Do you see the difference between the Logitech C920, the guy on the left, and the Logitech C930E webcam, a guy on the right? Clearly the 930E is so much crisper. The color is better. Did you expect there to be such a big difference? I certainly didn't. You told me to get the C930E in a video. Click that I up there in case you missed it, where I asked you for help. I said, George needs your help. And let me read some of the comments from that video. Here is the video where we were reviewing the C920 or the C930 on Amazon. And in the comments below, you were saying that the Blue Yeti and the C920 are okay for now. Clearly the C930 is much, much better. And it was British Gaming United that recommended the C930 as an upgrade. Thank you for that suggestion, British Gaming United. And R6, Agar Ayo, said, change the introducer. Are you tired of George already? Are you want to upgrade from George to George 2.0? It's like Ali 2.0 from the 100. How many of you are watching that TV series? I personally love it. And we're running a contest right now. Only two more days left featuring this video. You can use it in your videos to create a meme or something funny, anything you like. Take clips of that video and enter the contest. Click that I up there to learn all about the contest, how to enter, where to get the video from. It's all in that I. And I'd love to see more of your entries. For the people that recommended the C920 like somewhere aquarium, does this change your mind and will you now instead upgrade to the C930? Tell me in the comments below. And the Mr. Chief also said he prefers the C920 and the Blue Yeti. I now have a pop filter on my Blue Yeti, which I will show you in the future. Does my voice sound any different? Does it sound more clear with less pops? Can you tell a difference? Tell me in the comments below if you use a pop filter in your microphone because you found it makes a difference. This is all to help the freedom family grow together because, say it with me, that is the spirit of freedom. Where we all help each other grow together as a family. Let's read some more of your comments. This is Ethan said it's not necessary to get a 60 FPS camera, although that would be sick, meaning great. How many of you are using a 60 FPS camera? This is only 30 FPS because the C930e does not support 60 FPS, but tell me if you're using it and send us links to your videos with 60 FPS so we can look at the difference. Empire ants suggested why not get a separate canon camera for $700. The problem with cameras like that are they don't link to the computer through USB, so you have to take out the cartridge or transfer the file to your computer before you can start editing. I was really hoping to have something that can go directly to the computer, save to the hard drive, not to a separate SD card. Tell me in the comments below if you know of any cameras that let you automate the transfer. So in other words, does a DSLR camera exist where you can get the footage saved to your hard drive as soon as you finished recording? I would love to know. LR Gaming said George, please help. My network just says freedom and not MCN freedom. As I explained, it's okay for it to say freedom. In fact, it should say simply freedom because we renamed it to just freedom before we used to be called MCN freedom. And the reason for that is because we have a Twitter handle Twitter.com slash MCN freedom. We couldn't get Twitter.com slash freedom and we have Facebook.com slash MCN freedom. In fact, we also have YouTube.com slash MCN freedom, but we were able to get YouTube.com slash freedom. So that's why we renamed everything on YouTube to just simply freedom. Let's read some more of your comments. Haribo had a very big problem. He got a strike on his channel for commenting too much. So I contacted YouTube and I asked them to remove the strike because there's nothing wrong with commenting too much. Haribo, tell me in the comments below if you've seen any strike removal on your channel. I haven't heard back from YouTube yet, but as soon as I do I will let you know. Next comment is from DitterRS. He is a RuneScape channel. He said he commented on the last video but got no response. So here it is again. Hey George, hopefully you'll respond to this. Check. I've just restarted my YouTube channel focusing around old school RuneScape. How many of you are still playing RuneScape? Tell me in the comments below. I've never gotten into the game, but I know many of you play it, so I'd love to hear from you. Most of my videos, like my PK commentaries, that's player killing, and my money making guides are getting good views for a channel of my size. However, I'm not getting subscribers. Please remind, I remind people to subscribe in every video and I started with end cards, but I really like some tips to get viewers to subscribe and come back to my videos. Well, the first concern is how many people are playing RuneScape. Maybe your audience pool is quite small. Not maybe one reason you're having trouble getting subscribers, but let's have a look at your channel and see if we can give you any tips. What's up, Burzuz and those who picked the news, my name is Ditter, and welcome back to another video. Today is going to be my second PK commentary. I'm going to be using it as a VHS again. I have the same stats as the last video, but I'm using strength army instead of the army glory, because I want to hit some higher hits. So my first suggestion would be your channel trailer is clearly showing what your channel is about, RuneScape, but I would love to see a video that actually welcomes me to your channel to says that says, Hi guys, this is a RuneScape focus channel. Here are some of the best videos that you will see video one clip, video two clip and use the card feature in the top right corner. I should be seeing an eye here that would take me to those videos that you are featuring in your channel trailer. I think that will help you get subscribers who from people who do visit your channel. What's up, Burzuz? And if we look at your channel again, you don't have any playlist. In fact, you have nothing underneath your main video. That's not a good sign. You really should put your best videos in a playlist right beneath your main channel trailer. Let's have a look at your videos.  I don't, they look like they're just the standard thumbnails that YouTube generates. Are they? If so, spend a little time and add some text to your thumbnail, make it more clear about what each video is based on the thumbnail. Like say something like PK big letters in the thumbnail. If it's a PK commentary like this one is, I hope you can, here's an example that you've already done, huge money making method. That's clear, but all of your other video thumbnails look like they're just the defaults. So hope you can improve on that. So sadly, I have not been convinced to subscribe to your YouTube channel, ditter RS. But if you make the changes that I suggested, maybe I will, and certainly I think others will. So I hope you found this video helpful in deciding which webcam you should buy. Do you have any comparison videos showing two pieces of hardware side by side so that we can all make better decisions when we're deciding whether to buy A or B? Send us links to those videos down there in the comments below. In fact, send us links to any videos that you feel will help the freedom family grow following our spirit. Who am I? I am Papa George, CEO and founder of this beautiful family called Freedom. And you've been watching. And we will grow together as a family, because this is the freedom family. You are part of it. We are all part of it. And we're all growing together. So grow with us and partner with Freedom. That play now button right there on the video bar is all you need to click to get started.


This tale is titled It's Halloween.  I have a costume, of course, many in fact. They're all just still in the boxes because I couldn't find the time or energy to pick one. Outside, I'm sure the neighbors and their kids are enjoying a night of parties and scares, marvelling at the sights and sounds and tastes everyone has on offer. I'm sure none have given my undecorated apartment door much more than a passing glance. I didn't even bother to put a candy bowl outside. As I silently listen to the bustle and chatter, I feel the emptiness within me grow once more, eating away at my solar, what's left of it at least. I think back to my childhood days. All the hours I've spent languishing like this, forced to eavesdrop on parental arguments, stewing in the atmosphere that permeated the house like a thick fog. The feeling starts to burn, and tears start to well around my clenched eyelids as the memories reach a fever pitch. And then, I sense a figure in the room with me. I open my eyes. It's standing in the corner, its head almost reaching the ceiling. The black cloth it wears billows gently in the current of the overhead fan. Most noticeable of all, though, is the large circular mirror it has instead of a face. Through which I have a wide-angle view of my sprawled, pathetic form. We stare at each other, for a minute or so. You'd think I would have clambered out of bed or shouted in shock, but something about this entity's aura tells me it means no harm. Eventually it starts moving, slowly and soundlessly gliding across the carpeted floor of my bedroom until it reaches the foot of my bed. It reaches out with a black-gloved hand and rests it on my shoulder. It stays motionless for a couple of seconds, and in the awkward stillness, I say the first thing that comes to mind. Spooky. A squeeze, light and reassuring, and a slight movement of its head in a fashion I recognize from when people smile at my jokes. And then, as quickly as it appears, the figure is gone. I lay there for a while, processing what I had witnessed.  I lift myself off the bed and head to the bathroom. I open the door flick on the lights and notice a message on the mirror, written in the steam of a fresh bath that I wasn't planning on taking until tomorrow. I still think about you. About all that time we spent together on the playground. Although we don't keep in touch anymore, I still know that you care. I hope you know it's the same for me. Happy Halloween. Immediately, the burning starts to slightly fade. Ebbing, waning as a new emotion takes its place. The tears flow once more, but for once in my life, they aren't of malaise. I look down and see a small red chocolate part next to my toothbrush cup. Tonys. My favorite. I break off a piece, wash my face, and walk over to the costume boxes. I find a skeleton morph suit and decide to pair it with a tattered hoodie, some sweatpants, and a pair of sunglasses. A small orange bucket swings in my hand as I make my way to the front. There was a ghosty cow inside one of the miscellaneous boxes. I hang it up on the door. Some plastic pumpkins beside the frame as well. Stepping back, I admire my handiwork. It's not much, but it's charming at least. I sigh, smile softly, and walk out into the night. Happy Halloween, man. Thank you for listening.  Please become a patron or visit our merch store at the link in our bio to support our work. Secure. Contain. Protect.


to this, our 306th episode of Think Tech Hawaii's Human-Humane Architecture. And we is three of us, and we're broadcasting live from three different locations.  Hi DeSoto. Hello everyone. Me, Martin Despang, back tucked in his bathroom and the Waikiki Grant, not far away from you. And our guest is usually with us as well on the island, but today for good causes, he is out in the cold where we both have been before DeSoto and actually not far away of where you spend some time in your childhood. And that's in Detroit, Michigan. And that's our guest, Martin. Hi, Martin. Hello. Hello, García Riz. Hi, Martin. Hello, hello. Very nice to be here. Thank you for being with us. And what we wanna do today is we have a slightly different format that we're gonna try out with you, but it's also now the eighth or ninth time we're basically staying in what's on all our minds in Hawaii ever since the beginning of August when there was a fire destroying Lahaina. And it happened when I was shortly before coming back and our exotic escapism expert, Susanna charged me and us with doing something good about it. And that's now after DeSoto had been showing us the history of it at the very beginning. Then we had our exotic tropical met noblet with us from Danish architects back in Boston, which is very close to where you are right now, Martin, flushing out ideas for potential suggestions how to improve the situation.  And now it's about time to bring hope. And that's what we brought you and Martin because for the only few weeks into the semester, which is a fourth, we should say you actually had this ready already two weeks ago, but then we sent you out there to DeSoto. So what we will see here is now when we have already the slides basically running through behind us, if we can get that started. So we're gonna go through the entire slides that we have a chance to talk about today. So you will see in the background what we will talk about. But while these run through and give you a certain clue already, we wanna talk about the general scope of what we're doing here. So, Martin, please share with us these few weeks into the semester and what was on your mind during that. Yeah, but first of all, we were talking about a housing belonging and Martin asked us to develop a study about any tropical area. Of course, it was very clear that the right area was to talk here about Lahaina, about what happened and what's still happening in Maui. And the first approach was in a very simple way to say, okay, what is happening there, what was happening there before and what is happening there now. And the first thing is that there were many things as we see in this slide, we will talk about it later is that in Lahaina there were many things going on before the fires and these things are mainly related, of course, to the territory, to the geography, agriculture, tourism also in Lahaina, but also about people. And we started to think and with you, Martin, about what can and could be in our conceptual and as well in a very pragmatic way, the future development of what will be done in Lahaina. The idea that we developed is this structure that is touching as less as possible the ground, learning from the Tungkuan development. This is in China, this is a vernacular architecture which is what I think architecture should be, how architecture should be done in the future on which people live under the ground. So the idea is very simple, is to generate a new, a second ground floor, to think about what is happening in the real ground floor as one level and then a second ground floor on top of it. And we can talk about it a little bit later. The tree structure have proven along history in modernism, in vernacular architecture, in nature to be a very, let's say, intelligent way of developing. And this proposal is basically to develop trees, develop these kind of tree-shaped structures that can hold, as we see in this slide on the bottom left, a garden on an artificial container and a landscape underneath on which and on top, that on which we can, with this structure, live all around. Different ways of living, different than the most modern ways of living, more vernacular, more attached to ground, more trying to make this old idea of, let's call it the tribe, the community, the life, which is more organic than the more artificial, almost Christian idea of family. And the proposal is to generate a structure that can be lived organically, that can be divided organically from, like in plan, so from the top and in section, so from the side. It is very simple, as you see here is to develop this structure and then to generate modules to provide services, to provide security, to provide the resiliency, to provide accessibility, and then to leave people in an organic way. So here we see how this could be done. We could have units for a small, let's say, family, household, whatever we can, however we can call it, that are composed by one quarter or a half of this new tree structure, or it could be as big as three, four, five, and so on, even for other uses, different than houses because we have proven part of the success of Lohaine is that there is people living there and actually now that I am in Detroit, but we can talk about that later. The proposal is to develop a wooden structure that, again, has proven to be very, very resistant and very resilient, even if this is, of course, is something that scares us a little bit about what, after what happened in Lohaine. And again, in tropical weathers as in tropical, any tropical area in the Pacific and the world, that's in my hometown of Columbia, what we need is a shadow. We need a good shadow, we need ventilation. This project that we can also talk about it later that we developed in Columbia where different strategies for bringing shadow and leave the air pass through and just live under that, no? I am here now talking about urbanism. In the, I was last week in New Orleans, now I am in Detroit, learning a lot and talking about resiliency, about urbanism. This is probably the main theme. Of course, we are all vulnerable as New Orleans was with Katrina, as Lohaine was with the fires as every single community is being now. And I think that we, what we can create with this program of Lohaine is a beautiful example of resiliency. There are communities in my home country that are much more vulnerable on which an event of the Lohaine one or a flood could take the life of thousands and thousands of people. And I think we have to think differently, no? Because modernistic, post-modernistic ways of living cause so many problems. So again, here we see the model of this umbrella structure that again can provide that works as trees and can provide the second floor that provides again shadow to protection against any kind of natural disaster, flooding, fire, earthquakes and so on. And the, is a structure that provides from this, let's say, top-down, on a top-down urbanistic strategy, these elements and then as in the beautiful, I won't call it a house, as in the beautiful duel that we are seeing in this picture. We should leave people live in an organic, abstract vernacular way. That's a very good sort of comprising everything that we've been talking about again in a few weeks. So this is kind of always, you throw things out and then people say, this is rushed. We think at this point, I wanna share that over the weekend I have been invited by, who you know, DeSoto Dennis, my German honorary counsel and we were celebrating our reunification anniversary and we were up in as, you know, kind of pine forest. You can get here high up in the mountains here to get the setting and then having non-alcoholic October fest beer. Is this appropriate to talk about when we talk about the tragedy in Lahaina? It is because I now also have met basically people who got impacted. There were two couples, older couples who have been living in Lahaina since the 70s. They were still there, so they were safe but they also lost everything. And so I should say to you guys, especially to you Martin, they look very much forward to the show because what they want is hope. But they do not, what they don't want is, I asked them about the response that you DeSoto got. You had a lot of rightly so, you know, viewers and clicks, 2000s or something like that but you also got a lot of comments that were as these people I asked them, they were not helpful. They said conspiracy theories are not what we want. It's not what we need because what we need is to move on. And there are people whose job it is to find justice and they need to find out who was all involved and who is certainly also to be in some way taught how to do better next time. But they said for them, you gotta give us hope in terms of providing us with suggestions of how to get back to life in the best possible way. So that's basically what we wanna do here in this show. And from my side, I wanna go back to the slide too quick because the best I can provide to this regards is when I was asked by my hometown, when we were asked by my hometown to make the first decarbonized as we like to call it in these days, we always changed terminology first it was green and then it was sustainable now it's decarbonized. It all wants to mean the same thing to design the first off fossil fuel preschool. There was a pre-existing building that we see at the bottom pictures there.  So they don't get wrong. Any kind of comparison can always only be wrong because it's not the same case. So you have to differentiate and abstract that. But what I try to say is that finding out who was responsible for the kids to get sick might it have been deferred maintenance, might it have been the owner, might it have been some roof contractor, might it have been whatever, right? We could not wait for that to be found out to rebuild the building, to build a new building to then heal the kids. And we see on the slide three, we see that was the attempt to do. So this is a building now. We should also not forget to say we have the war against Israel in big times on top of everything else that we already have the war and the Ukraine, the war and so many parts of the world. We got the war on climate. We got all of that and we get more and it's not stopping. This project here can give hope as well because this is saving the world as far as climate to be off the grid. And next slide, probably equally important if not more important than these days. It's also trying to save the world as far as securing peace because the director of the school who we saw on the previous slide sitting there on the floor is having, in 15, she got a lot of immigrants from Syria at that point. In the last year when I revisited, I always go back every year if she had lots of them from the Ukraine and she has, as you see in the picture, you see a borka there that's a teacher. So you got the United Nations there living that whenever there is an argument about, oh, I'm better than you. She says, no, let's sit down and discuss this. And they come out with a compromise. So they for me, Ms. Savitsa is the director's name.  So yes, architecture can have the power, although it might be small and your project, I believe, and that's why we're here to discuss that, can have the same powerful impact on, again, having the other experts parallel to us figuring out what we can learn from it, from a jurisdictional point, from an organizational, from an energy point of view, us Europeans, of course, it's easy for us.  That's how we've been doing it forever, versus Americans still seem to be on the wagon train thing and putting the wooden poles up there and then forget about it, right? But so let everyone in their capacities and in their areas basically trying to do the best. And so that's what we're doing here. And you can see the solo in many of the show quotes, Martin was building his hypothesis upon many of your examinations.  So let's go there and have you explain why the solo. Well, there are several reasons. Obviously, being the historian, I always am looking back to the past to see what worked, what didn't, what do we wanna repeat, what do we wanna restore, things like that. Excuse me. And I think that this is the perfect opportunity to bring up. And I know Martin already in some of the slides that I've seen has addressed this, but the natural environment where behind it is located has been altered a great deal by people over time, over centuries, because the Hawaiian started to do it before the Westerners came here and outside people began to change things as well. And one of the things that when Polynesians came to the Hawaiian islands, they brought particular plants with them to help them survive. And one of the plants that they brought was this, this is Ulu, this is the breadfruit, which has grown throughout the tropical areas of the entire world. And not only is this an important source of food, but it also is a beautiful plant, a beautiful tree of itself, aesthetically beautiful, and it also provides food. Lahaina in the 19th century was known for its extensive growths of Ulu trees. So Hawaiians had already grown, were already altering the environment to not only survive there, but also to cut the effects of the sun. Lahaina, the name Lahaina means the cruel sun, meaning that Hawaiians always acknowledged that this is a very sunny, very hot and dry area. The more trees you have, the more you are reducing temperatures. And Martina already mentioned that shade is very important as part of the things that you wanna create there. But I also wanna say, this is something I've said in the previous shows that I've done and this talks to something that you just said, Martin, the regrowth of plants, the regrowth of trees, the regrowth of greenery. And let's go to the next slide because this really illustrates what we're talking about here. That regrowth of greenery is also something that's very important for hope, for people. And one of the things that's been brought up a lot has been the regrowth of the large banyan tree in the center of Lahaina. And that's what that small picture is at the top. That banyan tree was badly damaged by the fire, but it did in fact survive and it has in fact regrown. Well, in the three photographs at the bottom of this slide, we see Lahaina before the fire, we see Lahaina after the fire, and we see Lahaina as its potential future self, meaning that with the situation or with what Martin has just proposed in terms of its redevelopment, you turn Lahaina into a solid canopy of green through what he's proposing. And again, not only is this more pleasant for people to live in, not only does it provide shade and comfort, coolness, increased humidity from the tree, giving off the trees, giving off water, all that makes life more appealing and more pleasant for people, but it's also a source of food, as was said, if we are growing fruit trees. But again, the mental benefits of being around greenery, the mental benefits of being around plants are also part of it. And the regrowth through the replanting of trees, again, it's very important for people to have hope because the simple site of new greenery growing is something which is uplifting in what is now a barren, burned out environment of ash that's gray and black and brown to reassert greenery to restore growth is something which is gonna be mentally very healing for people. So I think there are emotional and mental benefits as well as physical benefits to what's being proposed. Yeah, can we go back to the previous slide one more time because I wanna throw in one thing that I thought I cannot hide because it just popped up on my phone looking at why news now, news on my phone, because there's ethics, right? I mean, there's aesthetics, mostly people think we're all about aesthetics, right? But Masimalano Fuxa is in around the turn of the millennium was at the Biennale and I know Martin you're also interested and affiliated with in various ways was talking about aesthetics and ethics and ethics and aesthetics. So right now, while the audience might say, well, you are sitting comfortably in your spaces and places and we are out there and are vulnerable to be evicted, being kicked out of the hotels that you said the sort of rightly so we're good to have but now they're kicked out, which is not good to have or now the dark side of capitalism picks in as we see here as people take advantage of people's pain and tragedy and rip them off with $3,000 for a studio, right? So that is highly unethical. That needs to stop. And I think we should talk about your proposal and Martin and wanna pick your brain on that one. Also, we always get Stanley Chang's newsletter just before the shows. I really don't, I send it to you but I did not give you, he does not give us time to, maybe I should ask him to send it an hour early or a day earlier so we can really take it in, you know but he was sharing a project that afforded to you. I said, well meant but wrongly done, which is again and I think you point on without shame, Martin called it the Christian way. This kind of hermiticizing way and taking advantage for your own benefit for your own profit. So let's talk a little bit more, maybe along the slide of maybe 17 we bring in, we bring back about that sort of socially ethical aspect of it, Martin. Can we pick your brain a little bit more on that one? Yeah, I mean, we have the, we have here again an amazing opportunity, you know and the diagram is very simple, you know the diagram is just a structure and a service unit. So it is almost, I have in other moments developed projects with this idea is just providing the only basic needs that architecture can provide which is a roof, so again a shadow and services. This is almost a camp, so we can do it in a more permanent way and I mean think about it for being permanent, which I think it should be. Or we can also do it very fast. This could be built in three days. It is a prefab structure that could be built and could cause people very, very rapidly. And then the hammer piece is the simple symbol of this, let's call it provisional readymade shelter. As it happens, one of the things I arrived very recently to Hawaii, flying from Columbia that have a lot of similarities and probably this is my research about but this is another discussion is how people pop up huge super complex structures on the beach every day, every weekend. So tents, barbecues, generators, chairs, hammocks and they build a habitat and then they dismantle. And this is beautiful because we can start living like that, we can find new ways. I mean, we talk now about digital nomads. Tourism is that, tourism is just to arrive to get provisional belonging to a place and then to live on someone else's fields of belonging on this plate. But why don't you think about an architecture that can be adapted to that? Absolutely, and then there are only two minutes left and we're going to continue next week because this is too exciting. But I think we want to make clear again to all the suspicious conspiracy people out there that we might still have. We are not smart city supporters, although we think, Lahaina was actually in many ways already pretty smart and it was a smart city. You just should have been taking the cars out and so there is nothing to actually make smarter because it was inherently already smart and maybe yes in the tectonics as Yuda Soto pointed out last time, you said wood as stick frame construction was okay back then because we had the cash crop side effect of plantations that kept everything relatively moist and wet. So it was okay for that. But once I was the witness with one of your colleagues, Martin, who on the side was doing charter helicopter flight for tourists and had a German one and he got me in as a translator and I saw the last chimney smoking of basically the sugarcane cash crop and that was it and after that things dried up so we have to rethink. So from next week we're going to explain again why in the world are we proposing here wood again which one might say based on your observation the Soto that might have been a no go and we move on to other things but as you perfectly said, Martin, things are not and they shouldn't be overly simplified. They are very complex but we can achieve basically a very satisfying solution out of a very complex kind of an addressing. So with that, we're done for today and we look forward to much more because there's so much exciting stuff here to talk about so thank you again for having been with us. Thank you Martin, thank you to Soto. See you guys all back next week and until then I guess as we just contemplated about stay aesthetically ethical, ethically aesthetical. Bye bye. Bye.


like it feels dry in the beginning and then it gets super sticky. I like this. You like this? It's fresh. Yeah, it's crunchy. Very hard. Yeah, you have to bite into it. It's very crunchy, very hard, very dope. But it's also sour. The sour thing I'm not too fond of.  Hello and welcome to another video. Today we're having a really fun one because Elaine is going to try out, I mean from our previous video that you saw, she hasn't eaten some of the onion snacks or she doesn't even know about them. So today she's going to try them out. I'm going to be cultured today. Yeah, I have to stare this thing a little bit because it tends to, you know. Welcome to our channel. Me plus you. It's us. My name is Kwame and my name and today is Snack Attack. Snack Attack, Ghana edition. Ghana edition. So she's going to try some Ghanaian snack that she's never had before. And pardon me, I can't tell you exactly the consistency as in what's the ingredients, so I'm trying to say. So I'll find it out and whatever she tries, I'll put it on the screen for you to see what's inside it and how it probably tastes. So I would try my best to tell her some of the key ingredients and some of them. So she would try this, she would try that, try this, she would try that. It's not necessarily arranged in the way that it all goes together. No. And maybe to start with, where did you get these snacks?  Yeah, you have to go to the market to get some of these things. So it's an acquired taste. It's not an acquired taste.  Okay. Yeah, so when she comes from the markets, there are a lot of other snacks that we might do part two off. Okay. That we didn't get. This is a good start. But this is a good start. Okay. So snacks and drinks and yeah, you try it and she's going to rate. Oh, I'm going to rate, okay. So one to ten. Yes, taste and rate, like you know, what you think about them. So which one are you going to start with? Is there any specific order you want me to try? No, you can go from here to there. When you take it, I'll tell you the name and then you start. A bit scared for this one. So let's try this one first. You're always scared for this particular one. Let me show it in there. Look at this. Why are you scared for it? It looks like an icky kind of texture. It's not an icky. Maybe smell it. Okay. It smells like nutty. Yes, it is very nutty. Okay. So this is a mixture. This is called dakwa. Dakwa. Dakwa. It's a mixture of groundnut, pepper and other spices. And of course, I think corn flour has been made into this. So if the consistency of no, if the ingredients is wrong, I'll put it on the screen when I find out. Is it baked or it's like just mashed? I think it's mashed again. I don't know whether they cook it completely, but I think the groundnut is... Let me try. Yes, try. How do I eat it? You can just bite it too. Just take a little bite. Oh, it's very dry. Is it very dry? I thought it would be more, oh, it's spicy. It's very spicy, yes. Dakwa is spicy. I'm sticky. Yeah. And I really like up here. So we will eat this whole thing? Yeah. You don't eat it all at once. You eat it slowly.  That's why I want my cup. Yeah. Just try it out more time and just tell me what your reading is. Oh, yeah. It's actually... It's actually what is it? It's like, it feels dry and makes any, and then it gets super sticky. Like, I'm scared to talk. So you think it's going to be on your teeth? Yeah. It's going to be everywhere. Oh my gosh. Hmm. Okay. I think the second bite was better because I knew what I expected, but I would give it a four. A four over ten. Okay. It's not my style of... I can imagine if you have it with a drink, like a bagel or something. Like a what? Like a cold beverage, and then this next to it or no. I've never seen anybody eat Dakwa with... On the go. Yeah, it's on the go. I've never seen anybody... No, no, no. It's definitely a four. Okay. I've never seen anybody combine Dakwa with a drink. Wow. Yeah. Wow.  And do you buy only one if you buy or you buy like three in the whole day set? Oh, no. It's just one thing snack. As far as I know, I wouldn't buy the whole set. It's not bad, but, well, let's move on. Okay. Moving on. You can try one drink. Which one would you recommend after Dakwa? I would say this, because it's also spicy. Oh, we're going the spicy route. Yeah, it's also spicy so that you just know. Just stir it up a little bit, because it tends to settle. Smells like ginger. Yes. This is predominantly ginger and some of the spices, I think pepper is also in there. They add a little bit of milk, but it's also spicy. It's not too spicy. Okay. And that's good. I like it. You like this? It's fresh. Yeah. It's fresh. Yeah. It's closest to this beverage, alcoholic beverage, bokehke. It's closest to the taste of bokehke. It's a bit milky. Yes, it's a bit milky. I think ginger, there's other spices and maybe pepper. I don't know if what they put exactly inside, but I put it on the screen, like I said. Gonna finish this. Okay, so at least what do you like? This is 9. 9. This is Lamuji. So you see the name also. Let me not finish it, because I have a lot of snacks to go. I need to focus. Yeah. So I would say 9. It's nice. It's slight. I thought it would be, I said spicy. It was like very spicy, but it's subtle. It's subtle. Yes. Yeah. And when what time of the day would you drink this? Oh, anytime of the day, you won't. Anytime of the day. If you're walking in the markets and you're parched and a spicy drink is your thing, especially this service is usually cold. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. The service is usually cold. Yeah, it's almost lemony. Like because of the ginger, it's kind of a dead lane. Like a lemon drink. Like you want to be freshened up, but I want to be awake. Okay, you are saying it's almost like a lemonade, but it's not lemony. I don't think there's lemon elements in there. No, there's no lemon elements, but because of the ginger, it's like a lemon, it's a refreshing experience. Okay. That's gonna be wet like lemony. Okay. I'll offer this one. Okay. What do we have here? So this is polo. Polo. Yeah, polo. It smells doughy. Yes, it's very doughy. It's fried, I believe. Yes, it's fried. And it's sweet as well. Yeah, you can go in. It's crunchy, very hard. Oh. Yeah, you have to bite into it. It's very crunchy, very hard, very doughy. And it's made of wood. I think flour, sugar, I think it's the same process like baking a cake that's a little different. It's a little different. Then I don't know how they make it this hard. I'll again put it on the screen so that you know what the ingredients are. That's nice. And possibly how it's prepared. This and this goes really well. Wow. I didn't know what that really would combine. What's this? Polo. What does it mean? Polo. I came to meet the name. I don't know what polo means. Maybe Google. Yeah, it's just like a hard biscuit doughnut. Yeah. That's how it is. So I think the ingredients would be similar to how you make a doughnut. The flour, the nutmeg, you know. Yeah. It's also a layer's taste. Yeah. There are different ingredients, nutty and then spices. It just only go. It's also only go. Most of these things, again, like I said, they are found in the market, in big markets, Manpola or Cerco or wherever.  Not only down try this a bit oily. Okay. How do you know? They only need water because it will be full. I mean, people like polo. I don't know how many polo people eat, but people do like polo. An average. Yeah. Okay. So what's your rating for this one? Eight. Oh, that's pretty high. Sorry, Dapua. Sorry. It's nothing personal. I'm going for this. This is asana. I doubt this will be my juice, but. Yeah, this is asana. It smells like malt. I think I also don't really know. Also in this? I also don't know. It smells a bit fermented though. I don't know what's, again, I'll put it on the screen. I've had asana my whole life and I don't know what's the ingredients for making asana. So I'll put it on the screen for you guys to check out what goes into asana. It's better than I expected, but I still look like it's punchy. Yeah. So it's comes like it's not like bam. Yeah. It's a slow take. It's a bit like the texture should be like cool. Really? Like a little bubbly. Okay. Yes. The color too. Yeah. Yeah. You see the bubbles? Yeah. Probably. Asana should have a lot of bubbles on it. Yeah. And you should be careful when you open the bottle. Yeah, because we have a bit of an accident. Yeah. But it's also sour. The sour thing I'm not too fond of. That reminds me of malt. You want a taste? No, I don't want to taste. No taste. See if it's good.  Yeah. Asana if it's very cold is very nice. I've had asana my whole life. Yeah. So maybe if it's really cold then it's better. It's usually sold with ice actually. It's like an ice coffee. Oh, maybe then I'll like it more. Yes. So it's sold with ice. So when you buy an asana from like the women they have a usually sell it in huge gourds, right? So you eat. So the gourd has the asana inside and there's ice in it. I feel the bubbles coming up. Yeah. And it has ice in it and then they fetch it's usually sold in a plastic bag as well with straw on the go. So they put a piece of ice in your asana and then they put I feel like the people also drink it with milk. Oh, it's like an ice is mixed between ice coffee and garden coke. Yeah. And a bit of a malt. Yeah. So that's asana. I'm going to put the here is to here to here or to read in the episode what is made of. Let's look at there. Okay, last one. So drink number two. An eight. An eight. Oh, that's good for us. I said eight. No. Yeah. No, this was eight. This was eight. What are you going to give this? Oh, I thought this again. Now then a seven. You give us a seven to asana. I feel this one is a bit more accessible in my own opinion. Okay. It's more an everyday string. Okay, we're going to go for this booger. It's I see some ground nuts. Stephanie Yeah, it's fried. There's ground nuts in there. It's made from corn dough. I think mostly as a base ingredient. Get in. Yeah. We warmed it up a little. Yeah, it's very hard. So And this is I don't know what it's called in Akraba. It's back in Kumasi. We call this Ariyesu. Ariyesu, that's the name we call it back in Kumasi. I don't know if there's a way it's called in Akraba. It's like a sister of the buffroats, no? In a way. You know, it's closer also to doughnuts type. Have a sit with the ground nuts and see how it's like. I like it. You do? Yeah. Yeah. It's chewy. It's nice. Like we have really something to chew on. Yeah. And it can definitely taste just fresh. So you're going to show it to the camera? Oh, yeah. Truly, I'm excited about the ground nuts. The ground nuts on there as well. And this is how the polo looks like. This is how polo looks like. And this is the Kwa. Is that Kwa? The sand bowl. Sand bowl. I like it. It's very filling. I don't think I will ever crave it. So I'll give it a six. Okay. It's a bit too fatty for me. What's the kind of snacks are oily? I like polo better because it's more like pastry. Okay. This is really like a buffroat. Like you want to dip it. I would combine these two. Is that possible? That's entirely up to you. I mean, it's a style. So now we're ending with dessert. It's a dessert. I don't know if you call it dessert, but this is yogurt and couscous, I would say. So it's called Bokina. I actually have to give some credits to my colleagues because they kept talking about Bokina, but they didn't introduce me to it. So final. But that's just so much suspense. I'm running dry in. Yeah. Okay, it smells over deep. This is my jam. And it's very filling too. Like it's a mule on its own. Oh, this is very good snack. Yeah. It smells a lot like the texture because you cannot really drink it fully. Yeah, you have to chew on the couscous or is it millet? I think it's millet. Yeah, I think it's millet in there. It's like a bit of a sweet yogurt, like vanilla like, and then they have like couscous, small couscous or millet in it. I'm like, how elaborate is it? I think I'll get this at 10. At 10 out of 10. Can I bring this to work tomorrow? Yeah, you can. And what time of the day do you eat this or any time? You can have your lunch and then maybe between lunch and supper when you're about to finish work and you feel a little, you know, I need to touch up or I need to eat something or you have it before and need lunch instead because it's a mule on its own. It's quite heavy.   You just shake and just drink from the bottle and finish it up. But you actually finished it. It's nice. Then out of 10. Bring me more boquina. I'll say, I really liked it. Yeah.  Let us know in the comments which other snacks we may have missed and we should just hunt for it. I'm also curious to hear which is people's favorite. Maybe that whole boquina fan base that I should be aware of. Let us also know which ones that we tried, have you tried and is your favorites also in the comment section. Yes. And please, if you want some more. We still have more. Come for it. Munch it. Yeah, I think maybe this afternoon I'll drink this cold with ice blocks and then with the straw. What you can do if you don't have the cubes, we can also put it in the freezer for a little bit and then it's really cold. Okay. This snack attack is not over, but we'll take it off the screen for now. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for watching. All right. So we'll catch you in the next one from our previous video to this one to me trying Dutch snacks next. Yes. Hopefully we'll live up to exploitation. Let's see. See you next time.


Our world is full of noise. Millions of signals fly to and fro every moment of every day. Radio signals, sound signals, light. How is it that we are able to make sense of all this noise? How is it that our eyes and ears can actually understand the world around them? We understand the world around us by analyzing the signals it sends us, and comparing them to known signals that we have seen or heard before. For example, if we see a crowd of people, we know that that crowd is made up of lots of individual people because we know what a person looks like. Two arms, two legs, two eyes and nose and mouth. We recognize that the crowd is simply the same pattern repeated over and over again. What is more, we can sometimes even pick out individual faces within the crowd if we have seen that face before and remember what it looks like. This is the basis of signal analysis, finding and isolating known patterns from a sea of information. Computers are very good at this, and use exactly the same method to analyze streams of data. One of the most prolific tools they use to do this is called the Fourier Transform. The Fourier Transform is everywhere. Few are the days in your life where you won't pick up a piece of technology that implements it to provide you with pictures, videos, music, a phone call, and all manner of everyday applications. However, it's very ubiquity, means that we take the Fourier Transform very much for granted, and fewer other people actually really understand how it leaves its magic. Even those who have heard of it and make conscious use of it often don't know how it actually works. One of the reasons for this may be that on the face of it, the maths can seem a little complicated. This was my initial view when I first met the Fourier Transform on my Electronics Engineering course at university. My Electrismist have thought that having actually managed to get into university and into an engineering school, I must be pretty good at maths. However, what they didn't know was that mathematics is a subject that I have always found the hardest. I think the problem was not that I was incapable of understanding it, rather it had always been explained to me in the wrong way. I crave visual explanations, which is why I was always very good at trigonometry at school. I could actually draw the shapes. However, as things became more abstract, as so often happens in mathematics, no drawings were forthcoming. The amount of Greek would begin to outweigh the amount of English on the lecturer's blackboard, my eyes would glaze over, and understanding would elude me. There must be a way I thought of showing these concepts visually, some analogy that doesn't require pages and pages of Greek letters to explain. Well, after years of actually using the Fourier Transform in my professional life, and my repeated attempts at trying to understand how it works, I think I may have come up with the answer. This is what I would like to share with you in this course. Unfortunately, I cannot promise not to use any maths at all in the course. At the end of the day, the Fourier Transform is a mathematical formula, but every equation will be illustrated by diagrams and animations to explain and show what the maths is doing. By the time we've finished, not only will you know about windowing and how the discrete and fast Fourier Transforms work, but this, rather strange looking equation, the Fourier Transform equation, is actually going to make sense.


The bodily correctional facility BCF is reporting significant COVID-19 recoveries among inmates. Effective phase day March 25, 2021, the facility registered 280 full recoveries. Lasers figures revealed that there were only nine active cases among the prison population. On February 28, 2021, the Ministry of Health had received confirmation of 105 positive COVID-19 test results for inmates at the Allen's Oni Pinal facility. Prison authorities say the spread of the virus has been brought under control through sustained efforts and the implementation of some innovative measures taken in conjunction with the Ministry of Health. COVID-19 vaccination will continue at the BCF in the coming days.


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arks commission wants to expand Hubbard Park, maybe the parks commission should be a little more generous. About people camping in the woods. As an example, I'm not, I don't want to get off on that. But let's get away from this either or thinking, please. Thanks, Peter. He's very involved. I'm not seeing anyone else's hand up on zoom for now is. I'll see if there's anyone member of the public who is in the room who would like to be heard. So I didn't take the time to spend several hours going through the budget book. I'm concerned that. The. With the best of intentions. This budget is a product of a dysfunctional. Relationship between the council and the management. The management has rolled this thing. We're going through the motions of public engagement. By, we shouldn't have canceled the February 5th meeting. You should have had this presentation as a way to inform and engage the public. To then come to the public hearings. So instead it's like 930. And we're everybody's tired. And ready to go. And we're going through the motions of public engagement. By. We shouldn't have canceled the February 5th meeting. And we're going through the motions of public engagement. And we're going through the motions of public engagement. Everybody's tired and ready to go home. And now that you've got a lot of detail to have to deal with. Or. Ignore as you see fit. The put the. Access to the information. Other people have made that point is, is miserably deficient. It wasn't in my case because I. Came to city hall and knew how to, who to ask to get access to the website. It's a website ad nauseam that needs to be replaced with a new, you know, the home homepage of the website now has a survey, new survey on the budget. And you click on it. It's like, Oh, that survey goes to survey monkey. That survey is closed expired. Like who's maintaining this website? It's just another egregious example. I don't know where the tiff that I heard tonight. They're. You're trying to. To grow the money to pay the million dollars. Of the garage fiasco. Is that what I heard? The city approved a bond. To pay for the garage for up to 10 and a half million dollars. We're going to let 1.1 million of that bond to pay. That's always been the plan that was. Made very clear to people that that was going to be what happened. But you, you, you can't use the bond money to pay for. Boondoggle architect debt. You can. Yes. You can't use it. You can't use it. You can't use it. Oh, God. It's worse than I thought. That was what was very clearly communicated in advance. What would happen? Well, so we'll. Basically I, as much as that looks like a conflict of interest, I'd like to support the commenter before me saying, you need to inform the people with enough detail to where they could start voting down these budgets. You know, and that's not what's going on right now. The vision statement. I have to say that we're not living up to it. You know what? We're environmental protection for years. I keep telling you that all the trash along the river bank and all the clothes and all the homelessness garbage and. And the mattresses and, and we don't clean it up. We, we let it wash down when the high water comes. So we can't pretend that we're doing this environmental protection while we fail to do this. Every time I get it, go to Donna Barlow. It's like, there's no staff. There's no money. There's no water. There's no water. There's no water. There's no care of any of this stuff. You know, it, it's really atrocious. The salt, I've mentioned forever that we don't sweep the sidewalks. We don't sweep the streets properly.  And then all that blows across into people's food and into the farmer's market. You know, we. That's toxic stuff. That's, that's antifreeze and oil and water. We don't sweep the streets properly. So I've suggested we get a vacuum cleaner. That would have been a perfect use of ARPA funds and pay somebody, pay one of these homeless folks to wander, drive around, walk around town with a vacuum cleaner and keep the city clean. But it didn't even make it into the budget discussion. So there's a state statute that requires the finance management department to engage with the public in the budget development process. And the city should be able to do that. And they should be able to do that. Or take it apart in the last stages. I think the city should give some thought to that. Ensuring strong municipal services. Like the website and, and, uh, picking up the garbage. I pointed out and I said videos to Donna of. Eight inches of water and Elm Street, because we don't bother to clean our drains. For four years now, we've had a lot of, you know, a lot of the storm drains are not set to the crosswalks. The crosswalks are filling with water and freezing. And now we're even still planting new trees and building new sidewalks that puddle in the middle of the sidewalk. It's the, the, you get the, you get the myth. Can you spell mismanagement? Um, Dignity for all is recognized and respected. The city is transparent and accountable. I mean, this is fluff. This is fluff. This is not what we're doing. And this amount of money, this bloated budget is not going to. You know, implement these, these high ideals.  We've got, we've got methane. We're trying to get rid of it. We're going to buy a pellet stove. It doesn't seem to add up. You know, and yet. I mean, our entire engineering team seems to be consumed by this. Treatment plant rather than actually fixing the sidewalks. The people are tripping over the hazards. They're breaking their cars with the curves that are, you know, 14 inches above the pavement. You know, we're not, and there's no plan. I've asked, I've made public records, but there's no plan to get these, these infrastructure issues addressed. You know, there's a little, we're going to chip away at it. And we're going to do a little window dressing over here. But, you know, 60,000 for sidewalks, that's a couple hundred feet. You know, it's, it's just, it's outrageous. You know, we're, we're doing a lot of feel good projects that we can brag about and say we're so modern and progressive, but you're spending like a drunken sailor and you're reckless like a, you know, teenager spending people's money that you're not accountable for. The police consoles, $350,000, $400,000. Those, I've talked to some experts in this radio technology and the Motorola consoles that have been proposed to be bought should not be bought. They are not the least expensive and most cost effective until we get a complete design done. Televate was supposed to be the needs assessment. It was supposed to be followed by an engineer design. That engineer design has not been done. The current leadership doesn't want to do an engineer design. So the, the radios, there's hundreds. There's thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars in those deferred equipment expenses that have been put in unbeknownst to most of you in prior years, police radios, police vehicle radios, et cetera. There's, there's a proposal to switch to first net with no analysis or measuring of where the coverage is better or worse than, than horizons. We know that AT&T lied to the state about where they had coverage. They also lied to the police chief about how priority and preemption works on an LTE network, but there's no expertise or due diligence there to, to untable that, you know? So the, the body cam should move forward, but you need the oversight. You need the police review commission or its next iteration with authority to make sure that these decisions are made. I've told you, I've given you the example that finding a way to turn on a smartphone to make recording. I just learned, I heard tonight. I'm not sure I believe it that the cruiser cam from the Mark Johnson shooting showed the drive down the street. The rate, the cruiser cam from the greater hitting a car on Elm Street that I told you about last week, does not show anything of the arrival. Could we focus on the budget, please? This is about budget. This is about, you've got hidden in the budget technology purchases for the police that have not been properly designed or vetted. The police radios, the consoles and others and cameras. So that's why it relates to the budget. You're proposing to spend money without having done the due diligence of planning. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on consoles that aren't the best thing because the plans that they are designed to integrate into have not been done. You know, and to get to hear you on the bandwagon of like, pull Montpelier out of the public safety authority. That's just so typical, you know. Long presentation. Yeah. Way over time. No, I haven't got any overtime to many of the people who spoke tonight. I think, I think you have, but I'd like to hear if you could bring this to a conclusion. Could you please pull your mask up over your nose? Thank you. Mr. Wetterkirk. Replacement of failing meters. Are we replacing them with meters that. That are only available to people with smartphones. You can put coins in and who's overseeing that process. Right now they're sticking labels and tape over phones and saying, you can't use these meters anymore unless you're a smartphone customer. You know. And who's responsible for that level of planning and accessibility and equal opportunity. That's all in our vision statement. Right. A redemption center, the folks that, that are now living at the. Dirt and park in its new location, brilliant piece of work. Point out that what capital city in the country doesn't have a place where the people who deserve the dignity and the equal protection don't have a place to go cash in a few nickels. You know, was that intentional to just, just ban the M&M and not make provisions for supplementing it with some. Alternate. I mentioned the no oversight of the deadly mistakes and that life threatening mistakes in the dispatch. The housing. Housing task force gets a hundred and $10,000 homelessness task boards get 45,000. That's the housing trust fund. Oh, it said no. Yeah. No, no money is appropriated to the housing task force. So that's an error in the budget document. That's okay. Okay. That's, that's better. That's, that's first good news I've heard. I aimed to please. Sure you do. Okay. We will be digging out of this infrastructure and maintenance deficit for decades. Once the current management is let go. So we need to, you need to start this process of really investigating the chronic history of failures before you renew the manager's contract in March. Well, I just encourage you to think about the, the inconsistency of what you've said tonight. And I'm not going to ask you to respond tonight, but you've been referring to this as a bloated budget and you're not spending enough money on it. And yet almost every substantive comment you've made about the budget has been things that you think we're not spending enough money on. Well, I can tell you where we're spending too much. 138,000, 139,000 for a city manager, plus dental, plus medical, plus retirement, plus telephone, plus parking, plus 10,000 for conferences. This guy is costing us $200,000 a year. Okay. Thank you. Vicki Lane, you've already spoken twice. So can you keep it brief? Yes. I really would appreciate it if statements did not single out people. And I really think that all of our employees and volunteers, and that includes the council because you basically volunteer, have the best interests of the city of Montpelier and its residents at heart. I don't always agree with them. And, you know, I don't always agree with everything that's done, but I don't think anybody has. In their hearts. I don't think anybody has the desire to screw this city over. And I, I really. Would appreciate less comments about. How horrible somebody thinks somebody is. Thanks, Becky. I appreciate that. I, I think, I think this, if the last two years have proved nothing. It's proven that we can be really nasty to each other. And we need to really work on that. And we need to really work on that. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone on the council have anything to say at this point? I would like to say, and I was really glad to hear many people comment about housing. And I'm sorry that they missed some of our initial discussion about purchasing the Elks Club land. And looking at that as having the city to control it. I mean, it's not just housing, making it not only just the rec center and outdoor recreation, but really being holistic about it. But we can't do that without owning it when we own it. Then we can turn it into something that gives us tax revenue, as well as a lot of quality out time. Recreation and buildings that will give us inside recreation, because here was here is where we live and not everybody can deal with the winters or the hot, hot weather. We need to go inside sometimes to recreate. So I was really glad to see those kind of comments because we are thinking that way about this land. Thank you. I think that's a great point. And another thing to keep in mind is if we develop a new recreation center somewhere other than Barry street, there's another building that potentially could be put to other uses. So I guess at this point, oh, Jean Leon, you have your hand up now. Again, if we could make it, make it fairly brief. Sorry, just a brief quick comment. So based on Donna's comment, I mean, I agree. The potential is phenomenal and the mixed use idea would be fabulous. But how about where the M&M Redemption Center was? Well, how about the use of that space? That's ours. Or partially states, partially city, now abandoned, now with the shed, now with issues. Thank you. Thanks. At this point. I just want to take a minute and thank everybody for the comments tonight and just to let folks at home know we, you know, we don't make these decisions lightly. And we, you know, we understand as can folks that contribute a bit more, you know, it takes a toll on everybody. But, you know, I sort of regret the idea that we can't have a more progressive form of taxation or limited municipal government. But I think, you know, as we noted, we see a lot of our neighbors falling through the cracks here, especially during the pandemic, you know, when the homeless this camping policy came up, we had 50 people here saying we got to do more, you know, we got to do more and we hope, you know, between the $425,000 investment in ARPA for a future hub there and dedicating resources to, you know, to the public sector, pure outreach, where at least beginning to like scratch the surface here of trying to help people get the help they need, you know, we hear a lot about roads, there's substantial investments into our infrastructure here to make sure, you know, there's less flat tires on the roads and the people that are tripping on the sidewalks investments in ADA, these things are so important.  It's, we could have gone to the wreck fields out in the Elm Street there. We didn't think there was the room and didn't want to sacrifice the space for some of the other fields. We could have invested in the existing building, but, you know, it's past its expiration date, and it would take substantial investment to bring it up to speed and it's better to have options, better to take a fresh look at this. So again, I think a lot of these increases did come as a result of a robust public input from the town here. As Kate said with the energy advisory committee, we rely on our committee so much these volunteers. And, you know, all these years of saying we'll get to, you know, net zero, we need to put some investment behind that that actually make it work. Otherwise we're just having a conversation with ourselves. So reasonable people can disagree on this. I appreciate it. Vicki's comments about being civil to each other. We're all neighbors here, you know, we're paying the taxes as well. But I really appreciate just the thoughtful comments tonight from everybody in the audience. Thanks very much. So now I think it's time to close the public hearing and then for the council to take action on, on these valid or budget agenda items. So. You may take action there. If you choose to direct us to change anything before next week's meeting for the second public hearing, then this would be the time to do that. Also, we'll have the opportunity to make changes after the second public hearing. And. So, okay, so both the budget and the bond public hearings are now closed. Folks, what do we want to do? I. I apologize for my not breathing while everybody. Beyond your control, I would say. Do we need a motion to. Move what was proposed this evening on to the next public hearing is that. You don't need any motion if nothing's going to change. Like it's one question, I think for bill and then have it just share my overall thoughts and just echo the appreciation, really thoughtful comments and input tonight and from the hearing from the community in the last month or so. My question. So. Just tied to the ARPA money, which because that would not be increasing the tax rate, like did anything jump out? At you with the new guidance as something that could be a natural fit to. Move. We have looked at that. So. You know, it's still one time money. So we wouldn't want to put program ongoing expenses into it. So it would be moving. They probably capital or equipment. You know, from our capital improvement budget into the ARPA program, which just reduces. So that means next year, that's got a bigger jump as well, which, you know, that that's a choice. But that would really be the only way. That would really be the only place to take it from, or any other, you know, any sort of one time. Kind of expenses. So it's, it's not, it's not. It's not. You know, we could, and we've been thinking about it. And since we heard that there was going to be a change in the ARPA requirements. The first question that Kelly was, what could we, what could we do to reduce the taxes?  So, you know, maybe it's an opportunity to have more flexibility to do some of the things we'd like to do. So, you know, put it toward some of these things. Thanks. Thanks for that. Yeah. Yeah. And if, you know, any epiphanies come up before next week, we still have another chance. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I guess just to share my thoughts for a minute.  So, you know, maybe it's an opportunity to have more flexibility to do some of the things we'd like to do in the future, but I really have struggled with this some. I mean, I really hear and appreciate and feel the concerns about increasing taxes at a time when costs for everything are going up. And I know that all of us on council have wrestled with that. And at the same time, knowing that, you know, week after week in here, we hear about these increasing needs. We've had to put so much on the back burner and on hold. We've had to, you know, and we've seen the impacts from our roads and just the human crises that are happening right now and the urgency of needs that are coming in and where the state is not stepping up to address human needs the way that I think they should. So more and more is falling on the city. So, you know, I think it's, there's so many obligations and so much kind of backfill from a couple of years of a pandemic that, you know, to me. You know, I've wrestled with it and I think this is a kind of investment that we need to make. We need to catch up. And I think this is really looking at some of these systemic issues. So instead of being in crisis mode year after year, let's actually try to address housing. Let's, you know, so that we're not just trying to do band-aids for unhoused people in our community. Like let's actually, you know, invest a little in an energy position and then we can save money for the community over the longterm by having a more efficient and clean energy. You know, so there's all these opportunities where if we can make strategic investments, it costs something now, but I really see it as a long-term investment that's going to set us up where the people in our community and our overall city government is going to be more effective and helping all of us thrive. I think also at this particular moment with so much federal money at the state level, us being as well positioned as possible to take what could be some really transformative investments. We need to be ready. We need to have the staff that can actually jump on those opportunities, identify them and take full advantage. And I think, you know, having full staffing and these kinds of investments right now are, you know, how can we look at this as a moment to make generational investments in our community? And so I think, you know, I understand and I really feel the concerns that I've heard about increasing taxes right now. And, you know, I, this is where I'm landing for now. We've gotten one more week, but this I really think it's responsible to try to actually look at the systemic issues and make investments instead of just continuing to put band-aids and underfund things and keep operating in crisis mode. I agree. I agree. I think that this has been a very transparent and very open public process. We've had this as one of the first two public hearings. We've had the budget workshops we've heard the last month we've heard from a lot of residents. And we have tremendous needs in the city and we made responsible decisions at the beginning of the pandemic. And it's been, those are decisions that involved cutting back on services that were important services at the time and people paid for it. Every one of us has heard from people say, well, the roads are falling apart. They're bad for our cars. And we know what it takes to fix the roads. It's devoting the money to fix it. And we're putting money in that. We've heard complaints about the city's webpage and how it's not what anyone wants to see. We've got money in here for that. We've got money in this budget for a lot of things that are really important needs, not only keeping the baseline operations of the city running, but also as, as you said, keeping and making some really big generational investments at a time when we have the ability to do that. So I'm not inclined to change this between now and the next public hearing. We'll see what we hear at the next public hearing, but I'm satisfied with where we are for right now. It occurred to me that you don't have to do this tonight. I don't know where to change the amount of the bond for the rec center that would require, you know, you've approved the 1.5 million. If you want to hear more about that before you do that, that's, that's fine. But don't want to lose track of that. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about because we've got that discussion later. I can wait till next week as well. Yeah. Okay. So that takes care of items 13 and 14 on the agenda. We're putting item 15 right to the item 16 right to the end. So that brings us to item 15. COVID-19 response and open meeting requirements. Is that, is that bill? I think that's Donna. You asked to have this put on. I did. I was wondering, I would feel more comfortable if the council decided that we all were remote. And that indeed with the guidelines now, we still would have to have staff in person. And, and I really want to protect the staff who has to be here. So I suggested the staff be in this room and the public be in that room and they can see the screen so that we're really trying to take full space of this very, very contagious virus. It's now going. So that's why I asked it to be put on the agenda because it's, to me, the council as a group works better if we're all remote or we're all here. And that's where I'm at. And so when you say this room and that room, are you thinking we would close off the? No, no, it'd be open. Just increase the space. You know, just less chance to travel. I mean, if I'm, I don't want to be here because of it.  Gotcha.  You don't want to be here at all. Hi, everyone. I'm Cameron. The assistant city manager. I just wanted to make sure we, you knew that we were watching the bill. I think it's two, two, two that just went out. I think both the house and the Senate have voted on it at this point, but that is that bill is proposing to bring us back to where we were at the beginning of the pandemic where it doesn't require a physical location and everything can be purely on zoom again. So I think that we all can decide to go fully remote at any time. We'll be here, but that we're hoping, I may well, I'll speak for myself on that one. I am hoping, you know, I've had COVID before and I'm really not interested in getting it again. So that might be a requirement. That might change really soon. And just so, you know, we are watching that and we'll let you know as soon as that. If that passes. Thanks. Right. This would be something in the interim. I guess I'll take comments from everyone else. I guess where I'm, what I'm coming from is with regard to going full remote with nobody physical, physically present, you know, that really concerns me because there are people who don't have the ability to participate remotely. And I, I want to keep the building open for those who can only participate by coming in person. And for my personal view, I also want to be here in person because I think the quality of the interaction is, is better in person than, than remotely. I think Donna's right that all remote or all in person is better than hybrid. And I just still feel pretty strongly that we should be in person, but that's my own opinion. Anyone else have anything to say about this? I have very bad asthma as you've noticed tonight and I am really not interested in getting sick. And I had posed this question to Donna because I was sick and under quarantine last week. So I didn't think I thought I had COVID. So I would feel more comfortable and safer being remote, but that's being super, super selfish right now. Anyone else have any thoughts? I just can't hear people. I would have to be telling Bill and, and Jeff all the time, speak up, speak up. I just give up. I can't hear things with the mask. It makes a huge difference. If I stay, you're going to hear me say that a lot. That's fine. It's really true. I hate Zoom so much.  And I do kind of agree with Jack. I don't think it's as conducive to a good discussion as being in person. And said, you know, if there are colleagues and staff who, you know, do feel vulnerable and I do not want people coming to these meetings in fear and I would go to the flow and go back to the Brady bunch. Yeah. I mean, I'm fine with being here, but if we all consented to not be here, I would be really excited. And it is true that anybody could decide to be home and participate remotely, but you're either you're right. It's not, it's not as good. Yeah, I mean, I kind of agree with everyone on different aspects. I mean, part of me is like, we should do. I feel like, like the budget discussion next week, like maybe do one more in person because that's just such an important meeting and getting every detail right and being able to have as good a conversation. And then maybe after that we, you know, you know, assuming if we're still at like record breaking cases and that we could do, you know, try a zoom meeting. And if we're like, oh, it's horrible. We could always come back. But I mean, I think if people are feeling at some risk and that it's, I'm comfortable going back to zoom, I would just think maybe just next week one more, even though it's like right in the worst. This is what I'm struggling with. Okay, so why don't we revisit it after our meeting at our meeting next week and see how things look.  I think that's where I'll be inclined even though I also passionately hate zoom and spend all day on it and don't think about it. But, but I do think for, you know, our February meetings, we could probably do it. And if we're still at this and could reassess if, you know, cases are starting to dip and the circumstances seem to change, but that would be my, I guess what I would be supporting next week, unless something changes. And I'm open to doing next week remote to if other people feel really strongly just knowing the importance of getting the budget done. I think that's a good point. I don't know if there's some benefit to one more. Yeah, I would agree. Let's, I think that we, let's have this conversation again at the, at the end of our next meeting and look at those. Finish up the budget and then look at going remote from there. I share a hatred of zoom, but at the same time, if, if, yeah, at the same time, though, if, if anybody is not comfortable, then I am all for, I will, I will deal and we'll go remote and we'll, we'll do our best. I do agree 100% that it's sort of all in or all out. Like if we're half up here and half, like that's just going to not going to be conducive to any type of communication. So let's at our next meeting then decide and if that's the decision, then, then we can go back to, to the Brady bunch. Okay. Yeah. Stephen, do you have a quick comment? Yeah. The air cleaners. The air cleaners are very effective and they. Make it possible for this higher quality interaction. Our system here leaves a lot to be desired. And. And I've talked to Orca. I've talked to the council about it. I've talked to the council about it. And I think it's such that such an interaction such as Donna proposed, having the public further away and having the staff up here. Even that's going to require improvements to the microphones. Bill's microphone, especially is Bumi, Bumi, Bumi and others. You know, hers is working perfectly. Lawrence. Mike can be heard audibly. So I think we need to put some, some, some of this, some of this. Some of this is for the company towards improving the interaction, a screen on the back of this poll. So that it can be what's seen here. Cannot be seen for back there. So there's, there's some minor improvements. Feedback electronics, feedback, canceling electronics. These are things that Orca can pull a technician in and a designer and improve this council chamber for this. I'm just suggesting that it's not, it's not good to compromise. He's a very important in time sensitive discussions with who can, who can get noticed or voice only is even worse, which is what I'm limited to. Okay. Thanks, Steve. Vicki. Yes, I would like to reiterate what Jack said. I think it's really important and I think that that's where I'm hearing that you're going is that at least next week's meeting because next week is the final budget public hearing correct. Yes, is held in the city council chambers because there are people who can't. Can't access the zoom stuff.  I think that's good. I agree with Jack. Okay, thanks. We'll move on to. We'll discuss that tape that up again. Next. That brings us to number 17 other business. Do we have any other business. Number 18 then council reports. How will we start with Lauren this time. My mind is blown. I know. Alternate but so yeah so. Okay. All that I have is. We'll have more time for it, but grateful to Jay for a service and he'll be missed and we can do more of that but what if we're in zoom. So just thank you Jay and really grateful that. My other colleagues are stepping up for reelection. This is very hard work and putting yourself out there really appreciate working with all of you so grateful for that. And then the only other thing, and I don't know if somebody else has better position to talk about it but Connor, Jack and bill and I were able to have a conversation about getting a basically request out to some of the these lobbying firms to try to line someone up so they can be representing my failures interests in the state house, particularly with all of the federal dollars flowing and some big needs that we have in a big legislative agenda. So we had come up with a process I don't know Bill if you want to describe it briefly but just wanted to make sure that everyone was good with where we have landed. The council had put in money for next year but also had talked about needing to do something for this current session. So the lobbying committee and I met and simply said how, you know, let's see if the council's on board we've got a draft. It's not really an RFP it's just give us a letter of interest and with some basic questions in it. We've got a list of all the peculiar lobbying firms so it's all it's all drafted. We've got the list it's ready to go. We would issue it tonight or tomorrow morning and asked them to give it to us in time for next week's meeting to go by Wednesday so we can have a recommendation for Thursday night and choose somebody and get going. You know, and obviously if it's more complicated we'll have to wait till the February meeting but then the session is almost half over so we wanted to move. But we figured we'd at least see if people were on board with that process. Committing anything yet until we actually make an agreement with somebody. And did that go to all the members of the council hasn't yet. Okay, because we want. It's good to me. Great. That's it for me. I don't have anything but Jay, I just wanted to say appreciate your help in my entry to this world of district three on the city council, and I'm going to miss our emails. And I don't have anything else. I've had some constituents email me with some concerns about the structure over in the empty lot where the, what is that place that was the curtain park. And so I would like to talk about that at some point, moving forward. Jay, I guess the cat's out of the bag. I'll have more say this late to this later but by obviously by process of elimination and not stepping to the mic earlier tonight. I'm not planning on running for reelection. I'll leave it at that. I will have plenty more to say, I did send a note to folks who have been really supportive of, of me and my time here these last couple years and I'm really appreciative of the work we've done but I'll just leave it at that for now. I'm actually quite angry at Jay so I'm going to see the tribute for another time though. Plenty of time to sing his praises in the future when the burning rage dies down. Just a couple of things that Lauren brought up today. I think it would be kind of we could just have a discussion of how we can welcome our new Afghani neighbors here. It was great to see so many of them up at the sledding hill and Hubbard park this weekend to look like they were in a great time but it'd be nice if we could have an introduction and just just put some faces to names and do a proper welcome somehow. And otherwise personal privilege I just took a new job as director of gun sense for month, working on gun violence legislation up at the State House so put me out of the mix of any gun stuff we discussed here but I'd like to look forward to getting into that. That's it for me. Thanks. Never take on the easy topics. I have nothing. Thank you all. He has three more meetings. I can arrest him and thank you. Yeah, and I don't have much to say other than I also appreciate greatly appreciate the work that Jay's done and the expertise that he's brought to the council. You know, one of the things that we learn is that everyone who comes onto the council has the things that there are some areas of real expertise that they bring to the council and we kind of hope that are our gaps at our strengths kind of mesh so that we can do a good job on everything that comes before us and I think that Jay has been really great to know about stuff that I don't know. I don't know anything about city clerks report city clerks still awake and does he have anything to report. Not nothing really to report I'm not going to vouch for being awake but yeah so I'm going to be away just so you all know for a couple days. There's a pretty. Okay, so my tattoo artist yesterday after a two hour appointment, you know close contact with masks is now incredibly sick. So, yeah, I'm probably not so good. But there was no exposure in the office just brief exposure well before I would have been contagious. So I just want to, since I mentioned that I want to make sure everybody feels completely comfortable going into the office it's all good. I'll do as much work and be as responsive as I can to members of the public from home and but yeah, come on in it's all good. It just occurred to me before I pass this over to build it. Actually, do have one other thing I want to mention we don't. I try not to mix the party politics with city business but we're the Democratic Committee for Montpelier is collecting winter clothes for homeless veterans and I'm collecting clothes up until this weekend at my house so if you have something. Feel free to reach out to me and fill up my kitchen even more than it's already full. Just a couple things reminder to all of the folks that just announced they're running for reelection and also anybody out there who is interested in running for election that the petition, your deadline to get your petitions in is next Thursday, and any other petitions that are coming. And so be aware of that. Just a quick correction there petitions for running or do the 24th. I am sorry thank you Mr city clerk. I thought they were all do the same day. Nope. No, okay so petitions for running or do the 24th. Thank you. But any if there are petitions for items to be considered on the ballot those are due by next Thursday. That's the only real announcement I have I just wanted to offer a couple of comments on. You know, several people mentioned communications tonight and I certainly agree with that that, you know, public communications is really important and the ability for people to participate. You know, we don't have to debate it now, although it might be good to have for future conversation. We're certainly open to any suggestions that people have and are interested in people's ideas. I don't, you know, we, we don't have to have these two public hearings and we do when we actually had people engaging in a public conversation so it's I find it interesting when people are in a public conversation saying we ought to have a public conversation I mean this is the public conversation. And we have had for many years. We held a pre budget meeting. We would have all the school staff all the city staff at the senior center, opened it up, advertised it did and you know, five to eight people would come. And so, you know, we want to be effective in our public communications we want to hold this in, you know, perhaps remote is now the way to go we could hold a public hearing we will be having a public information hearing on the budget and the bonds that in the last meeting in February before the vote, so people can get information we were right in the in the bridge article in great detail the report has a lot of detail. We post on front porch forum in those places pointing people to these hearings to come. I'm not trying to be defensive I'm saying that we are, you know, we're trying to do outreach, you know, I, we recognize the flaws with the, with the website and we're hoping to help them. And, but we still try to post these things so additional ideas for how we can do outreach that are actually going to be effective and get to people and that people will participate are welcome because we would we would love to have more more participation in the process and to provide information and things like the budget you know it's a lot. It's a lot of information and it is a weighty budget book and you know there was a time when we would go line by line through the budget. And people complain that we're in attendance that it was boring and didn't get anything out of it so I don't know what the right answers it seems like whatever we do is sufficient but we want it to be sufficient and I know public communication is a high goal of the city councils and of the community and of our staff so anyone with suggestions, please share them. Thanks. On to item number 16 discussion of real estate negotiations. I would entertain two motions. Really testing me tonight. All right. I move that we enter executive session. No, is that that's the first one is the other one. That's the second one. I move to find that premature general public knowledge of real estate matter. Well clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage by disclosing our intentions, our intentions. Is there a second. All those in favor signify by saying I, I opposed. I move that we enter executive session to discuss. A real estate matter under the provisions of title one section 313 a one. To a to a two of the Vermont statutes. All those in favor signify by saying I, I was opposed. The executive session should include the city manager anyone else. Okay. Okay. We don't expect to, but we will come up. We will reconvene and come out after the session. Okay, we're going into executive session. All those in favor. I opposed. Okay. Jay. And I'd like to make a motion that we authorize the city manager to proceed with the purchase process of the. We, yeah, purchase process of the country club property based on the parameters we discussed in the executive session. Is there a second second. Any further discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I, I opposed. No objection. We will be in adjournment at 1034 p.m. Thank you.