So it is February the 14th and Bryce and I, we both are hysterical, worst girlfriend's wives ever because we both got it was Valentine's Day, even though it's one of my best friend's birthdays. So we thought we'd jump on and do a little impromptu, one of our coffee chats about love and what is love because there's so much banded about, isn't there Bryce, about getting to the love vibration and stay in love and stay in that sort of heart space, etc. But a lot of people ban these things around and I would say it's really important that we all look at how we're embodying them. Yeah, and I don't think we actually truly understand what love is. I know somebody said once, my mother said this once, I think she'd heard somebody say that the only true Valentine you'll ever have are your children because they're a super unconditional type of love. And I know we've been talking about that a lot in the Magdalen series that I've been doing on my channel and I remember when I was going through my trauma therapy after coming out of an abusive relationship, something that really hit me. And I think that girls as women, I'm not generalizing but I kind of am generalizing that we are all kind of guilty of having this misunderstanding of what passion is when it comes to romantic relationships. A lot of times when there's a lot of drama, we think that it is passion, but it's not. It's toxicity, you know, and that's not what love is. Love is not toxic. Love, there actually is a verse in the Bible and I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians here in a minute, but I know in the book of John there's a verse in the Bible and I'm paraphrasing where he says that God, where there is fear, there is no love. And God is love. And so if you're in a situation with someone where there's a fear response, that's not love. You know, that's not love. And I guess I'll go ahead and I know most people know this Bible verse. It's one of the most commonly read at weddings. It's 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 6, I'm going to read here and I'm sorry, 4 through 7. And to me, even though we know the Bible is corrupt and has been manipulated over time, this to me is one of the most powerful passages of love. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. And that to me is there's a very calm undertone to that, you know, and I think that that's the essence of love, whether it's a romantic relationship or a parent-child relationship or relationship with your animals, you know, there's a calmness. Even though emotions might roll up from time to time, there's always this sense of calmness. A calmness, it does not delight in evil. It does not, you know, true love does not want to see, if someone truly loves you, they don't want to see you suffer. They don't want to see you fail. They want what's best for you without being self-seeking. And I think that that's true across the board for, again, for friendships, family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever. It's that true essence of really, really caring about that person's well-being. That's so important. And I love that. I mean, I think that, and there's so many points there I want to sort of come back to, because, you know, we talk about how you can't truly be feeling love or demonstrating love or being the love vibration if you're in the fear. You can't be in both at the same time and look at what's happened over not just the last two years. I think the last two years have brought it to light, but so many relationships, whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it's work, whether it's romantic, they use fear as a form of manipulation. And we've even seen it a lot in a lot of, you know, people that generally fit, are coming from the right place. But look how much and so much of the videos that we watch on both sides, whether it's on the truth or the mainstream, so much is driven by fear. And that is not in the love vibration. And one of the things I see happen an awful lot is you can see a lot of people who think that they're spiritually awakened and they can say the words, but not demonstrate it from the actions.  Well, that comes from also the biggest thing I think to be in that heart vibration is understanding self-love. I'm not talking about narcissism. I'm not talking about the ego. I'm talking about valuing yourself, being your own best friend. Because I think when we learn to do that as a human species, then we will only, we'll be able to put up boundaries and only allow people in our lives that carry that same essence of the true love, too. If that makes sense, like, you know, they say that for people that have repeated problems in their lives, it's because there's something in them that they haven't healed. And so they're seeking out another opportunity to heal that. So once we learn how to heal the part of us that's not loving ourselves, I think we will be able to walk into. And, you know, fear comes from, I see this a lot in my breakdown of religious cults and all that kind of stuff. It's like, you know, you look at here in the United States, we have the Westboro Baptist Church, which I can't see too much about them guys, but you can Google them if you don't know who they are. And they're constantly parading around propaganda, trying to scare people into coming into their church. And that's just not God. But my thing is like, are they doing that because they're afraid that they're not right? And so they're going to project that onto other people, which, again, is not coming from a place of trust and a place of love. You know, I was speaking with our French auntie this morning and one of my favorite Bible verses, she was saying this is one of hers, is a verse that says, be still and know that I'm God and being able to surrender. And I think that's a part of love, too, just being able. How many people do we know in the spiritual world that I always talk about trust the universe, trust the universe, trust the universe? But then they act in a behavior that's not trusting of the universe. Absolutely. And I think this is really, I mean, I had, I think, I know, because I was speaking to Bryce about it on Friday, I went to a remembrance service for one of my friends that died very suddenly. And it was the most beautiful, beautiful surface on every level. The vicar was absolutely amazing. His widow was absolutely amazing, his family. And it just really, you know, times like that really hit home in terms of what's important, what relationship. And I could look around that moment and there are people that I hadn't seen for quite a long while. And it was really clear to me which ones we interacted with each other from a place of pure genuine love. And it really made me think about the community that we've been interacting and building on the online community. And yes, there's there's there's so much that said that isn't necessarily followed through with actions. And this I'm not saying this from a blame or who's she talking about sort of things. I was thinking, you know, sometimes you've just got to be really honest with yourself and sort of saying, what am I putting out there as well? Why am I attracting certain people into my lives that aren't necessarily reciprocating with a love vibration? Because if I was really approaching them with a love vibration, they'd have no choice but to come back with that. So when I'm saying this, I'm not saying it from I'm saying it from a self-reflection point of view. And what you just said, then, that Bible verse and what we were talking about, about how love is calm and it doesn't hold grudges. And for me, what I found is my most lasting friendships and the ones that I really value from a place of love are also the ones where you can have those difficult discussions with people because whatever the message, if it's coming from the right place, then it's received in the right way is my experience. When it kind of goes back to things that we were talking about with Lucy last week about being able, you know, if you really love somebody, when they come to you with a grievance or something's wrong, it could have just been a miscommunication. You have the ears to listen, to understand what they're saying. And therefore, there is that, that patience, that kindness that is coming through. And it's interesting.  You know, everybody knows that my day job is teaching a traditional yoga, but I don't teach daily anymore. Basically, all I do is teach courses now. And part of the courses are a huge deep dive into the philosophy. And philosophy is something that I, ha, ha, ha. I guess everyone knows that's what I love the most. But but we have this kind of saying that the teacher always teaches what the teacher needs to learn. Yes. And I don't think a lot of people in the spiritual community that are, you know, saying words, but not acting to actions have comprehended that what they're saying is what they actually need to learn. And if we all had that self love, which part of that self love is self reflection, is being able to look at yourself and course correct because you love yourself and you want to be the best you that you can be not just for the world, but for yourself and your own purpose. You know, so if we start really looking at practicing that self love, then we'll pick up, I think, on those cues of, oh, I'm talking about this a lot because I need to look at this. Absolutely. I understand this, you know, and accountability. It all starts with that personal accountability. Oh, just so important. And it is always and it's one of the reasons why I love my job so much. And I've got various different strings to my bone like you is because I'm not going to be working with with clients if I'm not doing it myself. So the best way to hold myself accountable is to be talking about this stuff because it's a constant reminder in a busy world about the importance basis.  I'm not going to give away any confidentiality. I'm just going to say hi, Jodie will send you so much love. And this lady is absolutely amazing what she's doing for herself and her animals. And it's just beautiful to see these people that really are sort of walking the talk. And one of the things that I posted on my community page on YouTube today was one of the Joe dispenser recent interviews. And it's not that I'm always going on about Joe dispenser. It's just what I am. But it's just he's a really good example. I think he explains things so eloquently. And we've all been talking about myself included. So this is always me talking, you know, holding myself accountable about creating the world we want to move forward. We talk about the age of Aquarius. We talk about moving into 5D. But equally, we've talked a lot, you and I, and with other guests that we've had about how we get that balance of knowledge and understanding our past and what perhaps has been hidden from the past and how we balance that with creating. And one of the things he said that just hit me so hard this morning was that, you know, this this science, the quantum science that people like Joe dispenser are doing have actually proven that the collective networks of observers determine reality. And oh, my God, it's so potent because I've been trying to sort of articulate where I wanted to go with the talks and the guests that I've had on my channel. And that sums it up because I want to be mainly focusing. If I'm looking back, I want it to be in a way that's constructive for helping shape how I move forward, because I am 100 percent convinced from the work that I've done over the last 15, 20 years that our observation, our thoughts and our actions absolutely shape our reality. Oh, for sure they do. For sure they do. I upset that's the whole magic of how we are as human beings. As I've said with what we've said, I want to look to the future because when you go through all the stuff in the past, and you start asking why, why, why did they do that? You're like, Oh, because there's something special about us. There's something special. And so I think we do have that power of of a collective. It's almost like a collective group meditation, but but not in an active state where if we all start to focus on really that into that heart vibration, what that really needs, then it's destined to change the template in which we live our lives all over the world for sure. You know, and it's it's funny as you're talking to when you're talking about your friend that passed away. I keep thinking about like when we are on our deathbeds, like when people ask you when you're on your deathbed, like what's going to be important to you and my aunt, my mom's sister passed away. I think she was 42 when she passed away. This was over like or maybe actually 20 years ago and she passed away of cancer. And at that time she had two children, my cousin. I believe my male cousin was 13 and my female cousin was eight, so very young. And when she was on her deathbed, like right before she passed away, my mom and her sisters were in there and they kept asking her like, Mary Jo, what can we do? What can we do? And all she kept saying was make sure you help build with the kids, make sure her husband, make sure you help build with the kids and that sense of selfless love and this moment of her being in that much pain but wanting to make sure everything was going to be OK. And I think if we to start off, if we think about that, like we don't know when our last day is going to be on this earth. None of us know. And so living each day in that place of like, what is if I were to go away, if I were to exit the world today, like who do I want around me? Exactly.   I've been watching a lot of other people talk about this, like when miscommunication happens, like why not just make that contact with that person? If you keep thinking about it, contact them, figure it out because we don't know when our last day is. We don't know when we're going to get a second chance to correct something and to go back to that vibration of love. And it's so important a couple of things that you said there that that one, make that contact, be the bigger person, make the contact because the thing is however it goes, that contact is meant to be in it. It will give you a very good reflection of where that person is at and therefore whether they're right to be in your life or not. But when you take that first step and lead and initiate that, you're truly opening up your doors, your heart, etc. to, like I said, to really listen. And what we're not responsible for is how that's received, which is, you know, I think really, really important. And not to beat yourself up, you know, hopefully it would be received well, but if it's not going to be received well, then that's obviously meant to be and it's much better knowing than second guessing everything in your head. Yeah. And the other thing that you were saying there is about the meditation. Now, I've been meditating for a long while, but like everything, I do have good periods and bad periods where sometimes I'm far more dedicated in my practice of medication than others. And what is blatantly apparent is when I'm really dedicated to it, everything in my life shifts. So one of the things I wanted to put out there to our listeners today, completely voluntary, I'm not going to be leading any guided meditations because for me, everyone has their own personal style about what resonates with them right here right now. So sometimes I might like to do silent meditation. Sometimes I like to do walking. Sometimes I like listening to a certain person and style of guided meditations. And that's very unique to individuals. And that will change over time, depending what you resonate with them. But I am publicly committing to doing sort of two, at least an hour of meditation a day. Sometimes it will be a block of an hour. Sometimes it will be two half hours. And I'm going to be telling you in our coffee chats how that's changing things for me. And I would really like to encourage anyone who's listened to that. If there's even a little bit of you that thinks, yes, I'm going to give it a go, give it a go. I'm happy for you to contact me. And if you want us to talk more about that and some tips and things we can. But I just think if we all step into this consistency, why don't we see what we can all create together over the next moving forward? I love that. And I want to say too, like with meditation, because I think that's fantastic, because it is. And I agree with you, like when I am, and I have to be consistent for the most part in order for me to keep my authorization to keep teaching. But the form of meditation that I practice is called the Tristana method. And it comes through active meditation, which I won't get too much into that here. But there's so many different forms of meditation, guys. So so I know a lot of people are very, like, sometimes get, like, put off by just sitting in silence. No, there's so many different type. You talk about the walking meditation there. The Tristana method that I do is active meditation. So breath, gaze point and posture. So my eyes aren't closed. They're focused on a gaze point. And that comes through my practice. And that is the active meditation. And it's so funny because I was telling our friend, Shanti, this morning a little while back while I was practicing. And when I practice, I don't listen to anything. I, it's no, and I'm a huge music lover, but it's, I don't put anything on that can potentially distract me from what I'm really feeling. And, but I was practicing and I got this, like, this voice that talks to me from time to time said, this is your magic weapon. This is what will liberate you. Keep doing this. This is why I sent you to India. This is, this is your saving grace. And that, that liberation is also that heart vibration, where we're not, you know, we, we talk a lot about the ego and pride. And there's a cheesy quote, ego is edging God out. Well, the ego is the false illusion of the self. So when the ego is too big, then you're not even in touch with who you really are. And sometimes living in that love, you do have to swallow that pride and humble yourself and be vulnerable. And meditation can show you that, can show you where there's vulnerabilities. And once you can fall into that lean into that vulnerability, you become more human. You more, more in that, that vibration of love, of kind love, of, of being patient, of being kind, you know, persevering. And so I do, I think that's fantastic, Catherine, that we could start, I wonder if we could actually, you know, some yoga shalas and other will do like challenge boards. Yeah. I think you and I, let's have a chat about this and see, and people can let us know what resonates with them. Cause for me, I find it really helpful to like, my husband and I will sort of say, right, we're going to do this together because for me, I like being accountable to someone. And once I've verbalized it, then I'm the top person. If I say I'm going to do it, I'll do it. But everyone's different. But I just, it's just something I've been thinking about so much over the last couple of months, really, is like when we start putting our energy, our focus, attention on what we do want. And I'm absolutely not saying do your research. I'm not saying have fun conversations exploring in the past. I'm not saying that at all. It's not a one or the other. I'm just saying that when we so talk about we want certain things to happen, well, there's so much science behind it for those of you that like to know how, how it works in a quantum physics level. There's so much stuff that you can look at. But I know from personal experience, it literally is transformative. And it's something everyone can do. It costs you nothing. It can fit in with any other lifestyle. And you can literally explore different techniques and see what works for you. As I said, I mix it up a lot, depending on what resonates with me at that time. And sometimes I like to listen to guided meditation. Sometimes I like complete silence. I do love the breathing ones as well. I love doing it with my horses and my dogs and my cats. There's so many different times. But I would just, wouldn't it be special if as many people who watch this could comment whether they're up for it and joining in with us. And then when we do our coffee chats each week or if we do extra spontaneous ones like this, we can follow up and see how people are finding it and what changes they're noticing in their lives. Cause I guarantee you will do. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You will absolutely. The first time I ever started doing meditation, I remember all of a sudden I had never felt a pause before. You can take a pause. That's allowed. You know, in the busy Western world that a lot of us live in where it's go, go, go, go, go, work, work, work, work. You can take a pause and that pause will show you a lot. And so I think that's fantastic, Catherine. I think we should, I hope everybody listening wants to do that because I think that could really shift things. Yeah, let us know. And if you'd like some sort of help at all, let us know. Cause I think we're both very open to them. We've also between us got an amazing network of friends and a lot of people that you've already spoken to that we can get in on this challenge as well. But initially I'm saying that, you know, as of depending what time zone you're in today or tomorrow. And when I say now, that's an indication of me. I don't sit down and set my watch sort of thing. It's just like what I'm saying is I'm going to dedicate a certain amount of time to it and I'm not going to skimp on it. And that is a non-negotiable in my diary. And the thing is, I mean, Dodger Spence got a new love one out that I just really love. And the effect price that it had on my dogs and cats when we played it with them was absolutely profound. What it bought up to them emotionally. And that one, and there's a really beautiful one by Wayne Dyer that you can get free different versions all over YouTube called I am that I am. And I think I've mentioned this before but when I play that my dogs howl like walls but not howling like walls. I must get it on video sometime but obviously I'm constricted to relax into not howling in a distress way at all howling in a pure vibration connection way. It's beautiful to see. Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I'm so, I think that was, I think that's such a great idea Catherine. I think that's what a great day to kick it off with on Valentine's Day too, you know. This was actually my due date today guys. I was actually due on Valentine's Day. How were you? Oh. Two days early. I was like, no, I'm not sharing my birthday with a holiday. So, but yeah. My best friend Jane, happy birthday, Jane. My best friend Jane from university. We've always so jealous because her birthday is on Valentine's Day. And so when you're at university like you used to get your post delivered to little pigeon holes in the main reception area.  And so it looked like she had most of Mara's and she didn't, you know, of course, no one knew it was her birthday. She was like, my Valentine's card. It was really, it's been a standard joke ever since about what a cool time to have birthday. So yeah. So, but no, it's just lovely to take this time to reflect, isn't it? And take this time to reflect for ourselves and for others and about sort of, okay, where now, what next? And we'd love to hear everyone's comments about what they think and where they're at and how, what love means to you. Yeah. And there's also guys that just popped into my head. There is, I'm not trained in this. I've just seen it on YouTube. There's a, there's a laughing meditation too. You can Google it where you make yourself laugh and you keep yourself laughing for a good five. It's a short meditation, five minutes. And what it does to change people's day just to take that time just to laugh. So that's another thing. That's beautiful. I've not seen that. And that, that is one I haven't tried. So I will definitely be trying that. Absolutely fantastic. So rest of the day, have you got anything else planned for Valentine's? Oh, I think no, I totally forgot it was, you know. I never, I never, I mean, I think the last time I exchanged Valentine's Day gift was with my best friend who was gay. And I got him a chocolate man boyfriend. And then he gave me something too, but that was like the last time I actually did anything for Valentine's Day. So, so, you know, but you know, it's, it's, it's, I know some people really, really love it. So I hope for those that are really love this holiday, I think it's, I actually, it does my heart. It makes my heart happy when I see people who really love it because that means they really love love. And they love love. And that's, that's a really, you know, that's a really great quality to have if you're a person that really loves love and wants to be in that, that, that state of loving someone and being loved by. And that's a hard to think too is to love someone but also allow yourself to be loved by another person. That's something a lot of people struggle with. But again, it goes back to that self love as well. So, really does.  We don't need to wait, everyone knows this. And the Valentine's Day is a bit of fun for a lot of people. But also is sometimes these are sort of good reminders for us to sort of say, right, we don't need anyone to tell us that this is the day you show your love. You know, I think if, if everyone started showing their love and really working out for themselves, how they know when they're really communicating from a heart space with themselves and everything else around them, then I think we'd see shifts happening really, really quickly around us. Yeah, me too. And I just had thought too, like, what would happen if every time you thought about someone, a friend or whatever, you just shot them in text and said, hey, thinking about you, hope you're well. You know, how would that change our world if every time every single one of us thought about someone and just said, hey, just a quick text, thinking about you, hope all as well. If that happened repeatedly throughout the day all over the world, how would that change our vibration? How would that change that giving and receiving of love? Not, and again, we're not just talking about romantic relationships, you're talking about, I'm mainly talking about friendships when it comes to that. Exactly. So, yeah, the power is ours. It's always, it's like that Wizard of Oz. You know, you have the power all along. You have the power, you've had it all along. Yeah, and I think, you know, there's so many scary things out there. I think, you know, we've already talked about we can't be in a fear of vibration or love of vibration, but the beauty is noticing when you're slipping from one to another and then making a conscious effort to do something about it. So, it's fine. You know, we don't want to suppress our emotions, but we can consciously choose where we spend most of our time. Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, well, I love you lots, Bryce. I love you. I love all the listeners.  We really, really appreciate you. Let us know what you think. Let us know if you're going to join in our meditation in whatever form that looks like for you sort of next month challenge. And if you do, let's keep in contact with each other and see how you're finding it and what's shifting and see how it shifts things globally as well. Amazing. Bravo to you, Katherine, for coming up with this. So, amazing. My halo's gone wonky. Hang on. And we will be back. We will be, you and I will be back tomorrow evening with, well, tomorrow in various different time sails with lovely Bryce, with David Cohen, and lovely Medina. So, I'm sure we'll be carrying on the conversation then. Take care, everyone. Thanks, guys. Bye.


Trade it and upgrade it now at Appalachian Wireless and receive up to $700 off when you trade your old, eligible device in and upgrade to a new iPhone 14 Pro Max or Samsung S23 Ultra on an unlimited Appalachian advantage plan because we are you. We are Appalachian Wireless. On February 17th, Pikeville Elementary School held their 5th grade DARE program graduation. The 10-week course teaches the students lessons in helping others, bullying, and peer pressure. Pikeville PD Lt. Chad Branham goes more in-depth about teaching these valuable life lessons. Pikeville is a 10-week course. It's a 10-week core curriculum course that is provided through DARE America. It's only taught by certified DARE instructors, which there's only two of us in the whole all of Eastern Kentucky. During those 10 weeks we discuss things that people around their age group is going to be facing like stress, peer pressure, risk taking, bullying, confident communication, active listening, getting help from others, and helping others. So what it's kind of shifted towards now is how to avoid bad situations, how to get out of bad situations if you're already in them, who you can go to for help, what resources you have, and really get more in tune with your body and how to deal with stress and peer pressure. Here in about a year or two, people are going to see some studies that have been done over the last 15 years, since 2009, that's going to show how effective the new curriculum there is. It is very effective. As part of the graduation ceremony, select students were rewarded with prizes for turning in essays related to the lessons they learned during the program. Principal Glenda Atkins expresses her thoughts on seeing her students become educated on real-world subjects. Our experience with the Pikeville Police Department is unlike any other. They are phenomenal. They are present in their schools constantly, and the officers are always willing to talk to them, and it's a positive relationship. So they know where to go for if they need help or if they have a question. It's a real transformation, and it's an awesome experience to watch that as they become older and more grown up. We know that being exposed to the things through the day is making a difference, and the choices that they are making as they grow up. Reporting from Mountain Top News, I'm Nick Colum.


Please make Heidi welcome. Switch. There we go. Hi. Are you all awake still? No.  My name is Heidi Waterhouse. I am a developer advocate at LaunchDarkly, and I'm here to talk to you about technical writing, because that's what I did for 20 years. And I have some opinions. You're in there. So when we use software, we never sit down and say, wow, I wish I could use some software. It's not a thing we enjoy doing. We enjoy doing things with software. But I have yet to meet anybody who's like, you know what I really love? I just love the physicality of writing something in code so that I can use software. It's not what we're doing. We're like, I want to do a thing. I want to climb a mountain. I want to find a leafy on. I want to find an ATM. There's a lot of reasons we use software, but it's not because we like software. Being that we don't have feelings about software, we have a lot of feelings about software, we mostly just don't notice our feelings about software because the emotion's kind of like eh. Or we might notice feeling a little happy if software is particularly well-designed to help us do what we want. But mostly, the emotion that we notice about software is this or like this. Like that's how we feel a lot about software. Every time we notice we're using software, we're a little bit angry because we are not catching our leafy on, right? So that's how we feel whenever we can't do what we were trying to do because we're having an interface.  But since we haven't managed that one yet, let's talk about some better things. First, nobody likes reading documentation. They like knowing things that are in documentation sometimes. And I say this with all the authority of somebody who wrote documentation for 20 years because I really hate writing documentation. And it turns out if you're a technical writer, there is no documentation and so you never have to write it or read it. It's so great. Nobody says, did you read the docs? Because you're in charge of making the docs. Yes! But eventually, you know, somebody else makes the docs and then you have to read them. By the time most people go to read documentation, they are already angry because they have already noticed that they are interacting with software and they have already failed to do what it is they wish they were doing. So by the time everybody gets to documentation, they just want their question answered. Like, please do not tell me about the architecture of this. Please do not tell me the origin of your adorable name. I know you think it's funny. I don't care. Like, don't tell me any of that. Just tell me how to do the one thing that I'm trying to do so I can get on with my life. I first formulated this theory almost 15 years ago when I worked for a company called MQ Software and we made a product called QPASA. And the powers that be ordained that all of the bullet points in the 800 pages of documentation were going to be chili peppers because QPASA, get it?  It's not how we improve documentation. So what does make documentation better or at least make it suck less? Getting the exact answer that you want to the question that you're asking. Not having to dick around and ask the question like 14 times is the best way to have documentation. So very few developers like writing documentation because if you did, you would obviously all leave for the green fields and high pay of technical writing. And the people who do like writing documentation are over-represented in this room because you didn't sneak off during coffee break to take a nap. Thank you. So if developers don't really enjoy writing documentation or reading it, why am I giving you this talk? The benefit of documentation is that it saves you from answering questions from irritated people over and over again because you could be like, oh, I put it in the wiki and then they can go read it and you don't have to answer it again. So burnout is a real problem. How many of you use Read the Docs? Excellent. How many of you are paying for Read the Docs? Damn straight. Yes. All the rest of you are having arguments with your companies about this or can't get it to pay, but Read the Docs is essentially run by one and a half people and the one person is Eric Holscher and he also runs amazing technical writing conferences and he's great and he is a crispy burnt out thing and if Read the Docs goes down, there's like a good odds that he will just burn it to the ground and take off for the Pacific Crest Trail. And I can't blame him because he's been answering the same questions over and over and over again for everybody without getting paid a lot of money to do it. And that's pretty regrettable and it made me think about how writing documentation is a way to prevent burnout because it distributes community knowledge to the community. So like Docs, they're not just because you don't wanna answer questions from people but it doesn't hurt. So how do developers write pithy answers to actual problems? Before I answer that question, which I am going to answer, I'm going to give you a pitch. Hire an expert. Do you put in your own window glass? Are you the sort of person who actually like fixes their own transmission by milling parts? Or do you hire experts to do these things? Because I am all for the hire experts to do things that will take me a long time to do. I think maybe it would be more efficient to hire writers that can learn technology rather than taking highly paid developers and making them do something they're mediocre at slowly. Like it's a crazy economic thought I had that maybe it would be more efficient to hire an expert to do something they do well. This argument does not actually make a lot of traction with enterprise customers for reasons that I have never figured out. So if you hire a technical writer, we use all of our magical technical writing tools and our years of experience in education. And we can make your five people in an incubator look enterprise grade. I'm just saying it's a thing you could do. For most technical writers, the pay is or should be equivalent to a Python developer of the same experience and quality.  Call it good. Pay for good writers. Okay, yes. But it's not always a choice you have because it turns out that you are not the boss. You work for the boss and the boss is in charge of the money. So you still need to answer questions about your product. What are you gonna do?  There's a giant blank page in all of our souls and it haunts us at night. And nobody loves the blank page and we're all just like, the blinking cursor stares back. But I'm gonna tell you how to do this painlessly as possible. First, first, you have to figure out what questions people are actually asking. Not what you think they need to know. Too bad, not a problem. What they are actually asking and stumbling on. And if you don't have users, find some people who are like your users and profile them and ask them what they do and figure out what they're trying to accomplish. And if you don't have users and you don't know who would be like your users, you have a much bigger problem than documentation and you should stop now. Hide from your investors and go figure out what it is you're actually trying to do. Ask your users what they're trying to do with the software. Not how they're trying to do it, but what they're trying to do. What are they trying to accomplish?  They have different goals and priorities. It turns out they're not just like projections of our imagination.  Because they're not you and they don't know how it's supposed to work. Watch them use your product without helping them so you know where they're hitting problems. If your product is accessible to the world somehow, find out where your users are talking to each other. When I was a wee baby tech writer, this was a mailing list called Framers L and it had all of the knowledge of the frame maker world including stuff that never appeared in the documentation distilled into a whole bunch of really helpful people who would like answer pretty much any non-stupid question and lots of the stupid ones. If your users can find your product, they're talking to each other someplace and it might be on Stack Overflow and it might be on a bulletin board pinned to the faculty hallway and it might be on an IRC channel. I don't care where it is but find out what they're asking each other, what they're helping each other with because that's gonna give you a really good idea about what the community is trying to accomplish. If you have anybody doing support for your product, first take them cookies and say thank you a lot because they deal with angry people who have not been able to find an ATM all day. And then sit down and genuinely listen to them when they tell you what problems people are having because they are at the very pointy end of the stick and they know far better than you how this is actually going in the world. Collect all of the questions that they get and put them in your question list. Hopefully you have a huge list of questions now. You're like, how can people misunderstand a simple product so often and in so many ways? People are amazing. We're like miracles of misunderstanding simple things. So take that giant list of questions down to 20 questions to work on it first because you cannot tackle the 400 questions. It's just intimidating. It's almost worse than the blank page because fun fact, the normal distribution curve applies to almost everything in the world. So once again, 20% of the effort, 80% of the results. So find 20 questions and answer those and it turns out you're going to cover a vast array of things that people actually care about. And I know you're interested in the weird edge cases, like how does it even happen that way? And it turns out there aren't actually that many people running Raspberry Pi's at all, let alone using Raspberry Pi's to run their 3D printers while controlling them with their Microsoft phones. So don't answer that one first. Like answer the things that people are actually struggling with the most. Do a frequency analysis if you have to feel justified about doing math with this. Now stop and set up some analytics because if you haven't figured out how people are coming to your site and what they're looking for, you're really missing out on this rich vein of information. So you want to know what search terms people are using to get to you and how often people are already getting their answers questions answered without having to call support or complain or whatever else. Like if somebody goes through and gets their question answered by your website, that's a 90% win. 100% win is they never come to your website because the product works. But 90% win, they get their question answered without bothering anybody. And both of those things are really important to take care of because you don't know how else it's gonna work. I use Google Analytics on my personal sort of neglected website and it tells me some important things even though I don't have it configured hardly at all. It tells me what people are reading. I should write more things like that. It tells me what people are bouncing off of. I should maybe not write so many of those. It tells me where people are coming from. I love you all, the 20 dedicated readers that I do have. And it tells me what people are searching on and looking for in my site and trying to find. All of those things are pretty actionable for me. I can make things better by knowing that. So now you have 20 questions. Answer those questions in a way that people can find and use. You need to make sure you're answering the question they actually asked as opposed to the question that you got. Anyone who has worked in tech support understands that humans are remarkably bad at actually defining their problems, right? They're like, well, my computer doesn't work. Yeah, okay, so tell me about how it doesn't work. Well, it doesn't turn on. It took me 20 minutes to establish that this person was unclear on the difference between computer and monitor. I was not very good at tech support at this point. I should have figured that out a lot sooner, but they were asking the question as best they could. My computer doesn't work. And I was answering it from a place of privilege where I know a server and a monitor are different. So that interaction tells me that my consumers, my users, my callers are really unsophisticated. Okay, I need to know that. I need to say, this is the monitor. This is the server. Tell me which one of those is broken. You also need to be able to test your answers to make sure that you're giving them good advice. Like don't just like answer off the top of your head and then carry on with your day because you will not always be right. Indexing is not the same as search. You need to make your answers findable. And it turns out that what people call things and what companies call things are entirely different sometimes. So what do we all call this? Right, I think so too. For years and years, Microsoft's website did not have the phrase blue screen of death on it. They called it a fatal exception. And even internally, like they would verbally call it a blue screen of death, but if you searched Microsoft's site for the phrase blue screen of death, no, that never happens. I don't, it's so weird. We don't even have a search term for it. It's not very helpful. They do, by the way, now have an index term for blue screen of death, but you need to figure out what your users call things, not what you call things, because otherwise you're not gonna help them. So many times search engine optimization feels like a scam, like we're doing the 1998 trick where we're stuffing meta tags in pages like cynically. I had that job. I knew HTML, I was like a god. But it turns out that we can use search engine optimization tricks and things to help people understand how we could help them more. So this is my road ID. It has my name and phone number and contact information for my loved ones in case I get smeared to a thin red paste because I'm a cyclist. And it's super useful for me because wallets and spandex are not compatible. Don't try it. But there are other people who would also be helped out by things where wallets are not super useful, like sailboats. So even though this is designed and marketed to cyclists and runners, there's nothing that says you can't add SEO editions for wallet and sailing and other kinds of sports that have something to do with not wanting your wallet with you but wanting your body to be identifiable. It works because you're thinking about how the user can and should use things or might use things in addition to how you are marketing and thinking of it. It's kind of important. All right, hands up if you can. Not yet, hang on. Who loves the giant unordered FAQ? Okay, you weirdos. I'm noting you down for later. Who believes that they are actually frequently asked questions? Yeah, I don't know about these guys. I think they are just things that people don't know how to sort. You're like, I should tell people about this. Where should I put it? FAQ, it's not an FAQ. But who searches the FAQ and the futile hope that they might actually get an answer for a weird thing they haven't been able to find everywhere else? Yeah, right? Because it's like the answer of last resort. So we're gonna keep having FAQs and I'm not gonna win this fight about renaming them because this is now like seared into our souls. It's a cop out but you also have an opportunity to use it. If you group your FAQ answers in a way that makes them logically, internally consistent, you're really helping people out. So I am a freak in that I typed Dvorak. And, yeah. And some places, some computer systems think of it as a language and some of them think of it as a keyboard layout. And if you put those together, I would be able to find which one it was because I was searching down the list for keyboard layout and I found languages, Dvorak. I'm like, oh, okay. So spend a little time un-chaoticking your FAQ and you're giving people a lot of information about what things are related to each other. It doesn't do any good. To make something findable, if it doesn't exist, it turns out. I tried to play hide and go seek with my kids this way for a long time and go search for your invisible friend. But sadly, they caught on very fast.  All right, here is the fastest possible lesson on technical writing. I call this minimum viable documentation because I talk to a lot of Agile nerds. First, figure out where you are. You can't tell anybody how to get to someplace if you don't know where you are. So if users are coming to a single page because of search, that page has to tell them everything they need to know. If you need prerequisites, there better be a thing that says you need these prerequisites before you run this function. If there's something you're gonna have to do afterwards to activate it, you better put that on the page because they're not coming to this through a table of contents. It is the future and Google is our Lord and Master. We have searched for the answer and this is the only page we are ever going to go to. So you have to put it all on the page somewhere. An installation page might say, follow these steps after you complete these prerequisites link. I think of this as the game where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? You could go to Sri Lanka all you wanted, but if you hadn't been to the cities you needed as prerequisites, it didn't do you any good. You couldn't find the clue. You have to tell people where the clues are before they can use what's next. Give orders. Technically, we call this the imperative or the second person implied subject. And that's about as much grammar as I know because I care a lot more about language than grammar. But you can think of it as like dictatorial cats. I have a dictatorial cat named Director Fury. Her entire vocabulary consists of meow. This is not her. This is a cuter cat than Fury. Grammar doesn't matter. What matters is stripping all of the politeness and ambiguity out of your instructions because it's terrible for people who are not speaking your language and it's terrible for people who are worried about doing the wrong thing. If there are any if then else statements in your technical documentation, stop and rewrite it because you're screwing people up because they're trying to hold this state machine in their head about what they're supposed to execute on next is not how we wanna do documentation. Just raise your hand or please lift your hand in the air. See I primed you and it still takes longer to do this. Just tell people what they have to do. We are not here to be polite in technical documentation. How does a user know they got a procedure correct? Write a unit test for it. Put the results of the unit test at the bottom of the procedure. So step, step, step, step. You can now, if you don't have a way to say you can now do this thing, what you have written is not a procedure, it's a hypothesis. You have to be able to end a procedure with a conclusion that says the state of this system has changed in a way you can check. Write a unit test for every piece of documentation. Every task has to be testable. Install, test it. Do you have the things there? Is there a directory? Can you access it? Configuration, testable. If you can't think of a test, keep working on it because you're not ready to write this procedure. It's really easy to take things apart, but it's harder to tell if you got them back together correctly. So once you've answered somebody's question, that's great. But this is your one chance to help them a little bit more. This is your one chance to say, okay, you've completed installation and configuration. Your email is set up correctly. Click here to enable two-factor authentication. Right? Click here to enable two-factor authentication because we have them now in this moment. We have guided them through an arcane procedure of maybe five or six steps. We've tested it. We feel accomplishment. At this moment, they're psychologically vulnerable to yet more dictates about how to set up a better system. And you've all had that feeling where you're like, you get through a really long procedure. You're like, did it work? Did it work? It worked. If somebody told you right then that what you really needed to do was save your configuration file, you would actually remember to save your configuration file. But no, we just assume you're gonna remember to do that. Thanks. Not everyone is going to click the next step, but it does give a sequence and a through-flow to your documents. Sometimes there are a lot of procedures to get something going. You and your packages, people. And so even if somebody enters randomly in the middle, you're giving them some guidance on what came before and what comes after. The important part about giving people information is remembering, once again, they don't want to be here using software. They want to get something done. There are a lot more users than there are of us. So do everything that you can to let them own the experience. Let them drive it. Let them call it a blue screen of death. Let them do whatever they want as long as they feel empowered. And like your software, it's going to let them get on with their lives. So what I'm saying is, give the people what they need, give it to them when they need it, let them know how it worked and tell them what to do next. Right, you good? Okay, we're gonna summarize. If this was too long and you read Twitter, answer actual user questions as simply as you can, make it easy to find the answers. Here is a bibliography of books that affected this talk. These are all amazing and you should read them and treasure them in your heart, except Art of Indexing, you can return that to the library. It's both expensive and a little arcane. And if you would like a T-shirt from my fabulous organization, take a picture of the screen and fill in the form and we will send you one because I refuse to carry around T-shirts. So thank you all very much for your time and attention and listening to me talk about technical documentation. And if you want to ask me any questions, you'll be able to find me. Thank you. All right, thank you, Heidi.


Gepard guns effective in destroying shahead drones in Ukraine. German-made Gepard anti-aircraft guns that are in service with Ukrainian mobile fire groups do not miss a single enemy shahead one-way attack UAV. Ukraine's Joint Forces Commander Lieutenant General Serhii Nyev said this at a meeting with the defenders of Kyiv's airspace. We are constantly working to improve the efficiency and skills of our fighters. The Ukrainians must be sure that mobile fire groups in this area of responsibility do not give the enemy any chance.  But anti-aircraft fighters from mobile air defense groups are proving their professionalism and extraordinary efficiency in destroying these targets around the clock, he said. According to him, today the mobile fire groups are armed with both large-caliber machine guns and various anti-aircraft missile systems including Soviet, Igla, surface-to-air missile systems and German-made Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns. By the way, the Gepards do not miss a single shahead, Nyev said. He explained that the greatest value of this system is the radar. The Gepard can detect in advance the direction from which air targets are coming and determine their azimuth and altitude. Accordingly based on these data, various weapons are effectively used. The commander also thanked the German government for sending such modernized equipment to Ukraine.