Hi, welcome everyone to Ask an Archaeologist. I'm Niko Tripsovich, the host of today's show. Ask an Archaeologist is a series of live streamed interviews co-hosted by the Archaeological Research Facility and the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. In this series, UC Berkeley Archaeologists and others who work with archaeological materials discuss their research and answer audience questions. For those of you joining us live today, you can post your questions in the live chat box. You can find adjacent to the YouTube video. In today's show, the director of the Archaeological Research Facility, Dr. Christine Hastorf, a curator at the Hearst Museum and a professor in the UC Berkeley Anthropology Department, will be speaking with Colin Domnauer. Colin Domnauer just received his BA from UC Berkeley in the Planetary Science. Colin did a senior thesis research with Dr. Hastorf focusing on investigating the iconography of a culturally significant hallucinogenic plant in the pre-Columbian Andes. So welcome Colin and Christine. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to start our meeting today by just introducing the situation. This is really kind of common at UC Berkeley where we faculty keep classes and get students engaged in new themes and subjects. And I was teaching Andean Archaeology several years ago and Colin was one of 30 or so students in the class and he just was particularly interested in some aspects of the archaeology, which he's going to tell you about. And so we chatted about various aspects and luckily there was also a series of lectures going on at the Phoebe Hearst Museum last year, I guess it was, on sort of altered states of various kinds and that was associated with an exhibit and Colin attended that. I saw him there at several events. Anyway, out of all that we started talking and he developed this project that he's going to explain and describe, but I just wanted to let you know that this does happen and what's really particularly wonderful about this is some new information has come out of his project and he also used a lot of the Hearst Museums material. So that makes it particularly special today. So I'd like to introduce Colin who just as Niko Stead just graduated and is going to try and write this up for a small publication, which is also pretty neat. So here's Colin to tell you about what he did in that project. Yeah, so let me share my screen. I have some slides show. Okay, can you all see that? Okay, so the focus of my research, like Christine said, was on this, the plant use, this religious plant use in pre-Columbian Andes. And just to show you guys, give you a geographical context. The cultures that we'll be mentioning today, I boxed in black. So we have the Chavin culture, which occupied the central islands from roughly 900 to 200 BC and contemporaneous with them was the Paracus culture of the southern coast. And then descendants of the Paracus culture were Nazca, which are well known for the Nazca lions and geoglyphs. And they were flourishing around 100 to 800 AD and the Moche culture on the northern coast were similar time period. So the focus of my research was on this hallucinogenic plant called anodinanthra, which is commonly known as Vilca. And it's the most ancient and widely used visionary plant in pre-Columbian shamanism in South America. And the way it's used is they take these seeds out of the seed pods, roast them over the fire, grind them into a fine powder, and then blow them. Usually up the nose is how they ingest them. And it was utilized for this effect of being able to transform the shaman into a altered state and sort of a journey into the so-called spirit world or supernatural world. And we have evidence for its use going back over 4,000 years in South America. And that was from chemical analysis of certain artifacts. But more commonly, the way we establish evidence of its use is through analyzing the artwork that these cultures have left behind. So here is a stone carving from the Chaveon culture. And you can see these decorated all over this figure are these seed pods with the constricted seeds and the leaves of anodinanthra symmetrical. And this being is sort of half human, half animal animal features like the sharp teeth and the clawed feet are the transformation into animal form is a central theme throughout shamanism. And that's sort of what's being depicted here as he's decorated with Vilca, which is the sort of vehicle of his transformation. So it's not always that clearly depicted, as in that example, and a lot of these cultures portrayed particularly the plant use in more stylized and abstract ways. So scholars have done previous work identifying certain forms and symbols that represent Vilca in the iconographic record. And these include like these paired V shaped circles representing the flowers, this kind of comb like leaf symmetrical form representing the leaves and then this hanging column of circles is seen in a variety of different forms, but that represents the Vilca seeds themselves. So this was used by scholars to search through these ancient cultures iconography and identify that this plant was used and depicted by these cultures, but these symbols alone left large gaps in the record and cultures like Nazca and Paracas were major Indian cultures, but still exhibited no evidence of using any hallucinogenic plants, even though they we suspected they should be because this was a central theme of South American shamanism. So that was really the motivation for my research was to look through the iconography more carefully in these cultures and see if I could identify any new symbols that might be representative of this plant Vilca. And the major finding I came across was this well-known motif that was had been written about and identified as a common occurrence in Nazca and Paracas called the ball and chain motif, which I have arrows pointing through here in some Paracas textiles. And while this motif was documented as a common occurrence, no one had ever written about what it might signify or mean. And in my work, I collected many examples of its depiction and looked at the context that it was being portrayed in and certain themes emerged, which were that it was always associated with some sort of supernatural or mythical being, which is likely a shaman as we see in these images. The portrayal of them falling or flying through the sky is this idea of magical flight is another central theme of shamanism that is perpetuated by this feeling of leaving your body in the trance. So that's the first clue and then the other clue was that it was often portrayed in a context of other culturally significant plants. So in this image, we see some beans and maybe root vegetables being portrayed and in the central image, in each side of each of these streamers, we see like beans or chili peppers and the star is identifiably the San Pedro cactus, which is another shamanic plant in South America. And then also this ball and chain motif. So in this context, the symbol is associated with plants and shamanism, which suggests that it is a vilpe that's being portrayed here as it fits both those categories. And then the last example, again with the San Pedro cactus and this sort of transforming figure. But what's unique about this example is this being is holding a long tube, which is a snuffing tube, which is how this, as you recall that image I showed earlier, is how it was consumed as blown up the nose through the snuffing tube. So here this textile portrays in one image the snuffing tube, a transforming being and another Hulu San General plant in the Andes and this ball and chain motif. So that strongly suggests that this was representing this vilpe seed and the visual similarity is there as well, obviously. So a large part of my research was using the Hearst Museum on campus, their collection archive. They have over in the South America section, they have over 10,000 images of artifacts online that anyone can access. And that was a really great resource for me to look through and do my research and I was able to identify this motif and certain artifacts housed on campus. So now we're looking at the Nazca culture, which is later than Paraguas, descendants from them. And again, we see this this ball and chain motif being portrayed here. And this whole image is kind of reminiscent of on the last slide, this streamer in the the bottom right corner, but just kind of blown up onto the whole pot itself. So which is what we would expect as these cultures, this Nazca did descend from the Paraguas culture and so we see them sort of continuing this tradition of portraying this symbol of vilpe. In this pot from the Hearst Museum, it's depicting on the left a so-called masked or mythical being and wrapped around the circumference is this constricted ball and chain motif, which resembles the vilpe seeds. And then this Nazca ball is more abstract, but it does have some of the attributes that previous scholars have identified with vilpe, namely this paired circles representing the flowers on the column of vertical column of dots representing the seed pods and possibly this comb-like symmetrical thing symbol representing the symmetrical leaves. This one I'm not so sure about, but it was an interesting resemblance. And then the last artifact from the Hearst Museum I used was this moche period textile. Moche was on the northern coast of Peru, contemporaneous with Nazca and is a different style of portraying vilpe. It's not the ball and chain motif per se, but it does have this vertical column of circles with sort of kneeling figures and then sprouting from their heads are this V-shaped paired circles, another common symbol of vilpe. So in all cases, we see this symbol associated with and really attached to the bodies of the shamans, which I think represents is trying to convey the fact that this plant was sort of inseparable from the shaman, that the shaman could not work, perform their acts of transformation without the aid of Vilpe and the Vilpe served as the vehicle carried on the shaman through their journey through the spirit world. So I think it's really cool to be able to look at the iconography of these ancient cultures and see how they depicted their relationship with this plant and it sort of allows us to understand, to give a window into like the very minds and souls of these people who lived 3,000, 2,000 years ago, as we're able to say something about a very visceral and direct experience that they performed in their ceremonial and religious lives. And still today we can see this practiced not in the Andes, but in some tribes in the Amazon using this plant. So it's existed over thousands of years, at least 4,000 years, and was significant enough to be portrayed in their textiles, ceramics, and stone architecture. Terrific. Thank you, Colin. So I wanted to remind our viewers that we are online here with Colin Domnauer and Christine Hastor for 15 more minutes, and that you can post your questions in the live chat box adjacent to our YouTube video stream. And we've received a couple of questions. I don't know if these are questions that Colin or Christine would like to feel, but why don't I just put them out there and perhaps they'll be part of the conversation coming up. So we have a question about the function of the textiles. Can you tell us more about the functions of the textiles that have these depictions of Vilca and San Pedro, who would have worn and used them, and what was their archaeological context? Would you like, Colin, do you want to say something about that? Well, some of these textiles were used in Paracas culture as burial wrappings for their dead. They would wrap, sort of mummify their dead, and in these elaborate re-decorated textiles, and these would sort of, in their worldview, the death was not the end of the individual, it was more of a transformation or a gateway into the spirit world. And so the fact that Vilca is being portrayed on these textiles may be an attempt to convey its role as a sort of intermediary between worlds. And that's what a shaman is. A shaman is one who can transcend this world temporarily, inhabit that other world. So I think that's maybe what they were attempting to convey here. Well, do you have more context for us, Dr. Hastorf? Well, the textiles, the Paracas textiles especially, are from this peninsula in southern Peru that these fragments would have come from. There are a few complete ones, and these, of course, these are fragments being published that you're looking at here. So these scholars would have gone to Peru, probably, to study these. But they, you know, they clearly must have taken a long time to make. You know, the people's families or themselves would have spent their whole lives first weaving and then embroidering. You can see these are the ones on the left, especially are embroidered, which is quite wonderful. So they could have been acts or actions that occurred of these individuals or they could have been just, you know, very, very important beings and images and events or wishes that the individuals would have. But the individual places that these came from, one would have to go back to those individual publications that you see listed there and see exactly which burial and which site that those came from. But Paracas especially are primarily from burials. Now the moche, again one would have to go and look at that, but if I'm not mistaken, the material from the first comes from burials. So I'm guessing that that too also will be a burial shroud. The fragment, these are all fragments. These are all small pieces, small images. These images that we're looking at here are probably, Colin, you can correct me, but I imagine they're going to be like five inches long, maybe something, you know, like that long. They probably aren't much bigger than that. So they're very small and there are many of them found all around the edges of these shrouds. Great. We have a couple of more questions have come in. One person asks, are you able to look at material from other museums to see if you can identify that motif in their collections? Yeah, that's what I did with my research. In this presentation, I just talked about what I found from the Hearst Museum on campus. But that was just a section of my research. I did look at other museums and publications and just in the archaeological record in general, I didn't limit myself to the Hearst. Before you go on, if I could add something. He did this primarily this past spring. And so his work was really using publications. And that's why you see these on this page, we're looking at you see these references. So he was going and using people who've published on these things before and given these photos in their publications. And the Hearst material was all online. So he could do it from the comfort of his own shelter-in-place home when it came down to it. So for a short three, four, five, six-month project, there's a lot online now and or published that you can do. But if I'm not mistaken, Colin, you did not go into any whether it was the Hearst or any other museum. You didn't go traveling around to Peru or to Metropolitan Museum of Art or anything as some people might would do on a large project. The people here like Alex Morgana, for example, she did that to get these textiles. So it's sort of impressive how many images Colin could gather from the web, essentially from what's online and from what's in books in the library. That's right. The Hearst Museum now has this terrific new interface called the collection space and you can do tens of thousands of objects that way in images. So we do have another question here for Colin about his research process. Do you have any advice for someone else thinking about using museum collections for a project? Yeah. I'm not really sure in what context they mean. Well, I think it was probably Dr. Hastorf sort of answered that. It was primarily book based online. Yeah, there's great resources. A lot of these museums have visual archive collections online that is just open to the public. So yeah. But you had to look through a lot of images. Yeah. Yeah, it took time. I think the question is like what was your methods and you had to focus in on certain time periods that had both textiles and pottery because we had a sense of where we might be finding this and also what the collections, what the museums hold, what their collections are.  Then you just looked through the pictures or something. Tell us how you actually found those Hearst pots. I didn't tell you to look at those pots. You found those pots. Yeah. The Hearst collection online is really well put together in that you can filter through time periods and even down to like a culture level. So I can just say sort by South America and then Nazca, for example, and then I'll just display all the images of Nazca artifacts. And then, yeah, just looking through them. Here's a question from me out of curiosity as an Indianist. Is there any chance some of these motifs appear in the geoglyphs and the landscape? I looked through that briefly and there was some previous work about the connection between shamanism and the geoglyphs. I didn't see any reference to these specific symbols, but one thing I read about that I thought was interesting was hypothesis for why these geoglyphs were so large and only capable of being viewed from great heights was that the shaman is in their journey is believed to leave their body and fly up sort of a magical flight up through the sky. And so maybe the fact that it can only be seen from that height was an attempt to convey the fact that it was for the shaman in their magical flight to observe these symbols. Interesting. One question about the museum collection inventory. Somebody asks if some of these observations will be linked back to the museum collections and to enhance the descriptions of the objects. That's perhaps a question for the museum. What I know is that when people write something up or publish something, it tends to go into the museum collection or archive at least. And I'm assuming that eventually objects get like those references. So if you were looking at an object, you might have a list of who has published it. I don't think we're there yet, but I would imagine that would be an ideal. So you could say, well, you know, these three or four other scholars have worked on that object. Here's a question. Have ancient build cupboard remains been found in graves? No, that's not true. In the highlands at Nino Corrine, a middle horizon, which is later post this, these images go on through the middle horizon. It's sort of a religion, a religious arc, this kind of transformation and these, these plants being important. And it goes through the middle horizon. So by 1100 AD or CE, that's when these kinds of images really sort of drop out of the of the image making of the Andean peoples. But the one place I've seen archaeological evidence was a cave in the eastern side of the Andes and the eastern side of Lake Titicaca basin. So, and again, these plants come from there. They come from the dry Yungas that sort of rocky eastern slopes or southern slopes of the southern cone of South America. So they don't come from the coast. These plants don't grow on the coast. And they don't grow on the highlands. These trees, these Colombrinas grow in the dry sort of Chaco or that sort of the Savannah like Brazil and Argentina and Chile. So those, those, these pods would probably, and maybe the branches, would probably have been brought up, traded up either up the coast or up and over the mountains to the coast. And these are all coastal images we're looking at today. But we also have highland images like the Chaveen image and also these later middle horizon images. So these would have been traded in and the Nino Corrine, the one smoking gun of the plants themselves and the branches themselves, which were all found in this cave along with some burials. But obviously it was on a major trading route. So that kind of gives us, you know, one direct piece of evidence of this particular plant being brought. It was a trade item. It was a foreign item, important foreign item that was brought in for clearly special use. That's fascinating. Well, here's another question for Colin's about his career plans. Colin, is your plan to visit these sites once shelter in place is lifted? What's your next step for your scholarship and career? I don't know yet, but I'm thinking about it. And yeah, I would love to visit these sites and the Andes in general. I've never been, but especially after studying so much about them, it'd be really cool to see in person. And was this class, was this tied to a specific class this semester? If so, which one? How did you choose this topic? I think Professor Haster, if you mentioned this at the outset, it was part of that lecture series, right? Well, he first took Indian archaeology and he'll have to ask why he did that. But and then there was a series of lectures and then he, we got together and started talking. You said something at the end of class that you wanted to work on something. So I was aware of that. And then at Berkeley, you see Berkeley, we have a senior honors thesis class, you know, sort of identifying class, if you will, that us individual students get units and they work individually with faculty. So that's the honors thesis class that he took. But it was really, you know, research project. All right. Well, looks like we're running out of time here. So I wanted to thank, thank you both. And also to mention that we have a virtual version, the Hearst Museum has a virtual version of the of the exhibit from last year that's available online now at their website. The exhibit's name is Pleasure, Poison, Prescription, Prayer, The Worlds of Mind, Altering Substances. So look in the description below this video for a link to that exhibit. And the Hearst will also be putting links to objects that Colin looked at in his talk today in the in the show description below. So thank you to Dr. Hastorf and to Colin Domnauer. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for showing us those beautiful textiles and pots. And thank you to the viewers and the listeners and to everyone who sent in questions. I'd like to invite everyone to the next Ask an Archaeologist. It's tomorrow, Wednesday at noon for it's called From the Museum, Back to the Tomb, The Virtual Rejoining of a Sarcophagus and its Burial in 26th Dynasty Sakura with Professor Rita Luccarelli from the Department of Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley. Thanks, everyone.


Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Give the people what they want. Your weekly movement news roundup. As usual, bad news from Israel and Palestine. Once again, the town of Jenin, the home of the freedom theater. Once again, under terrible attack, Prashant take us directly to the events taking place in Jenin in Palestine. Expressing what happened in the past week in Jenin. And Israeli forces not just sending soldiers, which is what is pretty common. Which has really become a common occurrence in many parts of the West Bank. But actually sending a full-fledged military force. We saw helicopters, we saw drones, we saw armored vehicles of all kinds. So definitely a full-fledged invasion. Many people have compared it to the invasion that took place in 2002. Which in which about 52 people were killed, I believe. This time the death toll has been around 12. But it has also been marked by a huge amount of injury and a massive demolition drive that has taken place in Jenin. Specifically targeting the refugee camp. You mentioned the freedom theater, a very iconic institution there.  And it has really set back relief work, any kind of reconstruction work. And we need to remember that this is not an attack in isolation. Jenin has been continuously targeted by Israeli forces for many, many months now. So it's not like this came out of nowhere. There's been a continuous pattern not only of attacks on Jenin. But attacks across the West Bank and also in Gaza. I think this year, last year was 2022 that way. Was the most deadly, I believe since the UN had started collecting data. And this year it does definitely look like this year is going to beat that very horrible record. The number of Palestinians killed and injured is likely to be even more. So that's pretty much what the situation is right now. So after two and a half days they withdrew. And Israel made it very clear that they're going to be back. So it is not that I think they wanted to make that a very clear point. Now I think two or three things that we need to sort of remember or recollect in this context that Israel's stated aim is to sort of crush the resistance that has been growing in Jenin. And obviously that is definitely not going to work because the resistance is a result obviously of Israel's own oppressive policies as well as the desire for the very powerful desire for freedom among Palestinians for self-determination among them. And the kind of resistance that we are seeing building up in Jenin is cross-faction in some senses that there are members of various groups who are coming together who are increasingly working together. Their forms of resistance have taken on more sophisticated forms. They're able to target some of the Israeli heavy vehicles as well. And so this definitely means that these kind of invasions and attacks are absolutely not going to stop that resistance that is building up and is even likely to spread to other parts of the West Bank as well, although it's already there in other parts. So definitely what we're likely to see is that despite all these Israeli claims, of course, there's a domestic angle as well. Netanyahu trying to sort of bolster his support among the settlers. We have seen over the past year or so, especially since this government came to power. We have seen a huge wave of settler violence targeting Al-Aqsa, targeting many other parts of the West Bank. We've seen massive legitimization of illegal outposts. We've seen ministers like Ben Will openly taking the racism, the extremism, the sheer violence to a completely new level. And we've also seen, of course, verdicts like what happened yesterday when the verdict on the killing of Yadil Halakh was announced, a 32-year-old Palestinian with autism who was killed in 2020 by a police officer. And now the court has concluded that they're killing the police officer actor in good faith and it was a tragic accident and he has been acquitted. And I think all of these are parts of a larger pattern which has continued for many years, which is definitely intensifying. But all of Israel's attempts to just bulldoze the resistance or to use missiles or heavy military equipment at the resistance is absolutely not going to work. It definitely looks like because the resistance is reaching a completely new stage there. So unfortunately, it does look like many more of these might happen like Israel has warned or whatever you call it. But I would foresee that the resistance also continues to grow and spread as well. This is a terrible situation and of course we've been following this for a while, people's dispatch on the beat covering the violence done to the Palestinians, but also as you say, the resistance. We're going to switch gears, cross Atlantic, go to Guatemala, there are elections. Zoe is an expert at covering Latin American elections. Come at it Zoe. Well, last week we spoke about the results of the Guatemalan elections. As we reported the biggest kind of the most significant result was the abstention in this electoral process. The prior acts of sabotage if you want to put it that way of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of barring certain candidates, the amount of null and blank votes that were cast in this election. However, now, a week after the elections, there's been another update and that's the fact that two right wing parties filed a complaint saying that the electoral results were not correct, that they were fraudulent, that there was tampering, all sorts of accusations. And in response to Supreme Electoral Tribunal has suspended the release of the official results of the elections. And it says that it needs a 15 day period to sort of do a recount and reevaluate these results. And this is quite a concerning development, given the fact that this is an electoral process that, as we said, despite already having all of these irregularities of not being a process that generated confidence, trust of the population that already had its defects. We still observe the actual day of voting itself had widespread electoral observation, everything in order of the reports have been submitted by all those different bodies, and essentially due to this far right pressure of parties that had traditionally held power that had traditionally done quite well in these elections. This body, this authority has decided to sort of cave to their pressure. And this is quite concerning for many reasons. There's already been statements released by not only human rights organizations within Guatemala expressing concern over this, but also major embassies of, for example, the United States, other global north powers, sort of expressing concern over these developments. And I think that the key element in this, in this story in this development in Guatemala is really once again, it's a show that this whole process, this, this electoral process, this alleged democracy that exists in Guatemala is extremely fragile. It not only has the ability to sort of exclude candidates that it does not want to participate like the progressive popular candidacy of Alma Cabrera from the MLP, other candidates even more towards just the center. But now when the right wing is upset with these results, it appears that the electoral authority is just going to say, okay, well, since you guys are upset, we're going to actually make a significant decision to suspend the announcing of these results. So once again, it's a process that's already been embroiled in a certain level of turmoil, certain level of discontent of mistrust. But this is once again undermining the democratic system, the electoral process. And, you know, they said on June and July 2nd, that'll be a 15 day process of reviewing these results. We'll see what happens in I guess now will be another week. So that these potentially official results might come out. Will they be large, quite different. Will there be a dramatic shift that remains to be seen but I think when we look at other examples across the continent. These moments are often generated even more distrust within the population even more anxiety about what's happening about what it means when an entire authority says actually this process despite having been acknowledged and verified is not legitimate. So we'll definitely be definitely be following this story seeing what happens with the results and of course with the response of the people in the streets. That's a great story important to keep up with. Last night I spent two hours in the German Bundestag the parliament listening to the debate on the bill for Ukraine's membership in NATO very interesting debate. Almost everybody who spoke on the motion of Ukraine's entry into NATO spoke for Ukraine to enter NATO very interesting. Almost everybody that is to say, of course, the social Democrats who are in power with the Greens and the free Democrats the liberals, all three of them spoke in favor. The Christian Democrats hesitated, but also essentially back NATO. You might be surprised to know that the right wing Alliance for Deutschland or ADF, AFD was not only for, you know, in a sense, NATO but they are for increasing Germany's military spending to 2%, which is a demand by the United States of NATO countries. Of course, they are hesitant about this particular war but it's not like they have a position that threatens NATO's grip on German society. Only the linker the left party and its delegates spoke against the motion and that was that was seven Douglas who spoke about NATO's, you know, position in Yugoslavia in Afghanistan and so on. Very interesting discussion in the German parliament. Next week on the 11th and 12th of July, NATO will meet in Vilnius in Lithuania. It's the next summit. It's important to remember the last NATO summit in June 2022, the NATO Alliance pledged to quote unquote deliver the full range of forces for high intensity multi domain war fighting against nuclear armed peer competitors. You know, it was chilling language last year. It looks like it will be pretty chilling this year as well. Three things that NATO has signaled will come out of the Vilnius meeting. First, it is expected NATO as a block is going to announce increased military spending, including towards the war in Ukraine. Secondly, and most dangerously, NATO is suggesting a surge of NATO troops into an up to the Ukrainian border. Now, does this mean they will cross the border? Certainly NATO is already involved by arming the Ukrainian military and there are many, many reports of special forces of different NATO powers already engaged inside Ukraine, including in digital warfare. It's not clear if troops will cross the border formally, openly, not covertly. And third, it is very clear that they're going to announce that they're going to intensify their actions inside Ukraine, that is to say military actions. Now, recently, President Lordomir Zelensky made the claim he accused Russia of mining the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant with the aim of blowing it up. I was struck by the fact that right when Mr Zelensky made this claim, a very influential military strategist and diplomat from the United States, Evo Dalder, a former ambassador of the US to NATO, published an article in Politico, very suggested that if there is a, quote unquote, deliberate nuclear incident, then the NATO powers must directly, militarily, overtly enter in the conflict inside Ukraine, not covertly and not just by weapons delivery and so on. But they should directly, chilling to read Evo Dalder, very influential person in the world of NATO and in the world of military strategy of the United States to make that comment in Politico, just when Mr Zelensky said that if that he claimed that Russia is mining the nuclear power plant and might aim to blow it up. Meanwhile, the question of Sweden's entry into NATO is still on the table. You will remember already talked on this show about how Sweden was promised entry into NATO with two other Nordic countries, they slipped in. They slipped in but Sweden was not allowed. Why? Two countries vetoed the entry of Sweden into NATO. And of course, every NATO country must consent by, you know, there must be universal consent to allow a new country to enter. The two countries being Turkey and Hungary. Hungary because they say Sweden is unfairly critical of the Hungarian government. Now Hungary says this about the United States and everybody else, but they've been in NATO since 1949. Hungary cannot exercise a veto against them. But they are upset with Sweden. But if we're honest, Hungary is tailing Turkey in this. Everything is in the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He holds the key. He says that Sweden is harboring Kurdish terrorists and he says that the attacks against the Quran and Muslims in Sweden is inexcusable. Interestingly, the Swedish government has attempted to answer some of the things that Mr Erdogan has said, including on June 1 Sweden rolled out an updated anti-terrorism law which Turkey had effectively pushed for. And to prove the extradition of some Kurdish militants that have been in Sweden. But this has not been enough for Mr Erdogan. Mr Erdogan, you know, was very clear to the foreign ministers of Turkey and Sweden who met in Brussels on Thursday, made it very clear it's not going to happen. We're not going to let you in this Vilnius summit. Join NATO. It's an interesting time we live in and we're going to watch this carefully what happens in Vilnius Lithuania on the 11th and 12th of July. You're listening to give the people what they want coming to you from people's dispatch and globetrotter happy to have you here. We're going to move on. We have a pretty interesting lineup here. We're going to go to Central Asia and Asia in general, because the Shanghai Cooperation Organization had a meeting. Prashant, what did the SEO do this time? Right. So the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting was strangely a virtual meeting. It was last year they had met in person, caused quite a buzz and the meeting happening this year made a very high increase in interest. And I think across the world in interest about both the BRICS, about the SEO. Because for many countries, they seem to sort of constitute a different way of how the world could be organized, a different way of how international relations itself could be conducted. And of course, we also know that many of the members of the SEO are very powerful economies in themselves as well. So this time it was a virtual meeting which I suspect has something to do with Indian politics as well, which we can come to later. But it was an interesting meeting because we saw for one the fact that Iran was admitted as an official member of the SEO. And this, you know, I think cements the process of Iran, say, establishing its own track in the region. We saw some months ago the whole Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement thing which had been mediated by China. Iran, of course, now by joining the SEO, it is also sort of I think it is attempting to buffer what the United States has often been trying to do over the years, which is to isolate it as much as possible, accuse it of all kinds of crimes, etc., etc. But if you also read the statement that the SEO heads of state summit released, quite interesting in terms of how it advocates, you know, the role of multi-polarity, how it talks about the need to avoid a block-based mentality, how it talks about reforming the world trade organization, for instance, making a very strong cognizance of the fact that global trade rules are so prone to manipulation, so prone to be used by any country the United States is not happy with. Of course, calling for greater cooperation, there has been talk about greater economic cooperation as well. One interesting aspect is the fact that the Beltry Initiative also mentioned India, of course, being part of that specific part of the statement which expressed support for it. India and China, of course, have had quite severe differences over a number of issues. But I would still think that the fact that the summit took place itself, the fact that there continues to be momentum in this direction is a very positive sign. I think BRICS is about 40% of the world's population, its combined GDP is quite substantial and very interestingly, a lot of countries showing interest in joining the SEO. So although it began as an organization that was focused on Central Asia, which still is a very powerful focus, was more on the eastern side, we have countries from West Asia, for instance, showing a lot of interest in joining Belarus, officially begun the process, we know that many other countries including the UAE are interested. So it does definitely look like BRICS has a lot of momentum, SEO has a lot of momentum when it comes to growing as a block. I keep saying BRICS because we also have the BRICS summit coming up in August, which is going to be another very pivotal moment when leaders of these countries are going to have these discussions. And again, there's a lot of interest in joining and entering BRICS as well, what is being called the BRICS Plus. So overall, I think, especially after the Ukraine war, contrary to what the United States and its allies expected, rather than the collapse of Russia and the withdrawal of China or the, say, encircling and restriction of China, what has happened is precisely the opposite. We have all these countries forming greater groups, the possibility of more trade taking place in currencies other than the dollar, the BRICS Bank is being talked about, even some talk about the SEO Bank, for instance, Putin talking about the need for more trading in respective currencies, a lot of logistical hurdles to cross, a lot of institutions that need to be built, but there does definitely seem to be a lot of momentum in this direction and that definitely clearly worries the United States and its allies. It certainly worries them as well that the European Union, which they've been trying to yoke back into the Atlantic Alliance, is holding a meeting in Brussels with the CELAC Group from Latin America. Zoe, what's going on with this CELAC EU summit? Well, you're exactly right. You notice the EU is not holding a EU OAS, that's Organization of American States Summit. So I think that in itself is something important to point out. And on July 17th and 18th, yes, there will be a summit between leaders of the CELAC Group, which covers Latin American, the Caribbean. And it's currently presided over by Raul Phil Monsalves from St. Vincent and Grenadines. This is an important platform of regional integration within Latin American, the Caribbean. It's a platform that was founded during the first progressive wave by Will Chavez with the initiative of Cuba of Fidel, a very revolutionary platform to really counteract the strength of a platform like the Organization of American States, which has been explicitly against Cuba, for example, from its foundation has consistently excluded Cuba. And so CELAC emerges as an alternative to this. So this is a summit that's going to take place in Brussels, as I said, in the middle of July. They're going to discuss different issues of economic agreements, trade opportunities, generally as many of these summits do, discussing the issues facing our societies today. I think everyone, even if they don't call it capitalism, when they say that there's great challenges facing humanity, at least we know what they're talking about. And so it's going to be a very interesting moment. I think we're going to see leaders such as Miguel Diaz-Canel, who of course is the target of many U.S. policies, Nicolas Maduro, Gustavo Petro, Lula da Silva, all of these progressive leaders that have in some way or another tried to be minimized by the United States, who are really representing this new, as Prashant was talking about, new spaces of creating integration, of using different currencies. Lula, immediately once he was sworn in, talked about using not the dollar to do trade agreements. And so the fact that these kind of leaders, these leaders who are trying to forge a new type of international relations, a new type of diplomacy are going to be meeting in the European Parliament in Brussels. They're going to be meeting with these European leaders who the U.S., as you said, Vijay, tries to corral so much to respond to their desires. And it's also important to mention that parallel to this official summit, which is going to again have diplomatic bodies, have heads of state, there's going to be a people's summit that's organized by people's movements within Europe, but also in conjunction with people's movements in Latin America. There's going to be important delegations going there. Because as we know in these official summits, it's a lot of government-to-government level discussions. But of course the integration of people's, their desires, their needs, their desire to build together is just as important. So there's going to be a series of very interesting panel discussions, talks. There's going to be a festival talking about the involvement in the legacy, for example, of Europe in Latin America. Of course, Latin America, most of Latin America was colonized by European countries. There's a long legacy of domination. Many countries in the Caribbean, which Ralph Consalves, of course, is representing in his presidency in CELAC, are still colonized by European countries. And so there's a very, very important dialogue to be had, not only of what are the issues that the people of Latin America are facing, but how are the movements of Europe going to continue fighting against imperialism, which is infecting not only them in Europe, but of course this region of Latin America and the Caribbean. So it's going to be a very interesting summit, both the CELAC summit with heads of state and also the People's Summit. It seems like there's going to be some special guests at the People's Summit. Maybe some of those heads of states are going to engage with the movements there. We'll be covering it next week and a half in Brussels. Well, we will be on the ground, but we will be receiving important updates on the ground and sharing that with people on People's Summit. Well, Brussels is also the headquarters of NATO. We already said that five or six days before this EU CELAC summit, NATO will be meeting in Lithuania. The United Kingdom in this interim decided to announce in a very small trade show that they've developed a new Royal Navy Type 83 destroyer. Interesting development. You might remember that in July 2021, the UK's Navy sent the Queen Elizabeth II out into the South China Sea in a deployment against China. Very important deployment. Now, reading the UK's 2022 national strategy for maritime security, it is very interesting how the United Kingdom has focused so much of its maritime ambitions on the South China Sea. It's almost a return to the early 19th century. The strategy document said the UK will deploy at least two vessels, a frigate and perhaps a destroyer into the South China Sea. The development of this Type 83 is interesting because here we have a situation where the UK is interested in building naval ships that are able to defend against missile attacks. What I find fascinating in what the UK has been saying is the UK has essentially been saying that they want to be as heavily involved as possible in the South China Sea as much as the United States would allow them. They've written about this directly. Fascinatingly, the South China Morning Post reported and I must say, although I do read the South China Morning Post, it's not always the most reliable newspaper to talk about news about China, although this was fascinating. They argued that there has recently been a simulated, you know, all defensive strategy by the Chinese called the Z-Day or Z-Day Total War Scenario, which the counterfeit was published in a Chinese journal called the Chinese Journal of Ship Research, where they talked about how the Chinese were preparing themselves for a hypothetical attack, which would include some of these UK vessels. In the simulation, the People's Liberation Army, the Navy had 50 destroyers, you know, they went out there and defended themselves. What I found quite interesting, both about the South China Morning Post report and the reports coming out of the United Kingdom was that it was very clear to everybody that the Chinese are developing weapons systems and developing weapons planning or military planning regarding defensive maneuvers to defend against attacks. I think this is pretty interesting. It's also, of course, true that there have been prior simulations that have been released by the Chinese about what would happen if they decided to launch an invasion of Taiwan. I don't want to minimize the fact that that exists. But largely the evidence here from the Z-Day Total War planning is a defensive plan against an attack largely would come from the United States, United Kingdom, NATO powers against the Chinese mainland. Fascinating development. We're going to keep watching this and tracking it. You know, news reports very, really track these military developments. You want stuff about these military developments? Come to People's Dispatch. Come to Globetrotter. Come to give the people what they want. You've been with us half an hour, a 133rd show. We'll see you next week where we have a 134th show.


OK. This is the title of my paper, Towards the Post-Heroomage on Material Epsom and Virtual Presence in Roman Archaeology. But as I was writing it, it went different ways. So the Roman Archaeology is about a project I'm starting or have start up about a temple that's no longer present. And the project is about the archaeology of imagination. And you can, perhaps, imagine with an epsom temple my thoughts more and more derailed. So the actual title is an increasing digressing paper on cyborgs, bitcoins, and fungal. And my apologies, but I'll try to explain why. So the illusion of immateriality, the first point on cyborgs is about the post-humanism. And I'm thinking a lot about the materiality of abstract objects and digital objects and thinking about how they fit into our life world. And that's how I got to think about post-humanism. So the bitcoins is about my part about immaterial objects. And I'm very happy it was already mentioned. So I don't have to digress too much on that bit. And then the fungi is actually the part where I try to link that to my project on the temple, which is called the Isem Campensa in Rome. But first cyborgs.  So there are already some self-proclaimed cyborgs amongst us. And this guy really got me thinking about what a post-humanist is. Because what he is is he was born with a deficiency in which he could only perceive gray scale. So he didn't see any color. So it's different than colorblind as he didn't see any color. Increasingly frustrated with that in an artist, he had some experimental surgery which implanted an antenna on his bone, which made it possible for him to perceive color again through sound. So this Neil Harbison is now hearing colors. And this is one of the artworks that he made from voices, he heard. One of them is George Bush and the other one I forget because I don't perceive what he is perceiving, which already makes it very interesting to think about. Here we perhaps have an actual post-human. And he has some, if you're interested, some very super interesting TED talks. But what he actually says is that he doesn't feel better than a human. Actually, he says that he starts to understand his species amongst him better because, as he says, he doesn't feel 100% human. So it didn't make him what we said a transhumanist, an evolved species. It made him more aware of other species. And in that case, we do have to think that if there is going to be post-humanists such as these cyborgs, if we're going to be cyborgs, we will not think as human beings anymore. And I don't think awareness in this classroom or how we write and how we talk, we should all become cyborgs. I think Neil Harbison is really advocating for that. But I think that from the idea of virtual and especially developments in immersive virtual archaeology can give us a sense of how this feels, not to be 100% human. And this might, as well as it did to Neil Harbison, increase our idea or understanding of other species. And this is also derived from writings from Haraway. The cyborg is more about the rejection of boundaries separating human from animal or machine and how we're always becoming with others and how we're human and non-human, virtually and bodily, natural and artificial, organic and mechanic. We can try to experiment to recreate these things with virtual archaeology. So for that, I want to think about the how of that because it is easily said, of course. But doing it is something else. And there's a theoretical problem in that if we're trying to become non-humans, we need a whole different philosophy. And phenomenology has, of course, always been with us to think about how we perceive. But phenomenology is an enormously human-centered philosophy. So what should we do to become other species, or at least to become increasingly aware of how we're not humans? How can we create a non-human phenomenology? And one of the in-between steps I want to take is to increase our world as virtual.  And here's, of course, two examples of virtual objects. One is an icon of an apple, and the other is an image of an apple. If I would have a concrete apple, then that would be the actual apple. But all these things, both real life and virtual reality are part of a life world. And virtual reality is there for both real as it is part of real life. And that's what I want to emphasize in my paper, that we're talking about something real, even if we say it's virtual. It might not be actual, but it is real. And the step to bitcoins, perhaps more easy in my mind than for the audience. But immaterial objects, which have been mentioned, is a step of saying, OK, they might be virtual, but they're very real. And especially, we're talking about consequences. So it has been mentioned, of course. But I think that Bitcoin is a very valuable and important example. Also, what I want to stipulate, you mentioned it already. Of course, we know that there is materiality, even in immaterial objects. But I also think that we as archaeologists have a very increased knowledge on this, and that it would perhaps be good to disseminate this more widely than amongst ourselves. I think we can actually contribute something outside of archaeology discussing immateriality and immaterial objects. And in the case of Bitcoin, there is so much material going on that if we take it as an assemblage, of course, it is an immaterial object because it is virtual. But there is so much representation and symbolism involved. So the Bitcoin has representations. And here, you see an example of how it is virtually aesthetically represented. And then you see it's actually coin. So the iconography is still coin. More, even, is referring to Gold Rush. So Bitcoin, which was meant just like Uber and Airbnb initiatives, perhaps, to be a less controlling form of money and to be more democratic in that way, is actually very much a part of shifting neoliberal and neoliberal anarchic developments. The transaction is very material. There is so much computer power needed to do a transaction on Bitcoin. If you want Bitcoins, you have to mine them. You see, there is another part of the network of the assemblage of the Bitcoins in the sense that you have to mine to dig for Bitcoins. So this is also a symbolically very material aspect of course. And then the amount of power necessary means that we cannot do this. People who can mine Bitcoins nowadays are large companies bought in cheap countries that rent an enormous amount of space where they have computers running nonstop. So it's a very capitalist undertaking and it is very damaging for the environment. So if we see this as an assemblage or immateriality, it's an illusion. It is very real and it counts especially for the consequences that it has. So now to Fungi, which is a slightly more difficult bridge. So thinking about or cyborg and immersive VR, I want to try to take a non-entropocentric perspective, such as these birds are doing, to my project. And the nice thing about immersive VR is that it increasingly allows us to give us other views. And actually, it already does so, of course. So this is my project in which, first of all, I am studying the representations or the imaginations of a temple that does no longer exist on coinage, on medieval drawings, to see how people imagine buildings in the past and how they imagine an Egyptian temple. So we're creating a platform in which we do several reconstructions, also transparency, how did people make these reconstructions and what steps do we take. But what I also want to do is get this non-entropocentric view on it, and here we go to the Fungi. A problem of Roman archaeology very much so is that it suffers maybe more than other branches of archaeology from a very humanist background. There is no space for engaging with what it meant to engage with the divine in Roman archaeology, much less than it should. If we take an immersive VR perspective on how it must have been, or at least how it could have been, to engage with a deity or even to see point of view of the deity's eyes, increases our awareness of how we are not experiencing this. So this is it. Of course, we cannot become trees. We cannot have a phenomenology of a tree. What we can achieve through this is disrupt our vision of it. We can understand that we are not the only perspective and the only perceiving beings. So I want to have that perspective. The bird's eye view perspective, of course, is already a very much post-human view because we cannot fly. Making people aware of this already changes our perspective on ancient architecture, but also the experience from the fungi and the mosses that live on the statues that were once in the temple or on your epigraphic stones, for that matter. It's not about trying to become fungi, it's trying to become non-human. And I think for archaeology that is opening up some very, and especially in Roman archaeology, some very straight boundaries that are currently still existing. But it, of course, does also more because if we can do it for the past, it has the immediate effect that it also dissolves more boundaries that we are experiencing right now about humanistic approaches. Because what we call human condition is a condition in which people who are transgender or queer or physically impaired are also not 100% human because it is based on a very narrow perspective. So I think the potential is due to sum it up. Thinking about the material objects as part of assemblages matter. And I think we have a task, perhaps, to do that more and outside of archaeology. The virtual is a category in this, which people are comfortable because the virtual has always existed in its traditional ritual forms. And with that, I mean that if we look into a mirror, we also see something virtual. So the virtual world is real, but it's also something that is not with us since the computer. So the digital can try to bring this back as opposed to human exploration. And incorporating virtuality more broadly and use the effective agency of digital methods to create this post-human and non-anthropocentric perspective, I think, is something with a potential, which I just explained that can disrupt currently existing classes and categorizations. Thank you very much.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overload here So when we talk about Jeepers Creepers in this video here again today We'll be talking about more specifically the Jeepers Creepers TV series that you know was a rumor to be happening Like I said before it was just a rumor that more or less doesn't seem like it's actually going to be happening The more likely thing we will ever get in the future is just another movie There might be a disappointment or it could be something that gets us back on track in the style of what we saw with those First two movies without Victor Salvador being involved, but getting Jonathan break back getting Gina Phillips back getting Ray wise back and bringing back some familiar characters played by new actors Of course brought in to revive said characters because I don't see a lot of the people from Jeepers Creepers 2 Joining up any of these future projects just being honest the most important person I want to see back has sadly passed away again resting piece to Nikki Acox and I hope her family and everybody that was close to her are Coming to terms with what happened to her unfortunately because that was just one of the biggest shocks last year for me Growing up with that movie and I love the character of Mingsi and again I just hope that her family has been Coming to terms with this in the best ways But I just want to touch on again the TV series mostly in this video and talking about the character of Blair Ketridge and how she is tied into the overall bigger twist of what is happening in the TV show outline that many of You know was sent over to me for the first season of Jeepers Creepers The TV show that Victor Salvador had planned that will never get to come to fruition So again, I had the outline of that TV show sent over to me. I went over it in a video a couple months back I'll leave a link to that video down in the comment section below. It's like over 20 minutes long I just wanted to share a video with you guys today Diving a little bit deeper into that character recapping what her role is in the TV show and how she is protecting an even bigger twist That the Creeper has planned because as you know the Creeper Has husk that it's leaving behind Every 23 years it's shedding old skin and leaving husk and the Taggart's and what's happening at the barn with Trish and her Team of a mercenaries They want to burn the husk because they think that's gonna do any good But they don't realize that there's an even bigger twist that the Creeper has been planning for centuries That Blair Ketridge and her family and whoever else might have been connected to her in the past have been knowing about the Creeper For over 40 years It seems given given how many of these husk that she has been collecting in an old house of hers So Blair Ketridge is again a woman in her 50s in this TV show She is a much-hated woman in Polk County and lives on an isolated farm Well child welfare welfare visits her often her brood of strange boys She has given numbers instead of names number. She paints in red on their shaved heads the connection She has and her bizarre offspring have to the Creeper is is the startling first season secret While Blair may be disliked and her freakish boys as well her Arkansas one may reveal her to be the county's ultimate if ominous Protector from the Creeper itself for in a dark underground room beneath their sagging farmhouse The Ketridges have over 40 withered husk of the Creeper collected throughout the years after each of his 23 feedings 23-day feedings this mysterious family is the secret keeper of the Creeper's old husk keeping them safe from fire and hidden for all time and When Helicum who was one of the people working with Trisha and Dark Sky which the team of mercenaries discovered this secret of Blair Ketridge They plan to burn Blair's farm to the ground husk and all not knowing this would allow the Creeper his chance at Absolute allow the Creeper his chance at absolute power now What does that mean now going back to the Creeper and what burning the husk would do because I never revealed the actual twist of what happened if you burned the husk because I was saying I wanted to hold off on that but I Now at this point and and being told that it is fine for me to discuss this as long as of course I am not just Putting this out there in more than just this is what I was told So I will dive into what happens if you burn the Creeper's husk and what the twist would have been For season one if you burn the Creeper's husk So it says here that the twist the theories of what the creature is and how it can be stopped fly freely in Jeepers creepers the series But there is a secret waiting in season one that will change all ideas about it Secret that the Creeper is counting on and has been for centuries Counting on humanity's willingness to overlook intellect and compassion and revert to superstition and and rituals When our fears grow too great for the cunning Creature has deliberately chosen the basements of old churches in places of worship to do his darkness Throughout the ages and with this has perpetrated its greatest hoax putting forth that lie That is indeed a creature of Armageddon So it wants you to believe that it's a creature of Armageddon and then waiting for the time to come when even the smallest Faction of humankind might decide to perform the oldest of rituals and burn its withered remains the skin It sheds like a snake in the final moments of its 23 days of human harvesting its empty shell It leaves behind every 23 years. Why does it want its old husk to be burned? The answer is to be discovered on the Great Stone calendar carved into the cathedral floor where a comet of fire is depicted That seems to be Rebirthing the creeper making it so powerful the entire world will ultimately fall in its ravenous wake So if they were to burn these husk what happens is That this would just give the creeper ultimate power and it would be the end of humanity as we know it and would Just lead to ultimate destruction on earth from this from this monster what that would look like I don't know because you'd have to burn the husk obviously to find out what would actually occur if you do that And what this what this power would look like but it ultimately yes would make the creeper be reborn with ultimate power And it would just be a Never-ending cycle it sounds like that's what it sounds like what happened if you burn these husk So that is why Blair Kittridge and her sons and the husk that she's keeping in her basement of her house That is why they play such an important role in the first season. That is also why the creeper Over the centuries. It's giving reason to why we see the creeper in the first movie at an old church Why the third movie has a cathedral setting why the TV show of course even though it was basically Cathedral in a mini-series format. There's still gonna have the cathedral in it It's explaining why the creeper does what it's doing.  This is just what's in the outline I want to discuss that here with you guys to kick off the new year But if you haven't already of course make sure you go ahead and subscribe Turn on post notification that you never miss a video in the description. I will have links to my social media accounts I'm on Facebook Twitter and Instagram you can message me there of course to let me know if there are any movies News or reviews you like me to cover in the future and with all that in mind guys. I will see you in the next video


Photography is all about capturing light. A camera captures the light that enters through the lens using a sensor to digitise the information and create a photograph. Digital SLR cameras have a whole range of features, lenses and accessories to change and optimise the light that goes into the camera. This video will look at how shutter speeds can alter the amount of light that enters the lens. The vast array of dials and settings you get on a good camera can be quite daunting at first. In fact, most people start on the green square setting that gives almost full automatic function to the camera. However, to get the best out of a camera and be truly creative, it's best to take some time and understand how to use some of the manual functions. This will greatly affect the outcome of a photo to suit whatever your creative needs. To switch your camera to manual mode, simply turn the dial to M. The speed at which you set the shutter not only affects the amount of light that goes into the camera but can also be used to make some exciting and cool effects. So, what happens when you change the shutter speed? Firstly, even a small change in the shutter speed can have a big effect on the picture. The faster the shutter speed, the less light is captured, making the image appear slightly darker. The slower the shutter speed, the more light goes in making it lighter. To adjust the shutter speed on your Canon camera, you move this dial here. You'll also need to change your ISO to manual, as by default that's set to automatic. If you need help on this, check out our other video on ISO. In normal daylight, approximately 1 over 1 2 5, which denotes 125th of a second, is a good starting point to getting the right balance. If the image is too bright, you will need to make the shutter speed slightly faster. Around 1 over 250 should result in less light getting in. Conversely, if your photo is too dark, slow the shutter speed down to let more light in. If you have a really fast shutter speed, 1 800th or higher, you can freeze moving objects, which is great for effects such as this. If you slow the shutter speed right down, you'll find you get a blurred image. However, by carefully controlling the speed, you can gain access to some great effects. For example, if your subject is moving and you want to capture some of that movement, a shutter speed of 1 5th of a second will give just enough blur to get that effect. Note that any speed below 1 60th will result in the camera shaking as it picks up the movement of the photographer's hand, holding the camera. To counteract this, you need to keep the camera steady, either with a tripod or by putting the camera on something flat and solid. As a rule of thumb, 1 over the focal length of your lens is a good starting point. For example, if you have a 300mm lens, 1 over 300mm will ensure you get a sharp image. There are three fundamental factors that are important for every photographer to understand. All of which affect the amount of light that goes into the camera and how the camera performs. These are 1, the aperture, 2, the ISO number and 3, the shutter speed. They all work in tandem with each other and are therefore often referred to as the exposure triangle. To make experimenting with shutter speed easier, Shutter Priority Mode will give you the creative freedom with shutter speed whilst the camera helps you automatically with other settings, such as aperture and ISO. Simply turn the dial to TV. We recommend you take a look at our separate videos available for aperture and ISO to go into more detail.


Hello and welcome to this video. We will be reviewing PDF filler activity here. PDF filler activity is used to add text or images to existing PDF file. This activity can also be used to fill out the PDF forms. So let us again drop to PDF postcode here. As we see this activity primarily expects source PDF file either we can provide in the URL format or the absolute path format in here. Let us review the other properties of this activity. Destination file path is the absolute file path of the output PDF file. Here we can provide the images we want to add to the PDF. If you want to fill out any existing form fields we can provide here and text objects we can specify the text annotations or the text we need to add to the existing PDF. In the output properties resulting file URL is the URL of the generated resulting URL.


Sometimes, only a single digit can make a huge difference. If you see a Dell laptop bearing the number one at the end of its model number, it is probably sporting pretty powerful hardware, at least a better one, compared to the one ending with a zero. This leads us to the laptop we're reviewing today, the Dell Precision 153571. It offers a significant upgrade over the 3570, as it features H-Series processors and up to the RTX A2000 GPU. Exterior-wise, 3571 shares the same body in chassis as the Latitude 155531. The build quality of the product is pretty good, although it is predominantly made out of plastic with some hints of carbon here and there. The measurements go around 23mm in thickness, and less than 1.8kg in weight. The keyboard has decent key travel and fairly clicky feedback, with a fingerprint reader embedded in the power button, and a touchpad, which is enviously responsive, you are getting a rather finished product. On the left side, you get two Thunderbolt 4 connectors and a smart card reader. The right, on the other hand, is a bit more populous. There is a security lock slot, a LAN port, an HDMI 2.0 connector, followed by two full-sized USB 3.2 generation 1 ports, an audio jack, and a microSD card slot. On the side we see two Sodom slots for up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and two M.2 PCIe X4 slots with generation 4 and RAID support. The battery has a capacity of 64Wh which leaves space for a 2.5-inch SATA drive but there are no mounting accessories in the box. Anyway, watch our disassembly guide to see how to open the notebook. Dell somehow still finds HDTN display panels and it's not a shame to offer them as an option for its high-end series like Precision, but as always, we'll turn a blind eye to it and test the full HD variant made by LG. It has decent brightness and very good contrast ratio. However, it covers just 50% of the sRGB color gamut so don't expect vivid, nor accurate colors. The average color deviation is 6.0, and while our design and gaming profile make things better, the display is still far from being suitable for professional work with colors. Precision 153571 can also be ordered with a 4K screen so if you do color-sensitive work, this is your only option. If you don't, the full HD panel is not that bad. It doesn't use harmful PWM which is good for your eyes. Only 2 per 100 people watching this video are subscribers. If you decide to just start following us, we'll be able to reinvest more in our laboratory thus making even more helpful videos for you. Thank you, you're awesome. This laptop's 64Wh battery pack lasts for 12 hours and 43 minutes of web browsing, or 9 hours and 22 minutes of video playback. These are very good results. You can find this device with 2Core i5, 2Core i7, or Core i9-12900H. We bought the most powerful variant and, yes, it is definitely powerful. Besides the integrated graphics cards, there are the NVIDIA T600, RTX A1000, and RTX A2000 to choose from. These are professional grade graphics cards for serious work. However, in order to ensure stability, Precision 3571 keeps the CPU temperature low which leads to low core frequencies and low performance. At the end of the day, your purchase decision should rely mainly on your workflow. If you are constantly taking advantage of your hardware, you should better look for a device that has a more capable cooling solution. However, if the workload consists of many but short bursts of load, then the Precision 153571 might cut it. Especially if you care about battery life too. Of course, we've done a lot more tests and you can check out all the results in our in-depth review on laptopmedia.com. You'll find the link in the description below the video.


Statistics and Excel. Normal distribution calories example part number two. Get ready, taking a deep breath, holding it in for 10 seconds, looking forward to a smooth, soothing Excel. Here we are in Excel. If you don't have access to this workbook, that's okay because we basically built this from a blank worksheet, but we started in a prior presentation, so if you want to start from a blank worksheet, you may want to begin back there. However, if you do have access to this workbook, there's three tabs down below. Example, practice blank. Example, in essence, answer key. Practice tab, having pre-formatted cells so you can get to the heart of the practice problem. Blank tab is where we started with a blank worksheet, having just our beginning data on it so we can practice formatting the cells within Excel as we work through the practice problem, and we're going to continue on with that now. Quick recap of what we have done thus far. We had our data...


So, two riders only, Inovsky off-game, two in blue, Freddie Lindgren, game three in white. It's the situation for Heat, number 15. And, uh, Lee de Kittleman has now been excluded. He's had a pull, he's had a retirement. He's had an absolute nightmare, hasn't he, Kel? Yes. I don't think that's overstating it at all. He has had a very disappointing time. I do know that there is a lot of talk about the World Cup squad for the Danish team. Possibly that's been weighing on him, but third time here we go. Inovsky must be very frustrated here. Yep, he's going to try again and Inovsky has made a decent start. Now, which way will Lindgren go? He stays big track, he's following Inovsky here. He's got a lot of speed and he's charging up the inside. Inovsky keeps his nerve. Lindgren now is going to take him wide. Lindgren takes it towards the fence. Real loop. They're coming through now. And now Lindgren tries the inside switch. Get out of the way. They're coming through as well. Run in to me, mate. Ball of two riders. Goal! That trace here between the two riders. Inovsky's determined to stay in front. Here comes Lindgren running outside again. Inovsky's running. Now Lindgren jumps to the inside. World title. That was sensational between two fantastic riders. Matsy Inovsky and Freddie Lindgren. Shake hands. That was one of the best match races you will ever see. We've seen plenty of them down the years. Our older fans tonight will remember the gold and helmet back in the UK. Yeah, they will. We've seen run-offs for qualifying spots. We've seen a run-off for the world title in 1985. And 1994, the old one-off world finals. What a race it was. Inovsky will be chuffed to bits with that because Crikey didn't have to work hard because Lindgren was ruthless early in the race. Comfortably in front as he hits the first corner, Inovsky. But look at this turn back. How tight is it now? Watch them as they go into this corner. Lindgren just keeps coming. Coming and coming and pushing him ever wider. Again from the tapes. Super star from Inovsky. But great move down the inside early in the race with Lindgren pushing him so wide. Look how chuffed that is. Brilliant stuff with the riders. Look at that. Inovsky clouting the fence as they go into the bottom corner, switching back to the inside, charging out of the last corner, and he picks up a terrific win. Really was a fantastic demonstration of high-speed Speedway World Championship.


Item Number – SCP-268 Object Class – Euclid Special Containment Procedures – SCP-268 is currently to be maintained within data expunged, as it has been deemed that the change of use for the facilitation of escape by restricted personnel or humanoid SCP is too great. However, the possibility of use by field agents after further testing is under review. Note – Special Containment Procedures have been modified. See Addendum 268-05 for detailed information. Description – SCP-268 is a Tweedwool Newsboy Cap. The design and make seem to be of Irish origin. Due to the style and fabric, it is estimated to have been created in the late 1800s to early 1900s, though fiber analysis is inconclusive. The only markings on the cap are a small label with writing in Middle Irish. Reading – The Garden is the Serpent's Place. However, there are various indications that this label was sewn onto the cap in recent times. Due to the nature of the artifact, testing has been extremely difficult. SCP-268 seems to be a normal hat until it is worn. Anyone wearing the hat, however, suddenly and instantly becomes unnoticeable. Subjects become unmemorable, thoroughly ignorable, or taken for granted by all observers. Observers, with specific prompting, are able to later recall physically seeing the subject, but can give no specific details other than seeing a man with a hat. Observers seem to have the overwhelming feeling that the wearer is someone that was supposed to be there, and thus did not merit thought or notice. During initial testing, remote analysts completely forgot what they were supposed to be observing within the chamber, and it was not until the D-class subject wearing SCP-268 spoke out loud that he was noticed again. Removal of the artifact, vocalization, and physical interaction with observers seem to be the only way in which wearers of SCP-268 can make themselves noticeable. Once an observer has been made to notice an SCP-268 wearing individual, they slowly begin to ignore the subject once more, unless kept actively engaged by the wearer. Testing reveals that if a subject wears SCP-268 upward of 20 cumulative hours, its effects seem to linger, with diminished potency, on the subject even while not wearing the artifact. Testing in this area has been cautious due to the possibility of containment breaches, but one incident has shown that if the artifact has worn long enough, that the effect is rendered permanent and unbreakable. Extensive research is still unable to determine whether or not electronics are directly affected by SCP-268. Observers viewing an SCP-268 wearing subject through electronic means still have difficulty acknowledging the subject's existence, and even when noticed, observers report to be unable to see the face of the individual in question. Observers note pictures of SCP-268 wearing individuals as being blurry, and digital media such as surveillance cameras is reported to become grainy and unfocused. Research is unsure whether these alterations are extant and physical, or merely perceived due to SCP-268's properties. It should be noted that although capturing SCP-268 through visual electronic means has been difficult, motion sensing, weight sensing, heat seeking, and similar devices all trigger correctly when encountering an SCP-268 wearing subject. Addendum 268-01 SCP-268 is noted to have some similarities to SCP-180. SCP-268, however, does not seem to function on inanimate objects, and more importantly, does not directly steal the identity of its host. While SCP-180 causes its host to become unrecognizable after SCP-180 itself is removed and placed on another object, this seems to be a side effect of its function of identity theft and transfer. Meanwhile, SCP-268 could be said to steal the identity of long-time wearers, as they become irrevocably forgotten. This has caused some speculation as to whether the items share similar origins, or whether the many similarities they share are merely coincidental. Addendum 268-02 At Agent B's request, and after approval by Dr. B and Dr. Klein, SCP-268 is being used with agents in active field duty. Results thus far have been favorable. Addendum 268-03 Field testing has been suspended. Though Agent B appears to have been on payroll and on records, no personnel, either on site or in higher command, remember knowing or hearing about an Agent B. Further tests should be conducted only on D-Class personnel, and on no single individual for longer than 10 hours. Addendum 268-04 SCP-268's effects seem to strengthen and become permanent, as individual subjects wear the artifact for extended periods of cumulative time. There is a marked difference in the potency of SCP-268's effect on someone wearing it for the first time, and someone who has worn the artifact upwards of five hours on other occasions. For example, someone who has not worn the cat before seems to dispel its effects merely by speaking. Those who have worn the artifact on several occasions for extended amounts of time seem to be able to ask observers questions and receive answers, with the observer having little to no recollection of the event. In one test, a subject who had worn the artifact for upwards of 15 hours was able to ask standing personnel the test chamber's password, nearly causing a containment breach and the escape of D-Class personnel. The security personnel in question reported being unable to recall parting with the information in question. Dr. Klein Addendum 268-05 As of SCP-268 is missing. Its absence was discovered early in the morning by Agent B and research analysts, and in its place was a note reading, Thanks. I needed my hat back. L.S. A full investigation of this security breach has been launched. Lesson complete. If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-267, Tomb of War, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


This is the SF Productions podcast network A walled season it has begun From the pop culture bunker I'm indeed and I'm mark you can check out our audio podcast how I get more free comics on iTunes or on our website SF podcast network calm So the Oscar nominations are in yep, but since I like to see how the other awards go before picking a horse I thought we would talk about award shows in general and we'll do a future episode of your actual nominations This sort of came up after watching the Golden Globes Oh my gosh what a train wreck that was Yeah, there's Miss Q. There's a lousy writing what there's always lousy writing presenters openly mocking the event. Yeah Host Ricky Gervais clearly did not want to be there. He was like This is what I always said he didn't have to be there I mean did they just throw so much money at him like I'm daring you not to bring me back next year Please don't bring me back next year. This is such a joke But the Golden Globes goes back to 1943 the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who's Various foreign press to cover Hollywood. Yeah pretty self-explanatory many of them actually no It's a very small very small number. They created the award to generate funds for charity Mm-hmm, and there's a history of controversy about the Golden Globes Potential winners were at least at one point told in advance That they were winners, so they would show up and also told it might go to someone else if they didn't show up And there's been rumors of paola and lobbying for nominations and the winners Yeah, in fact the FCC got so annoyed at the whole thing They got NBC to stop broadcasting it in the 60s and 70s because they said we're we're Telling the public this is an actual award show and it's really not Yeah in 1982 Pia Zidora won New star of the year after accusations that her millionaire husband bribed members of the Hollywood Foreign Press They don't give new star of the year anymore Well technically she wasn't a new star because it wasn't her first film. I know Santa Claus conquers the Martians. Hello. Yeah The tourist won best musical comedy in 2011 which was a spy thriller Musical or comedy in the lead just like the Martian This year, but you know they say that it's oh, we just let the People who made the movie pick what category it goes in. Well, you can't do that. I'm sorry gaming the system Like well, we think we have a better chance at comedy than we have so we'll just put it in comedy Even though it's clearly just like you know They take people who are clearly leading actors and put them in supporting nominations so that they get a better chance to win Yeah, for the tourist Sony gave members of the Hollywood Foreign Oppress They flew them into Las Vegas and gave them a private share concert It's sometimes a fun show and it can be an Oscar indicator The stars all say it's a fun show because they get to drink a lot, you know And so that can be fun for them, but sometimes it's not that fun watching a Roomful of drunk people and it's also one of the few awards in which you have both TV and movie people together And of course the movie people are given the the prior the best seats and you know the TV people are in the back whatever We also have the New York's Critics Circle Awards. That's a fairly good indicator It started in 1935 and it spawned similar awards in other major and minor cities For example, there is a central Ohio Critics Choice Award That one does not get any national coverage. There's also a Critics Choice Awards just in general that was started in 1996 There's awards for individual roles in the industry. Yes, there's the Directors Guild Awards in 1948 started 1948 writers Guild 1949 producers Guild 1989 screen actors Guild Awards in 1995 now the DGA The WGA and the PGA Awards are fairly good Oscar indicators at least in the last ten years or so They're pretty good indicators sag awards not nearly as much. Yeah, I think that actors tend to vote more for their friends, so yeah Now some of those you can actually watch on cable or internet, you know I mean most of them aren't on that networks. Yeah, you know broadcast, but you can watch them. Yeah, and Then there's the Granddaddy the Oscars started in 1929 and That first ceremony lasted 15 minutes and it cost five bucks to get it $5 in 1929 was still a bit of money bit of money, but still Newspapers were originally given the winners names in advance and then they were given an embargo to hold them until after the ceremony was over Yeah, just like they told us not to read the Harry Potter books in the back room before the release date Yes Until the LA Times published them early and this is when they started the secret envelopes in 1941 Thank You Price Waterhouse. Yeah, the actual statues have an encumbrance against them since 1950 Winners agree to allow the Academy to buy them back for a dollar And that's because too many people were like going bankrupt and selling them Yeah, yeah, and if they don't agree they're not they're given the award, but then they take it back They're not allowed to keep it. Yeah So NBC got the TV rights for the Oscars starting basically when they started putting out as a broadcast 1953 through 1960 in the 1960s ABC had the rights and then NBC has basically done it since then and has a contract through 2020 to do it, and I'm sure they're gonna re-up that if they possibly can yeah Bob Hope holds the award for most hosting duties 19 times followed by Billy Crystal at nine Johnny Carson at five. He was very popular in the 70s as the host Whoopee Goldberg at four and Jack Lemon also at four So do you think it's better when it's hosted by a TV person rather than a movie person? I Think that helps because they're a little more Used to that kind of environment right then the movie stars are like, you know, they don't have they they're not Performing to a crowd they're performing to a camera and they get many tapes. Yeah And to do something live that's a lot or even if you're doing it on TV A lot of those people if you're not on a live show are still more used to teleprompters and that sort of thing So yeah, you can tell the people doing the presenting are just like, okay, what? Webster's dictionary defines cinematography as Well, I love it. There was I think one point in the Golden Globes this time when one of the presenters said who the hell's running a teleprompter Now if you have refused the Oscar writer Dudley Nichols in 1935 for the Informer It was all due to conflicts with the writers Guild apparently at the time there was some conflict going on George C. Scott in 1970 who won for Patton called the awards a meat parade And refused to attend Marlon Brando in 1972 for the godfather Because of the film industry's mistreatment of Native Americans and he sent Shaheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page screed at the awards on his behalf and this began both the I have a cause Winner speech and the play them off music Good for you And there's also concerns over bias that have cropped up again this year Oscars so white Yes, is it more an issue of the Oscar voters or Hollywood as a whole? Well, you know, I'm tending to think Hollywood as a whole since they they also are you know talking about the films that weren't nominated and how You know, it's because you know, these are the things I don't know if you saw there was a clip that one of the talk shows did about here's what you need to do To be a black movie to get an award, you know, you have to have at least one spiritual song There has to be references to slavery, you know, so Yep So, you know, it is kind of sad when there's a formula for winning an Oscar if you're a minority But I think there's a formula for winning an Oscar if you're white too, so well, yeah I mean certainly and we'll talk about this when we get into the nomination later But that the whole idea of you know, if the actor died if they if they're in their role They portrayed some sort of disability or or being ugly. Yeah. Yeah.  So yeah, there's absolutely a formula and as long as the the Oscar voter pool is Generally much older. Yeah, and that's going to be the case. Yeah, it'll always be older, right, but They'll have different prejudices in 20 years than they do now. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it So well right now you guys should look over the Oscar nominees and make your picks and then you can compare them to ours Right when we make our predictions in a couple weeks Yeah, in the meantime, you can check out our audio podcast how I got my wife treat comics on iTunes or on our website as a podcast network From the pop culture bunker. I'm Mindy and I'm mark. Thanks for watching