The other day, I was scrolling through the Wizard101 lookie, as I do, and stumbled across this badge, and I simply had to get it, so I messaged my friend, and we set out on a mission to get the aura endure a badge. Now, this badge is not too easy to get, you have to defeat Bundoza on the first round of battle, and let's just say it took us a few tries. If you're new here, consider subscribing, only 24% of you are actually subscribed, so if you want to be cool, you should subscribe, and it's completely free and you can always unsubscribe later. Anyway, on with the video. Scarecrow and Blade, hopefully this can go well. It won't, it won't cause I didn't get a shout out from him. Well, you never know, I could cast Macefane on my pit. Don't worry, well it's not Macefane, let's see if this does even more. Oh, that was a bit better. So you do like 6,000. Ah, not good enough. I really want to see if we can get, because I don't think you're gonna either shut up at first try. I think that's asking way too much. That did more. But I mean, like if you ask, I'm sure somebody in the Discord server would be like, oh you know. I want to try and get Macefane first, because I think that did nothing, you didn't even crit on that one. Do you think we're gonna get the Macefane? No, I've never seen your pet cast it ever. Yeah you have. You've literally been in fights where it's casted. I have, I don't remember. Wow. Luna's never gonna cast it now, because you hate it.  What if she did it out of spite? No, she hates you. She could do it out of spite. She hates you for suggesting that. Oh, you crit this time though, so that's pretty pock jam. So it was at this point that we began to get desperate, and we realised that we actually needed a little bit more help. So I tried to get as many people as possible, and we finally might have found our saviour. By Mrs Mystic as well. I'm resorting to everything. I promised him with a cool badge. Oh my god, that's one way to do it. Exactly, Nicholas Frostflame. The man, the mythologian Firemans. Badge say no more, yes. This is what I like to see, haha. So I'll carry a potent, and you just carry the other one. The regular. Or you could do another. I'm using the item one, so if you could do the other one, that would be dope. Sorry, ignore that. Hold on, I'm... Yeah, so I'm using the item card at the moment. On the base. So do you want to do that one or the regular potent? Yeah, just regular potent. Do you still have the scared crow and stuff for the other dude? I also have Blade as well. Right, let's do this. Let's go first. Yeah, I'm in. Yay, okay. We did it. Oh my gosh. I can't believe this. I hope so too. Oh my gosh. That's good. Double lady. Yes, yes. Right, now I just need to finish. That was super easy. Wow, just three people was all it took. So much better than waiting for my pet to do mass fame. Man, that was good. Give me badge. Give me badge. Give me badge. Badge, badge, badge. When you do the badge song, do you know what the badge song is? This is what I do whenever I try and get a badge. I go... Badge. And then you hit and then you get the badge. It works every time. Every time. See, watch this. Watch this. This is how it works. It's just natural. See, I did the wee little song. And then we hit. And we're going to get the badge. See. Just wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it. Wait for it. Do we have to kill all of them in round one? We might. Oh, that's what it is. Yay, that scared me. That took forever to pop out. I know. Oh my gosh. Gigi, do I... Oh my gosh. And that is the story of how I got this badge. Thank you everybody for watching. If you like the style of video, please let me know down in the comments below. And as always, remember to craft outside the box.


For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we're going to be talking about the COVID-19 situation in South Africa, especially from the angle of public health and we're going to look at the health system and the current situation, the pandemic. Now, South Africa has been in the list of top 5 countries in terms of the number of cases, but there's also been one of the countries which has been reporting a lot of new cases and a lot of new deaths in recent times. So to talk more about this phenomenon, we have with us Dr. Lydia Kintros. She's a pop doctor with the Public Health Service in South Africa and also a member of the People's Health Movement. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you very much Prasant. Yes, so to begin with, could we look at, could we talk a bit maybe about what's the situation on the ground right now because we do know that the government has been pushing for reopening and interestingly South Africa was one of the countries which did have a very strong lockdown. So how is it that despite that the number of cases continues? Yeah, I think South Africa, you know, we started off with the, with the approach to the pandemic of a very strict and very hard lockdown, one of the hardest in the world for about five weeks. And during that time there was quite slow transmission of the virus. We think that because it was mainly sort of initially a middle class inoculation into the society and we have a very class segregated society, which is the legacy of apartheid and of capitalism. And so for some time the lockdown worked, but the lockdown came at tremendous cost, tremendous cost to primarily the poor and the poor black majority in South Africa and it revealed the tremendous food insecurity within the country and income insecurity and the state was not able to rapidly move to fill those gaps. So there was a pressure to lift lockdown both from a conservative sort of capital economy lobby, which wanted to get profit going and get factories running, but there was also a pressure from the ground from people who were starving who actually were unable to fulfill their normal livelihoods, which was the microeconomy in the townships you know the informal economy which had been decimated by the lockdown. And of course what we had needed at that stage was a very strong social support package to come in rapidly, to support income security, to support food security, to bring to communities water and food and sanitation and money to allow them to survive the lockdown. But we were unable to make that shift and so there was this pressure and a fairly uncoordinated opening of the economy. Sort of the strongest lobby pushing would get their sector open. So one of the first areas to open was mining, which you know makes no sense in terms of a health and epidemiology point of view. And then kind of opening of churches and opening of big sectors of the economy that were not necessarily what we would consider to be essentials for life, you know which is a more kind of social perspective on what do we need to survive and what can we keep closed in order to keep us safe. The other problem was that we didn't utilize the lockdown as we should have. So the lockdown time was really an opportunity to get two things going. The one is a mass popular education campaign to empower communities to understand the virus, to begin to know how when lockdown lifted, how to move safely in the presence of the virus. And that mass campaign has still not happened and there are pockets of education happening by NGOs, social movements, health ourselves, but not nearly enough. And the other thing that needed to happen in that time was mass testing, tracing and quarantine. And our testing capacity really failed us at this time. And because we were not able to escape the logic of the capitalist system and bring together our public and private testing capacity, we still had a two system binary with private sector capacity with a short turnaround times and a few hours to one day or so. And the public sector capacity was just totally overstretched by the numbers. So we got our community health workers up, they screened and they sent for testing and within a few weeks we overwhelmed our testing capacity. So when we started to open up the economy, we didn't have the testing capacity that we needed to be able to test and to separate out those that were sick and take care of them in that way. So here we are, now we are number five in the world. Our peak is coming later in other countries, but it's coming. And the numbers are always contested and the deaths are contested as well, but we are seeing this in our hospitals. So we are seeing the epidemic and for a long time our hospitals were quiet from a COVID point of view. But certainly started in the western Cape province and now is moved to our most densely populated province in Kharting and the hospitals are seeing the influx of patients with COVID symptoms short of break. So it's here. Right. So in this context right now what does what seems to be the government's approach because there have been reports of some amount of alarm within the government regarding the situation. So is there a very coordinated approach which does take the issues of the people and the concerns of the people into account or is it something that's more half Assad and case by case? So it's very difficult because I suspect maybe like your country we don't have a very transparent government. So we don't really understand fully the thinking behind many of the policies and there's no broad based consultation. So we have a national command council that makes decisions about COVID and is supposed to integrate scientific information and medical knowledge. But we know that many of the medical scientists who are on these committees are not really consulted about the big policy decisions. It seems at the moment that the narrative is shifting very much to we can't lock down the economy. So people must take responsibility as individuals and they must behave better and be disciplined and so on. But of course you know this is being met by communities with a deep cynicism because we are in a situation where thousands of our schools do not have functional toilets and running water and never mind sanitizer and other things that school children would need. So the resources needed to make the behavioral changes required for COVID like physical distancing, sanitizing, cleaning hands is just not available in big parts of the country. So we are seeing this call now for community responsibility but we're not seeing the support required to make that real. So it feels very much like the attempts to contain the pandemic have largely been given up in terms of large-scale policies and now we're just expecting people to do their best and to wash their hands which is not going to be very effective in the current situation. Absolutely it's interesting you mentioned that because that's something that is characterized quite other big three countries also India, Brazil and the US where everywhere sometimes it's somehow on the people to take care of themselves and do that. But in this context one interesting question that has also come up in many other countries is how the structural issues in the health system themselves have actually led to the situation today. So across the world we have seen for instance the push for privatization, we have seen absolute lack of investment in the sector itself, a lack of clear thought in training education. So could you look at some of these issues in the context of South Africa? Yes so as we have said in some of our writings you know COVID didn't break the system in South Africa it unmasked the broken system in our health care and we have despite you know 25 years of democracy we've actually seen progressive strengthening of the private sector within health and South Africa has one of the numbers that we have the highest of is we have the biggest private to public sector proportion of expenditure through private intermediaries versus public health. So our public sector covers 85% of the population with about 48% of the money spent on health most of our health workers are in the private sector not in the public sector and then within the public sector we have major disparities between urban and rural and between provinces which are historical which date way back to apartheid times and many of those have not been addressed so that now that the this COVID pandemic has arrived it's it has we have not been able to bring those two systems together into an integrated health response so still today your ability to survive this pandemic and the quality of treatment that you get depends on whether you have medical insurance or not and also depends on which province you live in and which city so some parts of our public health system function quite well other parts are very weak and you would have seen some of those reports in the news about some of our our weaker provinces really heartbreaking stories of sort of dysfunction at the management level some corruption and then just decades of neglect of infrastructure so simple things like getting our oxygen reticulation system sorted out is resulting in deaths we're not talking here about needing the ventilators it's the basic things that are not there which is a legacy of privatization and the legacy of historical inequalities so in this context also what could you talk a bit about what has been the role and the thinking of public health policy for instance on the issue of investment itself as a part of the budget and how that functions also yeah so so from as progressive health activists what we have been arguing for during this time is sustainable investment in in public health infrastructure first of all to pool the resources of the two systems if we cannot at this time and in the middle of the of this global pandemic where there's this massive focus on health bring those two systems together there's the there's the the philosophical justification and there should be the political will and there is even on the ground sufficient good will from clinicians to bring that together but there has really been a failure of that bringing together of the two systems but failing that the next steps that we could be doing within the public health system is to resource and capacitate at the primary healthcare level so the community health workers in South Africa remain some of the most exploited and underpaid workers in in the country and certainly within the state sector so they they remain on mainly stipends on insecure contracts and yet they are being put forward and lauded as the true frontline of this pandemic so for us right now we could bring our community health workers in train adequate remuneration and recognition for community health workers and of course expand that pool and then it's also an opportunity for us to take the the funds that are being mobilized for covid and put in sustainable infrastructure within the public health system many many private doctors are out of work at this time if there was wool we could open posts in the public sector and we could bring health workers back into the public system so we could really use this as a reset button for us to strengthen the public aspect of our health service if there was the political war and and you know we still hopeful that that that shift will take place and that is what we're advocating for so not sort of short term bursts of money that get put into project that will disappear after covid but sustainable investment in human resources as well as infrastructure right absolutely and finally this is also something you've written about could you talk maybe a bit about the impact on non-covid patients also so especially because a number of cases the focus is entirely on this but what has been the impact of those suffering from other diseases those for instance who are made surgery which you've written about yeah so I'm a surgeon by profession and and I can tell you that our surgical patients that normally wait many months for their operations have now waited another six months and those are the people in the system so there are there's the unmet need of of of patients who have not presented for fear they have not come to institutions um with their symptoms and then there are the many many many patients on chronic medications whose care is being disrupted and in South Africa as you know we have a HIV and tuberculosis burden which is huge um then some reports are saying up to 11 000 patients have not collected their antiretroviral medication regularly we know that there has been disruption of diabetic care and hypertension as well as vaccination of children um this did not need to happen with covid we could have set up systems to strengthen and to encourage people to come to facilities and to balance the the fear against the access and also make sure that facilities don't close because many facilities closed completely but I think part of the the post-covid reality is going to be an epidemic really of the non-covid illnesses which have been neglected during this time almost a second wave of illness and death that will follow this even more reason to strengthen our public health system to to anticipate and manage that when it comes absolutely thank you so much dr. Lydia for talking to us thank you very much that's all we are time for today keep watching People's Dispatch


This one headline that I've been seeing a lot is basically, if a business can't afford to pay $15 an hour or more, then they shouldn't be in business. Workers are sick of subsidizing owners that aren't willing to pay a fair living wage. And I get that argument. I think there's some validity to that, but it depends on the location. I don't think that a $15 an hour should be a national standard, because witch talk, Kansas and LA are completely different, right? But I certainly believe in a fair living wage, you know? And I think we've always been able to be competitive with that, you know, we're not on the high end of that, but we're hoping to be able to as we grow a little more. I wish people knew the numbers. Like I remember we almost opened up a restaurant. I was helping a restaurant open and I got to see all the financials. And this was a James Beard award-winning chef. So they're coming with a lot of credibility and, you know, there's a lot of hype and blah, blah, blah. And in looking at the numbers, they were making like 5% profit margin. Yeah. And it just goes to show you like these businesses are next to impossible. Yeah. If you're a logical human being, you wouldn't do it, right? Which made me rethink about restaurants as a hospitality art. That's really what it is.  Right.  It's 5% doesn't keep the industry alive. No. Right. And it keeps two things happening, right? It keeps either the, you'll see more McDonald's and you'll see three Michelin stars and there'll be nothing in between. Right. So it's like everything's either corporate or super high end. Yeah. And now the family of four can't go out to dinner and experience a meal because it's way too expensive. Yeah. And this is what's happening. And I think COVID just threw that into overdrive. Yeah. Right. It's a sad truth. It's really sad. But it's like the consumer doesn't also understand the cost has to be offset somehow. Right. Yeah. And so it's this thing of like, you have to understand the simple math of it before you ask for astronomical things like we want $18 an hour.  I mean, we're working our butts off and I think most restaurant owners would agree and it's, there's not a whole lot of return. Well, if you ask the consumer, the consumer says that they're willing to pay higher prices if that cost of product increase goes to employees or whatever it is, but then in actuality, you find that they don't actually follow through. So then these restaurants close down and then everyone's left blaming the other person. Right. And so it really is just this really tough area right now. And like Diego said, it's been thrown even more into a loop because of COVID. And so people are trying to figure out how to deal with it. And then also there's what we were talking about earlier with a $15 increase to minimum wage. There was also the talk of hazard pay for all these frontline food employees, grocery store employees. And it's like certain industries were thriving for sure and maybe could afford it, but it's not every industry. And it should be a sliding scale. I don't think you can hold someone to a black and white standard when it's very gray. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of people are raising their prices now, though. I think they have to. I think the ingredients are going up, labor's going up. Yeah, we're also seeing inflation starting to creep in, right? Yeah. I think one positive thing is that there's also now a lot more dialogue about universal health care. Because if that was around, that would really help the situation as well. Right? It wouldn't. We wouldn't just be about wage only. And for people listening, how much are they? How much is like a six pack of the bigger ones? Or the normal sized ones, I guess? So the six pack is $27, 450 each. 450 each. Yeah. If things keep going the way they're going, we'll probably have to raise the price incrementally a little bit soon here. We've only raised our price once in 10 years. Wow. And that was when I came on board and they hadn't been raised at all. And we were like, we've got to raise the price a little bit here. You've got to raise the price. Yeah. And speaking of price, what's interesting is once in a while you get that person who doesn't quite understand what we're doing. And so they'll compare it to a regular donut. How much is a regular donut? Like at $0.69, maybe? Or whatever, depending on where you're going. But what's interesting is. Obviously not somewhere like Sidecar. We're actually. Pretty much the same price as them, yeah. We're actually on the low end for what we do and what we use for ingredients. For a gluten-free vegan. Because there's a couple of, quote, gourmet donut shops in town, like Blue Star Donuts or Sidecar. And they are also, I think, 450 each. But they're not using really high quality, expensive ingredients like almond flour and rice flour and all fresh fruit. And they're not making a wild blueberry compote. They're monies in their packaging. Yeah, so they might be a little bit warm enough. They've got some chef-y creations. I'm not going to add a lot of dish to them. I'm not dissing them, but I'm saying, in terms of the base ingredients, it's white flour, which costs pennies. There's no comparison. I think this is the hard part about companies like this. It's like it fundamentally costs more money. If you get an almond milk latte, it costs more money than just a dairy. It costs way more, and yet we're the same price. That's what I'm trying to say. You've got to raise your price. Not that they're using cheap ingredients, but they're not using almond flour, which is just a beat down. That's one of the biggest, yeah. So we always tell people, if they're having a hard time conceiving the cost, I say, you overbought a pound of almonds. You see how expensive that is, right? Translate that to, you know. It's so nice of you. I would have just been like, it's not for you. Yeah, I know. I used to go to a barbershop where he would raise the prices 50 cents every year, every single year. And I would always get so mad at him. Now you know why. I was a kid, and I'm like, because my birthday is in January, so what would happen is my birthday haircut would be like more expensive. Can I get last year's riddy?  That's what he would say.  Exactly. I'm like, I'm 12. Can we not talk about that? I'm just going to haircut. That's a tough realization at that age. Just give me that 50 cents. But I always thought, so it wasn't until I was like 18 where I was like, that's actually really intelligent of him to do. I want to see which one you guys ate. And he also trained the customers, right? The customers were at that point, like everybody expected it. Yep. And he would just be like, when I first started, that gas station was 60 cents again. There you go. Look at it now. And then everyone would be like, oh, it makes sense. OK. And then no one will care. We go back to barbershop talk.  Totally. Yeah, it's not like your rent goes up every year too. Rent goes up every year.


Southdown Farm in Letcher County, like many farms around the state, celebrated Kentucky Maple Syrup Day by opening up the farm to visitors on Saturday, February 3rd. The Native Americans made maple sugar before the settlers or the immigrants ever came here from Europe, and they actually taught the immigrants how to make maple syrup. So it's been done for many, many years. Not a new idea, but we've gotten away from it. And there's a lot of possibilities here for economic development and making maple syrup here in Kentucky. At Audiology Associates at Prestonsburg, you can live your life the way you want and find the freedom of better hearing. With 40 years of being in the hearing care industry, you'll experience patient care that is specific to you with exceptional follow-up care that ensures your hearing and balance needs are being met. Audiology Associates at 1428 North Lake Drive in Prestonsburg. The farm hosted a variety of maple-themed treats such as maple donuts, maple whoopie pies, and maple chocolate chip cookies. Patrons had the opportunity to take ATV tours of the area where the saps collected and, on the farm, participants got to see the equipment and learn how harvested sap becomes syrup. I think that there's a tremendous opportunity for agritourism in an event like this. As somebody who works to produce a product like maple syrup, it's fun to have people come out. It's great when product sells. That's good for us, but a really important part of this for me is education and helping people to understand how maple syrup is made, the work that goes into it, and the possibilities of making maple syrup maybe on your own place. Kentucky has a rich history of producing maple syrup dating back to the Native Americans. Long hopes that those who attended Kentucky Maple Syrup Day on the farm enjoyed and learned about the process. For Mountaintop News, I'm Kelsie Fiddell.


Let's get ready for the second session of Real World Crypto and we're gonna move on to cryptocurrencies. So we have three talks lined up for you in this session and the first one on MemoWimble and Scripless Scripts is going to be delivered by Andrew Polster from Blockstream. So I'm gonna ask Andrew to come on stage. Hello, my name is Andrew Polster. I'm the research director at Blockstream and I'm here to talk about a couple of things I've been thinking about over the last year called MemoWimble and Scripless Scripts, which some of you may have heard of, maybe not. I've given similar talks to this a few times before at more blockchain Bitcoin-oriented conferences. This is the first time that I'm talking to a general crypto audience. I'm gonna try to tailor it to a more general cryptographer kind of listener. First, as the first speaker of the cryptocurrency section, I should talk a bit about what blockchains are. A blockchain here is just a list of blocks, okay? So Merklei's list of blocks each block commits to the previous one. Each block commits to a pile of other data called transactions and there are certain rules about what those transactions are. So the real innovative part of Bitcoin is that they're the global consensus system on what the blockchain is. But for my purposes and for the purpose of the next couple of talks, we're going to just take that for granted. We're gonna say somehow everybody has the same view of the system and we're not gonna worry too much about how they achieve that. Okay? So Bitcoin is very simple.  The inputs are references to old outputs and essentially the only rule beyond that the transactions are valid is that each input can only be used in one transaction. You can't double spend. Okay? So if you are somebody joining the Bitcoin system, the design goal is for it to be trustless, publicly verifiable. Anybody can download the blockchain, this series of blocks and all the transactions. They validate all of the transactions. They check that each one is legitimate. It has valid signatures and so forth and also that there is nothing that conflicts. And what they're left with is a set of unspent transaction outputs called the UTXO set. And basically every single cryptocurrency that you hear about uses some form of this model. In Bitcoin, the system state is described by the set of unspent transaction outputs. Those are the coins that can be spent in future transactions. Zcash or Monero uses a different model where they track spent outputs because the unspent ones are not publicly visible. Ethereum has a much, much more complicated state, but essentially the idea is the same. You download all the transactions, you verify them all in a row and you're left with a state which you know came from a legitimate history. So Mimble Wimble, which was proposed a year and a half ago by this character, Tom Elvis, is a slightly different design where people can verify the state of the system without downloading all of the background data. Somehow it's possible to compress out all transactions, so a lot of the data is redundant and you don't need it to get full public verifiability. And one quick note before I move on, I said this character, Tom Elvis, were in Switzerland, maybe there are a lot of French people or French speakers who might recognize this name. It is the name of Voldemort in the Harry Potter books in the French translation. This is not a real name, as far as I'm aware. So this Mimble Wimble system was originally proposed in the form of a text document published on a tour hidden service and dead dropped on an IRC channel a year and a half ago, and that's where all of this came from. The author just dropped it, signed off a minute later, and has never come back as far as any of us are aware. So I want to talk about two things, Mimble Wimble and Scriptless Scripts. The first is Mimble Wimble, which is how do we get this kind of compression. And the second thing is Scriptless Scripts, which are given this compression, which comes as we'll see by restricting the transaction structure to be very simple and very highly structured. How can we still do anything interesting? So the cool part of Bitcoin is not only that you can send coins around, but also that you can attach various conditions to their spending. You can look for hash pre-mages, you can do multi-signatures, you can do all sorts of fun stuff like this that let you do smart contracts, I guess, is a buzzword about that. So let's get started with Mimble Wimble. So before I explained Mimble Wimble, let me explain confidential transactions. So confidential transactions is a scheme devised primarily by Gregory Maxwell at Blockstream a couple years ago, where you have a Bitcoin-like system, but all of the amounts are hidden. They're replaced by these homomorphic commitments, in particular these Peterson commitments, whose structure I've displayed here. And the nice thing about these commitments, being homomorphic, is that people who download these transactions can verify what they need to verify about the amounts just using the homomorphic property. In particular, they care that the sum of the inputs equals the sum of the outputs. That means no coins were created or destroyed. Verifiers don't care about anything else. All they're trying to do is verify that the system is working properly. And then as a second complication, you can see, and I've done this site of hand here, I said given a dollar value v in Zmod QZ, dollar values are not in Zmod QZ. You can't take a $0 bill to the bank and split it for a Q-10 bill and a $10 bill, unfortunately. So to make the system work, we have to restrict all of our amounts to very small values relative to the group order so that they'll behave mostly like positive integers. They won't overflow under any realistic scenarios. And for that, we need something called the range proof, which I won't go into in too much detail except to say that it is there. Okay, so our Peterson commitments consist of the actual amount, and they also have this other uniformly random blinding factor, R, which is used to hide the amount. And in order to reduce a transaction, you need to know the sum of the blinding factors for the inputs. And you can maybe see this by thinking about how you construct this and also knowing that the range proofs serve double duty in a practical system as a proof of knowledge of the blinding factor. So what this means is that you can't construct a transaction without knowing the secret. Well, in Bitcoin, we already have this rule that you can't construct this transaction without knowing secrets. The rule is you have to know the secret key associated to the public key every output is labeled by. So why have these two secrets? Why don't we just drop the secondary one, the one in what's called the script signature, and just use the Peterson commitment blinding factors as your secret. This almost works. There's a little bit too much structure here in the sense that in a real transaction, your inputs come from somebody, your outputs presumably are going to somebody else either to disparate distrusting parties who presumably should not know each other's blinding factors. So if you were to just use the homomorphic property, as I described, inputs, sum of inputs, it's equal sum of outputs, then you'd have this problem, which is the output owner would know the sum of the input blinding factor than vice versa. You're not really transferring anything in the sense that everyone involved in this transaction would know all of the blinding factor than therefore own all of the outputs. So the way Mimba-Wimba saw this is by adding a special zero-valued output called the kernel. The kernel cannot be spent, which means that to the extent that a sum of blinding factors and a kernel of blinding factor are known that's useless to somebody trying to create a transaction, they have to know a sum of actual spendable outputs. And this prevents those kind of attacks from happening. As a second feature, the kernel acts as a multi-signature key for all of the participants in the transaction. Okay, because what it is, really, it's a sum of all of the blinding factors from each participant, then multiplied by some generator G here. And you can think of this in two ways. One is as a sum of Peter's increments as a zero-valued output. The other way is as a multi-signature key. And these two things are complementary, and that's sort of the magic of Mimba-Wimba. So I'm going to switch now to pictures for the remainder of the first half of this talk to give you an idea of what the implications of this are. So here I've got two Mimba-Wimba transactions. I've got inputs, which are references to old outputs, and I've got outputs, which are new outputs. Okay, and the rule for these to be valid is rather than each input having some sort of signature attached to it, we simply require that the sum of the inputs minus the sum of the outputs equals the kernel. And these things are not really attached. You see the kernel, they're kind of free-floating there. The reason for that is that none of these things actually sign any of these other things. Okay? So that means that if I'm allowed to have a transaction with multiple kernels, say, I can just combine the inputs and combine the output sets, and now I've got this one transaction with two kernels, which is already kind of a neat feature. Right? This is, in Bitcoin, we call this coin join when you combine transactions that were otherwise unrelated. And you can do this non-interactively in Mimba-Wimba, because nothing is signing the complete transactions. But then, notice that this second transaction spends an output from the first transaction. Okay? And if my rule is simply that outputs minus inputs equals kernels, that means that I can just as well delete the input and the output as long as they're the same, and now I have a smaller transaction that is missing original transaction data, but still has the same net effect as those two transactions. And critically, because the kernel is still intact, and the kernels are each multi-signature keys from the two transactors, this entire aggregate transaction is still authenticated by everybody involved in the original two transactions. So somehow you're moving money from A to B to C. The intermediate step is deleted from the perspective of any public verifier, but you still retain A, the no inflation property, that the total input amount equals the total output amount, and also the authorization authentication property, which is that everybody involved in these transactions, or in any series of transactions that led to this output set signed off on everything that happened. There's no fraud happening. Okay? So here's where the cool stuff comes in. Suppose that we've got an entire blockchain of these nimble transactions, and you notice in this picture that every single block is a single transaction. The reason is that all the transactions in a block can be combined in the way I just described, so every block just has a set of inputs, a set of outputs, a set of kernels, and this picture I've only got one kernel per transaction, but there could be an arbitrary number, and that's what your blocks are, and it's hard to even describe these as transactions. They're really just inputs and outputs, and what we've got is a diff of the unspent output set. Now, suppose that I'm a new verifier trying to download the state of the chain. So normally in the Bitcoin paradigm, I download all the blocks, I download all of the transactions in those blocks, I verify them all, and so forth. In nimble-wimble, I can do that. What I can do, though, is download the transaction from every single block and combine them in this way that I showed before, because my validity requirement is just a sum property, and then observe that every single input, except for the coin-based inputs which create new coins, every single input is the output of a previous transaction, and that means that this telescoping sum property that I described can be applied across the entire blockchain, and now everything goes away. The only thing left is the coin-based inputs, which in practice are usually implicit, they're just a fixed, like, plus 50 coins every block kind of thing, and whichever outputs have not been spent, which is your final system state, the unspent output set, and these kernels. So every block has a pile of kernels, and this gives you the compression that I alluded to at the beginning of this talk. It's just this property that my inputs and my outputs cancel out algebraically. Now, this is pretty cool, but it makes more complicated things, more smart contract-y kind of things quite difficult, because when I deleted these outputs here, what I'm saying is that any new verifier does not see that those outputs ever existed. In principle, they have no idea that they were ever there, and in particular, if those outputs had weird requirements on them, things like, oh, X, like, M of N signers needed to sign this, or a hash preimage needed to be revealed, or something like that. There's no way that they can check that those conditions are verified, because there's no way that they can even see that those conditions existed. Okay, so it seems like this is a really limited thing, which, when the paper was published in August 2016, was more or less where we are, but in the second part of my talk, I will explain that we can actually, nonetheless, do some cool things, even though our verifiers don't see all of the data. So let me just give some numbers real quick about what we get from this compression. Okay, so in Bitcoin, we have roughly 150 million transactions, 400 million outputs, 65 million are unspent. So today, if you download the Bitcoin system, the Bitcoin blockchain, and you maintain a full transaction index, you get about 180 gigabytes of space on your disk. If you were to add confidential transactions, use these pedos increments rather than explicit values, this would more or less triple the reason being that the pedos increments need these range proofs attached to them, and these range proofs are pretty big. However, with Mimblewimble, because the intermediate outputs go away, along with their range proofs, we get a much smaller situation. We have about 18 gigabytes of transaction kernels, one per transaction, two gigabytes of the final unspent output set, which is just a bunch of pedos increments, they're just curve points, they're 32 bytes, and then 45 gigabytes of these range proofs. And those of you who have seen me give similar talks before, I might be surprised at how small all of these numbers are, that Mimblewimble, despite adding CT, leaves you with a total system that is much smaller than Bitcoin without CT. The reason is that thanks to Benedict Boone and Dan Boney at Stanford and Jonathan Boodle at UCO, we have a new very efficient range proof that came out in the last couple months called bulletproof, and the result of that is that the Mimblewimble system, including bulletproof, is much smaller than Bitcoin without any range proofs at all, which is a really exciting development. Okay, so let's move on to the next part, which is this is nice, but if all you can do is move coins from one place to another and you can't attach any conditions to this, this is not very exciting. However, Scripless Scripps, which is something that has been developed throughout 2017 and continues, sort of a very broad research project, is a way to use these kernels and these kernel signatures to attach conditions to them without modifying the system so that the verifiers need to understand these new rules. Okay, so what I mean by this is that somehow a set of parties can decide on some sort of contract that they want to execute, some sort of protocol they want to execute, and as a result of executing that faithfully, they will produce a valid signature and then the blockchain validates that the signature is valid. Okay, the blockchain does not need to know any of the details of the original contract. All right, and this came historically from Mimblewimble. We wanted, we wanted to be able to do cool stuff with Mimblewimble and we couldn't, but in fact any system that supports Snore signatures, in fact any system that supports some form of signature that is linear in some sense in the secret data can do this kind of stuff. Okay, and there are many reasons to do this. I described the motivation for Mimblewimble but even for bitcoin and friends, this is exciting. The reason being that the existing paradigm for doing this is to use what's called a script signature system where you explicitly lay out the rules that need to be validated and then you explicitly lay out a witness that those rules were followed and then everybody downloads all of this and they verify the witnesses for every single transaction. It prevents the compression that we talked about but it also means that anybody who wants to do cool stuff can only do it within a framework that the entire system is aware of. We've got a consensus system, everybody has to agree on whether or not some rules were followed so it's very difficult to extend this to do things that require primitives that did not exist or that do not yet exist in the system. As a secondary feature we care about privacy and fungibility for cryptocurrencies. Public cryptocurrencies have every transaction published and freely downloadable by everybody and this is very bad for privacy.  This makes it extremely difficult to do business when you're revealing all of your financial transactions. It's just it's no good. It really compromises the usability of any of these systems for real purposes. So using scriptless scripts we avoid a lot of that. We avoid revealing any contracts because all that hits the chain are these signatures, public keys and signatures. Okay so let me get into a bit more algebra and explain how this works. So probably most people here are familiar with Snore signatures or at least they saw them during school or something. Let me briefly overview how Snore multi signatures work. Where you have multiple parties, you want to create a signature that every participant needs to contribute to to produce a signature. Okay so these people all have their separate public keys, PI. They sum these up to get a joint public key P and they want to produce a signature which validates with the key P such that all of them together would need to produce that. So they do the standard Snore signature thing. You think of a nonce R which is actually K times G.  X is your private key and E is somehow a hash of all of the data going into the signature. To do a multi-signature you just sum everything. So everybody chooses their own R equals K, G. Everybody passes around the different R values. They added up to get this joint R value and then everybody using that joint R value computes the hash, their hash challenge, and then they do the same thing. K S equals K plus EX except now E is the hash of their joint nonce and stuff and their joint public key and then they add all those S's together. So your nonces are a sum of everyone's contributed nonces.  Very, very easy, very simple. In practice I should warn people there are things called key cancellation attacks where people choose their public keys and nonces in adversarial ways. So you have to be a bit careful about this but this is not not an insurmountable problem and not a problem that will derail anything that I'm talking about here. So kind of a philosophical point is that these multi-signatures are already kind of a script-to-script by the definition that I gave earlier in the sense that you have a bunch of people who have all of their own independent public keys that they add together to get a joint key and what they publish to the wider world is just a joint key and joint signatures using that key. Public verifiers who weren't party to that don't know that the they don't know how many people were involved they don't even know that more than one person was involved they certainly don't know the original public keys and you can generalize this a bit there's a standard in the literature you look for threshold signatures you'll find a generalization of this to M of N signatures using linear secret sharing and and this nice property that because the multi signature came from adding up everyone's nonsense and adding up everyone's s values if you put a linear secret sharing scheme on there you can then you can basically do the same thing where you're contributing shares of signatures rather than entire signatures and it all just sort of works magically. Okay so I'm going to modify this multi-signature protocol a little bit to produce what I call an adaptive signature and that's going to be the building block for all of the script stuff that I've been working on so what we do here is that one party that let's just do the two-party case I talk about this more generally but it's much simpler for two parties so somebody rather than giving their nonce r and the multi-signature protocol they think of this blinding factor t and they send r plus t instead but they do everything else the same way and they're also going to send t this is kind of a weird thing to do because I'm not really blinding the nonce I'm not trying to hide it all I'm doing is offsetting it by some secret value that I know so we do all of this you follow the protocol the the same way that I described it and what you will get is a signature that is almost valid is valid if you offset it by some secret value t a little t here that only one party knows okay and it's easy for everyone involved in this to verify that this is happening correctly and so what you have basically is a signature or an adaptive signature I should say where knowledge of if you know the adaptive signature then knowledge of a valid signature with the same nonce which is enforced by the hash being the same and all this silly stuff knowledge of a valid signature is equivalent to knowledge of the secret value t little t here okay so this is a building block now we can do a lot of cool stuff with this is a really general thing when I said big t here I just threw the point over the wall and that will work and that will get you the system but if you attach any other auxiliary proof to t or if you're doing some other complicated multi-party protocol in parallel and this big t is something important to the protocol what you've got now is an adaptive signature that will let you translate correct movement of the auxiliary protocol into a valid signature and in particular if you're doing blockchainy kind of stuff you can create transactions that can only be completed by correct execution of this auxiliary protocol okay and this is this is extremely cheap to do so that's that's really exciting that means that a lot of like semi-honor systems where their incentive problem then you've got to add like a whole ton of auxiliary proofs maybe you can just stick like a monetary incentive for people to keep working like I I'm doing a multi-party protocol with someone I put up some coins that they can take I first put them into a two of two multi-sig output between me and my counterparty I then do this adaptive signature protocol such that the only way that they can complete the protocol and take their coins is by revealing the secret value which I then need for other reasons okay um so let me give one example of this um well before I do let me just emphasize this is really what I want to communicate to this audience is that this is a very general framework for attaching valid signatures to arbitrary discrete log-based protocols and more generally any protocol where your primitives are linear okay so there's a lot of really open surface for exploring this let me give a quick example um and then uh and then I'll close for questions which is the atomic swap and this is like your standard prototypical smart contract that you think about when you're doing blockchain stuff okay so we've got um Alice and Bob Alice has a coins on the the A coin blockchain and Bob has B coins on the B coin blockchain and they want to exchange these these two blockchains don't know about each other they can't verify each other's transactions but somehow they want to make this these two transactions happen atomically on each chain either they both go through or neither does so there's no no risk that Alice takes Bob's coins and then doesn't put up her own okay so there's a classical way to do this where you use the blockchain script system to put like a hash preimage challenge and then uh you have to reveal the same preimage on both sides and then basically Alice knows a preimage she reveals it to take her coins Bob copies it off of one chain onto the other chain it takes his coins it's how the atomicity works and here uh using adaptive signatures we can do something simpler where both Alice and Bob put up their coins on two of two outputs on each blockchain then Bob gives Alice adaptive signatures for each each side using the same t value meaning that for Bob to take his coins he needs to reveal t for Alice to take her coins she needs to reveal t and Bob actually knows t so they do this whole setup and then there's some ordering constraints here that I'm not going to go into if I had the full protocol but they do the whole setup and in the end nobody has an opportunity to take their coins without everything being set up such that when Bob takes his coins he publishes little t Alice can compute little t from the final signature that hits a blockchain and use that to get another signature giving her her coins and you get atomicity this way you still have this exchange of information but now we don't have explicit hashes on the blockchain we don't have explicit pre-images on the blockchain nobody can even see that this was happening and you have a much smaller system all that anybody needs to verify publicly is that these signatures are valid so that's pretty cool you basically just need change the support signatures you don't need any extra script properties and as a bonus you get this privacy and stuff so I have a list of open problems that the main one that I care about or the one that I'm thinking about most this morning is quantum resistance everything I've described just uses these really simple linear properties of digital signatures I think a lot of post-quantum schemes out there like NTRU and friends are using lattices which are also very linear objects and maybe there is a simple way to do all of this in a quantum hard setting which would be very exciting because as much as I love cyclic groups and discrete logarithms unfortunately it seems their days may be numbered and I'll have to start doing some real math so that is all I have thank you all right so we do have time for one or two questions so if you have one please walk to the mic I have a question so the blinding factor R becomes my private key yep how do I prevent other people come up with the same R so R here is a uniformly random point in the scalar in the scalar group so it's a 256-bit number so assuming the discrete logarithm problem is hard then nobody can compute R for the same reason that nobody can compute a secret key from their public key it is exactly the same security model here also I'm thinking about because the Peterson commitments if I actually know the discrete log between the two the group generator they will have like g and h yep yeah that's a very good question if I know g is xh I kind of like that's right okay so something I glossed over a bit if somebody knows the discrete log between g and h what we have is not a Peterson commitment but a chameleon signature chameleon hash I guess so when we generate these parameters we need g and h to be uniformly random points typically you have some sort of hash to hash to point function that you can use to get uniformly random points that basically come out of a random oracle and then assuming the discrete log is hard and assuming you actually have a random oracle you get two points such that nobody knows this discrete log and therefore nobody can compromise these Peterson commitments thanks all right so let's thank Andrew thank you


Hi everybody, I'm Jen with Opensource.com and I'm back with another top five articles of the week for Friday, April 22nd. At number five, what sets Critter apart from other open source digital painting tools? In this interview, Nick Hamilton talks about what he loves about Critter prior to his talk introducing the tool to attendees at this year's Langspest Northwest Conference. At number four, free high quality education resources from the National Science Digital Library. Don Watkins gives us a great overview of the National Science Digital Library, which is a collection of high quality online education resources for teaching and learning science. At number three, decoding DevOps, Docker and Git. Corey Quinn talks about the idea that although there may not be a set of accepted standards on how to do DevOps right, it is a crucial element of modern IT. Corey will be speaking at the Linux Best Northwest Conference this weekend. At number two, finding the signal and the noise of Linux system monitoring. Longtime Linux user Elon Robinovich talks about system monitoring and shares his preferred tools. Elon will also be speaking at Linux Best Northwest. And finally at number one, 11 resources for teaching and learning Python. Brian Hall is an educator and developer whose experience includes taking computers apart with kindergarten students, as well as teaching Python programming to college kids. That's it for the top five this week. Thanks so much for joining me and I'll see you next time.


I'm the comic weekly man, the jolly comic weekly man. And I'm here to read the funnies to you, happy boys and honey. Yes, boys and girls, it's comic weekly time.  Right out of the pages and putt the comic weekly straight into your living room, your friend, the comic weekly man, the jolly comic weekly man. Little Miss Honey, how are you today? Well, this is a strange situation, worried and happy at the same time. Well, it may be. Oh, yes, it's gobbler turkey time.  Oh, that's silly, gobble the gobbler. But it's so true. Yes, it is. And I hope you remember that Thanksgiving Day is a day to be thankful for whatever good things have come our way. And it's good to remember to think about the people who don't have things so good. That's a very nice thought. If everybody remembers that, then maybe they'll find a way to help people who need help. Yes. And now tell me, what are you worried about? No, they're not. Well, I'll read that in just a moment. But first, here's that nice man again with something interesting to say. Now here we go with Puck the Comic Weekly. And on the first page, under bringing up father, Beatle Bailey. Magic words for the music, please. Very well, my lady. Toot me a toot and tweet me a tweedle. Squeeze out some music for Bailey the Beatle. Today, Beatle Bailey and his pal named Killer Diller because he thinks he's such a lady killer, are in town on a pass enjoying a day away from the army. They're sitting in the park watching two workmen raking up the leaves. But Killer is mostly watching the girls who pass by. And then, last picture top row, a beautiful blonde with two dogs comes doorbell. Beatle says, nice dogs. And Beatle's pal answers, not a heck but her feet. Look at her legs. What a house he's fixed for dates.  How to do, beautiful. I wondered if, oh yeah, I was looking for someone to watch my dogs while I go over to the drug store. First picture bottom row, Killer says, don't worry. I'll get a date when she comes back. Just then a squirrel jumps out of a tree and runs past the dogs.  And away the dogs go after the squirrel. Killer yells, whoa, whoa, hey, quit it, will you? Hey, stop, stop, will you? The dogs run past a tree, one on each side. And Killer is pulled smack into the tree. The force of the collision shakes thousands of leaves down under the clean grass. And one of the park attendants cries, look what you've done, messed up by pretty long. And the other one points his sharp pointed stick at Killer and roars, pick up those leaves. Yes, every leaf. Killer drops to his knees and starts picking up the leaves. Last picture he looks up to see, Beetle, who has caught the two dogs handing them to the pretty blonde. And then he sees the pretty blonde kiss Beetle. And here's her say, how can I ever thank you for rescuing my little pet? And Beetle goes, uh, somebody turn that squirrel loose again. Wasn't that funny? Yes, you bet it was.  And Beetle gets a beautiful blonde. Yes, that's something that doesn't happen to him often. Well, now you said you were anxious about Flash Gordon. Oh, yes, captured by King Sting. And lastly, he was in terrible danger. Well, let's go to Flash right away then. Turn over the page and go past Prince Valiant, where little Prince Arn is brought back home by bolt-iron telecoms safe and sound today. Then turn over page three, go past page four, turn over page five, and there, on page six, is Flash Gordon. Yes, and between Vicki against the blue ones, who are some terrible big creatures with many arms like an octopus. Yes, like an octopus. But in spite of all precautions, the blue ones killed one of the guards and frightened away all the other workers, leaving Flash and Vicki alone in the forest. And Queen Vicki got so frightened that she ran away to her jet plane and started to go away, leaving Flash all alone. I wonder what's going to happen next. Well, let's read now and see whether Flash saves Queen Vicki from those terrible creatures. Here we go with Flash Gordon. Rega rega dune dune, Saskia matash. Let's have music for heroic flas. Queen Vicki guns her jet car to escape from the jungle clearing. Suddenly Flash sees the blue monster shoot its tentacle into the air and stop the car. The jet car is held motionless in midair. Flash catches onto a vine hanging down from a tall tree and makes a run and swings himself into the air, aboard the jet car. Then the blue one lashes out at plan. But a swift burst from Flash's chemyspray gun loosens the monster's deathbed. And last picture top row suddenly freed from its weird anchor, Vicki's car springs up and forward. Flash barely manages to get a grip on the car as it speeds away. He shouts, hey, slow down. Give me a chance to pull myself in. First picture bottom row, he manages to scramble into the cockpit. Vicki tells him she's sorry that she got panicky. That flash replies grimly. Well, I'm not so sure you really are sorry. But there's no time to argue about it. There's a storm just ahead. On Venus, storms move with supersonic speed. And it's only a matter of a moment before the jet car is caught in the vortex of a raging whirlwind. Again, the queen gives way to blind panic. Flash quickly takes over. While Vicki claims to give in terror, Flash calls upon all his skill as a pilot in an effort to ride the wind currents downward toward a sheltered landing spot.  Yes. Or we'll find out what happens next week. Full of hood. Yes, Robin Hood. And remember last week, Robin Hood and three of his men disguised as the sheriff of Nottingham's men had gotten inside of Prince John's castle at Nottingham. And they fell. Yes, but Robin Hood still faces a big problem. How to get out of the castle with a man who's not a man? Well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. How to get out of the castle with a maid Marion before someone notices that? Oh, yes, because the sheriff can give an alignment. Well, let's read now and see whether Robin Hood escapes safely. Here we go with the story of Robin Hood. It's Mary, Mary, England and days long ago. Time now for Robin Hood. So music, hi-ho! With Prince John locked in the cell from which Marion has been rescued, Robin Hood, little John and the maid Marion have joined the two men who have been guarding the sheriff of Nottingham. Standing on the steps of the castle, facing the courtyard, Robin says to the sheriff, Now sheriff, you alone remain to hinder us. The sheriff replies, Oh, spare me, I pray. I swear upon my honor as a knight I will not cry out if you will but spare me. All right, so be it. And give the order. Give the order to lower the drawbridge. Fourth picture top row, the sheriff cries. Lower the drawbridge! Last picture top row is the angry sheriff watches the maid Marion and three of the men mount horses. Robin says, Now when the drawbridge is lowered, right out in good order, I'll follow when you'll be on bow shot. Robin watches first picture bottom row as his men ride out of the castle with Marion who casts an anxious glance back to Robin. The sheriff stands silently by, hatred written on his face. When Marion and her escort are out of bow shot, Robin mounts his horse. He says to the sheriff, You know, sir, sheriff, I hold you to your nightly vow to remain silent until I've gone. Robin writes for the gavel. The sheriff stands silent for a second, then steps forward and shouts, Hold that man! Last picture the two guards step into the entrance to the castle as the sheriff shouts, Raise the drawbridge! No, he hasn't. He vowed by his nightly honor that he would keep his word to Robin Hood and now he's broken it. I don't know what's wrong. What? Robin didn't have you with him. No. Well, we'll find that out next week. But now let's find out what's happening to Dagwit and Blondie. Very well, let's turn to the first page of the second section of the comic weekly and here we go with Dagwit and Blondie. Ram-a-foo, Ram-a-fum, Zim-Zam-Zombie. Can you give me music for Dagwit and Blondie? Blondie and her two children Cookie and Alexander have just finished painting the kitchen table and the kitchen chairs and Blondie has decided that they won't be able to eat at home tonight. The last picture, top row, all dressed up for a nice dinner, they go out of the house. Cookie asks, Where are we going to eat, Mama? Blondie replies, We'll pick up Daddy at his office and eat supper in a restaurant. First picture, second row, Mr. Dithers walks into Dagwit's office saying, I can't get my work done around the office. There are too many interruptions. A terrific idea explodes in Dagwit's mind. Let's finish it at my house. It's quiet there. Last picture, second row, Dagwit and Mr. Dithers come into the Bumstead house and go into the kitchen and stop before the newly painted chairs and table. Mr. Dithers says, May I take off my coat? By sure. Hang it over a chair. Make yourself at home, Mr. Dithers. Mr. Dithers takes off his coat and hangs it over the back of a chair, not noticing that it's covered with wet paint. First picture, second row, he unzips his briefcase. We'll put all the contracts and statements on the table for ready reference. At that moment, Blondie, Cookie and Alexander have stopped into Dagwit's office and have asked to see Dagwit. Dagwit's secretary replies, Oh, Mr. Bumstead's not in his office. He took Mr. Dithers to your house to work. Blondie, thinking the wet paint exclaims, Oh, my goodness. At that moment of the Bumstead's house, last picture, third row, Dithers has put his hand on the wet table and Dagwit has sat down in the wet chair. He leaps up and shouts, Wet paint! Wet paint! Ten minutes later, first picture, bottom row, there's a... and a group of people dash into the house and into the kitchen. It's Blondie and the kids who see the table and chairs covered with papers and clothes covered with wet paint, and they see tracks leading to the basement. They follow them. And last picture, they stop on the cellar steps and stare in amazement. For there are Dagwit and Mr. Dithers, stark naked in two tubs of water, and Dagwit and Dithers shout, Don't come down here! Away those two men, as fearful as you please, settle down to work at that freshly painted kitchen table. Yes, we're saying. There are a couple of characters, all right. Yes, there are a couple of characters, all right. Well, let's go over the page and see who's there. We'll find out in a moment if your feeling is the right one. But first, here's that nice man again with something interesting to say. Puck the comic weekly and on the third page of the second section, Dick's Adventures. Magic words for the music, please. Very well, my lady. Say them, we'll be pleased. Let's have music for Adventures, Dick. It's bedtime, and Dick has been reading his history book. He says to his mother, who steps in his room, Hey, did you know how the star's mango banner got to be written, Mom? Gosh, it was exciting. It was in 1814.   And last picture, top row in his dream. Dick finds himself in the year 1814 on horseback racing from Bladensburg, Maryland toward Washington, D.C., the capital of the country with calamitous news. Great Britain and America are at war and a rampaging British army is closing in on the national capital. Dick rides into the city of Washington to find the city in panic. He finds himself in the capital of the country in panic. People are dashing about in fear, taking what articles they can to move out of the city and save their possessions. Dick heads for the newly built executive mansion where the president lives. Second picture, second row. Dick is talking to Dolly Madison, who is the hostess of the White House. You have to pack and leave.  Last picture, second row with frantic haste. State documents are gathered together. There was scarcely time to save any of the precious furnishings except a single magnificent portrait of the first president. And then first picture, bottom row in a simple horse and wagon loaded with the precious documents and the picture of George Washington. Dolly Madison gallops off toward the hills of Virginia. Last picture, back in the city of Washington, Dick and a handful of grim-faced defenders stand before the White House, awaiting the approaching enemy and their country's blackest hour. This is exciting. You mean the enemy is actually going to try to capture the White House? That's exactly what they're going to try to do. Dick was the person who helped Dolly Madison escape from the White House with a picture of George Washington and all those important papers. Yes, he was. Next week, will there be a battle? Well, we'll have to wait until next week to find that out. But now look below Dick's adventures. There's Rusty Riley. Oh, and John Jones. Oh, is that mean bag him? And today is the day they have to pay Mr. Marl the money. Oh, he can take her farm away from her. And Rusty, who wanted to help her, won the horse race but she hoped to win the thousand dollars. Certificate. Yes, certificate. Yes, certificate. And Mr. Marl can refuse to accept them because they aren't in cash. I wonder what Rusty Jones is. Well, let's find out right now. Here we go with Rusty Riley. Gallop and run till the road is dusty. Give us music for his horse and Rusty. As Rusty, Pete and their friends still pipe stand in Mrs. Jones' living room talking to Mr. Marl, Mrs. Jones is called to the door. She comes back into the room and tells Rusty that there's a man outside by the name of Clem, who wants to see him. Rusty explains. Oh, jeepers. He's a sailor who was on that freighter with us. Mr. Marlowe Snaps. Well, let him wait. We've got to finish up this foreclosure. At these words, Clem walks into the room saying, I couldn't help hearing what you was saying while I was waiting outside. Seems like you boys have got a special use for some real money real quick, right? Yes, that's right, Clem, but... Last picture, top row, Marlowe Snaps. Listen, Mr., whatever your name is, you can wait outside. We're busy with private business. Now, now, just take a reef in your mainsools, Bob. What I got to say may just fit into that business. First picture, bottom row, Marlowe Snaps. What could you possibly have to say that concerns the business we have in hand? All I know is that these here lads needs a thousand dollars in money, and I'm here to give it to them. Rusty says, well, Clem, we can't take money from you while we couldn't ever pay it back. Clem smiles and takes the money out of his pocket, saying, Well, this here money belongs to you, Rusty. The owners of that trader voted to pay salvage money to all of us as state of order. They sent me to find you two in techs and give you these certified checks. Rusty quickly takes the check from Clem and holds it out to Mr. Marlowe.  And more, you can give her the change. Marlowe stammeries. I don't have to accept the check. Nothing to do with it. The sheriff steps forward. I'm thinking you do, Marlowe. A certified check is practically the same as currency. That moment the door opens, and in walks techs. And seeing everybody there, he says, Hey, what's going on here? Mr. Marlowe, take it, and Mrs. Jones' fine can be saved. Yes, you bet it can. That Mr. Marlowe could. Well, we'll find out for sure next week. Now, let's turn over the page. And look, on page five, here's Roy Rogers. Yes. Yes, and Roy and Brimstone are trying to capture a band of outlaws led by the Sphinx. And they have action. And last week, Roy and Brimstone had captured two of the outlaws, and had told them that Roy and Brimstone themselves were outlaws and wanted to join the gang. This was just a trick to get into the mission, so the outlaws started writing for the mission. But just before they got there, they suddenly put spurs to their horses and rode on ahead. And he ducked there. Well, let's read now and find out. Here we go with Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys. Ah, yip-yoh, now here we go with Roy and Trigger. Ah, yip-yoh. Roy and Brimstone get to their feet. Roy looks up and sees the wire, stretched between the two trees, and third picture top row says, Yanowire. Now I savvy why those two gunmen deployed us this way. Brimstone exclaims, Yeah, no wonder they say the Sphinx is strong. Hold is cricked up like a carnival wheel. Last picture top row, the two outlaws, Gusty and Al, write into the mission and report to the Sphinx, who only talks in sign language. Gusty says, Hey, boss, the strangers claim to be bandits, named Brimstone Barlow and Hogg like Harrison. The Sphinx makes a gesture, and Al replies, Hey, the Sphinx says you never heard of them, Gusty. First picture bottom row, Gusty says, Hey, those strangers are coming inside. Let's trap them. They'll help us raid Pine City to more of their Al Hoots. And if they're lawmen, they're dead men. The Sphinx makes another gesture, and Al says, The Sphinx says okay. A little later, Roy and Brimstone ride up to the entrance of the outlaws hideout. They dismount and walk toward the entrance. Brimstone says, Hey, we gotta get inside, Roy. Think of all the bad men in there that I can reform. Roy replies, Now wait, we're supposed to be outlaws. Go easy on trying to convert them right now, Brimstone. The gate is wide open, so Roy and Brimstone walk in. As they come through the gate, they don't see the outlaws, who are hiding on either side of the gate. Then last picture, the Sphinx pulls a lever. Last picture, a trap door opens beneath them, and Roy and Brimstone are dropped into a pit. Guilty shouts, Welcome to the Sphinx's robber, Ruth Jance. I don't know, but if they keep up this rough treatment, Roy will be half dead before he has a chance to talk to the Sphinx. You suppose wrong? Well, if he does, he has to go on that ride to Pine City. Oh, I wonder what'll happen. Well, maybe we'll find that out next week. Now let's turn over the page. And he's my favorite too.  Say the magic words with me. Hippity hoppity makin' a habit to give us music for old Brur Rabbit. Uncle Remus says, Brur Fox is set on catching Brur Rabbit, even if it takes three legs to do it. Today, the creatures of Briar Patch are having celebrations with all kinds of games with prizes and everything. And one of the games is a three-legged race. Now that's a race in which two people stand beside each other and tie the left leg of one person to the right leg of the other person. And that makes two people with three legs. That's what they call a three-legged race. As the creatures get ready for the race, tying their legs together, Brur Weasel and Brur Fox hiding in the bushes nearby watch. And Brur Fox says, Hey, you see, they is practicing for the three-legged race. Brur Fox, who was anxious to have Brur Rabbit for supper, licks his chops and says, Yeah, first get in that race. That pushes him into the woods. And then we got him both. So third picture top roll, Brur Fox and Brur Weasel begin to tie their legs together.  And we'll join the race when they pass us.  At that moment, Brur Sheriff, who has been standing behind a tree and was heard that little scheme, steps out of the bushes and taps Brur Weasel as picture top row on the shoulder. Brur Fox, who is still looking down the road, says, He's about to start. Brur Weasel seeing the sheriff behind him thanks to himself. Yeah, and so is I in the other direction. And silently, Brur Weasel disappears into the bushes. Brur Sheriff picks up the rope and first picture third row ties his right leg to Brur Fox's left leg. Brur Fox, who is still keeping his eyes on Brur Rabbit, doesn't see this. Suddenly exclaims, Come on, there they go! Down the road, Brur Rabbit and Molly Cottontail run giggling with the fun of running this funny kind of race. And behind him comes Brur Fox, who still hasn't noticed that he's tied to the sheriff instead of Brur Weasel. Faster, faster! He's almost got him! Brur Fox and the sheriff catch up beside Brur Rabbit. Brur Fox reaches out to catch Brur Rabbit, but the sheriff keeps on going. Brur Fox looks back at Brur Rabbit and exclaims, Hey, hey, hey! We had passed him! And a second later Brur Sheriff runs him into the county jail. And last picture, Brur Rabbit and Molly Cottontail come up to the sheriff who is leaning against the door of the county jail. And Brur Rabbit says, Hey, look, we got a prize. And the sheriff with a big smile replies, Yeah, yeah, me too. And he points to the face of Brur Fox in the window of the jail. And they all hear Brur Fox saying, Now, how in the world did this happen?  Yeah, he really got out Fox again didn't he? Me too. Me too. Now, that's all the time I have. I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving. Thank you, the same to you. And now, before I go, here's that nice fella with some more interesting information. And all you boys and girls, I gotta go now. All right, miss. Okay, that's a date.  Be sure to meet me with our little friend Miss Honey next week when I read Puck the Comic Weekly. For I'm the comic weekly man, the jolly comic weekly man. I'll be back to read the funnies to you happy boys and honeys. Don't forget, boys and girls, see you all next week. Your friend the comic weekly man, the jolly comic weekly man.


Hello people of the internet, my name is Johnny, and welcome back to another Five Nets at Freddy's VR Help Wanted news video. Are you tired of the game of the news yet? Hopefully not because I feel like I've said that for every every video on the VR game But there's been so many Things coming out. We've got the trailer and the teaser the other day We actually have another teaser that's not on scottgames.com was actually uploaded by Steel World Studios, which if you didn't know was the company making the VR game with scott, so We got that we got additional features We got you know, we got so many things. We have stuff explaining things from the trailer We've we've just got so many more news And I don't know how much how much more news we're gonna get because one of the things We are gonna look at is a possible release date for the game Which is actually pretty soon. So um, I think we should just jump into it So just in case you might have missed it This is the new teaser up on scottgames.com It's it's just some characters that are gonna be featured in FNAF VR Help Wanted Obviously we have Ferdy the main guy of course he's gonna be there FNAF 1 Ferdy Bonnie Chica and Foxy So basically the whole FNAF game of the FNAF 1 gang Then down here, we have circus baby from this location to toy and electronics toy Bonnie and toy Ferdy And we also have toy Chica over on the right side of Ferdy Nightmare on which is surprising because nightmare on is actually not canon to the lower So I'm interested to see how they are going to fit into The into the game and then we have a new model of front-end foxy and then also I think in my last video I called this nightmare Nightmare Bonnie, but with further inspection or closer Closer at the closer look. It's it's actually plus trap from FNAF 4 So I did already cover this teaser.  It's linked down below. Definitely go check it out if you're interested And yeah, so now we're just gonna move on to even more news next up We have playstations actual website playstation.blog all these are linked down in the description by the way I probably should have mentioned that earlier, but This this is a whole blog about the game not gonna go over every single bit of it because again It is linked down below for you guys to read on your own But we got a few lines. I just wanted to show you guys fine. It's a footage VR. I hope wanted is Just this top line up this one. No this one Ah this one Now VR help on it is a collection of VR Experiences based on the original find at the furthest games, but it includes several new experiences as well So we're gonna have experience experiences from FNAF 1 FNAF 2 FNAF 3 FNAF 4 Those have all been confirmed by trailers or teasers all of which I have mentioned beforehand and are linked below for you As to go check out Syslocation is also confirmed because we have the front-time foxy Syslocation night 3 Recreation of it in VR where we're crawling through front-time auditorium Trying to get somewhere and we have to avoid front-time foxy Pizza Sim has not been confirmed yet So we don't know if that's gonna make an appearance and also custom night We don't know so maybe that could be the new experiences or it could also be Fredbear's family diner because as you're gonna see later on we do have an official model for spring Bonnie so That is also a possibility or it may just be like revamped locations like newer locations for FNAF 1 such as the kitchen which we haven't actually seen before so that could be a new one and Then down at the bottom is another one I actually put this down in the comment section of my last video, but I thought I'd just put it here seeing as we're here Anyways, there are also new features for the first time in a Freddy's game You can now own collectibles that you can play with at the prize counter find plushies, bobbleheads and action figures and more so as we're playing the game we're gonna be able to find Bobbleheads action figures plushies and different collectibles that we can then use probably on a separate Screen like when we're on the main menu, it'll probably have like new game continue It might even have a level select extras maybe Don't think it'll have a custom night, but who knows it is a Freddy's game and then probably it'll have You know like collectibles or prize counter and then when you click on that it'll take you to the prize counter from FNAF 2 presumably seeing as that's only the really one we only the really one we know of only Really the only one we know of there we go and then we can buy different things maybe I don't know. I honestly don't know what we could buy maybe the secret minigames that require certain action figures to play and That's how we're gonna get our lower scene is that's kind of how we got it from pizza sim so Who knows but we are gonna be able to interact with collectibles, which is gonna be pretty exciting and Probably very difficult to find the collectibles, but I'm sure completionists out there will try their absolute best Next up. We actually have some reviews. Well not really reviews. There's no reviews But there are some details from Metacritics, which I don't have much experience with Metacritics This is actually my first time on the site, but presuming based on the name and based on what I can see here It's a place where reviewers can leave reviews on games movies and probably other things like books But there is already one for FNAF VR help wanted Which by the way, it is confirmed that it's called help wanted I know that was leaked a little bit ago, but it is confirmed the official title is financing for this VR Hope wanted so there's no reviews yet. The release date Apparently is going to be sometime in April of this year 2019 and that's pretty close. I'm recording this on March 26th, that's right. I don't know the date of today quite The rating is T which stands for something I'm presuming teenager, but I don't know. I don't really look at ratings a whole lot developers Scott obviously genres action adventure and survival Obviously that's survival is obvious action probably because of the jump scales I would guess an adventure because you are going from location to location Special controllers VR. Yeah and all that stuff. So PlayStation all that stuff. Yeah So April 2019 is a possible release date It doesn't say an exact date, but it does give us a month But this is not confirmed. No one at steel wool or even Scott has confirmed this at all So it might even drop tomorrow That would be really interesting. I am hoping to get a VR. I know all right We'll talk about this at the end of the video. Hopefully I remember but if not then while I'm editing this, right? Editing me. Don't forget to add this if you haven't already Talk about Darko's live stream. So something interesting is that it was actually a different teaser Than the one that I made a video on the other day featuring Ferti, Funtime Foxy, and then Nightmarion in the middle Apparently there is another one where it has Ferti, Funtime Foxy, and then Spring Barney in the middle. This is the official Spring Barney model and if you can tell It looks exactly the same from Springtrap. It's literally just him Where he's fixed up. The nose really gives it away. It's it's that classic, you know, Springtrap nose and I was about to say the ears, but then all the rabbits ears look the same. So yeah, that's the official model and My guess is we are gonna end up seeing it in the game And we're probably even gonna be able to see Fredbear's family diner and then maybe just maybe Fredbear, but We can only wait and see and now we will adventure into the Five Nights at Ferti's subreddit over on Reddit, surprisingly Someone asked a very important question of why does Fredbear in the trailer for FNAF VR Have Ferti's colors instead of being yellow and black like he is yellow purple and black in FNAF 4 He instead looks like Freddy with his brown and black colors. So They asked this and then Scott being the nice man he is replied with yeah It was an early build the trailers and images needed to be done pretty early before everything was finished So that confirms that the Trailer and the teaser images are pretty old. We don't know how old but they say pretty early in development. So maybe I would I Would think maybe early of 29 like early January 2019 or some time around there that it was probably made Or sometime in January and sometime in February that would be my guess because that is pretty early in the games Development, but also not too early that it's you know, not possible for them to have you know any footage for the trailer and any Models to go off of for the images. So that would be my guess. But yeah, so Freddy or Fredbear in the actual game is going to have his proper colors. It's just this was an early build. So It's old. Okay. This was just probably a placeholder for The colors me. I bet they probably didn't have the texture textures and colors for him yet. So That may have confirmed nightmare Freddy in FNAF VR. That's just my theory My game theory So this is something else that has been circling around the reddit The subreddit for FNAF which was posted by crappy the cat awesome name And the they have a picture saying apparently in the VR trailer plus trap comes out of a gift box or gift packages They call it Um And the bright inversion of plus traps teaser from FNAF 4 says that terrible things come in small packages So whether or not this is just a nod to that image or whether or not This was plus traps actual mechanic in the VR game Which is going to be interesting because if that is his mechanic then It's probably going to be completely different from how he was in FNAF 4 But based on the fact that they've already modeled the gift box and his jump scare. This is probably his mechanic. So It's going to be completely different than FNAF 4 probably entirely different rules and I wonder if Plus shops going to be this If he's going to have his minigame where you can skip ahead with knights because we know that we're going to be surviving Maybe five we're going to be surviving until 6 a.m With at least one night from each game so I wonder if Before each level or before each location we're going to We're going to have Plus traps minigame to be able to skip ahead two nights like we did in FNAF 4 If so, that's a really neat feature and a really great nod to FNAF 4 But if not, then I have just been rambling on for a few minutes and it didn't matter at all But it is interesting Nonetheless, whether or not this is going to happen that This was included in the trailer. So Look out for it when the game releases sometime in April, maybe Finally just to end on a high note. There was a lot of discussion whether or not this game was going to be Exclusive to the PlayStation virtual reality or whether or not it will come out on other platforms Thankfully in steel wool studios Trailer uploaded to the youtube channel, which is linked down below This game is coming to PlayStation VR HTC Vive and Oculus So it's coming out on pretty sure that's all of the VR things I'm pretty sure wait does google I think google and amazon might have some VR things, but Basically all the ones people care about I'm sorry google And amazon maybe I feel I don't know I don't really care now, but it's coming out on Most of the VR games if not all of them So that's gonna be super good So anyone with a VR game or a VR headset can play it and that has also reminded me to start our discussion About darko. All right boys. All right. It's time to get serious. All right, but bring in the serious music Yep, bring it in. Yeah, that's nice. If you didn't know Darko is hosting a live stream on April the 6th and he'll be giving away A at least one VR headset. I don't I can't remember if he said how many but he's gonna be giving away at least one And I don't know if you've noticed this, but um I don't have one so I'm asking you guys Please help me here To show your support and show how much you care about me Hoping you care about me I'm a pretty cool guy, right? I'm Probably I'm cool but I know and I hate to be this guy, but You guys have seen how much I'm excited for the game. I've seen how much you guys are excited for the game And this is the moment where you guys can truly show your support for this channel where If you wouldn't mind this obviously is an requirement. It's just you know Helping out if you feel like in it and if you want I'm not forcing you guys to do this But if you want to I would It would mean the world to me if during the live stream You guys would help me win a VR headset. You know, obviously that sounds super selfish But I don't really like I've used to VR once And it was unbelievable So and you guys obviously You guys know how much I love FNAF. You guys know how much I love you guys And like at the time of recording this one one 99 subscribers. So It's gonna be amazing when we finally hit 200 which by the way. Thank you guys so much for the support And just you know It would be amazing if you guys would help out I I don't think I've ever done something like this I you know, I've always linked my social media down below, but I don't think I've ever said Hey guys girl follow me on twitter, you know in like a serious tone but It would be amazing if you guys would help out so If you feel like it it's April the 6th And let's let's not just win it for me Let's win it for all of us here Okay, that sounds super cheesy but You know if you feel like it it would mean the world to me So that's it. That's all the news we have Um, I don't think we're gonna have too many I don't I don't think we're gonna have another trailer. I don't think we're gonna have another teaser We may have one more teaser. I don't think we're gonna have another trailer Maybe a release trailer at the most But I think we may have like one more teaser just to hype the game Maybe it'll say the actual release date, but besides that I'm pretty sure It's It's you know, it's gonna be empty until the release of the game Which by the way, I have one more video already planned on this game It's right here So I don't forget the main idea is right there If you can read it, then you know, it's what it's gonna be about But if not, you're just gonna have to wait and see So Keep looking at my calendar like all right. April's coming up. It's like It's uh pretty close. It's like, you know less than a week. So Yeah, I'm super excited for this game. Hopefully you guys are too and if you are again Please be there April 6 And let's For the team bros for the team bro fist the screen right now. Do any Awesome, let's get that bridge I've had too much It's been a weird day. Anyway, so thank you everyone so much for watching. I'll see you all on the flip side Goodbye