Everybody forced here ripping 2022 top scrimsonic baseball light eight bucks number 29 pick your team style Get Aaron Alvin to Marlins Sock over in twitch has the d-backs Allen v. Stroh's and Royals David F. Orioles Devon with the Cubs Dodgers Gary A. Braves on W red Sox Jared W. Mariners Jason C. Mets Jared K Twins John M. Brewers Joseph D Yankees Mark Z Tigers Guardians Nationals mark K reds Marty blue J's Mike B. Phillies Ray G with the Rays and pirates Yeah, Mike B. Phillies. Okay, then the rain see as the Cardinals Timothy M. Giants Todd a white socks a appreciate you Todd Travis H. Rockies Vong with the Padres Zachary F. Angels and Rangers. Good luck. Everybody. Let's get started Come on red and black Sonic. Let's see it Ricky refractor Eli Morgan Guardians Come on Providence Bruins. I mean Boston Bruins Black and white ray wave Sean Maniah Oakland Refractor of Albert Pools for the Dodgers Brian Reynolds Rookie refractor Tampa Bay Vidal Bruhan. What's the next shirts you're gonna get? Eflin my Hyper Brandon Belt Giants Audio crews rookie base youth quake wander Franco Tampa Bay Really, it's a huge bummer that cruise got hurt today Ernie Clement black and white ray wave rookie for the Guardians Gunner, what's up? a little bit Yeah, Rory that thing yeah that thing tend I saw that it's been up on eBay for a while I think rookie hyper Jake Myers for the Stroh's There's a cotton candy Nullin Aronato also known as a Aqua pink Sonic Pulse 61 of 199, but we'll call that cotton candy Nice Nato for st. Louis refractor Kyle Hendricks black and white right wave moustachis Reds Moose tacos If you almost showed my brother he showed me a picture the person they showed on the thing was the person Yeah refractor you darvish Padres a Bryson Stott youth quake Phillies It's like the tricks yogurt parallel was that uh that Nato hyper Verlander not hyper sorry prism Verlander Excuse me. We're in tops now the Stroh's Harper black and white ray wave That pasta guy I'm glad I'm glad the uh the Bruins paid him wander Wander base. I am happy about that youth quake jaren Duran border red socks I wonder who the replace I'm guessing I'm guessing Duran comes up on your cruise or maybe they call up an infielder black and white ray wave of Valley bone Phillies and just move Royals to the outfield I would much prefer quake out there than a royal that's for sure offensively hands be swanson refractor But I would assume Duran comes up, right? Refractor Acunio for Atlanta. No, I know That's a realistic possibility though Let's go.  Refractor brand of woodruff brewers hyper jaschism for the Marlins That's even worse than Bob Conor Wong is on the roster like he plays Yeah, he's the second catcher on the team Reese normally plays but yeah one one plays Hyper Riley Adams rookie for the nationals I mean at a certain point they might start preferring Wong because Reese is a horrible defensive catcher like I don't know if he's caught anybody stealing yet It's bad Aqua ray wave Garrett Cole Yankee 73 of 90 of 199 I would almost prefer they put Wong out there like the offense is pretty decent as it is So like we don't need a ton From that spot rookie refractor Riley Adams nationals And a rookie black and white ray wave Luke Williams Phillies Reese is definitely better offensively, but we'll see we'll see I do Wong can play outfield who knows refractor jazz Cheslem.  So who got hurt in the angels? Someone got hurt in the angels, right But he's killing it triple A. He's definitely uh, you know ricky refractor josh low for the rays Jake Sambardin got through a show boy got Albert Pujols on the prism Dodgers That's actually really impressive that you got that right first try Aqua pink rookie sonic pulse Ryan Vellade Rockies 168 of 199 refractor Brandon Crawford black and white ray wave gilbert mariners They put an E in between the H and R Yep Gooth Goothridge So it's Goothridge Anaheim Dukes Charlie Blackman refractor youth quake jash Chesum jr. Marlins Got Eloy Jimenez on the prism for the white socks black and white ray wave max monzi Dodgers You said for eminence tonight? So excited It was Prison burritos blue jays We got more coming You have more in the schedule youth quake j rod rich got more. Yeah rich got more eminence you guys j rod youth quake Let's go more eminence is on route Black and white ray wave Kyle seager mariners I think there's that I think the next case is listed for wednesday night Fractor not oh cardinals With my permission of course the fractor bryan anderson He's just prism all day black and right way we have a freddy freeman braves checking out for me. Will you? Being rich was listening. Yeah, I like guys. We were here today Yaku blanco penalty delay of game yikes rick you refractor steward fairchild d backs It's not figured out. No We have an eminence throw the day. Yeah, whoa Hyper or prism chris sale red socks. So you should say in hyper Another teal pink or aqua pink sonic pulse trend grisha went to 199 for the Padres I thought they were all aqua pink so far. I see their aqua ray wave or aqua pink sonic pulse so far Refractor max freed black and white ray wave of corbin burns or the brewers The drom did are the drom win. Are they still playing? Refractor george springer youth quick cj abrams as a padre ricky prism john gray nationals And a carlos korea black and white ray wave as an astro That's water Refractor alec. We know it Prism whit marifield royals whit marifield is on spaghetti policy. So he's a legend. I'd love to pull one I haven't pulled out of this Hey, john gray rangers black and white ray wave That's a pretty gray card actually rookie refractor brindela cruise marlins Can I get brice in the top load? I'm subbing out now youth quake censor torkelson. I'm calling in donny No way donny comes in dude. No way rookie prism immanuel reverer royals black and white ray wave rookie zackpot marlins The exact exactly legal even illegal feels it now rookie refractor tyler gilbert debacks See jake's gonna get upset if legal gets upset Yeah, that's what he knows He cares more about he cares more about how how illegal feels rather than His his own brother right next to him sitting here in the trenches rippin rippin top chrome wilson catreras aqua ray wave cubs 51 of 199 Fractor uh, justin turner prism austin meadows for the rays black and white ray wave jake kroner worth padres Refractor of trout for the angels and a youth quake elliott rommost giants I'm guessing rom one. Nobody nobody said anything I'm just gonna assume that he won black and white ray wave one soto nationals. I haven't got a notification yet I'll just assume vacations out of here How what's his lead two holes here? I have I'll have my phone. Okay, so he's Wow, he can he can play it safe. It seems like refractor sabrador prez rookie president luke williams fillies black and white ray wave verlander astros This dynasty wednesday or is it friday? refractor evin longoria for the giants Maybe it's on match channel Okay, it's definitely not wednesday Maybe it is maybe it'll be wednesday night. No Maybe maybe it's friday then it's this week. I think All right, I thought it was supposed to be last last I spoke to rich it was supposed to be middle so done kept con 17 both back four gotcha youth quake read detmer's 40 angels Rom just needs to play it safe basically black and white ray wave hungen re you blue jays What's an albatross? What does that mean? Isn't that hole one? Fractor robbie grossman. I don't know.  There we go. Congrats pirates on that one Really bummer that he got hurt So fun to watch pirates are getting fun to watch They allow quite a few runs some of the time and then they score quite a few runs some of the time now Pasta again. Good lord, dude Pasta unstoppable Carl The record's coming Record's coming rookie refractor joe ryan twins prism jed larry a's black and white ray wave austin meadows rays He stepped away from the tigers today. I think right Like mental health or something Really? I believe so Kind of bummer man rookie refractor lother Orioles youth quake rwansi contraris pirates who is a beast pirates got some decent pitching rose keller queen priester Pigeon lamehu black and white ray wave yankees Dollback refractor green ray wave rookie brewers erin ashby 67 of 99 sup shane It's truly well.  You initiated the conversation talking about albatross youth quake gabriel arias guardians prism jose abrey white socks black and white ray wave of joey vato reds green yellow sonic pulse trade turner dodgers number eight of 99 Gallo refractor rookie prism ely morgan guardians black and white ray wave rookie immanuel revero royals rookie refractor wander franco nice card Tampa bay prism rendon angels Fractor crusale youth quake josh low rays black and white ray wave herman marquez rockies youth quake tally mcgill mets black and white ray wave musgrove padres rendon refractor last act Guys, we've got bowman inception case later on bowman inception Divisions random divisions full case style Six to go on that later on tonight kevin gallsman purple and yellow sonic pulse number 225 of 299 blue jays judge refractor yankees black and white ray wave jedd larry a's Yeah cruise broken ankle is a bummer refractor barrios wander franco rookie base prism jeff mcneil mets black and white ray wave bere abray you white socks walker beuler All right, nothing's super low numbered quick recap So the purple and yellow to 299 kevin gallsman pose barrios a pink and aqua sonic pulse to 199 grisham valade aranado aqua ray wave to 199 garret coal wills to contraris um Green and yellow to 99 trade turner dodgers ashby green ray wave to 99 brewers and on the old cruise youth quake to 99 pirates Thanks again, everybody The other half case is up next


Egghead, a very studious and academic person. In his anger, Ben called the renowned scientist an egghead.


Welcome to the 15th meeting of the rule of affairs and islands committee in 2023. Before we begin, can I remind those members using mobile devices to turn them to silent? This morning we have apologies from Karen Adam and I welcome Emma Harper, who is attending in Karen's place. Our business today is consideration of the Tuberculosis Scotland order 2023. Just to remind everybody, we weren't supposed to be meeting today but we had some questions over this order last week, so we're fortunate to have Sheila and Louise with us today at short notice just to clarify some questions that arose when we briefly looked at this. So I do welcome Sheila Vos, the chief veterinary officer from the Scottish Government, and Louise Cameron, who's the policy officer for disease control branch of the Scottish Government. We've got a few questions we'd like to ask, but first of all I'll just kick off and if you could tell us what the current situation with TB is in Scotland. We've recently completed the stats for last year and the good news is that we will retain our officially TB free status. There was a particularly nasty breakdown last year in a herd that had sent animals to a number of other herds, which then tested positive, but we know where it came from. We have traced it and, fortunately, the position is not as bad as we feared it might be. That doesn't mean that we should be complacent, but we will retain our status for another year. Although we're officially TB free, that doesn't mean that we have no cases. It means that it's a low and stable incidence. So, in a normal year, we have somewhere between 10 and 15 cases within herds. It doesn't matter how many animals in the herd are affected, it's the number of herds that counts. How often are herds in Scotland tested? It varies. One of the benefits of being officially free is that we're able to exempt some herds from testing subject to a risk assessment. The standard is the minimum level for countries affected with TB, but our free status means that a lot of herds in particularly remote and rural areas, islands, have been exempted because they don't buy in very much. They send a significant proportion to slaughter and they're small, so their risk factors are small. Can you give us an indication? We're disease free. Is that the norm, if you look at Europe, how many countries? What's the sort of countries with TB and countries that are disease free? It's exceptional that we're disease free. Within the UK, the other three constituent members are struggling with pretty serious bovine TB problems. I heard yesterday that in Northern Ireland the herd incidence has gone up to almost 11 per cent, whereas we're talking about that number of herds in an average year. England has significant problems concentrated in some areas. The comment from their CVO yesterday was that their free areas are getting worse, but their affected areas are getting better. It's a mixed picture. Across the rest of Europe, some countries have serious problems, France and Italy, for example, and the Republic of Ireland, whereas there are others, particularly the Scandinavian countries, that have a small incidence. We should be proud of our TB free status and look to protect it. It's valuable for a variety of reasons, partly for reputation and trade purposes, but partly because not having to test every herd every four years. It saves farmers a heck of a lot of time and effort, as well as government. I want to say a wee bit more about the reasons for amending regulations, so that process that you went through and the reaction of stakeholders as you went on your way in doing that. The legislation had been amended a number of times since it was brought in, so we were advised that it should be consolidated to make it easier for people to read and to understand. However, as we were going through that process, there were things that we had learned from our experiences over the past few years, but also changes that had been made in other parts of the UK that strengthened our provisions. It seemed anomalous that, with so much more to lose, some of our provisions were less than in England or Wales particularly. We had a full consultation. It was out for 12 weeks. We publicised it widely. We didn't get a vast number of responses. It was, I think, 19. Having said that, that was more than the previous one, and it did include responses from all the big organisations covering producers, so the national farmers union, which covers approximately 60 per cent of cattle holdings, but probably nearer 90 per cent of cattle in Scotland, because the big players are members, the Scottish Beef Association responded, the British Veterinary Association responded. It is a small number, but it was quite a large number of member bodies, which we think is comforting to get that. By and large, they were supportive of what we were doing. There were a couple of areas that we consulted on that did not get general approval, and we took them back out again in response to consultation responses. However, people recognise that the TB-free status is something that they want to keep. It is very important to them, and they want to do what they can to maintain that. You mentioned the situation in England. I wonder if you could clarify in general terms which areas of England we are primarily talking about here. It is particularly the south-west of England. The area is Gloucester, Devlin, but also creeping up the Welsh marches, and Cheshire is something of a hotspot now. There have been clusters in Cumbria previously. There are areas that are not badly affected around East Anglia, but to an extent that reflects lower cattle density there. Thank you. This is a resupplement. You said that the Welsh Government is saying that where there are good areas, there are getting worse, and bad areas are getting better. Do they have movement restrictions between infected areas and uninfected areas? Not to the same extent that we do. That would explain the spread. In part, it could also be outward creep from an infected premises. It is an infectious disease like so many others. The respiratory route is one way of spread, so cattle in the same airspace can spread the disease outward. They also have a problem with wildlife, and wildlife do not respect farm boundaries, so they tend to move out and, unfortunately, will sometimes take disease with them. As a nurse, I am always interested in infection control and prevention. Covid has been something that has been really able to educate people about how we transmit infection. I am wondering about Cumbria and the movement of cattle from one side of the border to the other. There are negative results or changes from the current 60 to 30 days as far as movement. How do farmers in England know that we have changed processes in Scotland? Is that a concern that we have? They already know that we are consulting on it and the legislation is likely to come in. We publicise it quite widely through industry bodies such as the National Farmers' Union, through vet practices and make their farmers aware of it. There is a catch-up so that, if people do it wrongly, our movement systems will flag that up and we can play catch-up when they get here and retest animals that are required to be in isolation. It is not perfect. We need to get the word out. I appreciate anybody's help to do that, but we are working quite hard to make sure that everybody knows. Specifically, markets and places where animals are going through have been targeted for communication. The two farmers that I spoke to were very well informed and quite welcoming of the changes in the consolidation of regulation. They did not seem concerned, so that is quite welcome. In response to reducing the compensation down to 95 per cent, there were mixed views in terms of the consultation responses. You have mentioned a number of the respondees, but a number of them said that it could be a blunt tool. They needed clearer guidance with regards to isolation. I wondered whether you could reassure the farming sector of why you made that decision, because it was also noted that the measure could have an impact on small farms and crofters. Absolutly. The first thing to say is that it would affect a tiny number of people and they have controlled themselves over isolation. What we found recently, one particular outbreak, was that the farmer was not isolating cattle and we believe that that was leading to on-going spread through the herd because we needed to take out a significant number of animals to slaughter, but it takes a week or 10 days to organise that and, by not isolating, it took longer to clear the herd at the end. That is the first point. The second point is that it is not designed to be punitive. It is much more intended to focus minds and to remind people of the requirement. We have always had the provision that we could prosecute if people did not properly isolate, but that was a very blunt tool and relied on data gathering and the court system and things, so it did not work terribly well. To be honest, nobody would have their compensation reduced by 95 per cent because they would get either the compensation that we give them for the value of the animal or the salvage value of the animal, which is what the meat processors pay when it goes to slaughter. Although it says 95 per cent, the chances are nobody would end up there. Of 11 outbreaks a year, probably we have seen one in the past five years who has not complied, so it is a tiny number that we are talking about. We would also make sure APHA colleagues who serve the restrictions and require isolation that it is discussed at the time what appropriate isolation is, so there is no dubiety. It is not intended to get people, it is intended to encourage compliance. As part of the legislative changes, we have brought in a definition for isolation, and we did that alongside the policy. It was unanimous in the consultation that had support that farmers and other respondents to the consultation would like a definition of isolation. That is something that we have included in the legislation to make it very clear what the requirement is and what the expectation is of farmers. Like Sheila says, APHA will work closely alongside the farmers to help them fulfil those requirements. That is very helpful. I just want to press the piece on the isolation because that is helpful that there is a definition. How do you prove that a farmer has not isolated? What if you say that, in terms of the salvage value and the market value, that it will not be 95 per cent? What if we have a significant outbreak and farmers are in a position what could happen to these regulations to ensure that farmers are supported rather than penalised for something that is beyond their control? It should not be beyond their control because we are not asking farmers to isolate reactors from other reactors. We are asking them to isolate reactors infected animals from animals that have tested negative. There are a variety of ways in which that can be done. It may be housing the group of reactors or it may be separating out the clean cattle depending on the numbers affected. However, it will be done in consultation with farmers. Reactors are detected by a vet on the farm reading the skin results and that time will issue the notice requiring isolation and will talk through. If necessary, visit the different parts of the farm and agree how it can work best. How can it be proved that that individual did not isolate? With difficulty, they would need to be caught not isolating at a subsequent visit. However, people who have moved animals around know that it is not simple to go and grab a few and bring them in or put them out. It is unlikely that people would play the system hugely to have them in with the others most of the time and then bring them back in for an inspection or because somebody was coming up the road. It is not perfect, you are absolutely right, but it will err in favour of the farmer rather than in favour of government. I want to make another point. When Government consults, as you quite rightly said, there was not a huge number, but the number that did contribute to the consultation responses were significant in the industry. There was not a conclusive support for that. There was 30 per cent, 30 per cent, 30 per cent, but people did not. There was a do support, don't support and not responded. From the Government's point of view, this particular part of the order has not been conclusive, but it is basically a policy that you have decided. It is a policy that we consulted on with a lot of others. Where are those responses? I have trailed and looked for those responses. I can't find any that were not in that consultation and that was difficult enough to find. The formal consultation is only one part of the process. There was a lot of work with Farmers Unions, the Beef Association and the Scottish Dairy Cattle Association in advance of putting the consultation together. The consultation is a process, the final part of it. How can a committee understand why a Government is doing something if we do not get full sight and understanding of those particular responses? Because all we are seeing is 19 responses where on this particular issue half of the people disagreed or a third, but a third did not respond. It is impossible to provide written evidence of all the conversations and all the scoping work that took place in advance of writing the consultation. We are somewhat at the mercy of people who choose to respond to a consultation, but I would come back to the people who responded positively, covered significantly over half the cattle population in Scotland. The NFU, for example, covered roughly 60 per cent of cattle keepers, but that equates to approximately 90 per cent of cattle. The fact that they were positive goes a long way to suggest that the majority of people out there are positive, but we cannot say absolutely for definite because, short of asking every individual cattle keeper, we are going to have to rely on organisations to have done the work with their members. I appreciate that and thank you convener for taking the time. I still have concerns about small farms and crofters. I still have concerns about the potential that we will not always be in this fortunate position. I understand the measures that you are taking and I support the other measures. I just, for the reasons that I have stated, feel uncomfortable about this particular issue. I was just going to say that we did consult also on the fact that if you did not isolate a reactor, potentially the compensation should be reduced for anything that subsequently came down with disease. That is one of the provisions that we dropped in response to what came back. So, what is going through or what is proposed is much less than it could have been in response to feedback, so it is not that we have not listened. I have got Rhoda Grant, Christine Grahame and Alice Rallana. Given that in crofting counties a lot of animals use common grazing, so different crofters use the same area to graze their cattle. I am wondering what the impact is. Obviously, someone goes out and gives advice to the crofter or farmer as to how to isolate, but if they did not, unlikely that the neighbours would not be aware that there was something happening, but in the strange occurrence that they might not and their cattle are still moving about with the infected cattle, would they be badly penalised given that they had not done something wrong, they just did not have that information and somebody else had put them at risk? No, we would only be looking to take action on people who had physically been told to isolate and who then chose not to. The other thing to say is that in crofting communities, TB is exceptionally rare. Most of the outbreaks that we get are in the south-west of Scotland, among dairy farmers, not exclusively, but a large percentage of them are there. We also get a few in the north-east because of cattle density and there is very good evidence to show that herd size is a significant risk factor. People who keep less than, say, 25 cows have a very low risk of getting TB in the first place. It is a disease that spreads well in closed areas, close nose-to-nose contact, a bit like Covid, which has already been mentioned. It is airborne, so lots of animals in the same airspace are likely to spread it. Spreading it out at pasture is much less common, particularly with the low densities that we are talking about in the crofting communities. Christine Grahame. I understand about compensation. How much money are we talking about on market value at the time? How does it work? It is market value, but there is a cap to it. We still use a system of valuers, so somebody from the local market will go out and value the cattle based on how they look, what their production records are, whether they have got a calf at foot, whether they are in calf, what their breeding is. That is the level of compensation that we normally use, up to a cap of £2,500. I believe that it is £5,000 for non-pedigree and £7,500 for pedigree. It has gone up. That is a significant amount of money over and above that. That is a 100 per cent figure. It is 50 per cent if it is unclean. I am trying to understand the money that goes back to the farm. I am trying to say that it is compensation, as I understand it, not a fine. No, no. The 95 per cent that has been dropped was more a fine. When we choose to slaughter an animal, we pay compensation to the farmer for the value of that animal. If it is a £5,000 animal, he will get £5,000 for it, provided it has been isolated and it is clean when it goes to slaughter. He should not lose out on that. If that farmer has chosen not to follow the advice and has the animal out and about, what we are saying is that he will not get the £5,000. He will get a small percentage of that, which realistically will be what the animal gets from slaughter, which is likely to be £1,500-2,000. In general terms... Of course, it is 50 per cent. That is a 50 per cent reduction. The 50 per cent is if the farmer sends an unclean animal to slaughter. Legislation for food safety is that animals going to slaughter must be clean. They should not be caked in shit, basically. The meat hygiene service already has the powers to discard unclean animals because there is food safety risk. What we are doing is sharing that risk with the farmers. What we have found was very occasionally that farmers thought, oh well, we will get the compensation, so we do not need to send them clean. That is an attempt to encourage people to do what they would be doing anyway, which is for human health, but also for animal welfare purposes. It is not something that we would intend to use regularly, and it is something that is done in the other UK administration. We were behind the curve with this one. I am just interested in the figures. I did not have much money that we are talking about. I am glad that you have clarified the clear animals. My first reading was that the TB was not necessarily the trigger for that, and it was a reduction anyway. I could not quite understand why there was any compensation for animals that are sent to slaughter that are not clean. You have touched on that already, but you are essentially saying that the Scottish regulations are now going to be similar to those in England, or we will catch up with those in England, and presumably they will be broadly similar to those in the EU as well, are they? The changes that we are making bring us back into line with the EU and also with the WHOA, which is the World Organization for Animal Health Code. For a number of years, after we got our officially TB-free status, our controls were over and above. Over time, they have slipped behind, so most of what we are doing is bringing us back up to the same level as everybody else. I am intrigued by some of the conversations that you were having there between yourself and Rachel Hamilton when you were talking about the potential for a farmer choosing not to isolate infected cattle. As you know, my background is in livestock. I could never dream of allowing infected animals to go back into a herder, back into a flock.  Probably two in the 12 years that I have been doing this job. It is tiny. It is a tool to encourage and to make sure that those who perhaps are not as assidious as yourself think a bit more about it. This is for the record. I just want to be clear on the whole process, and it might be helpful for anybody who is listening into this session. If I was a dairy farmer in the south of Scotland, as I was, I decided to buy some cattle from Devon, which is an area that has high incidence of TB. What is the process that I would have to go through now? What will the process be once the legislation comes into force? The only change is that if you are buying animals from a high-risk area now, the last test will be valid for 60 days. To buy an animal in the middle of May, it could effectively have been tested in the middle of March. What we are doing is reducing that period, because A, it has changed internationally, but B, the longer from the last test, the more chance there is that it has become infected since it was tested. Shortening the window means that there is less chance of bringing infected animals in. They will still have to be post-movement tested once they get to Scotland to try to make sure that anything that has been infected between the test and the move is caught before it spreads disease around Scotland. Rachael Hamilton touched on the levels of compensation and on whatever. We are not clear why people were for some of the proposals and policies that they were against. What is unclear to me is that the ones that were against the current policy did not want to go further. Should there be more emphasis put on individuals to try to avoid buying cattle from highly infected areas at all cost? There is no compensation. If I was good to go down to Devon, I would be aware that I was taking a risk. If I were to bring back an animal, why should I get compensation when potentially I am putting it at the whole health status of the Scottish herd at risk? Was there any consultation response that came back and suggested that the Scottish Government should go further? I am not sure that there were formal responses. I think that we often get feedback from some individuals and some organisations that we should go further, but we need to take into consideration what is fair and what we are seeing in other countries do in making sure that we are not taking things too far. As you can appreciate, we are trying to make some changes to compensation today and the kind of challenge that we receive on the back of that. It is quite emotive for a lot of people as well, so we need to take into consideration how far is too far. You are absolutely right if you are purchasing cattle from high-risk areas that present a higher risk. At the heart of all of those changes, we have artificially TB-free status. When we have considered all of those policies, we are thinking about how we can protect that officially TB-free status and what is in the best interest of the farmers in the country and to stop spreading any kind of disease coming in. We take that very seriously. We have made it as easy as we can for people to understand the status of cattle that they are buying so that they can go on to websites and check the status of a herd. Obviously, if the herd is under restriction, they cannot buy the animals, but if it was released from restriction last week, they can find that out in a fairly easy manner and decide for themselves if it is a risk that they want to take, recognising that it will have to have been tested, which may add to the cost, and when it gets to Scotland, it will have to be tested again at their expense. I suppose that the nature of the secondary legislation is that if things were to ramp up in other nations, you could come back with further restrictions or reductions in compensation or penalties if you thought that would help to preserve our status. It is a fluid situation. We do not want to be disproportionate in the action that we take but, equally, we do not want to encourage people to do things that risk something that is valuable. We should be proud in Scotland that we have TB-free status. When I am thinking about biosecurity, it is about being aware of how diseases spread and what practical measures can be implemented to reduce spread. I am thinking about other bovine diseases such as Unes, for instance, so TB is not the only one. My perception is that farmers are very aware of how diseases are transmitted, what they need to do to prevent it, and isolation is part of it. How do you perceive the attitudes of the farmers? I think that they are doing a great job and we should go back to that word and say that we should be proud of our producers in Scotland. How do you feel about that? The vast majority are doing the right thing. There are a small number who do not take it seriously because either they do not have the information or because they have inherited a system from a father or grandfather and they have never felt the need to do it. However, we are getting the information out that biosecurity is not about single diseases. What they do to prevent TB will help against BVD, what they do about Yoni's will help for other diseases, what they do about control of parasites will have knock-on consequences. We are generally promoting biosecurity, but not just for one disease. Beatrice Wishart. You have already touched on the percentage reductions in compensation, explained quite well, I think. I just wonder if you could explain how the Government decided on the actual levels of compensation. The levels of reduction. The unclean cattle is similar to what is happening elsewhere. The 95 per cent was a figure that came up in discussion with farmers unions and others prior to consultation because one of the things that we get regularly are calls from people to do more to protect the status. It was not a random number, but it was a number that was drawn in consideration with them, recognising that it is unlikely that anybody would ever have that level of reduction because the salvage value will almost always be greater. That is helpful. On the issue of animal cleanliness, the Scottish Beef Association and IAAS noted that it should be—animal cleanliness should be assessed on the farm, not the abattoir, because once animals are loaded, the farmer or keeper loses control of the cleanliness. I wonder if you could give your response to that. Yes, but the sort of problems that we are talking about are not somewhat done from a lorry. We are talking about animals that have clarts, as the word I would use, and tags to their skin that have been there for months and months. There is a small element, but generally animals that get dirty in transport stand in the larridge for 12 hours when they arrive and they are cleaning up again by the time they go for slaughter. Animals that have been dirty on farm for weeks or months cannot do anything to change. That is a different thing. I think that the official approach will have to have an appendix with some of these rural terms. We are all smiling because I have not heard that word for quite some time. Ariane Burgess. Thanks, convener. It is nice to hear a Scots word coming in, Clart. Thanks for coming this morning. It is great to hear that Scotland has this TB-free status, and clearly what you are working on is really about protecting cattle farmers with this SSI. I was good to hear also this piece that you are focusing on, the biosecurity aspect that we are getting away from a single disease approach and actually the whole system, but I think that one of the reasons that we asked to have this evidence session was around the engagement process, and you have touched upon that already in previous answers around the fact that NFUS was one of the respondents and they represent 60 per cent of the cattle keepers and 90 per cent of cattle in Scotland. Even though the numbers were low, they represent a great deal of people who work with cattle. I think that we would like to hear a little bit more maybe about the engagement process and also on-going afterwards, how do you keep that relationship going? One of the things that I do is have quarterly, roughly, stakeholder meetings. That is where officials from my team get together with representatives of the various different bodies that we work with. NFUS is Scottish SPCA, the Institute of Auctioneers, Aids, Meat Holds, Sailors and Scottish Beef Association. There are usually about 30 different groups represented there. It includes the vets. We use that as a policy development forum so that we talk to them well in advance of coming forward with proposals about what they would like, what would help them, and we sound ideas off so that we can have that blue-sky idea of what if we reduce compensation for dirty cattle or whatever it is. There is that discussion in that forum to gather the feeling of the industry across the piece before we ever put pen to paper about it. That will continue. The standard is quarterly. During Covid, we were meeting weekly in Avian Flu. It has been up, it has been down, but quarterly is an absolute minimum. The intention is that we are as open as we can be to talk about what is coming up, what is on the radar and to get feedback about what is concerning the industry as well. That is very helpful to hear that they are involved in almost co-designing policies that are coming forward. Does the quarterly meeting group have a name so that we can understand? It is the animal health and welfare stakeholder group. You are very welcome to come along at any time that you want. No questions might have been asked already about guidance. You have answered questions about guidance on what isolation means. Rachel, you touched on that, unless you have anything further to say. No, I will bring down nothing to ask. One final question from me is going back to the point that Rachel raised earlier on about what if we get a flare-up of infection, how is that going to affect compensation, etc. Given the rigorous scrutiny that there is in the diligence of the pharma community, how likely is a flare-up of TB to happen in Scotland? My crystal ball is a bit cloudy. It depends. It is one of those interesting ones. It depends to an extent on pharma behaviour. I would much rather people weren't buying animals in from areas with TB, but I recognise why some people do. It depends on our surveillance systems to pick it up quickly, and it depends on when it is picked up, the appropriate control measures being put in place, such as isolating animals. I think that it is unlikely that we would get an acute flare-up, but it only takes one farm, as we saw last year. One farm, with disease that had probably been there for a year or 18 months undetected, had seeded disease to another. I think that it was 18 farms that we traced, of which seven or eight were positive. It is not impossible. What matters is that when we find it, we deal with it robustly and quickly. Part of what we do is tracing backwards and getting an animal that is infected. We immediately go back to find out what it has been in contact with to try to determine where it may have come from, which involves testing a range of herds. We also look at anything that has left that farm and test them and the herds that they are in. It is not impossible, but it is unlikely, probably, as much as I can say. Okay, thank you. Rachel Hamilton. I have scattered on questions for you. First of all, just going back to the current measures that are in place, I presume that anyone breaking TB rules would have their farm payment reconsidered. Secondly, they could potentially be subject to a fine. Why aren't those measures that are currently there sufficient? Yes, it can be taken into account for cross-compliance. It's not often done because it rarely happens that people don't follow the measures. It is exceptional. By the time we get there, one of the farms that didn't comply actually lost about 90 per cent of his stock in the end, so he didn't have a lot left to lose by that point. That was the first point. I'm sorry, I've forgotten what the second point was. Is this fine up to £5.30? Yes, the fine we can use, but that relies on a court case and taking up time getting it through the procurator, deciding whether it's in the public interest or not. What we found recently is that procurators like everybody else are very busy people and sometimes it seems quite small change in comparison to rapes, murders and the other things that they're dealing with, so it's not that we haven't tried to use it, but it sometimes proves difficult to take it through. Just on the point that the BCVA had said that they need more detail regarding the ability to resource and carry out this approach, I presume that you're aware of that. What would constitute a herd that wasn't subject to pre- or post-movement checks? I don't mean that in a ridiculous way. I mean, why would somebody not have to go through that? If they come from a low incidence area, so Scotland is a low incidence area, so we don't require pre- and post-movement checks of cattle moving between farms in Scotland or from the low incidence area in England, where the number of breakdowns is very low, so from East Anglia, from Northumberland, they don't have to have those tests. If the animal comes from a high incidence area where TB is endemic, they have to be tested before and after. If they come from a high incidence area to a low incidence area in England, then they will still be post-movement tested unless they've been tested in the low incidence area of England. It's quite complicated. If there are 10,000 cattle moving into Scotland every year, how many of those are coming from high-risk areas? 2,000, maybe? Right, so that's how many checks are being done currently. I'd have to get back to you. I'm very interested in the probability of risk here. One of the things that we found since we became officially TB-free and required post-movement testing from high-risk areas is that farmer behaviour has changed and people are now looking to source animals. They're thinking more about it and that's been a really positive benefit because people are thinking about risk for themselves. From a personal comment here, we need to make sure that we support farmers across the United Kingdom because if a farm has a breakdown, it can be devastating not only for the family's mental health but for the financial impact as well. Farmers do not ask for bovine TB in their herd. That can happen with unintended consequences of purchasing whatever it might be or, indeed, something that hasn't been identified through testing. It's very important that, although we recognise that it's great that we've got this status in Scotland, that it's happening across our United Kingdom where the supply chain is integral to Scotland's success as well. Yeah, absolutely. For all, we don't have TB in Scotland. TB is still the biggest spend in my budget because of the testing that we do, the compensation that we pay and so it's in my interests for England and Wales to solve their problems so that there isn't a risk coming into us with animals. So as CVOs, we work very closely together. We have monthly meetings and every quarter we have TB liaison group meetings to understand what the different administrations are doing. There's the occasional person who indulges in dodgy behaviour. Most people are unfortunate victims. We're lucky we don't have a wildlife problem here. That would be so much worse and we need to keep it out of our wildlife. Thank you. I tend to agree. Last night at the BVA dinner of the British Veterinary Association, there was certainly a fantastic discussion and recognition of the issues that we have right across the UK with vets and representatives from every part of the country. That was helpful. I've got one very short technical question. We touched on cross-compliance and potential cross-compliance penalties. Will there be a need for animal health provision on the face of the agricultural bill regarding animal health and cross-compliance? We've started consideration or pre-alleg consideration in the Agri Bill but that will be before us after the summer. Yes, the intention is that there will be animal health provisions within it. Most of the legislation that we currently have for animal health is predicated on the legislation from 1981, the Animal Health Act, but that in itself needs modernising in some places. The intention is that there will be some provision within the agriculture bill but we don't know exactly what yet we're still in discussion with lawyers and others across the directorate. That's really been hugely helpful and we do appreciate you coming in at very little notice but that's certainly been hugely useful not just only for this piece of legislation but for the committee to get a better idea of what tuberculosis looks like across Scotland. Thank you very much for taking the time today. That concludes our business for today and I formally close this meeting. My apologies. The most important thing is that I asked members whether they'd have any comments on the instrument. We have no further comments. Thank you very much and that concludes the business for today.


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you including Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and Brad. Coming up on DTNS, Tech comes to board games, but there's still board games. Chris Mancini is here to explain. Plus, the first copyright test of text-to-image generators, and James Earl Jones hands over Darth Vader's voice to a computer. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, September 26, 2020, in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. In lovely Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Richard Apolino. I'm the show's producer, Roger Shane. And joining us, writer and podcaster Chris Mancini, welcome back. Thanks for having me. Great to be back. There's always a lot of tech to talk about. Always a lot of tech, yes. We keep thinking the show's going to be over, and then they just make more tech. In fact, let's start with a few tech things you should know. Netflix announced it'd establish an internal game studio based in Helsinki, Finland. Now, you may say, hey, Netflix, they own some other game studios. They own three other game studios, but this will be the first building games from scratch. The studio will be led by Marco Lastica, who previously worked at Zynga, developing Farmville 3, and before that, in EA's mobile division. Apple has confirmed it is assembling iPhone 14 models in India at a Foxconn facility near Chennai. It's expected to go on sale in India later this year. This is part of Apple diversifying where it assembles its phone. Apple began assembling iPhones in India in 2017, but up until now, that was only older generations, so they're now doing the current generation in India as well. According to documents seen by Reuters, the Indian government proposed smartphone makers make hardware changes to support its regional navigation satellite system, otherwise known as NAVIC, in addition to GPS by the start of 2023. NAVIC became operational in 2018. Uptik has maybe not been where the Indian government wants it, and so they're thinking about mandating it in smartphones. Apple, Xiaomi, and Samsung reportedly sought until 2025 to support NAVIC, citing higher research and production costs. Got to build the radios to support all that. The UK's Information Commissioner's office has been busy lately putting everybody on notice, and the latest to get a notice of intent is TikTok. The ICO said it has reached a provisional view. I want to have more provisional views. I might think this. I'm not sure. Give me a moment. Anyway, provisional view that TikTok's app breached UK data laws between May 2018 and July 2020. According to the notice, TikTok may have processed the data of children who were younger than 13 years old without parental consent. TikTok has 30 days to respond to that notice, and the New York Times sources say TikTok and the U.S. White House have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security concerns, but we don't have any details on that deal. It isn't finalized yet, so we'll keep an eye out for that. Has this been going on for literally years? TikTok harbs the information. Why are there still news stories like people are surprised that this is happening? Well, that's why it's a provisional view. Yeah, because they're not surprised. They're just trying to decide what emotion fits. Alright, and the International Telecommunications Union is a 157-year-old organization originally formed to coordinate telegraphs across countries a noble mission indeed. In 1949, it integrated into the United Nations system. It does not govern the internet despite headlines you may read. That's common misconception, but it does have 193 member countries and 900 participating organizations, so it can decide things that affect the internet simply because of all the Coteries have agreed to it. So, who runs it? It has a lot of influence over the internet, particularly over standards and interoperability. And this week in Romania, the ITU is choosing a new head to succeed. China's Zhao Hulin was led the ITU for the past eight years. Down to two people. Former U.S. Commerce Department telecom expert Doreen Bogdan-Martin and forever Russian Deputy Minister of Telecommunications Rashid Ismailov. Hmm, yeah. It's not like, I mean, we've had China, a person from China in charge of it for the past eight years, and there's been pressure to do things, but it's not like one person just makes all the rules, but which way they get pushed, it makes a difference. Who's in charge? Alright, let's talk about copyright. We're only just starting to get into the intellectual property implications of text to image generation, open AI, all of the algorithmically generated content out there. But we do have a few precedents. We do have a few rules being made. For one, Dolly 2 and some of the other text image engines say that you can use generated images for commercial purposes. They just build that in. We're going to avoid that whole issue. If you use it from us, you can do whatever you want, sell it, whatever. That doesn't clear up all the potential issues, though. For instance, if my intellectual property is used in the data set to train the engine, does that give me any say in what it outputs? There's also lots of concerns about whether the person who pressed the button really has the right to sell the image. Those are the kinds of things behind Getty's recent ban on text to image generation from algorithms. But we're getting another test, eh, Rich? Yeah, so this kind of comes from the copyright perspective. And we have some precedent for how kind of the US Copyright Office at least has dealt with AI. Back in 2019, they ruled that an AI engine cannot be the author of a copyrighted work, something tied to Stephen Thaler with the work by the algorithm Creativity Machine. So he tried to say that Creativity Machine was the author of a work, and the ruling was upheld earlier this year, so it took a while for them to hit the appeals board. And they maintained that copyrighted works have to include an element of human authorship. Not that they can't use AI tools, but an AI isn't a human, so you need human authorship to have a copyright in your name. In the United States. Now, Thaler has succeeded in this in other places in the world, but just not in the United States. And we're talking about the United States because of what happened with Chris Custanova. AI-generated images can be used in a copyrighted work. That's what Rich was pointing out there. And New York-based artist Chris Custanova received a US Copyright Registration for the AI-generated graphic novel or algorithmically. When we say AI, it's useless, right? AI can mean anything. This is an algorithm. This was one of those text-to-image generator. Generated a graphic novel called Zarya of the Dawn. And that copyright is effective as of September 15th. So it has been granted. It is in force. Custanova used the mid-journey commercial image synthesis service for the work and was clear in registering the work that there was an assist from an algorithm. Custanova wrote the story, created the layout, and shows how to piece the images together. So the human did a lot of work, but didn't alter the generated works in any other way. So the actual images you see came out of the computer. Custanova's graphic novel is available for free. If you want to take a look at it, you can find it at aicomicbooks.com. This definitely feeds into a, is it a tool? Is it okay to use the tool? A lot of people are saying that the main character in this book, Zarya of the Dawn, looks a lot like Zendaya. Are we going to hear Zendaya's people put a claim on this? Chris, you make graphic novels. You sell graphic novels. How does this make you feel? Well, I mean, this is an interesting thing, because first of all, what do the robots feel about this? I mean, what are they going to say? And once they take over, they're going to remember this, okay? But what's interesting is when you make the graphic novels, obviously, as a writer, he still wrote them, but it more affects the artists and the art, and I would probably ask my artist what he thought. But it really is an interesting thing, because it's like, well, if the art and the style is created by the artist, or is it generated by the AI, and it's, it goes, so many things go into a graphic novel between the art and the layout and the lettering and all of those things. It's a great question. Like, what is the human contribution? What are the AI? I don't think we're completely there yet, as far as like the AI making like a work of art, completely as far as like a book or a graphic novel, like, you know, a still image, sure. You know, but this kind of happened before. I don't know if you remember that game, The Last of Us, when it first came out. There was some controversy about whether or not that was Ellen Page's face for Ellie, and like, that kind of got, you know, a little bit of controversy there. So, especially when your AI main character looks like a famous actress, that might also be a problem. I mean, that's the first thing I saw, too, when I saw that image. Kostinova is obviously making a point here, and very validly has said, I want to test these waters. That's why I did this. I think in practice, you would still have an artist to help with layout, to help with image selection, to refine individual images in order to touch them up, make them look exactly the way you look. You want them to look. You probably also might want to modify them so they don't look so much like Zendia, so you don't get into that situation. Because it's not just, are you trying to use someone's likeness the way it was with The Last of Us. This is also the idea that the algorithm was trained on images of Zendia, most likely, right? And so there's that other side of the element as well. And one thing it could do is also speed up an artist's work. Like if the artist does the original drawings and style and compositions, and then the AI kind of goes in and like takes different angles or positions of like what the artist is drawing. So in a way, there's a real positive thing here if it could speed up, because let me tell you, graphic novels and comics take forever to make. And if there's like a computer way to speed it up without losing human element, I think that could be very valuable. Well, speaking of human elements, as far as iconic performances go, it's hard to name something more distinctive than James Earl Jones' voice of Darth Vader, defining the character since 1977. But Jones is now 91 years old, so many have wondered how the character would be portrayed after Jones can no longer perform the voice with the continuing Star Wars content plan since Disney bought the IP seems like a pressing concern, at least for Disney. But, you know, Tom, it seems like we know what... Yes, we have an answer. Rather than task another actor with stepping into the role, it seems the plan will be to simulate it. With Jones' consent, he has signed off on this. Disney has worked with a Ukrainian company called Respeacher. They used archival recording and trained a proprietary algorithm to create new dialogue for Vader, focusing efforts to create Jones' voice as it sounded in 1977. My guess is they feel like if they need Vader to sound older, they can do that. But they trained it mostly on his work from 1977. Now, I noticed this too. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, no. Well, that's kind of the litmus test, right? It's like whether people will notice this and a lot of people already have. It was featured in the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Some of the scenes were there with, I guess, spoiler Darth Vader. It was featuring the work by Respeacher. According to Lucasfilm's Matthew Wood telling Vanity Fair, James did guide the algorithm's performance through many of these scenes so it still has a hand in forming the character. We've also heard the tech for Young Luke Skywalker in the book of Boba Fetza. But Chris, I'm curious, in terms of hearing it in your reaction, did it pass the James Earl Jones human test? You know, especially if you kind of know that it's not the actor, you kind of have that little subconscious bug in your mind. You're like, well, that's not really going to sound like it. And they do. They sound close, but they're still not the same as like hearing an actual human speak. But, you know, when you see how close people are getting, like with Respeacher, especially with like the Mark Hamill stuff and with the James Earl Jones, you know that we're getting closer to it actually being super close where it's almost indistinguishable. But I'll give you a little bit of trivia about James Earl Jones' voiceover and what a great guy he is. Like, I would work with audio designers and they would occasionally have James Earl Jones do voiceovers for like different spots and stuff, and he would do them remotely. And of course, all the audio designers would be like, oh, well, this is great. Can you record something for my voicemail or whatever or something like that? Because they would always ask.  Like, you see how cool this is. So what James Earl Jones would do is he would say, all right, this is what it would cost me to do it. I'll do it for you for free, but I want you to give that money to charity. Oh, wow. So that's what he would do for all of those audio requests for voicemails. I wonder if he is going to require Respeacher to do the same thing. That would be great. Yeah. Did you, Chris, did you know it was Respeacher doing some of Vader's lines in Obi-Wan? I did not. But I'm curious if you knew that. I didn't, but I suspected because I didn't know for sure because we had kind of gone through with Mark Hamill, but it was like, it was on that bubble of like, is it or isn't it? Well, I think that's the key is when you saw Luke Skywalker show up in the Mandalorian, you knew, OK, this is either going to sound like old Mark Hamill or it's been processed, right? And when it didn't sound like old Mark Hamill, you're like, oh, OK, they processed it. So that biases you. You're already thinking like, OK, so this was synthesized. Does it really sound like him or not? Whereas in Obi-Wan, I remember thinking like, wow, he sounds really good, like almost too good. Like almost not the way I would think James Earl Jones today would sound. Did they process it? But I also did not know. And so I think that's a truer test of how good it was when you aren't coming in with it going, well, I know they did something to it. And whether you notice or not.  So you already have kind of that layer of like distortion, which can also hide any imperfections in the voice. So you've got an image there, too. Yeah, I think where. Go ahead, Rich. I think where, though, like both in both of these instances, we're still dealing with the actor is still able to be involved in the creation of this character that they defined in so many ways. But where I think, and that's why I think when reading this, I don't get like, I don't get like a weird uncanny valley even feeling like that because I was like, OK, it's based on their voice. They're involved with it. I think where it gets interesting and where a lot of these companies that are dealing with these long tail IPs are going to get to at some point. Disney seems like maybe one of the first to get there is trying to keep, you know, these characters around and using these types of methods instead of doing recasting and where it gets to, oh, now we're dealing with the estate of this actor. And the not definitely the legality of that is, I would think, fairly clear. I'm not an inheritance expert or anything like that. But I think the perception of it is definitely different when we're talking about actors that can still be involved with it. And certainly both these were by all accounts versus, you know, if if Grand Marv Tarkin's voice is, you know, brought back the same way as he was visually. If there's a new Maltese Falcon movie, then, you know, like, all right, I don't know if that's Humphrey Bogart. I think there's something going on. You know, for a second, I really thought Millennium Falcon, even though you said Maltese Falcon just because of the conversation. But yeah, I in the vein of all of that, I think it is important that this is the precedent of living actor says, with my blessing, with my guidance, with, you know, my wishes, I will hand it over to the computer. It is more difficult when the actor is already gone. But I think this is a good precedent to follow, to say, let's not wait until they're gone and then have a big argument over whether this is okay.  It may feel a little morbid to come to somebody like, Hey, so when you die, you know, but you never know, like even if people don't die, their voices could become, you know, changed by illness or just not able to get up and get around and do stuff like that. And it's important to have a succession plan, so to speak. Yeah, audio wise, for sure. Yeah. All right, let's turn it over to Dan Campos in Mexico City with an update on some tech that's helping players at this year's World Cup. Aficionados que viven la intensidad del fútbol. This is NTX with some tech and sport news. The FIFA announced the release of FIFA Player, where the actual football players will be able to view data related to their performance during the matches taking place in the Qatar World Cup. The data will be synchronized with videos taken during the games in order to have the most efficient evaluation at key moments. The information collected won't be available to the public, but to the players themselves, their clubs and some selected fear parries. Currently, our professional soccer leagues monitor their players using the EPTS, the Electronic Performance Security System, which uses wearables to collect information and was introduced in 2017. For more information about this, check NTX's latest episode. Back to you, amigos. Very much, Dan. This is, though it's cool about this, it's like for years, all the sports games have just been chasing this realism and this almost feels like the continued video gamification of actual, like it's the opposite now. And that, to me, is the most fascinating thing about all that. It's so cool. Pretty soon, they'll be able to simulate the voices of the soccer players, as they pretend they're injured. Folks, if you haven't thought about something on the show, but you don't know our email address, let me fix that. Our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. Recently on an episode of Star Trek Lower Decks, the main characters who, if you don't know, live centuries in the future were playing a board game that included holographic elements, along with good old fashioned game pieces and dice and a board. Now, that may sound silly to you, and Lower Decks is an animated comedic take on Star Trek, so maybe it was, but it's not far off to some of the things we're seeing now. Chris, what kind of tech are we seeing in board games? You know, it's pretty amazing. Board games have seen a resurgence over the last couple of years, and there's different levels of tech as it goes into board games, and there's always the purists who are like, I don't want any tech in my board game, but there are certain ways where it's super beneficial. When you have a super complicated game like Gloomhaven, which we play a lot, but it takes a very long time to set up, play and tear down even for one adventure, you can have what are called helper apps. The app will kind of keep track of like monsters hit points and the scenario that you're on and the rewards and the player conditions and all of those things, so it kind of helps you keep track of everything. The other thing it will also do is kind of like hide information to make it a little more dynamic, like where if you're looking at the scenario board it kind of has everything that you're going to see in the adventure, but the actual app can kind of hide those things. And then the next level up which is also really fun is like a game like Mansions of Madness or Return to Dark Tower where the app is integrated actually into the gameplay where you can't play it without the app. So the way you can look at it is like when we used to play Dungeons and Dragons but there was always a DM, a Dungeon Master, well that Dungeon Master is taken over by the technology so everyone could kind of play together and nobody has to actually be the Dungeon Master, which is really fun, especially in co-op games. Like Return to Dark Tower you have a giant tower in the middle of the game which is fun but the app does all the heavy lifting it tells you where to put the monsters and when the tower is going to spin and what the victory conditions are and gives you quests so it's integrated into the actual gameplay. So I really like that approach because it kind of simplifies things and I know purists don't like it but I do because it it kind of takes that away from like where's the monster go now I have to have a player that actually has to worry about the enemies but there's something on the horizon that I have only seen in videos but it's super expensive but it's kind of like the next level of board gaming and it's called AR Gaming and there's a company called Tilt5 that is actually creating holographic board games. So what happens is you actually have a board and then you all wear AR glasses and the games come alive right actually in front of you now it'll be a mix of classic games or new games but what's interesting about it is where's the line then where it's just a video game or it's a board game like what tactile things that you can have like you can move pieces around and roll dice or is everything just going to be like a wand and glasses and then which case okay well then it's a video game so dynamic for sure and I'm very anxious to see where it's going. Yeah I think one of the things that Stoic Squirrel brought up in our chat room now is that the tech can be controversial if it's required to play. Now Dark Tower the original had technology in it so it's kind of just carrying on the legacy there and it comes with the game but with the apps do you run into controversy where people are saying I don't know I don't want to use apps because I don't want to have to use the app myself and if some people are using apps then maybe that's going to give them an advantage etc etc. Well somebody's always angry about something on Reddit so sure yeah there's always somebody but my gaming group we're a little older so we're open to different ways of playing and I like playing it both ways like I like the you know the super low tech of a board game where you're turning over cards and moving pieces but I also like the AI assist and the that's basically controlling the game where you're playing against the game in an app but and like I said the AR the tilt 5 stuff I haven't seen yet I've only seen it in videos and it looks amazing I'm just not sure like you can't really tell like where what the experience is unless you actually do it so I'm very curious to see the problem is it's very expensive so it's a bit of a buy-in to try it out well and to your point about you know kind of this line of video game versus board game I mean I remember I mean even back in the PS3 days there was that PlayStation Eye camera and they had that game Eye of Judgment which was kind of the other side of this which was hey we have this incredible graphics processing software let's point a camera at a bunch of you know it was more of like a magic to gathering kind of card game like card combat game but that idea of hey we can we can add this element to it wasn't incredibly successful but like that idea always fascinated me that like we can have that and if you can not require the set console and with a wired camera and all that stuff and it's you know when AR glasses become more of a consumer good I can see that becoming super exciting and I really think at the end of the day the technology is going to be used as tools and it's going to be really about the designers and the artists on how they use it where I feel like there's going to be an AR board game that's super boring and like a video game or there's going to be one that's absolutely brilliant where it's going to be like the system seller where you can't play it there's like no experience like it so I think it's really going to be up to the creativity of the designers and that's one of the things that happened with Dark Tower I really felt like they mixed like the technology and the gameplay of like the old school 80s Dark Tower like like super well like it's not too complicated it's not gloomhaven but it's complicated enough that it's fun to play and it's just you know it's just fun to have a tower in the middle of the board that's bluetooth connected to your your tablet spitting skulls out at you so yeah yeah what's not to love right yeah good playing fun well till five if people are curious you only have to have five dollars to reserve it but the actual price will be three hundred fifty nine dollars for one set of glasses and you'll be very lonely if you only have one set so you're talking three fifty nine dollars for every person you want to play with right yeah well that's enough of living in a fantasy world on a tabletop let's move to a world where we smash things into asteroids yes our glorious present because let's face it if you're an enthusiast for either dinosaurs or disaster cinema from nineteen ninety eight you know that a massive asteroid hitting the earth is an existential concern and be clear there's no threat right now or indication that any asteroids are coming toward the earth calm down don't worry don't panic everything's fine but NASA's double asteroid redirection test or dart is being built as a planet a planetary defense test mission this will send a spacecraft traveling over fourteen thousand miles an hour to crash into the demorphos asteroid in an effort to alter its speed and orbit demorphos is about the size of the great pyramid of Giza so a nice nice size asteroid all things considered in case you're worried this should not knock the asteroid off its trajectory it wouldn't hit the earth nothing like that demorphos is a small asteroid orbiting a larger asteroid called diddy diddymos the impact should shorten its orbit around diddymos by about ten minutes a measurable amount just enough first to check that all our calculations are fine no need to worry everything is fine go about your daily lives the dart spacecraft will send back imagery and data up until the moment of impact and its companion craft the Italian leaky a cub will also monitor the crash the collision expected at seven fourteen p.m. eastern time on Monday the twenty six it takes about thirty eight seconds for light to travel from demorphos to earth so there will be a slight delay now I know a lot of you will be listening to this after the impact and so we're so sorry we got it so wrong yeah you know I feel like like you look at the timing of this is like well why now exactly we doing these these tests and you could tell like the best way to tell if it's a real serious threat or not is book a tour at JPL and when you're on the tour see how quickly people are moving back and forth and then you'll know what's what's going on or if your tour just gets cancelled yeah all right let's check out the mailbag we got a great one from Marty who wrote just finished the episode you were talking about Nvidia's announcement and their use of the usd format for the metaverse wanted to say I work in live events in production and the usd format has been gaining traction over the last year in our industry for media server projections XR etc work for the reasons you described we were just talking a few weeks ago about adding support for it into one of our products and it looks like it's going to be the new standard moving forward so we'll see where it goes but wanted to mention it's already being used and growing in applications outside of the metaverse to that's great Marty think it's good to hear from somebody inside the industry saying yes the standard Nvidia picked has got some momentum elsewhere as well yeah definitely good to hear from the real world and then Thor sent us a message in Patreon he said just finished listening to GDI 4361 and since you were discussing the future of casting and the benefits of short form content I wanted to share my experience from the fountain and podverse podcast apps both apps support clips users made clips that let you get a taste of a highlight from a longer podcast on fountain users can also like a clip by sending a small amount of Bitcoin otherwise known as satoshis the app is also trying to incentivize listening and clip creation by awarding currency when listening love to hear your thoughts about this and kind of the podcasting 2.0 spec if you check that out and there's some other cool apps that allow you to stream currency to the podcast while you listen to other cool features of the interest keeping things short I'll leave the rest for you to explore yeah thank you Thor I appreciate you sending these along we'll have links to both of those the podverse and fountain in the show notes I see a lot of these kinds of efforts they're very interesting to look at and so I always watch to see like are they getting critical mass are they getting people to sign up and so I'll keep an eye on these as well and definitely well let's say a big thanks to Chris Mancini for being with us you always got some cool stuff going on what's going on with you these days absolutely been working on the new company white cat entertainment were kind of like a boutique publisher of like books graphic novels and podcasts and the two podcasts of course one of them you've been on what are you watching we kind of go through like well in entertainment to make entertainment and see kind of what they're watching movies and TV but the other one that I've been really happy with and been growing is the journeys of Professor Atwood which is a podcast to kind of help people tone down anxiety help with insomnia and help them sleep and it's a narrative podcast where you don't have to do anything it just I wanted to make something that could actually just help people where you listen to these stories about a professor who goes on these journeys and then has a bed of sound effects and music that kind of like is almost like technologically specific to help you relax and go to sleep so it's kind of a very very calculated funny weird narrative journey that can kind of help you relax and who couldn't use a little bit more relaxation right now so that they're all free you can subscribe White Cat Entertainment as you watch the asteroid get smashed into perfect follow up aren't coming near us at all don't worry but if you need to relax we now know get some goodness well it's Monday so we always want to thank our new boss and we have a new boss who just started backing us on Patreon Chad! Chad's the best you could be tomorrow's Chad patreon.com slash DTNS Patrons stick around I can't imagine we're not going to talk a little more about Vader and comic books and all that kind of stuff Good Day Internet has all that you can also catch the show live Monday through Friday 4 p.m. Eastern 200 UTC at dailytechnewshow.com live back tomorrow talking Raptor Lake with Patrick Norton talk to you then this show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program


For our special Halloween edition of School of Hustle, there will be no tricks, just treats. Jackie Sorkin, the candy queen and founder of Candytopia, brings the savvy to satisfy our sweet tooth. Success is related to wearing lollipop necklaces and I kind of see that you are also wearing a lollipop necklace and I'm very competitive so. This is School of Hustle, the show where we find advice and inspiration from those who are making their own way. I'm Shannon, the VP of Social here at GoDaddy and I absolutely live and breathe the hustle of business. I think you're going to like today's conversation. We have the fabulous Jackie Sorkin and this beautiful person is the CEO of the Hollywood Candy Girls, co-founder of Candytopia, star of the TLC sugary show Candy Queen. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. That was the sweetest intro ever. Thank you. I love doing anything related to hustle and just the story of working hard and making dreams come true so thank you. Well you're making some dreams come true in Pen Plaza right now. Let me tell you it is a candy sweetness happening with Candytopia making it to Manhattan. Yeah, I'm absolutely living like I just say right now I'm in dream come true scenario. This is like everything you work so hard for and you know I'm a big believer in the whole dream big mentality. Now it's like dream bigger because when you make it in New York it's like now I can make it anywhere so it's exciting. Well with Candytopia you've literally brought Willy Wonka's Wonderland to life but I'm sure that wasn't your first idea as an entrepreneur. Yeah no I think that my first memory of entrepreneurship or wanting to be a business woman you know was at 6 years old and I was starting with a simple as the lemonade stand and mine was mine was a lemonade stand on steroids and I didn't just eliminate I had cookies and I had 10 kinds of cookies and 10 flavors of lemonade and it all just kind of started there. I was always a creative child for sure but I was always really inspired by women in business and I just wanted to be a badass chicken business. Well you clearly have achieved massive success and been very successful. What is the best piece of advice and the worst piece of advice that you've gotten along the way? There's something about entrepreneurs that really refusing to give up and and we have this spirit about us right and whether you're a male or female when you are super hyper passionate relentless persistence. I think all those things are just so important because when you dream big you also come up to many many obstacles. I've been called crazy for 10 years. I literally have become numb to being told that the ideas were unnecessary silly nonsense crazy intuitively I always felt like no the world is allowed to be happy and my medium just happens to be candy and sweets. I think one of the worst pieces of advice and something that will probably might continue to happen is when somebody wants you to change and when and sometimes in business people want you to be less of this and more of that. I completely think that we adjust and we grow and we learn 100% but the things that are your magic the things that are your your secret sauce what makes you you you know I've gotten here by being my my quirky big dreaming kind of wide-eyed self and it's works for me. You've had success obviously with Candytopia and you've even been on TV and both of these could be considered a moment where you've made it but to you when you think about it what was that first moment in your journey that you felt this is my made-it moment. Yeah you know I think that I am a highly ambitious person I'm kind of like many entrepreneurs you're never content you're always looking for the next thing that inspires you and as creatives and artists I remember when I launched my company Hollywood Candy Girls in LA got a call to do some events for Oprah and I died it was like mama Oprah the Queen. I literally was like so pregnant and I'm this giant pregnant woman and Oprah calls for an event and it's like in the Hollywood Hills up 500 flights of stairs and I'm dying and I can't breathe and there was no way that I wasn't going to work and I think I was like 6 days away from delivering and didn't know what what the hell I was doing to be honest but I knew that I got a job for Oprah and it was everything to me and she was launching her own network at the time and I walked up these flights of stairs with my team and I was carrying stuff I shouldn't have been carrying I should have been walking I should have been in bed and I walked into this room and created this beautiful display of of a sparkling glittering candy treats desserts all custom with her logo in her face and I hear someone turn around and I hear someone say oh my gosh who did this this is amazing and I just turned around with my giant belly to say thank you and it was her and I was like I literally turned around and I was so you know I was pregnant and tired and she put her hands on my belly and she just said thank you for being here and she's like get some rest and I was like never so that moment for me just because of what Oprah you know she's one of the visionaries the world changers the game changers of our time was so honored and so then she blessed my daughter and I hope she blessed my stomach she blessed my daughter it was this religious moment it was amazing and I worked the whole party that night yeah I'll never forget that when you were dreaming up Candytopia what steps did you take to turn that wild idea into a reality patience persistence and timing truly is everything the U.S. market was finally ready for these types of experiences that you now see they're very common now um Candytopia you know we like to call ourselves a mini theme park as well so it's a we kind of feel like we've created this new lane in space for ourselves go daddy in particular means something really interesting to me because I like to create names what is the website going to be so I'm a like manic domain buyer and I love buying domain so literally when I have an idea like Hollywood candy girls I would is it available and I go to this thing called go daddy Hollywood candy girls dot com dot us dot org dot ca dot everything and I was like give them all and I literally would buy all of them and then I would buy every other domain that sounds like that domain and then I would buy everything in that space the sweet life the candy this the candy girl and I just literally have done that with every business I own so many domains you guys I could probably be a very wealthy person but yeah it is part of my creative process what do you want people to learn from you I don't just kind of making the most out of your life I think that you know I'm one of those people that's like one life YOLO sister do it all it's the idea of of you know take life by the horns and don't unseize the day and take every opportunity it's be brave you know be brave be bold I know that not everybody naturally has that in their personality and I didn't either but this idea of just going for it is so powerful my team gets terrified when they hear what do you want to do next and I'm like well now that you asked you know Candytopia in a very short amount of time has just I feel like the U.S. market has wrapped their arms around us so tightly from LA to San Francisco to New York City it is the tremendous feedback of the people that want this product they are coming out we have we sell out before we even open which is incredible people are sharing hundreds of thousands of posts and shares on social which is really our feedback so I think that what's next for me you know people always say do you ever rest you ever take a break I'm like why would I do that I'm a Latina in the U.S. making jobs and giving people jobs and my immigrant parents would be thrilled and they are thrilled and I think the end game honestly is I think Candytopia will be a theme park and I think that the way that our team has so intelligently kind of created this brand and as we continue to mold the brand and develop it we call ourselves now a mini theme park and I think the world's ready for this new candy brand of you know that promotes just living your best life and your sweetest life to kind of become something bigger we went ahead and let the go daddy tribe know on social that you are coming okay people were very excited and we have a couple of questions from the tribe okay now the first question I particularly like because it's actually not about candy at all it's about your fashion got it I know you have a pair of purple pants that people absolutely love Mina posted on instagram please ask her where did she get those purple pants you know what Mina thank you because I literally had to go buy an outfit for opening night and we were installing Candytopia I was like I don't have an outfit and ran across the street to the Manhattan mall and literally like went into like New York and company and was like I need some great pants and I need to call and I saw my Willy Wonka purple pants and died and you know they're like this satin-y material they were great and they were all clearance for $29 and yeah they were great and I literally everything I've done people like what are those pants I need them in every color now but yeah I love those pants the next question comes from Rachel and Rachel is wondering why candy um you know why why candy is like why would you not ever really um here you know the thing is uh candy is something that universally makes everyone happy and um you know I I really love that my medium is simply candy to speak this bigger message to the world of just you know of course I'm one of these I'm kind of one of these hippies that want to fix the world and peace and love and I really believe that and you know I'm a complete lover of humanity and people and positivity and joy candy is just the way that I get to connect that message to the people I want to continue to get personal okay we're gonna lighten it up though okay we're gonna speed things up we're gonna lighten things up and really get in and get to know you okay we're gonna play a game called hustle time so Jonathan would you please bring in the cards oh my gosh it makes me so nervous you guys okay I want you to feel like the deck is fair so you may shuffle or cut or do whatever you feel you need to do okay okay I'm not even good at this in Vegas so here that's my shuffle and they're probably gonna fly all over the place so we are going to set a timer for 60 seconds okay and I am going to read the question to you and you say the first thing that comes to mind okay Jonathan can we have 60 seconds on the clock okay favorite breakfast food oh god pop tart least favorite candy oh uh uh non-parallel go to karaoke song I will survive boozy brunch or morning workout boozy brunch how would your mother describe you look camping or glamping oh glamping dream dinner guest mama Oprah again would you rather fly or talk to animals uh talk to animals biggest splurge um I am finally able to buy the full-size bottle of perfume not the tiny size or steal the samples what do you want a desert island with you what do I want or who do I want one thing lots of food surfs up or cocktails poolside cocktails what's the first app you open in the morning Instagram best place you've traveled New York City a favorite kid from Charlie the chocolate factory uh charlie m&m's or skittles m&m's describe yourself in three words um persistent persistent never give her up for and fun okay so for the moment of truth one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 what does that mean that's a lot that's up there this is definitely leading absolutely you were on the podium you've placed lady thank you nice job very much honored oh thank you guys it was super fun it was I had a lot of fun too um there's one last thing that we must do before you go and it involves noodle a 10 year old pug and an instagram celebrity oh and a veteran on the go daddy social team jonathan you want to bring noodle in I love this oh my gosh now give me this person animal thing so this in closing I'd love for you to give one last piece of advice to noodle he is um obviously doing very well with his instagram account he has the best smile it's okay it's okay and work should be fun yeah and I am wondering what advice you would give to noodle and those out there about keeping positive in life and in the workplace um I feel like can I just talk to noodle yes can I get in like my mom voice can you do that noodle noodle noodle um yeah I think it's really important noodle to um you know to really not let any dream crushers come your way because there's a lot of dream crushers out there and uh and and never lose your magic and your your specialness and uh you know it's it's it's uh even that stinky breath of yours is really making you you so yeah I think that you know same advice say it's okay uh same advice that I would give uh you know my kids I would give to noodle to uh be yourself and don't be afraid of being yourself because in the end that's your magic well that's a wrap so fun thank you so much for being here thank you guys for having me this was amazing so fun I hope that everyone enjoyed the episode I please I encourage you to subscribe be with us we're going to be bringing a school of hustle weekly and we want you to watch and subscribe oh yeah I want you to watch and subscribe this episode was so fun I mean it was just so many layers of stuff please subscribe


Hi everyone, Joe for jasmuscasewrakes.com coming at you with 2019 NT football number block. This is for pick your team 8. It's a multi-team random number block randomizer So it's like a break within a break There's a random number block inside that pick your team, which will be coming up next big. Thanks to these folks for giving this a shot There are the numbers right there. Let's roll it. Let's randomize it five and a six eleven times Too high random at all or too high of a number three four five six seven eight nine ten And 11 the final time after 11 times. We've got Jared down to Ryan five and a six eleven times for the numbers one two three four five six seven eight nine ten And 11 the final time after 11 we got seven down to five remember Zero gets any and all redemptions including one of one redemptions per usual in our item description. You'll see it. Read those folks Jared with seven Dustin with four Leonard with six rich with one send in with nine Leonard with eight Zach Paul with zero So you'll get any and all redemptions for the Arizona Cardinals Denver Broncos Washington Redskins Kansas City Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys Including one of ones Which will make rich sad, but rich will still get live one of ones Dustin with three Jared with two and Ryan with five All right coming up in a separate video will be the break itself Thanks, we'll see you for that one. Bye. Bye


Haha, I'm on a ruba. Well, I'm here working though, but most people are here enjoying free time We often talk about the value of a work in jobs, but what's the value of free time today's topic is the sharing economy Economics, it's the understanding of value creation and value distribution So obviously if you are poor then you need to focus on the first how to create value how to make money But then when that problem is solved you can shift focus towards distribution how to use that money wisely At least not lose it all on an individual level. This is easy to understand But in the bigger scale as society, it's quite hard So if you make money, should you then pay for someone else so you end up paying for your neighbors kids to go to school? Well, we don't call this pay for someone else money. We call it taxation In the eye of the capitalist the US economy is currently very strong a booming stock market low unemployment rates and so on But at the same time millions of Americans Can't afford to go on vacation. They have to choose between a career and parenthood They can't retire 40 million Americans are on the food stamp program Doesn't sound like strong economy to me and it doesn't have to be like this The US just like any other wealthy nation have already been through the hard and labor-intensive production phase It's a rich country. They could decide to choose another path for the future So let's imagine the future So we have this high-tech future where technology AI and robots take most of our jobs They can pretty much solve anything with technology Now there are two scenarios.  The capitalist has nothing. It's game over So again, obviously we probably need to shift focus from how to create value to how to distribute it And that's the second scenario in a civilized high-tech future then We spend so much more energy time focus on how to redistribute wealth So that we create a solid sharing economy and in a solid sharing economy No one needs to worry about the costs of free time or sustainability versus linear growth Now the point I'm trying to make is not that we will all be able to just spend our days long holiday on Caribbean islands like this It's just that we need to understand that the 21st century Opens up for a new economy for a new paradigm where the winners will be the ones who are really good at Distribution rather than creation What do you think you think Tax is theft or any other thoughts, please share them in the comments and like always if you want more hit subscribe And I'll see you in the future