Hello should be working. Hello everyone. Everything should be working today. Okay Please let me know you can hear and see me That's always the concern of people doing live streams. I am Robin Shaw and I am your teacher today and hopefully We can teach some good English. I'm just getting my whiteboard electronic whiteboard ready And excited to see I see Lolly Lolly in the chat room Lolly Lolly is is one of the first People to watch me years ago, then Lolly Lolly disappeared. Let's see if Lolly Lolly tells us what happened To her in the chat room. Let's catch up on the chat. Hi, Robin. How was your weekend? Good?  Sleepwalker. Okay, you guys are talking Back and forth Michelle. Hello. Okay. I don't I don't see Lolly Lolly explaining many things Kada ha kata job Mohammed Zammary. Hello. I'll come All right, welcome everyone. If you got any questions start letting me know Very curious to hear Lolly Lolly's excuse for not being here, but let's listen. I'm just gonna open up a can of drink Today is cold in Korea Nobody's talking I'm getting ready to teach here, but nobody nobody's gonna talk. Oh Lolly Lolly. Sorry. No excuses Yes, Lolly Lolly. I Was thinking about you Lolly Lolly, I was concerned about you But there's no way to contact you Lolly Lolly So what's a good way to contact you if I ever want to contact you? I see Layla's question and I see Sajia's question. Sorry Sajia. I got to answer Layla first Always confusing This and click this and click that I got so many things to click. Oh, there's my Whiteboard all right And let's get Layla's Question here says your advice is more than significant Keep it in my mind. I'm used to saying I'll keep it in my mind But I don't know if I should use it without my I'll keep it in mind Uh, maybe it's better with okay, so I'll get rid of that not to confuse everyone So Layla is asking this but the two questions there and One version has a my and one version does not have my And she's asking, you know, which one's right. I'll keep it in my mind or I'll keep it in mind and Although this makes sense and everyone's gonna understand this yeah, I think you're right in thinking this This one is better. I'll keep it in my I'll keep it in mind is what a native speaker will say I'll keep it in mind. So if you if you did write this, it's not a big problem. Nobody's gonna care It's not this but certainly in the native speaker. I'll keep it in mind and And Sajiya mass Mansouri Let's take a look Hello, sir Very nice How can I improve my English language? Be because I have less time That means you don't have much time to improve English How much time a week a month a year? well English language requires input Things coming in you got to get the information and process the information So you got to listen to English and you got to read English and you got to watch and English you got to get a lot of input and You got to practice output so output is you got so you get the input and you got to practice the output speaking and writing How much time does that take well depends on many factors depends on age So if you're under 20, it'll be really fast if you're over 40, it's gonna be really slow so it depends on age and how much study time you have but Just increase the input and increase the output as much as you can hours every day If you have hours every day, it'll be very fast. It's once a week It'll be very slow. So So usually instead of input and outputs Teachers just say study a lot study study study practice practice practice. So yeah time Invest time work in the more time you invest the better. You'll be I Need more information Sajia to know your specific Your just I need more information to know exactly what kind of time you have to study English And lolly lolly has a Facebook page. Well, lolly lolly What do I search on Facebook to find your page? Lavi hello sleepwalker Robin I find it interesting to watch lives in English at Present time at current time at real time. Can we use these expressions in the sentence today? I mean the same They mean this Similar they mean the same thing. They're very similar, but it's still a little awkward. I find it interesting to watch lives in English I Would go with these days That's what I would Choose but you're not choosing that you want to choose something at the present time Well, if you can use at the present time, let's fix that That's a little awkward if you said I find it interesting to watch lives in English at the present Time at the present time seems very formal at the current time again, we're gonna put the And at real time. No, that's different So both of these are very formal I can't even think of us at the Present time at the current time. So at the current people are gonna, you know native speakers are gonna say currently and Presently so I recommend These words presently or currently so you could go up here and Let's give them the color blue and blue so You could say Presently Robin I find it interesting to watch lives in English and you don't you don't need these days anymore You got presently and you could put Currently I find it interesting to watch lives in days. So currently Presently these days that's gonna mean the same. Hope that helps All right as a vocabulary question My opinion all educational material you give us is more than amazing, but unfortunately you are underrated I don't know how to use underrated in a proper way. Okay. Well, you're asking about the vocabulary word underrated Which would mean Let's get the Google Not the Google definition the ox ox for dictionary I don't like talking. I just like copy and paste and when people ask the vocabulary question I copy paste. So let's see what it says underrated. This is what it means To not recognize how good important Somebody or something really is so someone or something is underrated We do not value. We do not value them at their true value. They're valued less Than they should be So let's go back All this extra information. We don't need if we just have this the sentence here. You are underrated That is correct So you are not recognized as Valuable as you should be So anytime you have you you are underrated. That's a good way to use it if you mean that person is not properly Recognized SK gilani, what is the difference between get and become? Well, these are very Different words. I'm sure there might be some situations. They're very similar I get to be I'm trying to you didn't give me a sentence. So I got I don't know what situation so I get to be doctor for Halloween Will become a doctor for Halloween So, you know get become very different very different. I'm not sure why you're confused about this SK gilani So I'm trying to think where they might be the same or similar or So someone might say I get to be a doctor for Halloween to be a doctor for Halloween I will become a doctor for Halloween. We're very far from the holiday Halloween right now But I can't really think of two sentences that are similar using get and become Not see if I can get a better example. I'm gonna search for better teachers Okay. Oh, okay. Oh Oh, I see I see I see I see past tense Or here Elizabeth she gets angry When I am late here we go this situation She becomes Angry I am late All right. She gets angry when I am late. She becomes angry when I am like this This is where get and become are similar and this is what What's your name SK gilani is asking about what's the difference? Okay. Now I got it Nothing in this situation they mean the same thing, but this is just more casual for spoken And we're gonna say this one is Formal and for writing not speaking Okay There that's I solved it and I gave you the answer and I'm confident. That's the answer She gets angry when I'm late if we're speaking. That's how a native speaker is gonna say she gets angry when I'm late You could also say she becomes angry when I'm late, but this is a little more formal and In your writing, yeah, it would be better to use becomes Okay, so eski eski gilani. Hope that helps and you took away your Just deleted your message your question VJ sloney She said that she will send me the details or or She said she would send me the detail. Oh Oh So so you're asking about that and I'm gonna have to refresh I put it in both or first of all Both are okay So you're gonna hear both versions VJ you're gonna hear both ways, but Let's find the technical rules the grammar rules for that and I you know, I taught that before but I don't remember There's so many rules with that then I'm gonna say I Do I cannot find it There might be some technical rule somewhere and I don't know because I'm not a perfect grammar teacher Saying that this sentence is more perfect than this sentence. I don't know All I can talk about is usage So what did native speakers say and native speakers are gonna use both of these She said that she will send me the details. She said she would send me the details Native speakers are gonna use both versions. So VJ. I don't I can't tell you exactly the technical rule on which one is Exactly the right or if they're both right, but I know for usage Speaking they're both right. Oh Lolli has a question. Let's take a look. Please. What's the difference in meaning between?  However, he decided to marry her So, uh, what's the difference? You know, you're just using synonyms of but so there's no difference to me However and although are just another way another way to say but so you're just You're using synonyms to explain the same the same situation. So I I could put a three Mary is boring But He decided to marry her They all mean the same thing Now if we're writing an essay Number one and number two look really good Uh If you're writing IELTS Maybe this one's good because it's uh, you're showing you have a You have two clauses here. You have a complicated one advanced You're writing an advanced sentence. So if you're writing an essay, I I recommend something like this or this Speaking of course spot Okay, they just mean the same thing. All right, uh What is the difference between used to and be used to from sk Jelani? Well, I have a rule sk Jelani that I do not teach grammar That I already made a video about and I'm going to put a link to Esther's Esther's video So that link will go to Esther's video where she will talk about used to be used to I spent lots of time and money making that video. So please check out that video UK androids here How can non-native speakers improve our speaking skills at vocabulary, fluency and cops? Oh, this is a good question Hmm I'm trying to highlight non-native non-native speakers. So English speakers non-native. I'm native. So of course people want to learn from me because I think Oh, if I learn from a native speaker my English, I'll be able to copy them model after them Things like that. So it's better to learn from a native speaker. So uk android, you know, how can non-native speakers improve our speaking skills? well uk android Most English teachers in the world are non-native, right? So most English teachers in the world are not native speakers And these teachers in every country their job is to teach English and it's not easy And a lot of teachers have confidence problems and a lot of students Bother them and a lot of students are always looking for their teacher to make a mistake Even me, you know, I make mistakes and my students. Ha ha So, you know, can non-native speakers really teach us English? Yes, they can I have full confidence that non-native speakers improve can improve your speaking skills Now Uh, you know, what is a teacher? Uh teachers have different There's different definitions of a teacher. Now to me a teacher a good teacher Is not someone who carries you It's someone who points the way. So You know, actually uk android One teacher is not going to teach you how to speak English You need to get English from all kinds of sources So that non-native teacher can point to these sources So that non-native teacher, you know Usually when they're children, uh, the non-native teacher can start teaching them English But when they get up to adults, uh, and they they're at a higher level and sometimes higher than their teacher Then they need uh more resources. So yeah that non-native, uh teacher Can point to resources Okay. Now, what if we're not talking about a teacher? You're practicing English and your friend Who's a non-native speaker practicing English? Can you help each other improve English? Uh, yes, because you will get practice. Of course It's better to talk to people who are fluent or uh advanced in English Uh, but we don't always have someone around who's fluent or advanced.  Yes fluency. Yes confidence. Yes Uh So yes, whether they're a non-native speaker teacher or non-native speaker Person or friend My answer is always yes Anyone who speaks English can teach you something Of course, there are some bad things that could happen. You could pick up Wrong pronunciation so if someone is A non-native speaker and they have some Wrong pronunciation and you're always around them. You might learn Their pronunciation It's true. They might you they might use some vocabulary incorrectly Uh, but I would say, you know, that's true with native speakers, too, but Still talking speaking English with non-native speakers do it Do it All right, Leila To simplify the core shadow into a basic shape is by squinting your eyes or letting them go softly out of focus. The question is Okay Could you please explain this phrase out of focus because I checked the dictionary, but it's still not clear for me above sentence Well, when you this is the You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna erase most of this extra information All right, so we have an action here squinting your eyes So you this is your eyes and then when you're doing this you're squinting Now when you're squinting your eyes You don't see Everything clearly All right, nothing is clear And if you let your eyes go out of focus You're trying not to focus Okay So if you wear glasses your eyes are in focus and if you take off your glasses your eyes are out of focus Everything is not clear. So I guess in the art world, uh, those instructions were Try not to see so clearly try to get You know, you can squint your eyes or Uh, just not look 100 clearly at whatever you're looking at All right, lolly lolly facebook page lolly lolly and i'm gonna go check that right now lolly lolly just to spy on you Now I don't have any students on my Private oh, there's lots of lolly lollies come on. Oh I see one two three Four five six lolly lollies. Did you study at the university the day province? Not this must be you I'm gonna send the message There we go found you All right, uh, move it along. You guys are waiting. There's a lot of questions. I got a speed up here Uh, if I miss your question, sorry Kavinu wants to know if I can pronounce the word structure Structure structure Structure Sumon raman Sorry, I'm very weak in English. How can I learn it? I want to speak English fluently, but I don't uh Yeah, you know if you want to learn English you need time and effort So if fluent fluency Is your goal? So fluency is the top level, uh, let's say 45 hours a day Every day for two years would bring you pretty close So if fluency is your target, there you go Uh, if you want to advance or intermediate Uh Last time, you know, it depends on how many years, uh, how many hours a day Uh, you know, you can learn it You can learn the language You just got to invest time every day reading writing listening and speaking every day you will improve your English I have so many students that I talk to and then Teach them and then guide them and then one or two years later Their level has increased so much because they are they study every day I watch this stream in real time. Yeah, that's a pause if that's what They were talking about Nobody watches this stream in real time. There's a delay Vijay There are millions who wish to speak English or there are millions who wish Speaking English in this case you want to use the infinitive to speak English This is what you want to use to speak English Not the other one Pallavi Sir, I have a question. Can we learn English alone? Yes You can read you can listen Yes, of course, you can learn alone Learn it as many ways as you can Frida, hello Leila's My tiny washroom doesn't give me any elbow room. Did I use elbow room properly in the Fit place. Well, yeah, so this is your elbow and your elbow needs room To move around so if if we say, uh There's no elbow room That means a small space or a small area So This place has no elbow room. It means it's very small My my tiny washroom.  That's a good sign right there Doesn't give me any elbow room and that is correct. That is the proper way to use elbow room So no problem there senior Suleiman hello Frida's here senior Suleiman Says I have let's see I have these two sentences confusing me. All right. Let's take a look at the sentences the police. No, this is oh, this is wrong First was rock Second one Which one which one's correct Uh, the second one the police have arrested the thief. This is correct We'll put it a green Oh, I can't get a good green here the police. Uh, so the police Is uncountable now, but we can Say they and if we're using they We have to use half. So right here, uh, is wrong You cannot say they has so the police is a group of people So they have And then past tense arrested the thief. Okay, so this one's wrong The police have arrested the thief. That is your sentence Could I use this expression one thing that I asked you about I see another such other Yeah, I think I gave a few examples Non-sexual Yeah But Yeah, I gave a few examples non-sexual last week. So the answer is yes But you might see it in a sexual way Slip walker. I came across the verb to milk Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah Uh, so I guess this would be uh kind of a phrasal phrasal verb No, not phrasal verb Idiom. All right. So we have to the verb And right off the top the the verb is to milk This is a good I like this lesson. It's interesting interesting question now There's two main reasons. There's two main reasons I I can think of right now to milk I milk the cow. So we're using Uh Milk Has a verb I milk the cow. So you have a cow and you milk the cow. Sorry. That's my cow milking Motion I've never milked a cow. I do not have that experience. So I guess I'm lucky Uh So right there is his verb. This is a common way now Now uh sleep walker is asking about another way Uh And I'm trying to think of an example sentence. You want to give me the example sentence That's always is a bad thing asking Robin for the example sentence because my brain is slow Um I milked I gotta I gotta try and find an example Well, I'll put the definition here The second milk means To take full advantage of a situation I'm not gonna use that word and I got the flu I got the flu I told my job So the flu in influenza like a cold not like a well not the same as a cold But Morse you're sick with the flu. I told my job. I need a few days off I got Better after four days But I Still Stayed home another Two days I milked The situation All right, we'll get rid of the milk the cow All right, so to milk something to take full advantage of a situation So I got the flu. I told my job. I needed a few days off My job said yes So after four days, uh I got better so the flu is gone But I didn't tell my job. I'm better Right I pretended I'm still sick. So I still stayed home another two days So My job allowed me to stay home because I'm sick And although I was better in four days I milked it. I took advantage of this situation. Whoa, they don't they don't know when I'm better So I'm gonna take advantage of this situation So I lied to my job so I could have two more days away from Work So that's a quick example of to milk something It is Casual English you never write this in an essay, right? This is only spoken English It's not writing. It's not formal. It's only with your friends things like that. Okay I wish I could have more examples, but I can't right now Alyssa What's the difference between these sentences? Okay Do these mean the same thing? Okay I happen to get talking with a lady. I happen to talk with a lady.  Give me the easy stuff some sometimes I happened to get talking with a lady. Okay Uh Again, that's not so difficult probably the first one is uh For spoken English and I'm writing in on my digital whiteboard here spoken and actually Probably the second one is also used for spoken, but it could I think it's more grammatically correct so certainly You're gonna hear someone say I happened to get talking And I'm gonna check that over in you glish and I don't see anyone no one's saying it I'm just wondering why you couldn't get I mean, I know I'm using this example, but Check in the second. All right, so according to you glish In the usage The second one I happen to talk with of course is more common, but I happen to get talking with a lady Yeah, it's possible someone says that it's not right You never write that that can only be a spoken Phrase But if you're gonna write use the second one, okay, let's see if I can catch up Lots of questions here Kavinu Robin sir, is is that possible to check whether the way of my using the word excited? I'm so excited I'm okay. Let's check it. I'm so excited to know about that. I'm so excited To know I'm so excited to know. Yeah, that's fine Ravin Padi. Hello Layla I tried to cook mashed potato Toes are usually always plural mashed potatoes using my own recipe but the results The result was completely a write-off recipe. Oh No, you did not use write-off Correctly we did not use a write-off that way write-off is usually more used with financial things Things you're spending money on So quick answer. No try again And there's a lot of questions tonight. So I can't you it's up to you to try again, Layla Usually we use that with financial stuff Could I say in the end of the week I studied? at them When we use at the end of the week At the end of the week I studied hard. Yeah Yeah At the end of the week Happen to means by chance I happen What about by chance? By chance I got talking with a lady By chance I talked with a lady. Yeah, you could use by chance in both of those Lollie Lollie is a good idea to listen to different accents when you study a language. Thanks Robin. Well, yes. Yes Listen to you know, I I can go anywhere in the world and listen to anyone speak English in any country with any accent and I can understand them And your goal is to be the same You don't know who you're gonna meet You know, if you go over to Italy From France and you speak to someone in English. Well, they're gonna have an Italian accent You've got to understand that it's very important. You've go down to Spain and Speak to someone in English. They're gonna have a Spanish accent. So Yeah, you got to know all these accents and how You know, English changes a little bit depends on who who speaks it Yes It's an international world learn be comfortable with any accent Layla, I'd like to let you know that when I watch tv shows Or something else I can comprehend 95% without subtitles But I think the essential important thing I need to evolve is developing my vocabulary Um, I don't think you can understand 95% yet 95% is quite high Uh Without subtitles Now Layla, you're great, but 95% seems really really high to understand a tv show Uh, and that's not because of language problem. That's also a culture problem Uh There's also Cultural jokes that you might not understand. It's it's not necessarily about language But if you say 95% then that's pretty amazing When I meet you I will test you Okay, lali lali. I found you on facebook Didn't answer my I said hello.  I want to learn English in less time and I have a problem whenever I memorize the words I forget the words after two days How can I solve my problem? Well, uh You're probably memorizing words that you don't need right now a lot of students memorize a lot of words They don't need uh, so focus on focus on the english you're using every day And just try to get you know, always trying to upgrade your vocabulary, but don't you shouldn't be memorizing word lists Uh If you're going on a trip Well, then you can just focus on the language you need for the trip like where you're going on a trip You're going to the airport You're going to restaurants You're going to the hotel And maybe you want to talk to someone if you're lost on the street so The areas you could focus on for your trip would help you improve in less time so You can learn airport late airport english hotel english restaurant english And that would help you a lot on a trip But don't don't don't worry about uh Vocabulary lists and if you're forgetting stuff, it's just you're probably not practicing enough practice practice review practice every day Sorry, can I Can I learn english with elsa app? What do you think is this app? Oh, I got sleeparkers What's elsa app? I don't know elsa app I don't recommend apps Elsa speak Oh, is that the ai? Okay talking with uh computer Hmm, let's test elsa. Let's test elsa here. Hello. How are you? Didn't work Hello That's not working for me Hello, hello, hello Hello, hello How are you? I guess my english is not good enough Oh communicate. I'm not reading the instructions Communication, okay Now I understand Opportunity Uh, so oh, I thought elsa would be more of ai talking to me, but now I just see it's a pronunciation Uh pronunciation app. No, these these are not very effective I was Confidence, I don't think that's very effective Yeah, it's a good fun thing to Toy around But I've seen that before I thought elsa would be an ai you could talk to them Uh, so I gotta say no. It seems like a distraction from real learning Mostly native speaker speak automatically. I mean if it's not a teacher learners more often study grammar Thoroughly. Yeah Yeah There's pros and cons Cavino four hours a day. Good Elisa, uh, can the word placid be used to describe a person her placid daughter rarely becomes agitated Yeah, I think placid Uh, Certainly Don't use placid very much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it should be okay Farida says If someone doesn't do business, do they still need to learn business english? I'm thinking of learning business english, but I'm not sure if it's necessary to learn just learn english Uh, if you're not doing, you know business english No, you don't need to learn business english. Just learn english Just learn english farida native english speakers while speaking break a lot of grammar Rules That makes us confused plus we don't know if we learned correctly or not. So what do you think? Well, it's just You know, there's a problem. So, uh, don't worry about it so much Uh, what's the difference or farida? What's the difference between thief and fraud? This is a dictionary Farida, this is dictionary stuff and don't waste time On getting the teacher to check the dictionary for you, which I'm going to do right now farida Come on Don't use a teacher like this. There's thief oxford dictionary copy paste oxford dictionary fraud copy paste You want me to read it for you? thief A person a person who steals something from another person a person fraud The crime of cheating somebody in order to get money or goods illegally This is a person. This is a crime. That's the difference So now I want you farida to write me 100 example sentences using thief And 100 example sentences using fraud And then you know them Covino Sir, could I know do you have any relationship with cake English? Yes, I'm very close with cake English I used to make videos for cake English Uh, I know all the people who work at cake English I'm going to use some of the teachers that are on cake English So do you have any questions about cake English? I do not promote cake English Covino Oh So what would be the difference between bummer and bugger again? This is dictionary stuff and for this kind of stuff I would say that's more slang you go to urban dictionary urban You can't see up here. It says urban dictionary dot com and you type in bugger Which is kind of a bad word Yeah, bugger would be bad But here is something that annoys you So in a bummer these are slang These are just slang words you can find in the dictionary slang is you know, I don't I I'm not going to teach slang because that's kind of a Not so important You can find those in dictionary just something bothers you I'm happy watching live stream in real time. Thank you Leila Could we make a verb from each? Yeah, you can make a verb from anything you want I milk the time to find the best solution. Yeah, it could be possible sleepwalker. I don't know the exact Situation but you certainly can milk time In many cases, I know how to use the grammar, but I don't know its name. Yeah, that's You are talking about every native speaker Every native speaker knows how to use the grammar. They just don't know the name and believe about apelavi Sir, did you feel pain when you got? Yeah, I I I got two shots My second shot. I had a reaction to the vaccine and I had to go to the hospital It was not a good Good second shot But yes, I had a pain Well, he comes in Leila, I don't know the grammar names either The best the best way to learn English is not To know the grammar names Don't study grammar. Don't study Past perfect name and the grammar formula Don't study English that way. The best is just start using start reading start acquiring the language not learning the language So if you don't know the grammar names Good for you. I think it depends on the kind of tv show to youtubers I watch so far. Maybe when I watch another kind of english video, I wouldn't understand them Well, I guess I'm right. Yeah, well, I I don't think You know studying tv and movie shows is different English I don't think that's the english you need. I think you'd need just communication english not video Movie watching english. Those are different english. There's not the same english I I do not help or care if someone's goal Is to learn english to watch a hollywood movie and understand 100% I don't care about that that that's a useless That's a useless skill And I know most of you here. I want to I want to understand a netflix shows 100% that's great But actually that is not What i'm here for i'm really here to change your life and to change your life a netflix show is not going to change your life Uh, what's going to change your life is uh meeting new friends traveling getting getting Educated in an english-speaking country getting a job related to english. So that's more my goal here is get you that direction Not the hobby way So a lot of you english is just your hobby. Yeah, that's fine. I can help out but that's not really my I want to help change your life in english Oh, we have the russian spammers here Sleepwalker i'm blaming you for any russian spam And I can't think clearly and well could I say my brain is cloudy? Yep Uh That's is there another phrase? My brain is cloudy. I think that's a good one My brain is cloudy. We might also use foggy Not clear my brain is foggy But I think my brain is cloudy is probably the Best one Jose Gonzalez the buggers Uh, those are those would be boogers in your nose. We call them boogers not buggers Buggers booger boogers.  I blame you for all russian trolls and spam All right, we're coming to the end. I think I got most people's questions Thank you very much I will end the live stream in the next 30 seconds. Thank you everyone. It was nice to see lolly lolly here again back from the dead Covid didn't get you Um, I'm still developing my IELTS channel and my main channel Uh Yeah, I'm working hard. I got a lot of things Coming up I guess for the Shaw English channel. I'll probably have a new video in the next two weeks The IELTS channel probably a new video or starting the IELTS channel within Everything should be ready by March my own personal channel earnings with robin. Maybe something there Are in english live maybe a new teacher Things always coming up soon Uh, we'll see. Anyway, thanks for joining and I'll see you Next week. Bye everyone


Coming up on DTNS, you can't stop Science Weeks folks. We're talking Microscope Tech with Ariel Waldman plus Europe and Google Square off over news snippets and an app that aims to protect your privacy and bring society back to life amid a pandemic. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, April 9th, 2020 in Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Oakland, California, I'm Justin Robert Young. I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. And we're very happy to have back on the show Ariel Waldman, host and producer of Offworld on tested.com, NASA advisor, global director, science hacker, day and Antarctic explorer. How's it going, Ariel? I'm good, how are you doing? It's very good to have you back. I can't wait to talk about moss piglets, water bears, tardigrades and how to find them with some microscopes. Yeah. We're gonna do that. We were just talking about sandwiches, quite a lot of talk about sandwiches and whether a hot dog is a sandwich, whether a hamburger is a sandwich, that was part of our wider conversation on good day internet become a member and get that show. Patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Mary Jo Foley reports that according to sources, Microsoft Chief Product Officer Panos Panay informed his team that the dual screen surface Neo device won't ship in 2020 as originally announced. The delay will also see Microsoft not enabling third party dual screen windows 10X devices in this year as well. And sources say that the Android based surface duo has not been delayed as part of these internal discussions. The Unicode consortium announced that it was delaying the release of Emoji 14.0 due to COVID-19, likely not releasing until spring 2022. Emojis for the release have not been finalized and the deadline for submissions is delayed through September 2020. The release of Emoji 13 is still on schedule and should be available on devices by fall 2020. Google Hangouts Meet is just being rebranded folks. It's okay, they're not killing it. Google Meet is the new name according to The Verge. Google made it official in a Google Cloud blog post Wednesday when listing a number of privacy measures. Google Meet users will keep remote meetings secure. Meet is an independent part of G Suite and Google says usage is way up. As you might expect 25 times what it was in January and gaining more than two million new users per day. But again, just a change to take the word hangouts out. I know sometimes Google stuff is unknowable but why didn't they do this a long time ago? Yeah, I know. The US Federal Communications Commission approved Google's request to operate a portion of the 8,000 mile undersea Pacific light cable network system. Google has approval to operate the cable between the US and Taiwan but not Hong Kong. Google and Facebook both contributed to the cable systems construction costs and warned in its petition that without the added cable capacity, the value of large recent capital investments that Google's made in the United States is significantly reduced. Being of Google, they updated a support page which suggests AI chat agent Google Duplex is being expanded to the UK, Australia and Canada in a limited capacity. New Zealand previously ran a pilot duplex program to confirm holiday hours for a small group of local businesses. Google could also use duplex to help confirm if restaurants are currently closed or have altered hours or services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever heard of it? Yeah, I think I might have. On the other side of helping you figuring out local businesses, Yelp told employees Thursday it's cutting 1,000 jobs and furloughing another 1,100 workers as business suffers from small business closures due to that pandemic that Justin just mentioned. Yelp had 5,950 employees at the end of 2019 and the company is also cutting server costs, de-prioritizing multiple projects and cutting executive pay by 20 to 30%. Alphabet's drone delivery company, Wing, has seen a significant increase in demand as social distancing rules continue to be observed. Business Insider reports that Wing drones have made over 1,000 deliveries in the last two weeks and Bloomberg reports that deliveries in the US and Australia have doubled and delivery options have expanded to items like pasta and baby food for people staying at home. I got excited there, kind of a whistle. Wing currently operates in Virginia state in the US anyway, Finland and Australia. And Microsoft announced that its collaboration tool teams had a new record 2.7 billion meeting minutes beating its mid-March high of 900 million by 200%. Teams also announced custom backgrounds, custom images slated for November, a raise hand feature launching globally this month and one-click session ends and participation reports from meeting organizers. Microsoft plans to introduce AI-driven real-time background noise suppression later this year as well. All right, let's talk about a crackdown that's happening in Europe, Justin. What a shocker. Last year, the EU passed an online copyright reform bill which included Article 11 to extend digital copyright cover snippets of news stories, something typically scraped and used by news aggregators like Google News. France was the first EU member country to pass the reform into national law and the country's competition authority has now ordered Google to negotiate with publishers to pay for reuse of news snippets used in Google News and Search. Google has previously changed Google News to show only headlines and URLs, but the competition authority has ruled that the withdrawal of snippets to deny payment is likely to constitute an abuse of dominant market position. The order requires Google to negotiate in good faith with publishers for three months and to show content snippets in news during that time in accordance with publishers' wishes. Once payment agreements are reached, Google must pay publishers retroactively going back to October 2019. So yeah, you heard that right. They put a law that said you can't use snippets without paying for them.  It's worth it to us. Other publishers got mad about that and Europe has now told Google that their dominant market position means it's an abuse to pull the snippets, that they must use the snippets and also must pay for them. Obviously, Google is probably going to appeal this ruling, I'm sure, but in the meantime, if it does stick and if it is applied across Europe, not just in France, I would expect Google to either pull Google News, which they've done in Spain when they ran into a similar situation before it was a European-wide rule, or replace it and just say, we're gonna come up with an Apple News-like thing that just sidesteps this whole situation because remember, Google News is really just supposed to be the Google search engine but narrowed down to just news stories. Yeah, and that's the issue here, and it comes at a very, very, very unfortunate time for these websites because traffic and advertising are very much in going in opposite directions and you want as many gaudy numbers as you possibly can, hopefully for when this economy restarts, you're going to have a good ad rate sheet for the advertisers to come back to. If I'm Google, I'm gonna go through this three month period, I'm going to good faith negotiate and then in all likelihood, unless the payment structure is something that is a sweetheart deal worth more than me rebuilding another product, then I'm gonna pull it. I mean, they've shown that that's been the default position and to be totally honest, looking at this one and Europe never change, I don't blame them. It seems odd to me that Google would just say, all right, we don't care to make a product that works around these laws better, we're gonna pull the whole thing. I don't really see that happening. I do some sort of a standalone Apple news type product, like you mentioned, Tom, that seems the most feasible to me. I mean, is it gonna get Google out of hot water with this whole argument that they're so dominant in the marketplace that publishers need to squeeze money out of them somehow? I don't know. I mean, I guess you're not dominant in a particular market if you're not in the market anymore, so if they pulled the product, that could fix that, right? I suppose, yeah. I mean, if news is news, you have to package it pretty differently for Europe to be like, very clever, Google. All right, I guess you won this one. Here's the other thing from Google's perspective in terms of not agreeing to this is that you do have to wonder where is the next step here, right? Like what do you have to pay for links? Do you have to pay for other things that are involved in what Google just considers to be a scraping of the internet? We don't know. I mean, the good news is those processes would take as long as this process took, which has taken a decade to get to this point. But you're right, it still might get there. It's interesting to think about. Let's talk a little bit about the state of track and trace regarding the virus. Restricting people's movements slows the spread of the virus, saves lives, keeps the healthcare system working. It also kills the economy because people can't do certain jobs anymore. But if you ease the social distancing too soon, you strain the healthcare system, people die, and that also hurts the economy. New York University economist and Nobel Laureate Paul Romer is among economists and healthcare experts urging governments to stop focusing on that Sophie's choice and instead focus on repeatedly testing those without symptoms. If you've got the symptoms, they're just like just assume they have it. Definitely test those without symptoms to determine who is infected. Asymptomatic infected people who test positive could then self-isolate until they test negative when they are then allowed to return to work and travel and socialize. In other words, you don't have to restrict everyone if you know who's infected. Tests would still be conducted every two weeks under Romer's plan. Testing could be voluntary with social pressure enough to ensure compliance, giving businesses the right to refuse service if you're not being tested. Like, hey, if you haven't been tested, we're not gonna let you in here. Now, we can have all kinds of arguments about whether that would work or not, but the focus has come up with a system that focuses on that. A Booth School Survey showed that 93% of economists agree that some kind of massive increase in testing is required for an economic restart. Ezekiel Emanuel, Chair of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, believes an increase in testing could lead to restarting the economy in June, if done right. Harvard Medical Faculty have outlined similar ideas. So we have a couple of challenges if we even wanna follow that advice. One challenge is to find the money to massively increasing the testing availability in the lab capacity. There's a lot of coverage about that out there. Another challenge, once you have that, is to how to track people and balance privacy rights, how to not let this be a land grab into privacy. One idea comes from researchers at MIT who have developed a system called PACT, Private Automatic Contact Tracing. It uses Bluetooth on your mobile device. The way the system works is it assigns random numbers, not just one, but random numbers to each device. So you can't link one number to a device. There's a lot of numbers in the system. That number is not linked to any other information. Devices then send that number to each other anonymously and record which numbers were in range from about 40 feet. So you're out walking around, your phone says, oh, I was near this number and that number and that number. And again, those numbers aren't tied to a device in particular. They're part of a set that's part of a device. And that set is kept secret until a person tests positive for COVID-19. Then they would be made to upload that list of numbers from their device to a database and which numbers they received. So these are my numbers I was infected. These are the numbers that I was near. And then your device can automatically look into the database and see if your numbers are in there. You can confirm positives to see if your device came near them. And if so, then you can choose to get tested or self-isolate. There's no geolocation involved in this. There's no personal information ever used. But it would allow us to tell if we're good about keeping the devices on us and all of that, which, you know, there's other questions about compliance here. But it's a system that says we can preserve the privacy and still let people know with a sort of double blind system whether they were near someone who was infected without having to tell them who that infected person was. Whatever system is used would need to preserve anonymity and any requirements would have to have a sunset date after which the system would no longer be in use. That's the pretty day we go across all these kinds of things. But what do you guys think of this idea of that, you know, I wanted to set up why this track and trace is so important, but what do you think of this idea of having this as a system? Well, you know, we're gonna get something in this vein. Much as the attacks on 9-11 gave us the Patriot Act, I believe we are going to get some kind of legislation or push for enhanced contact tracing, not only for this pandemic and subsequent waves of it, but also for future pandemics. The question is exactly how we balance that. And if we, as many people are unhappy at some of the civil liberty trade-offs that we did give back at the turn of the century, then things like this where it is voluntary, it does involve you interacting with people, but also it doesn't involve specific geolocation or your personal information. Maybe that's a place where people can meet halfway. You know, the whole voluntary thing on its surface, it's like, this is great. You know, as a rule, people want to help other people. You know, you wanna be part of the solution, not the problem. But as we've seen across the world, certainly where we all live in the US, across the US, the rules are different, depends on where you are. The leaders in charge might have different opinions, depends on where you are. How much you feel that you should be doing things that other people are doing or not doing, depends on who you are. So I think that a lot of this, you know, particularly the researchers at MIT, that is a great idea, but it does require someone to be like, I'm on board with this, I trust the system, and I am in a position to understand how it works enough to be of help. Yeah, and it also needs to be part of operating systems. You're gonna need at least Apple and Google on board to implement this on the massive platforms. Ariel, what do you make of all this? I mean, the short of it, I think is that technology is actually not the answer. People are. I think there are still too many instances for things to be incorrect, for misreadings to happen when it's based on technology. Also, when just looking at the science of how many people are catching something because they were within the same room or touched the same surface versus people who were across the street while someone was walking by. You know, I think we've been seeing a lot of success when there has been the capacity to do contact tracing with humans. And so I am much more on the side of, you know, let's keep trying to like get and train an army of people to do contact tracing the way it has been done because it has been seen to be effective. We just don't have the capacity for it. But I think technology sort of being the like, oh, we don't need people, we just have technology. I actually don't think it's going to be helping I don't think it'll be yielding the same amount of help that it would be if you're doing actual person-to-person contact and tracing, you know, where they've been and who they've been around as opposed to whose phones are getting pinged. I think there's just way too much, I guess granularity to it that's missing. I think there's a lot of potential for just misreadings. And right now with everything being as it is, there's just so much misinformation and so many people who are misunderstanding the recommendations and the alerts and the warnings that they're getting. So I think this would actually be trouble for creating more of that rather than relying on a system that we already know works. Well, theoretically, this would just be a starting place for human-to-human contact tracing, right? Like that you would find out, somebody says that they are infected, right?  Yeah, I don't know. I'm skeptical. Well, another system that works well in theory but has seen a lot of disruption lately is the supply chain. And you can look at Apple as a bit of a canary in the coal mine for how well tech companies are weathering the global pandemic or not weathering it well. A Wall Street Journal report shows how Foxconn follows Chinese rules to supply workers with face masks and check their temperature daily. The company also does its own social distancing and disinfecting measures. Workers must scan QR codes to record where they sit in a cafeteria. They can't face each other while they're eating. Foxconn also believes it's an autumn launch. It says it's taking the proper precautions. But will people want to buy those iPhones? A key bank analysis of spending data estimates that iPhone sales in the US fell 56% year over year in March. And the South China Morning Post notes that as customers begin returning to stores in China, retailers are offering pretty steep discounts on the iPhone 11, though not from Apple itself. Yeah, this is, I mean, proof's in the pudding, right? If we even, if we see an iPhone 9 slash SE ship in the next month, I think that tells us a lot. But even if we don't, it's whether Foxconn can get these things made and we see an autumn launch. Justin, do we think people will be in a position to want to buy these? Whether or not, I think we're getting them because, look, China is in a very, very interesting situation. Not only have they been ravaged by this virus as much of the world has, although we don't exactly know how much because of the secrecy of their government, there's no doubt that their economy has been affected by it and there were certainly signs that it was in trouble beforehand. I believe that the iPhone 9 or whatever else it's going to be called could be one of the most important in terms of understanding the state of the Chinese supply chain products that we have seen in our recent memory. I believe that they are going to put a priority on it. They want it to be good and they want it to be on time and what the Chinese government wants very often the Chinese government gets. Hey folks, if you wanna get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to dailytechheadlines.com. Ariel Waldman did a video for tested.com recently on how to find tardigrades in your backyard. Those are the Microsoft, or a Microsoft, microscopic extremophiles. You may have heard them called water bears or moss piglets. Of course, being microscopic, you need a microscope to see them. So we wanted to know more about the tech of microscopes. Ariel, what makes a good microscope? Is it just magnification? Is it ease of use? Is it a combination? What do you need? I mean, it's a combination of things, but certainly to look at tardigrades, what you're wanting to get is any sort of microscope or magnification that allows you to see a quarter of a millimeter very easily. So tardigrades can be up to a millimeter big. I've personally never seen one that large, but a lot of the ones that I look at are a quarter of a millimeter to a third of a millimeter in size. And so on Amazon or wherever you can get many kids' microscopes are totally sufficient to see tardigrades. You've got also things like this. This is like the U-handy duet, which essentially is a little high-mag lens that can clip onto your phone and then you can have a little wide... That's a microscope, that thing that just clips onto the edge of your phone. That's crazy. Yeah, so this just here, let's see, this is a little ball lens. Yeah, you can just put a slide on top and it sort of clips in. It's a crazy echo. Oh, yeah. Let me do this. Okay, I can't hear you, but you're me. Yeah, so this is just a little ball lens and a slide that clips with magnets and it's good enough to see tardigrades. You have to create your own light source. So using it in daylight is important, but otherwise, yeah, things like this totally work. Now, we've seen a lot. I know you use a 60s era Bausch & Lohm, but which is great. But we've seen a lot of changes in microscopes in the past 15 years. Like what can people expect if they're like, you know what, I haven't used something since the dual optical stereo one that I used in high school in the 80s. Yeah, I mean, if you want to get the clip on sort of iPhone things, they work totally fine. They're not as good of clarity. You get some distortion around the sides, but the difference between a 1960s microscope and today in terms of actual microscopes that you might be buying for anywhere between a thousand to $10,000, depending on what you want to spend, really, it's a difference in build quality. So this Bausch & Lohm behind me is like really solid metal. Whereas this Nikon over here is mostly plastic, but the big thing you have to look out for when you're shopping like on Amazon or something for a relatively cheap microscope is the build quality. So for instance, Amscope is a very common brand on Amazon, but the build quality of them, even though they're on the cheaper end, is really terrible. But that said, the microscope itself, the actual objectives and everything, they're pretty similar. So it's not necessarily that you're going to get a bad image quality. It's mostly about the quality of the actual device itself. And for some people, that might not really be a big deal at all. If I know a lot of these work with phones in one way or another, even if they don't clip right onto the end in the cool fashion like that one, it doesn't matter if you're getting an optical microscope versus something electronic. What should you look for there? Yeah, so the two main differences if you don't know too much about microscopes is, a lot of the microscopes that you get for like looking at electronics or like things like this, these are essentially stereo microscopes, which means that they look at reflected light. So pretty much the way anything appears to us right now in the real world, like you can look at electronics with it, it's reflected light versus a different microscope like this Nikon is transmitted light, which means that you're actually putting light through this specimen. So when you see videos of tardigrades and they look transparent, it's because light is going through the tardigrade and they're tiny and transparent enough that it illuminates them. So in my video with tested, I tested out both sort of these stereo reflected ones and the transmitted light ones. Typically with stereos, you can't get as high of magnification. So you're going to be able to see more color of the tardigrade because it's not as transparent, but you're probably not going to be able to get a very detailed image because it's still going to be relatively small. Whereas a transmitted light microscope typically allows you to get higher magnification. So you can like really zoom in on their little creepy claws and stuff like that. Yeah, that microscope that you were talking about that's meant for looking at electronics, looking at circuit boards and stuff. I was impressed that you, even though it doesn't get that much magnification compared to an optical one, you could still see the little tardigrade swimming around in that little drop of water is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, just getting, you know, there's so many options. So it's like that little stereo microscope. Yeah, you're barely going to see the tardigrade, but you'll see it and that one costs $75. The one that attaches, you know, to your phone is like $135. There's also a bunch of kids microscopes for around $150 or so. And then if you want to, you know, get into the larger ones, then you're getting into anywhere between a thousand to $6,000 maybe. Yeah, so if you just want to mess around and follow Ariel's tested video and dig up some moss and look at tardigrades, you probably don't need to spend $1,000 to do that. No, you can definitely just do it with any of these cheaper ones. Yeah, yeah.  Yes, yeah, so if you don't have a microscope at all and you still want to sort of go hunting for tardigrades and other microbes, you can go to lifeundertheice.org on your phone or on your laptop, what have you. And it's kind of a tardigrade and microbe safari of all the different microbes that live under the ice in Antarctica that I was able to film. And it's all stitched together so that you can just pan around and zoom in and out and learn about different microbes. And it really gives you the feeling of being out of microscope and what it's like to have a large Petri dish of a bunch of different microbes to look at. So it really replicates the feeling of being out of microscope. Yeah, that's the cheapest way to start right there. And then you can decide if you want to plunk down $7,500 and go even further. That's so cool.  Like there's all kinds of other things you're gonna see. Yeah, I was saying in the tardigrade video for tested that the most likely thing you're going to see first and foremost are nematodes because for every single human on the earth, there are 60 billion nematodes. So nematodes are incredibly ubiquitous. So you're definitely going to see them first. But they're really cool in their own way because they're not quite earthworms and they're not quite snakes. They're their own creature. That's so cool. You think tardigrades are hanging out in our subreddit? I'd like to think so. I'm sure nematodes are as many of them as there are. That's for sure. Science and technology certainly collides in our subreddit. And as a human, or if you're not a human, that's cool too. You can submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. Thank you in advance. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Oh, let's. Andrew, the keen archeologist wrote in about our science discussion yesterday about the technology of archeology and how it's advancing. Andrew says, yes, it definitely is. The jobs are catching up now. My current job was offered to me based on my experience with drones and 3D modeling in archeology. I'm now operating professional grade survey drones and making 3D models for work. I agree. It's a combination of collaboration and specialization that'll continue to drive tech adoption in archeology forward. I benefited from partnering with robotics experts early in my career. And now I've become an expert myself in less technologically savvy archeologists can go to for support with implementing more advanced technology in their project. So he's somebody that people go to and say, hey, how's this work? I continue to collaborate to expand my capabilities not just with other scientists. We're currently moving towards doing 3D printing in archeological resources for educational and interpretive materials. And to implement this, I'm collaborating with an artist. I know that 3D prints and finishes terrain for tabletop gaming to construct museum-style dioramas of archeological sites from drones derived from 3D source data. Drone-derived 3D source data turned into tabletop games. That sounds fascinating. Thank you, Andrew, for sending that along. That's cool stuff. Yeah, very cool. Also shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels, including Degorashi A. Daniels, Steve Aya Darula, and Michael Aikens. Also thanks to Ariel Waldman, Science Week, Rolls Along, Tartigrades, and all sorts of things. Ariel, you keep pretty busy, so let folks know where they can keep up with all of your work. Yeah, I mean, the easiest place right now is just to check out my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash Ariel Waldman. I'm posting new videos week to week there, and you can find also videos from my Antarctic expedition and the Tartigrade guide, which is on Tested's YouTube channel, but I have a playlist where you can find that also on my channel as well. So that's probably the best place to find me now. Excellent. Also thanks to Justin Robert Young. Justin, it's been a week. What's been going on? Well, not much, Sarah. There's a lot of sitting around, eating food. Yeah, eating a sandwich perhaps. You know, I'll tell you, maybe a few. I have a new podcast though. In fact, I did a politics, politics, politics podcast yesterday where I spoke to a man who voted in Wisconsin. Despite the fact that there is indeed a stay-at-home order, they braved the wiles of Wisconsin so they could have their voice heard. In fact, that man was named Merritt, but not the Tom Merritt that you hear hosting this show. No, it's his brother Tim. If you are tickled by the fact that Tom has the brother Tim and he is living in Wisconsin and voting despite the stay-at-home order, then you need to go ahead and listen to politics, politics, politics. That is the Wednesday episode that was obviously yesterday. They kid did a good interview, didn't he? Yeah. He was a good interview. I just have to say, editorially, Tom and Tim Merritt is the most Midwest thing I think I've ever heard. He has the better beard too. He told Justin that and he's right. Hey folks, as he hung up, he made sure that I got that message. That is his parting shot, that's great. Hey folks, do you like comics? Do you like robots? Do you like tales set in oldie times but also modern cutting-age sci-fi? Well, you need atomic robo in your life. And not only that, you can support TeslaDine, which makes atomic robo and great comics like it. Fulfill both those needs at patreon.com slash teslaDine, just our way of sharing the love in these hard times. They didn't pay for that, that is just my own pick. Go check it out, patreon.com slash teslaDine and of course you can support us at dailytechnewshow.com slash patreon. Thanks so much for your support and also thanks for your feedback. Our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. We are live, Monday through Friday, 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 20.30 UTC. We'll chug along again, same time, same place tomorrow and you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Len Peralta will be here to draw and Riley Black on the tech of paleontology. Talk to you tomorrow. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this program.


Let's try this one. So, eventually we're going to want to find the density of this block of metal But first, we're going to need to find the volume And the volume itself is not given to us, but the length, width, and thickness in this gate that are high is given to us. So, well, let's figure out what the density of this thing is. So, it says the length of this piece of metal, the length of the piece of metal is 6.45 centimeters The width of the piece of metal is 2.50 centimeters And the thickness, or the height, is going to be the small one, 3.1 millimeters So, there's a couple of things with this already, so we need to use these to find the volume But already we see, hopefully, that millimeters are a different unit than centimeters So, we're going to have to convert units there And this number only has got two sig figs So, our volume and our density down the road are going to only be allowed to have two sig figs So, remember when you're doing density of solids, you're usually going to be seeing the density units of grams per cubic centimeter if you recall, or cubic meter or whatever So, probably you want to get these in grams per, or get the volume into cubic centimeters So, even if you didn't remember that the volume equation for a block So, you got kind of like a block here, like that So, if you think about this, this part is 3.1 millimeters here That's the thickness The length is going to be 6.45 centimeters And the width is going to be 2.50 centimeters So, that's what you're looking at there So, the volume is actually the length times the width times the height So, 6.45 centimeters times 2.50 centimeters times Well, if you just put your millimeters in there, you get centimeters, your units would be centimeters squared times millimeters Those are not good units So, I would recommend that you convert this first to centimeters So, how many centimeters are there in a millimeter, or how many millimeters are there in a centimeter? So, if you don't know, there's 10 centimeters, or 10th, and 1 centimeter will cancel And so, that's going to make that decimal move over one place So, 0.31 centimeters So, now we got centimeters times centimeters times centimeters So, it's going to be centimeters a 6.45 times 2 And you get, on your calculator, it says 00875 But you've got to do, round it to 2 sig figs So, it's going to be, fingers cubed is going to be the volume And then remember, the density is mass divided by volume Or, if you recall, it's going to be in units of grams So, I'm going to leave this divided by a second answer And I got density as 2.712678, blah, blah, blah 2 sig figs, in fact, we're actually going back to this number, only having 2 sig figs So, our answer will be 2.7 grams Figure out what this actual metal is So, what is this metal, and we can figure it out


There can be no doubt that we are at a moment of extreme stress in democracy. And this is not something that most people are likely to be disagreeing with today. But the different sets of people do have different reasons for thinking this. Some may think so because of the growing threat of terrorism and insurgency and disobedience to law and the churning itself. Some may think of democracy as being so much blatant violation of our civil liberties at the hands of the authorities. Other may think that democracy is under threat because of our crumbling institutions, both social and official, the institutions that hold up the pillars of democracy. Others may feel that we have never been more democratic than we are now. We have freedom, we are vocal, we are associated, we are connected. We are mobile as we have never been before. Women, Dalits, tribal folk and other traditionally discriminated against groups can have their say, they have their day. And the very phenomenon of our restlessness is a sign of the strength of our democracy. Our demands and our desires and our discontents also speak about our democratic credentials. Some would argue, of course, like the authoritarians do, that there is much too much democracy and it is this very licentiousness that is causing turmoil and must be curbed. Others would argue that in the face of so much inequality and asymmetry of power between the privileged and the deprived, democracy is yet a really distant dream. So it's up to you whether the glass is half full or half empty. I really don't know the answer, but I know that there is great contestation and a contestation for what? For both values and for power. And they come out of the contestation between the internal structure of society as it is lived and the constitutional values that we have. And the institutions of state that we see and particularly you see, we talked about the police. I could talk about the judiciary. I could talk about the bureaucracy, but the one that I know best is the police and the institutions of the state suffer from the same tendencies and the same tensions, one straining to retain power and privilege and the other one struggling to be true to the values of a liberal democracy. Even as it distresses me, this contestation should not surprise us. At Independence, we adopted a constitution that was radical, that set our minds and our face firmly towards modernity. At one stroke of the pen, the Constitution gave the Indian people several brand new basic ideas and concepts to live by. It said all people are equal before the law. That untouchability is abolished and outlawed. There will be special laws to ensure those who have been traditionally disadvantaged will have special treatment and nobody can challenge that. It created a system of governance which was completely different from the authoritarian governance that we find in our families. It created a different system where power was dispersed between legislature, judiciary and executive and human rights rule of law set the rules of the game rather than the traditional hierarchical system of status that we have and that which is the foundations of our social ideology and our social identities. And you find that these traditional norms have seeped into our institutions, particularly I could illustrate it as I said by looking at any of these these institutions of state, but I will look at the police. I won't rehearse what was wrong with the police or what is wrong with the police because you all know it and you've just heard Collins talk so passionately about it and I do agree with it all. Now what do we do about the solutions? Can we go for some poor Nakhranti? Will that change the police or will it make it more authoritarian? Can we go for radical change? You know in other jurisdictions where change has come to the police or reform has come to a corrupt and authoritarian police, it has come at certain moments of time. Social revolution is one. Constitutionalism is another. A country like Kenya coming to independence had made a big effort to change its police. It hasn't been that successful, but that is a moment. We missed every constitutional moment. We missed independence. We missed Punjab. We missed Gujarat. We missed the emergency. And we seem to continually miss moments that really require what Colin talked about, a holistic purge of the police. There is no appetite for it. There is no demand for it. And there is a huge resistance from within the police, within the bureaucracy, within the politicians. And why would it not be because their power flows from there? So what is the public to do about that? The public is between a rock and a hard place. It is also torn between that old culture and the new culture. They do not know the constitution. They do not know in village after village and town after town that you go to that they are equal, that they can actually take on the police. They simply do not know that. And if they did it, where would they go to for protection if they had a pushback? So that is the problem. So in the absence of that, in the absence, it has been our endeavor for many, many years to change that, to create a demand for police reform. But it has not happened still. But maybe the very vices of the police, their excesses, will create such an issue within the public that the public itself will revolt. However, when you actually talk to the public about what they think about the police, they will say in one voice that the police are ghastly and awful, but there is nowhere else to go. And so that is what holds them back. So we are left with this idea of gradualist change. And the gradualist change has been thought about by commission after commission, if you go before independence, after independence, during all the commissions that have come and gone. And you end up with the last bit, which is Mr. Prakash Singh's case. Mr. Prakash Singh is a police officer. He comes to the whole case from that point of view. Nevertheless, it has some very good points. It gave six directives to the state as well as to the center. And it is worth understanding those in order to see what you can build from that foundation. What is the edifice you can build? The police are said to be completely with the control of the police by the political executive is the phrase that is always used is illegitimate interference in the everyday working of the police. So they created an institution, the Supreme Court created an institution called the State Security Commission. It had the role of putting down policy, looking at performance and provisioning the police. And it was a bipartisan mechanism which every state was to create. They also then gave back the everyday administration of the police to the police supervisory cadres. And the third thing that they did in terms of accountability was to create a police complaints authority, a police complaints authority. It is not enough by any means, but it would have kick started. We hoped it would throw a pebble into a very still and feted pond. Now has there been compliance with this? Not even one state has complied with this. States have done two things. Either they have not complied or they have complied in a way that makes a mockery of the thing through executive orders. And the third thing they have done is legislated their way out of it. So after Prashant is one of the councils, I think one of the senior council, not senior council, but the most important councils in this case. And he has been walking the walk with Mr. Prakash Singh. And the issue of how do you bring things to be more in tune with the democracy lies in this illustration that for 10 years this case has gone on, 2006 to now. 12 years this case has gone on with aren't disobedience, but there is no contempt of court petition being heard. There are contempt of court petitions being placed before the court, but nothing has come of it. One wonders whether the court itself is not uncomfortable with the idea of actually making obedience happen. So one of the things about all of this ideology of reform in my view and a problematic has been that everything has been based on the notion that the structure itself is okay. The structure of policing itself is based on a militaristic point of view where the police is a law, it is called the police force. In a democracy you need it to be and to be called a police service. It is premised on the idea that the police will enforce the law rather than uphold it. And the basic idea of a police in a democracy is the change of its purpose. The purpose under the British and one that we have adopted in our authoritarian democracy is that there should be law and order, there should be control over the population. I want to leave you with the thought that actually the purpose of the police is to create an environment within which we can securely enjoy all of our human rights. That is the role of the police. The police has to be part of the community and yet we are doing everything to isolate the police from the community. We are giving it privileges, which the community does not have. We are creating a superman with privileges and even those privileges laughably are not based on hierarchy.  So what do you do? Stop. You say okay we'll give you beautiful accommodation and we keep you away from the public. So the accommodation becomes a privilege which keeps him apart from the community. Police reform has to start at the police station. There has to be actionable things that has to be done at the police station level. And the failure of the supervisory classes is enormous in that they are waiting. They are not asking. They are asking for legislation. They are asking for tenure. They are asking for everything. But with the money they have, with the power they have over their constabulary, they are doing nothing. So you see the same hierarchies. Finally, the police station. I also want to leave you with this thought.  But actually it has become a sort of guarded and with those sandbags and a fortified place. So what is the signal from that? The signal from that is we the police are going to keep ourselves safe from you. We are not going to take the same risks that you are taking. And we are going to leave you open to those risks while we have the comfort of being looked after by the authoritarian regime of who we are the servants. And this is what we need to change. It will not change without the popular voice. So if you are looking at the future of police, given the UAPA, given sedition, given TADA, no longer, given the NSA, given the Gundas Acts, and given now the revival of this notion that the Malimath Commission will solve everything. And given the fact that the MHA is even at this moment looking at a new law for the police. It may go the way that none of us wanted to go, but there are very, very few advocates who are talking about a democratic police for a democracy.


The summer of 2015 was marked by extreme heat and drought across much of Europe. Temperature records were broken and soil moisture levels dropped significantly due to a lack of rainfall. This resulted in record low river flows in some major rivers, particularly in Eastern Europe. Additionally, there were four heatwave events which were caused by persistent blocking patterns in the atmosphere. These blocked patterns were also responsible for the large positive geopotential height anomalies in the North Atlantic and negative anomalies in the Central North Atlantic, which contributed to the extreme weather conditions. Finally, the lagged relationship between the western Mediterranean sea surface temperature and drought conditions in Europe has been identified, providing valuable information for predicting drought conditions in the future. This article was authored by Amy Anita, L. M. Talikson, D. G. Kingston, and others.


to be able to say you have the most points in the history of the NBA as wild. And I truly think once he gets this record, we got to officially crown him as the goat. The things he's done, it just speaks volumes on the longevity of his career, the coaches, the teammates he's had, the amount of time and effort he's put into his body, just to kind of sustain this level of play. And honestly, one of the most impressive things of his whole career, which is, you know, it's insane career, is what he's doing this year. At 38 years old, 20th year, this guy, if the Lakers were winning more games, would be my MVP, I've said that before. But it's just incredible what he's doing. And like I said, I think once he passes Karim, I love Michael Jordan, he's my childhood, but I got to give LeBron the official goat here once he does this.