What's going on guys? Sam here with sports cards. Ripping to 2022, Don Russ football hobby, three box break, number 35, picker team style. Read off the list of our names and our teams. We've got Austin B with the Vikings, Carlos F, Bronco, CJD, Colts, Dallas P, Texans, Chargers, Dolphins, and Seahawks. Dante P with the Cowboys, Falcons, Jags, Bears, and Lions. Demetrious C, Bucks, Dylan B with the Saints and the Niners. Jeremiah B, Bills, Johnny A, Chiefs, Manny V, Giants, Matthew B with the Jets, Matthew G, Titans, Michael V, Eagles, Nathan J, Patriots, Nick L with the Commanders, Nicholas O, Steelers, Pascal R, Bengals Packers, Patrick M. Browns, Rafi B. Rams, Robert P with the Cardinals and Panthers, Sebastian B, Raiders, and Tyler D with the Ravens. Good luck here, guys. Let's do it. See something big. Let's see it. I'd love to give you some Ravens magic, Tyler. That'd be awesome. Picket the rookies, T. Higgins, and Quentin Nelson, Pressbrook. Eli, oh, there's Manny, CMC, and Traylon Burks. Manny, you're supposed to be taking a lift. Manny, until I just followed you on Instagram, I always thought that your name was Manny Snook, not Manny's Nook. I always read it the other way, but now I know. Yeah, change up. It's just for tonight. It's just for tonight. Just for tonight. The streaming setup is taken away to Boca Raton for a day. Drake London and Lagerius Snead to 75. Healing, send an empty box and wrapper. Sorry about that, Chiefs. Classic Don Russ, I thought. Yeah, I followed you. Let me get the follow back. That's understandable. Yeah, there. Understandable, for sure. Matt Stafford, Wade Walker. Yeah, it's hard to get a great view on here without like, you have to like tilt the cards like so far. Brady, Pickens Rookie, and Larry Johnson. That was brutal. Sam's good for about two quarters, I guess, for the team for the last two quarters. What's up? So you're good for about two quarters and the last two quarters you get the team. That's true, yeah. True, it's hard to, you know, carry the team for the first three quarters. It's a mere white-red Pressbrook, you get injured. That's why you're not great, Sam. That's why you're always being mediocre. Always being mediocre. Being the Hall of Very Good, not the Hall of Fame. Hall of Very Good. Derek Carr, Red Pressbrook. H-O-B-G's Hall of Very Good inscription. There's Malik Willis, Leather Kings, two 2.99, or 3.99 for the Titans. Nice one there. Malik Watt and Allie Barrett Tucker. Bailey's Happy Rookie. Trey Hendrixay and Pressbrook to 100 for the Bengals. So we'll be back to the normal streaming setup come Wednesday. Come Wednesday, Wednesday morning, Wednesday night. Tomorrow we'll be live from the SGC headquarters doing the first ever live grading during a break with SGC. That'll be a lot of fun.   Looking forward to that. Every auto will be graded on site. There's, oh God, who's that? T.Y. Hilton, that's who it is, Missing Nameplate. Yep, got me for a sec there. T.Y. Hilton tried to take me down, but he could not. Jerry Tillery did take me down, because that's a tough one. There's Malik Willis. The Rookie's Wanda, Derek Stingley, Tyler Boyd. Jonathan Greenard. Yeah, I could see it, Higley. Christian Watson. Reese Hall. And Mac Jones to 100. Franchise Futures. So annoying, dude. Sorry about that. If that happens any time, it's just because the plug gets a little messed up. Fred Taylor, nice one there. One of 25, legend series for the Jags. That's sick, dude. That is so cool. It's a great parallel. Nice one there, Jacksonville, Garrett Wilson. Fans of the game, Scott Hansen and Tila. The Rookie's, James Cook. Kyle Hamilton and Heinz Ward. Oh, we gotta do it. We'll do a random for the Hansen card at the end. My bad. We will do a random for that. You think I paid attention to him? No. I know, believe me, I know. Oh, Henny's got the backup and can too, lockdown. And he retired. Did he? Yeah. Oh, I didn't see that. The next thing, nameplate, is Kway Walker, I believe. Have you seen that just to pay attention? Yeah, it was like right after the Super Bowl. He was just like, yeah, I'm retiring. It's like, no, understandable. Go out on top. Maybe like a hundred million as a backup, probably. Desmond Ritter, the Rookie's. Trey McBride, Trey Lance. Oh, I didn't have a family or anything. Or just be like, yeah, keep paying me the travel. Yeah, honestly. The clipboard in my hand. Brian Robinson Jr., Red Press Group. Well, fun and games though, you have to go in. Well, Henny's got it. Yeah, true. Rod White, back press guy, two, four, 10. That is Drew Pearson, signature marks, 14 of 50. Couple of bets so far on our autos. James Cook Elite Series, the Bonsa. Sam Howell Bay's Rookie. Favre, your artillery, Red Press Group. Pierce Rookie. And Walker the Rookie's for the Seahawks. Kair Elan and Cordes, thick patch in here. So this is gonna be all about. It is Cooper Cup All-Pro Kings. That is two 100, 46 of 100 for the Rams. Reggie Wayne. Do you think you're running back just trying to get a little more appreciation in the hobby? Yeah, I would say so. Kenneth Walker. I feel like- And Tua, 275 on the Dica, actually not peeling. I feel like Walker and Pierce are like any meaning momentum as far as people want to buy their stuff. Yeah, I would say a little bit for sure. Olave, fans of the game, Chuck Norris. Jerry Judy. Aiden Hutchinson. Here's Strong Jr. and Paul Krauss. Brock Purdy based Rookie. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Because the QBs aren't great in this class. Aiden Hutchinson. So, Bonsa, I feel like the running backs are a little bit more appreciated. There are a lot of good running backs in this class, too. I'm watching Winnipeg versus Knights. Good game. Chub, Gonzalez, Jerry Tilley, Red. Vaughn, do you think that'll be a thing in the future or just running back from general will be more like a thing or is it just class-based? I think it's like 50-50.  Right. So, I think he personally will probably have a pretty big market. Calvin Austin. There's Joe Thomas. A little bit of damage on that to 100 for the Browns. Ding on the bottom left corner there. It's a Chris Godwin as well. Get an empty box and wrapper there for the Browns. They can't tell the difference between the right and the left. True. Ritter based Rookie. Holmes.  And then we're in a Box 3. Barry Sanders. All right. Right, yeah, I get that. True. Like I think Bajon will still have a pretty big following. I think outside of that because there's so many quarterbacks in this next draft. It's not gonna be as important. I mean, even like, if you look at like 21 when it was at its peak, like Chase and Waddle and Smith, everybody still wanted them too. Same with Najee. Like Najee was like the big running back in last class. It was, 21 was a pretty weak class outside of Najee in terms of running backs though. That makes sense. I'm not super familiar with how strong the class is. But I mean, he's like, the guy. I think there was a guy from UCLA and then a guy from like, Tiller Red. North Coster or something. That's what they were talking about. Gotcha. I know there's a couple of guys in there, like a couple of second rounders. I forget their names though. Yeah. Oh, ETN, ETN, yeah, ETN was good. I mean, I just forget ETN because he missed his entire, his entire like, yeah, Charbonnet or Charbonnet. Yeah. Nico Collins, but no, no, no. What's this? What's this called? ETN was fantastic. UCLA transfer from Michigan. There's Sam Howe. Is Blake Corum in this draft too? Oh yeah, Corum. I don't think he's in this one though. Blake Willis, press proof to 100. Nice. There you go. Titans. Corum's good. Corum's very good. Oh, Gibbs. That's what the other one was. I forget his first name. Yeah. Fair, fair, fair. No, ETN's very good too. I'm gonna start against the bottom drafts to see who's the... Corum's going back in this one. Jameer Gibbs, Jameer Gibbs. That's who it is. Jameer Gibbs, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Couldn't think of his first name, but yeah, that's super familiar. From Alabama. Damian Pierce, he's like another potential, like he's like a late first guy, I'm pretty sure. Jameer Gibbs. Yeah, he's a stud. Other boy. Really? Gibbs could go before the John. That's kind of wild actually. I find it hard to believe. Brady, Great Iron Kings. I feel like if a team really needs a running back high, they're gonna go the John over, kid. But again, I'm not part of the draft process, so what do I know? Yeah, seeing a new place. I know, I know. Open your sports car. Shostan Herbert, George Jersey Kings. 399 for the Chargers. Damian Pierce, Red Pressproof. We only got one jersey, two jerseys. We got three. Oh, oh, nine. Just hands. Malik Willis. And John Mechie, Gold Pressproof. 22 of 25, Peeling of course. Send an empty box and wrapper with that one. Come on. Like the one big downfall of Domino's. It's very, very, very steady, very solid product overall, but the Peeling on the die cuts, little too much. Youngest consensus first overall now, yeah. Kenneth Walker, Rookie, Maji Harris. Fun, you know why everyone's kind of shying away from Stroud? Yeah, what's the issue with Stroud? Does it all get off the field, please? J-mo, Rookie. J-mo, DraftKings. Doesn't it feel like... Coming outside the top seven?  There's Tony Romo missing name plate. The Cowboys, Drake London. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fans of the game. Oh, the cognition test, that's right. Who's that? What is that exactly? I know he scored super low. Like the lowest out of anybody is like by a mile. Carson Strong, David Ajabo. His test scores, yeah. Jerry Tillery, Red. Yeah, true. I feel like if you're in a win now situation though, like if you're a team like the Eagles, who have a high pick via like a trade, you can afford to take Pajon and I know you're only gonna get four years out of them. Right. You know what I mean? Cause you're building this build. Convinceration in this time. Erica Zucconma. Jamar Chase to 81. Okay, so just like kind of quick vision making. Yeah, Garrett Wilson, he did horrible on those though. Like... Skylar Thompson, Rated Rookie Auto for the Dolphins. Like horrible on it. The cognitive is like just, that I don't know like the proper definition of the word, to be honest with you. And Steve Young. All right, let's do this random for the Scott Hansen base real quick. One, two, three, four, all. Start now. Lovely. Can't wait to hear it. So the first time in the 23 NFL season, seven hours of commercial free. Who's 22? Is that Jimmy Butler? Yes. He's Twittering. Whoa. Oh, please. They believe them. All right. Again, guys, gonna roll the dice. Whatever teams on top after nine times, we'll get the Scott Hansen card. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine. Going to the Chiefs. Chiefs getting the Scott Hansen. Do a quick recap here as well. I also heard that and I'd be totally okay with it. Justin Herbert, Cooper Cup, Malik Willis, Scholar Thompson, Drew Pearson, and Fred Taylor. That'll do it for the break guys. Thanks again for the film. Next up, Obsidian, random division style.


Today's episode is sponsored by The Dark Room. Film stock reviews. I've done quite a few of them over the years, but I never thought I'd be doing one quite like this, especially on my f**king day off. Passive aggressive rage issues aside, let's just get into it. While they finally did it, after many years of begging, they finally released a color film. Ilford, sorry, no, not Ilford. Harman Phoenix 200, a brand new color negative film rated at 200 ISO concocted entirely on site at the Harman Technologies Factory, which for decades has only ever produced black and white film, paper, and other factory stuff. But how does this new color film affect LeBron's legacy? Let's find out. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to shoot a couple of pre-production roles to see what this film stock is all about from the perspective of a serious straight edge photographer. Don't really need these windshield nipples anymore, I guess. So I hopped on the midlife crisis mobile and headed up the coast of California. I count F2 and Phoenix 200 in tow. I stopped in Los Alamos, California, which is just like Los Alamos, New Mexico, except instead of nuclear testing, it's weddings mostly, so I'm not really like Los Alamos, New Mexico at all. Though I did still throw up. The film stock looks a little different at first glance. The physical base of the film itself is yellow, quite a bit like retro-chrome, vario-chrome, and old ectochrome stocks of the past, but those are color positive films, whereas this is a color negative film. Keep that in mind as we'll touch on that later, unless I forget. Anyway, after a quick toilet check for inspiration, I had struck gold, and I elected to cower in the bathtub to get a photo of the bathroom. Okay, so I'm starting to notice a trend here for sure. Phoenix is very warm, likely daylight balanced too, which I don't think personally is a bad thing. I like the shot quite a bit, actually it's warm and cozy. So first, real impressions of this stock. Damn, it's caked up with bloom. Hard to ignore, honestly. You can certainly try, but that doesn't change the fact it ain't going nowhere. It's actually a halation. This film stock does not have an anti-halation layer, to get those out of focus blobs of light around bright hotspots quite a bit. Cynestel 800T is another stock that features halation, but in my experience, the Cynestel halation is more red and overall less aggressive, whereas the halation on Phoenix straight up whores itself out to any extra light it can find. I mean, this photo, it kind of looks like the biggest nuke ever made, the Sar Bomba, literally just exploded in the background of the shot.  It's a style, and it can work, depending on what you're going for, but I personally find it distracting in a lot of these shots. In town, as I wandered around, looking for the light, both metaphysically and literally, I met Robert, a local film photographer, and we got to chatting. Robert, if you're watching this, I am sorry that I straight up lied to you about having HP5 in my camera, but then again, I was under NDA.  Let's talk about it. There's a lot of it. This is a very contrasty film, no question about it. High contrast in this case means you get really popping colors and a pretty crunchy image overall, but it also means you have like three to four stops of dynamic range. So in that way, it's kind of like slide film. Could you get past the extreme contrast by pulling the film? Maybe. Probably not. To pull film, you need to overexpose and under develop, which may result in more glowy halation up front. After I was done shooting I went to the only place in town that was open. Sorry about the lighting, by the way. It's pretty romantic in here. I asked for a pizza to go. They gave me a large.  So I'll probably have to eat some of it tomorrow morning. Yep. Just housed that entire pizza. Anyway, that night I picked up some pizza and beer, sat down in my hotel room and started to ponder the big question. Ah, geez. What about poo? No, not that. But actually, why would Ilford, sorry. No, not Ilford, Harman. I gotta stop making that mistake. Why would Harman produce a color film now? I mean, I can only imagine making color film is quite a bit different than making black and white film. It's not like one day they were looking at the manual for their coating machine and discovered it has a switch you can turn on for color. Or, I don't know, maybe that is how it happened.  I flew all the way to the UK and sat down in the very lab where Phoenix was born with the Harman Research and Development Team to discuss where the hell this new color negative film stock even came from. And no, that's not blood on their lab coats. I mean, at least it's probably not. I don't know, these two kept dodging that question. I'm Matty Colfor, I'm a research scientist. Yeah, I'm Peter Dodd and I'm a research scientist at Harman Technology. I've been here almost seven years now. A lot of our work is mostly changing the film so that we can keep to regulations and keep selling it. The end goal is, when you guys go and shoot it, you don't notice a difference. In terms of new projects, there's not a massive number of things so when this came along, it was hugely exciting.  They don't do anything down there and we were working on this, obviously, huge project. For us, it started with a workshop meeting where we discussed the idea and then it went quiet for a while or probably just over a year now. It came back to us again. So we want to do a core film. We want to see, can we do it with the things that we have readily and quickly available to us? The consensus is very much, have a crack. See where you end up. The start and formulation, I pulled completely out of it pretty much. What did you both study in school? Chemistry. Chemistry too, yeah. Did you pass? Yeah. So can you start by saying your name and a title of the company? Sure, I'm Giles Branthwaite. I'm Sales and Marketing Director here at Harman.  Why are you not doing a colour film? And then we realised actually, you know what, we've probably won the few guys in the world who've got all the capability in-house. Now, what can we do? Then it's about, well, can we then get that optimised? Can we actually get that on a production line? The coating line that we have is that you would have to go through the coating line so many times that the economics never really stacked up because obviously you've got yield loss every time you run it through a random... You know, in parallel to what can we do, we just started looking at that a little bit more detail and challenged a few things and maybe that's how we got where we are. So we use XP2, which is used by colour couplers, instead of basing it on silver, basing it on dye clouds. Yeah, so I think the first major steps was taking the emotions that we already have, redying it to separate areas of light, so the red, the green and the blue, bundle the couplers to separate cyan, magenta and yellow and combining that with all the other sort of gubbins that goes into colour film, like the filter layers and interlayers. It's a scientific term, right? The first main issues we had with the very first versions of the film were mostly physical, so we had massive cases of slide waves. That had zero red sensitivity. We ended up using a completely different dye and version four of the colour film was a full RGB colour film. What was the general consensus when you first saw your first rolls?  It was... Holy s***! Call that! The shot is very punchy, and that's not a post-effect. I've noticed that the colour green really pops nicely on Phoenix. It's almost slightly reminiscent of that infamous Fujifilm green that is highly regarded these days. Have you shot Phoenix yet? You have, yeah. Mixed results.  Wet, rainy day. Yeah, every day in Manchester, yeah, yeah. It's good on greens, isn't it? It's very vivid and bright on the greens, so I got some really nice stuff coming back. I've shot about five rolls of Phoenix at this point, so, yeah, the film itself is that contrasty. So here are a couple unsolicited tips for Phoenix from a guy who just said unsolicited tips out loud and didn't make a joke about it. For starters, I actually like to shoot Phoenix at 160 ISO to protect for the shadows. They just fall off super hard on this film stock, like this video's engagement after 10 seconds.  You said that the ISO on Phoenix was like 120.5 or something? Yeah, mathematically, yeah. Where did the decision to make a 200 come in? I think it was mostly from the people that were more knowledgeable taking pictures. So they went out and shot it out of loads of different ISO settings on the camera from like 50, 100, 200, all the way up to about 800, maybe even 16. It gives good images across the whole, good images across the whole range. I think they felt in terms of where to sell at 200 is probably the best sort of the sweet spot, if you will. Lab scans of this stock look solid, but alternatively, if it's available to you, I'd recommend home scanning and then using negative lab pro on the lowest contrast profile, which is linear flat. Oftentimes I even have to take the contrast down from there after the fact as well. Definitely lean into this stock's strengths with the white balance as well. I typically use auto-warm, standard or sinny tee. This stock definitely has a tendency to have a little bit of a shrek green cast as well. So you can also pump in a little bit of magenta to get it out of the swamp, so to speak. Well, I don't think you have any advice with people shooting paintings for the first time. Besides rated at 123.5. Slap it in a camera and take some pictures. Well, it's your oyster, yeah. It's a completely new film and it's not like any other color film out there. It doesn't have a color mask. There's no anti-halation. So it's different. I think it's a really creative film and it's an opportunity to just experiment, try different things and get different looks. It's totally different from anything out there. So I want people to really enjoy and see where it takes them. That's the joy of photography, isn't it? Anyway, after my motorcycle got hit on and by proxy me, I guess.  Oh yeah, I wish. I cruised up to the bay for some rest and relaxation with the family and friends. But after my friends roasted me half to death for looking like a guy in a leather gim suit on the bike, I was tired of running off to the bathroom to cry so I bounced out onto my next location. After a quick bathroom check that yielded nothing but internal sadness for whichever interior designer put that unfotographical abomination together, it was time to slam in some more Phoenix 200 that I'd be rocking at 160 ISO this go around. Right outside the motel was a car wash and I shot this, which I think is pretty good. I mean, look at those colors. I know Maddie and Peter from R&D said the original formulas didn't have red sensitivity, but damn, did they figure that out for sure. At this point, whilst out dodging seagulls and their animalistic passion for photographers with expensive cameras, I felt like I was starting to get the hang of Phoenix. You truly never know exactly what you're gonna get with it, but when it works, it works well. So when it was described to us, when we used to take your color film, we used to take it into super snaps and you used to have to put your film in and wait like two weeks for your photographs to come back. If you compare those photographs from the 70s to what Joseph's giving you, the look like on a par with each other, the going back to the, oh, remember the photographs. So that's what they're trying to capture. Does it actually look like vintage 70s style film? I couldn't tell you, because I was negative 21 years old at that point and don't remember much.  Warmth is definitely a strong suit for this stock, which is perfect for me, because I lean all my photographic work quite warm overall.   I don't know if you can hear that, but there's like a ton of sequels in this town. After the sun went down, I shot this, which may be a portfolio shot. I really like it. Despite the grain being more prominent than the ads on my videos. Blu-R might even be a bit of a cheat code for this film stock, because the light is nice and even. Though shooting at 160 ISO with a slow lens can be a bit limiting at this time of day. To be fair, I do think this film stock would benefit quite a bit from a larger film format like 120. Not only would the grain be visibly reduced due to the overall scale of the image, but the radius of the halation would also be reduced, which might be quite pleasing overall. Would it change much the range of... Why did they know you were going to bring up the phone like that? This stock is for all intents and purposes a first pass of color for Ilford, Harman. Sorry, one day I'll get that right. And perhaps one day they'll get Phoenix right. Not that it's like awful or anything right now, but when I was over there talking to the team, it really felt like they had a wish list of things they'd like to improve upon for Phoenix. They probably felt that way because that's literally what they said to me. So many things to change, so many things I'm not happy about. Fixing the contrast, color masking, so the color reproduction's better. Which is, I've seen people use overfilms, I think it's Kodak HIE, and the halation on that looks amazing. Some people do like it. Yeah, I feel like I'm a bit of contrarian. It's like, you know, it'd be nice to have a range of ices from 100, 200, 400, maybe even faster. But more importantly from all this, it's important to understand what this endeavor means to the film community as a whole, that a major film producer is attempting to enter the color negative arena and legitimately give it a go with all the resources and infrastructure available to them is a major thing to applaud if you ask me. Color film is a market that's dominated by one major player, and the fact that Harman, hey look at that, I finally got it right, is willing to invest in concocting a color film from the ground up is worth supporting. Competition is good. Phoenix is coming in hot at about $14 a roll for now, which is a little bit pricey if you ask me. But if I had to guess, perhaps it's to cover some of the overhead needed to build a color film from literally nothing, except dreams, I guess. And it sounds like the money from this film stock will be recycled into future iterations. You can think about it as being a small part of a bigger movement if you'd like, up to you. After all, there is no I in color, only a you if you spell it wrong and you're British. When you look at how far we were 12 months ago, how much we've learned since it's crazy. There's a lot of emulsion work that needs to be done and we just see where that goes. We're not giving up on black and white. In terms of what we do from an R&D perspective, clearly there's a big color project. There's going to be a high emphasis on color, understandably in terms of R&D, but yeah, there's a whole load of other things that we need to do, we want to do. As of right now, Phoenix is only available in 35 millimeter, but what about other formats? Well, I think 110 would be for psychopaths or a sissy Lou. I guess you can never rule out 120 in large format. I'd like to see it go into 120, yes, because what people show interest in, we're quite accommodating that we'll, we want a bit of that, we'll try that. Can you do this? And if there's a call for it, I'm sure they will develop it into a bigger, yeah. Develop it? Yeah. Develop it? Oh, well done. Which could mean 120 down the line. I mean, who knows? Anything's possible. And their marketing team wouldn't tell me anything, despite how hard I tried to pry it out of them. Maybe next time I should cry to see what that gets me. I can't talk about it. I figured. Phoenix 8x10? When's that happening? Can't talk about it. What would you like to see in the future from Phoenix? Oh, I don't want to give away the whole roadmap plan, but a nice try then asking. Damn. We'll be doing what we can when we can, and we'll be iterating this, evolving it, as we learn more and we develop more. Absolutely, that's our desire. Phoenix is coming out December 1st. Last year, around December time, we got Kent Mirror in 120. Does that mean every December we're going to get something new? Never say never. No, it's not, it's not intentional. I can promise you that now. Regardless, I think we're lucky to have Phoenix as it is right now. And getting to speak to the people over at Harmon, who have been in the trenches working hard to get this film realized over the past couple of years, was nothing short of inspiring, especially after seeing the excitement internally at the company that something new and quite different was on the way. And I've got a lot of friends who shoot film, and they always, always come to me and they're like, you know what, why don't we do color? And we're just like, oh, it's too hot. I'm excited for December. Oh yeah, definitely. We're all just custodians, really, of Ilford. It's 145 years old next year, which is just mad, isn't it? One of the senior managers said today that in his whole time here, and he's been here 25, 30 years, he doesn't recall anything as big as this as an opportunity in terms of projects. For all the people who survived and stayed in this company over the last 20, 30 years, this is, you know, like a big thank you for this. All the legacy that they've managed to sustain we're now building on top of and growing from, which is great. When I first heard we were going to make color, I was like, wow, wow. Because I've worked here 40 years and I've never been involved in color film. And you're like, tell me more, when are we going to do it? When are we going to do it? It's like the thing.  So having this now like this legacy of starting this while we're here and then taking it on further. It's kind of the very start. Yeah, absolutely. It's an identity. Something to be proud of, something to work for. I don't know if that's a print. Words, really. It's just, it's special, yeah. If you're wondering who developed all of the Phoenix in this video, I'd like to point you in the direction of today's sponsor, The Dark Room. Do you have a top secret photography project that you need developed? Don't we all? Well, look no further than The Dark Room, a professional lab trusted by many big names in the film photography industry to deliver your work right on schedule and the highest quality the industry can provide. Clean, simple, straightforward and easy by a team that houses decades of industry experience. It's the only lab that I can trust to get my film done on time all the time. And I personally recommend to all my friends getting started in film photography to use them as well because of their wide selection of customization. With a team of professionals using dip and dunk film processors followed up with high quality Noritsu film scanners that use advanced color algorithms. You can have the film look in any size you want. Super scans look amazing. Every role will be handled as if it's the most important work of your own photographic career yet. And I love the fact that I can count on The Dark Room to deliver. I never have time to do anything, much less run errands. So I just fill out the online Dark Room order form, write my order number down, drop the roles in the free mailer that they send you, seal it up and toss it in my nearest mailbox. The rest is taken care of. From that point on, all I have to do is wait for that email that your scans have come in or your negatives have been mailed back to you. And that's why I've been using The Dark Room for four or five years now because of their simple yet effective workflow to submit roles of film from the comfort of my own home. If you have an order of film ready to go, head over to TheDarkRoom.com to get started or simply download The Dark Room app today. So there it all is. A new color film from Ilford, I mean, Harman. I thought I got past all that. Harman Technology, Phoenix 200. Personally, I actually kind of like this stock and that's not me sucking up to Harman. They probably already hate me at this point in the video. I can see how Phoenix might not be for everyone. It might be viewed as a bit more of a creative stock by a lot of people. It's not quite on the level of professional line color film but you gotta start somewhere, right? And we can rest a little bit easy knowing that there's a team at the Harman factory ready and willing to drum up new possibilities for this film stock going forward. I actually like how warm it is overall. It makes those sunset photos really pop with orange light. The trade-off is you just have to be a little careful with the exposure. If you think of it like slide film and then shoot it as such, I bet you'll be pretty pleased with the results or not, I don't know what you're into. Probably some weird that I don't wanna know about. I do think my hit rate for photos on Phoenix was definitely in the same ballpark for any other film stock I shoot. And at the end of the day, Phoenix certainly looks different than any other color film on the market. So go pick up a roll and join the cause or don't. I don't really care what you do. Just leave me out of it. And finally, I'll leave you with this fleeting thought. Last year in 2022, when Harman produced Kent Mirror in 120, I made this statement in my video. But to me, in a way, it kind of feels like a ceiling has been hit. It's hard to imagine where Ilford could potentially go with new black and white film stocks. So I guess what I'm saying is maybe it's time to do color. So now that that's come to fruition, I guess I should cap out this video by saying this. It's really hard to imagine now where Harman could go from here with new color film. So I don't know, Harman. Maybe now it's time to do color infrared.


So, right now we can, for about a thousand euros, get sequence of human genome, and we can sequence, as I've mentioned, bacterial genomes for really just dollars. So what do we do with that information? Well, sequencing the genome isn't really understanding it. So for example, if we have three billion letters in a human genome, HCTG, it's hard to know what those mean. The red one here is actually tells us whether or not you can drink milk as an adult. The blue ones are actually chimpanzee locations. So none of us would know that. We don't know why those are in chimpanzee or if they have any meaning, but that's the challenge is to try to read the sequence, which we can come out at an amazing rate. Okay, so what's in the sequence? Well, there's nine billion base pairs, there's 30,000 genes, and genes code for proteins or RNA that do things, or the building blocks of the cells and the tools. In addition, there's about three million or so regulatory elements that control when, where, how much, and under what conditions those genes are expressed. Now the gene products, which we don't fully understand yet, are tools. So some tools we understand, some we know what the tool is, we don't know what its purpose is, sometimes we don't know what the tool is and we know its purpose, and sometimes we have no clue. So this is a real challenge right now in the next couple of years that will allow us to crystallize our knowledge about gene function and then understand the genome. Now of course, we're all familiar with nature and nurture, and a newly minted genetically identical organism is going to have a different experience, different environments, and that's going to change its properties. But we can understand that, as we have for a number of years, because it's really just thinking about the probability or the likelihood that some particular attribute will be manifest. Okay, so we have all this information. A lot of it is actually, it's stuck in scientific papers, and I've been involved in the last few years of figuring out ways to officially get all that information out into a computable form. High throughput experiments with big factories, like the sequencing but other things, generate data that actually go right into the databases, and then we can design experiments, you know, handcrafted experiments to do that. Genes don't act alone, so you can imagine a genetic variance that on their own don't do anything, but put together can confer an amazing talent, like making glass and metal float. We understand those, but there's maybe half a billion potential genetic interactions considered pair-wise. The other thing we can do, though, is we build up our understanding of genetic reactions, is use the fact of evolutionary divergence and conservation, and realize that we can study in one organism that there are connections between two genes in, say, fruit fly and in a roundworm, and then we can predict what those interactions are in the human, and that's very powerful. Okay, so we can read genomes and derive some understanding. In the last year, it's been very inexpensive now to edit the genome of virtually any organism. So that allows us to tweak small aspects of the genetic program and also to test experiments about what those sequences mean. And we also can write genomes, but it's a little more expensive, and the challenge, though, is to think about is what do we want to write? Okay, we know about metabolic engineering, and we can program, and we'll continue to do that, to program bacteria to give them sugar and ammonia, so carbon and nitrogen, and turn out valuable products. You know, that's the basis of biotechnology, and it's been around for 100 years. Okay, we can also get a little more complicated and design biological circuits, where, for example, we can have various implementations of a circuit that would compare two inputs, alpha and beta, and determine whether that cell would generate a heart or a lung. Okay, and those can be implemented, and you sort of have mutual inhibition among the two components. Okay, now if you want to scale that up, you have the problem of composability. In the computer industry, which has really solved this problem with integrated circuits and then VLSI, you can use the same component over and over again, and various people in the world are now figuring out ways in which you can take the same biological circuit and keep it separate and stick it in different places in the cell. Okay, where do we really go with this in the long run? Well, imagine not a magic bean, but you could plant a seed and you could get a chair or a house. We're starting to know enough about plant development and to think about programming those. Okay, so that's one thing I'd like you to imagine. The other thing you can imagine is you can manipulate and engineer consortia of organisms, like bacteria and transparent roundworms are my favorite, and, for example, try to get help the desert bloom or convert a red planet, like Mars, into a green one. Okay, those are going to be really long-term goals, but we can start to think about how to do it. It's not, you know, it doesn't require any new concepts, right? It does require some engineering. Okay, where are we in 2014? We're poids for an explosion. Because the knowledge, even though we're still accumulating it, is crystallized so that we can, it's crystallizing. So I think a little more knowledge, and we're going to be able to read the genomes, so that will enable personalized medicine that we've heard about at this conference, and I'm sure you're all familiar with, and, you know, a vast new playground of biotechnology. Thanks.


What is going on guys welcome back to channel critical overload here So we've been covering several more topics in this video here today scream six will be covering that Halloween ends Nope, and saw X and accept some tidbits about saw X and what you have to look forward to with that movie So starting off with scream sick going back over some comments that Neve Campbell made when she was speaking with People magazine about her departure She's also stated that she reached out to Courtney Cox and Melissa Barrera and the directors to tell them how sorry I was that I wasn't going to be there and that she loves them And she hopes that they have a good experience and they were very understanding. She says she says very supportive and also sad She says now I will say this about that Hopefully Gail Weathers will have a bigger role in this entry that just blows what she brought to the table in 4 and 5 out of the water because I want screen fans to be able to see that Gail is very important to the story as well And I want people to just see That she can carry this movie without Sydney. She's I'm not saying Gail is much more important to the narrative Then Sydney has been but Gail is an important final girl apart of this puzzle as well and Courtney Cox deserves our support as well And it's clear going off of what we've seen from behind the scenes She'll have minor beef with the Carpenter's for whatever reason but hopefully that ends in them taking down gold space together as a unit And I just think Gail in a bigger role will be enough for those fans that come for the OG's not all but some To go out and say you know what I'll support it just for Gail and we can explore character a bit more Hopefully Gail Weathers gets those first couple of phone calls that we've been dying to have her here with Ghostface give her some more clever unique Memorable chase scenes something like that that you get so people just how important Gail is to the narrative Just as Sydney is in her absence And I want to talk about Halloween ends now going into this next topic here We're going to speak about what John Carpenter has had to say about the score John Carpenter has stated that he's proud of Halloween ends and the work that was done on the soundtrack So this gives an indication that the soundtrack is ready and complete He went back over older comments saying that it's different than the previous entries Which we can agree on due to the Corey Cunningham narrative He also restated that if this next outing makes money that Michael Myers will return and this won't be The last time or the end he said that there's a way when a movie makes money It basically resurrects the next one I want to shout out to Dark Universe for discovering this latest interview with Carpenter Halloween ends has also been officially rated R for bloody horror violence and gore Languished throughout in some sexual references nothing any of us should be shocked at of course And just to speak to John Carpenter's score Carpenter's score in this trilogy has been one of the highlights So say what you will about the overall quality But Carpenter's score never misses and only adds to the terror on screen no matter what you feel David Gordon Green has done with this new iteration of Halloween Carpenter's score has been a standout and I can't wait to hear those first few tracks from it And I also have another standalone video coming out today talking about Laura Strowd and Michael Myers because now We know that one of them will indeed die. It was confirmed over on the halloween movies website So I can't wait to talk about that But I know that people just think that when it comes to this new timeline that David Gordon Green A lot of people think he's done a horrible job A lot of people think that 2018 was okay kills was a major step down And a lot of stuff that we're hearing about ends has some people like I don't want to see anything from this man Touching halloween again. I don't want to see any more comedians touching halloween And I get it halloween ends could end up still being something that's a cohesive and solid and effective end but a lot of people myself included think that this is going to be a big disappointment in a lot of ways and a big Departure from what we should have done Because again jar carbiter reiterated this in a new latest interview and I'll leave links to that in the description So i'm going to talk about jordan peels. Nope pierce I want to shout out jordan peel because nope has officially passed a hundred million dollars at his domestic box office Which makes him three for three in that department as well The budget for the movie according to bloody disgusting was reportedly 68 million So that means the movie needs another 100 million or so before it is profitable Once it releases outside the states, I think it will achieve that easily Uh, nope was again another great another great film from the mind of jordan peel I do prefer his smaller scale original movie we got in 2017 get out of course And I like how he seems to be going bigger with each entry But I think the more he does that he'll eventually get to that first dud And although some people say he's already had his first dud with us or his first dud With nope or his first dud was get out because not everyone was a fan of get out But I hope that he continues to thrive and shine in the horror genre And I'm glad this movie has made a hundred million domestically and I can't wait to see what his next Social commentary inspired horror movie will be and what the directions and what his imagination will allow him to do Going into whatever it is that he does next I know some people still are coming out of nope like that was pointless There was no real message to it that they were able to understand Again the movie's overall theme is about our obsession with spectacle and the links we will go to To achieve these spectacles and how far we will go to again gain attention from From views or gain attempt not not views but profit off of something that will garner a lot of views Like how they were obsessed with capturing that image of gene jack, which was the ufo creature Uh, it had a lot to say about hollywood and how crew members are not always acknowledged the way they should be A lot of cool things were in in that movie. No, but I'm Shocked that it I'm not shocked, but I'm glad it ended up on my favorite of the year list The last thing we need to talk about is saw x so saw x we know is a future entry that is coming And expected to have tobin bell back since the plan is for that to be a john krimmer centric film once again And I've done a video in the past discussing a user over on the saw subreddit vink 360 Who people seem to go to for reliable info about the upcoming project? And I also mentioned how the movie is rumored to be taking place in between earlier saw movies with john krimmer Traveling to europe potentially Viewer not as you see here on your screen recently tweeted that saw x is looking to shoot within the next three months in mexico They also stated that they've heard a name of a director, but they didn't reveal So they don't want to jinx it now I will say the name that I've heard as for who will be potentially Directing saw x is kevin grudert Kevin grudert I believe is the one responsible for a lot of the editing in previous saw movies and he directed Saw six and saw 3d some of the entries that I know people say are there some of their favorites I've seen people say that that's some of their favorites. That's not any of my favorites But if he is the one that's actually directing saw six Not saw six if he's the one actually directing saw x will eventually learn that sooner or later And we'll see if they actually start filming out in mexico within these next three months as viranon has stated And we'll probably of course learn more things along the way like who's in the cast and what the story will be overall because at this point again The rumor is it's going to be set in between earlier entries with john krimmer at the center And it's going to be exploring him traveling to europe potentially or maybe even a different location if they're going to still shoot in mexico Maybe they won't be placed in Europe, but it might still have to do something with john krimmer traveling I'm assuming it's related to the cancer that he has But let me know what you guys think about all this down in the comment section below if you haven't already Of course, make sure you subscribe turn on post indication there is a video in the description I'll have links on social media accounts on facebook twitter and instagram you can message me there Of course, let me see any movies and zero views let me to cover in the future with all that in my guys I will see you in the next video


All right, Twitter and the FTC. So, God, the FTC is another one of those regulatory agencies that has immense power and immense control and how much it exerts that power and exerts that control really depends on the chairman. And right now we have a chairwoman, Lynna Kahn, who is a particularly nasty, you know, former fascist, particularly nasty in a sense that she believes that everything should be controlled from above, everything should be controlled by the state. She's a real central planner. She's a big believer in breaking up big tech and using antitrust to go after them. And anyway, there's a story out that just came out from a Judiciary Committee panel on kind of the weaponization of the different agencies about the FTC targeting Elon Musk. And it's interesting because the Wall Street Journal makes the case that Republicans pay attention because it is just Harley, the Senator, a Republican Senator, who has argued for a while now that the FTC should have more power. The FTC should be given more power to control media, particularly social media platforms. Beware of what you ask for. Beware of what you ask for, right? She is a Republican, right? A Republican advocating for more power to the FTC and has been for a long time using, with the hope that, of course, they dominate, a negative point of people at the FTC, and then the FTC gets to do their bidding. But when a Democratic president is in power, the FTC gets to do his bidding. All right, so it turns out the FTC is talking to Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter, that he has stuff kind of progressive, as you'd expect. You've already probably read about a lot of this, but what came out yesterday, I guess, which was particularly interesting and scary, is that the FTC, and I'm reading here from the Wall Street Journal editorial, the FTC wants to identify all journalists granted access to company records. This is Twitter company records, including, quote, nature of access granted each person, unquote. It is also asked, and continue to quote from the Wall Street Journal, it is also asked if Twitter had conducted background checks on the journalists, among other things. So, again, this is the Wall Street Journal. Here we have a federal agency demanding that a private company disclose its interactions with a free press, including how much it snooped on those reporters. And just because none of this is the business of government. The government has no business in figuring out what reporters did or didn't do, private companies did or didn't do. There's no argument of fraud here. So what is the government intervening here? This is a clear potential violation of free speech, but this is just government snooping around in the files of Twitter trying to find bad stuff, trying to identify, quote, bad journalists. For what? None of this is relevant. None of this is the government's business, but this is what happens when you give regulatory agencies, agencies of the executive branch, basically unlimited power or undefined unlimited power, where the limitation in the power might be, in some bureaucrats had, some bureaucrats might believe that these agencies are supposed to be limited. But effectively, effectively, they are unlimited. There was no, oops, looking at the wrong cable, trying to connect the cable with a plug. Not going well, yep, wrong one. Another time. All right, it's scary, scary kind of stuff happening. And this is just one agency, one little item. The FTC is doing a lot of nastiness. There's a lot of nastiness that has to do with Twitter. You know, the left is using the fact that they have the machinery of power to go after their political opponents, just as Republicans do. I think the left is better at this though, but Republicans are getting better, and Josh Hawley is kind of leading the charge at getting better at using the machinery of government, including their various alphabet agencies to go after one's enemies. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Brook show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to www.uranbrookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals, and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.


G. Co. Levine E. Whos in the gallery? Thank you. We now move to First Minister's Questions question 1. Kezia Dugdale. Do you ask the First Minister, other than the important matter of the tennis, what engagement she has planned for the rest of the day? First Minister. Engagements to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland and, hopefully, Fingers Crossed, celebrating an Andy Murray victory in the tennis. Kezia Dugdale. On 25 February last year, the school's minister, Alasdair Allan, said that a small minority of pupils would be sitting the old higher this year. This week, we learnt that almost half of Scotland's pupils will be sitting the old higher. What's gone wrong? First Minister. Nothing has gone wrong. What has happened is that teachers have been given the flexibility in the timetable for delivery of curriculum for excellence that Kezia Dugdale once asked for. Curriculum for excellence is founded on professional judgement and it's right that decisions take account of local circumstances. Schools are able to use this flexibility to phase in the new qualifications in the way that best serves the interests of pupils. This flexibility was warmly welcomed when it was given by teacher unions and indeed by opposition politicians. This is the only year in which dual running of the exams will be permitted, but given the importance of ensuring proper implementation, I thought that that would have been something that Kezia Dugdale and her colleagues would have welcomed. Kezia Dugdale. I would accept it was Mike Russell who told this chamber that I do not believe that any teacher in Scotland who has the right support, the right help and the right leadership cannot rise to the challenge and deliver the conclusion of a programme that has been eight years in the making. There is real concern from parents, teachers and pupils across Scotland and we know that from the past, when there is a problem in our education system, it's the kids from the poorest backgrounds who suffer the most. It's worrying that the schools minister clearly didn't know what was going on with the higher system, hopefully the First Minister will know what's going on with the appeals system. Last year the SNP Government started to charge for exam appeals. Freedom of information responses to Scottish Labour showed that for state pupils, the money for an appeal must come from either the school budget or the council budget. We all know that money is tight, but for private school pupils, parents can pay for the appeals themselves. Can the First Minister tell us whether the number of exam appeals from state school pupils has gone up or down in the last year? Consistency clearly isn't Labour's strong suit this week. On the issue of dual running of exams, Labour has raised an important question for pupils and parents across the country, so let me give an answer to the question. It is worth pointing out that it is not that long ago, 12 September 2014, to be precise, when Kezia Dugdale said that the timescale for implementation of the new exams was too fast.  She then cited the introduction of standard grades and said that that had been over 10 years, presumably implying that she thought that that was a more appropriate timescale for the implementation of the new exams. Now that we are seeing teachers and schools using the flexibility that they have been rightly given, Kezia Dugdale turned round and said that the implementation timetable is too slow. It almost puts the hypocrisy on fracking into the shade. Kezia Dugdale wants to quote teachers. Let me quote Larry Farrigan, the general secretary of the EIS. He said that this is a sensible approach that will enable teachers to use their best judgment in deciding which option is in the best interests of their pupils. If that is what teachers have to say, I do not quite know why Kezia Dugdale takes a different view on the issue of appeals. We have put in place a system that is right and proportionate in terms of appeals to give young people the best opportunity of fulfilling their potential at school. I have said previously on a whole range of subjects. If on this issue Kezia Dugdale wants to bring forward some suggestions for improvements, I will be willing to listen. However, not for the first time, I will be waiting a long, long time for Labour to come up with anything constructive. Kezia Dugdale wants to quote Larry Farrigan, the general secretary of the EIS. He said that the appeals should be based upon the professional judgment of teachers rather than on the wishes of parents. What is now happening is fundamentally wrong. The First Minister does not have a clue what the answer to my question was, so let me tell her. The reality is that, since the SNP started to charge, the number of state school pupils appeals has fallen by 55,000. Even if you factor in the fall in the number of exams, that is a drop of more than 75 per cent in just one year. Good exam results can be the difference between a pupil going on to university or not. For disadvantaged kids in particular, this can be a deal-breaker, so let me ask the First Minister another question. Since the SNP started charging for appeals, has the number of appeals from private school kids fallen at a faster or slower rate than for state school pupils in Scotland? First Minister, I am surprised that Kezia Dugdale does not want to focus on what I thought would be the real success story, not of government but of pupils across the country. There was a record number of higher passes in Scotland in 2014, almost 4,000 more than in 2013. We are introducing rightly and properly curriculum for excellence in a new system of exams and yes, changes to the way in which appeals are applied for and processed. We will continue to make sure that we respond to the experience of all that so that we continue to do what we have been doing each and every year that we have been in government. That is taking the action that needs to be taken to ensure that our young people get the best possible education and get the best possible chance to pass the exams that give them the best chance in life. There was a day when Labour would have supported that, but as on so many other issues, Labour has moved beyond and away from its very basic principles. Once again, the First Minister has not got a clue. The truth is that the proportion of appeals from privately educated pupils is now double that of state kids. The system now favours private school pupils more than ever before. Patients of private school pupils can buy their kids a second chance. Patients of private school pupils can put their hands in their pockets to help their kids, but state school pupils cannot. It is no wonder that just 220 kids from the poorest background in Scotland get the grades needed to make it to our top universities. The SNP's record on educational inequality is clear for all to see. Teacher numbers down by more than 4,000, appeals for state pupils plummeting by 55,000, kids from the poorest backgrounds being left behind. People in Scotland simply want to know, is this the fairer Scotland that the First Minister promised? In spite of what Kezia Dugdale has just said, 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas are more likely to be accepted to university under the SNP. UCAS stats show that the percentage of 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas accepted to university is up from 6.4 per cent under Labour to 8.9 per cent in 2013, an increase of 2.5 per cent. Can I say very clearly to this entire chamber and to this entire country that I do not think that that is good enough? I want to see more children, more young people from our most disadvantaged backgrounds getting the same kind of opportunities that I have as a young person to go to university. That is why, in my programme for government, I set the goal of increasing the number of people from our most deprived areas who do get to go to university. That is why we are working to ensure, firstly, the best possible school education for our young people. I repeat what I said earlier. We are seeing a record number of higher passes. It is also why this party, unlike the Labour Party, has worked so hard and will continue to work so hard to protect free higher education for our young people. If Labour had their way in introducing tuition fees, it would be a lot harder for our poorest young people to get the chance that I had to go to university. I would like to invite the First Minister to join with me in congratulating Andy Murray, who has just won his Australian Open semi-final in the past few minutes. To ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. I hope that Ruth Davidson was not looking at Twitter in the chamber. I think that Jackson Carlaw might be in some trouble. Can I take the opportunity to congratulate Andy Murray on his semi-final win? I am sure that, on behalf of everybody in this chamber, we can have an outbreak of consensus and wish him all the best for the final on Sunday. I will meet the Secretary of State on Monday at the oil and gas summit in Aberdeen, and I will take the opportunity there to again call for the UK Government to take immediate action to cut the supplementary charge for the oil and gas sector instead of waiting seven long weeks until the UK budget. Ruth Davidson. Thank you very much. When this SNP Government defended its massive cuts to college courses, the former education secretary said, and I will quote, that there were bluntly too many hobby courses and far too few courses were focused on employment. There is one group of courses that is geared specifically towards employment. They are called STEM courses and they take in science, technology, engineering and maths. Can the First Minister tell us whether the number of students on further education STEM courses has gone up or down on the SNP's watch? The new figures show that the vision that we have set for the college sector is one focused on skills for work and economic growth is paying dividends. Ruth Davidson rightly says that the changes that we have been making to the college sector are designed to ensure that people going to college come out of college with qualifications that are able to help them get into work. I am happy to discuss with Ruth Davidson any particular aspects of our approach to colleges that she thinks we should be looking to improve. I say that in a genuine spirit of consensus, but I am proud of the fact that we are taking the action, often the tough action, that is making college education more productive for our young people. Ruth Davidson. I asked her about student numbers and the First Minister knows the number that I asked. She just does not want to say the number that I asked. It was published by her Government this week. When the SNP came to power, there were over 86,000 college places in STEM subjects. The most recent figure is just 56,000, a cut of 30,000 places in science, in technology, in engineering and in maths. This Government is failing on science and maths because their college forces lead to jobs, and they have been slashed by a third. In schools, less than half of science and maths pupils will actually sit in new exams this year, as we have just heard. In the international tables, on every measurement since this Government came to power, Scotland has gone backwards in both science and maths. Our young people need the skills to compete. Getting a decent job depends on it, so why is this Government failing them? I am very happy to look in detail at the figures that Ruth Davidson has quoted. I am more than happy to do that and to respond. Labour clearly finds the issue of education amusing. In the year of the most recent figures that we have available, approximately 14,000 more students successfully completed courses, leading to recognised qualifications than was the case in the year 2008 and 2009. That is an increase of 33 per cent. We are also seeing the average hours of learning per student increase back in 2006-07. That was less than 250 hours. That is now up to almost 400 hours. We have, as we committed to doing in our manifesto, maintained the number of places in Scotland's colleges, and the number of students achieving HNC, HNDs, which are qualifications both recognised and valued by employers, is up 36 per cent. The number of getting degrees is up 121 per cent. I think that that is something to be celebrated on the issue of STEM subjects in particular. One of the things that I would certainly readily agree with is that we need to get more girls and women into STEM subjects. I do not stand here and take the view that we have done everything that we need to do, but we are doing the hard work to make sure that our colleges are equipped to give young people the preparation that they need for the workplace, and we will continue to focus on doing that. David Torrance The announcement by Tesco yesterday to Closker Cardiff Store is not only devastating news for our employees, but will have a huge impact on the surrounding area. Can the First Minister tell me what assistance the Scottish Government can give to 199 employees who now face losing their jobs? I thank the member for the question and firstly say that my thoughts are with all of those that were made by Tesco yesterday. Yesterday, the Deputy First Minister spoke to the council in respect of the Corkory store this morning and gave a commitment that the Scottish Government will work with the council to do everything that we can to support affected employees. Of course, PACE has already been in contact with Tesco to offer support for employees who may be facing redundancy, and information on PACE has been provided to the company. We understand that the company will seek to minimise redundancies through redeployment and alternative roles within Tesco, but PACE representatives will work with Tesco to provide a tailored package of support to minimise the time those affected by redundancy are out of work. Liam McArthur To ask the First Minister what progress has been made in implementing the recommendations in Jackie Brock's report on closing the gaps in the child protection process. The Government welcomes the Brock report, and we have accepted all of its recommendations. We are implementing the 12 recommendations that were made, including holding a national strategic leadership summit next month. The report was one strand of a wider programme to ensure Scotland's approach to safeguarding children and young people continues to be as robust as possible. A parliamentary briefing note on the progress of the Scottish Government's response to the Brock report will be available from SPICE today, and we will continue to act decisively to implement the recommendations that were laid out in the report. Liam McArthur I thank the First Minister for the response that she refers to the summit, but the truth is that Mike Russell promised this chamber that he would hold that summit by the end of last year. That did not happen.  Jackie Brock knows that, and that is why she has felt moved to express her frustration at the lack of progress by the Scottish Government in taking forward the recommendations contained in the Brock report. Is not it the case that the Government has taken its eye off the ball on this vital issue? Will the First Minister now commit to taking the decisive action that the survivors of child exploitation expect and which we were promised back in November last year? First Minister. No, that is not true. I do not think that it is a fair characterisation at the Government, and I am sure that every single member of this chamber is absolutely resolute in our determination to do everything that we need to do to protect children and to protect our most vulnerable children. As I have said, we have accepted all of the 12 recommendations of the Brock report. The summit that has been referred to, as I said in my initial answer, will take place next month. Of course, the Brock report was just one strand of a wider programme of work, which of course included the full child sexual exploitation action plan, which was published on the same day as the Brock report. That was the result of work that was established in April 2013. It was developed over 19 months by a team of experts, including children's charities, child protection experts and the police and social work. It drew on a full committee inquiry into the issue. We will take forward all of those recommendations. I hope that we will do so with a considerable degree of cross-party support to make sure that we are taking the action that we need to take to protect our vulnerable young people. Iain Gray. The Brock report explicitly pointed out the vulnerability of on-the-radar children to sexual exploitation, citing the Rotherham case. This week, police launched a probe into 14 cases of child sexual exploitation here in Edinburgh. The urgency of this could not be greater. It is a week now, since Jackie Brock told us there had been little or no activity since her report. Can the First Minister tell us what she has done in the past week to redouble efforts in this area? As I said in my initial answer, there is an update available to all members in Spice today that sets out the actions that we are taking as a result of the Brock report. Indeed, as I have already said, that is part of a wider suite of action that we are taking. Iain Gray references police investigations clearly, as I am sure he understands. I cannot comment on on-going police investigations. The action plan that I have already referred to complements the wider action that we are taking, including the wider action around the establishment of a new specialist police unit. Police Scotland has formed a new national child abuse investigation unit. That was announced in October last year. That announcement and that unit will enable the police to play their full part in making sure that we are protecting children and protecting our young people. We have also, as the chamber is well aware, strengthened child protection legislation and policy that the Children and Young People Bill has received royal assent. That act strengthens the protection of children's rights. It creates a statutory single point of contact for raising concerns, the named person. Obviously, we saw a court judgment just in the last few days on that particular issue. It requires all agencies to work together in the child's best interests. We will continue to do everything that we possibly can to protect children, to protect the most vulnerable children and to protect children who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. I genuinely say that we will listen to ideas and suggestions from wherever they might come, because on this issue, perhaps more than on any other issue, we should come together as one Parliament determined to do what needs to be done. Question 4, Mark McDonald. Can I ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government will provide an update on the work of the Energy Jobs Task Force? I very much welcome the constructive discussions and the actions that came out of the first meeting of the Energy Jobs Task Force, which was held yesterday in Aberdeen. The meeting saw a group from across the public and private sectors come together quickly to reinforce the determination of industry to ensure that Scotland retains the skills and talent that support the sector at home and overseas. A range of ideas were considered by the task force, and immediate action will be taken to translate this into tangible outcomes, including a large-scale pace market event to match those facing redundancy with opportunities elsewhere. It's also been agreed that the task force will convene monthly with the next meeting scheduled for 26 February. Mark McDonald. Can I thank the First Minister for her answer? I know what she says the task force will look at opportunities elsewhere. One example might be North East Scotland College, which has recently struggled to recruit lecturers for its oil and gas skills courses, and there may be beneficial opportunities amidst the recent spate of redundancies. Can I also ask the First Minister if she shares the disappointment that is being expressed in the North East that the UK Government who holds the fiscal powers looks set to wait until the budget in March to make any interventions, and will she continue to press for early interventions to support the industry and the workforce? First Minister. I certainly share Mark McDonald's views on what I think the UK Government should be doing right now, which is not waiting until the budget, but acting with tax changes now. As I said, in response to Ruth Davidson, that's an argument that I will make again on Monday at the Oil and Gas Summit. I think that Mark McDonald also makes some very reasonable points around North East Scotland College. It's important to emphasise that the aim of the task force is to safeguard the decades of skills and experience that have been built up within the oil and gas industry. That will include and necessitate close working with colleges and universities, and that's why the Scottish Funding Council is represented on the task force. Mark McDonald. The First Minister will know that the Scottish Conservatives support further reductions in North Sea oil and gas taxation, and we have already made that case to the Chancellor. But Sir Ian Wood has stated that any reduction in taxes will make no difference to the situation over the next six to nine months. So what additional action will the Scottish Government be taking now to assist the sector? First Minister. I have just outlined some of the work that we are doing through the jobs task force. I have made it very clear that that is the key intervention that supplements the work that we would do routinely to support the sector through skills support, innovation support, support for the sector in exporting. The jobs task force is designed to do three things in particular. First, to work to maintain jobs and skills as far as possible. Secondly, to provide targeted support to those who are facing redundancy. Thirdly, to support better collaboration across the industry. The task force, which met yesterday for the first time, heard a number of ideas that will now be turned into a tangible action plan. I would hope that Murdo Fraser and others will get behind that. Finally, in respect of Ian Wood, I spoke to Ian Wood last of the week before last. He made the point, and I think that it is the point that underpins what we are calling for in terms of UK Government action. Companies are making decisions now and therefore they need now the clarity for the medium to long term in terms of the tax regime that they are going to be operating in. That is why it is so important that we do not see a weight of seven weeks to the budget. It is why we should see that action now. I would hope that the Scottish Conservatives would perhaps speak a bit more loudly in calling for their colleagues in Westminster to take the sensible action. Question 5, Mark Griffin. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to report that science lessons and skills are being underfunded by £8 million per year. We continue to see a very strong picture on science in our schools with increased higher entries across the three main science subjects since 2006 and past rates remaining high. We do not agree that school science is underfunded. The learner societies group on Scottish science education report looked at approximately 2 per cent of primary schools and 13 per cent of secondary schools. The report itself indicates that the findings should be treated with some caution. Indeed, that is borne out by looking at international comparisons where we see that Scotland is above the OECD average for science as measured by the piece of rankings. Mark Griffin. Given that the First Minister has questioned the small sample size, will she listen to the evidence that the Learning Society gave to the Education and Culture Committee this week when they asked the Government to take their work forward, carry out a full independent audit of schools in Scotland to make sure that our pupils have the right equipment that they need to learn the practical science skills that colleges, universities and employers are looking for? First Minister. I am very happy to work with the learner societies group in order to make sure that we build on the work that we are already doing to improve science learning and teaching. I was struck by one thing in particular that Dr Bill Beverage, who gave evidence on behalf of the societies to the committee this week said. The knowledge of the science subjects has been taught well and I think that lots of pupils are seeing positive benefits from studying the sciences. We will continue to work with all those with an interest to make sure that we improve our performance even further. Indeed, after FMQs today, I am going to present certificates to this year's winners of the Higgs prize. The Higgs prize, which bears the name of Professor Peter Higgs, the Nobel prize winner, is designed and was introduced by the Scottish Government to motivate and inspire young physicists in our schools. That is one example of the work that the Scottish Government is doing and I hope that the chamber would welcome it. Question 6, Liz Smith. To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with NHS boards regarding the reported reduction in funding for mental health research. The Scottish Government direct funding for mental health research through grants awarded by three sources, direct funding through grants awarded by the Scottish Government, direct funding of the Scottish Mental Health Research Network and grants awarded to Scottish researchers by the UK Government's Department of Health National Institute of Health Research Funding Committees. That is seen rises in mental health research funding under this Government when you take these three strands together from around £1 million in 2006-07 to nearly £4 million in 2014-15. Thank you, First Minister, for that answer. It was revealed that there has been actually an 85 per cent drop in funding for mental health research in the last eight years of the SNP Government. Today in the Scotsman, the Scottish Children's Services Coalition repeats its warning of two years ago that the number of educational psychologists is dangerously low and on the 9th of July last year they warned the then health secretary, Alex Neil, that there remains a large number of unfilled vacancies for trainee psychiatrists. Does the First Minister agree with those health professionals who say that the Scottish Government's complacency on mental health issues is unacceptable? The Scottish Government is not complacent in any way, shape or form when it comes to mental health. We announced in November last year additional investment of £15 million over the next three years to improve mental health services. We are taking a range of action to make sure that we are reducing waiting times for access to psychological therapies and particularly for access to mental health treatment services for children and adolescents. I am happy to make those figures available to Liz Smith and indeed to anybody else who is interested in seeing them. I think that the report that Liz Smith has referred to looked at, if I understand it correctly, two out of the three strands of funding that I referred to in my initial answer. It looked at funding from the chief scientist office committees and funding for the mental health research network. What it did not include was the funding that comes through the National Institute of Health Research funding committees. Of course, Scottish researchers can apply to that because the chief scientist office pays around £9 million annually into the pot of funding. When we take the three strands together, as I said, funding for mental health research goes from in 2006-07 just over £1 million to in 2014-15 just under £4 million. That is the reality and I am happy to make those figures available. Richard Simpson. Can I first of all thank the Government for providing me with the answer, which was the basis of Liz Smith's question? What it demonstrated, however, was that the funding that she refers to is UK funding largely and that the Scottish funding demonstrates, does she not agree, a total lack of leadership on mental health research. First Minister. Clearly, Labour has not changed its spots that much. It is still trying to make out that Scotland is too weak and too poor in order to do those things. I do not know if Richard Simpson is aware of this, but the National Institute of Health Research funding that I just referred to is contributed to by the chief scientist office in Scotland to the tune of £9 million every year. In other words, we contribute our share of funding to the pot in order that Scottish researchers can bid into it and get funding back. We do not get anything for nothing, even though Richard Simpson clearly wants to give the impression that we do. In terms of one of the other three strands I spoke about, in terms of chief scientist office committee's funding, again, as Richard Simpson will be aware, this is a pot of money that researchers bid into. It fluctuates year on year. In some years, I have got figures here going back to 2005, 2006 and in some years we have seen that over £2 million. In one year it was over £3 million. It sometimes goes down and then goes back up again. It is a fund that is open for bids and I hope we would all agree to encourage those doing vital research into mental health to bid for this funding because the funding is there and we want it to be used. That is, First Minister's questions. We now move to members' business, members to live in the chamber. Quietly.


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