the historic town of Silver City. After viewing this clip, you'll be asked to get into your groups and talk about three tools that are available to you for use in these situations. In your incident response pocket guide, you will find the urban wildland watch-out situations, the structure protection checklist, and the structure assessment checklist. You can relate the items on these lists to the rough diamond fire, or more importantly, you should relate them to urban interface issues that you face in your local area. The point of this exercise is to get you familiar with these tools and understand how they relate to issues in your area. My name's Dale Anderson. I'm currently the structure protection group in charge of the structure protection group for Silver City community, and we're working on the rough diamond incident, and we're going to give a briefing here shortly, and we need a kind of a brief overview from Elden Alexander, who was part of the tactical operation that worked the previous day and early that morning, and Elden, if you could give us a current situation update off these maps here, and then we'll kind of continue from there. Okay. Dale said my name's Elden Alexander. I was an initial attack IC-Type-3 on this fire. During the transition, I've been kind of attached to Division Alpha on this south side of the fire, and come down here to help you guys get a little idea of what's happening up here on the fire. Currently, the fire is being held along the Silver City road here around Scotch-Bob drainage. You guys drill that's your access into this area.  Bald Mountain has been prepped with a dozer line coming up from the road also, and with every retardant being laid in this little saddle right here. The dozer line made it as far as it could around Bald Mountain, and that's why the hand crews are starting up towards it. We're getting a little activity on this side, some torching, making some runs, but starting to turn around itself and bring it back into black, not a real big concern right now. The other high activity area is up here by Little Sugar Loaf, and you can see it kind of goes off this map a little bit with the perimeter. It's down in this drainage below Little Sugar Loaf. It's made it run up in that area. Those are the two hot points right now. What's the weather outlook for the afternoon? Yeah, I got max temps, 86 to 89 degrees relative humidity, 8% to 13% valley winds, up to 13 miles per hour. Rich Top winds, Northwest, 10 to 20 miles with gusts to 25 miles an hour. So that's going to throw some influence on the fire behavior out there. What we're going to do next is get a little overview from Bruce Alcott, who is our structure protection expert that we brought in with the, he's kind of our task force leader for our five engines that we brought in. And Bruce, if you could kind of give us a little information on what you guys have already assessed as far as the structures, communities, hazards, risks, anything related to that, it would be great. We've been up and had a pretty good view of the fire. We've got quite a distance between us and them, which gives us a little bit of preparation time. For our personnel, we anticipate that if there is a fire to encroach on Silver Siege, it will be coming from up this direction or maybe in from this side a little bit. So what we'll be doing is focusing on those structures that are on that outer perimeter there. So our crews will be looking at that. Some of the things we need to evaluate obviously are, we may have stored fuels here. We have some propane tanks that folks use. We may have stored fuel oil, gasoline, all those kinds of things. So that creates a hazard for us and we'll have identified those and know where they are and what we need to do to mitigate those. Water supply, as is indicated, primarily our suppression water will come from what we've brought with us and what we've got on the tenders that have been brought in to support us. We also have, however, established three different drafting points off of the creek here where we've got enough water that we can pump out of and use that to augment our supplies and refill apparatus if we can. The keys here, obviously, as a structure protection, we have to look at what our capabilities are and be realistic about what we can accomplish. Our goal is to prevent it from getting those structures. So we're assessing the ground fuels that are around those structures to make sure we can get away from them and to keep the structures from getting involved in the first place. We feel like, because of the nature of the fuels that are out there, we've got a pretty good option to, should it come in from this direction, we may be able to actually kind of hurt the fire up around that way by doing some back burning and doing some other things that will help there. So that's what we're assessing there. From a safety standpoint, all of our apparatus needs to recognize that we've got a key point. Here's where we're headquartered. We've got one way out from this part of town, and that's across this little bridge down here, so we need to make sure we keep that access clear. There is another access road that comes in here just on the other side of that bridge, and we keep all of our apparatus need to be stay on the roads where they can get out quickly. We won't be putting them up in here. We've identified that just down the street and across is the, down where the park is here is an area that we could seek refuge or have to. That's a safety factor for all of our personnel to know. Good. But we still have residences here on location, local residents folks. And there's a system in place now for if we need to do a heads up and an evacuation, then the county sheriff from Hawaii is going to basically handle that. You guys had a chance to go out and take a look at it, and we'll go ahead and put that order in so we can get the supplement on the hose and some mark tree pumps and that type of stuff and kind of basically go from there. And then our early warning system will be basically on what the fire is doing, of course the visual indicators, the verbal indicators over the radio, so make sure all the frequencies are dialed in accordingly, and we've double checked that so we know that's online. Our locals are pretty much dialed in on keeping in touch with us, so we've got those contacts made. Now for information standpoint, we do have information officer John Skinner on location here and he's maintaining contact with our primary information folks. And we didn't let news media come in this afternoon because it was going into the heat of the day but they'll be in first thing in the morning. So when that starts happening, you'll kind of have a clue of what's going on with that. And then also when you get a chance individually to make sure you look at your IAP for your assignments for the day, it's also going to include the medical plan because we have a process set up to cover the medical and then also it has attachments on the maps, safety message, it gives the fire behavior and the weather updates. It's got the communication plan in there so double check your frequencies on your radios and it's got the organizational list and the division assignment. So with that, any other questions? Other than that, I think we can continue our work and kind of go from there. Good, thanks. With the introduction of so many new firefighters this year, it's extremely important to communicate with other firefighters on the fire line. We really can't afford to assume that people are experienced enough to know what's going on out there, especially in an urban, wildland interface situation.