First things first is I want to talk about the free course that we have.  It's at myinvestingclub.co.co and the way it works is it's limited space every week. You have to register to reserve your spot and then you will get an email for when we start the webinar. So if you are new to trading, new to anything, don't know who we are, don't know anything about us, this free course is for non-members. Members already have access to it so you don't have to register for it. It's at myinvestingclub.co. We have it at a limited amount of people that can register every single week.  Number two is we just got back from Vegas.  We are going to put some of those photos on Facebook soon so I'll put that link when it's ready. But yeah, let's just dive into it. So we've been in a very, very, very slow market lately and what I mean by slow market is that stocks are kind of going up and they're just going straight down. They're gapping up 10%, 15% and then they're going down. And as a short seller who makes money when stocks go down, that's not that good for us. What we want is we want stocks that have meat on the bone. We want stocks that have range.   We were getting stocks that weren't moving and then on Monday or on Friday, last Friday, we got SES and what SES did is it went from $1 to I think $7 in one day and essentially why that's really good for us is because that lights up the market again.  There's money to be made on the long side and all of the shorts who are comfortable shorting these 10% to 20% moves are now shorting something like that and getting wiped up because they have no plan. They have no process.  So fast forward to Monday. Not only did SES go higher, but there was a new stock in play as well, BIMI. So what ends up happening usually is there is a main runner, which is the head of the snake, which is SES and then there is the sympathy plays, which are not as strong, people always like to chase it and buy it because they feel that that's going to be the next runner. They feel that this is the next SES and I have to get in before it's gone.  It went from I think $8 to $25, $26. So here you have a stock that went up 1000% in two days and everyone's looking for the next one. So when BIMI popped up, it went from a dollar to I think it was $10 in one day.  So when these stocks are doing moves like this, all these short buys traders are losing money.  They're so used to not following their rules and not following their stops and they are getting wiped out. As a more experienced trader, what we learn in a market like this is that you have to basically be very patient. What does that mean? Be patient, be patient, be patient. So for example, on SES, the best trade to take on a stock like that is to wait for the first red day sell. I'm not going to explain the details on that. We have all the videos on that and stuff like that, but essentially what I am looking for is I am looking for the stock to go red. I am looking for the stock to bounce and fail. And usually if a stock goes red after a massive parabolic move, it signals to the long buys traders in that stock that it is time to take profits. So on something like SES, although it went from $27 and today opened up at $17, $18, people would think, God damn it, it's down $10 already, the play is done, but realistically you forget that the stock came from $2. So even though the stock is at $15, $16, $17, it still has so much room to go down. Something that's really been important to me is recognizing that damn, like when these things turn, they really turn, SES is down 40% today, I think 40, 45% today, it just went straight down.  So what I did on it this morning is my plan was to short $18, $19 and $20. With all my size. So my size when it came in around $20 had it failed to go green. But this morning, when it opened up pretty weak, I was only able to get a starter position, I was only able to get like 2,000 shares short, like $15.50. So my plan was to slowly scale in every couple of dollars and waiting for the stock to confirm that it was red so that I could size in. And although I only shorted 2,000 shares, I was able to hold it for $4 a share. And yeah, I made eight grand, yeah, that's good. But had I gotten my full size, I would have made six figures today easily, easily. So that's kind of frustrating, that's kind of frustrating. But I was basically just keeping myself safe. I was basically just waiting for it to confirm. I was waiting for it to tell me when to get in. I was waiting for the first red day on it. And I mean, I'm pissed, right? I'm a little bit pissed, I'm a little bit frustrated, I'm a little bit annoyed. But let's fast forward to the other stocks and play. Yuma was Y-U-M-A, and I was also really interested in shorting. The reason why I was interested in this was because in my watch list, oh, by the way, so the video before this, I released a video watch list for the MIC members. So what I'm gonna do going forward is I'm going to release a video watch list for members every single morning. It's gonna include how I build my watch list. It's going to include what I am looking for. It's going to include every single detail about the stock. I'm gonna do this every single day for members. And then on Monday, what I'll do is I'll release the Mondays watch list for free. So every Monday, I'll start to have a free video watch list going forward. But every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the members will have access to that video watch list for free. So yeah, so in my video watch list, I mentioned that Yuma was the one that I was looking for the most because that is the stock that looked like it had the least amount of attention. That is the stock that looked like people were really interested in it. That was the stock that tried to run up but couldn't do it. So my plan was simple. I would either short the 450, 460, 470 level using a 30% rule. Or if the stock went red, I would short a pop when it went red.  So all my focus was on SES. And when Yuma just tanked, I really couldn't focus on two things at once. So I missed it.  So my plans were spot on. I just had to get that little bit of a pop so that I could get some money out of it. But I was too focused on SES and I get it. So that's that. These videos, the watch list, the video watch list has its own category in the video library. It's called Alex's Daily Watch List. It's under the strategy section in the library. BIMI was the other one of the day. This one was the stock that ran on Monday as a sympathy play. And it was gapping up today.  I don't know how much more simple I could make it. I said, when the stock goes red at $9 is when you should be shorting. Ignore everything else. Do not touch it anywhere else. If the stock goes red at $9, you short it. And what ended up happening? The stock went red to $9 and then halted down and opened up $2 lower. So had you just waited, it shorted 1,000 shares at $9.  You would have made two grand had you just waited.   Shit. So I mean, look, that's the kind of stuff that we have to deal with. Baal mentioned it yesterday. We have no special treatment at our brokers. We are just like everyone else. If we wake up late, we don't get to borrow. So BIMI was shit, man.   So let's fast forward to WWR, right? So we went over Yuma. We went over SES. We went over BIMI. The last stock was WWR. And this stock was the next runner in the cycle. So the way it works is this. There is the head of the snake that is the main stock, SES. There is the sympathy play, which is BIMI, which is the next stock.    And usually the way it works is the third stock that runs is usually the shittiest one out of them all, right? It's the shittiest one out of them all because everyone already knows the pattern.  The smart money is using those emotions to dump into you. So this morning when WWR was popping up and it was in play, I wasn't really that interested in it because I was so focused on SES.  And if you make money on that early and you could kind of shift your focus, then you could worry about WWR. But in the morning, I wasn't really too focused on it. I wasn't too focused on it.     It went from $4 to, I think it was like $7 or $8 pre-market. And as soon as I saw it, as soon as I saw the move happen in pre-market, I said to myself, hey, I don't really want to get involved here. I want to have my entire focus on SES. I want to have my entire focus on stock that I know that is the weakest stock out of all of these. So coming into the morning, when I saw it going up and down and up and down, I wasn't really that interested. I saw a key level at 650. What I saw there was a really big support level that if that level broke, if that 660 level broke, chances are, especially after it went to nine, that it's not coming back. And let me kind of go over that a little bit more in detail. So for a stock to continue going lower, you need to have buyers from a lot higher that are causing the stock to have resistance. So if a stock goes from $9 to $6.50, you have $2.5 worth of buyers above that are going to be your resistance on any single pop.   Do not touch it until that level happens. And as soon as that level broke, you got a dollar worth of fade instantly on no stress and no problems. So something that we'd like to do, something that really helps us is we identify the key levels first. We want to know which levels are the most important and then just wait for those levels to hit. We don't want to anticipate anything. We don't want to get in early. We just want to wait and wait and wait. And the reason why SCS worked the way it did is because it had $10 worth of bag holders from above. The stock opened at $15, $16, but yesterday it was at $26, $27. And although a lot of that action is from shorts that are covering, there's still longs in there. There's still people that are blown out. So again, we want to be able to find these key levels. We want to use the lines to be able to determine where our levels are and then make a plan and capitalize on that plan. So every single morning, we post the watch list. Every single morning, we go over in detail what we are looking for. Every single morning, we try to manage our risk as much as possible. We try to preserve our mental capital to be able to attack when our plays are there. And again, although I made, I think it was like eight grand today, shorting SCS, that was only on a 2,000 share starter. I had five, 6,000 shares ready and located it. And if this went to exactly where I wanted, at 20 bucks or even higher, I would have made so much more money. And that's what frustrates me. But again, I can't be pissed about making money. I can't be pissed about this because again, my process yielded to money. Every single day, if I could show up to the market and even make $1 and prove to myself that I am doing this the right way, that's all that matters. So again, this is kind of the market we're in now. SCS went crazy and it tanked. BIMI went crazy and it tanked. WWR went crazy and it tanked. So chances are that the next stock that pops up tomorrow, that gaps up 50%, 100%, the longs are gonna get FOMO. And they're gonna say, I missed SCS, I missed BIMI, I missed WWR, I gotta chase this, this is the next one.  So let's see what happens. But again, it's using information like this. It is using past examples that we are able to predict the outcome of these future plays. So again, that makes sense. Give me like a thumbs up here or a like so I know that everything is good and I don't have to kind of go into more detail. I mean, I mentioned that we have the free two-hour course at myinvestingclub.co. I also mentioned the watchlist thing. Again, this is a video watchlist like this is something that really not a lot of people are doing. So let me kind of talk about that a little bit more in detail as well. So this morning, I was basically, it was early in the morning, it was like 7 a.m. And I was thinking to myself, what else could I do for the members? What else can I do to help them improve? What can I do so that I am giving them every single resource possible to find success?  So after I built my watchlist today, I was like, shit, why don't I just make a video going over it? Maybe if I just talk about a little bit more in detail that it'll be more clear and a little bit better. So this morning, what I did is again, it's the video before this, you can look at it on the YouTube channel, is I made a five minute video going over the watchlist, going over my key levels, going over what I'm looking for and how I'm gonna find it. And again, this is gonna be, I'm gonna try my best to do it every single day for the members. I don't want to say I'm gonna do it five days a week and then not deliver.  I'm gonna try my best to do it every single day, but the way it's gonna work is every Monday, I'll release it publicly to everyone on YouTube. And then every other day, it'll be in the video library for all the members. It's in the strategy section. It says Alex's daily watchlist, so that's that. So I mean, we could do like a quick five, 10 minute Q&A now and then we'll take it from there. So let me know if you have any questions. Let me know how you're trading with today, what you need help on, what you need to improve on. Let's all go through it together. Oh yeah, so we're still doing the steak dinner giveaway. The way it works is if you sign up during the month of September and October, a monthly member gets one entry, an annual member gets five entries, and a lifetime member gets five entries. And then on November 1st, we are going to pick the winner.  How can you stop yourself from trading pre-market front side? Well, here's the thing. I usually have a rule not to trade pre-market, just in case something like this happens. So if you want to trade pre-market or you want to protect yourself, the best way to do it is to use one-tenth of your size. So for example, if your max size is a thousand shares, you are only allowed to use a hundred shares pre-market and you could break that up into four trades of 25 shares or whatever you want.  Where do you find Borrow BI, MI, and SCS? We all have a broker and MIC that we're partnered with that gets us 25% off commissions and gets us free locates. So basically the membership pays for itself. Can you trade front side on larger float, like 25 million for example, and then trade back? So you could trade, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. You want to be trading with the least amount of stress and front side is always, always, always the most amount of stress. People trade front side because they are having FOMO. They trade front side because they feel like they're gonna miss the play. They trade front side because they are anticipating, right?  So for example, on these stocks, on these stocks, the only way you are allowed to trade on the front side is if you use the 30% rule, which we talk about at MIC, and if you use hard stops. If you are not using both of those together, you cannot be trading front side because you are asking for a death wish.  It's gonna be too difficult, right? It's gonna be way too difficult.  SES is down 40% today without a single bounce. BIMI broke $9 and immediately tanked to $6. WWR broke 650 and then tanked the dollar. So wouldn't you rather wait for those moves to happen and make money then, rather than trying to short SES at 20, getting stopped out at 21, shorting at 25, getting stopped out at 26, shorting at 27, making money at 26, like that's just, to me, that's illogical, right? That's illogical. But we are humans.  I am not perfect. I was not perfect.  Just because we are consistently profitable traders does not mean that we consistently make money every single day. Our traders, the reason why we are consistent is because we win more than we lose, right? So again, there is never a time where we're green except for Bao. Bao is one of his best examples that I think in the early 2000s, he was red only five days out of the year. But the guy's a supernatural robotic human.  Most people are gonna be red. Most people are gonna have red days, right? It's just a matter of keeping those red days smaller than the green days.  But if you are just waiting for the confirmation and you are basically trading the right way with the proper process and the proper tools, you are giving yourself every single advantage to be green every single as much as possible, let's say, as much as possible. So again, the reason why members in MIC are doing so well is because they are sticking to the process. They are using heart stops. They're using the 30% rule. They're not attacking on front side. They are building good habits very early. And to become a trader, to become the best of the best trader, you need to have the proper process and the proper habits from the beginning.   Whereas if you join and you are not a victim to these Furu's, then those six months are spent learning the good process, learning what to do right and then you find consistency faster. I mean, Bao says it's the best. Did I lose more than $179 today, this week or this month? And the truth of the header is like, it's like, why wouldn't you be in MIC? If you can make more than $5 in the day, if you can make more than $5 a day trading, you'll be in MIC and it'll pay for itself. If you cannot afford $5 a day, you probably shouldn't be trading. And all the benefits that you get with the broker, with the 25% off commissions, the free locates no need for a scanner, essentially makes your membership free. And Bao and I are working on some really, really, really big secret projects that are maybe six months away, that are gonna make it so that if you are not in MIC, you are, I can't, I really don't wanna talk about that. And I'm not gonna talk about it. I promise you I wouldn't talk about it. But just know that me and Bao are working on a very big program for members that is going to jumpstart their ability to, how do I say this the right way? To not worry about PDT. That's the best way I can say it. I won't say anything else. I won't talk about anything else, but just know that even while we're working on everything right now, we're still working on a very, very big secret project to make sure that our members are going to have the biggest advantage when it comes to trading the market, that someone else, that no one else, that definitely anyone else is going to be able to compete with.  No one else is ever going to be able to offer this special perk that we are working on. And you'll see, you'll see what happens. I'm not gonna talk about it anymore. I'll probably get sued if I do. There's a lot of NDAs and stuff that we gotta kinda make sure that we don't talk about these things. But just know that while we are working on all of this stuff every single day, we are working on something even bigger and something even better, that no other service is going to be able to compete with ever, ever, ever, ever.  So yeah, so basically we've been talking about it for six months now, that we are going to raise our prices. Starting on November 1st, we are raising the price of our lifetime membership. And then after that, we are going to raise the price of our annual membership. And then we are going to raise the price of our monthly membership.  So current members are going to be grandfathered in at their current prices. They're never gonna pay more. But starting on November 1st, if you join, you will be grandfathered in. After that, you will have to pay the higher prices. Let me, let's go back. John, I am first month at MIC and did not regret it, that I did not find you before other than someone else, was watching Deathline's first month, watching charts every day, today made 1.5K on a small size. David Lee simply put the only reason I'm consistent is because of MIC. So I mean, look, you don't have to ask us, you could ask the members. We do our best to provide the best education on the market.   Oh my God, because the point is that MIC traders are becoming an army of consistently profitable traders. So who knows, who knows what's gonna happen.  I'm going to probably wrap this up. Oh, I got a new tattoo. I don't know if you guys care. Actually, let me flip the camera. So that tattoo means family written in my mother's handwriting. I'm sure you guys don't care about that, but I'll finish anyway. Yeah, I talked about Vegas in the beginning about. I think that's it, guys. I'm going to wrap this up. If you have any questions about me or any questions about MIC, you could message me on Instagram. You could message me on Twitter. You could email Todd to myinvestingclub.com. And yeah, I mean, that's basically it, guys.  Every single question is answered in the videos. Every single one. I know it's a lot of videos. I know it's overwhelming.  That's it.


Hello everyone, I'm Gabrielle and I'm here at Oxford Toyota you all we have a new 2022 this is the Toyota Avalon. This is in the limited trim. So it's here. It's available and while it's here I just wanted to show it off a little bit. So you guys with the Avalon This is going to be the largest sedan that we do carry so Let's talk about some of the features that come on the limited now You're gonna have your LED headlights daylight running lights You're gonna have 18 inch chrome alloy wheels Now this vehicle is a limited. So you're going to have a ton of features for the interior So you've got premium leather. You're gonna have heated and cooled seating There's going to be a 10 inch heads up display. There will be a 9 inch touchscreen You're going to have 14 JBL speakers. There is an amp and Subwoofer There's gonna be a sunroof in this one I'm going into the back.  You have plenty of space. There isn't all-weather Liner back here.  So really nice to have that. Let's go ahead and shut this Alright, so like I had mentioned, this is the Avalon limited. It is here currently available I don't know for how long But if you all are interested definitely let us know all of our contact info is listed right here or I just come on in Thanks you all for watching and I'll see you soon. Bye


I'm talking about bridging the gap between flotation, therapy, and medicine. And just one thing to start with is the disclaimer. So everything here today is based on my medical experience, my background, my research. So obviously you'll still want to have your own medical consult for your clients and legal counsel, public relations, et cetera. And speaking of public relations, you might be wondering who this is, the lovely Anja. We look just like our pictures. We do look just like our pictures. That's a picture of me in my float spa, which I no longer own. But I was in Gilbert, Arizona, a true rest float spa, and had that up and running for five years. I've sold that in the past year. And Anja here was in charge of all of my public relations. She was absolutely fantastic. And thank goodness I knew her before opening a float spa, because I had no clue about anything public relations related or crisis communication or anything like that. So thanks for being here today to contribute to this talk, which is gonna dive right into your talk afterwards. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having both of us. And thank you for working out all the kinks with all the technology. So we get to be here in person with you guys, which is fantastic. Thanks for everyone joining us online as well. And we are gonna talk about bridging many gaps today. But we're gonna get Dr. Laura started because she wrote a fabulous article. And that's really the main reason why you are at this conference today. Yes, so I work for University of Lynchburg. I teach in the Doctor of Medical Science program. And when you're in academia, there are three major pillars. So you gotta teach, gotta do a good job at that, right? And you've gotta do service, which can be service to the department, service to the university, service to the community, etc. And the third pillar of education is research. So you've gotta publish. You've probably all heard the term publish or perish. Gotta get something published. So I'm scratching my head thinking, okay, I gotta publish something. What should I write about? And being an owner of a float spa for a number of years, I was like, what can I write about that involves something to know about float therapy? I know a little bit about that. So I started thinking about, okay, we hear about so many things regarding what float therapy is good for. But what's actually in the medical literature? And I had some concept and I read some things over the years. But I really didn't know a lot of the specifics. And I hadn't taken a deep dive into that. And so that became the basis of this paper, which fortunately has been published in the last few months in a peer reviewed medical journal. So that's really good progress for our industry to get ourselves out there more and more. We'll talk a little bit later about the other research that's happening. And the talk just before this was quite fascinating about the eating disorders as well. So I'm happy to hear that there's even more research happening. So let's talk medical. But before you get all medical here, before you dive in, can you tell us really a little bit more elaborate on the concept? So a lot of you know Laura is, teaches currently at Ledgeberg University. She's a former float spa owner. But aside from getting wanting to get published, like why did you choose this particular topic for this article? You know, I had heard so many things like people would talk about, okay, the Navy SEALs are using this for PTSD. They're using this for concussion recovery. It's good for stress and sleep and all these things. And I would hear from clients saying that yes, it helps with this and that. It doesn't help with this and that. So I wanted to kind of compare what I was hearing in the float spa with what was actually in the literature. So the other piece of this was I thought a lot about our waiver in the float spa because when I got that waiver, I just kind of took it at face value. But I never looked into why is this on the waiver and why is that not on the waiver, for example. So we're going to take a look into that as well. So, well, you know, it's interesting because so much of the stuff that's on the waiver you think would come from research. What research is being done right now that you know of? Well, the biggest thing to know about that is that we are not comparing apples to apples. So if you have 10 research studies out there, they are not the same. They're not the same demographics. They're looking at the same thing. They're not set up in the same way. So when we take a look at this, I just wanted to go over a couple of the types of differences so that this all comes into context and makes more sense. So sample size. So you might have a study that has 20 people in it and you might have a study that has, say, 200 or maybe even 2,000 people in it. So very different, obvious apples to oranges here. The length of the study, so it's a short study. Is it a long study? Number of floats, frequency of floats. Are they floating five times? Are they floating 20 times? Is it over a short period of time just in a week or a few weeks or is it over a series of months? Control groups are a little more difficult with studies. So if you have a study in what you think of as traditional medical study, everybody's taking a little white pill and some of them are sugar pills and some of them are actual medications. What's real, what's not? That's kind of an easy way to have a placebo. But people know if they're floating or not floating. So this one's a little different. So there are different ways that you can set this up but just know that the placebo is a consideration when you're setting up these studies. And the follow-up is a follow-up happening in a few weeks, a few months, a few years down the road. So all of these just to say that not apples to apples when you're looking at these different studies. So first things first, pain. Shocking news. Can we have a drum roll, please? Can't do it, let's do it. Floating helps with pain. So surprising, we already knew this. That's why we're here, right? But does the level of pain make a difference here? So what the literature is showing is in general the more pain the person has, the more the floatation therapy is going to help. Somebody who's not having a lot of pain isn't gonna notice as much of a difference. Again, no big surprise there but it is what's showing up in the studies that are out there. Have you ever had a case when the pain would actually intensify with floating? Yeah, so I'd say probably everybody here has experienced having a client come in and they say, oh my neck or my shoulder's been hurting and it started to get so much worse when I was in the pod.  But it did show up in some of the research studies and people would in their float early get out of the pod saying that their pain got worse. Well we all know that if they had just stayed a little longer that probably would have been much, much better. So no surprises there. So let's talk about depression and anxiety for a little bit. You've got some subgroups noted in there. What are the subgroups that you're talking about with this depression and anxiety here? So the subgroups involved in these studies are gonna be people who have PTSD, panic disorder, stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, and agoraphobia, agoraphobia meaning people often don't even wanna leave their house. It's very scary to get out and about there into the real world, interact with other people. So when we talk about depression and anxiety these are the subgroups that we're including into this. There was quite a bit of variability in the results for the depression and anxiety groups. So the literature was basically all over the place. But thumbs up, as you can see there, in general it was beneficial for folks who have depression and anxiety. So that's good news. We can confidently say based on the medical literature that yep, depression is helping folks with depression and anxiety. Yes there's some variability but in general it's helping. There was a really fun quote that I found in the medical research. It was my favorite one of all time and I read like every study that I could possibly find that's ever been done. Angiolidic by the way just means decreasing anxiety. So this is by Dr. Justin Feinstein. You've heard his name probably multiple times before and he'll be virtually speaking at this conference. But participants experienced a robust relaxation response during and after flotation rest that was decisively angiolidic in nature. That sounds so poetic to me. Maybe something that Van Gogh would draw something beautiful about. I just thought that was lovely and it was so great that I wanted to share it. All right, so let's tie this, let's tie all of this into COVID-19 for just a moment since we're talking about mental health. So a CDC report came out just this year, just in the last few months in fact. And the numbers that we see on the side over here are nearly double the rates that we would have expected to see before the pandemic. So we're talking 31% depression or anxiety. I'm actually surprised that one's not higher. I think almost everybody has had a little anxiety or something going on with this pandemic. But even more significantly, so 13% started or increased substance abuse, that's pretty scary. 26% stress-related symptoms, well that's another one I thought would have actually been quite higher. Who hasn't had some stress with everything going on? But 11% serious suicidal thoughts in the last 30 days, that's really scary to me. So anytime that we can help folks with these serious types of mental challenges, mental health challenges, then I'm all in. Let's do that. So let's talk about stress a little bit. So thumbs up, you can already see, surprise, surprise again, flow therapy is good for stress. The part that I really like is that the medical literature showed that flotation therapy lowers blood pressure and cortisol levels. So it's nice to see actual objective data showing what we already know, what we're already seeing in our pods. How much, by how much has blood pressure reduced in the average? So the average systolic is the top number, the blood pressure, so the average on that one was five, just over five millimeters of mercury and the bottom number, the diastolic, that one is actually a little harder to change, so surprisingly that number was a little bit higher, it was almost 13 millimeters of mercury. So I think we all just need to hang out in a float pod all day and not interact with the rest of the world and we're gonna have really great blood pressure. So I just have a question here. Why is there a big woolly mammoth on your slide? Do they float? Because I like woolly mammoths. Aren't they cute? They're so furry and fuzzy. And when I think of woolly mammoths, I think of the cavemen, cavewoman days. And so let's say that you're in the caveman, cavewoman days and you've got a big old woolly mammoth coming and chasing you. And so what are you gonna do? You're gonna run, obviously. So you're running, running, running and that's releasing all the stress hormones. So in today's day and age, the woolly mammoth, so we're gonna be sitting at our computer working, right? So the woolly mammoth is gonna be the email that comes in, the phone call, the whatever. And what do we do?  So we have no way to release our stress hormones in the way that we did, way back then in the woolly mammoth days. And so float therapy is definitely a great way to decrease the stress hormones. So I think it's pretty fantastic that we have a way to relieve the woolly mammoth chasing us in this way. Remember, that'll be memorable. If you remember nothing else, you'd be like, yeah, there's this great slide that had a picture of a woolly mammoth on it. So sleep. This is another one, yep, thumbs up. We all know that float therapy is beneficial for sleep and the medical literature does support this. Again, there was a lot of variability and results, variability talking about the length of time to get to sleep, the length of time staying to sleep and the quality of sleep. But overall, yep, thumbs up. It helped all of those things. Did people take magnesium to get some sleep or to get sleep to improve it? So I take magnesium before I go to sleep. And obviously, we all know that magnesium is in the pods, magnesium sulfate. So it does make sense that people are gonna sleep better after they've floated in the pod because they're getting that rush of magnesium. So I'm a big fan of taking it on days that I'm not floating, just to help with better sleep. So that part is very logical that it would help with sleep. There isn't a great overlap between sleeping difficulty and anxiety. People who have trouble sleeping often tend to be more anxious. People who are more anxious can have trouble sleeping. No big surprises there, but there is a significant overlap. The challenge is that the medications out there for both sleep and anxiety have a number of side effects. So obviously these medicines are gonna make you sleepy, which is good when you're taking them for sleep. Not so much, perhaps, if you're taking them for anxiety and you have a full day's worth of work ahead. But other challenges, as far as medications, is that they can cause addiction, dizziness, impaired coordination. Might be kind of scary to get out there and operate heavy machinery or your car. So anytime we can decrease side effects for medications by not taking the medications and floating instead, thumbs up for me. Well, you got another animal. No, but seriously, is this not a woolly mammoth, but a seal? Yeah, what about the Navy Seals? I remember hearing some stuff. I apparently I like seals too. I'm into animal stay. Maybe I'll have a picture of my puppy next. I bet your kids took over the drawings on your presentation there. Well, this specifically is a Navy Seal because when I own the float spa, I would always talk to people about what I had heard in the float community that the Navy Seals were using float therapy for concussion recovery, for post-traumatic stress. And I really wanted to include that in my paper because if I can get that out there in the medical literature, then that can get even more people's attention, right? Because the article that I wrote wasn't just saying, here's what's in the medical literature. It was targeted towards healthcare providers. And so with the target audience of healthcare providers, then ultimately they can be the ones that will hopefully say, hey, have you heard about float therapy? Have you tried this? So my goal was to just get the word out there more and more to the medical community. But it wasn't in your article, the thing about Navy Seals. That's the problem. So I had always heard about it in the float spa, but when I went to look it up, I found some nice blogs from various float centers and just little things here and there that were online, but there wasn't actually any medical literature. There wasn't anything in a peer-reviewed journal or anything I could really hold onto that I could put in the paper. So unfortunately, PTSD to a large extent and post-concussion recovery did not make it into the paper for that reason because the literature just isn't out there yet in a really solid way from solid sources. So I'm hoping that maybe the Laureate Institute of Mental Health and folks like that who are out there doing the research currently, maybe they can take a deeper dive over time so that we can get it into the medical literature over time. More studies definitely need to be done on that. Yeah, and we'll talk about the studies as well. But first, you get to talk about magnesium. I guess this is kind of my thing if I ask the question, I'm just curious. Like what is it about magnesium and what research is there? Let's talk about it a little bit. What's it used for aside from sleep? So the first thing to know about magnesium is it's not all created equal. So there are different types of magnesium out there and there are different uses for it in the medical world. So one of the obvious uses if people have low magnesium levels in their blood, then we wanna give them magnesium, surprise, surprise. So hypomagnesemia, there's a fancy word that you might not wanna say 10 times faster. Also can be used in pregnancy. So if people have preeclampsia or even worse, eclampsia, magnesium is used in that situation. Cardiac rhythm problems, there's a really bad one. It's called torsades de puentes. You don't wanna have that one. But magnesium can help if you do. Hopefully it will help and the person will live because that's a really bad one. So hopefully that won't come up for any of us. How do we absorb, how do our bodies absorb magnesium? That's a great question. I do wanna just mention two more things real quick. Asthma is another time that magnesium is helpful because it's a bronchodilator and also constipation. So if you do use it for constipation or somebody asks you about this, given that there are lots of types of magnesium, you wanna go with magnesium citrate for that one. Or not go with that one if you don't wanna end up in the bathroom. Well, now that is a good point. So that's a great question about how does it absorb. Yeah, the truth is, well honest answer, I have no friggin' idea. Does anybody know? If you don't know, chances are nobody knows. Okay, so the reason I say I have no ideas is because the literature is like all over the board. So when I own the flow spot, I would always talk about transdermal absorption. So transdermal meaning through the skin. So that's just kind of what I accepted as how it got into us. And then perhaps that is very much true. But given the fact that the literature out there was just, there weren't a lot of good studies out there saying yes, this is actually how it's absorbed. Some of the studies said yes, some said no. Like it was, there was just no consistency. There was an interesting possibility out there, a theory that perhaps it's absorbed through the hair follicles. But the hair follicles make up less than 1% of the skin surface.  Unless sure, well then you'd have a heck of a lot of hair follicles if you're a willy mammoth. Good point. So who knows, maybe it is transdermal, but that's another one that just wasn't super clear from the literature. So say which of the more work needs to be done on that as well, maybe a chance for someone to win a Nobel Prize for how magnesium is absorbed. Oh, that's a good idea. Okay, so if anybody is interested in becoming the next Nobel Prize winner if you want to team up and we can try and figure this out and then we can really help the float industry. Just let me know afterwards and let's see what we can do. Great idea, I love it. Well, if we're talking about all the research, I think what's really important as this whole industry grows and why we're all here is how can these two branches, the medicine world, the floatation world really work together. Do you think that the traditional allopathic medicine is gonna be threatened by all the benefits that are offered by what seems like a very simple solution? Floating. I've thought about this because being in the float world and being in the medical world for so long, I ask myself, could people feel threatened by this? And then I look in any medical office and the waiting room is like, full, right?  So to me, there's enough business for everybody. There's enough people with stress, sleep, anxiety, whatever the challenge is, pain really for everybody. So any of the medical folks that could feel threatened by this, I think it'd be good to have them perhaps think about why they got into medicine in the first place, which for all of us, hopefully, is to help people to feel better. So I see us as an augmentation to the medical world and yeah, we can absolutely work together and help patients in the way that is most beneficial to them and most palatable if they do want to take medicines, if they don't want to take medicines, there's options for everybody out there. So is research being done right now? More, I mean, we saw the previous speaker, what do you know? Research is being done. Good. Would you like the good news first or last? Yeah, save the best for last kind of girl, so yeah. Okay, so this was interesting. When my study came out, just in the last few months, there was also an article that came out in JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association. It was in the open network, so it's quite accessible to quite a few people and this was the question they asked. Do five sessions of float therapy alleviate chronic pain? So if you take a look at this question, Anya, do you see anything unusual or interesting about that question, just from the question alone? Well, I didn't win the Nobel Prize. I stayed at Holiday Inn Express once, but the word chronic and like five sessions are kind of really tripping me up. Seems like a trick question, in a way. I thought it was a trick question too. I was like, really? So all of us who are involved in the float industry would probably have the same thought when we read this question. Do five sessions of float therapy alleviate chronic pain? Well, yeah, it's gonna help pain most likely, but is it gonna help chronic pain? These five sessions were done four days apart. So we're talking 20 days and people who have had chronic pain for who knows how many years. So no, it didn't help chronic pain, but no surprise. Of course more sessions are gonna be needed. It sounds like a setup, yeah. Yeah, so I wish it had been a longer study to ask the question about chronic pain because it probably would have shown something great, but it wasn't, so they didn't consult us apparently. Oh well, next time. So the results obviously were that it helped people in the short term, but not so much in the long term. Ready for the good news now? I'm seriously ready for the good news. Okay, good. Okay, so you've heard the term Laurier Institute for Brain Research and Dr. Justin Feinstein spearheaded this. So the Laurier Institute of Brain Research has been awarded a three year grant for almost three quarters of a million dollars to study float therapy. This is from the NIH by the way, to study float therapy in regard to depression and anxiety. That's great news, but NIH has been like naturally intelligent humans or the National Institutes of Health. So we are getting the attention of the big names, yes. All right. So now that we know the research is out there and alive and well, let's get really practical and talk about day to day types of things in the float spa, waivers. Let's talk about those waivers. I think that's where our worlds kind of meet and combine a bit, so absolutely. So think for a moment about what's on your waiver and perhaps what should or should not be on your waiver. So everyone, right, if you have waivers, you would think that if you read something there, you should just go ask your doctor, right? Like should I float because it's good for me. Great idea. There's only one problem with that. What's the problem? We go and ask our doctor or nurse practitioner or PA or whoever it is, they probably never heard of float therapy. So I guess we're the ones who need to get educated for right now until they all read my article. I don't know. Start trapping of that article in doctor's office, it's great. So well, let's go through some of the things that you have on your waiver, right? So Laura, if I have a pacemaker, should I float? Good question. This was on my waiver. This is why I wanted to look it up. I just accepted it. I'm like, okay, pacemaker, no go on floating because it's so on my waiver. But when I started really looking into what was out there, what had been studied, pacemakers are fine. I actually ended up talking to a cardiologist and she said, well, that would be kind of like saying that a pacemaker would be problematic if you go to sleep at night because you might relax too much. So we're gonna relax in the pause. So pacemaker really just is not problematic. So we're good on the pacemaker. What is a pacemaker anyways? If you take a look at the picture up here, if you see the little thing right next to the heart that looks like a toilet seat cover, that's the pacemaker. It goes on the inside. So, it's not gonna corrode with the salt or something like that. No, no, nothing like that. Excellent. And pacemakers regulate heartbeat, especially if the rhythm is off or the rhythm is too slow. So that's when people use pacemakers, but no problem that I could find anywhere regarding float therapy. I love that slide. So it would seem pretty obvious, but if I have an open wound or recent surgery, should I float, doctor? Well, that's gonna hurt. So if we think about sanitation for the water in the pot, obviously that's gonna be problematic. And the person's probably not gonna come back if they're in serious pain because they have an open wound. So let's pass on the open wound or if anybody, I'm sure you've all floated. That salt has a way of finding its way to the smallest paper cut. So I can't imagine that somebody would wanna walk in with an open wound. Every nook and cranny. But if I have kidney disease, should I float? Now that one is legit to go see your doctor. It's actually specifically a nephrologist that patients should see. The reason for this is because kidneys regulate the magnesium balance. So if somebody has kidney problems, this really could be problematic. So even if they're going to their nephrologist has never heard of float therapy, if they can just take a brochure or just tell them yes, it's more than a thousand pounds of epsom salt or magnesium sulfate, then the nephrologist can let them know how to proceed or not, but this one is really legit. Wow, that's a mouthful. So I'm not gonna try to pronounce it. What is it? It's called orthostatic hypotension. So basically when you stand up too fast, maybe you felt dizzy in the past and this can happen easily in the pot. So a couple of ways to mitigate the likelihood of this happening is if you get up slowly, if you go from laying to sitting for a few minutes and then you get to a standing position, that can really help. Other ways or hydration just in general, staying hydrated decreases the likelihood of this orthostatic hypotension, the drop in blood pressure. Do you think that this really belongs on the waiver? Like is this one of those big high ticket items? I don't think it is. Because if you do these things, if you get out of the pod slowly, if you hydrate well, also the post float shower, if you take a neutral temperature shower as opposed to getting out of neutral temperature water and then going to hot, neutral temperature water will help that as well. So I don't believe this one actually needs to go on the waiver because these are good things for all of us to do. So we're good on that one. But these are nice to mention to clients in general. Seizures, so if I have a seizure doctor, should I float? Yeah, this one's gonna be a no go. I mean, because floating is a solo sport. So if you have a seizure disorder, let's go with no on that one. Even if you brought somebody in the room, the motion sensor lights might be going on and off. If your float room is set up, anything like mine was, and or if somebody was there and they're like diving in after you, if you have a seizure, then there's salt water everywhere and just bad setup in general. No float with seizures, no go on the seizures. Yeah. So let's tie all of this into your specialty. So we have the waiver in place, and it's great for medical warnings and this and that, but it doesn't protect you from meeting a communications plan. Is that correct? Yeah, so a lot of times we mistake a waiver for a crisis communication plan. And that's not the best strategy. We talked about it's great to understand from a legal perspective what you need to know and when people should not get into the float, but at the same time, that is not how you prepare to answer in case that spotlight really shines on you and you need to stand out there and defend your situation, your float spot and your brand's reputation. As this industry grows and expands, we really need to be prepared to be articulate about bad things when they do happen. And I'm not like the bearer of bad news, but as we saw like bad things can happen and it doesn't have to be complicated. So in my presentation, we're gonna talk about this scenario, my world of responding to the news in time of a crisis. I hope you stick around cause we'll go through do you need a crisis communication plan? How do you get one ready and how to best respond to a crisis? But first let's thank Dr. Laura Witte for her presentation and her research. Thank you so much Laura. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.


That's part of linear relationships is for example if you were picking a partner boyfriend girlfriend One of the criteria kind of the baseline criteria is someone you can count on and count on what count on to be there You know for the wedding You know You don't want to be jilted You know, that's not usually something people go into the in their wedding planning. Okay I've got jilt insurance, you know, just in case preenup jilt insurance You know, you you want somebody who's going to be there and this is where when the course of miracles is talking about Holy relationship, it's really loosening from the X page expectations of linear time and and seeing that who the person really is behind the form behind the linearity kind of like those When you're kids, you know, you would Fold paper that little little doll strung out with the paper is what the human construct is about That's not the Christ in order to really experience someone as the Christ or the Buddha nature You know, you have to see that there's there's an essence behind this linear emotion picture Or you know, like when we were kids We would take a stack of paper and we would draw little Mouses like that's how Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse came along animation is just Still frames flashed many times when you go to see a motion picture. All you're watching is a bunch of still Photographs that are moving so fast that it gives the illusion of animation of movement of life and What we're seeing is that none of those images are who we really are We're getting right down to this whole time trick, you know, you go to watch a movie and it's the reason people pay 7 a 10 12 $15. It's not just to go in there.  What did you think of those stills?  Ah his feet were in bounds and the other half go. No His feet were out of bounds wait till the instant replay We're gonna slow those stills down and find out. Oh, look at that No, it's on. No, it's not on the line They actually have these high tech things that you can you know They can actually the balls going like a hundred and some miles per hour or something sometimes and it's coming there and they can They zoom right in they've got is down to a science was it in was it out then they show it Everyone reacts I was right ha ha ha, you know It's all this right and wrong and it's like it doesn't matter whether it's high speed low speed you know it's still coming down to making a judgment and What we learn from the course is we learn we have to learn how to let go of the judgments and it's particularly difficult in relationships because We have a sense of a hole or a lack in our mind from believing in this separation and Somehow the ego has told us that we can find a person To fill that lack We can like I said last night we can upgrade from a lonely single self-concept to a Happy intimate couple concept, you know and only thing you got to do is is again You want the person to act out and to be someone you can count on you know You don't want to be in relationship with someone you can't count on and What we're learning from all of this is you really can't count on distorted perception or Anything in distorted perception because it will always let you down. It will never show you your internal nature You have to literally forgive the distortions


I was down in Washington not that long ago talking to the staff of an important congressional committee. Which committee? Which party? Doesn't matter. The bright young lawyer looked at me and said, I didn't take science in college. I don't know science. I don't like science. But I know that you're wrong about your science because global warming is based on a hockey stick and it's broken. The hockey stick she referred to is a history of climate change showing recent rapid warming that's been confirmed multiple times and really isn't broken, nor is it the basis of global warming. And so my answer to her was no. Actually global warming is based on physics. It's physics that's been known for more than a century. It's physics that's confirmed every day and it's physics that was really worked out by the Air Force right after World War II. Not for climate, but for things such as sensors on heat seeking missiles. And in some real sense if you deny the warming influence of the CO2 from our fossil fuels, you're claiming that the Air Force doesn't know what kind of sensor to put on a heat seeking missile. The discussion we had after that was absolutely fascinating. Now it's certainly true that not all aspects of the global warming story are as solid as those physics of radiation in the atmosphere. So let's go look at the parts that are solid and see where they start to get speculative or where they start to get arguable.


righty! I have a really interesting video for you guys today on a new series I will be doing. As you can tell by the title of the video, I'm going to be talking about some of the biggest mistakes Canada's Wonderland has ever made. I'll be doing this for various parks, but of course I'll be starting off with my home park first. In part one of Canada's Wonderland's biggest mistakes ever, I'll be discussing the sale of their north plot of land that was sold off to the city of Vaughn back in 2008 and 2009. Now, I know some of you might be like, what do you mean Brendan? Wasn't that a smart business move to build a relationship with the town of Vaughn? Well, technically yes to some degree. However, there are a multitude of reasons to why this was their biggest mistake ever. I spent a really long time mapping out existing attractions and similar existing attractions and how that plot of land could have been utilized better. So pull down those clamshell restraints as I show you guys what would have been one hell of an amazing plan for Canada's Wonderland if Dick Kinzel wasn't the acting CEO at the time of the sale. While you're watching, feel free to comment below what you wish one thing Canada's Wonderland did differently through the many years it's been operational and as usual, if there's a concept you'd love to see us cover, please comment below and a member of our team will take down the concept for a future video. To give any new visitors here a quick beginner's note recap of what happened back in 2006, Cedar Fair, the current owner of Canada's Wonderland, made a bid to purchase Paramount Parks, the previous owner, and was successful in doing so. The CEO back then was Dick Kinzel, whom I personally believe in himself was one of Canada's Wonderland's biggest downfalls. Dick Kinzel did not believe in water park additions and his prime focus was on a property located in Sandusky, Ohio called Cedar Point. Now we must give credit where credit is due and Dick Kinzel did push for Canada's first hyper coaster over 200 feet tall, Behime, which was the start of a long list of investments to come to Canada's Wonderland. Now, furthermore, a lot of Canadians don't actually know this, but Canada's Wonderland is the most attended seasonal theme park in North America. It averages around 3.5 million visitors annually, with numbers now growing past 4 million, with the addition of their absolutely stunning Winterfest event. Canada's Wonderland is approaching a problematic situation of being completely landlocked with little to no room to grow infrastructure, attractions, and accommodations. One may ask, what sort of problems could being landlocked cause? Well, here are some of the problems Canada's Wonderland is currently facing. Canada's Wonderland is currently fitting a six to eight story hotel in its very back corner plot of land adjacent to Rutherford, which received some backlash from citizens whose houses are located next to the hotel, further pushing back the hotel's targeted opening. In fact, it caused nearly a year delay, in itself with the engineering firm having to remove two stories from the design in order to prevent the top two floors being able to have a view of people's backyards in the townhouse community next to the hotel. Cedar Fair, the company that owns Canada's Wonderland is currently in a phase of developing hotels and lodging at their larger portfolio parks such as Wonderland due to Cedar Point's hotel properties making up roughly 10% of the company's revenues. With this focus on hotel properties and lodging, Vaughn being such a large market and located so closely to Toronto and a major highway, Canada's Wonderland is a must for developing hotels and lodging. The problem of land availability and restrictions comes into play. As you will later see, I have constructed the perfect plan for what could have been. Canada's Wonderland also has an entertainment facility that used to be used frequently. It used to be home to popular events such as Z103's summer rush and multicultural events, but is now used as winterfest storage. Wait till you see my rehabilitation plan for the venue in an either or situation. This now brings our attention over to Wonderland's water park. Wonderland's water park used to be a must visit, but as of late has become a must avoid. Unlike its sister parks in the chain, Splashworks has received next to no investments and is in part because of being landlocked. Stuck between Behemoth, Mindbuster and Whitewater Canyon, Splashworks has little ability to grow and distinguish itself as a destination water park for its competitors such as the water parks in Quebec, Niagara Falls and of course Wet and Wild in Toronto. With these three main issues that I just listed, you are starting to see the common issue of being landlocked and not evaluating Canada's Wonderland's true potential back in 2006 to 2008. I will now present my concept of what the land that the hospital currently sits on could have been used for instead. Imagine if Kingswood Theatre, Splashworks and the hotels and shops and dining were all located adjacent to Canada's Wonderland. Imagine a park that had a hundred acres of undeveloped land now for use. In my concept I measured out Splashworks, half of Wonderland's parking, Kingswood Theatre, the plot of the land that the future hotel is using and the shopping centers located across the street to show you what that land could have been utilized for. In terms of the water park, you could have had a parking garage, separate entrance with separate admission and build newer assets from ProSlide and theme the entire water park to anything and everything very Canadian. They could have expanded their revenue stream greatly with this alone. Having Splashworks located over on the north end of the property could have allowed for 30 plus acres of development to fit a campground or future additions such as phase two of Frontier Canada without removing the forest that Whitewater Canyon sits in. This brings us to Kingswood Theatre and how it's been forgotten about with the land to the north. They could have moved Kingswood Theatre there with a more modern design and even made it more larger. I'll explain why this would have been a very strategic move. If they moved Kingswood Theatre over there and had one to two hotels located there along with restaurants and shopping, it would have been a very strategic and attractive business move for concerts and events to be held there. You'd have the conference rooms in the hotel, the hotel rooms for bookings and the restaurants and bars for the concerts as well. This could attract events that want to have their late night viewings and concert goers would be inclined to book rooms at the hotels located within a walking distance and they'd also be inclined to go for pre-drinks at the bars and restaurants or visit perhaps Wonderland and the water park during the day before or after the event, transforming Wonderland into a multi-day visit. Third part of this could have been expansion would have been the bars, retail and restaurant district. This area would have been open year round providing a source of revenue to Cedar Fair year round and similar, very similar to City Walk, not have an admission to enter. Have specialty restaurants that aren't offered in the area around or near Canada's Wonderland that would draw a diverse crowd. Again, as stated earlier, this would be a great combo for people to book rooms at the hotels. On top of these concepts that I've imagined, Canada's Wonderland used to have a second parking toll entrance to the park located on this plot of land. This would greatly be helpful nowadays as on a very busy day, the park can take upwards of an hour plus to enter the parking lot alone due to poor traffic flow on Jane Street mixed with two large entrances meeting at a singular entrance point. Having the North entrance gate still available would alleviate the North crowds and allow for the North and South lots to fill up in a more streamlined way. Now all these compsets and plans have been great but it's unfortunately too late and we haven't invented time travel quite yet or at least to my knowledge we haven't. Hopefully you enjoyed this first part of a series of Canada's Wonderland's biggest mistakes. In my opinion, this was truly one of their biggest mistakes to date and it's much too late to fix it. Leave a comment down below on any ideas you'd like to see in this series for any park including Ontario Place or even the City of Toronto and so on. Hopefully you enjoyed this video today. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button or even join our channel's memberships down below and hey while you're at it why don't you drop a like. Thank you for taking time out of your day to watch our videos and hopefully you have an amazing weekend. You may now lift up on those restraints and exit to your left. Thank you, bye.


Dwi'n credu i chi'n hallo yn cyfnwysbeth ar yr entwys i ddechrau'r Cymru yn 2017, a ddim yn cydweithio ar y cyfnwys bwysigio yn gynghwyl. Felly mae'n fawr i chi fod yn bryd.  Prif. Mwysgaf nibwysb—naf wrth gael y ll chic am y fwyng y ddweud erbyn. ddrafft interim report on building regulations and draft report on the scrutiny of high hedges and disabled persons parking in private. Are we agreed? Thank you very much and we move to agenda item 2, which is subordinate legislation. The committee will consider negative instrument 214 as listed on the agenda. The instrument is laid under the negative procedure, which means that its provision will come into force unless Parliament votes on a motion to annul the instrument. I set out in the paper that the DPLR committee considered the instrument at its meeting on 27 June. It drew the instrument to the attention of the Parliament, given that it did not meet the requirement that at least 28 days should elaps between the laying of the instrument and the coming into force of that instrument. However, the DPLR committee determined this failure to comply with the 28 days to be acceptable, given that the instrument was brought forward to correct an omission in building regulations 2017, and the Scottish Government explained that there is an urgent need to bring the regulations into force for public safety reasons. That said, no motion to annul has been laid. Can I invite members to make any comments on the instrument that they might have? I do not see anyone indicating that they wish to speak, so can I invite the committee to agree that it is not a wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? Are we agreed? Thank you very much. Can I move into private session?


Yeah, it's okay, no worries. Can everybody hear me okay? Can anyone not hear me? Okay. Sorry about the confusion there. There's some problem with hardware, which is something we're not used to dealing with in the post-cloud world. So I'm here today to talk about how at SmartB, we've been incrementally adopting Habitat, which is a tool for building predictable perfect runtime environments for applications. If you were here for the crazy container debugging story that was earlier this morning, this is a product that fixes that problem. So we're going to talk about how that works at SmartB. My name is Blake. I'm one of the world's last remaining operations engineers, and I work at a company here in Berlin called SmartB. These are my various handles, if you want to look me up online. We are hiring. I'm required to say that by my employers. You can talk to me about that later if you're interested in what we're doing. We make a software service energy analysis tool. So we basically take electrical consumption data out of buildings, and we analyze it and we help consumers and big enterprises figure out how to basically consume less electricity. So it's a sustainability company essentially.  So we also have a very tangible dependency management problem in this talk because Jamie, who's the lead engineer for Habitat, is going to talk about what Habitat is later today, like after the break, and I'm going to talk about implementing Habitat. So a lot of this is going to be like, what is going on? This makes no sense. I've never seen any of these commands before. So hopefully you just like hold all your questions, talk to me afterwards, talk to some of the other Habitat folks who are here, or talk to Jamie after his talk, and go to his talk for more getting started information. So I started the web operations and my Cloud operations, part of my career in 2009, worked for a startup back in the States. If you can't tell already, I'm American. I wrote my own configuration management tool at that startup. That was awful. I would don't ever do that, never ever ever write your own configuration management tool. Like you somebody else's, there's many better ways to do this. But one of the questions that happened to, that we were asking ourselves a lot at the time because we were doing, I think in nine months at that company, I did four 36-hour shifts. When I say 36 hours, I mean not leaving the desk like toilet breaks and that's it. Like no eating, just coffee, 36 hours, four times in nine months. Because we were constantly fighting our infrastructure, fighting our applications, and just suffering. So these were the kinds of questions that we started to ask ourselves as we worked our way out of that whole. We were spending a lot of time manually or somewhat programmatically configuring applications. We couldn't get reproducible deploys. We wanted to encapsulate the application when we deployed it, and we especially wanted emerging configuration. So when the state of our infrastructure changed, remember this is 2009, so we didn't have Cloud Native anything at the time. We wanted configurations that would just change as the infrastructure environment changed, but we didn't have any of that stuff. So we talked about it, but basically there just wasn't a tool to do this for us. What came after that was me doing traditional configuration management with like Chef and Ansible and Terraform for like seven years. Just like all the normal stuff that you would imagine doing for a config management, which is okay. But that has its own set of problems that go with it. We still a lot of the problems that we were a lot of the things that I was dreaming about having here weren't solved by configuration management. Mostly what we got with config management was everything's in code. I have stuff in source control. I can at least have a software development process to describe what I'm doing. But we still didn't have these big promises that we wanted from the dreaming thinking that we've been doing earlier. Then in the summer of last year, I saw Adam Jacob do it. I watched the video of Adam Jacob announcing habitat in Seattle, I think the Seattle office for Chef software. I've been using Chef for a long time. I've been using it long enough that my honeymoon period with Chef was long over. I wasn't in love with Chef anymore. I knew all of its idiosyncrasies and quirks. I knew how to use it. I knew what didn't work. When Habitat was announced, I realized that this was exactly the thing that we had been dreaming about back in 2009. These are the reasons that we started looking at adopting the tool. In Habitat Universe, everything is an artifact. Everything is essentially a tar ball with metadata. The metadata describes how the things that you've tarred up are going to communicate with each other and configure themselves and configure each other. There are very few abstraction layers in Habitat. There's a little tiny bit in the core that is Rust that does the really important stuff. Then everything outside of that is whatever language you happen to need for the purposes of the thing that you're packaging. A lot of the basic configuration is Shell, which means that you can go to basically any engineer who's had any kind of compute experience, and they'll be somewhat familiar. They can copy-paste, maybe not copy-paste, but easily adopt things that they find on Stack Overflow into the Habitat Universe. Also, there really isn't anything that Habitat does. It isn't an established Linux or Unix convention, so most of what's happening under the hood is stuff with dynamic linking or pathing, and a directory structure that you can just examine. So a lot of the black box magic that happens with something like Docker is mitigated here, or at least you can see what's happening much more easily. It's portable. When I say portable, it can run on any Linux essentially. So if you have Linux kernel 2.4 or later, something like, okay, yeah, the Habitat guys are like, yeah, yeah. So any modern-ish Linux kernel will run it, and there's also Windows support that is not quite as mature as the Linux support, but it's evolving rapidly. I think I hope that the community will port to other kernels in the future, but at the moment it's a Windows or Linux thing. But most importantly, the application is in control. So whatever that thing is that you're tearing up has complete control over its environment. So you're essentially, I remember working with a vendor that we work with at SmartB that makes our monitoring software, and I wanted to port their data proxy stack, which we use behind our firewall. I wanted to port that to Habitat and that involved building eight different things, well, more like 18 different things that we mostly see. I was showing them what I was doing and they were like, I think you become a distribution maintainer. I was like, yeah, that's actually completely true. You essentially have a custom distribution that you're running for each application that just has only what you need for that application. That might sound a little crazy, but it turns out that these are actually quite small packages once you've got them built. So we started doing Habitat adoption in the early autumn of last year, and we are do almost everything that we do now. Everything that we do in production and development is Habitat wrapped with I think one service exception and that's something that's coming soon. So I want to go through some of the basic things that we did and how we did this incrementally. So the first thing that we did is we use Habitat as a package manager. I can tell you for sure that Habitat is now my preferred package manager. I don't package anything with anything other than Habitat, now that I've gotten this far. Like this is it. Previously probably package source is my favorite because it was quite portable. But this is much easier to control than app to yum or any of the older or any of the previous packaging systems that I used. And we'll also talk a little bit about like how we use library packages where we essentially just get like a binary or a set of libraries from a package we depend on. Because Habitat does dependency management as well. So this is how we, this is what the command line interface or like the CLI API looks like for this. I'm being told that I have five minutes left. So I'm gonna go very fast because this was a 45 minute talk. So this is how we do package management.  And if you've been like it, you get something in your path that you can call. Or you can call it in sort of like bundler style like have package exec.  This is how we do referencing for another package. So I think what's the, Fletcher, do you remember what the model was that you guys use for packaging to arch? It's kind of like arch, yeah, so we borrowed very heavily from arch. I think for like the way that the package dependency stuff works. So for Habitat, also this process supervision, so and I want to talk very quickly about how we do orchestration and bootstrapping. So we bootstrap the whole blob with a system D service, right? And that starts the supervisor and then supervisor manages the actual Habitat processes. If you know Terraform, this is how we do a, this is how we like provision a Habitat service on something we're terraforming. So we copy like a Toml file, which is like a configuration format. Copy that onto the machine and then we load that into the service. So you start the service, the service isn't configured, it's crashing a bunch, but it just restarts because the supervisor restarts it, then we inject that configuration. There's also now, as of like a week ago, roughly, there's support for private origin, so you can, there's like a build service that the Habitat team runs that you can get your packages out of, that's like your repo. And we now have support for like private repos that you access with Git Habats so that you don't have to put like private code out in public. There's a couple of things you need to remember if you are, if you decide to try using Habitat. One of the big ones is you have to love CI slash CD, right? Like if you're not doing CI CD, you're not going to be happy with Habitat. That's what it assumes. It assumes that you have that kind of change control, automated change control. You do also need to accept that like there's churn in the core and there's churn in plans, which is like the package definitions, because there's, this is like a very rapidly evolving project right now. We're still, we still haven't hit version one. That said, we're running all of our stuff in production as Habitat packages, so it's definitely stable enough to use if you are aware of what you're doing. And a couple other things about this. So this is one of my favorite things about it, it's, it is very container friendly, right? So like the runtime is kind of immutable, but configurations can change if they need to, which is something that I as an operator really love. I also have sort of adopted the mindset that my package is essentially a binary. So I should, I should be able to like give some input to it and get some predictable output out. And that's really how we do our CI. Like we really focus on this sort of like, you know, does it work? Is it working or broken mindset? Not like it's kind of okay and I'm going to configure it after it's installed. And this is the most important thing I think that we realize when we're talking about incrementally adopting Habitat. Initially the increments that we were doing were like software development increments, but really what we should have done in a lot of ways is just rip everything out, like keep the test framework we had for the service that we had in our old configuration management, rip everything out, test only at the service boundary and then go service by service and just delineate at the boundary. And that would have, I think, made our adoption process a lot smoother. And what we've been learning really is that we really, that we need to trust the artifact. We have to, we have to take, we have to believe that promise that whatever we ran locally is going to run in production, which has really proven to be the case. A couple wish list things I'd like to see that we're actually working on, working on with the Habitat team. I'm not sure if I still think that I want Chrome like stuff. This talk's also a little bit old. A lot has changed in the last week. I also want, we do some of our testing in the package builds. And we're working right now on using the Habitat Studio, which is like the build environment as a development environment as well. And this is the thing that I kind of didn't explain because we didn't have enough time, but I'd love to talk about more is that I think Habitat is the beginning of what I would call like a movement towards open services. So not just having like source code that's open, but actually having the operational part of an application or a service also be open source. So the whole ball of wax, including the operational bits can get kind of like shrink wrapped and put out in the public eye and shared between operators. That's it. So if you have questions, I think you're gonna have to ask me like in the hallway track, there are a couple other folks from Habitat here. Can you guys stand up for a second? Just so people can see, sorry, but just so people can see who are.  So if you have questions about what the hell I just talked about, these are the guys Jamie's talking in like an hour, roughly, I think something like that. Jamie's talking about like getting started with Habitat, which might also be a good thing to do to go see after I've confused everyone. And that's it. Thanks.


Hello everyone, my name is John Hammond welcome back to more Pico CTF This challenge is called my first sequel the first challenge in the web category of level 2 here 50 points It says I really need access to this website, but I forgot my password and there's no reset Can you help so we can check out the website open it up in the tab here Just like a regular forum login username and password so credentials We would otherwise have to know but the hint here is have you heard about sequel injection? So this is the first Pico CTF introduction to sequel injection, which is one of my favorite things I think one of the coolest things for hacking on the internet and stuff like that sequel injection is tricking a back-end web program into thinking that you are inputting data into a Database that runs in the back. However, it's not real data that you're putting in you're tricking it And that it's going to take some of that data and consider it to be code So normally you'll see queries that are trying to insert or select data from a database That's of the syntax in this dial select something some kind of column or table information From a specific table where whatever column or field is something else So if you get your own input that's kind of just being concatenated or added into the original query There is significant potential for like bad things to happen That's a vulnerability if you are just concatenating those sequel lot constants in their sequel literals So this is kind of exactly what we can assume this website is doing and if I wanted to just like log in with please sub and a password password That's weird. Not okay. I don't know why that's not the regular login. That makes no sense to me But whatever we can inject something into this determine if whether or not a user exists or not by getting a condition to log in That we know is always going to be true because this where clause in that sequel statement is running a test It is running a conditional where name is equal to something that we supply But we can inject hence sequel injection some other code or sequel into that sequel being the language Of course, it's being run in the background. I don't want to baby this up But I know I should and that some people are wanting to learn this for their first time of sequel injection the magic Thing the very kind of like bare bones basic test that you'll see in like sequel injection challenges and in and tests of this It's just determining can we get one thing that obviously equals another thing to return or to go through sometimes you don't know the kind of string or Quotations that it's using to determine a string and maybe using double quotes or single quotes to denote their string So you kind of have to fuzz Testing which one you are trying to end because you're again concatenating in your input Inside of what would expect to be a string So you have to escape or end out of their string with a terminating quote double quote or not continuous sequel code with adding a new condition or an or statement for this where essentially an if clause or test clause and Another condition where something is equal to obviously itself So that will that will clearly return true one is equal to one But we don't know what is at the very end of this query So sometimes we'll have to comment out the rest of the sequel code and the way we do that again is dependent on the sequel That's running it in in the background like the back-end database version. Maybe it's my sequel. Maybe it's Microsoft sequel rendition sequel light etc etc and they'll have a different kind of form So again, you'll have to fuzz and fudge that until you get something that that will return a hit So if we wanted to we could simply try double quote or one equals one and then a hashtag is what you'd expect for some my sequel versions I'm just gonna paste that in both the username and the password field because we don't know which one is vulnerable We can go ahead and try and log in but that doesn't work for us So, okay, let's try with or one equals one another pound symbol or a hashtag because that is what my sequel uses for comments Try and log in with that. Oh, okay We get an error with your request and it shows us actually the query that's trying to run in the background You don't normally see this this is again Just for your learning capability in the CTF scene because CTF is being nice to us where it shows us what they're trying to use They're using a single quote where user equals the start of our input. You see we have our single quote injected into it So that's why the error is happening because it's trying to interpret this or one equals one But our hashtag is being weird. It's getting in the way because we now don't have a string that matches the rest of this Password isn't there as well. So maybe it's not this the comments dial But we do know we are using single quotes for our string So let's change that rather than using a hashtag the Wikipedia page suggest some other things where you can use hyphen hyphen or dash dash to Use a comment that you'd expect to see in SQLite So let's try that again. I'm going to use it in the username and password field and we log in welcome admin flag Be careful what you let people ask and the hash that should be different for each one So we logged in as admin because we got an immediate return and an immediate truth in our condition Where one equals one or one equals one? So the first thing that we return is the very first row in the table that we're looking at Likely admin or usually admin so cool immediate login We've got our flag if we wanted to we can script this and I'd showcase that in another video But I don't think it's necessary for this one We can paste that in and we can jump up on the scoreboard 50 points super cool that's SQL injection Well, I will however want to take a note of that as our flag because I think that's good practice certainly writing a get flag strip would also be a good practice for it, but Whatever I digress if you'd like me to we certainly can I'd use some Python requests use regular expressions to pull out the flag and we'd be grooving Special shout-out to the people that support me on patreon. Thank you guys so much. I love you That was weird. Sorry a $1 or more on patreon a month We'll give you a special shout-out just like this at the end of her video five dollars or more on patreon will give you a special Access to a folder on Google Drive that I like to upload my early access videos Well, I include all the videos that I have recorded but not yet released on YouTube because I normally record in bulk and YouTube gradually upload them on a on a scheduled basis So if you want to not wait you want the content right when it's ready That's the best way to do it just five dollars a month on patreon if you did like this video Please do a press that like button maybe leave me a comment if you're willing to subscribe that would be awesome Link in the description to join our discord server It's a cool community of CTF players programmers and hackers if you want to hang out with me or some other awesome people That's the best way to do that. Hope to see you guys on patreon. Thank you And I hope to see you in the next video. Bye