Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you, including Larry Bailey, Michelle Serju, and Miss Music Teacher. Coming up on DTNS, IKEA forges ahead with augmented reality, Shopify has a good use for NFTs, and the brave search engine gives you back control. This is the Daily Tech News for Wednesday, June 22, 2022. So many twos, deuces wild in Los Angeles. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. In Salt Lake City, I'm Scott Johnson. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I would like to start with a few tech things you should know. Good idea, Tom. Amazon announced its first fully autonomous mobile robot called Proteus, designed to move large carts in warehouses. Proteus bots are equipped with advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology, so says the company, to avoid human warehouse workers. Amazon also showed off a robot arm system called Cardinal that can select and lift individual packages up to 50 pounds expected to deploy in warehouses next year. Amazon told Forbes, replacing people with machines is just a fallacy and that it expects the robots will improve safety as well. I feel like now I don't believe them. I would have been fine until they said it was a fallacy. Doth protests too much. Fitbit launched a new sleep profile if you're one of the people who pays $10 a month for premium. It'll examine 10 metrics like time before sound sleep, disrupted sleep, bedtime consistency. The feature will offer you monthly reports comparing those metrics with averages for your age and gender. Sleep profiles will be available to premium users on the Fitbit since the Versa 3, the Versa 2, the Charge 5, Lux, and Inspire 2 wearables. First report is expected as soon as July 4th. Microsoft will soon add keyboard and mouse support to Xbox Cloud Gaming. The company says developers who don't already support keyboards and mice can add it now, so titles will be ready when the feature launches. That's good for PC gamers. Back in 2019, Google released Android Auto for phone screens, but then discontinued the feature last year, 2021, if you were running Android 12 or higher. However, those Android 11 and earlier folks, now you're on the chopping block. Google has ended support for Android Auto for phone screens on all versions of Android. If you try to launch it, it'll say Android Auto is now only available for car screens. However, if your car doesn't have a screen, you can use Google Assistant driving mode instead. Google with your naming. You just never fail to impress. Nothing, the company, nothing confirmed to PC Mag. It will not launch its phone in North America instead focusing on the UK and parts of Europe where the company has strong partnerships with carriers. Meanwhile, if you get a nothing phone and you try to use it on a US carrier, you'll get an unpredictable coverage on T-Mobile. You won't have any voice over 4G on AT&T and you won't have service at all on Verizon. The company says it does have plans to launch a smartphone in the US in the future. So North America gets nothing. Wait, no. North America doesn't get nothing. I don't know why that took me off guard. I should have known.  North America is not for nothing. Anyway, let's talk about IKEA. IKEA launched a feature called creative. And of course, because it's IKEA, it's spelled with a K and a V at the end. It's available for the IKEA website and iPhones and lets you design your living area with digital furniture. And in fact, iPhones with LiDAR sensors will be able to include even more spatial detail. Okay, so for anybody who's like, well, hold on a second, IKEA already does this, right? Isn't it called IKEA Place? That's an app that lets you put a digital version of IKEA furniture for sale in your room. How is this different? Yeah. So place isn't going away. You'll still be able to use place, but everybody does that now. Amazon Wayfair, they all do that. Creative does a 3D scan of your room and then uses computer vision and machine learning from geological labs to let you remove some or all of your furniture. That's the twist. You don't have to put it in the room with the furniture in it. You can get rid of your furniture and then add IKEA items to see how they look. You can also use the app for more than 50 pre-made showrooms if you don't want to use your own space. TechCrunch is Lauren Forrest. I'll test it on an iPhone with LiDAR. You stand and point the camera at five target spots in the room that Apple direct you where. You have to do it just right. It's like learning the golf. You got to keep your elbows in. You pivot with the wrists. And then once you've done that, you wave the phone in a figure eight motion to help the algorithm stitch together those five images that you took. Then you'll have to step to the left or right and repeat the whole thing a second time. The scan takes about two minutes and it's another five minutes to upload it and make it available to use. That's if you're using a LiDAR iPhone. If you're using the website or a phone without LiDAR, you'll need to take five photos. They'll direct you on that and then upload those and they get stitched together. But like you would expect, it doesn't have as much detail. Either way, once you're done, you can then place items that will be accurate by size. You can put things like lights up on the wall and you can save your items to your account or put them right in a shopping cart. Of course, you can also share your finished design with other people, including an IKEA interior designer if you want. So for anybody who's like, all right, this sounds pretty good. IKEA has had this in the works for a while. Creative has been in testing since April of last year. So just over a year and hopes to eventually add options to change things like wall colorings and other features. Just kind of make it your own. Creative will launch on the web and iOS in the US coming later this summer to Android and other markets in September. So I am in the mood for this. Are you? Yeah, we're looking at our basement and we're trying to make some decisions about what we want to do. And it's really hard to visualize. I really struggle with that. And people say, Scott, you draw and paint. You can't visualize. I really can't. When it comes to 3D spaces, actual living spaces, I can't picture it any other way than it is currently in. So these tools are really helpful for people like me who want to maybe make a change down there. And this sounds like maybe the most comprehensive I'd heard of. But what's funny is this made me start asking questions that made me have a little naivete or as I would say, Ikea. That's terrible. Forget it. Scratch from the right. Naivete. No, you said that. Naivakia. There you go. That's even better. But it's spelled with an oomla somewhere. I never know what Ikea is up to. I don't know if it's because I don't go into the store very often. I do have Ikea furniture. We pick up stuff here and there. I didn't know they were in the home like Internet of Things market. I didn't know they had products as back as far back as 2014 in that regard. I didn't know they had the first smart bulb. Like a lot of these things, I don't think they're good at telling us about. So I'm glad we're hearing about this one. And this is seems like maybe the most mainstream push they've done in terms of different outlets picking it up. The show is one of them. But I feel like Ikea is bad at telling me they have cool tech to work with on home stuff. You got to go to a Kia store more often. That's all there is, I guess. Or Ikea.com or whatever. What this reminded me of is more and more just for fun, even though I'm not necessarily moving apartments anytime soon. Hopefully never again. But when I do look at apartments, you see that you can tell that it's slightly fake staging. But it gives you a sense of like, oh, that's what a couch and a TV and a couple chairs and a coffee table would look like in that space. I feel like this is just like one step closer to that virtual staging thing that Ikea can help with.  So if you have this much control over how you can present it and how you can stage it, I think that's probably what Ikea is going for here. Yeah, I feel like you're right, Scott, that people don't realize how maybe not ahead of the game, but on the edge of the game Ikea is. Like you said, they had their first hub for a smart home back in 2014. Just yesterday we mentioned that they are part of the standards organization for the metaverse. And then we get this AR announcement today so it makes sense like, oh, that's what they're doing. They want to be able to let you go into a metaverse and design your home and maybe buy virtual Ikea items in a metaverse someday or something like that. But I think they are well placed for all of those things in a way that a lot of other retailers are. And I don't think it's paid off quite yet because the smart home hasn't quite permeated everywhere, but matter is about to make it do that, I think, and augmented reality as we heard is kind of wonky. Like it's just as easy to assemble Ikea furniture as it is to remember all the steps of like, okay, keep your arms in and then pivot this way. And like eventually though, this same technology will be available in some kind of AR headset from somebody and will do real time scanning.  But Ikea is getting in and getting this tested ahead of time. Yeah, and they're in a good position to have the vested interests that make sense. Like, you know, Amazon has products like this for me, but I don't know. I think of Amazon is somebody's going to help me figure my house out. Not really.  Great. Put it over there. But I've tried that and been like, yeah, but without moving my furniture around doesn't really help. This lets me virtually move my furniture around to Sarah's point, do virtual staging and stuff. Yeah, and especially in the case of me, if I do anything in the studio and change anything down here, it will probably be with Ikea furniture. Like I was going to go there anyway. I like the pricing. I like the simplicity, you know, quality is an arguable thing. But being able to have more tools to do that, it really is in their interest to give us these tools. I just think they should be a little bit better about communicating it. And maybe they are now and maybe they just kind of been doing just fine. I don't go to Ikea enough. Clearly the meatballs don't pull me in like they used to. I love how Scott, you're like, I love all of this, but I just wish Ikea was more relentless about telling me. Just tell me about it, I guess. I don't know. Like I guess everybody's vying for my eyeballs these days and Ikea is just not. Yeah, I was going to say that. I don't think of them that way. I think Ikea's premise is you'll come to them for home stuff and then they'll show you what they have. Yeah, probably. You'll think, well, I should go to Ikea for their smart home stuff, right? It'll be more of like you're going to go there anyway, maybe just to get meatballs. And then you'll find out that they have all this stuff. I do like going for meatballs.  I want them to sell me a fake flat TV. It can't be that much money. I feel like you could just like take one. You think I should just steal one?  I bet you'd get a fake TV on Amazon right now or Alibaba even probably. I don't know why I'm fascinated by those things, but I love them. So, so, you know, not to, not to take us too far from the topic. Make those available for purchase. That's all. To bring us back to my own topic. Well, I say Ikea just wants you to come into the store and then expose you to stuff. Very obviously creative is not that creative is we want you to see how the furniture will look so that you'll then order it. Yeah. So it's trying to hit you at home, trying to hit you where you live, literally. It literally hit me where I live. Well, maybe Shopify will hit you where you live when they do stuff with Twitter. Shopify announced around 100 new features this week as part of its semi-annual Shopify edition showcase. One of the main announcements was that Twitter partnered with Shopify to launch a sales channel app for all U.S. merchants, letting merchants onboard to Twitter's shopping manager dashboard. This provides product catalog tools and lets merchants add other shopping features to profiles and so forth. Twitter also recently launched the new shopping related feature. This includes includes a new product drops feature. Twitter previously launched mobile storefronts and live stream shopping. Shopify says orders placed through the partner integrations with Twitter and others quadrupled in the first quarter of 2022. So they're pushing that direction. TechCrunch sources say Twitter began testing a notes feature with selected users, letting users create articles with rich formatting and uploaded media. Twitter will hold a CHERP developer conference on November 16th in San Francisco. It's only held one other CHERP conference, by the way, and that was back in 2010. Dang. I barely remember that. Yeah. I completely forgot about it till we talked about it today. Which is fine. You know, a company the size of Twitter, not that you have to have events every year, but the fact that, you know, CHERP was back in 2010 and I don't know, people have been working on products rather than talking about products at events since then is quite some time. Yeah. I like this whole Shopify thing. When I think about certain brands that I follow on Twitter and there aren't that many, but some of them, you know, like Nike, for example, like I follow Nike on Twitter, so that's a very obvious example. It's like, okay, well, Nike's got their own thing, but usually if there's some new cool sneaker or the company is pushing, you know, a collab with an artist or whatever, then you get that and you might get an image and then you get a link and then it bumps you out to wherever that you, you know, end up finishing the transaction. That's the eventual goal for the company. Sure. I think it's like this to be something that's a little bit more integrated in Twitter and I've talked at Nauseum about the fact that I use a third party Twitter app. So a lot of this stuff probably wouldn't even show up for me unless I was using web Twitter or, you know, an official Twitter app. But I think that this is, this is potentially a pretty untapped market for Twitter just because so many folks and brands are on Twitter. But the idea is that you're just kind of letting people know where to go elsewhere to do the thing that you want to do. And make you do the thing that you want to do. Because you can already link out to your Shopify account on Twitter, right? So this has to be more compelling than that. It has to make it easy for the shopper to be like, oh, I'm not really leaving Twitter and I'm able to buy this stuff. But the key is that you are still checking out on the Shopify website. So even though you never feel like you're leaving Twitter, Shopify is handling the whole customer relationship, which means the merchant is handling the whole customer relationship, which is super smart for Twitter because they're stealing a page out of Instagram's book where they're like, hey folks, sell stuff on our platform. We've got a captive audience. They love being here. Sell them some stuff.  They don't need to take a cut of that. And maybe they will. Maybe they won't. But to get it started, it's going to be much more compelling to be like, yeah, just integrate your Shopify store with us. You don't have to pay anything extra and you get more sales. You want to promote a tweet? Great, we'll talk. Otherwise, have at it. I've had the experience on Instagram before. I thought I'd never be the person to do this because I just thought, I don't know. I thought I was too high and mighty for this. But using Instagram, you get an advertisement for something that may interest you and you click on it. It's literally a buy as a click away. It's not hard. It's just boom. Get it. And that's what made the decision for me to say, I will spend $10 right now on these replacement nibs for the, for my stylist pen. Yeah. From this company who obviously, you know, through data collection knows who I am and what I need. And so I did that and it was so easy and so fast, almost a little too easy and too fast. It kind of was like, who did I actually buy this through? What was the deal here? Like there's a little bit of that feeling if you're not used to it. But I think Twitter would benefit by having something like that.  I don't know. Maybe they'll integrate too, but you know, if you're using the official app and you're looking for quick ways to grab stuff without having to do too many clicks, too much jumping around. This seems like a cool idea. Shopify also announced something called token gated commerce that will let customers link crypto wallets to a Shopify store for the purposes of using NFTs. Shopify already has let merchants sell NFTs if they want, but token gating lets a merchant use an NFT like a loyalty card. So you can reward fans and VIPs with exclusive access to products, perks, or even experiences. They did a test run at South by Southwest with a company where if you had the NFT from that company, you could show up and get access to exclusive products and an exclusive experience in real life. So this includes in-person shopping, not just online. Pretty cool. Yeah. Well, no, I was just going to say, I think that's this is a more compelling use of NFT technology that doesn't care if NFTs are tanking or if cryptocurrency is tanking. It's like, no, we're just using the technology to help you have a better relationship with your customer. Yeah, it's there. Whether your things are up or things are down, I do like that about it.  It's sort of the modern version of that. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And he's like, oh, just what we wanted, more NFTs. You're talking, I think, about the NFTs that can be fraudulent or you don't understand why they cost so much. That's not what this is. This is just using the technology of the NFT to be able to prove who you are easily in a better way than we have with current loyalty cards. Yeah. And like you pointed out in the beginning and I totally agree with the building the technology or the conduits for the stuff to be manageable regardless of where the market is or where everyone thinks it is or where we're speculating at any time is not a bad thing at all because some form of the technology and the tech, whether it's NFTs or not, are going to be here. And the more pipeline we have to handle this stuff, the more, I don't know, structured and grounded it'll be. I think this is always good when this happens. Yeah. But if you have a thought about it, we'd love to hear it. Email us feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. The Brave browser folks launched a search engine back in October of last year. One piece of news is that Brave Search is out of beta. Another piece of news is that Brave Search is launching a new feature that is in beta called Goggles. Not like Google Goggles. This is different. Brave's Goggles let you modify the criteria for your search ranking. So you can adjust things like whether a query should rely more on blogs or maybe more on mainstream news sites. Brave isn't opening up its search algorithms. So it's not totally open, but it does give users more control than a lot of other search engines do. To try the feature, you search for something, then you choose the Goggles button, and then Brave will supply Goggles from developers that you can choose to follow or not. But, Tom, I know you've kind of looked into this. This is a little bit more than switching a few settings, right? Yes and no. It's both easier and harder than you think, depending on what you want to do with it. The Goggles themselves are just unencrypted text files with instructions for re-ranking. And if you want to create your own, you can, but you need to learn the syntax and host them on GitHub or GitLab. So there's a little bit of a learning curve. Most people will likely just be using filters made by others. For example, AllSides, which ranks political leanings in news publications, has made two filters, one for left sources, one for right sources. Other pre-made filters that are there right now at launch include one that attempts to remove copycats, one that removes the top thousand most viewed websites, so you can see lesser seen sources, one that narrows results to a list of tech blogs, if you want to get just tech stuff, and one that removes any result from Pinterest. The other two are even more specific. One removes the top thousand most viewed websites, but then prioritizes the most popular domains on Hacker News, and then another one boosts content related to the Rust programming language. You can turn Goggles on and off if you want to compare your tweaked results to what the search engine normally returns, and Brave is fine if other search engines wanted to use this, right, Sarah? Yeah, apparently when Brave published a paper about the idea for Goggles back in October of last year, Brave had to share the tech with other search engines. Other privacy focused search engines that could benefit include Duck.Go, which uses Bing results, StartPage, which uses Google results, and Mojeek. However, no company has taken Brave up on their offer as of yet. Yeah, and I don't know why that is, except that maybe they're, you know, it's more of an offer in spirit than an offer. It feels a little bit, I don't know, if I were over at Duck.Go, I might be like, let's just see how the development community takes to this, if they do. There's a difference between go ahead and use it and let me help you implement it, right? Those are two entirely different things. Yeah, that's a whole different bag of cheese. Look, these two of the companies mentioned here, Brave in particular and Duck.Go are kind of my go-tos these days, one for browser, one, like the Duck.Go browser, I hope it comes out of beta soon, but I use their search engine. And what's interesting here to me is it reminds me of a whole different kind of filtering, and I think that's why I'm drawn to this. This is going to sound a little bit weird, but the comparison I would use is a video game I play or have played before called Grim Dawn. It's an action RPG, think Diablo 3, but you know, sort of a different take on it. And in that game, it has loot filtering.  You just want to see legendaries and important drops. It just won't show you the common stuff. You can filter it out. So they literally don't clutter up your screen and drop on the ground for you to pick up. They virtually don't exist to you. And that's really compelling. But then you start talking about information and who gets what and how they get it. And then also that information is monetized. I get why people might be a little squeamish on this. I like that this is developer oriented versus having to go in and set filters because nobody would use it. You need to make it easy to use for most people. So providing a bunch of filters that are easy to understand. Oh, this is going to remove the top 1000 websites. Great. Oh, this is just going to give me tech blogs. Awesome. I also like that it is developer friendly, which is like, hey, if you want to do the learning curve, you can do this yourself because I think enough people will be willing to try this to do it. And that way I could take a stab at saying, you know what? I just need to get rid of the day's news sometimes because I'm researching a story about the day's news like happened with Apple Passkey. And I need to find out what Apple did before Passkey. And I can't because Google is just showing me the news. Right. And so it'd be nice to have a filter that easily does that. I know there's other ways to do that in Google, but they're cumbersome. It'd be nice to just click on one button and Brave Search and be, yeah, filter that. So I think this is great. The problem is are enough people using Brave Search to create a community around this stuff, which is what you need for this to thrive. Well, and what you had described earlier, Tom, is like, okay, there's some somewhat specific filters from obviously companies being like, let's see what kind of results we get from this if somebody were to use it. And that's great. That makes a lot of sense. I think there are a lot of branding opportunities here. But, but yeah, how, how much does, you know, as a, as somebody who devours a lot of news, you know, every morning I'm like, this makes perfect sense to me. I could maybe use Brave to search for a DTNS rather than just kind of search for what I'm doing. If I'm just casually surfing the net type of thing, kind of two different situations. But how many, how many people are out there that want that? Maybe a lot, maybe more than I think. Maybe, but maybe less. I mean, the part of the problem is I think that the, we all say we want as many options as possible. We all want choice. We want to be able to flick things on and off and use things the way we want to use them. But I feel like that's a little bit at odds with the free internet, finding ways to make money on the periphery. And I just don't know. I also don't think people want as much choice as they think they want. I think they'd like to feel like they do, but at the end of the day, some of them just want to hit the search and get the result they want and move on. And if they have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get specific results or only categorized results or whatever. That is why I like their implementation. It's a lot of hoops to create a filter. But if there's a filter you like that's been created, it's really easy. You just click it and it'll, and then you unclick it. If you're like, oh, I want to see the other results. It's just a matter of like, are the filters you want going to be created by someone? Or are you going to be willing to put in the time to create your own? And I don't know. Brave girls. Are you ready? Let's do this. Yeah. Yeah. I love this idea. I'm more skeptical whether it's actually going to catch on, but we'll see. Yeah. All right, let's check out the mail bag. We got a good one from Thor. Thor says, hello from sunny and delightful Oslo, Norway. Hello, Thor. Thor had a couple of quick thoughts on our 6G chat that we had with Shannon Morse yesterday. He says, you mentioned that the lower power draw makes it seem more environmentally friendly. Just wanted to add that it does depend on how many transceivers are needed for a given area. Since the frequency is even higher, the range would probably be even lower due to higher attenuation. The total power per area would be a function of power draw per unit and the area that it serves. Also the impact of the production of the transceiver units, although that's a one time cost for the lifetime of the unit. It does also add to the environmental impact per area served. Yeah. So there's some math to do to see if this will really be a power save in the implementation or not. It's a good point, Thor. Yeah. Thanks for very kindly making this point. We appreciate it. Has he even allowed to send emails on a day that isn't Thursday though? It seems like he's Thor. He can send it wherever he wants. Yeah. Oh gosh, you guys. Thor has emailed us in the past and Thor, please keep doing so. We appreciate your feedback and we appreciate all of your feedback, by the way. Your feedback at daily technewshow.com is where to send an email. If you know something picks your interest, something that we talk about on the show, you say, ah, you know, I've got a little something to add here where I have some thoughts or I might even have, you know, some descent. We want to hear it. Please do email us early and often. Thanks to you, Scott Johnson for being with us today. As always, what's been going on in your world? Well, plenty of fear interested in the caught the podcast that I do and there are a ton of them award winning podcasts.  That includes podcasts.  So point your all your browsers, all your brave and otherwise browsers right there frogpants.com. And if you're trying to capture, capture me on on the Twitter, you can find me at Scott Johnson. Special thanks to Chad Gertz. Chad, you're one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS. And we want to thank you for all the years of support. Chad for a press. Yeah, Chad. I mean, we mentioned it yesterday that if you become a new patron, your name goes here. We should also add that if you become a new patron, you get all kinds of other things too, like regular merchandise that's exclusive to patrons. You get a longer version of the show. You get a bonus episode at certain tiers. I have a feeling after this, this part wraps on the free version. We're going to be talking more about bubbles as far as the brave brother. I want to talk about that as regarding brave search. So you get a lot if you become a patron. I'm just saying. Indeed. And just as far as patrons go, there's a longer version of the show called Good Day Internet. If you're a patron, you already know. But if you'd like to know more about it, patreon.com. slash DTNS is where to go. Just a reminder, we do the show live Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. Eastern. 20 hundred UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com. slash live. We're back doing it all again tomorrow with Justin Rubber Young joining us. Talk to you soon. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Hope you have enjoyed this program.


Josh Allen is now rushed for at least 99 yards in three consecutive games Well touchdowns passing haven't really been there the yards passing haven't really been there The floor is so high with Allen's rushing ability this week Buffalo faces Detroit Josh Allen Can he do it again? Is he worth starting over some of these bigger names that you've suggested over the past couple of weeks is he worth starting in Week 15 during the fantasy playoffs it is a little bit dicey in week 15 But look at what the numbers he's given you he's basically given you you know RB 1 high-end RB 2 rushing production on a weekly basis and then adding whatever he does with his arm on top of that Even if you only throws for 200 250 yards and throws for one touchdown the fact that he's given you at least 99 rushing yards in three straight games It just creates an incredible floor like Greg mentioned even if he's turning the ball over that doesn't really matter because it's mitigated By how much he does rush the football the first quarterback in NFL history with back-to-back 100 yard rushing games think about all the rushing quarterbacks that we've had in years past most notably Michael Vick That's something that he never did Josh Allen is in rare territory right now I know he gets the comp to Cam Newton very often. I see it. I mean they both have Accuracy issues Josh Allen can make the crazy throws down the field you throw the ball It seems like 70 80 yards in the air, but then when the guys right next to him He can't necessarily hit him. So there's accurate Accuracy issues. I see the comps to Cam Newton the rushing production is absolutely there The Lions have allowed 25 passing touchdowns on the season They've been a little bit better as of late the past two weeks, but they did just face Josh Rosen a week ago We know the Cardinals offense is extremely inept. I like Josh Allen. I agree with you Greg I don't know what took people so long but based on that rushing production again You're getting legitimate RB to borderline RB one production out of this guy plus whatever he gives you with his arm I'm in Greg people have loved Lamar Jackson for the past month for the exact reason you should be loving Josh Allen He's been better on the ground Lamar Jackson has been and the floor It's just too high to ignore at this point We're looking at some of these quarterbacks like a Kirk Cousins who have really let you down over the past couple of weeks Look no further than Josh Allen the floor is just so much higher And that's exactly what you need potentially this week to advance to the fantasy finals


Hey, so I guess this is a new format. You know what's new? Two new draw types for area lamps in both Cycles and Eevee. So this is not really completely related to the code quest itself but it just landed now in Blender 2.8 and I just wanted to show you. It's a new draw type, two new draw types that are part of the area lamps. So up until now you could draw area lamps as rectangles or as in squares. So basically you will have the shape of the lamp to be square, so completely perfect square, or you could change the dimensions, just make it a rectangle. But now there are two more modes which is the disk and the ellipse. So the disk is like a circle basically. We can see it, let's see it in Eevee directly. So I'm gonna make my material a bit more metallic so we can actually see what's happening here. So okay, got my lamp and let's see it from here. So I made this area lamp a disk so if I make it smaller so we can see it more clearly, you would see that it's a perfect circle. And if I let's put it aside let's make another one and if this one I make it for example a square, you would see the difference. So there was really no way you can tell the difference like this one is a perfect circle and this one is a square with the corners with the falloff which just looks a bit weird. But there was no way to achieve that perfect circle before, only with a point but then you can change the size really. So that's the second type. Then we also have for example, let's see the ellipse. So it's like a circle that stretched. It has two, it's very similar to the rectangle basically, but it's an actual ellipse. So you can put it there and then let's make the other one since we are here and we can do it because it's real-time it's easy and also cycles. It also works on cycles. Then you can see the difference between really having an actual ellipse and a ellipsis- shape because of the way the rectangular shape works. But I think it was pretty cool. It's not really part of the code quest itself. It was committed by Lucas Tognar. It was reviewed by the developers that are here but it wasn't really directly part of the code quest.  It's actually quite late. So I hope you like this kind of format. It's more like, okay, open blender, try the new thing and then call it a day. I don't know what else can I show you that it's been happening. The new status bar is right here at the bottom now. It's so work in progress but it was committed yesterday. It just includes for the time being the stats, the statistics and it shows you the file name and it will show you tools when you're moving around. Tools that have like a lot of usually up until now some of the tools will have like instructions in the header. Well, we can put them now in the status bar because there's more room there. And also the header can stop flashing so much like often does. So there are so many other things. The team here at the spring are using 2.8 all day. So modifiers are back. That's kind of a big one but I not even going to get there because they're a bit too slow at the moment but they're working. They're there. The build bot is going to go up soon back again. We're still moving. That's why the builds are a bit behind from a few days ago or a week ago but there will be up as soon as possible. You could also give it a try to compile your own version of Blender. There's a lot of benefits besides not having to wait for build bot. If you compile your own blender it's going to be like more you can disable things that you don't use. If you don't use cycles you can just remove cycles if you want to compile it faster and it's going to be lighter. It's going to be more tailored to your computer so there are reasons to do it. If not just wait a little bit more and I hope you like this kind of format. It's very... Let's try. Let's see how it goes. I'll see you again in the next video. Ciao!


stop sign. This is what they do. And it was all during the Lake Street back up in the evening and it's in violation of the signage that's clearly posted off of Lake Street. And it was actually substantial enough that a police detail was brought in to reduce it. So I went up for a walk when it came back, the police were there and the problem had gone down. But this is what we're dealing with even now without this project. So just to continue on this first comment, based on Mr. Hamlin's pertinent questions, it really seems like we still have questions about the existing traffic. And as a resident, I would like to ask the board to consider inclusion of a condition regarding an additional traffic study to the board satisfaction, as well as a condition that the approval would depend on the traffic increase due to this completed project being qualitatively shown to be no more than a small percentage. Hence qualitatively not significantly affecting the existing neighborhood traffic and quality of life. So Mr. DeRoyder commented this evening about an 18% increase overall, that's significant. That's quite significant. If you raised my salary 18%, wow, that's great. You raised my taxes 18%, oh my goodness, right? So that's 18% a lot. And then if you combine that with Mr. Yerowitz's comments about the specific focused effects on Little John Street, that's very pertinent as well. So that's my first comment and my second comment which is a bit more brief is about item E16. So I agree with Mr. Hamlin. We should consider no project construction work on weekends and holidays. This project is massively different than any other that we've ever had in the neighborhood. The other projects are generally duplexes, they're generally one at a time. That's pretty different. The disruptions to the neighborhood from a project of this size will be significant during the construction. Please note also that during the week, children do start going to school as early as 7 a.m. I know my kids do and perhaps even earlier at other households based on this neighborhood's location and only having access to the outside world via Lake Street, there's really no kind of back way to and from school. You have to go out of the neighborhood on the places where people are gonna be coming in and out for construction traffic and everything else. So it's really not clear to me that any level of police detail will be sufficient to help keep the neighborhood children safe during the week. And it's pretty clear that construction of this scale on weekends is going to have a negative impact in the neighborhood. So I also agree with Mr. Mills and Mr. Yerowitz that traffic for the current residents should not be impeded by parking for the construction. So the last sentence in the section E16 is very important. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. That was all that I had. Thank you. Thank you. Next on my list was Anna Kuharski. Hi, thank you. I'm Anna Kuharski at 34 Mott Street. I had a couple of questions and comments. My first one is also on section 57, excuse me, about the traffic. This paragraph had claimed to address the traffic challenges but I also agree with the previous comment that I didn't find any evidence to address the challenges of the traffic impact, particularly from a traffic safety standpoint. Since the streets are very quiet and local, my street is a one-way street. Right now there are only stop signs on a number of the streets and there have been accidents at the corner of Marion Little John. So I'm just wondering if there are any traffic conditions that would be implemented or if there would be any additional stop signs or stop lights that would be important to add in if beta has any experience with that and who would be responsible for the cost if it was determined that additional street signage would be implemented? A very good question. No, this line of my can address that question. I have for the planning department. I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? I had to step away for just a second. Yeah, no problem at all. The question is if, is anyone going to, if you don't mind my paraphrasing, is there any looking at whether additional signage within the town-owned streets, is there any investigation as to whether that would be either required or desired and then if such, who would be paying for that? So signage is in road signs? Yeah, so directional signs, restrictions and the like. I don't have an answer for that right now. I would need to consult with our transportation, our senior transportation planner. Okay, but to your knowledge and certainly to my knowledge, there has been no investigation of that. No, not to my knowledge. And my second comment about the traffic is that because the Hardy School lets out in the afternoon, there's actually a third traffic jam in the middle of the afternoon between about two and three on Lake Street. And that's when many children are walking home. Some I've seen walking home by themselves. So an increase in traffic would be present, I think a danger for those children walking home during that in the afternoon as well. And finally, I just want to express my disappointment about the bait and switch as has been used previously about the parcel of land being donated by the owner. Regardless of whether it is maintained for public use, I think just the fact that this has been a consistent behavior throughout the last few years. It's very disappointing now in the last minute having the owner take back that parcel of land regardless of any conservation contingency. So I just want to express that this is disturbing and I hope the ZBA takes that into consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just a quick follow-up question because it could be to anyone in the neighborhood. What is the start and close time for Hardy School? You know. It's 8, 10 a.m. to 2, 10 p.m. But then there are also kids who are in the after-school program and they're still around. And kids get in the middle school and high school. Great, thank you for that. Next on my list is Helene Martel. I reside at Seven Osborn Road and I am on the corner or one house down from Margaret Street. And then if you go one more block towards Thorndyke Field, you have Edith and then you're in the park, you're in the field, you're basically in the swamp. And we have had a big turnover of houses for sale recently and we have a really large new crop of young kids and they are enjoying their basketball hoops on Osborn Road. I'm trying to address I guess the E16, the construction work schedule and just we all know that this will just bring in the percentage of extra traffic. And also, so the traffic and the construction schedule, we all know that kids, if the ball goes rolling down to Margaret Street, eventually one of them is just gonna be at risk. Kids playing ball, it just happens. So I can't see having the construction work on Saturdays and Sundays. I just think that's anti-family and puts the kids at more risk. We also know the kids are gonna suffer by having Thorndyke playing field flood more. I'm not a hydro engineer, but this project will result I think in less playing time for the teams down the Thorndyke field with all the renavigation. And I don't know if it was brought up before. I guess last summer, the area around here was just besieged by insects because of all the standing water in Thorndyke field. And I know it was a rainy summer all over but the backyards cannot be used. Just being outside often during the day was just not viable because of all the insects. I did call the Department of Public Health and they were aware of it. So again, we flood. I've been here for 24 years. I got my pipes, I got my hoses. We'll be flooding more and with more traffic. I certainly just feel, well, I feel trepidation. So any way to limit this is what I'm proposing. Thank you. Thank you. Next on my list, Mr. Dibiyasi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Robert Dibiyasi, 29 Little John Street. We're basically the last house on the right at the entrance of what this proposed development is gonna be. So I guess I have five points to make. I guess we'll start with, before any construction starts in the day, we've heard the talk of people allowed to pull up ahead of time before the hours. Well, that's gonna bring in delivery trucks. If we're doing modules, you could find somebody camped out there at five AM with the truck running. My bedrooms on the second floor at the front of the house, I'm the first guy next to your development. I'm gonna listen to that guy's engine running at six AM while he's waiting to unload.  This is a thickly settled district, a residential district that is not set up for this type of development. I myself have been involved in developments of this side in magnitude in Cambridge as well as in Boston. And quite frankly, I've seen modules come and go. I know what it's like. So it's not like you're gonna be telling me, oh, don't worry about it. I know where it is.  Mostly we're gonna be looking at modules and if they're left here overnight, they shouldn't be. There should be no modules left in front of our home. Then I start to look at our traffic. I made a point a couple of weeks ago where I said, I have a Nest Cam set up outside. Anytime a car goes by, it automatically clocks them. Notice what's coming and going. The average on a regular weekly daily basis in front of my home is about 50 to 60 cars. On a weekend, it's 45. So take your number now of 412 and add that in. That magnitude is enormous. The impact, the number that you are using is filtering out to little rather Lake Street is basically being pyramided as if you were sitting on Lake Street. You're not, you're all the way in. So the numbers increase at the furthest point decrease as you leave the neighborhood because now you're picking up more and more homes in the average. Lastly, my concern is days of work and work hours. We're all used to 730 to 430, that's nothing. But weekends, that's a big problem because as we said, this is very thickly settled district. This isn't your normal plop of building in the middle of a residential dwelling area. You're not on Mass Ave. You're not on a major thorough look. When you look at E16 and 57, I think there's adjustments that have to be made to those. And as again, the burden of traffic is going to be in front of my home. And I should not be restricted at any time of day coming and going from my own home as well as my wife and children. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair for taking the time to listen to me. And hopefully we can address these issues or they get handled properly. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ms. Stamps. Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And thanks so much to everybody on the ZBA. People are in and concom. You're fabulous and the town is very, very lucky to have you. I had just a couple of comments. Mr. Moore is on the Tweet Committee and so am I. And I'm not sure you said my address, Susan Stamps, 39 Grafton Street. I just wanted to be able to explain to people to what extent the developer will have to comply with the bylaw as it was in 2016. So I specifically wanted to ask, for example, because you said they are going to comply with the substance of the bylaws and you're not granting a waiver. So for example, would they have to submit a tree plan prior to work starting on the property? And under the 2016 version, the tree plan would show all of the trees that were healthy and 10 inches in diameter in the setback of the property. And they would have to have present a plan showing those trees and what they plan to do with them, whether they want to leave them and they're going to take them down and have the tree warden look at it and approve that plan. And if they were going to take down trees, they had to pay, I think it was $500 per tree to the town or they could replant trees in their stead. And those were the specifics of the bylaw in 2016. And I was wondering if they're actually going to follow that procedure. Ms. Kiefer, can you address that? I believe it's waiver number 10. Yes, it is. Sorry about that. So with respect to presenting the tree plan, yes, we've agreed to that. The one difference that I believe that you mentioned in the stamps that would not be is the need to get an approval. That's because this is a master permit and it assumes all of those, but the applicant has agreed that it would submit the plan in accordance with the requirements that were in effect at the time that the conferment application was submitted. Does that also mean, Mr. Chair, that the applicant would not have to pay that fee or plants, specifically plant trees to replace the trees to be removed? How does that part of the bylaw work in this situation? Ms. Kiefer, I believe that we have a landscape plan from the applicant and that that would be what the final condition is in regards to the disposition of trees that are existing on the land. But is the, I don't think we've really had a substantive discussion about the cost per tree for removal. I believe that that was, it's not any tree on the property. So, and Ms. Dampes outlined which trees are talking about. And it's in either or. It's, you can replant or pay an amount for trees that are attached in diameter or greater within the defined areas. Oh, so, okay. So the intention is that once the current tree plan has been submitted, has been developed and submitted and we have the final landscape plan that there will be a calculation of which trees have been replaced and then what replacement fees are still required? Is that your understanding? That is in case I'm mis-speaking on behalf of the applicants, I guess I will ask Art and Gwen to clarify that. But that was my understanding. Ms. Dampes? Okay, I thought they were going to clarify that but maybe they're not going to. Oh, actually let me check this thing maybe just on mute. I don't know. They look like they kind of want to talk but I'm not sure what they're doing. Is she, in fact, I think I see Gwen talking. Okay, there we go. We've lost our visual but we will comply with whatever the tree ordinance is saying. We've been told and that so much is an invasive tree shrubs and so on. So we don't know how a distinction is made between what is an invasive and being asked to be removed if that, how that counts. But anyway, we'll comply. Okay, good. Thank you. I have another couple of quick questions, Mr. Chair. Yes, Ms. Dampes. Okay. In section F2, it says that the vendors will be required to use quote unquote, smaller delivery vehicles. I don't know. Is that even enforceable? What does that mean smaller compared to what? I'll find it. There we go. So I think that the intent there is that because of the limited size of the access roads on the property that large vehicles that are unable to navigate the property would not be brought onto the property. Oh, so actually you mean small delivery vehicles not smaller probably. Yeah. I thought they, I just didn't know how you would define smaller. Smaller than what? Right. You know, 14 wheeler, whatever. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I think that Ms. Dampes makes a really good point there. And I'm guessing that the applicant has an understanding about what a smaller vehicle, delivery vehicle would be. And I think that we need to have something more precise or nobody will have a clue whether they're violating this or not. So, you know, I think the intent is to bring in things that minimize the disturbance in the neighborhood. And some thought needs to be given to giving us advice as to where that line ought to be. And I had two other points, Mr. Chair. Right under that F3, it says that there will be a jitney that will be available seven days a week to drive people around and to the T and other quote unquote other local destinations. Number one, I didn't want to put in a time seven days a week. It could be only available from 12 to one or it could be nine to five. It seems like maybe there ought to be some description of what the expectation is for when that's gonna be available. And also, I didn't know if perhaps there would be something specific about it will go to a grocery store and it will go to a pharmacy because those are the two main places that people need on a regular basis. Okay, certainly the discussions that have occurred today has definitely indicated that it would be going to include grocery shopping and pharmacy shopping and things along those lines. But I would ask or Gwen, if there are specific time that are being determined at this point or is that still undecided enough to the management company? It hasn't been determined by the management company but we've been saying all along that we would be offering the service at the times that would not be heavy traffic, the rush hour or the peak hour traffic times and generally speaking, the times that are convenient for most seniors would probably be between 10 and I don't know, 230 or so. So that's not something that we've determined but it will be made and the decision will be made in a logical way. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I just wanted to remind us that we're talking here not just about the residents but we're also talking about staff and staff hours are going to be skewed in such a way that they won't take place during the peak hours necessarily but that means that people coming in to make breakfast are going to be coming in quite early and presumably we hope arriving at the tea station and are gonna need a ride or at least some of them will.  So I just encourage us that it isn't just residents and that a certain amount of being available during what may turn out to be peak hours or at least relatively high traffic hours are necessary that's part of the scheduling enterprise. Thank you. And then finally in section I-21 I don't know much about fertilizer. It talks about slow release nitrogen fertilizer but I do wonder if the board wants to require organic for fertilizer i.e. not chemical fertilizer. I think that Arlington is a place where people generally think that native species, natural, try not to use as many chemicals because we're in a dense area and it will get into the water. So I would ask the board to consider requiring organic. Maybe Ms. Chapnick from the concom would like to weigh in on that and that's all I have, Mr. Chair, thank you. Thank you. Ms. Chapnick. Obviously organic fertilizers are preferred. The only reason we didn't put that in the special condition is it wasn't consistent with requirements that we've been asking of other projects and that were in our bylaws at the time of this project. But if the board wants to consider adding that as a requirement, we would definitely support it. Mr. Chairman, could I say? We will endeavor in every way to have this be as environmentally responsible project as can be. And although Stephanie has refrained from saying anything about the management of our intended management of the conservation area, we have been in conversation with management people who are extraordinarily engaged in doing the right thing. And I won't say any more than that, but I can promise you that our intentions are that this will be an exemplary piece of property. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Stamps. Mr. McKinnon. Yes, Matt McKinnon, 9 Little John Street. Sir. So I'd like to apologize first for not being around when I had my hand raised earlier. I was curious given the 40B, let me reword this. I was curious to read all of the town officials that were against this development and whether those officials should be noted in this draft document as being against the development. Whether the town officials for and against should be listed in the decision. Correct. As a description of the town officials as a description of the application. To some extent, it's not a vote tally, but I think we have noted in the decision that it certainly is controversial and not the same as any other town officials. It's very easy to be opposed to a project that you don't have to put any skin in the game in terms of a decision. Right, of course. So this is not a small project as we all know. I believe it's a project that will kickstart a chain reaction of infrastructural upgrades to compensate for a development that's much too large. And we'll just trigger a grotesque upending of this community. I would like to urge the ZBA. I would like to propose the ZBA to exclude the four story senior independent living facility for the development, keeping with the 40B recommendations on community size and density. The two family townhouses are definitely similar in size and scope of the largest homes in the existing neighborhood. And I also think the ZBA should research the change in the conservation portion of the land and what that means to Arlington now and in the future. As we've been well aware, the applicant has not been a good steward to the land at all. They were forced by the town of Arlington under a pressure of lawsuit to clean up the land which they have done within weeks of this public hearing. So I don't think they should be allowed to continue to oversee its use in the future. I think it should be given to the town or a reputable conservation commission. But I do not think the applicant should be named as owner of this land. It's just what they're trying to do to it now. And I fear what they would be doing it in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Rary? Hi, it's, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think 50 years from now, the people are going to look back and recognize that the outcome of the conservation portion of this land and how it's stewarded, managed, improved over the next decades is going to have more impact on the lives of people in the immediate neighborhood and further out than will the construction project itself. After the many years of promising that the land would be given to the town, I would ask that the board include in the findings, I think it's finding 73, which right now is a recital of the applicant's position on how to handle the conservation land. That section should actually begin with a recital of the fact that for those many years, the donation of the land to the town was touted as an important factor in this project, including in the original application to Mass Housing. And the idea of... I have to respond a little to what Ms. Noyes just said. These folks may have the best of intentions, but a bunch of things are going to happen. One is Oak Tree is going to develop this and then at some point it's going to get flipped and at some point it's going to get flipped again and at some point it's going to get flipped again. So the owner of the project many years from now is not going to be Gwen and Arch who may be here with the best of intentions. But somebody that we have no way of knowing who it's going to be. So the current set of findings here, which is the applicant's proposed way of going about protecting the land is sort of purports to be the outcome of an MOU, but just to be clear, there is no MOU yet because it hasn't been agreed to. And I think that the condition, which is I think condition M under C2. The condition requires that there be a successfully negotiated MOU. I know that Ms. Kiefer pushed back on that a little earlier, but the board is going to need to come up with some way of incorporating that condition in order to give the parties a chance to really consider what's the best way to manage this. You are hearing pushback. I think you're going to hear much more tremendous pushback at the idea of the applicant retaining ownership of the fee. If nothing else, and taking that away from the town, the applicant's proposal appears to actually also rule out the town as the holder of the conservation restriction, which is something that absolutely has to be remained as a possibility for the outcome of a negotiated MOU. So my request to the board in this is to ensure that the continued good faith negotiations around this can continue, that the possibilities for outcome of that include the fee being given to the town is originally promised, but also include the town being the grantee of a conservation restriction, because it is, if nothing else, it is vital that the town have some property interest in this conservation land. So thank you for your question. So thank you for your hard work and good night. It's awfully late. Thank you all for sticking it out. Thank you. Ms. Keith Lucas for a second time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Heather Keith Lucas, 10 Mott Street. Yes, please. With respect to the existing conditions in the open space in paragraph 37, there's been previous public comment on the neglect of the care for the property and the use of the phrase, not in pristine condition. I feel minimizes the environmental and public health issues that exist on the property. So I'd ask that the property also be described a little bit more for the sanitation and public health safety issues that have existed. And really I'd ask for the consideration to clearly point out that the language spells out that it's the applicant who neglected the property as well. On multiple occasions, our neighbors have themselves volunteered to clean up the site at the town's coordination at the town's expense. And I recognize maybe the details of this may be outside of the scope or jurisdiction, if you will, of the ZBA, but I do believe that they're prudent to the characterization of the property and the impact the applicant has had in their neglect. And I do believe that it's relevant with respect to the change from the donation of the parcel to the town to be holder of that conservation parcel to now being maintained by the applicant. And to others' points, I do think that it is relevant that the town had to threaten a legal suit to the applicant for the current cleanup that began in September as referenced in more details. I think that's in section 73B on page 21. In section 38, which is on page 12, which talks about the town and owner have taken action to rehouse and relocate the population, my understanding was that the applicant had not been engaged to assist in that effort. Though Arlington and the surrounding towns have supported their work on the grounds on their own. So I'm concerned that the characteristic also of if left unmanaged could also suggest that this development itself resolves the return of homeless encampment. Homelessness is a complicated public health matter and the management of a property doesn't solve for this. I think it's misleading to suggest even inadvertently if that wasn't the intent that this development results in solving the encampments in homelessness. And so I just asked the ZBA to consider alternative wording here. Which paragraph was that in? Paragraph, sorry, 38 on page 12. Sometimes it's the smallest sentences that cause the most problems. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you and the committee members and the consultants you've had during these hearings and thank you for your dedication. Thank you very much. Are there any further public comments? I'm going twice. Close the public comment. Period. The public comment period for this hearing is now closed. Thank you all for your participation and sharing the knowledge of your neighborhood. The resolution of this process has been made better and far better informed by everyone's participation. And I really appreciate everyone sticking with us through a very long night. So the question before the board now is do we have sufficient information to close the public hearing tonight and to move on to the deliberation phase of the comprehensive permit review? So if we feel we're ready, then we can move on. So if we feel we're ready, then we can vote in the affirmative on that. If not, we would need to discuss the possibility of an extension of continuation with the applicant, which is something we had indicated at the prior hearing. We were going to try to avoid at all costs. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I've got a couple of questions that I'd like to ask the applicant before we close it, but I'm sort of, we're now four minutes, we're now four hours and eight minutes into this meeting. So it already sort of counts as two hearings. And I do think that we'll probably be able to, I mean, eventually we're going to have to call, it's going to, the clock is going to expire. But I'm interested in following up on what Mr. Rarick said. And I wonder if, if my understanding is correct, that if the town is not the grantee of the conservation restriction, the town has no say in what is in the conservation, that what is in the CR, is that right? Stephanie can answer this, but I would might want to add something to it. But Stephanie. I was, I would respond that the applicant has offered to work with the town through the MOU process to identify kind of the, the activities that would be allowed would not be allowed. And so whether or not it's the town that becomes the holder of the restriction, there, there's, there's, and there always has been a willingness of the applicant to work with the town to work towards what would be allowed in the area and what would not be allowed in the area. If, if it became necessary to enforce the terms of the restriction, would the town be entitled to do that as some sort of a third party beneficiary? Paul, perhaps you can weigh in, but on the traditional CR, that the municipality also signs it, I believe. Isn't that correct? We have this state and then the, it would go before the. I don't think the municipality signs it unless they're part of their party. Yeah. If it's a third party that's holding the CR, then they would be the signatory to it. Generally speaking, Patrick, you're correct. If the town is not a party to the conservation restriction, it's not going to have any rights to enforce it. However, that is something that could be covered in the. And I guess the shifting gears a little bit. I'm wondering. I think as you've heard tonight. The community and it's not just the people who are here too. If you've been sort of watching the, the blaze on the internet today. Are very concerned. Just because of all the distrust that's built up over the years, if nothing else. Are very concerned with the prospect of the owner retaining the ownership of the fee interest in the open space parcel. After so many years in which that has not been thought of. At least publicly as, as an option. And. Part of the problem there is. A suspicion that somehow. Notwithstanding these other documents, most of which have not been concluded. Somehow it's. The preservation of that parcel and its management in an appropriate way. Isn't really guaranteed because ultimately the owner has the ability to do something. And we don't know exactly what it is. But it's not. It's not. But surely he wants to keep the fee interest for some reason. And I guess I'd like to understand what it is. That that reason is. And to what extent it really is, is necessary or advisable to. For the, the owner to, to retain ownership. Obviously he can. I don't know what the reason is. I don't know what the reason is. Up to a point, but I'm, I'm wondering sort of what, what the reasons is what are the, what are the, what are the sticks he's holding on to in this bundle of sticks. That is important to him. And that gives him gives that, gives that value to him. Because we need to know that in order to have some sense of. Of what the significance is of, of, of changing course now after so long. Yeah. I think the. I agree. I agree with the chairman. Mr. Handlin. The, uh, your, your question is, uh, is, it's an understandable question. Um, and I think we've discussed this to some degree in prior hearings, but. Um, The, The conservation parcel. Is, is really like the. The front door, the front yard. Of the independent living. And so the owner does have an interest that. in that it's, you know, co-extensive with, you know, the views from the residents of the independent moving building. And I think that that's an important factor. And so, you know, yes, it's not a development stick that the owner is proposing to hold on to.  But it's the, it is so part and parcel of like what the look of the independent living is that it's, they find that it's important to keep that. And with respect to kind of what other factors go into this, and I know that some of the, like the work sessions that have gone on with the town that obviously wasn't the ZBA process, but there was also hesitancy by the town to acquire the property and they were, they didn't seem to want to have to have it within those initial discussions. And I think that the town wasn't certain exactly. And I think that the applicant in working through, you know, well, what should I do? Should I donate it to a third party? Should I, and then it came to the realization that it just needs sense for the continuity of the independent living to, like, to make certain that it looks nice, that it's that front lawn to that property. Let me just add a bit to that. We discussed that internally a fair amount. And I think that there were two things. Number one, the opinion was on our side that the town was reluctant to take title to it. For years. For years. And we, you know, we always intended to give it away one way or the other. But I think what emerged is the value of marketing the independent living facility to a third party. We want to get the ideal, the best possible person in to, to develop that property as an independent living facility. This is a real skill. And we've actually owned one, not quite the same format, but we know what, what a skillful organization can do and what a organization that is not so skillful. And the feeling was that the, it would be extremely important in marketing that project as Stephanie was just saying, to control what the front yard is. In other words, trusting, you know, this, the town may have the very best of intentions, but there's nothing like self-interest to really get out there and make that a wonderful, wonderful place. And I think part of being wonderful and Glen and I both are very strong and that is having public use. You know, what will be the front yard should be something that is a real amenity for the people that live there. They're seeing activity, they're seeing kids, they're seeing, you know, whatever transpires, boardwalks. And as Gwen mentioned, we've talked to people that might take that over that would be, you know, the right kind. In fact, people that have worked with people in Arlington where I got for whatever reason, I'm disclosing that right now. But these are, we've worked on that to get the right thing to happen there. And it really does have to do with the creating an amenity for that independent living facility and controlling it so that it's coordinated and integrated. I have to add that the concern that's being expressed is very well deserved and that the opportunity to do something that is above and beyond what people are thinking could happen, I think is there. And in all honesty, this last two or three weeks has been the first time that there has been a real expression of interest from, you know, the town should acquire and manage that property. For years, we've talked about that being a possibility and the feedback has been going from lukewarm to negative about that. So I'm really kind of taken aback by the notion that we have changed our mind. I have been talking with a number of entities about the possibility of managing that property in a very respectful and town considering way for the public benefit. And that's still the track we're on from an environmental, from a social and from a conservation standpoint.  I'm going to step in for a second here. So it's 10 minutes to midnight. I do want to confirm with Paul. So we are legally required to close a public hearing. And the date for that is October 21st. Does that mean we have to close it before October 21st or can we close it on October 21st? No, we were extended to October 21st. So if we go past midnight, it doesn't mean it wasn't a start deadline. Okay. Not that I'm encouraging you to go past midnight. Right. Mr. Chairman, I have just one more. Valid only until 12.30. So just to keep that in mind. Mr. Handler. I just wanted to, it's obvious that there are some interests that are involved here and I would like to encourage, there's no way the ZBA is obviously not going to negotiate anything with the applicant or anything else. That's not our job. And we're going to go into a session where we have to pretend that we don't know anything more pretty quickly. Keeping the fee interest is keeping a black box. Nobody knows exactly which bundles, which sticks are in there. And I think that it maximizes the degree of distrust at least on the part of residents of Barlington and maybe others for the residual interest that everything that isn't already dealt with is mine to result in the owner. I understand what Gwen and Art say about that and I just want to encourage them as they discuss this with the town and encourage the town as they discuss this with the applicant, that they find a way of accommodating these interests of making sure that the front yard of the building meets the standards and that the appropriate control is given over the management of the facility to make that happen. But to think that ultimately an acceptable, it is far more acceptable for the fee to go to somebody else who can hold it so that there are no surprises when you consult brilliant lawyers like Stephanie down the road and suddenly they think of something that we didn't think of because we're not smart enough yet to do that. So I mean, the private ordering is private ordering. There's lots and lots of ways of doing it and I'm sure that you've been thinking about it. I'd just like to plant the idea that it's not an easy thing to handle it by reserving the fee that that makes that maximizes the amount of distrust and makes everything a lot harder. And I'm sort of hoping that when there's a set of legal arrangements that manage how this works something that we won't be a part of that we're able to that but that will eventually probably control that you've seriously considered the implications of continuing on the path that you're on. Mr. Chair. Mr. Revlak. I just want to follow up a little bit on that discussion. In my recollection, there has been hesitancy on the town's behalf when it's, you know, the idea of the town taking ownership of this property has come up. I think Mr. Chapter Lane's letter to the board that's included on the agenda materials for this week is just the most recent example. Now as a board, we cannot acquire or hold property. That's something only town meeting can do and we cannot obligate town meeting or the we can't obligate any entity in the town to take ownership of the property. So I mean, one thing I just would like to mention for the folks who are still with us is that it is entirely possible that, you know, we can't even if the applicants wanted to give the property to the town, there is no guarantee that the town would ultimately accept it. And in our decision, we are just going to have to, you know, accommodate it either or. Thank you. Thank you. Chairman Klein, may I comment briefly? This is Susan Chapnick. Yes, please. Okay, thank you. I actually disagree that the town showed extreme reluctance. If you read the memo from Adam Chapter Lane in summary, it's talking about the reluctance of accepting a parcel that may have significant contamination and that the town then would have to put up, you know, funds or clean it up or help clean it up. That's the issue there. It wasn't that the town was reluctant to accept it. The town is reluctant to accept a parcel that they don't know what's on it. So in conclusion to that letter, Adam Chapter Lane said, if a transfer of land were contemplated by the ZBA as a condition of the 40B permit, a memorandum of understanding with detailed timelines and provisions to achieve the foregoing, meaning clean up and understanding that it wasn't a hazardous way site would be necessary. So the town did not say they would not accept the property. The town put conditions on the acceptance of the property. I will also remind the ZBA when you're deliberating to look at other conservation restrictions that we have in the town and if you need to look at them they're in town documents. We have a conservation restriction on Elizabeth Island. We have a conservation restriction on Sims and I believe there's one other small one. So I maintain that this change from the applicant proposing to keep the property rather than transferring it to the town is not necessarily, it's not in the town's interest. I will also just make one more statement that a conservation area is not first and foremost a public amenity. That is not what a conservation area is. If this is supposed to be a nice entrance or a nice lawn, that is not a conservation area. A conservation restriction saves a resource for the environment, for wildlife habitat, for wetland, to allow it to flood so it holds floodwater. It is not first and foremost a public amenity. That doesn't mean there can't be some boardwalks etc but that is not the purpose of a conservation restriction and finally I will just end with a formal conservation restriction must be approved by the state. So the state would have to approve that this would be a conservation restriction. Thank you. Thank you. All right so given the, is there any? I'd like to just add one more thing. I'm probably repeating myself a little bit. As far as the value, I mean there's no development value anymore in the parcel so there's no economic reason other than how that parcel relates to the actual senior living facility and that creates some self-interest. I think they will police that property, make it viable, work on it. There'll be money supplied to do things. There'll be, we thought about some kind of a space inside our building to have equipment to help sustain it. I really think it's in the town's best interest to have it done this way and what would happen, I think if we started doing it the other way, I think as you know the Glen and I are development agents here. We're not the owner, we're the applicant. And I certainly know that the, I think the owner of the land would not be particularly adverse to giving it away because that's how we started this whole thing. Thinking that we'd give it away and then we meant resistance, whatever said. There were a lot of reasons that we were not going there but I think that we'd have to start saying, well we'll give you the land but by the way we want you to do blah blah blah blah blah so our front yard is protected and that shouldn't have to be done. I mean we will do that just out of self-interest, whoever owns the senior living facility would just have self-interest in doing that where if somebody else has control of it, i.e. the town and we give it away, I think that we'd start to have to haggle about well. We'll clean it up to some, you know, in the MOU, we're talking about a lot of things that we do and we're willing to do whatever we want in the MOU, you know, we've been very cooperative in that. Anyhow, it's not an easy one, I understand that and it's maybe it's always better to own something than to not own it, I don't know. But I really think that we're going to bring particularly Glen a lot of energy to making that a great place. So unless there's objection, I'm going to close discussion so because we do need to move on to the vote here and make sure we get all our tees crossed and eyes dotted before we we run out of time here. So with that as a board, is there anyone who feels that we need to we need an extension of time? Lots of shaking heads. So with that in mind, may I have a motion to close the public hearing for Thorn Dyke's place. Mr. Chairman. Annen. This is my favorite part of the whole evening. I move that we close the public hearing in the Thorn Dyke case. Second. Thank you, Mr. Revlak. Vote of the board. Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Mr. O'Rourke. Mr. O'Rourke. Aye. See you there. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Revlak. Aye. Mr. Ford. Aye. And the chair votes aye. The public hearing for Thorn Dyke's place is now closed. So now the board has 40 days to deliberate and finalize its decision. Under state law the board is no longer allowed to receive commentary or testimony and must rely on the extensive record amassed over the last five years. Deliberative sessions are held in public but will only include members of the board and our legal consultants. So we have a date scheduled to our first deliberative meeting we had set at the previous hearing will be Thursday October 28th at 7.30 p.m. and so just briefly going down the to the upcoming schedule we do have a regular set of hearings scheduled for Tuesday October 26th I believe we have two continuances and three new cases on that evening I can't recall specifically and we also have some decisions to approve and I believe some minutes to approve with that hearing as well and as I just said Thursday October 28th at 7.30 p.m. is the first deliberation session for the decision on Thorn Dyke place and we have discussed at the previous hearing that we are going to try and make sure that the final vote on the final decision take place no later than Tuesday November 23rd which is well within the 40-day period. Any questions about that schedule? Hearing none. Thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. I appreciate everyone's patience throughout this very long meeting especially we wish to thank Rick Valorelli, Vincent Lee, Kelly Linema and everyone else who has put in time putting together their materials for us or scheduling these meetings or helping to run these meetings or anything else. This is really a full-town effort to support the ZBA and it is greatly appreciated. Please note the purpose of the board's recording this meeting is to ensure a creation of an accurate record of the proceedings. So our understanding and recording made by ACMI will be available on DemandedACMI.tv within the coming days. If anyone has comments or recommendations please send them via email to zba at town.parlington.us. That email address is also listed on the ZBA's website and to conclude tonight's meeting I would ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. So moved Mr. Hanlon. Second? Second. Thank you Mr. Mills. Uh vote of the board. Mr. Dupont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Through our work. Mr. Revolac. Aye. Mr. Ford. Aye. The chair votes aye. The board is adjourned. Thank you all very, very much. Good morning everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. You realize this gives us another day on our 40 days. Tricky. Tricky. Tricky. Good night all. Good night all. Thank you.


So, hello, my name is Dr. Michael David Jackson, and I'm a researcher at Victoria University based down here in Wellington, and today I'm joined by Dr. Simon Thornelly. Simon's a senior lecturer in epidemiology and public health at the University of Auckland, so good morning, Dr. Thornelly. Good morning, Michael. Let's get straight into this, Simon. Can you explain why you formed a group and developed COVID plan B? Well, we think the lockdown is an overreaction. It doesn't match the threat posed by the virus. And we're worried that the government and the government's advisors have been talking about prolonged lockdown, waiting for a vaccine and trying to eliminate the virus. And we think this is not realistic. And instead, we've proposed a plan to protect people who are most at risk from the virus and to get back to work and to get back to school. So, Simon, the interesting point you made there. You mentioned almost a stratified risk group that some older people may be more susceptible to this. Can you expand on that? Are we saying that the risk form from COVID is different for different people, for example? Yes. Well, a statistician explained it, saying that the risk of dying of COVID-19 is about the same as your annual risk of dying in that year anyway. It's like squeezing your risk of a year's worth of mortality into two weeks. So that means that it's obviously much higher for older people. And we certainly have seen the experience overseas and in New Zealand is that this is a major problem for rest homes. And we certainly don't want to see the virus run rampant in hospital or overwhelm the hospital that's been seen in some countries. So, I guess one of the really important questions is where do we go from here? What is plan B and where do we go as Kiwis as a nation? Where do we go over the next three, four weeks, a couple of months? Well, there's a real risk with lockdown of creating mass unemployment. We've seen that happening in Spain with figures doubling every week. So our belief is that we can go back to work, that we can send our children back to school, and that we protect people who are most at risk of the virus. So we take special precautions around the hospital and rest homes, making sure that the virus doesn't spread. Dr Simon Thornelly, senior lecturer of epidemiology and public health at Auckland University. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.