What's up everyone, Takedown here. Welcome back to another video. As you guys know, I recently got a Silver PlayStation 2 Slim.  So not everything on this list were the top video games that were released on the PlayStation 2, but they are my favorite ones that I remember playing as a kid. So let's get right into this. So what first is the Simpsons hit and run? This game came out in 2003 and was known for being a family-friendly Grand Theft Auto clone. You play as the Simpsons family and Appu, and in different levels of the game you play as a different character in a different region of Springfield. It is an open world with lots to do, main story missions, side quests, races and more. To find out the secrets of the security cameras, the mysterious fans, the crop circles, and the new Buzz Cola flavor that is apparently making everyone insane. This game was a lot of fun and a huge part of my childhood, and I loved this game. Next up is Need for Speed. Now for this one here, I couldn't narrow it down to just one game because I pretty much enjoyed the entire series. The main ones that I remember playing on the PlayStation 2 are Need for Speed, Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted, Carbon, Pro Street, and Undercover. That stretches roughly between 2003 and 2008. The main thing that I loved about these games is they focused on customizing your cars the way you wanted to. But they also had great street racing and an amazing story to follow. Next up is Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. This is one of my favorite Grand Theft Auto games of all time, mainly because the map was so huge. It was basically three huge areas. The first one is unlocked whenever you start the game, and to unlock the others you had to advance in the main story for the game.  And throughout the game you find the truth behind the murder of his mother. There is a lot to do, but some of the stuff before you can actually go and do it, you have to do a little bit of the story mode in order to unlock it first, such as the mod grotches, the restaurants, the gyms, and the shops, and also a few more. You can also change how CJ appears by going to the gym, you can make CJ buff, or if you go to the restaurants and eat a lot you can make him pretty overweight. This game for me was so much fun because you had the choice of pretty much how you wanted to play the game. You could customize your character to be overweight, buff, you could have him change up his appearance completely and make him look completely different, which if you guys know with the newest GTA 5, that's stuff that you can't do it. Also in the game you have access to different areas which in the newer games you don't have access to as much stuff. So Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas in my opinion is my favorite Grand Theft Auto game of all time. Next up is Stuntman Ignition. In this game you play as a stuntman and to advance to the next scene you had to follow the director's orders on how to do the stunts. In the game there are six movies and each movie has six scenes. The fictional movies you play throughout the game are Aftershock, which is a volcano disaster movie, Whoopin and Holler and Two, which is a parody of the General Lee, Strike Force Omega which is a military thriller kind of like the A-Team, Overdrive is a starchy and hutch parody pretty much, Never Kill Me Again which is kind of like a James Bond parody and Night Avenger which is a parody of the 1989 Batman movie. This game is a fun racing slash action game and even though you had to do things in a certain way you had to do what the director said. If you went above and beyond and made the scene even more epic than what the director wanted, you'll get bonuses and that's what I used to do. I used to always up what the director wanted me to do. This game by far is one of my favorites. Next up is Burnout 3 Takedown. This is a racing game where you can perform takedowns on your opponent by slamming them. This is a racing game where you can perform takedowns on your opponent by slamming into them causing them to wreck. It is a very fun and destructive game. The world tour mode was the way to unlock the new and faster cars. In the world tour mode your goal is to cause as much destruction in the area by smashing into cars or other obstacles. Once you crash you can no longer drive your vehicle so you had to rely on your momentum and speed to cause the biggest wreck. Bigger wrecks give you more points and you can earn a bronze, silver or gold for that event which you could just use to unlock more cars and events. But before you could advance to the next level you had to reach a specified amount of points or you would have to replay the level again until you reached that amount of points. This game based on the destruction alone was a lot of fun. I recommend it for you guys if you guys love destruction and having to destroy stuff in game. This is a game for you. Next up is Midnight Club 3 Double Edition Remix. Now I have already mentioned Need for Speed because it is a car customizing game where you can also street race afterwards. But if I had to pick between Midnight Club and Need for Speed I would pick Midnight Club all the time just because at least in my opinion it is a game that came from Rockstar and it had a lot more customizing options than Need for Speed did. Now I am still a fan of Need for Speed that's why I also included them on this list but Midnight Club 3 Double Edition Remix out of all the racing games I had this one was my favorite just because it had a lot more options. It also had Pink Slips which some of the Need for Speed games you could race for Pink Slips this game here had it in it as well so that's what I was a huge fan of. Now the Double Edition is basically because Dub is a car customization company pretty much so it is kind of like a deluxe edition for Midnight Club 3 and throughout the game there is Double Edition events and if you win those races that are all in the event you win the car and I know for sure there's a Lamborghini and a Bel Air and a few others I just can't remember what they are and they are Double Edition which means they're highly customized you can't change those customizations and whenever you go and customize your cars if you did have the Double Edition it did have a lot more customization options in the game. Remix basically meant that they added a lot more vehicles in the game than the original Midnight Club 3 would have had so this is basically like a gold edition now usually you have a standard edition which would have been Midnight Club 3 then you have a deluxe edition which would have been Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition and then you have a gold version which is Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition Remix. The fact that they had so many customization options the fact that you could race for pink slips and you could also win Dub Edition vehicles for me it was a lot of fun that's why it's my favorite racing game and the last one that I want to mention is Rampage Total Destruction I honestly forgot about this game this game is kind of a throwback to the old arcade version of the game which you could also play in this game they actually had the arcade version in this game but the total destruction part actually had better graphics you could go anywhere on the building not just on the sides you could destroy it and get a lot more stuff there's a lot more objectives to it than just the arcade version used to have the pixels version and you basically just go around the world city to city destroying everything you basically picked your monster and the more and more you do the more monsters you unlock me this game was a lot of fun and I kind of really miss it but whenever I used to play it whenever I had my PlayStation 2 to begin with I loved this game so these have been some of my favorite PlayStation 2 video games I know they're probably not the top video games that came out for the PlayStation 2 but whenever I was a kid these were some of my favorite ones to play so hopefully I can find them pretty cheap on possibly eBay and I can purchase them just so I get a chance to play them again but we will see what happens I hope you guys enjoyed this video comment down below what are some of your favorite PlayStation 2 video games and I'll see you guys in the next video please take care peace


So it happened.  So I decided to go crazy and give myself a haircut that I am severely underqualified to do. A more severe version of a mullet as you would say. And as you can see I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm just letting myself wing it honestly. Um, and I tried at this point to kind of shorten it up around the top so it would be more of an extreme mullet but I really hated how it was going. So I decided to give myself a lot of layers and I honestly looked like Billy Ray Cyrus at this point but I did not give up. I bleached part of my hair and then I dyed the other part a blue black and then some of the blue black bled into the blonde but you know what? Toner saves everything. So this is how it turned out. And honestly I gotta give it to myself. I really am CEO of Trust the Process because I honestly did not think this was gonna turn out well at all but I ended up really loving it and I'm really happy with it. So yay!


Therefore, I apologise to those who have been unable to call. That concludes general questions. The next item of business is First Minister's questions, and at question number one, I called Douglas Ross. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The former First Minister promised to provide them. She said, I have nothing to hide. ond we now know she deleted them all. She broke promises to grieving families, she may have broken the law. Does the First Minister accept it was completely wrong and utterly scandalous for Nicola Sturgeon to delete those messages? First Minister. Before I answer Douglas Ross' question of substance, can I just say at the offset that this is the FMQs before Holocaust Moro Day that has now been more important to remember the victims of the Holocaust and indeed with genocides which followed. Together we remember the millions of lives that have been cut short with the utmost cruelty and brutality, the freedom and dignity of every citizen relies on our willingness to defend each other's human rights and to stand up against cruelty and violence everywhere in the world. The responsibility that we share equally is the responsibility of all of us to remember the Holocaust and of course to pay tribute to the survivors of those atrocities. So ahead of Holocaust Moro Day on Saturday, my thoughts today and I hope that everybody's thoughts, my thoughts every day should be with those who are affected then and those who are affected still. Let me importantly come to the issue of substance and I will start this exchange as I have started exchanges on this issue in recent weeks and months and that is by giving first and foremost an unreserved apology to those families who were bereaved by Covid in relation to our handling of the issue of informal communication such as an organisation on the issue of WhatsApp messages. We did not handle the requests in a way that gave families that have been bereaved by Covid confidence. In fact, quite the opposite and they have asked for nothing unreasonable. They've asked for answers, they've asked for the truth and I will certainly do that when I appear in front of the inquiry later today. Douglas Ross is asking me about Nicola Sturgeon. Of course, Nicola Sturgeon, I believe is now being confirmed, will appear in front of the Covid inquiry next week. I would say that when it comes to any decisions that are made as per records management policy any decisions, whether it's made over WhatsApp, whether issues are discussed over email, over telephone call, any communication, any method of communication that's used, it's so important that those points are then of course uploaded to the corporate record, any decisions that are made in any salient points. What I would say to Douglas Ross in the end on this point is that we have handed over 28,000 WhatsApp messages mines included, that's in very stark contrast to the Prime Minister of course. Douglas Ross. Can I fully associate myself with the First Minister's remarks ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday? I asked a very simple question, what did he feel about Nicola Sturgeon deleting these messages and we heard nothing. While Nicola Sturgeon led the cover-up and the secrecy, she wasn't alone. The then Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, also deleted his messages and isn't it telling that neither of them can be in the chamber today. So while they deleted messages, let's look at some of the messages we have seen. The chief medical officer, Professor Gregor Smith, reminded colleagues in a WhatsApp chat to delete at the end of every day. Ken Thompson, the former Scottish Government director general, wrote, I feel moved at this point to tell you this chat is FOI recoverable. He went on, plausible deniability is my middle name. A message from the national clinical director Jason Leitch said, what's that deletion is my pre-bed ritual. And he also said, just my usual reminder to delete your chat, particularly after we reach a conclusion. From politicians to civil servants, they sought to destroy evidence. Doesn't this show a culture of secrecy running through this entire SNP Government? First Minister? I think the first culture of secrecy. We handed over 28,000 messages, 19,000 doctors. Let's hear the First Minister. The former First Minister did 250 media briefings, taking questions from journalists day after day. That hardly rings true of the accusations that Douglas Ross is making of a Government that was hiding from scrutiny far from that. Every single day, the former First Minister was standing up taking questions. First Minister, there are many members wishing to put questions in this session. It will make it far more likely that members will be taken if we can hear one another. To Douglas Ross, for all the accusations that he is throwing at the former Deputy First Minister and, of course, they will give evidence to the inquiry. I don't intend to prejudge that or put words in their mouth. I'm assuming, then, that those same accusations then ring true for his colleague the Prime Minister who hasn't handed over a single WhatsApp message. If the accusations that he is making against Nicola Sturgeon and that he is throwing towards the former Deputy First Minister, if he believes that that doesn't hold true for the Prime Minister who hasn't handed over a single message, then that isn't just political opportunism. It is breathtaking hypocrisy, Presiding Officer. Douglas Ross. That's just risable and embarrassing from the First Minister. Look at the facts here. Nicola Sturgeon destroyed all of her messages. She did that deliberately, but some have been recovered from other people. This morning's Covid inquiry session with Liz Lloyd, Nicola Sturgeon's former chief of staff, has revealed that Covid decisions were unquestionably made on WhatsApp. There are many examples in her evidence, but let's just take one. With just two hours to go before a statement in this Parliament, Nicola Sturgeon said on WhatsApp that she was not sure what to do about the number of people at weddings and funerals. Her chief of staff replied, I think as we have only just put them up, we just leave it. I think we stay at 20. Therefore a Government decision to stay at 20 was taken over WhatsApp. Now, Hamza Yousif has previously said and I quote, the Scottish Government did not routinely make decisions through WhatsApp. Did the First Minister mislead Parliament when he said that, or did he not realise the Government's policy? Members, we must hear one another. I'm happy to repeat this to SNP members who seem to want to drown this out. So did the First Minister mislead Parliament when he said that, or did he not realise that Scottish Government policy was being made on the hoof over WhatsApp? First Minister. WhatsApp is a communication application rather than a decision making tool. Instead, each minister supported by a private office, this team compromises private secretaries and ministers of staff. A private office records the specific decisions of ministers for the official record. They are laughing, that is from the Scotland office. Of course when we ask them for Douglas Ross's WhatsApp messages, they refuse to release. The point here is, of course, that WhatsApp messages are not routinely used. Douglas Ross literally read out my quote, it's not routinely used. If it was used to make decisions, then of course, well, they get up their arms and want Douglas Ross to say. First Minister, I am sorry, I cannot hear a word that you are saying and that will be the case for those who are visiting the Parliament today. I would ask all members to remember the requirement to conduct our business in an orderly manner. The truth is inconvenient for the Conservatives here because it's very, very simple. If decisions were made over WhatsApp, then, of course, they would have to be recorded. Otherwise, how on earth would they be actioned? So they are then recorded on the corporate record and taken forward. All salient points and all key decisions. Go back to the point that I made in response to the very first question that Douglas Ross asked. I do believe that there are challenges in relation to our use of WhatsApp. It has not been, frankly, the Government's finest hour in relation to handling those requests. I put my hands up to that, unlike, of course, other Governments. That's why I have commissioned officials to deliver an externally-led review, so not a Government review but an externally-led review, into the use of mobile messaging apps and the use of non-corporate technology in the Scottish Government. That should take particular account of our interaction with statutory public inquiries. When it comes to being transparent, I go back to the point that I have made. The Government handed over 28,000 messages, 19,000 documents. I myself, as First Minister of the Government, have handed over my WhatsApp messages. That is in stark contrast to the UK Government to the Prime Minister who has refused to hand over a single message and, of course, took the inquiry to court only to lose. Douglas Ross. There was so much in that. Can I just be absolutely clear? I'm not sure what the First Minister was speaking about my own WhatsApps. I provided my WhatsApps from my time as a Government minister to the Covid inquiry and they are there on the record. Unlike Senior Nationalists, I didn't delete mine. But the evidence we've heard today is quite frankly shocking. It confirms that pandemic decisions by the SNP were made for political purposes. Well, they are saying what the education secretary is saying what on earth. Well, let me say. Nicola Sturgeon's chief of staff talks of making and I quote purely political moves on public health to start a good old-fashioned rami with the UK Government. In another handwritten note she says she is going to look at political tactics calling for things we can't do. Hiding revelations like this must have been the reason that the SNP Government destroyed so much evidence. The Deputy First Minister, the National Clinical Director, the chief medical officer all deleted their messages. Discussions and crucial decisions have vanished. A top-down culture of secrecy was rife throughout this entire Government. It looks like the most senior figures have engaged in a deliberate cover-up. So now it's been confirmed that the SNP made some crucial Covid decisions for purely political reasons. Is Hamza Yousaf ashamed that the SNP Government made purely political reasons during the pandemic? And isn't that the ultimate betrayal to sacrifice so much? First Minister. I reject the charge in its entirety, we had, of course, and published regularly the approach in relation to the four harms approach that we took in regards to decisions that were made in relation to the pandemic. Every single day, I can say with confidence that our overarching priority was to meet the people of this country safe. That was what the overarching priority was. That was the overarching priority. Did we get every decision right? Absolutely not, and we will be rightly questioned about that in both the UK inquiry and the Scottish inquiry. I know our motivation. Every step of the way was to ensure that we kept the people of this country safe. We were holding parties in number 10, holding parties in the treasury and the obscene spectacle of the then Prime Minister flagr and ray breaching the rules while loved ones, individuals, families couldn't go to their loved ones' frun rules. Throughout all of that, Douglas Ross hasn't had the decency to apologise once. Question 2, Anna Sarwar. Saturday marks Holocaust Memorial Day on the theme fragility of freedom. A day we pause, reflect and remember all those who have been victims of genocide, but also a moment to pause and reflect on those who still strive to live with peace, with dignity, away from conflict and without prejudice. What has been revealed at the Covid inquiry this week has rightly shocked people across Scotland. The attempts to subvert the inquiry and to breach freedom information laws is frankly a betrayal of the trust people put into this Government. What's that message is deleted on an industrial scale? The former First Minister using a private SNP email address for government business. Officials openly joking about breaking the law while the Covid pandemic tore through our country. The culture of cover-up started by the First Minister and extended down to the senior civil service. In June, when I asked Humza Yousaf if all requested emails, texts and WhatsApp messages will be handed over in full, he responded in this Parliament without equivocation yes. Now that we know this wasn't true was the First Minister knowingly misleading Parliament or was he so out of his depth he didn't know what was going on? Of course we did hand over what we had. 28,000 messages that we have have been handed over. For those officials or indeed former ministers of the Government that don't have WhatsApp messages they will have to account for that in front of the inquiry. Anasarwar can't say that there was deletion on an industrial scale when 28,000 messages have been handed over to the Covid inquiry. He can't say that I've been leading that from the top. 28,000 messages I have in a couple of hours will be questioned about them. Anasarwar is absolutely right as Douglas Ross is to ask questions about informal communications. There's nothing wrong in that but to suggest that somehow there was a cover-up I frankly do not believe even the public agree with Anasarwar nor Douglas Ross why because the public looked at this Government questioned this Government saw that this Government had a First Minister Nicola Sturgeon who stood in front of the cameras at every single day Let's hear the First Minister. Every single day and took questions from journalists, from members of this Parliament over 250 times hardly, hardly the measure or the mark of a Government that was trying to avoid scrutiny Anasarwar I think that the First Minister must live in a parallel universe. The First Minister at the time deleted every WhatsApp message The Deputy First Minister at the time deleted every WhatsApp message The chief medical officer at the time deleted every WhatsApp message The national clinical director at the time deleted every WhatsApp message If that is not deletion at an industrial scale I do not know what planet Humza Yousaf lives in. Now the First Minister gave an unequivocal commitment to Parliament but on his watch ministers and officials failed to comply with do not destroy notices Key evidence has been deleted and deliberately misleading statements have been given to the press and the public on his watch One specific issue I raised with Humza Yousaf was the use of private SNP email accounts to conduct Government business something they have repeatedly denied but evidence to the enquiry this week has blown that claim out of the water When I asked Humza Yousaf in November if all emails be the Government or party emails will be handed to the enquiry again he said this in this Parliament As for any other form of communication including any other email address it is my full expectation that that is handed over He is First Minister and leader of the SNP so can I ask him have any emails from SNP accounts been handed to the Covid enquiry and if so how many First Minister To Anasawa the point that is fundamental here is that the use of a non-Government email address such as an SNP email address that does not exempt official correspondence from freedom of information requests for example it is a freedom of information request about a particular issue or for a particular document that is not subverted because it has been sent to an SNP email address therefore it should be handed over I can give an absolute guarantee but it comes to my SNP email address no Government business was conducted over it and of course in any private communication application that I have things have messages have been handed over not only have I handed over what's that messages on my private Twitter account where there's been private DMs that they have also been handed over to so when it comes to the Government I have made it very clear to every single minister every single cabinet secretary the permanent secretary has made it clear to every single civil servant that communication that is used that we must comply with the Public Records Act with FOI legislation and indeed with a mobile messaging policy I go back to the point that I made to Douglas Ross that regardless of the communication method used whether it's an SNP email address or otherwise any decisions that are made must be recorded in the corporate record and the salient points therefore recorded as well and we'll continue to comply fully as I intend to do in a couple of hours time and we'll go back to the inquiry Anna Sarwar This is meant to be a Government he's in charge of and a party he's in charge of but he can't answer for anybody else in Government or his party and only goes back to his own messages and his own emails but this isn't just about the inquiry this is about how this Government operates because this is a party that over the last 17 years in Government has created a culture of secrecy and cover-up and we believe that it's one standard for them and another standard for everyone else because somehow the rules don't apply to the SNP they have abused the trust that the people of Scotland put in them and if they won't take my word from it maybe they should listen to Caroline Stewart of the Scottish Covid bereaved she said this I trusted them I felt him and Nicola Sturgeon were honest and trying to be open with us and to find out that that was all just a facade I don't understand how they can hold their head up high First Minister how can you ever expect the people of Scotland to trust you or your party ever again Always through the chair please First Minister I'll always leave the verdict of trust to the Scottish people and that's why we will comply with not just the UK inquiry the Scottish Covid inquiry but of course we instruct it when it comes to transparency that's why we've handed over 28,000 WhatsApp messages that's transparency 19,000 documents that's transparency when it comes to what this Government has done across a range of portfolios whether it's the duty of Canada whether it's the patient safety commissioner that is transparency whether it's public inquiries and instructing them 250 media conferences that was transparency taking questions from this chamber let's hear the First Minister dozens of occasions that is transparency and I will end where I started my response to Douglas Ross that when it comes to those families that have been bereaved by Covid first and foremost our responsibility is to them I can promise them when I appear in front of the inquiry that I know that they won't just want warm words they will want to see and hear truthful answers to straight questions and that's why I intend to do when I appear in front of the inquiry in a couple of hours time. We have many members as you would expect wishing to put questions to date I'd be grateful if we could therefore keep our questions and responses concise and at question number three I call Ross Greer. I'd like to associate the Scottish Greens with the First Minister and ask Sarwar's remarks ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day to the First Minister whether he will provide an update on how the Scottish Government will continue to protect tenants in the private rented sector after the expiry of the rent cap under the Cost of Loving Tenant Protection Scotland Act 2022. The Scottish Government has led the way far ahead of any other part of the UK in protecting private tenants against rent rises and eviction during the cost of living crisis we are absolutely committed to supporting tenants when these protections end on 31 March 2024 that is why yesterday regulations were laid that will subject to approval of course of this Parliament temporarily amend the existing rent adjudication process for a period of 12 months this will help protect tenants from excessively large rent increases that could be experienced if there is a move back to open market rent in a single step whilst the naming landlords to continue to reinvest in our private rented sector the Minister for Tenant Rights has written to the lead committee with further details Ross Greer I thank the First Minister for that answer and for highlighting that the emergency rent protections in Scotland have been far ahead of anything else in the UK a lead role that Scotland will continue when long-term rent controls are introduced in the housing bill very soon some tenants watching today may be receiving rent increase notices right now which are well above the 3% cap so can the First Minister reassure tenants that the rent cap remains fully in place until the 31st of March so any rent increase notice issued before the 1st of April is very much subject to that cap even if the increase won't apply until after that date if a tenant receives a rent increase notice above that they should refer it to rent service Scotland and rent will be reduced by the end of March so any rent increase notice issued before the 1st of April is very much subject to that cap to rent service Scotland and rent will be set in line with the cap I fully agree that tenants need to know their rights and what their rights are and how to act upon them that's why a national renters rights marketing campaign will launch very soon indeed and that will highlight existing rights and the changes when the emergency measures end that will include online guidance and tools to help people understand how the changes affect them specifically the Government has taken very clear action very bold action to support people through the cost crisis we're determined to build on that and our forthcoming housing bill will set out proposals for longer term reform of the rental sector and we're committed to working of course not just with tenants that's crucial but also with responsible landlords and other key stakeholders to ensure the legislation delivers reform that works in reality Matthew presiding officer the SNP green rent cap has not only failed to tackle the housing emergency but has exacerbated it rents in Scotland have increased by more than 14% despite the SNP green rent cap and as a result of Cuddecap Scotland is only part of the UK where the numbers of properties sold by landlords have gone up this ill thought policy has hindered mobility caused enormous price hikes when people do move and has reduced the availability of housing by driving landlords out of the market does the First Minister agree that his Government's interferences in the market has been nothing short of a disaster and will he scrap this cap First Minister My goodness that is the most conservative contribution I think I've ever heard in this chamber how dare the Government interfere in the middle of a UK Government's cost of living crisis to help tenants because of the economic damage caused how dare we have the temerity to protect renters because of the economic vandalism of Pam Gosol's party and of course her contribution doesn't bear the reality doesn't bear the facts First Minister if I might stop you there I am aware of members who are clearly having a conversation with one another across the aisles it's totally unacceptable during First Minister's questions so please continue and of course it doesn't bear the reality if we look at the facts as the latest Scottish landlord register data shows the number of registered properties for rent in Scotland between August 22 and November 23 has actually increased so we of course will work with responsible landlords of course we'll work with tenants and other stakeholder groups but let me say to Pam Gosol I'll never make an apology The new rent adjudication rules are welcome empowering private tenants to challenge any unreasonable rent heights but for that proposed transition to work as intended tenants need to be fully informed of those rights can the Scottish Government expand on how they intend to ensure that both renters and private landlords across Scotland understand the system that will be in place from April I agree with that it's vital that both tenants and landlords are made aware of the changes that will come into place from the 1st of April tenants understanding their rights and how to act upon them is a crucial part of the changes that we are making to the rent adjudication process working effectively in practice that's why we're working in response to Ross Greer's question on a range of awareness raising activities and provision of clear guidance to support people through that transition a national rental rights marketing campaign will launch very soon and we're also working on an online rent increase calculator to assist landlords and tenants in establishing what rent could be charged from the 1st of April should it be subject to adjudication to ask the First Minister whether he will provide an update on the Scottish Government's latest engagement with the UK Government regarding the status of the Grangemouth refinery Last week, the Energy Secretary chaired the first meeting of the Grangemouth Future Industry Board which includes representatives of the refinery at its workforce plus the UK Government I'm encouraged that the UK Minister of State for Energy, Security and Net Zero did respond positively to Neil Gray's request to consider any proposal that supports a long-term and sustainable future for the Grangemouth industrial cluster recognising its very strategic national importance to the economy of the whole of the UK My Government is committed to exploring all options to extend the life of the refinery and bring forward new transition projects at pace I also welcome the UK Government's support of the Tata Steel plant in Wales and I look forward to constructive dialogue to a similar package being available for Grangemouth to the Cabinet Secretary has written to the UK Government to seek a further discussion I thank the First Minister for that response It is indeed heartening to hear that the UK Government is now open to giving support to the vitally important chemical cluster in Grangemouth in my constituency There is a potential for the refinery to move quickly to a biorefinery to be utilised for sustainable aviation fuel in other words a just transition for workers right now This would require support from the UK Government in terms of their policy barriers surrounding the Hefa cap What indications if any are there that the UK Government realises potential are willing to take the steps necessary and act in the best interests of Scotland for this vitally important national asset First Minister Michelle Thomson is absolutely right there is a huge opportunity in relation to that transition to net zero for Grangemouth and it's clear however there are serious regulatory barriers that Michelle Thomson has already spoken to to the owners of Grangemouth to develop those opportunities such as SAF sustainable aviation fuel The company has made clear that a major barrier to that immediate investment and I stress again immediate investment in a biorefinery at the site is the UK Government's proposed SAF mandate and that Hefa cap that was mentioned by Michelle Thomson that requires action from the UK Government to be immediate and urgent Grangemouth's hard workers and the wider community cannot be left at the mercy of the UK Government in action The Scottish Government wants to secure the best possible future for Grangemouth The key powers in this area of course lie regrettably at Westminster so we will continue to push them to make the necessary changes to ensure that it plays a key role in powering Scotland's drive to net zero to the request that we have made to the UK Government to help that transition that transition for Grangemouth and their workers Question 5 Annie Wells To ask the First Minister in light of the Scottish Government's plans to open the first SAF drug consumption in Glasgow later this year what assurances he can provide that other areas of drug policy including spaces for residential rehabilitation will not be deprioritised First Minister It absolutely won't be deprioritised Drug deaths are of course a public health emergency and we remain absolutely committed to investing an additional £250 million in our national mission to reduce harm and deaths caused by drugs We will continue to take a person-centred approach to address the wider needs of some of our most vulnerable people We have been clear in our commitment to support the establishment of a safer drug consumption facility in Scotland To give Annie Wells a hope a sense of reassurance funding was earmarked in the knowledge that Glasgow might need to proceed quickly following the Lord Advocate's position so no existing drug and alcohol services will therefore be affected to fund this pilot that we remain absolutely committed to expanding residential rehabilitation capacity by 50 per cent by the end of this Parliament and this includes the expansion of Beechwood House in Inverness which I'm pleased to say broke ground this week this will add much needed capacity in the Highlands when it opens in October Annie Wells will be here for that response Residential rehabilitation is a vital way in not just helping drug users to beat addiction but to help them to get their lives back and yet the most recent figures show people starting places in these facilities fell to their lowest in the last and more than two years We know there aren't fewer people addicted to drugs so why have those receiving this kind of help reduced Can the First Minister assure those vulnerable people that his government will not oversee the reduction in places? First Minister First of all, we've obviously maintained the drugs budget for 24-25 that's in the face of, of course, significant cuts to our resource budget over the last couple of years and in terms of the expansion of residential rehab investment the seven capacity projects combined provides an increase of 172 beds by 25-26 boosting the current rehab capacity in Scotland from 425 to 597 far from being a cut that's an increase of up over 40% we've, as I said, progressed work on safer drug consumption facilities we're continuing to widen the access to life-saving eloxone we're continuing to drive the implementation of the MAT standards in terms of the safer drug consumption facility which Annie Wells mentioned in her first question and please we've got to this position that would have been far easier and far quicker of course if the UK Government had approved it in the first place Paul Sweeney The safe consumption pilot in Glasgow is a critical part of our effort to tackle the drug death crisis in our country but we need many complementary tools in that toolkit to address the crisis effectively the turning point 218 centre in Glasgow which supports women in the justice system with a number of critical issues such as problematic drug use is set to close next month due to funding cuts and interventions are not being compromised when his Government are allowing a well established and effective lifeline service in Glasgow to close I would say, as I did in response to a question from Paul McNeill if it was last week or a couple of weeks ago on relations turning point 218 I know what is an excellent service these are local decisions that are made in relation to funding and our discussions with Glasgow City Council they have made it clear that if that service has to close they are already ensuring that there is the appropriate service provision available for the women impacted Question 6 To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government plans to take in response to the reported rise in attacks on prison guards and weapons found in prisons First Minister that this Government and the Scottish Prison Service recognise the importance of providing a safe and secure environment for those who live and indeed work in our prisons by adopting a zero-tolerance approach towards all violence while the SPS do report an increase in the recovery of weapons within prisons this is likely to be a result of the positive impact of the mitigations that have been put in place to detect, to deter and reduce the availability of contraband across the prison estate the rise also highlights the professionalism of our prison officers their ability to identify and manage both risk and threat of violence towards staff is absolutely to be condemned and I'm sure we'll be united on that those acts of violence towards staff have reduced by 28% over the last four years Thank the First Minister for that answer Pizzengard attacks are more than doubled in seven years with nearly 4,000 weapons discovered in the last 10 years so these include homemade weapons like knives made from razor blades melted into toothbrushes so Phil Fairlie from the Prisoner's Officers Association said this week that the trend is growing at an alarming rate in coincides with an increase in assaults on both staff and prisoners and we're heading towards record high population numbers and have more members of organised crime gangs inside our prisons than ever I agree with the First Minister that we have a high regard for our prison guards on the work that they do but does he agree that he that the fear going into work and indeed prisoners themselves should not fear being in prison so what discussions are the Scottish Government having to ascertain why these homemade weapons are circulating and is the First Minister concerned that the increase may be symptomatic of severe overcrowding in Scottish prisons These are all the excellent questions from Pauline McNeill and I'll try to address them and if there's further information that the justice secretary can send to Pauline McNeill I will ensure that that happens in relation to the overcrowding in our prisons I don't disagree a jawt actually with what Pauline McNeill said our prison population is far too high and therefore there's a number of efforts going in to try to reduce that our numbers in remand are far too high our numbers in the female prison population are far too high so there's a whole range of actions that justice secretary and I have spoken about is not a silver bullet as Pauline McNeill would absolutely understand but there's a range of actions that we can take so I agree with her in reducing the prison population being necessary in relation to the actions that we're taking in regards to weapons and contraband into prisons, again the justice secretary will furnish her with further details but we are investing in technology such as rapid scan machines and indeed other technology body scanners and so on and so forth in order to try to detect that contraband into our prisons and the last point that I would make to Pauline McNeill is she's absolutely right to say that we must place value on those who work in our prisons and that's why I was really pleased that the latest paper proposal was overwhelmingly accepted by the SPAS partner trade unions and that's a two-year deal that delivers a salary increase of 10% for the majority of staff with those in the lowest salaries benefiting from a over 12% rise so I do believe that every single one of us should continue to praise the efforts of our prison staff right up and down the country for the fantastic work that they do. We move to general and constituency supplementaries I call Christine Graham. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First Minister, in a written answer to me this week and following Westminster scrutiny of the Excel bully dog regulations it appears that there are estimated between 50,000 under 150,000 Excel bully type dogs in England and Wales. Extraclating those to Scotland would mean between 5,000 and 15,000 dogs. Given those numbers can I ask what help there is now for existing and mainly responsible owners to identify whether or not their dog fits that particular breed type what concerns the First Minister has of an influx to welfare charities and what concerns he has that vets in Scotland may find themselves euthanising perfectly healthy dogs? There are very legitimate concerns that are raised by Christine Graham and I know that she has put on record her concern and opposition to the actions that we are having to take and I understand and willing to continue to have conversations with Christine Graham around the approach because I do still believe that the Scottish Government did not breed as the right approach to having to respond to an unannounced decision that was made by the UK Government without any consultation with the Scottish Government whatsoever. We are and Siobhan Brown, the Minister will happily write to Christine Graham in relation to all of the issues that Christine Graham raises. We have to think about the impact on owners of course we also have to think of the potential impact on animal re-homing centres as well as the veterinary profession and all of those issues are being currently considered as we progress these matters at pace. Thank you. Following the SNP Green Government's latest budget, NHS Highland has been forced to put development of the much needed and already delayed replacement for the Belford hospital in Fort William on hold. The current building will be 60 years old next year and patient staff and pretty much everyone except clearly the Scottish Government so can the First Minister tell me when the people of Lacharba who have been campaigning for decades for a new Belford will get the new hospital that they have been promised? First Minister. We will of course provide this chamber with an update in relation to our capital projects including health capital projects. What I would say to Jamie Halcro Johnston is of course in the face of a real terms cut not just to our resource budget but a 10 per cent cut to our capital budget and that over the coming five years we are continuing to ensure that NHS gets a pay uplift. A very, very stark contrast to a Conservative UK Government that has prioritised tax cuts for the wealthy over prioritising spending in the NHS. Go to Grant. The First Minister will be aware that the A9 North has been closed several times recently cutting caithness off from the remainder of the mainland and specialist maternity services. It is also known that Regmore maternity unit cannot quote pleading to women being asked to leave the unit with nowhere to go 100 miles from home as their labour progresses and despite this the Scottish Government have paused caithness, health redesign and the Regmore maternity unit redevelopment. Therefore can I ask the First Minister to revisit the downgrade and to continue the redesign so that women requiring specialist maternity care are never again abandoned? First Minister Can I say that the member raises very important points indeed and I have obviously been involved in this issue when I was Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and know it well and of course the member is absolutely correct that those refurbishments and construction to Regmore is much required and much needed. The Cabinet Secretary for the NHS has outlined the very challenging position in relation to capital projects due to the cut that we have experienced in the capital budget from the UK Government over the next five years but I will confirm to the chamber that no final decisions have been taken on individual projects in NHS Highland. We absolutely remain committed to the reinstatement of consultant-led maternity services at Dr Gray's hospital and any decisions made in relation to Regmore redevelopment will have no impact on the overall plan to return on consultant-led services to Dr Gray's by 2026 but notwithstanding all of that the points that the member raises are important and crucial and that is why we are keen to update Parliament as soon as we can on our capital infrastructure projects. Stuart McMillan With the First Minister providing assurance that budgetary pressures mean that the Scottish Government are not currently able to commit to the Empire, Slavery and Scotland's medium steering group suggestion for their work, which includes bringing forward plans for a dedicated space to address Scotland's role in empire, colonialism and also historic slavery, that this has not been ruled out for the future and that consideration will be given to locating such a facility in my Grinwch, Niferclay constituency given its links with the transatlantic slave trade. First Minister The Scottish Government has allocated £200,000 in this year's budget to support the on-going work related to empire, slavery and Scotland's museum recommendations. We will all work towards the recommendations published by the steering group. We will support the building of an effective resilient organisation, which contains the necessary skills to identify and acquire additional funding streams to allow this crucial work to progress and develop over the coming years. The location of any facility remains to be determined, but I hope that Stuart McMillan will take some comfort from the reassurances of the importance that we place on the empire museum. Miles Briggs It is over three years since SNP ministers cancelled the new iPavillion hospital replacement in Edinburgh. A decision the former First Minister agreed to you turn on during the 2021 Holyrood election pledging to build a new hospital during this Parliament. Can I ask the First Minister if he will keep that pledge to patients in Edinburgh and the south-east of Scotland? First Minister There is no doubting of course that that has to be done, but I go back to the point that I made to his colleagues. We are having to take forward capital spending projects in the face of high inflation in terms of construction costs, but a 10 per cent cut to our capital budget over the next five years. That is being done, being imposed upon Scotland by the Conservatives. Miles Briggs has every right to replace the current infrastructure by the Conservatives. Miles Briggs has every right to ask us about the progress that we are making. I would hope that he would also use any influence he has with the UK Government to tell them to reverse that capital cut, which is having such significant impacts on our budget and on health infrastructure right up and down the country. That concludes First Minister's questions. The next item of business is a member's business debate in the name of Paul O'Kane. There will now be a short suspension to allow those leaving the chamber to go before that debate begins.


This study compared the structural and optical properties of two types of titanium dioxide nanoparticles, one with silver doping and their antibacterial activity against various bacterial strains. The results showed that the silver-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles had a lower band gap than the undoped titanium dioxide nanoparticles, indicating greater light absorption. Additionally, the silver-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles exhibited higher antibacterial activity against pseudomonas aeroginosa than the undoped titanium dioxide nanoparticles. This article was authored by Kiran Gupta, R. P. Singh, Ashutosh Pandey, and others.


Live from Palo Alto, California, it's The Cube at Pier 2.0. Brought to you by the Pier 2.0 Foundations. Learn, connect and grow. Now here are your hosts, John Furrier and Jeff Frick. Welcome back. Jeff Frick here at the Pier 2.0 Foundation Event in Palo Alto, California. We're with The Cube. We go out to the events. We extract the signal from the noise. We get the smartest people in the room. We can find them. We invite them on The Cube to ask them the questions that you'd like to ask them. And I'm joined for our next segment here with Bill Norton, Chief Strategy Officer for IEX. Bill, welcome to The Cube. Hi. So Bill shows up with a book. Let's jump right out. We love when people bring books on The Cube. We've launched companies. We've launched books. We've launched all kinds of stuff. So we got there the Internet Peering Playbook written by the one and only Bill Norton. Yeah. Well, this started out actually as a whole series of white papers. When I first started working at Equinix back in the day, one of the things I wanted to do was find out what is this peering stuff? What are their exchange points? How does all that work? And not just from the high level perspective, but from an actual Internet service provider and network operator perspective. So I went to Internet conferences all over the world and I asked basic questions like that. So what is the definition of peering that you guys use? When you decide to peer with somebody, why would you say yes? And when you don't want to peer with somebody, why would you say no? And I would document what they said in the form of a white paper. And then I would walk the next people through the white paper that the previous people had contributed to.  We tend to focus more on the quantifiable business case for peering or what have you. And I would make modifications to the white paper. And after about a hundred walk-throughs of the white paper at an Internet operations event, I would have in my hand a white paper that represented the community mindset on a previously undocumented Internet operations activity. So let's talk a little bit about the folks that aren't necessarily completely up to speed on networking, right? Because we get kind of a broad audience out there. What is kind of peering 101 for the person just coming off the street saying, tell me what is this and why is it important? Absolutely. So to answer that question, I guess I would start by saying that most people buy access to the Internet using a service called Internet Transit. Internet Transit is a port on the wall that says Internet this way. You simply send your traffic to your Internet service provider. Maybe it's Comcast or AT&T or somebody else. And you send all of your traffic out that way. And they take care of absolutely everything. I call that connecting to the edge of the Internet. And there's nothing wrong with that. 99.99% of all Internet attachments are at the edge. But if you look at the largest, most successful content companies or networks in the world, they connect to the core of the Internet, which are these Internet exchange points. The place where all of these network operators congregate and exchange traffic with one another. And in that way, the traffic that is going ultimately between my network and your network is going directly between our two networks and not up through your upstream ISP for which you pay. So that's the PACS, right? The Palo Alto Exchange, I think, is one of the... The PACS is a great example of an Internet exchange point. Absolutely. Okay, so peering is the direct connection from exchange point to exchange point. No, a direct connection between network operators. The network operators are the ones who exchange traffic. The Internet exchange point is the facilitator of that exchange. Okay, so it seems like a pretty simple concept.  Talk a little bit about kind of different points of views that you uncovered in your search. And what are some of the real important items that people really need to understand about peering? Well, peering used to be a process that was primarily used by the largest ISPs in the world. So AT&T customers need to get direct access to sprint customers who might need to access quest customers and so forth. So there's a mesh of these large ISPs in the world that exchange traffic with one another. And that used to be primarily the domain for Internet peering. But then the tier two ISPs, the smaller guys, found that they too could exchange traffic with one another and by doing so they bypass the tier one ISPs, at least for that traffic that can be directly exchanged. So I started studying the Internet as an ecosystem because the tier one ISPs acted fundamentally different from the tier two ISPs. The tier one ISPs are defined as ISPs that have access to the entire country solely through their free and reciprocal peering arrangements. So they don't have to pay transit fees to anyone to reach any destination within the country. The tier two ISPs are everybody else. Those are the guys who have to pay transit fees to somebody to reach some destination within the country. And therefore they're motivated to peer their traffic directly with each other to bypass the tier one ISPs, at least for that subset of traffic between their two customer bases. So I started finding that there are different species inside the ecosystems, tier one ISPs, tier two ISPs and content providers and that each act differently. But what's interesting is around the world, Jeff, every internet peering ecosystem I've studied has the exact same type of structure. The names might be different, you know, in Singapore, it might be SingTel and Pacific Internet and, you know, another ISP. We're in the U.S., it's tier one ISPs or Quest and level three and actually a century link now but AT&T and so forth. So different names of the specific companies but the context and every ecosystem around the world is very, very similar. From a technological point of view, yes, but we just had our last segment talking about how different kind of the opportunity for say the consumer internet options in the U.K. are so vastly different than they are here. So talk a little bit about how things evolved over time in terms of consolidation and expansion and choices for entry points into this ecosystem. Well, I think if you look at the ecosystem from, you know, a mile away, you see that the interdependencies between the different players is really, really quite strong. The tier one ISPs pair with each other, tier two ISPs pair with each other and the content companies buy transit from the tier two ISPs and the tier one ISPs. What you tend to see in the evolution of the ecosystem is that you do see a lot more choices coming into the ecosystem. The cable companies once were underneath the auspices of at-home. At-home would handle all the internet activities for all the cable companies, but they went bankrupt in 2001 and all the cable companies had to instantly become ISPs. Initially, all the cable companies across the United States would peer with each other for free and get access directly to each other's eyeballs and in that way, those guys had really quite good performance and they reduced their costs as well. And then the large-scale network-savvy content providers like Yahoo and Google started evolving into these peering beams. A new species entered the ecosystem and they started peering with the cable companies. So now all of a sudden, the quality of the experience that end customers had got fundamentally better because Yahoo was literally directly connected to the cable companies' networks and the amount of capacity and performance, the lower latency, the lower pack loss, all meant that end users got a much better experience. And where's the investment coming in when you've got kind of this interconnected play of mutually beneficial relationships, but still someone's got to invest in infrastructure, they've got to invest in pipes and switches and data centers, et cetera. Is there kind of a, you know, let's all do this together because it's greater or it'll be a one plus one plus three? Or, you know, how has the kind of forces of who's got the influence morphed back and forth as it's evolved from, you know, mom-on-pop cable operators to more powerful cable operators to content providers and then, of course, now it's the whole Netflix Comcast flash, if you will, that's really causing a lot of conversation around this topic. One of the things I find fascinating, Jeff, is if you look at these different species of players, they have really different motivations for peering and interconnecting. So if you look at the content companies, we talked to LinkedIn, we had LinkedIn give a great talk today about their motivation for peering and some of the automation they've done for peering. Every single content provider in the world that I've worked with and I've studied this, they will peer to improve the end user experience. Number one, not to save money, they might actually save a lot of money by doing it, but it's to improve the end user experience. And they're willing to invest an enormous amount of money in building out a global, large capacity network backbone solely so they have a better end user experience for the portal. They don't want someone to go to their competitor site. They know that if the glass, the visible part of your phone, if it doesn't fill up within a second or two, people will go to an alternative site. And this is where the content provider is talking about, the application provider. Absolutely. Okay. Universally, content providers want to peer to improve the end user experience. Speed, speed, speed, right? I mean, they got to get the stuff there quickly, as you said. Get that screen up there, get those ads. If they don't get those ads up there, people can't click on them, they lose money. Right, right. But the ISPs, they participate in peering for a different reason. As I said, the tier two ISPs, they peer with each other to reduce the amount of traffic, they have to pay AT&T to deliver. They can optimize their traffic directly. For them, it's not about the end user experience, it's about the cost savings of not having to have that transit meter spin really quickly. Right, right. So it's interesting, there's different motivations for each of the players in the ecosystem. The tier one ISPs, they already have access to the entire country's routing table for free. They peer with each other and get access to the entire routing table. So they're peering because they need that connectivity amongst themselves to get access to that ecosystem. It's not to save money, it's not to improve the end user performance. It's because they need the global connectivity, in particular the connectivity within that region. So then you throw in the explosion of content creation with all the apps and music and movies and everything else now coming down, which is probably much bigger, not to mention enterprise usage or internet of things and big data. And then you have an explosion of consumption devices on the other end. So huge bump up in demand. How are the carriers dealing with that in terms of spinning their little dial faster, as you said? Yeah, one of the things that was most interesting is I started working with YouTube way back when they first started getting into this stuff and the amount of traffic they were pushing was starting to grow exponentially. And what was fascinating to witness at that time, if you remember back then, if you would see video on the internet, you'd see a little postage stamp, a very jittery type of screen of video and it just was not a very good high quality experience. There's a graph in the book called the video suckiness curve. And way back then, the video suckiness curve showed the little postage stamp up there and it just didn't work very well. But as you started seeing Doxus being deployed in the last mile, that opened up the pipes very big in the last mile. When you started looking on the content creation side, it wasn't that long ago that digital cameras came out where you could take a large amount of video and then connect to your Mac and have it brought into iMovie or something like that and spew that out right to YouTube. So the flow from the end systems that created the content all the way up to YouTube and the massive distribution system that YouTube used to get that out there all the way to the broadband, that video internet ecosystem, as I call it, from end to end was finally activated. And yes, at that point you started seeing the transit meters spinning faster. You started seeing enormous amounts of content being distributed using CDNs and transit and peering and it was incredibly exciting and incredibly powerful for the peering ecosystem. Those pipes got very, very fat, very fast. And how's the finance? Well, YouTube's now financed by ads. Back then they were just running a lot of data, right? They didn't have a lot of revenue. There wasn't a lot of ads. They didn't have the big Google cash machine supporting them. So who was financing this massive increase in demand on the infrastructure? The one data point I remember hearing was that if Google didn't acquire YouTube within six months YouTube would be out of business. They would have simply run out of money. But instead they had that $1.65 billion buyout because of the user base and because of the growth and the value of that brand. What an Amiga deal steal. That was looking back in hindsight for $1.6 billion. It seemed pretty inexpensive compared to some of the transactions that we're getting today. Back then that was a big amount of traffic. For virtually no revenue, right? They're really buying the future. In my position, I was the co-founder and chief technical liaison for Equinix. My job was to travel to different conferences around the world to study the ecosystems, to study how things were working, to hear what people were saying about Equinix, to hear what people were saying about other companies, our competitors, and to find out what opportunities existed in the marketplace and how things were dynamically shifting. During the time we just spoke about during the video internet evolution, it was a phenomenally fun time to be in the ecosystem because the more traffic that goes across the interfering ecosystem, the more traffic that people can peer away for free, the more desirable the exchange points are because that's where you can offload your traffic for free with one another and that just sends everything up just higher and higher and higher. And of course the flip side of that is that also meant that people could charge less and less and less and we saw the price of internet transit go from $1,200 per megabit per second in 1998. Five years later it was $120 per megabit per second. Five years later it was $12 per megabit per second and today it's $1.20 per megabit per second. If you follow that trajectory in just a few more years it will be $0.12 per megabit per second. Essentially free, right? Essentially asymptotically approaching zero and Moore's law wins again. Exactly, right. So here we are at Pier 2.0 First time for this event. What's Pier 2.0 all about in the context of the story in which you just told and what does it really set the path for for the next several years? Yeah, well you know there are lots of forums around the internet operations space now. Every region around the world has their own internet operations forum. In North America it's NANAGA, a group that I used to chair called the North American Network Operators Group. In Europe it's a French acronym pronounced RIPE and that's where they have their coordination. In Asia there's a once a year conference called APRICOT and these are places where people come to talk about internet operations and the topics in general. Those do a really fine job. There's also a variety of peering forums like the global peering forum or the European peering forum Asia peering forum and these are places for peering coordinators to meet one another, schedule meetings to discuss whether it makes sense for you and I to connect our networks together and peer, if there's about equal value the answer is yes, if there isn't the answer is probably no. But Pier 2.0 is not that. We're not trying to be an internet operations forum we're not trying to be a peering forum this is an educational forum. This is a place where experienced peering people can share their experience and share their expertise with the folks who are just starting to get into the peering ecosystem and if we do this right we can grow the peering ecosystem well beyond the well-established Tier 2 ISPs, well beyond the well-established content companies and include enterprises like Hertz and Avis and Visa and Mastercard, all these guys ought to be peering directly amongst themselves and directly with their key trading partners and if we do this right we can grow this ecosystem in order to magnitude larger and everyone's going to benefit from that. So are there technological hurdles to that happening or is it more just kind of a point of view and just kind of the evolution as to is that kind of the natural state of the evolution of where it would go based on the steps that we've already taken. It's an education thing I mean if you're a content company you're most likely buying transit like I said it's a simple service it says internet this way you just send your traffic to AT&T or Sprint or whoever and your traffic is out there you may not even have a network engineering team to know enough to know that you could also connect to the core of the internet and be directly connected to Box or Dropbox or Microsoft or whoever so you need to understand that that opportunity exists and it doesn't mean you need to build out a large networking staff to do this anymore it can be done very quickly and very easily and that's one of the things that I'm sure you learned that IAX is involved in doing. Do you think that that path will go down kind of a trading partner set or more likely an industry set what do you think kind of the natural bundles of activity and connectivity will be as it evolves is it hurts plus Sheridan plus Alaska Airlines or is it Alaska plus United plus Southwest I mean how's this going to evolve do you think? So here's where I see things going today folks are buying transit and they're blending in some amount of peering so they can still buy transit from AT&T to reach the entire internet but you know what a lot of my traffic that I care about is coming from Box we're using Box for example our shared data store for our companies mission critical that we have direct access to Box so we're going to peer with Box even though it's probably shadow IT and nobody knows it's there but that's a different conversation for another show we're going to peer with Box we've certified so the point is that there's going to be a blend so you're going to buy transit but you're also going to peer some with key trading partners Andrea Sturm from the DKX once told me important traffic is peered and I love that phrase important traffic is peered that means if you like you can be directly connected to those key partners where you exchange a lot of traffic most likely if you're a content company you want to be directly connected to Google for Google ads if you're an enterprise you want to be directly connected to Microsoft and Dropbox and other key trading partners and it's going to be that kind of blend you're going to blend in transit, peering remote peering which IAX offers, distributed peering that IAX is doing CDN services and then the question is what is the optimal blend for the network application at hand and there are a variety of different views on that so the point is you've got a much broader toolkit now available than you did four or five years ago you did before so Bill we're getting the hook on time I want to give you the last word your book was a collection of notes from a tour before what's the next book going to be on what's kind of the next kind of big thing that you're looking at from kind of a macro point of view I'm not really looking at doing another book in theory there are a lot of interesting topics so coming forward for example this edition of the book has a focus on international peering something that hasn't been documented before so when I started working a lot across Africa, places like South Africa and Kenya and Ghana Nigeria and such I learned that there's actually a whole lot of gamesmanship about how you decide what country to go into and when you go into that country do you buy transit do you appear, do you sell transit what are the different models for doing that and it kind of fits into that blend future of projection as well so I might expand the international footprint focus and evolve this book to the 2015 edition well you got to keep adding to it so Bill thanks for coming on theCUBE Bill Norton Chief Strategy Officer for IAX I'm Jeff Frick with theCUBE we're at the peer 2.0 foundation event in Palo Alto California we'll be right back with our next guest after this short break thanks for watching


Thanks everyone for making time to have a listen to this presentation. Unfortunately we had some technical problems earlier on when Steve and I were presenting on the live stream so we've decided to just do the presentation again just so that people get the sense of what they're talking about face-to-face as much as we can. So where to start? So what I want to talk about today is proposed change in the executive structure across CFA. That's really being driven by our need to get ourselves organised and aligned in terms of new accountability arrangements. So I want to talk about that. I can also say that we will send out the structure and some information about it in the next hour or so after I'll finish this presentation. So starting at the top the board met on Monday this week and the board's been doing a piece of work on their own governance arrangements and we've had an external consultant Nicola working with the board on establishing its operating arrangements. So how is the board going to function? Making sure that the board's operating at the right level in terms of governance and strategy and stewardship and leaving management to management. The board's also determined on Monday its new committee structures and I guess part of all of that work in terms of the governance arrangements for the board meant that I had to turn around and along with Steam and the rest of the executive go, how do we need to organise ourselves to help support the board and to help support the front line? So that's the piece of work that we've done that I want to talk about today. In terms of process, so I'm talking about it today, we'll release some information today and then we've got the next two weeks as a consultation period. So that's where teams get to talk to their managers, managers talk to other managers, people talk to HR, everybody has a bit of an input into what this looks like. Because from where I sit I've got a view about what people are doing but actually when you get down a few layers in the organisation someone's position description might look like something but actually they're doing something else. So we're interested in people's views about where they fit in the structure, we've got a starting position but we really want to have input from people. We're also consulting with the union of course, we have consulted with the joint consultative committee a little while ago and we will be doing all of that concentration. So today is putting the structure on the table, two weeks to consult and chat about it and then we will aim for an implementation on October 10. I'm sure we haven't got everything right so I'm kind of seeking forgiveness in case we've got a few things wrong but we really want to get going with this change. So in terms of the actual change what I'll do is I'll do it through the executive side and Steve will talk through the fire and emergency management side and hopefully that will give you a picture of what it looks like and what we're planning on and Steve can talk a little bit more about what's the motivation behind doing it. So starting at the top I guess I am changing some of the direct reports to me which are the Director of Communications Lydia Ivanovski is the new Director of Communications and she's going to report directly to me as well as Bruce Russell our legal counsel will report directly to me. It's not unusual to have that arrangement to have legal counsel and comms report directly to a Chief Executive Officer and that's really because they provide quite a lot of support to my office and support the rest of the organization. So Bruce and Lydia will report to me with their teams. Piglin Colchers, Zameel Sarva who's been here maybe 14 weeks now, Zameel who is a power of energy. Zameel is going to retain pretty much all the same responsibilities within people and culture with some work on really thinking about and planning for a new model of HR delivery into the field. So whenever I go out to regions and districts people tell me how many thousands of people are working out there and we need to make sure we've got the right HR support out there. So Zameel retains all of their functions within people and culture but is thinking about a new HR service delivery model that's a little bit more distributed into the regions and districts. I mean she does pick up a piece of work which is the Honours and Awards work that was previously sitting within the Learning and Volunteerism group. So those Honours and Awards people will move over into People and Culture. We've talked with the team. I should say we've talked to the teams that are directly affected by this and that team will join People and Culture because Honours and Awards is really about people and culture. So that's the People and Culture team. Anthony Ramsey the Executive Director of Infrastructure Services who joined us maybe five or six weeks ago from Vic Poll. Anthony retains his existing functions. Not much change there except he's going to pick up the there was a few staff within the Learning and Volunteerism Directorate that had responsibility for infrastructure services at regional training campuses. So there's a few people there that will move over and Anthony will retain responsibility for all infrastructure services whether it's operational or the training campuses. The next one is Nigel McCormack. Nigel is our Chief Finance Officer. Nigel is also going to report directly to me. It's also not unusual in an organisation to have the CFO report directly to the CEO. We have a half a billion dollar budget.  There's quite a lot of responsibilities wrapped up in that role and I'm keen to elevate Nigel to be on the Executive team and really utilise Nigel's skills to really help us sort through some sustainability issues into the future. So the last group probably is the most significant change is we're creating a new Directorate that's called Volunteers and Strategy. That Directorate will be led by John Haynes and that Directorate's really formed out of a combination of John Haynes' existing team that sits within Fire Emergency Management and the balance of the team in business planning and strategy. So if I take finance out of business planning and strategy, the bits that are left behind which are quite important functions around corporate planning and strategy, they will be combined with John Haynes team and that will form one team called Volunteers and Strategy. So that's probably the most significant change in some ways, the creation of that new team and that's really about making sure we've got a single focus, one place in the organisation that's doing all of the kind of thinking work, the strategy, the innovation, business intelligence, business excellence, you know, those sorts of functions. So John and Phil have been talking to their teams and people are pretty well advanced on the thinking about how that might work. So that's, oh and I should say the volunteerism team that sat in Learning and Volunteerism moves over into the John Haynes team. So with a single point in the organisation that can do the leadership work around volunteers. So I'm pretty keen on that. I think that provides us with some pretty good opportunities into the future. And there's also some changes. Obviously they flow on into the FNEM because we've I guess effectively disbanded the Learning and Volunteerism group. But maybe I'll hand over to Steve to talk about those changes. Thanks Francis. So one of the exciting things for me is the driver of this is not about dollars. It is about a more effective, efficient organisation with clearer accountabilities and less duplication. And so just as Francis has talked about there's duplications in, you know, we've had and still have two volunteers and teams on two business strategy sections within the organisations. We've got duplication in diversity, duplication in leadership. There's an opportunity to bring that together. We've used the same principle in environmental management. I think you'll be really excited about some of the things we're about to let you know about. One of those is and it will be a DCO bushfire. It's not about the DCO position. It is about the centre of excellence for bushfire. And the example I use here is if you spoke to the J-Citizen in the street or Mary Citizen in the street, then I think they would see CFA as predominantly as a bushfire organisation. They would see yellow. They would see volunteers that come out during summer. And so when you looked at CFA, the pieces of bushfire sit right across a number of different portfolios. It's about bringing all those together and having the people that do the burns programs, the people that do the preparedness for bushfire in that bush, treat that as grass fire in the one location. The other side of that, and I just said before, is the perception of people, of our organisation is very much bushfire. When the reality is we're one of the biggest urban fire services in the country. And particularly with now 35 integrated stations, we have some big volunteer urban stations as well. The reality is we need to mature, I think, a lot more into the urban space. And as such, there will be a portfolio led by a DCO called Urban. So DCO Urban, with all the urban in that, in people that, you know, technical rescue people, fire investors, all in that one particular team too, which I think is quite exciting. The third element for us is about safety of our people and real-time service delivery. So it's called Safety Service Delivery. And that'll be led by DCO Bruce, Bruce Fire. And that will be being ready to go with management team level, whether it be trucks, whether it be someone that's just going to deliver a message into the community on any given day. So that's about safety and service delivery. Community safety, now that's led by Terry. Terry's obviously already advised us that he intends to go that position in the next couple of weeks. So we'll put it out of expression. In fact, we've already put out expression of interest to replace that. And essentially, we still see community safety as primary service delivery, just as much as we take a truck out the door, put wet stuff on red stuff. We empower and make our communities more resilient before and during a fire. So really keep what part of service delivery for us is community safety. So we reckon we've got that right and we're going to reinforce that position. There's a couple more new ones though. There's one to do with the industrial relations, to do with growth programs in the organization as well. We're an organization that is really, really growing and you'll see that, I'm sure. And we think we've under-resourced that. So if we're bringing in more career firefighter positions, for instance, we need to recruit them, develop them, put them on courses, make sure that there is consistency in how we manage and train and operate our our in-grade stations and our urban volunteers, those stations as well. But, and of course, making sure that we're well prepared in any industrial matters. So they will be a team quite simply, reckon for at least about six years. I think the important one for me and the reason I get so excited here is our training, design and delivery portfolio. So we, and Francis talked to you about before, about what we'll take some of the add-ons in learning and volunteerism out, the volunteerism bit, some of the infrastructure, and I think there's a couple, and really focus on design and delivery of training. So we'll go for an expression of interest for DCO training, and that then, if you put that all together, that allows us to go to the urban people. What are your capability requirements, Urban? How many pump operators? How many truck drivers? How many water squatters? VA where there's technical rescue people? And turn around a training and eyeball them in the same team and say, and this is what we want you to deliver. Okay, bushfire, how many strike team leaders? What's the standard of your strike team leaders? Let's go to our volunteer ranks and say, well, who's the best strike team leaders? How can you tell us what you've been the strike team leaders? And go to training, and this is what we expect. This is what we require in instant manage. So that real sense of connectivity, I think. And then if you've pulled all that together, our ability with John Haines and the strategic planning team where the service deliverers, they'll help do all the data collection that will make us allow us to make some informed decisions about the future, that we're really well connected in infrastructure. So if we need a particular truck that is a crew cab, it's got a tanker designer, et cetera, and they're able to deliver it for us. The people connection for us that they will help deliver that. So you start to think about that, clear lines of accountability. Joint teams joined up delivering the same thing. I think it's a real exciting opportunity for our future as an organisation. Okay, so it's probably the last thing I'd say is there's just a few people I should acknowledge, because when I came into this organisation there were quite a lot of acting executive directors. So, Phil Harbert has been acting executive director, done a great job and he's now going to take up a leadership position with them, John Haines team. People might know that Emma Tyner has decided, has been acting in the communications role, providing support through a pretty busy time, I have to say, and Emma is now moving on to back to the energy sector and Kate Harrop after a period of leave is going to return to her managing volunteerism position. So I should acknowledge the work of those three people who have been acting in those roles for really quite extended periods of time. I'm particularly pleased that we now have a permanent executive. So all of the executives are now permanent and I think that's a good thing for the organisation and now we need to kind of line ourselves up behind those people and make sure we deliver on the stuff that we actually want to do. And probably the last thing to say is change always makes people anxious and it doesn't matter how much change you've had, I know CFA's had lots of change and people might go, oh it's just another change, you know, whatever. It does affect people and so I think it's really worthwhile just and it will affect people in ways that you don't expect and whilst it's like, you know, not ideal to announce this on a Friday, I would have much fun done it earlier, you know, things happen, it meant I couldn't do that. So I do really want you to think about, it is change, change makes people anxious, people need to make sure that each other's okay and if you've got any concerns talk to your manager, talk to HR, seek advice from the employee assistance program. But in the end I think actually the feedback that I'm getting around the organisation is people are keen to do this. It's probably been the worst kept secret in CFA, we're not very good at secrets in CFA and that's probably not a bad thing because it's been, I've been able to sort of test what people think about it. So, you know, it's the worst kept secret but I think people want us to get on with it, we don't want to drag this out for a long period of time, we want to do it pretty quickly, so we might make a few mistakes on the way, so I'll set your forgiveness in advance but really we're keen to get on with that and I think it's actually going to be a good thing for the organisation. So thanks very much for listening and please get in touch with your manager if you have any questions. Thanks guys. Thanks.