Okay, we're back. We're back because this is community matters because community does matter. And the magic word for the day is Lewis Herman. You're going to learn a lot from Lewis Herman today. So take notes. The final, however, will be an oral final administered later after the show. So not to worry about that. Okay. Welcome to the show, Lewis. I'm ready. Are you ready? Thanks, sure. Yeah. Okay. If anybody has questions, send them to shows with S at thinktecawaii.com and we will make Lewis answer them. So Lewis, you had your favorite 200 slides you wanted to talk about. Why don't I let you start with that and then I can interrupt you if the mood strikes. Sure. Sounds great. Thanks. What are we going to talk about? What are we going to talk about? Well, the title of the show is envisioning a post-pandemic world. But on thinking more deeply about it, it occurred to me that we got a problem with understanding. Just what a pandemic is, how it came about. And we have an even deeper problem about how we come to a shared understanding of what's real, of what's really going on. And then what's even more complicated is what is our common good. Clearly, anybody looking at politics in the most superficial way will see that this is highly contested. You've got a profusion of fake news stories, conspiracy theories, various dangerous, bizarre, fundamentalist beliefs that people are actually prepared to go to war over and are going to war over. You can tell from what Lewis has said so far that he comes from South Africa, that he spent some time in the Israeli Defense Force, and that he teaches political science at West Oahu campus. West Oahu. You can tell all of that from those few sentences. Please continue Lewis. West Oahu is actually a remarkably innovative campus. We take pride in the thinking of ourselves as the leading edge of innovation in the UH system. It's the newest campus, the most rapidly growing campus in the nation, actually. And so there's a lot of new thinking happening there. Do ascribe to the notion that as you move west, there's more innovation, that humankind moves west to follow the sun. And that is sort of a natural progression, anthropological progression for humanity moving west. Right. Certainly since the 16th century, the explosion of Western Europe, because that whole business of creating the world that we living in, industrial capitalism, was essentially a West European invention that drew from all civilizations, the whole history of humanity. But it moved from Europe, obviously, westwards to the new world. And then through the new world, you know, go west, young man, expanding the boundaries, and then across the Pacific. And now, you know, the leading edge seems to be the Pacific Rim, where East meets West, and we come back to the point where we started and begin to understand it for the first time to paraphrase the words of T.S. Eliot's famous poem. We don't even know who we are until we go back to beginnings. And that's one of the things that I want to talk about. Yes, wonderful, wonderful, what a great start. Anyway, please continue. Yes, you know, clearly we've got a problem with understanding, you know, what reality is and how we get that knowledge. And this goes to the highest level. This is hardly contested. And so I want to start off really with a foundational experience that every single human being has when we wake up to consciousness in this world. And so part of this process of recovering, how we get to a shared understanding of reality and the common good, what is the best way for us to live, not just as individuals, because obviously we connected to other humans, not just our families, but our community, the entire species. And this has never been more apparent as our problems, our most local problems are so conspicuously global. So, you know, we forced to think of this relationship between our own experience of waking up and how we come to believe what we believe and everybody else's. Everybody else thing, I just, it dawns on me that if you look at the 16th, 17th, 18th, even 19th century, well, let's stop at the 18th for a moment. People didn't have ways to communicate their thoughts to somebody, except in person. Or by the written word in a newspaper or a book. But in terms of immediate social media type connection, that's in the last 10 or 15 years is all it is. And that, I'm just really a question I'm asking, and that must have changed what you're talking about. This notion of community, of waking up and thinking of other people elsewhere, of comparing notes about life in general. This has been an increasingly high octane, logarithmically high octane every day with social media and all the ways we communicate. Doesn't that change it? Doesn't it change it profoundly now? Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's why this moment in history is so extraordinary, because we faced with the most extreme crisis humanity has ever faced with the entire biosphere is threatened. But we've also never had a clearer idea or at least the possibility of getting a clearer shared understanding of our global situation. And what it means to be human on this evolving earth on this fragile living planet, which we've discovered to actually be living it's not a dead space where humans do their clever stuff. But the great genius is actually in the living earth itself, which of course, created the creative human being, as we now understand. Now that's a fact of science, but we still haven't begun to assimilate that into our way of feeling and acting. And that is one of the purposes of all my teaching and in part this talk. So if we can maybe go on to the next slide, then we can start this process of how we come to a shared understanding of what is real and what is good and what is true next. So this is a basic existential situation, the basic situation of existence of every single human being on the planet. We wake up in a story that is already underway. In part, obviously, this is the story of the earth, which we now know gave birth to the human over 3 million years and the modern form of the human with our capacity for creativity and self reflection, the beginning of culture about 100,000 years ago. Where we come from is the deepest mystery and the deepest thinkers who confronted this experience have generally refer to this this great ineffable and indescribable unspeakable mystery as God, the source the ground of being where we going is also a deep mystery. But it's clear that in this situation, there's a lot that we can know, but there's no certainty. There's no certainty about where we come from who we are and where we're going. But it's also equally obvious that we can make mistakes.  And as we wake up as as babies and a family as we mature, we realize that we're not the center of the world, our parents, siblings, the larger tribe. Every human being is a center of their own world and we've got to try and make sense of this and this is a huge shock psychologically to the individual growing up and also stimulus we bond we connect we communicate and gradually we make sense of our world. What I'm suggesting is that this process is composed of several elements for basic practices, which is the default mode of human beings making sense of their world. And this is embedded in the structure of our consciousness. And in early human societies and how to gather is the simplest form of human society, essentially non literate pre literate hunter gatherers, and we live this way making sense of our lives. Like this for 100,000 years before the beginning of variety at least 100,000 years before the beginning of writing and specialized knowledge. Yeah, so you know you said something about great thinkers and great leaders. And I know that when you say that correct me if I'm wrong, you're thinking about the Greeks and the Roman thinkers, the ones who established so many things that are threaded in our globalization global civilization now even now. And what what comes to mind is, you know, can you can you do this process you're describing without great thinkers.  And maybe Socrates was really fabulous. Do we have Socrates today, we have too many people pretending to be Socrates is a quality of our thinking by our thought leaders as good as it was in the days of Socrates. Can we do this if we don't have emerging leaders. Yeah, okay so short answer to that is that what we discovering and what is so unique about our moment is that every single one of us is the emerging leader that we're looking for. And the reason for this. Again, if you follow this model of the truth quest this four part model of the truth quest which I'll introduce in a moment if we get to that slide.  There we go. So they're four elements there you know the the top left is the whole person. This is the where we start off, you know realizing we start off thinking that we the center of the world. We see everything through our own experience, the family we born into the language we speak the place we born into the time we born into gradually as we grow age In the last five we encountered others maybe earlier, and our way of encountering realities through discussion through face to face contact with other human being sharing the same space, our siblings up there and neighbors than the larger community, who obviously have their own way of seeing the world, their similarities we can agree to some extent through language through face to face communication, but we'll never share one another stories exactly. And then this whole process is supported by involvement in community that first shapes our consciousness gives us our language, and we overwhelmed by community we brainwashed me become robots, unless we have a creative role in that community and that's what And the more egalitarian the community the more we can do that. So, community involvement is another element of all orienting yourself in reality. For the Greeks, you know that give us this notion of politics is caring about the good of the community. In community affairs, if you didn't regard it as your highest aspiration for individual excellence.  And unfortunately what we've had with the rise of civilization, from about 5000 years ago, increasingly stratified systems of domination with chiefs, emperors, kings, queens, powerful leaders that emerge from powerful tribal leaders. It's kind of a distortion of this basic model of truth questing, because instead of having every individual be author and agent of their own worldview, you have a worldview imposed on you. Now what happened with Socrates and the people to get back to your question with the great thinkers of what philosophers historians are called the axial age. Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, the Hebrew prophets, all the way up to Christ and even Mohammed, they're really saying one thing, essentially, as great quote from Morton Shaw about Christ moving through life like a burning wheel. And everyone he touched, he said one thing, wake up, wake up, wake up.  What this means is that democracy and participation in a democratic egalitarian community is a fundamental aspect of sanity of having a grip on reality. And we see a form of politics now, where this is denied to most people because of the structure of, you know, highly complex mass bureaucratic societies where your participation in politics is reduced to a vote during elections. And we know why most people don't, many people don't vote, because they feel it's insignificant. They're choosing between Tweedledum and Tweedledeed, two versions of essentially the same thing both committed to this highly bureaucratic, essentially oppressive structure, which has become more so. You know, America used to be ranked, I think it was the World Democratic Index, ranking nations, or they rank about 154 nations across the world. America was in 2006 was ranked as a full democracy, number 17 in the world of democracies. In 2006, it was labeled a flawed democracy. And it was halfway down. So we less democratic than we were in 2006. And that was in 2016. Since then, I think we've fallen, you know, to close to banana republics in some respects, in terms of political corruption. Yeah, on that point, your notion of self examination, self awareness, finding finding the truth, it seems to assume goodwill. It seems to assume is sort of a bottom line of goodwill that all the people involved in that pie chart. They're all looking with a clear goodwill and sincerity, you know, decency. But you know, life experience teaches us, this goes back to my mammalian theory that I told you about that, you know, for any number of reasons that I had an unhappy childhood. You know, chemistry has done this to me. I'm just, I'm the bad seed.  But there are some people out there that are not decent. They're not good. They're not sincere. I mean, some of them are, some of them Lewis, maybe in Washington, right now, as a matter of fact. So how, how, how do you fold your approach around people like that? Okay, so that's a very good question. The truth quest getting in touch with reality begins with a basic assumption that everything is connected, and that we connected to everyone else. That's the starting point of philosophy. If you don't buy into that, you, you, you're in a serious state of psychological and cultural pathology. And this suggests that's where our society is not because that's human nature, but because of choices made the unintended consequences of choices made by some of our best and brightest some of our most creative and brilliant philosophers, who fashioned the world that we live in, who gave the philosophical principles in which, for example, the Constitution of the United States is founded and many other constitutions and many other democracies. It was an enormous achievement in the 17th century and 16th century, some of these thinkers were, and then developed in the 18th century, but it was fashioned out of an understanding that is three centuries out of date. It was flimsy to start off with assumptions were made about nature human nature, which is simply wrong. They don't stand up to what we now know, but they were right at the time. They were better than what was going on before. Better than the divine right of kings, better than the corruption of feudalism. So the failure here is that it was not nimble enough that it should have changed with the times. These guys back in the 18th century, they didn't know how things would change. Exactly. And they tried to build in a change mechanism to recognize and address changes, but they couldn't they couldn't see it. So we have failed to change over the couple centuries that follow. Exactly. So this is the possibility that we presented with now we understand the mechanism by which those philosophers created their worldview. That mechanism is the truth quest, what I'm calling the truth quest, this model that I just put up these basic four basic practices that were the default mode of being human. We all do them. Even illiterates can do them. You don't have to be a genius or even literate to do it. It's a default mode of making sense of your world. But it's been eliminated systematically unintentionally from my educational system and from our political culture. What I'm suggesting is that we have now the possibility of building this in to all our policies and institutions. Henceforth moving forward. This needs to be the number one moral and epistemological and practical political imperative. It makes you think that can be done. I mean, you just said that we lost it unintentionally over the at least a couple of hundred years of the, you know, development of this country. Why can we now recognize that it's missing? I mean, as a group, a community, why can we recognize that it's missing? And why do you feel that now we can fix it if we unintentionally lost it for all this time? Well, we can fix it because we can understand it and bring it to the level of consciousness, which our founding fathers couldn't. They didn't have the big picture perspective, the big story that gives us the insight into what these practices are and how fundamental they are to being human. They emerge 100,000 years ago. We lived by them in small bands, egalitarian, relatively democratic, relatively peaceful, spiritually guided bands of hunter gatherers for about 100,000 years. Some still survived into modern times, relatively modern times, like the Sun Bushman, the Bayaka Pygmies of Central Africa, many Native American tribes, indigenous cultures retained elements of this. The West Europe, Western Europe Asia recovered elements of this during the Axial Age. That is the birth of all the great religions and common to them all is the structure of the truth quest. That's what I'd argue that this truth quest is actually a kind of meta religion. It's what's at the heart. It's the spiritual and epistemological or scientific insight into the heart of what it means to be human. That classical civilizations were losing. From about 5000 years ago on, human beings lived in societies that were based on domination, stratification, specialization, hierarchy, warfare, world cities and slavery. That is massive trauma to the psyche of anybody living in those societies. They're essentially societies that rule by terror. And there are many good times and great achievements in the process. But you don't have the practice of the truth quest being promoted because it undermines, in a sense, anything that is certain. There are no certainties once you're involved in the truth quest. So it's constantly questioning power. And obviously power, you know, this is part of human nature, people have power tend not to want to give it up. The examples of people giving it up. And the examples all over now surfacing across the planet of people starting to do this, starting to truth quest in the profusion of environmental movements, citizen movements, NGOs. The characters like Greta Thunberg, the environmental, the reaction to global. No, they're in charge, Louis. It doesn't seem to me that they're in charge. Absolutely not in charge are like, like Donald Trump, like Putin, like the fellow in Brazil. The guys who are into power seem to be gaining power these days. And democracies, as you mentioned, democracies meet the wrong end of the stick right now. Exactly. Exactly. And that's why this is reaching an end, because people are starting to wake up and they're waking up with outrage. So this was the primary Greek virtue or one of the private about four primary Greek virtues that converge was called Andrea. And it was outrage at injustice. And that's starting to. Is there a medicine for that. The medicine for that is to wake up do something to educate yourself and take some action doesn't matter. I think I have that don't you have that the Andrea. Absolutely. The outrage. And I think that's in part what drives you to do the work that you're doing and I commend it. I think it's great. And this is one of the examples that I'm talking about of this recovery of the truth quest. This, this sense that we basically all connected that we've got to solve these problems together that our lives individually will be much happier more satisfying more beautiful by doing this work. I mean, this is the old reviving the old Greek values. But now we have the possibility to democratize this process. So instead of waiting for some geniuses on high to come down from ivory tiles of academia and enlighten us. This is something that's growing from the grass roots up. And those in power will cease to have power when the people below them cease to believe in them and follow them. If you want to follow the system though you have to make sacrifices. You have to be willing to give things up. There are some things you know the average person's life here in the 21st century. Good food, television entertainment, security security I think is a big this all kinds of things that define a very pleasant life. I don't think a lot of people want to give it up. I don't think they want to sacrifice. But if they go through that analysis, you know, I'm outraged. I want to have a better intellectual life. I'm, I want to do something in order to change this. But at the same time, I don't want to give up the things that I love I want to give that up and I, and I see that as very risky that if I sacrifice myself I will give it up. Right, right. Yeah, I think I think we faced with a possibility now of not having to choose between either and all but both and more. I think that's a situation we have now that you know the comforts that we value the achievements of industrial capitals and the achievements of 5000 years of civilization. We can understand we can hold on to but serving different ends. They don't serve the power of the 1% you know the transfer of wealth that's happened as a result over this absolutely obscene. You know a little bit is trickled down to the unemployed and the hungry, but the corporations have made out like bandits. Well, since what is it 1980 between 1980 and 2016 share of taxes paid by billionaires by the big billionaire corporations has dropped has not increased dropped by 79%. So, you know what we have the possibility of is a wisdom guided market and wisdom guided institutions. It's not a tear anything down, but for everybody wherever you are whatever position of government, whatever corporation you work for, whatever small business you run to start trying to understand the world and act in terms of the good of the whole realizing that if we have a pandemic doesn't matter how wealthy you are doesn't matter how isolated you are it's going to affect you. Similarly, climate change global warming soil erosion or filling the oceans with plastic on and on and on and on increasingly our problems are global. And, you know, the base of that in modern developed society is the collapse of community is an epidemic of depression and loneliness. You know people feel incredibly isolated there's a rise in aggression. We've never really dealt with crime we were to deal with these problems at their roots. Those have been revealed very starkly by COVID.  Then now does that make it easier or more difficult to move into this higher consciousness that you're talking about. I think both, you know, clearly both things are happening was a movement towards increasing control. I think this is an opportunity while every many people are panicking and then confused to grab more pound grab more wealth, but it just makes the whole system unstable. Because, you know, fortunately, thankfully, we have what you referred to earlier a global telecommunications instantaneous. We have access to all this information. What we lack, what is missing from the culture is a way of making sense of this information. And that's why these four practices of the truth quest, I absolutely critical. I think that this is potentially the missing dimension in our political thinking that if we realize that our perception of reality depends on examining our own story and then expanding our own experience and changes everything. We become more humble. We become more open. We involved in an endless process of lifelong learning from everybody we meet. Everybody becomes your teacher. You teach something to everybody you meet the whole the value structure of society is inverted. Instead of having relationships defined primarily as they are now by trying to get material advantage trying to get profit out of people you encounter, which is really a doggy dog world the Hobbesian world. We have an opposite.  Now this is an ideal. I'm not saying we're going to do this automatically. What I'm suggesting is that these elements be introduced into the curriculum of education at all levels they can be introduced right from the very beginning, because preschoolers are doing this preschoolers are moving out of their own inner world of I'm the center of the universe into a world without the kids and they were relate to other kids, and they've got to be taught the pleasures of establishing relationships, and of trust and of honesty and of love and of sharing, and they real pleasures. In fact, they hire pleasures than the pleasure of stinginess and selfishness and more for myself. That's terribly lonely. You know, we knew this I was very fortunate growing up where I did, because I grew up sort of in the Jewish tribe in, you know, a racist country, where the tribe stuck together in South Africa. And there's a model of the truth quest you know where I've represented the elements pictorially the whole person face to face discussion democratic community. What I realize is that you know when you have the experience of good relationships trusting relationship with friends. Everything else falls into place if you have a crisis if you have a need. The person who loves you is going to share if they've got more than you have. We need to get more of those basic values into society. Right now and with COVID there's one, one particularly stark realization.  I'm excluding zoom for a moment, but no longer have face to face interaction.  The mask back on and left. And so, you know, but the whole notion is we, we don't see feel touch experience the proximity of another human being, the smell of the grease bank the roar of the crowd or wasn't the other way around the roar of the grease You know, we don't have that and we're talking on zoom now, which I enjoy very much and I get I get to know you that way. But the reality, I'm really asking a question here the reality is, is this help us because there's going to be more of it. This help us achieve this kind of community this kind of perfect decent aspiring community talking about, or is it making more difficult for us, because we don't really get to shake hands. We don't shake hands anymore. I can't feel your hand in mind. Yeah, no, it obviously does both. You know, it helps connect us globally and gives us for the first time, everybody sharing the same global experience to some degree that the global economies that are pulled back stop pretty much. And we were having to deal with it in our own way and we're all looking globally at other nations, the rest of the world to see how they're handling it. So it's an extraordinary moment for contemplation and communication at a global level. And I think zoom is an incredible technology and he's part of this the possibility of waking up. But obviously this is not the end point. And in order to get there, I think we've got to take a deeply look at what generates pandemics, we infectious diseases come from how they tie to the pathology of civilization, and then deal with the problem at its roots. So we're really talking about taking this moment where we are increasingly isolated. And there's an increasing transfer increasing inequality is transfer of wealth goes from the poorest to the richest. All sorts of systems that are breaking down are being exposed now to public view. And this is the opportunity to tell a new story to tell a true bigger story that touches what is deepest in the human. And in order to do that in order to be part of this process, you have to wake up, you have to wake up to these basic four practices. You've got to have a big picture. Who are we where do we come from what is the place of the human on the planet. How is my consciousness constructed. Why is why do I see things slightly differently from you. You know, you've got to get into this business and see that business as not, oh my God, I got to go back to school and go through exams and all of that. But as Socrates pointed out, the highest pleasure. This is actually where we experienced the greatest, deepest satisfaction of being human. So I don't know, can I use that as a segue to show more slides because there's actually, I'd like to give a sense of the narrative what you want to ask more questions. I want to set up another show, because we're, we're out of time, we're already over a few minutes. See how quickly the time goes by. But we have miles to go. We need to we need to establish another show and some shows after that, so we can explore this at the right speed. I am, I am really sorry, but it's going to take a while and I, I love this conversation. And I think this conversation is so constructive. And I hope a lot of people watch this conversation. So they can get the ideas that you're generating. Yeah, can I can I just say that, you know, in this jumping around this back and forth which is a great example of one of the processes. We haven't been able to construct a coherent big picture. And at some point that's really what the slides do, you know, go about 2030 slides that give this big picture of this, the structure how this emerges. I was repressed in the 17th century by this formula that we bought into it's not human nature. We made sure we fought battles over whether or not to buy into john lock.  This is a choice. And we created the situation we have now so we can uncreated and create something better. And we can have more battles over it too, you know, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you very much. I really appreciate these conversations. And to me, I'm sincere when I tell you I want to continue it. And we'll set up another time to do that. Then hold on to the slides. Okay. Okay, yeah, we can do every single slide. Yeah. Yeah, I love to. It's been a terrific pleasure. This is what I love to take care to stay safe.


Oh, noo-noo-noo, I forgot. Sorry, I was subtracting. Noo-noo. Noo-noo-noo-noo. That was my 433 minutes of new silence. Okay, first up, we've got from iRobot. We've got the create3, which we had the create2, and now we've upgraded to the create3. This is basically, this is cool, because you know, you and I met over Roomba hacking. People used to take Roomba robots, and you would plug into like the debug port and you'd be able to control it. And people were doing this, and like, I think iRobot was like, oh wow, that's kind of an interesting idea.  But the most annoying part of building a robot is the chassis and the motor driver and the, you know, drawing the sensors. My favorite robot base, because I'm like, if they've made millions of robots, it's the most successful household robot. If they've figured that out, this is what I want as a robo-chassis. Yeah. So it's not, you know, even like that they've got like little drill spots and everything. So it's basically like the guts of like the iRobot. But it's not like, it's not like they just remove the vacuum. Like it is redesigned specifically, but it's designed based on the iRobot. So just so you know, it does not do any vacuuming.  But that could be. That could be. So what's cool is it's not got Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. They've updated it. You no longer need a cable. So you can control it remotely. They've got a Python web editor. They've got like all sorts of example code for sensors. They've got a sensor port. It's really neat. I like that they are continuing to do this. You know, I know that, you know, iRobot, I think they've got purchased. And I know that they are still, you know, making robots for homes and making robots for industry. But they, their roots are from, you know, college kids who'd like to hack together robots and I'm glad that they are coming back to it. So I think it's a really nice upgrade. It's a really good deal. Like you would not be able to build this kind of quality robot chassis for the $300 at this cost. Like it is, believe me, like the motors and the battery and the charger and the case and the injection molder and the sensing and the Wi-Fi Bluetooth connection. It is cheaper just to get this and hack what you want onto it. Yeah. And then here's a little video. And it runs a ROS as well. Built from the blueprint of a Roomba robot vacuum. Meet the Create 3 educational robot. iRobot's new mobile robot development platform for learning ROS2. A canvas for your creativity. The Create 3 arrives pre-assembled and ready to go with a suite of smart technology. Program the Create 3 to perform simple behaviors, sounds and movements to grasp the fundamentals of robotics, computer science and engineering. Or tap into advanced applications including autonomous localization, navigation and telepresence. The Create 3 lets you mountain power payloads, connect and run third party hardware, use its cargo bay for storage and dock the robot on its home-based charging station. As a connected robot, you can talk to the Create 3 in multiple ways and choose between running ROS2, the iRobot coding app or iRobot Education's Python Web Playground. Looking for ways to get started? Explore the iRobot Education Learning Library for basic tutorials and sample projects. Or check out the 3D simulation of the Create 3 using ignition gazebo or the iRobot coding app for increased access to robotics education and research. What will you create? Next up. Next up, by popular request, we have another PIR sensor. This is a mini all-in-one PIR sensor that is PCB or breadboard compatible. PIR sensors are great for detecting small animals or humans. Basically warm things that reflect IR radiation. These work about five meters away. We've carried the standard four-pin version for quite a bit where it's like power ground, delay time and output. This one has an output enable pin and also adds a sensitivity pin so you can adjust how sensitive it is. If you need a little bit more control over your PIR, you'll need to add the external resistor divider, but these sensors are a very easy and handy way to make a pretty advanced, but project embeddable PIR sensor for detecting human motion. And to start the show tonight, besides you, Lady Aida, our team, our customers, our community and all, the people who come together to show and share all the important things in the world of technology to build yourself. Is this product tonight? It's the Mac 17 048. So the reason we have this is we love the LC 709203 lipo charge monitor and fuel gauge. It doesn't use an R sense and it's very inexpensive and it uses I squared C. Unfortunately, it is end of line and while we still can get the LC 709203, eventually we will not be able to because it's no longer being made. So once we exhaust our reserves, we'll probably switch over to this, the back 17 048, which like the LC chip is a fuel gauge that is, it does not require an R sense. You just plug the battery and then it monitors the battery while it's under load. This one has some neat things like, for example, in addition to, of course, voltage and percentage, it'll also tell you the charge or discharge rate, which is handy.  It's a pretty powerful feather. So it's the charge rates going down 21% an hour. And this is handy if you're like, you know, you want to estimate whether your battery, how long it's going to take your battery to run out. So obviously you can just always just time it with a timer, see how long your project runs. But with this, it's quite nice because you can see, okay, 21% that means it will last five hours on this battery. So as you, you know, try swapping out different batteries, you can see what the rate is of change. It also has a lot of low power modes and alert modes. It has an interrupt output. If you want to be interrupted when the charge rate goes above or below a certain amount, the voltage percentage goes above or below a certain amount. And it's controllable over I squared C. So we've got Arduino and circuit Python slash Python code available for it. And this new products. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I forgot sing the new song for some singing twice. That's okay. No, no, no, no, no, no.


You think that you could be Keith Thurman? No, let me tell you something. I'm not gonna ask. I'm about to be yours. Yes. Keith Thurman is not that great of a boxer. Is he strong? Yes. Yes, but what else? Now, would I get in the ring and try to go blow for blow, Keith Thurman? No, I'm not a dummy. But I'm bigger than Keith Thurman. I'm a woman, but I'm bigger. I'm longer. I got better skill. Keith got to land before he can. And then you tell him, oh, he only got to land once. He only got to land more than once to get me out of there. But how is he going to take the punch that I get to him? Keith Thurman can't take no body shot.  He's about to go beat for ribs on me. I don't got nothing to give to Keith Thurman.


Abstract molecular doping is commonly used in organic semiconductors to adjust their optoelectronic properties. Despite its versatility, this technique has been limited to p-type dopants in organic photovoltaics, OPVs. To address this limitation, researchers have developed a new n-type doping method using Benzyl-Viologen, BV, a molecule that can be added to the donor polymer and small molecule acceptor components of an OPV. This combination increases the power conversion efficiency, PCE, of the cell by up to 5%. Additionally, the presence of BV also improves the device's shelf life. Researchers have successfully implemented this technique with five different OPV systems, achieving a maximum PCE of 17.1%. These results demonstrate the potential of this n-type doping approach for enhancing the performance of OPVs. This article was authored by Yuan Baolin, Yulia Ferdows, Muhammad Insan Nugraha and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Hi everyone, I'm Matt Mayer from Genitech. I'm here to introduce to you our new ATSC 3.0 products. So ATSC 3.0 is a new standard for the US? Yes, new standard for the US. It's an OFDM based modulation that is scalable bit rate-wise so it can support mobile applications as well as fixed-home applications. So this is like over-the-air TV, right? The main over-the-air TV system for the US, Canada and Korea as well. Korea. Yes, and it's actually a hybrid system where there is a base layer that comes through the off-air broadcast portion and There are enhancements available through an internet connection. Those are combined in a hybrid setup box. They're like synchronized somehow. Yes, so the base layer gives you the base video but you can do things like UHD and HDR using that IP connection. And the UHD can also happen over-the-air? Yes. The 4K is 60, H265. Yes, it's a scalable HEVC. Yes, in the base layer you can do over-the-air. And so what is this board you're showing here? Yeah, so this is actually the board that's inside this box. It's an NXP i.MX 8M processor, a Sony tuner, and then we are working with our software partner BitRouter on the ATSC 3.0 stack for that box. So what does BitRouter do? It's specialized in ATSCs? BitRouter has a very long history in doing stacks for off-air modulation. So ATSC also for QAM and now ATSC 3. So until now there's been only ATSC 1 in the US, right? Correct, yes. So skip ATSC 2? Right. So there were some discussions along the way of different technologies to be used and eventually it all just turned into ATSC 3. So it skipped right over ATSC 2. Is ATSC 1 quite popular? TV of the air, like millions of people use it? Yes, so in the era of court-cutting a lot of streaming services aren't able to offer local channels through AT, through their streaming services. They don't have the rights to do that. So a lot of people who are doing court-cutter services are picking up an off-air signal to be able to get their local channels. The service is pretty good in the US, right? You get lots of channels. Yes, definitely, yes. There are usually anywhere from 6 to 10 in most markets, in the major markets there are certainly more, and then on each of those you have a lot of sub-channels that are available. So you can get upwards of 30 to 40 channels through those broadcast signals. It's free. And it's free. In Europe it's more popular, no? That DVBT is like everybody's at milling. Yes, well actually in a lot of our transitioning to DVBT 2 at this point, which is even higher bandwidth, more signals. So what's the difference between DVBT 2 and ATSC 3? That's a great question. Aside from the modulation is obviously different. It is both OFDM-based, but the way it's configured is a little different. And the video standards are a little different as well. OFDM, what does that mean? Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, it's a way that signals constructed through multiple carriers so that if you lose some of the carriers through multi-path over the RF environment that you're still able to pick up a signal.  Is it TV spaces? It's the, yes, TV broadcast spectrum, which in the U.S. has been compacted down to about 54 megahertz to 600 megahertz. And so that means it's long distance, everything is covered, even indoors? Yes, and that's part of where the scalable video and the scalable modulation comes in, because you can choose different bit rates. The lower the bit rate, the more robust the signal, the better it is to do for mobile applications. And the HTVC codec is pretty good for even 4K, you can go quite low and it's okay, right? Like Netflix is doing 16 megabits of 4K. Yes, and that's actually one of the advantages with the hybrid system, so you can do something with the base rate through broadcast, but you can also add to that and make an enhancement using the IP connection if you have a hybrid setup box. For example, in this box right here, you can go over the error, or you can connect an Ethernet, boom, over on the Wi-Fi, and then it might increase the quality. Right, exactly. And it's just no need to be like a super advanced user to know how to use it, and it's automatic. Right, correct. It's the choices that the broadcasters make, the people providing the signals, how they want to provide that to you. So, Giniatec, are you like the first to do this solution? This is like groundbreaking, or is new, is very special, or? Yes, in conjunction with the NXP chipset and the BitRouter software that we're doing, we are one of the first to have this available. So NXP must be really proud of this work, right? Yes, indeed. There's three places you can see this demo here at CES, is our booth BitRouter and NXP's demo outside the central hall. So they're currently eager to do more and more partnerships with Giniatec to get more stuff working. Yes, absolutely. To see what experts in making things work. Yes, we have a whole line of products coming based on NXP processors, so the ATSC 3 is the first of that, but we have a number of single board computers, or embedded SAM modules, so that you can use those, take advantage of those NXP SOCs for other applications. Also, development boards, you do those, right? Yes, absolutely. And what is this small one here? Yeah, so basically what we've also done is, this area right here is the demodulator, the receiver for ATSC 3. We've turned that into a USB stick format that you can use with your PC, and we've also made an embeddable module for that as well. It's just USB, boom, you add ATSC 3 to your PC. Yep. It could potentially work on the formwork of different TV boxes, right? Uh, down the road, yes. This is a PCB in there? Yep. That's the PCB that's here. So a slightly different form factor, but the same function. Did you say something about Sony? Yes, it's got a Sony receiver, is what we're using for ATSC 3. Is this one on the chips, or what is the chips here? Secret. Yes, proprietary. Okay, I'm not gonna reveal too much. And what's, this is some IMX8MM? Yeah, so this is one of the developer boards that we were talking about. So there's an IMX8M, what we call a SAM, or a system on module. So this can be used in a number of applications. You can do your development on this and then add it to whatever carrier board you want for your specific application. Can you pull it off easily? I think so. Sorry. So this is IMX8MM, which is ARM Cortex A53. Right. So it's kind of like an important YouTube for an XP. There's like long-term support and they're eager to get into the industrial and better world, right? Yes, absolutely. This is a great choice for applications that are doing video processing, camera inputs, things like that. And it's great to have not just ATSC 3, but maybe other stuff that Genetic is optimizing. Yes, definitely. So again, specifically this one would be good for video processing applications or artificial intelligence, video recognition. There's a range of applications that require high-end video processing, this would be great for. This is connecting some fast memory here. That's actually a PCIe mini slot, so you can add other interfaces here like a cellular radio.  And this one, so this was the NXP stuff right here. Right, yes. And you have some other solutions at the booth. Should we walk around? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the other main areas we're emphasizing this year are, again, more system-on-module type solutions or single-board computers. So we also have a range of rock-chip-based solutions. This is a 3399. Yes. And one of the interesting features of these is there's a neural network processing available on this one. So it's a very high bandwidth. Things that have high processing power needs, this is a great solution for that. And it's, again, like a SOM solution. Yep, this one's a SOM. So project development can eventually customize the board that goes under. Yeah, definitely. We also have that same chip in a single-board computer form factor. So this is one where that module has already been integrated to a main board. Also 3399 Pro. Yes. So it's dual A72 with quad A53 and a lot of different ports and stuff happening here. Yep. All right. HDMI, ins and outs, USB, Ethernet. With the Genia Tech, you do lots of Qualcomm work also. You have all the Snapdragon 410. Yes. I guess also 610 and 820 and everything. 410 and 820 are the two that we're focusing on. And it's getting lots of traction. Oh, absolutely. The place where we're using a lot of the 410 is in our IoT gateways, which is our other focus here at the show. Let's go over there. Yeah. So this is the IoT corner, right? Yes, this is all of our gateways and modules. So the gateway we were just talking about, the board we were just showing over there, is inside. Sorry, wrong module. Yeah. Maybe your colleague can also help with this part, right? Yes. This one is based on the Qualcomm 410. 410. Yeah. 410 and this one. And this is the lower rail gateway. Yeah. Yes. Do you want to grab the microphone? Yes, absolutely. It's just, if you speak, it's a bit far away. And here's some IoT, what's called it, peripheral sensors and all that stuff. This is the gateway. Yeah. This is Zikibi Gateway. And it's kind of working with different kind of Zikibi device from any kind of different company. Like thousands of different devices supported. Yeah, it's compatible with them. Right. And some new, this is the lower rail gateway. Yeah, this is the lower railway. Some new solutions here also. Do you have implemented NRF Nordic in just this? Yeah, just this one. This is Rodeo. It's like a 10 USB device to be a gateway to connect with Zikibi device. So you can connect every... Zikibi device. Every TV box can use this. Yeah. And then with that you get IoT support. Yeah, that's true. Right. And some, something new there. This one goes 4G. This is the LTE center box. LTE. Support IoT for the low cost. Low cost? Yeah. So it's Qualcomm 8909. Yeah. Low cost. So some places, some people just getting into it with LTE. So they just do LTE for all the internet. Yeah. They don't use ADSL or cable or something. All right. And this is the Android IoT gateway. All right. So it's been a busy, busy show. Interesting things happening. Yes. Absolutely. Sorry. Sorry. No problem. And what's happening in the US market for genetic? Sure. The US market most, again, what we're focusing on is enabling people with embedded modules and also gateway products and sensor products for industrial and commercial applications. So that's really a big part of our business for this year. And I guess this market is, you're being strong with this market. And you have some customers that are kind of impressed with how you get things done. And things work. Yes. Yes, definitely. Especially our partners. So you saw the ATSC 3 box as a partnership with NXP. One thing that I missed over here is a sensor reference platform that we've done with our partners Aero on Semi. And Bosch. So what this is is a worker safety sensor. It's meant to be risk-mounted here. It has positional sensors in it, air quality sensors, humidity, temperature, so that you can keep an eye on your workers who might be in hazardous environments. But basically this also serves as a reference design for all of our IoT products. So you work with Bosch. Yes. Those are the big guys. Yes. So you do everything from small partners to huge. Yes. So again, Aero, Bosch on Semi recognized our expertise. They were happy to bring us on to partner and build this module and do the software for it. And it's working. It's smooth. Yes. Yes, absolutely. All right. And you can... What's running in there? What's happening inside this? Like in terms of hardware. It's like a little sensor microcontroller. Right. There's a Bluetooth microcontroller. There's the DRF. Right. And then the variety of sensors coming from Bosch and on Semi. All right. Cool. All right. Thanks a lot. We'll see you next week. Keep going to be new stuff during the whole year, right? Absolutely. This is just what we're introducing today. So keep an eye on us for... Just the CES. Yes. There's other shows coming up. There's... Digital signage show, NAB. We will be there, Hong Kong fair. Yeah. All right. See you there.


My name is Sode Kakuwede. I am a Financian Analyst. Any Financian learning is a very important skill in finance. And prior to joining the academy, it was just from random learning here at the YouTube book. But the learning was not actually structured. So what was going to join was to have a kind of structured learning towards modeling and have the proper way of building model and understanding the mechanics of how to do it. So that was the reason. Yeah, I think it's just like a step one, step two, step three to the end of how to do the model. You know, it's proud to be joining the academy. For example, it looks like a kind of big black box. Just know that it's presented to you. The model is fine, but you can't actually know how to do it, how to prod it. So one of the things I can actually do, I can make you, even if you give me the most complex financial model in the world, as long as you have it on Excel, I can dispense a little bit and re-do it and get back. So I can actually understand any business now, you know, derive assumptions to build any model for them. So I think this has been just having able to get some from the academy. Yeah, I think I'll put it this way. It is a matter of choice. Choice in the sense that if you want something structured, something that makes things easy for you to do and build the academy. But if you want the raw hard way, you might not do it. But if you want something simple, something structured and gives you some, gives you a kind of in-depth way to think about how to build a financial model, then you should actually join the academy. And more importantly, because of David as well, because David is a very good teacher. So there are quite a number of webinars or seminars that I have done before. There is none of that actually taught financial model as simple as David did. So I think because of that, I would encourage anybody to join the academy. So that's what I have to do now. To be a part of that, yeah.


In this video we're going to explain how to translate the while loop statement in a high-level programming language to AVR assembly code. Most important ingredient is first to know how do I write a while statement and what does it mean. The while statement is written as follows, the keyword while, and then in parenthesis we need to write a Boolean expression. This Boolean expression can only have two possible results, either true or false. And for this example we're going to assume that false is encoded as a zero and true is encoded as anything different from zero. After this Boolean expression in parenthesis what we can include is with curly brace what we typically know as the body of the loop. And we finish the curly brace. And the interpretation of this construction is that this curly brace is surrounding a chunk of code that is going to be executed repeatedly until this Boolean expression is no longer true. So the program will first read the Boolean expression, evaluate its value, and if it is true it will execute the body and go back to evaluate the expression. Now in assembly code this is going to translate generically as follows. First we're going to assume that we have some previous instructions. We are going to define a first label which we call eval. And this eval is going to point to the set of instructions which could be arbitrarily complex to evaluate the Boolean expression. The Boolean expression specify here. And again this could be arbitrarily complex and arbitrarily long. Let's assume also for the sake of this example that the result of the evaluation of that expression has been stored in R18. Register 18. So what we do next is compare register 18 with immediate value zero with instruction CPI. And what we do now is a conditional branch. We're going to branch if these two registers are equal. It means that this Boolean expression has evaluated to false. Therefore we need to branch if they are equal to another label which we are going to place at the bottom of this construction which we call done. Immediately afterwards this instruction if this branch is not taken it means that this expression evaluated to true. Therefore we need to insert here in the middle whatever code is necessary to translate the body of the loop. And finally as we said before as soon as this body has been executed what the loop has to do is go back to the evaluation and repeat the evaluation of the expression. So this is an unconditional jump that is going to bring us back to eval. And immediately after this instruction we can put the label done which is the destination of this jump. Now depending on the way we want to organize our code this is one possible implementation of the while loop. There is another one with equally the same functionality which starts by first placing the body of the loop or the instructions that implement the body followed by the eval label and the instructions to evaluate the Boolean expression. And then again we compare CPI R18-0 but in this case the conditional branch is going to jump if these two are different. It means the program has to go back and execute the body. Therefore the conditional branch is going to be BRNE and it's going to go to the label body. And if we want for the sake of similarity we can write the label done here. There is one little tiny detail though. If we imagine an assembly program executing one thing that is incorrect is when we reach this point we shouldn't execute the body. We should in fact execute first the instructions to evaluate the Boolean expression and then go back to the body. But this is very easy to fix with an unconditional jump here to eval. Now with this instruction here we replicate exactly the same behavior as we said here. This would be option number two. We jump to the evaluation and if the evaluation is true it means different from zero it means this branch will take us back to the body. So we execute the body and we execute again the instruction to evaluate the Boolean expression. Construction number two has the advantage that if we implement instead of a while statement at do while statement, the do while statement is exactly with the same structure except we remove the unconditional branch at the beginning. Let's now see an example. Let's suppose we have to translate the following loop with a little bit more complex condition. While x is different from three and x less than y we have here some code let's say body and we close the curly brace. So what would be the sequence of instructions to translate this loop structure into assembly code? And again we're going to assume that x and y are a bit integers and they are stored in memory in allocation with a label exactly with the same name. So the first thing we should do is to start evaluating this sub expression here. So we would do LDS bring from memory stored in R18 the value of x. Next thing we need to compare we need to evaluate this sub expression first. So we need to compare with the constant three. So the CPI R18 three. Now the interesting observation since this is a conjunction if these first sub expression is false we can conclude that we should jump out of the loop already. This sub expression being false is equivalent to say branch if they are equal to the place where we're done. So this conditional branch means if this value of x is equal to three this is false get out of the loop. Otherwise if this branch is not taken what we need to do is proceed to evaluate this sub expression. Now for this sub expression we need to bring from memory the variable y which we do with another LDS instruction. Let's put it for example in R19 y and now we proceed to compare R18 which has x with R19 which has y and in here the reasoning is similar. If this sub expression is false then we should get out of the loop and jump towards the end the same thing we did here. In this case this expression being false it means we need to branch if greater or equal if x is greater or equal than y which is the opposite that we're doing here then we jump to done. So this conditional branch will occur when x is greater or equal to y which is precisely what makes this expression false. If this branch is not taken it means that both sub expressions are true the conjunctions makes them true and therefore now we insert here the body of the loop. And finally as soon as we are done evaluating the body as we mentioned before we need to go back and keep evaluating the expression so we put jump to the label evolved which we are going to place at the beginning of these instructions. And the only thing missing is to stick the label done which is the destination of these two jumps in case any of these conditions is false. This sequence of instruction then implements the behavior for this Y loop in the AVR architecture.


I like to say that people don't buy products, they buy ideas. Welcome to the Smarter Building Materials Marketing Podcast, helping you find better ways to grow leads, sales, and outperform your competition. All right, everybody. Welcome to Smarter Building Materials Marketing, where we believe your online presence should be your best salesperson. I am Zach Williams, alongside my co-host, Beth Popnikov. And this is our 200th episode. Congratulations, Beth. You did it. You made it this far. Congratulations to you. I feel like there should be like a cowbell that gets rung or something. That deserves some fanfare. We've been talking about this day for a long time. And I think we want to start just by thanking our listeners. This is a pretty cool milestone for us. And first and foremost, we wouldn't be doing this if you guys weren't listening, if you weren't a part of it. And so we want to just thank the community first and foremost. In addition to that, so we've been looking through the archives and thought to be really valuable to say, you know, if we look at the breadth of our work on the show, what are the things that over 200 episodes have been very insightful to our listeners, but still ring true today? Like we've got some episodes coming up about chat, EPT, and AI, we're talking about changes that are happening to content. We've got some new manufacturers that are going to come on the show. A lot of really excellent content plan for our listeners. But I want to talk, if we can for a moment, about things that we see, that we started this podcast thinking and believing that are still true. So the first and foremost, our slogan for the podcast, even for Venvio, is your online presence should be your best sales person. And I think that if there's anything that's true about marketing today, that's really the case. You know, if you look at how people buy today, if you just look at it from macro standpoint, the biggest change, and Beth, I want to hear your take on this, but the biggest change I've seen is that most companies still market like it's 2012.  And the reality is, and this is something we've seen both for Venvio and for our clients is that what's happening more and more is that people are making the decision before they even have a conversation. The decision is made before a salesperson even engages with somebody because somebody sees you on social, they get a DM, they check out your site, they view your content, they read reviews, all of that is happening, which a lot of times you can't track, but all that is happening to the point where your buyer, your audience has made the decision before they've ever spoken to you. And so your online presence is your best salesperson. Whether you want to believe it or not, the attribution around is your marketing actually helping you land deals? It's a no-brainer at this point. I love people who are like, oh, my marketing does nothing, and I'm like, does it? Or like, doesn't it? Because that's just how we buy it. I'm trying to think about the last thing I bought recently online. Oh, I bought a new, well, I didn't buy it, but like for Christmas, my family got me a new coffee grinder. Oh, yes. It's like a handheld grinder.  It's not like something crazy. But like that same type of mentality around a small transaction, like a coffee grinder happens with very large, costly, expensive projects in the building product space, whether that's a homeowner or a more commercial activity, it's all moving online if it hasn't already happened. I mean, I think it's valuable to note that it happens at the $50 level. So how much more at the $2 million level? I was on a podcast with a sales consultant. It was a great conversation. But Bradley Hartman, who you know, he's a great friend of ours, great partner, and he kind of gave me a hard time about our tagline. He's like, hey, I've got some beef about your tagline of your online presence as your best salesperson, because he's like, you know who I want to be your best salesperson? Your best salesperson, which is a great point. And honestly, I think he's saying what a lot of people are thinking. And to Zach's exact point, especially in B2B, we know that you may not literally be selling like sales transactions happening, but your online presence is absolutely the key to a sales partner. If you're, and more to the point, if you aren't online, your sales team is overcoming Everest in every conversation, and it's almost like you don't exist. So it's how we do business today. It's whether it's a $50 coffee grinder. I mean, I think you could take that thought further, Zach, and say, when's the last time you bought something that you had no prior knowledge of? Have you been to Costco? That you just saw on a shelf, other than like Costco meatballs. You know, other than like those impulse buys at the checkout counter, at the grocery store, you don't typically see something, whether it's $50 or $2,000, and just be like, yeah, I'm just going to get that guy. You know, we all do, because if you have information, you use the information. So if you, as the person who has the product to be sold, you've got that platform that gets in front of your customer on a daily basis, it's a no-brainer. I was at an event, I think it was last year, manufacturer brought me in to come speak to their sales team. I did like a sales training and we're about halfway through, I don't know if I told this to you, Beth, we're about halfway through the event. Okay. And this VP of sales executive, he like basically runs the company. We're at a break session. He pulls me backstage and he's like, hey, I just want you to know that half the people in this room will no longer be here next year. And I was like, wow, wow, okay, like time more and he's like, we are really buying into the idea of leveraging digital and we're asking our, we're asking our sales team to buy in and there's a lot of old school thinking, limiting beliefs around how digital impacts, you know, sales transactions. And I just thought that was a really profound viewpoint by this executive to say, Hey, like, we believe in this so much that if these guys are not going to buy in, they're not going to be part of our organization and they've done very well, like they've done extremely well by doing that, but I just love the conviction and I think it's true. It's to your point about your best salesperson should be your best salesperson. Like I get that, but how infinitely more scalable is your website?  How much time does the average person spend on social media?  Oh, did you really? That's it. Yeah, yeah, that's, so because that's my argument for, cause we get asked that all the time, why do I need to be on social media? And so we did some research and average time people spend online in the US in 2022 was 2.4 hours every single day.   That's a completely different perspective than just a silly Facebook post. Yeah. And I think it just goes to show that the, if you're not able to see the benefit of social, for example, it's probably points to the fact that maybe you don't have the right strategy for it. So the second thing that we wrote down here, Beth, as far as things that ring true throughout the course of our podcast is whoever gets closest wins.  And what's interesting about that idea of whoever gets closest wins, I think that's really true for manufacturers as well, because it's no longer about the product, like your product might be best, but if you're not creating demand by helping people solve their problems by getting as close as possible to your customer, you're making it much more difficult to win. Like I look at the companies who are succeeding today and they've got excellent digital strategies, but they're also trying to find ways to create demand through their products and things that are around their company, whether that service or speed or they've even got training. You're like, you're starting to see all of these different companies realize that like, Hey, our product is really the back end. The front end is everything else that's a part of the business. So how am I helping my customers win more business? Like I can't tell you how many, you know, manufacturers I've spoken to recently and they're like, Hey, if we can just help you win more business, they'll just continue to use our product. Oh yeah, absolutely. And so now they're like, and then you look at that, you're like, Oh, well, maybe they're more of a lead generation company with a product on the back end. Something that we talk about a lot is also understanding the value that your product actually brings. And one way we see people really succeed in getting closer to the customer is by understanding the true reason that they're buying your product and it's actually beyond features and benefits and color options. And going beyond that and digging at what are the results that they're going to get and making it something that I can understand. Give me a sound bite that I can walk away from as a junior architect and go advocate for your, for your product to the principal or to my client. And giving me something that as a contractor owner, as an owner of a contracting company, I can go to my team and advocate for this is why we're going to start to install this product instead of this is product and this is how it's going to directly improve your projects, your timelines, whatever. But I have to also obviously give the caveat of it's not, it has to be significant, right? We've had that conversation that can't be like safe 5% time. It's got to be a pretty significant benefit. But knowing what are the pain points of your customer and knowing that your number one job is to solve them, not to tell them the number of features, benefits and color changes that you have available. But to say, Hey, this is a problem that you have. And this is the problem that we solve. I like to say that people don't buy products, they buy ideas. You know, so let's say, let's take a decking, for example, decking company comes in and goes, Hey, we're going to, people are going to buy a product because it's stronger. It's got a better warranty. It's got those things. And like, yes, that's true. Like I, there's people I've talked to in the decking industry that are going to choose a product based upon the warranty. But the other day, like people are not buying the product. They're buying the idea that, Hey, my outdoor space is going to be great. I'm buying this product because I'm going to land more business. I'm going to get more work done. I'm going to increase my margins. Like they're buying those ideas. They're not buying the product. The product is just the avenue to that idea. And so many manufacturers don't understand the idea that their customers actually buying. They think it's just my product is better, which is like our last point, which is better. Isn't better, different is better than better. What is different about you? Because people, I'm going to go on a rant here, Beth, but like people don't, they don't remember why you're better. They only remember why you're different. We have such a small capacity to remember key figures and facts about brands that if you want your brand to stand out, you have to really hit home the points of like, Hey, everyone does this and this and this in our industry. Everyone's going to tell you this. This is why we're different. You know, this is what makes us different. And the reason why people remember that is because the way our brain works is we're, we're hardwired and this is especially true for today or hardwired for contrarian thinking and controversy. Well, everyone's saying this, but this is what they're really good at, or this is what, this is why I'm going to, I'm going to specify them, or this is why I'm going to choose them on my next job. Like how many builders have you talked to Beth or contractors or like, they might not believe something that's necessarily true about a product, but the idea is why they continue to use it, meaning like, is the product that much better? No, but, but what it is, is it does speak to an innate need and idea of what they actually want in their lifestyle or, or what they're trying to accomplish on a job site. You know, and I think introducing different is a great way to be memorable, like Zach is saying, because it, you're introducing a question, you're giving them a problem and our brains will just come back and solve that problem. And if you're better, that means you're really saying like what you're doing is not good and not as good. And now you're basically putting me on the defensive, but if it's different, now I'm questioning like, well, what else should I do differently? How is, man, I wonder what difference that would make and you're giving them a problem to solve. So they constantly are just coming back to your product over and over and over. And if nothing else, yeah, they have to make a choice. Exactly. Exactly. I'm trying to think of an example of this in, you know, everyday modern society. Like if I think about, okay, this, I'm going to go off on a linear, like think about the cheesecake factory. Okay, can't wait. Can't wait for this analogy. Yeah. So when I say cheesecake factory, what do you think of their giant giant menu? There you go. That's why they're different. Different. Is it, is the, is the food better? Oh, is the menu better? No. No, is the menu better? Is there, is there service better? No, it's not, but what's different is if I'm, if they have a giant menu. Yeah. I mean, I think about things like that with Starbucks or Peloton or any, I mean, I know they're not doing, no, no, no, no one's doing necessarily very well right now, but they're different. They're different because, oh, you can be at home and do this. You don't have to go to a second class. You can do it this way. The same is true for brands.  They're different because they're like, Hey, our fans look great. They perform really well. And they're not generic. You actually think about it. Right. It's different. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. Like look at any brand that you buy. You're buying it. And the thing that's memorable to you is how it's different. And I think in the building product space, we've just seen such success with people who align around, no, we're not going to do exactly what you're doing. But tree molding is actually a great example of that because, I mean, are there any, are there a few things that's more commoditized than like molding and trim? Not a lot of things, right? It's just wood. That's not a, that's not a dig. Those are just facts. And they were like that they are in a category that everybody has accepted. Yeah, we're a commodity and we're really beautiful and like our lines are really clean, but there wasn't really one way to look at anything and be like, this is this brand and that's that brand. So they went hard on building a brand. And that in and of itself was really different for their category. And they've seen huge success and adoption because of it, because it's difficult to remember the brand name for a highly commoditized product. So they made sure that you knew their brand name because they were the only ones building something that was memorable. So Beth, I want to ask you a question. You didn't know I was going to ask you this in closing. Can't wait.  Like, what's your, what's your biggest takeaway in doing this? Like, what's the biggest thing you're like, man, this has really benefited me or this is something I really look at and go, wow, this is, I don't know, stood out. That's a great question. It's, I actually have a very easy answer because I think about this all the time. So this isn't going to sound surprising, but we hear all the time. We know firsthand that the building materials from a marketing specifically digital marketing perspective isn't what you would consider cutting edge. Most people say it's somewhere between five to 10 years behind.  But when I think about the hundreds of guests that we've had on and they are obviously a sample size that represents a significant larger population in our industry, it's not like it's just these agencies who build websites leading the charge into the digital era for the, for our industry. We aren't actually that behind is my biggest takeaway. Like there are so many people who are so passionate, so smart, so innovative, deep in our industry, just doing what they know is going to get the best results and risking failure and trying new things and being excited about the newest and the greatest and the best and seeing really cool success, really cool data and building really incredible things and not just taking for granted, hey, I'm in this industry. This is my product. This is the way that everybody's told me to market my product. And so we're just going to do that. So I think my biggest takeaway is just the amount of people passionate about digital that believe in what it can and will be doing for our industry and that it's not just millennials saying like, hey, the Internet is the future. What's your biggest takeaway, Zach? I just I like learning, you know, we started this podcast because we thought, hey, we really want to champion this idea of digital in the industry and want to talk more about it and learn from people and see what's working. What's really interesting to me is how much we learn from people to talk to and then apply that and how many people all meet at events, whatever I go, hey, like, I really like that one episode you guys did on X, Y and Z. Like that changed our strategy for this particular initiative and like I love hearing that. Like that to me is like the biggest, most ultimate win because that is showing that these ideas scale. So like that to me is very cool. That's probably my biggest takeaway. But we got 200 more. We got 200 more episodes. We're going to do two, right? Oh, yeah, we are not even close to done. We're not even close to done.  Head over to the iTunes Apple podcast and drop us a five star review to help us celebrate. Drop us a comment. Tell us what you enjoy about it. If you're like my family, you can comment about why you think Beth is a better part of the show than I am. No, but seriously, thank you all so much. If you would do that, it would mean the world to us. And if you enjoy this content, check us out at Venvio.com slash podcast to get more excellent content to subscribe to share your thoughts and questions that you have. Until next time, I'm Zach Williams, a long time Beth and I love. Thanks, everybody.


Alcohol poisoning, how to avoid it and how to cure it. If you are struggling right now or there's a friend who's struggling and you suspect it's alcohol poisoning, we're gonna talk about how you should handle it and how to avoid it in the future. But first you may wanna get my free book, The 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge, How to Reduce or Quit Alcohol. There's a little link down in the about section and just here, it's completely free. You might just wanna reduce or quit alcohol ongoing if you're watching this. So I suffered alcohol poisoning back in 1999. I was in Jamaica, I was at, no I wasn't, I was in Trinidad and Tobago, sorry, the port of Spain. And I was watching cricket between Australia and the West Indies and I was drinking in the sun all day. And at night time, I started to get really cold and I started to shiver and I started to hallucinate and my friends found me lying on my back in this hotel room that we were staying in and I was, and I was delirious, I wasn't making sense.  Pretty scary, pretty horrific. The next day I didn't drink alcohol, even though all my friends were drinking alcohol again in the sun watching the sport, but it's pretty nasty and if you suspect that you have alcohol poisoning or a friend has it and they're hallucinating, they're going crazy, please call a doctor, please call a medical professional, obviously. A lot of people, however, think they have alcohol poisoning but really they're just really hungover or they're vomiting and they're sweating and so let's just quickly go through the ways to avoid it and then we're gonna deal with what you should do. So avoiding it simply is if you're gonna drink a lot, drink a lot of water, you gotta hydrate yourself. What I like to do is for every alcoholic drink I have, I drink a glass of water.  When I played Rugby for Los Angeles Rugby Club, if I was unfortunate enough to win the most valuable player, my reward was back in the bar after the game, they would make you go chug, chug, chug and I'd have to like drink a whole big pitcher of Budweiser and then later on, about an hour later I was vomiting in the gutter while they were all laughing. That's not much fun, I gotta tell you. So avoid chugging. You could always pick drinks with low alcohol as well. Like if you know you're gonna be drinking a lot in the sun or at a party, drink a mid-strength beer or something with less of an alcoholic content into it. Stick to a drinking plan. Just know in your head how many you're going to drink or how many you wanna drink that night so you don't get into the point where you're drinking too much to get alcohol poisoning in the first place. Make some drinks non-alcoholic. Pretty simple. You don't have to drink Bloody Mary's, right? You can drink Virgin Mary's. Tastes kind of similar. You just have it without the vodka. You can drink non-alcoholic beers if you really want the taste. And also don't drink on an empty stomach. That's the worst thing. Like make sure you've eaten some foods before you know you're gonna be drinking excessively. So there's some tips on how to avoid getting alcohol poisoning. Again, might wanna check out my book, The 30-Day No Alcohol Challenge, How to Reduce or Quit Drinking is the name of the book. There's a link in the about section. Now, if you suspect you have alcohol poisoning or a friend has, then here are some of the symptoms. You might be like breathing heavily, you might be hallucinating, you're sweating, you've got the shivers. Again, go and see a doctor, but if you're just really hungover, here are some ways that you can fix this, okay? Drink lots of water. Lots of water, okay? Because when you have alcohol poisoning or you're suffering from the effects of alcohol, you're dehydrated and your body is inflamed. I know it sounds obvious, but drink lots of water. Do not drink coffee, do not, in fact, I've got a list prepared here of what you should do, which I prepared before I hit record on this. Do not go and have a greasy breakfast, do not drink coffee, coffee is a diuretic and so it dehydrates you even more. You wanna drink lots of water, okay?  If you put all that together into a smoothie, man, that is gonna taste good, plus it's going to reduce the inflammation that's going on in your body. Not only are you dehydrated, but you've got inflammation. These ingredients here are all anti-inflammatory, so they reduce, they naturally reduce the inflammation that's going on in your body. What most people think they should do to get over being hungover is have a greasy breakfast, have a coffee, and drink sugary waters like Gatorade. The problem with Gatorade is that it's got a lot of sugar in it and it's not good for you. Coffee is a diuretic and it will make you even more dehydrated and a greasy breakfast that means the body is now having to work hard to break down all those nasty fats and carbs and everything when you really want the body to be restoring itself from the alcohol that you've been feeding it. Again, avoid the greasy breakfast, avoid the coffee, avoid the Gatorade, get lots and lots of water into yourself, coconut water, blueberries, spinach, ginger, mint, chia seeds, and a little bit of salt just for flavor. You don't need the salt, but this stuff here will really start to bring your body back to life. If you're really in a lot of trouble and don't lie on your back, it's better to kind of lie on your side, rather. If you're with someone now who you think has alcoholic poisoning, put them on their side.  I mean, that's an extreme case, but so that you avoid that, put them on their side. But mostly, just in future, if you're watching this for future drinking, don't go and drink so hard. I was a social drinker, I drank for a few times during the week and during the weekends, I'd go out and I'd be a binge drinker.  I took a 30-day break from alcohol back in 2010 just because I was sick and tired of being hungover and at the end of 30 days, I lost 30 pounds, I'm sorry, 13 pounds, I should say, 30 pounds, that'd be miraculous. My skin got better, I slept better, I started to get more energy and focus and clarity and I felt so good, I just kept going. I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since. So I haven't drunk alcohol since 2010 and my life is just so much better and more energetic and better relationships because of it. So again, if you wanna just get my free book, it's called the 30-day No Alcohol Challenge, How to Reduce or Quit Alcohol, click the link in the bio below or click the little link that I've got here and try to avoid alcohol poisoning in the future. All right, I hope this helped and I'll catch you on the next one.