So it's 6.04. Apologies in advance for the quality of my connection. I've started the recording. I'd like to call the June 10th, 2021 special meeting of the CV Fiber Governing Board or changes to the agenda. I only know that the, um, not seeing any, the work orders are what? Are going to be executive session, approving contracts. Well, we'll, yeah, we'll, we'll cross that when we get there. Um, is there any public comments, any comments that folks want to make about stuff that is not on the agenda? Okay. Hearing none, we're going to move along to the approval of the poll inventory contracts. And so Ray, you, you would like to discuss this in executive session? Correct. Could you explain why? And then I will get my meetings. I will get the motions put together. So I think the motions fall under the, um, public knowledge discussions relate to contracts for poll inventory work and that would put the CV Fiber a competitive disadvantage. And I'd also note that it would reveal confidential information of the business relationship of the three vendors. Okay. Is there a second? So the, so contracts is one VSA 313A1A. I will try to put this into the chat. A second. Okay. Thanks for the second, Tom. Um, so Ray, can you state again, um, why this would put us at a disadvantage? These are the contracts with the folks doing our poll audits. Correct. And, um, what we're going to be discussing and what we're going to see are the, is a term sheet in which we identify what the bids are, what the basis of the bids are, what the basis of the agreements are, and, uh, it would disclose to, uh, our competitors as well as the competitors of the contractors that we're working with, uh, the details of how they come about making their, uh, making their bids. Okay. I'm pasting something into the chat too. So this would be, um, us also, as part of the discussion of the contract, we, we're going to be discussing records exempt under the public records law, which is one VSA 313A6. So if we can kind of package that as part of the, the motion, is that okay with you, Ray? Uh, that's fine with me. Okay. And Tom is the second. I see you nodding. I think we're good to go. Okay. Not seeing any hands up. Uh, are there any objections? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Um, I will then move the session to discuss the aforementioned contract and to discuss those exempt records subject, subject one VSA 313A6. Thanks for the second. Jeremy, any further discussion? Okay. Any objection then? Okay. So we are in executive session now. So I have to ask everybody that is not, um, is not a delegate, not a voting delegate or acting as a voting delegate or is contributing specifically and materially to the discussion at hand. Um, I'll have to ask you to, to log off at this point. So I think that Jerry, so I will kind of go down as, as the treasurer and that, that makes sense to give it. Yeah, as treasurer and our, you know, probable project manager. Okay. And so I'm going to, Michael, I'm going to boot orca. Um, and also I think Michael,


This is George Gilbert. We're on the ground at the Data Science Summit in the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, and we're with Jan Neumann, who denies he's related to John von Neumann, but based on the work he's done it sounds like it's a distinct possibility. He works for Comcast and their customer journey with machine learning and applying it to technologies that we all experience is very interesting. Jan, why don't you tell us what was the initial application, how it got started, and how it got applied? Yeah, the group I work for, which is Comcast Labs, Washington, D.C., originally used to be a startup that focused on video search applications. So Comcast bought them, as I said, I wasn't part of it in 2005, to basically power the video web search behind their Comcast.com website. And so the secret sauce there was really to use natural language technology to not just identify like when a word is being spoken within a video, but also like what's the context around that. And so there was a core kind of team which used NLP, which kind of falls under machine learning nowadays. And then after a couple of years when they saw like how successful basic research was, Comcast decided to let this group basically develop additional machine learning algorithms to support the content discovery within Comcast. Before we go to the next application, how was it applied to use sort of the context, you know, NLP within context to find content? So the idea was that you basically index every single word within that is being spoken within the video. And then at the same time, you also look at what are the related words next to it, to identify like what is the segment that is semantically related to this word that you're searching for. But so if I basically type in a word, it will not just take me to when the word was spoken, but it starts a little bit earlier at the beginning of the segment where at the semantically related segment. Now would the end user for this be like the news department looking up related clips or would it be end users who are searching for... So this find was end users who were using the Comcast website to look for interesting web videos. So they were typing in search terms that they were interested in and it would return then a ranked list of clips, kind of subsets of the larger web videos that hopefully would match what they were looking for. Was it Comcast content or was it like, you know, broader content? It was not necessarily Comcast content, but content distributed via the Comcast website at the time. Okay, okay. So and just to touch on the NLP tools, were these open source tools that you applied to make it to extract intelligence from the video? Or were the tools themselves also developed based on, say, academic research? So these were developed in-house, so at that point the secret saw of the startup was their in-house develop capabilities. And at that point you wouldn't probably call it like big data, it was more like the traditional small scale machine learning, handwritten C code, etc. But since then we have grown up, so to speak, and Comcast then decided to kind of give us the responsibility to develop all the content discovery algorithms that now power the new X1 entertainment system. Okay, so tell us more, how did that path, what was that growth path? And sort of what challenges did you have to go over, skills wise, data, scalability, things like that? So the challenge that we have is that initially we're a relatively small team, so we're only about 8 to 10 PhDs at that time. With like a background mostly NLP, like my personal background is computer vision, so I was asked to kind of join, to basically add image analysis, video analysis capabilities to the mix. But at the end the underlying technologies are all machine learning based. So they asked us, could we develop a recommendation algorithm in-house? And one of our researchers came up with an algorithm that we then compared against external vendors and we found out that our internal algorithm was performing as well or better than what other vendors were offering to us. As in the distributor of movies via DVDs? Well, we obviously did not offer the algorithm to us, so we can't really compare one to one, but the companies who spend a lot of time and said, hey, we can offer you our recommendation solution and who actually worked with TV providers in Europe and other places based on customer testing, our internal algorithm performed as well. So then Comcast made a strategic decision to develop an algorithm in-house and increase the team. We hired like data engineers, people who were familiar with Hadoop and other big data technologies and then scaled up a solution that is now powering the recommendation systems behind the X1 system. So it sounds like it's a Comcast secret sauce and it's not something that you'll license as a piece of advanced technology? Correct. It's like developed in-house because the advantages of being able to adapt to the unique kind of constraints and given that the size of Comcast it was worthwhile to do it in-house versus licensing other technologies. We're definitely building on top of other technologies like Hadoop, like Spark and also here like the Data Graph Lab, which is also part of what we're using so to basically build kind of a best-of-breed model, but it takes into account like a lot of the peculiarities of our data to basically give our customers the best solution at the end. Okay. Can you give us a little more sense of how the third-party technologies gave you sort of a higher place to, you know, a starting point? I mean the advantages nowadays that machine learning technologies are so advanced that and as you saw like in the keynote earlier this morning by Carlos, that it becomes easy and easier to try out ideas at scale, right? So if you're a data scientist, we are good at like the math, we're good at understanding machine learning models, but we're not necessarily good at kind of writing high-performance code from the bottom up. And so what the existing technologies allow us to do is to kind of build upon all that distributed work and then add the secret sauce on top of it and be able to leverage or apply the models that we built in our laptop to like basically scale it up to Comcast scale. Sort of the way Spark says we want to make it easy for you to take what was done perhaps in a single user notebook and scale it. So we're definitely benefiting a lot from this kind of paradigm change. Tell us what are some of the scalable pieces that you're building on that weren't available a couple years ago? So I mean the hardest problem we had initially was that it was very difficult to kind of transfer complex machine learning models that we built like on all machines using Python for example onto the Hadoop platform. We had to use Java, we had to kind of rewrite from scratch to fit the map-reduced paradigm and now with the advent of Spark and other tools like the Graph Lab it becomes just much easier to kind of use where the data scientists who develops the algorithms can use the same tool to also deploy the solution and you avoid mistakes being made in the translation from the model to the actual deployment. Let me just jump in there for a second but you're saying that the development platform is also the deployment platform which is potentially significant so you operationalize the models maybe on a different cluster but the same technology is that what you're saying? That's what I'm saying so I mean not all the way there but that's kind of a process going on. Okay wow so what might this look like in the future? Well I think that convergence will continue so we're given like the quick growth of the tool the ease of deployment and other technologies like Docker which make it very easy to have like the same technology on your laptop that I mean the kind of like same technology stack on your laptop that you have in the data center that we will be able as like data scientists to get a developer solution and directly trying to translate into a company-wide deployment. Now the the Hadoop is getting hardened it's there's got there's some seams in there in terms of operational complexity and you know development complexity because it's more of an ecosystem than a product but Spark is making great strides in coming together so that you can integrate the streaming machine learning you know SQL querying graph processing and with the tungsten project you know running at you know speed on the metal right is that something that looks like it's going to pull you in that direction? Well we're definitely very interested in tungsten too and in the technologies of monitoring it very closely like we have been like presenting like some of the work that I presented today about the real-time recommendations we also presented at the Spark Summit East this year so we're definitely very active in exploring how Spark and other technologies can help us with our like improving basically our infrastructure deployments they make it make our pace of development quicker and overall improve the quality of a product. Okay and with that I'm George Gilbert on the floor thank you for watching and we'll be back shortly.


Okay, we're going to start with some two-year-olds. First off, this is a two-year-old Zach Philly. She's had about 60 days on cattle, and we'll show kind of how we want to work these horses on cattle. But before we start that, I'd like to show a little bit just how I like to get them broke, what I like to teach them initially, basically, how I want them to handle their body in a stop and a turn around, and then how we'll carry that on to how they work a cow. A lot of what I like to teach a horse, kind of the mechanics of the stop and the turn around, I want that horse to stop. Basically, getting this position here, I want that hip square behind them, that shoulders out of that turn, head into a cow.  I don't want them to fall into that cow. I want them to kind of draw that head back into that cow. Getting this position here and have them so broke. A cutting horse, if you have them too broke, they're thinking about the rider too much. There's kind of a fine line you can get to, and you can have them broke and nice and gentle, but you don't want to have a cutting horse too broke because a cutting horse has to relate to the cow, not to the rider. So you can kind of go to a certain point. You don't want them to be like a reigning horse, but you like to have them where you can draw it and stop them and everything, and be able to back them up, but you don't want them over broke. And what I call over broke is where they're thinking about the person too much. They haven't had enough time spent out in the pasture and just learning how to ride. So I like to have them just to a certain point, just where you can help them. And that's about as far as you can go. And I don't really want them any more broke than that. I don't like to have them like a reigning horse because a cutting horse has to relate to the cow. When I start working, what I want my horses to learn in our programs, I want a horse to learn how to rate a cow first. First thing I want to teach a horse to do is how to rate, how to just travel with a cow, stay a hold, and just how to rate, just to how to travel with one. Then I want to teach a horse how to stop and I ain't gonna, they gotta rate and then stop. I don't want them to turn too quick. I don't want my horses to cow up too fast. I want them to be real patient and learn how to rate a cow. She's waiting here nice and relaxed. That's what I want. Like Paul said, I don't want her jumping around. I want her here relaxed, ready to make that next move when that cow shows me what it's gonna do. Same thing again. Step across that cow, hit that stop good. She's ready for that next move. Okay, that's good. That's how you teach them. Still wanna help her. She felt like she was gonna go a little bit long that way, trying to do things just a little bit too much.  She's just feel just a little uppity to me. I want her to soften up just a little bit more so I'm gonna work her until I feel her soften up.


What's going on everyone? Sam here with late in sports card, Drippin' 22, Topps Dynasty, Formula One, Racing Hobby, Five Box, Case Break, Number 5, Random left side serial numbers. Here's a look again at your random results. As always, you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as the link in chat. So good luck here everybody. Let's do it. Tick tock. I'm just going to go ahead and sort these again. They do show up on the website. I did drop that, right? I dropped the results. For number 5. Here we go. F1 Dynasty, full case left side serial numbers. Good luck. Yeah, right Jeremy. You've got Mick Schumacher. Nice one there going to the four spot. Mark D, there you go buddy. For Hawes. Two colored patch auto Mick Schumacher. Son of Michael. That is awesome. Congrats on that.  Nice Mick coming your way. What's up Vincenzo? That is going to be Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz-Doul. Four Ferrari on the color match. Four of five going to Mark again. Congrats Mark. That is massive. The Ferrari boys. Holy cow dude. Unbelievable. That's awesome. The red dude is so nice. The color match with Ferrari. Unbelievable. Leclerc and Sainz. So sick.  Congrats buddy. Awesome, awesome card coming your way. You always are manny. That's two of ten. Pierre Gasly. For Alphatari. Heck yeah that is awesome. Two of ten. That's going to Talon H. Congrats Talon. Now Blake's coming in asking if this is for sale. Ridiculous. Nice one there. Congrats Talon. Pierre Gasly. Really Vaughn. That's unbelievable. Fun driver Autos. That is going to be two of two. Esteban Ocon. Going to Talon. We pulled the one of one. Now the two of two. Esteban Ocon. For Alpine. That's awesome dude. Congrats on that one again Talon. Big time Ocon coming your way. Of two. Part of the A and Alpine again. That's two color, two color, two color, two color across the board. Heck yeah dude. That's awesome. It's so freaking cool. Empty. And last box. God I think I know who that is. One of two. Sebastian Vettel. Holy cow what a case man. Going to Mark D. Again. Oh my God. Holy moly dude. Unbelievable. Sebastian Vettel for Aston Martin. So cool man. That is really sick. That always looks awesome with the Aston Martin colors. So cool. Do it for the break guys. Thanks again for the fill on that one. Next up we've got number six.


Item number SCP-204 Object Class Keter Special Containment Procedures SCP-2041 and SCP-2042 are to be kept in a 10 meter by 10 meter fortified holding area in sight. The holding area must be constructed out of armor plated steel and heavily reinforced concrete. The holding area must also be vacuum sealed and contained within an outer shell with a higher air pressure that must be always maintained with at least two PSI over the current air pressure in the holding area. At least one full security team must be kept on standby at all times. It is only during SCP-2041's scheduled feeding times that D-Class personnel are allowed to enter for the purposes of maintenance. SCP-2041's typical diet consists of any kind of meat, preferably from living subjects. Such subjects will often consist of aggressive animals such as wild dogs, bulls, or any other animal that must be euthanized due to aggression. However, D-Class personnel will also suffice if such food sources are unavailable. SCP-2042's diet consists of a regular human diet, with no special measures given. SCP-2042 is allowed to make special requests, but any and all requests must be given O5 approval. Any personnel caught attempting to deliberately provoke SCP-2042 will be immediately terminated. Security personnel are required to ignore any and all of SCP-2042's attempts to provoke a response from them, unless there is a clear and present risk of containment breach. Failure to do so will result in harsh administrative punishment. When SCP-2042 is about to turn the age of 14, the Foundation must initiate Containment Protocol 204. Further details may be found in Containment Protocol 204 requirements. In the event of a containment breach, EMP generators must be immediately activated in order to keep SCP-2041 disabled. Once EMP generators have been activated, security teams have approximately 30 seconds to neutralize SCP-2042 before SCP-2041 can adapt and reassemble itself. If containment cannot be achieved in this time, SCP-2041 must be contained by conventional means. Security teams and agents are authorized to use any conventional weaponry at their disposal to contain SCP-2041 and SCP-2042. If SCP-2042 is terminated during containment, then Containment Protocol 204 must immediately be initiated. Description SCP-2041 is a semi-organic nanomachine colony that follows SCP-2042 as a form of protector. SCP-2041 spends the majority of its time in a dispersed cloud, where it is almost impossible to perceive with normal human senses. However, if SCP-2042 is put into danger, or if SCP-2042 commands it to, SCP-2041 will instantaneously materialize into a solid, physical form. The exact shape and nature of this form is subjective, depending wholly upon SCP-2042's view, state of mind, and imagination. Despite its variable nature, SCP-2041 has a number of common traits. These include massive strength, large size, basic intelligence, perfect obedience to SCP-2042, and the ability to regenerate itself after consuming living flesh. SCP-2041 is vulnerable to conventional weaponry and can be temporarily forced back into its dispersed state if enough damage is inflicted. SCP-2042 is always a child, ranging from 4 to 14 years old. Physically, there is nothing outstanding about SCP-2042 besides its ability to call upon SCP-2041. All incidences of SCP-2042 have common traits. All of them have had a history of abuse and danger, with many developing acute mental disorders as a result. This makes instances of SCP-2042 difficult to contain in any traditional manner, as great care must be taken to keep them in a stable state. It appears that SCP-2041 is attracted to such children, though why or how it finds them is currently unknown. If SCP-2042 is terminated, or reaches the age of 14, then SCP-2041 will abandon it and find a new child to imprint on. As a form of self-preservation, if SCP-2041 cannot find a suitable child, it will immediately materialize and go berserk, attacking anything in sight. Once SCP-2041 finds a suitable candidate to protect, it immediately imprints upon SCP-2042 and will follow it until SCP-2042 expires, or until SCP-2041 decides to leave of its own accord. At first, SCP-2041 appears benign, protecting SCP-2042 from overt threats. However, through careful study and observation, it has been noted that all incidences of SCP-2042 begin to adopt much more aggressive, danger-seeking behavior, with little regard for human life. It is theorized that SCP-2041 is able to manipulate SCP-2042's thought processes in order to behave in a fashion that would benefit it. It is assumed that, since SCP-2041 requires organic flesh for sustenance, it needs SCP-2042 to be in danger in order to justify its activation. Addendum 1 There have been numerous recorded incidences where it is believed that SCP-2041 has been involved. The first such recorded incident was when a car was found in a residential street, completely torn apart, and covered in partially devoured human remains. Similar incidents occurred until agents managed to track SCP-2041 to where they made contact with the first recorded incarnation of SCP-2042. It took three more attempts and numerous casualties before SCP-2041 and SCP-2042 were successfully contained. Interviews with SCP-2042 revealed that it seemed to feel a need to experience danger, such as standing in traffic or provoking hostile responses from others. When questioned on its reasons, SCP-2042 simply replied that SCP-2041 allowed it to. Containment Protocol 204 In order to keep SCP-2041 successfully contained, it has been necessary to keep a permanent stock of candidates to replace SCP-2042 in the event that the current one is terminated or abandoned. Ideally, all candidates should be orphans, below the age of 10, with a history of abuse. However, in times of need, Article 12 of Containment Protocol 204 may be authorized to allow candidates that don't meet specific requirements. They will be put under the supervision of caretakers, which will consist of D-Class personnel, convicted of violent crimes, and with Foundation staff present to prevent inadvertent termination of candidates. If SCP-2042 successfully reaches the cutoff age of 14 years, and SCP-2041 abandons it, the former SCP-2042 must undergo a rigorous amnestic treatment and a thorough psychological examination before being reintegrated into a government foster program. If it is deemed that the former SCP-2042 cannot be successfully reintegrated, then the subject must be immediately terminated. Addendum 2 As of the writing of this report, the Foundation has contained 13 instances of SCP-2042. 11 instances exhibited the trademark hostile and violent behavior typical among all instances of SCP-2042. However, two instances of SCP-2042 showed a marked improvement in their mental health and stability, and had the lowest number of containment breach attempts. It is currently unclear what specific factors trigger these differences in behavior, as the exact mechanism SCP-2041 uses to manipulate its host is still unknown. Addendum 3 Though there is evidence to suggest that SCP-2041 may be sentient, or possibly even sapient, all attempts to communicate directly with SCP-2041 have resulted in failure. Currently, the only feasible method of communicating with SCP-2041 is to use SCP-2042 as an intermediary.  Lesson Complete If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-203, Tortured Iron Soul, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


Please subscribe to this YouTube channel. Mentor talk can do press bell button for notifications. The process of mercy petitions in India has always remained a subject of interest and debate. Recently we found Nirbhaka's convicts moving the president of India for pardoning their death sentence. A convict sentenced by the court of law can make a mercy petition to the president of India as the very last and final constitutional recourse or remedy. Let us try to understand the concept of mercy petition law in India. Article 72 of the Indian constitution empowers the president of India to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offense. A, in all cases where the punishment or sentence is by a court martial. B, in all cases where the punishment or sentence is for an offense against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the union extends. C, in all cases where the sentence is a sentence of death. Correspondingly the power to grant pardon is conferred upon the governors of states as well. That is under article 161 of the constitution of India. However, the governor of a state shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offense against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the state extends. So, the court marshals and death sentence in all cases are out of the purview of the governor. Only president has those powers of court marshals and death sentence related sentence. I have not come across any statutorily prescribed written procedure dealing with the mercy petitions. A convict who has been awarded death sentence is permitted to make a petition within a period of seven days from the date when he is officially informed about the dismissal of his final appeal or special leave to appeal or including a curative appeal or plea, let's say. The petition can be signed by the convict himself or by any of his close relatives. The petitions as received by the president's office are then forwarded to the ministry of home affairs for their observations and recommendations, which are given by the home ministry after further consultations with the concerned state government. I may also add here another interesting piece of information for all of you. In the eventuality, the mercy petition is filed within seven days. Then the jail superintendent is obligated to hold and state the execution of the death sentence. But post the expiry of seven days, what happens if one does not move a petition within seven days? Well, that does not bar the convict to move petition even beyond seven days. But in those cases, the decision as to deferring the death sentence is taken by the concerned state government, depending on the exceptional circumstances. Now, interestingly, despite the president and governors being the executive heads, they cannot exercise. They cannot exercise any discretionary powers under Article 72 and 161, respectively. They have to act on the advice of the government. Hence, the president may accept or reject the mercy petition based on the advice of the executive, that is, Council of Ministers. There are several judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts, which clarify that the president and the governor cannot exercise any powers or discretion under Article 72 and 161, respectively. We have also witnessed that the mercy petitions have been kept pending for an unspecified period of time because the Constitution does not provide for any stipulated time limit to accept or reject the mercy petition. The Constitution does not provide any time limit for disposal of the mercy petition. However, in 2014, the Supreme Court of India, in a case of Shatrughan Chauhan and another versus Union of India, the Supreme Court came down very heavily on the inordinate delays in dealing with the mercy petitions. The court observed that keeping a convict in suspense while consideration of his mercy petition by the president for many years is certainly an agony for him. It creates adverse physical conditions and psychological stresses on the convict under sentence of death. Indisputably, the court said that the court cannot excuse the agonizing delay caused to the convict only on the basis of the gravity of the crime. The court said that the court was well within its rights and powers under Article 32 to hear the grievance of the convict and commute the death sentence into life imprisonment. Globally, my research shows that the concept of mercy has been acknowledged in terms of a human right. In India as well, the Supreme Court ruled that it is befitting to grant another degree of protection in the matter of life and personal liberty by entrusting power further to some high authority to consider the option of commutation that is resentencing. When your life and personal liberty is involved, mercy petition is a very legitimate process. The court said that the power so interested is a power belonging to the people and lies in the highest dignitary of the state. That's what the court observed in Kersing. Now, particularly important parameters were laid down by the Supreme Court in this very case regarding dealing with or disposal of the mercy petition. Firstly, the courts said in those parameters that the president must act in accordance with the advice tendered to him by the executive. Secondly, it said that it is open to the president to scrutinize the evidence on the record of the criminal case and come to a different conclusion, different from the court as recorded by the court. It can differ from that decision. Thirdly, it said that while doing so, the president is not exercising judicial power, but it is exercising executive or constitutional power. Fourthly, the court observed that the practical effect of the presidential act is to remove the stigma of guilt from the accused or to remit the sentence imposed on him. Fifthly, which should be finally, and there are a couple of other parameters I would skip that. Fifthly, there is no right in the convict to insist on an oral hearing before the president. So, president is not supposed to hold any hearing while deciding mercy petitions. Now, let me also cite another important judgment of the Supreme Court which holds that the decision of the president and the governors as the case may be can actually be challenged in the court of law. In other words, their decision is subject to judicial review. So, which means that their decision is also not final, the decision on mercy petition by the president or the governor. In a poor Sudhakar and another versus government of Andhra Pradesh and others, the Supreme Court held that the judicial review of the order of the president or the governor under Article 72 or Article 161 as the case may be is available and their orders can be impugned, which means their orders can be challenged on the following grounds. A, that the order has been passed without application of mind B, on the ground that the order is malafied. C, that the order has been passed on extraneous or wholly irrelevant considerations. D, that relevant materials have been kept out of consideration. E, that the order passed by the president or the governor as the case may be suffers from arbitrariness. So, their orders are subject to judicial review. For instance, a remission of life sentence was given by the governor of Uttar Pradesh to an MLA, to a member of state legislative assembly, who was convicted for the offense of murder. It was remitted by the governor. The Supreme Court in this case, quashed the governor's order as not being in accordance with the intent of Article 161. So, their orders can be struck down, president or governor's orders under judicial review. So, that is all for the time being. See you again sometime soon with another topic of your interest.


Well comrades, the German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in 1770 and died in 1831 and he was one of the greatest minds to have ever walked the earth. He had an encyclopedic knowledge within a vast array of fields of history, of science and of course about ideas. His works in philosophy in particular, his logic and his phenomenology are unparalleled in their depth, scope and detail and you don't have to agree with Hegel in order to understand that his penetrating method can raise important questions for everyone's mind. And yet, if you go to study philosophy at universities today, the chances are that you won't learn much about him or his works because here for the most part Hegel is really looked at with scorn, disliked and in particular one of the things in particular which is hated about him is his concept of progress in history. Now according to Hegel, not all societies are equal and on the same level of development. In other words have come a long way from the early stages of small groups wandering the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago to the modern society that we have today. And most importantly for him, our ideas have developed. So according to Hegel, not all ideas are on the same level. But this type of, this is so-called philosophy, this taught in academia today and in universities today. And this counts really for all the three main schools of philosophy today, the post-modernists, the positivists and the analytical philosophy. They all take a sort of a moralistic attitude to the question of culture and ideas because you see we can't say that, we can't call ideas bad or wrong except of course if it's ideas of Hegel and Marx because that is a completely different thing. All the old ideas, this is an old way of thinking and we need to look at the world in a complete new way. And here you might stop up and say, wait a minute, we're just told that all ideas are equal. There's no such thing as progress, i.e. nothing new is better than something old. And yet we have to go looking for new ideas because the old ones are not good enough.  And in reality if there's one thing which defines Hegel more than any other philosopher is his fierce opposition to this type of mental laziness, to say things, just blurt out things without thinking about the consequences or conclusions of what you're saying. And that's the method which is so rife in academia today. Now according to Hegel ideas can't just be called philosophy just because they're proclaimed. They have to be justified or rather they must be proven by their own intrinsic coherence. The question is how do we prove ideas, how do we prove the ideas on the basis of their coherence? Can't we just make up an idea ourselves and then claim that it proves itself by making up some other ideas? Well, not according to Hegel because what allowed Hegel's philosophy to advance far more than any other before him was the fact that he made the strongest case for the objectivity of knowledge. In other words, according to him truth and knowledge are objective phenomena, the independent of the individuals who think them. I can think whatever I want but that doesn't make it true. I can think that I can fly and then I go jump out of this window, well nothing will happen because I'll just fall onto the street. So I certainly won't fly, won't I? And so we can say definitively that at least some ideas are not true or not equally as true as others. But then the question is how do we arrive at objectively true ideas? How do we know things? And that's really one of the important places where Hegel made enormous advances. Now, when I was a child, I used to be, when I was very small, I used to be very afraid of fire. I thought it was bad, in other words, but then once a year in Iran where I grew up, you had this ceremony before Iranian New Year, there's fire on the streets, people are jumping over them, there's firecrackers, grenades, all sorts of fun things. And I would see them and I would think, well, you know, I was getting intrigued, let's say, and I thought, well, maybe fire is not such a bad thing, maybe it's actually fun. Then I remember one day, I was three or four years old, I was sitting with my cousin, we were playing with a lighter and this paper that we were holding caught fire and everything just started to unravel and we were panicked and luckily my uncle came in and stomped out the fire.  Then I got a little bit older again, became a teenager, I developed fine motor skills, I improved my reaction time, I'd seen barbecues and birthday cakes, I knew that more or less how to go about fire. So me and my cousin started experimenting with fireworks and we said, well, we found out we could mix them, we could make bigger bombs than the ones you could buy and suddenly fire was fun again and life was good, so to say. Right until one day where this small bomb that we basically made exploded right in my hand just when I was about to throw it, it ripped apart my gloves and it hurt quite a lot. Luckily nothing was happening, I still have all my fingers, but that was my last lesson so far, that fire is bad if you're not absolutely certain on how to go about it. Formerly you can say I'm at the same position that I was as a small infant or child, obviously this is a far higher form of knowledge than the simple notions of a child. And yeah, this is a very simple anecdote, but I think it does show the general process of knowledge, the fact that by interacting with the objective world, we form general notions about it, which we then apply to the real world again when we go about our lives. And through trial and error, we move from lower to higher forms of knowledge. Now Hegel recognized this process not just in the individual, but in the history of knowledge as such, in the history of humanity. He didn't see himself as apart from the history of scientific thought, as if anyone at any time could just have come up with the same ideas of him, but it just so happened that it was him, because maybe he was such a genius or something. But for Hegel, the history of scientific thought was not a history of random ideas disconnected and thought out by random and disconnected people, rather it was a process, it was a social process with its own lawfulness leading from lower, more simple and primitive forms of knowledge to higher, more complex and more advanced forms of thought. And every stage of this development, you have new ideas coming in, which play an enormous role in developing our understanding of the world and our place in it, but at the same time, each advance, each set of ideas bring within it the seeds of its own downfall, so to say. And at a certain stage, these ideas become, the new ideas, so to say, become old ideas and they must give way to new ideas to come in their place. So what is true at one point in history becomes inadequate and has to be replaced by something which is more true at another. But this doesn't mean that the old ideas are just lost forever, that all the experiences that came before is just wiped off and thrown out. Their essence is fundamentally retained in the new schools of thought which appear in the place. Now let's take the Ptolemaic system. This is the old paradigm of the universe which said that the Earth was the center of our universe. Now before Ptolemy, astronomy was not really a science. There was people making, you know, developing astronomical theories, but this was kind of a secondary thing as a part of other disciplines, basically. But what Ptolemy did was that he gathered all of these fragmented pieces of theory into one great book of astronomical science. He basically synthesized all of the theories of his time. And this was a huge step forward for humanity. In essence, what he did was to establish astronomy as a specific field which could be systematically studied. And for 1,300 years, this was the basis of astronomy, essentially. And it was within this framework that you had the development of vast, you know, theory of theories, mathematical models, and so on, some of which are still relevant today within certain parameters. And it was also within this framework that you had the development of tools, of telescopes, and all sorts of aggregates which actually allowed us to see far, far further than we'd ever been able to before. And which by doing this laid the foundations for the downfall of the Ptolemy system. And you had the rise of the Copernican system, which argued that the sun was the center of the universe. Obviously not the entire truth, but it was far truer than the original notion that we had. Yes. And it was exactly precisely because of the full development of the Ptolemy system that it could be replaced by a higher form of scientific thought. And again, the same thing later on took place with the Copernican system, which was later replaced with the current model that we have today. Now within each of these models, what was true in the, the true elements of the former schools of thought remain in the context of the new discoveries and advances of science. And if we look at the situation today, the really Herculean achievements of these thinkers have now become the basic knowledge that every school kid learns in school. And they have become the foundations of the new advances which can take place of science in future generations. Now this, this process takes place throughout the history of philosophy and science. And here for us and for Hegel, the past is just, it's not just some, you know, a set of unfortunate mistakes.  Well, in fact, for them, the Earth was the center of the universe. They couldn't see much further. The reach of humanity was not that far. And as we increased our reach, our knowledge also developed. And it was precisely because of that development that we could reach what we have today. So what we have is not accidental, disconnected theories, but rather a form of ladder where one step of development of each school of thought leads on to the next. Now for Hegel, this is not just the way that philosophy develops. This is the general laws of development itself. And he puts forward this metaphor of the plant, the life cycle of a plant where you have the seed, which is then negated by the bud, which is replaced by the bud. And then the blossom, and then at a certain stage, the blossom disappears and then the fruit becomes the manifestation of the plant. And each of these stages basically exclude the other ones. And yet they're equally necessary. And together what they form is the essence of the life cycle of a plant as a whole. At least in general terms, those are the laws of development according to Hegel. And going back to philosophy, Hegel believed that his philosophy was the culmination of all previous schools of thought. In fact, he derived his ideas from a systematic critique of all of the previous philosophies. And in this way, his doctrine was a revolutionary break, you can say, with everything that came before that. And at the same time, he meticulously tried to preserve everything that was true, the true kernel of all of those previous schools of thought. And it was in this process that Hegel found, the process of knowledge in other words, that Hegel found the key to his system. Now according to him, the process of knowledge, through this process of knowledge, through countless trials and errors, generation after generation, the human mind is molded by the objective laws of our reality. And therefore, Hegel believed that the scientific study of thought in itself, of thoughts and ideas in themselves, can give us an insight into the laws of nature as such. And this is a discovery that set Hegel apart from all of his contemporaries and the vast majority of philosophers who came before him. You see, up until Hegel's time, one of the main weaknesses of all of philosophy had been that most schools of thought put forward a very rigid and unbridgeable gap between the objective world out there, everything we see and can touch and so on and sense. And the thoughts inside of our minds is what they call the so-called subject and object problem. How can thinking understand the world? How can the world connect to our thoughts and so on? But according to Hegel, this was a false way of dividing things up. This is an absolutely false division. According to him, there's only one world that exists. And this world exists objectively and independently of any one single individual and their thoughts. Human beings and our thoughts, according to him, are just a part of this objective world. And therefore, we are capable of understanding its inner workings, so to say. Of course, for Hegel, this is not a material world. Rather, it's a world of what he calls the absolute idea about what your angles once said. He said absolutely nothing about this absolute idea. This is not the, well, I mean, from what you can derive, this is not the ideas of any particular person, but a form of independently existing world spirit which permeates everything and which gives rise to all of reality. And on this basis, yes, Hegel was a philosophical idealist, i.e., for him, ideas are the primary element of the world. And all idealism in the last instance leads to religion. And Hegel was a deeply religious person. In fact, he tried to prove Christianity by way of his philosophy. But nevertheless, his form of idealism was far more advanced than any other form of idealism. And in fact, any other philosophy of his time, precisely because it was an absolute form of idealism, which means that he recognized only one single reality which exists objectively and independently of human beings. Now, this was nothing short of a revolution, really, because contrary to most of the philosophy of his time, which were often basically stale mechanistic kind of doctrines which were conjured up and kind of dragged over the world, Hegel believed that true ideas and a true philosophy could not be conjured up, could not just be imagined, but it had to be discovered by way of patient and systematic investigation into the workings of thought itself. Now, he starts this investigation on a very, very simple basis of pure being, he calls it. He says, if we have to find out where to start, we have to say, what is it that we can attribute to everything? Well, that must be being. And the most general kind of elementary form of being can only be pure being, a being which is not defined in any way, which is not determined, it's not, it doesn't have any outer limiting, we can't say, you know, this chair or that thing because that would exclude other things, essentially. So we can't put any limitations on it. It has to be pure being. And if we try to think about it, such a being does not exist. There's no such thing as pure being. Nothing exists without determinations, without boundaries, without being divided from other things. And therefore, in this pure shape, being becomes nothing because there's nothing that kind of distinguishes this form of being from nothing. There's actually nothing we can attribute it to. But this is not just some empty form of nothingness, we can definitely say that it's not pure being. And therefore, what you have, just to cut it very short, what you have is pure being becoming nothing and nothing becoming a pure being again. And here you have, therefore, a new category of becoming, of change, essentially, which encompasses both of these categories of being and nothing in itself. And what Hegel is trying to paint here is the fundamental principles of dialectics. The fact that the process of change and becoming is at the basis for all real being. That all phenomena taken to the logical conclusion will eventually turn into their opposite. Whether we talk about galaxies or stars or planets or life, things come into being and as soon as they do so, they start to pass away. And once they pass away, another process starts for other things to come into being. The constant change and the rise and fall of phenomena, in other words, is the fundamental mode of existence of all of reality. Everything changes. Everything comes into being and passes away. But this is not something that's imposed from outside. There's nothing making things, so to say, come into being and pass away, but rather is driven by its own internal contradiction. Just like we could see, just the thought of pure being inevitably impels us towards nothing. Therefore, the seeds of destruction is present in all creation and vice versa. Death is inherent to life. And life, of course, is a result of dead elements, which is the majority of nature. However, this change is not a gradual change necessarily. What we have, in other words, are periods of accumulation of contradictions, which at a certain point give way to a rapid acceleration and a qualitative change. When we have a fetus grows very steadily and slowly for nine months in the womb, and then at some point, it has to come out. And the other way, you're gonna have a long period of a declining health, but at a certain stage, death comes and hits rapidly. If you look at society, you can have long periods of accumulation of rage and anger due to the undermining of the living conditions of ordinary people, and nothing seems to happen on the surface.  They don't wanna do anything. And suddenly, you can have a situation like we see in Sudan today, three years of nothing happening, and one kind of change makes the whole thing explode. Any other revolution essentially is driven by the same fundamental principles. Now, these are not the explicit conclusions that Hegel drew, but it's not difficult to see the enormous revolutionary implications that his ideas could have. Now, these principles that Hegel developed, he did so on the basis, as I said, on a systematic investigation of the laws of scientific thinking, which for him reflects the laws of the world as such. And in fact, according to him, this mode of thinking, this mode of investigation, it comes very naturally and instinctively to all human beings. But just like before when we talked about the progress, in philosophy, both today and at his time, there are those who object very vehemently against these ideas of Hegel. According to the empiricist school, which at that time was a very primitive form of materialism which existed at Hegel's time. Today, we have a depositivist who are also a form of empiricist. Now, they say that there's no point in such investigations. They believed, and they believe essentially today, that truth can only come about via sense experience. In other words, in observing the world. And that might be true to a certain point, but however, they also maintain that there's nothing beyond the immediate appearance of the things that we see. And therefore, an investigation into the world is not gonna lead us to any form of more general notions about the reality that we live in. And the famous example of this is that if we see a million white swans, we cannot deduce on that basis that the next one we see is also gonna be white. Of course, apparently there are some black swans in Australia, but they say that we cannot, there's no lawfulness in nature. There's no general underlying currents of forming nature as we know it. And therefore, we better leave it alone. Of course, Hegel then objects and says, well, if that's the case, then we cannot utter a single word because every single word that we use is a generalization. I say me, there's a generalization of myself, not the person I am right here at this moment, but me as I've always been and developed up until now and probably into the future. And even if we say a swan, we don't refer to any particular swan, we refer to the concepts of swans, whether they're black or white. And we have a certain notion of the lawfulness of what that entails, and we expect that to be the same in other phenomenons that we see and recognize as swans. In our daily lives, everywhere we go and everything we see, we meet an infinite amount of phenomena. Every single moment. And whether we want it or not, at every single point, our minds are hard at work trying to understand the fundamental principles behind these things, the deeper nature and the causes of the things that we see. Even the most banal things you can say about making food. You need to have a basic understanding of a general properties of the ingredients you put in, whether it's carrots or whatever, salt, and how much of what you should put in or not, in order to benefit our aims, in other words. And the bigger our aims, the more important it is to understand the universal principles which underlie our world. When we start our investigation into this world, things just seem very, appear just very immediate. This is this, this is this, this is a computer. That's Jack, that's the window, that's the moon. But if you think about it, that's not a sufficient explanation. If you really think about any of these things, it's not really sufficient to give us an understanding of what this entailed. Jack is different from all other human beings. And furthermore, he and every other human being are in a state of constant change and flux. Every single moment, his body, his mind is constantly interacting with the environment around him. And none of these instances, these infinite instances of human beings, in and of themselves, can tell us much about, in isolation, can tell us much about what a human being is. So therefore, we realize, and Hegel leads us to that, that what is immediately there is not the whole truth. And we are spurred forward, so to say, to find a deeper form of truth. And try to find out what is then the common thing which goes through every single instance of human beings, for instance, I meet. These billions and billions of billions of human beings which have lived on this earth, come into being and passed away, what's the common thing that persists in every single one of them? According to Hegel, here we enter the sphere of essence. Now, what do we mean by essence? Are we talking about some magical potion that can be extracted from people, something existing independently, like a soul that's then implemented into other things? Well, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato was of this opinion, according to him, there was a realm different than our realm, more real than our realm, in which there were these archetypes, these universal archetypes or ideas, as he called them, of different phenomena. There would be something for a human and a table and all of these things that we have general words for. And then the individual phenomena that we meet in our lives today would just be crude, bad carbon copies, essentially, of these archetypes. But then, this is a very problematic thing because how can you account, how can one archetypal human account for all of these different human beings? Or all of the instances of the lives of these, would there be an archetype for a one minute old baby and a one minute and one second old baby and a one year and one minute and one year? You can go on and on. There will be a very crowded kind of other worlds, so to say. And would there be archetypal forms for Aristotle and Socrates and Jack and every other human being that's ever existed? Sorry, he can take it, don't worry. He's got the thick skin. Well, the fact is that as we investigate nature, we cannot see any trace of such universals interfering in it. In fact, in every phenomenon that science has investigated, the explanation of it has come on its own account. Biology today is fully capable of explaining to a large extent the mechanisms that go into forming a human being from the first cell divisions to an adult human being and even right up until their death. And we can see that the basis for human development is not some outer force that's interfering and kind of molding us, but it's the inner contradictions of the cells in the body, the human beings and human society itself that forms us biologically, socially, and so on. And it's this constant interplay with the environment and with itself that every phenomenon basically develops, comes into being, and goes out of it. So what we and Hegel call essence, in other words, is merely the sum total of the relations of different phenomena in their interaction, which then give rise to simple principles. In other words, laws which determine the development of different things, the hydrogen atom, for instance, due to its composition, has a positive charge. The oxygen atom has a negative charge, more or less twice the strength of the hydrogen, and therefore, two hydrogen atoms can bond with one oxygen atom to form a water molecule. The law of water in this manner is not something superimposed, but it's the result of the inner contradictions of the atoms themselves. The essence of phenomena, in other words, is not something separate from them, but it's a part of them and is a sum total of their relations. And the laws which come out of this, the principles behind the development of these contradictions, those are the laws that philosophy must set itself about to uncover at the most general level. However, of course, there's a problem here, as I explained before, Hegel is an idealist. For him, all of these things are a reflection in the final analysis of this world spirit, the absolute idea that is essentially God, which underlies the whole of our reality, the reality that we experience. The problem is that Hegel here falls in the same trap as the people that he was criticizing. This man who is so opposed to schematicism of dragging something on top of reality has essentially created the biggest and most convoluted schema of them all. But if we look at the nature of reality, where is this world spirit? Where is any trace of this world spirit or of this absolute idea? There's nowhere to be seen. And the problem, of course, is that Hegel actually anticipated the greatest revolutions in science that took place in the 19th century, all of which would show that dialectics are not the laws of some mystical element, the mystical creature, but the essential laws of nature itself. Yes, and that is, sorry, yeah. And that is the fundamental difference between Marxism and Hegelianism, that we are philosophical materialists, which means that for us, there's only one world, and in that we absolutely agree with Hegel, but this is not the world of God or spirit or idea, this is the sensible material world that we live in and we experience everything. In other words, it's nature, and there's nothing beyond this nature. In other words, nature is absolute, and nature is fundamentally lawful in itself, whereas for Hegel, objective ideas, ideas where the formative principles of nature, we believe that nature is in itself self-organizing. Human beings are material beings, and our thoughts and our ideas are just reflections of the material world that we engage with and that we interact with. The task of philosophy for Marxist is not to conjure up a schema or a law of reality and then drag it kind of extrapolated on top of it, but it's to uncover these laws by investigating nature and society as itself with an uncompromising materialist outlook. And in this sense, we can say that that philosophy really ends with Hegel and that Marxism, which picks up from where Hegel left, is not a philosophy in the classical sense of it. It's not a fixed schema, it's not a good idea or a genius idea or educated guess that we try to drag on to the world. It's a method of viewing the world and our society and a tool to discover its inner lawfulness in order to assist humanity in reaching the goals and aims that it set itself. But it doesn't mean that we discard Hegel, we just throw him out into the dustbin and say, oh, it doesn't matter, he got it all wrong. Or the many, many great philosophers who came before him. We don't claim that we somehow found this magical formula that will just happen to be lost and that no one just happened to think of it until Marx and Engels did for thousands of years. And just like Hegel, we don't see the rise and fall of ideas, the history of ideas as a random process. But we see it as a continuous process generation upon generation, moving from lower to higher forms of thought in a progressive approximation to the truth about the laws of nature and the world that we live in. We see Marxism as an expression of the condensed experience of the whole of mankind itself. And we put ourselves emphatically after a long line of thinkers going from the ancient Greeks, Socrates, Aristotle, the French materialists, Hegel, and so on. All of these, they form our heritage. And while we're not blind to the shortcomings, we must defend them and the treasure trove of ideas that they left us from all of these attacks that we see in academia coming from the defenders of the established order, so to say, as a means to promote ignorance and regression. I'll end it there. Thank you very much. Thank you.


Marriage is really synonymous with union. In fact, if you listen to the marriage vows where two become as one where a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home You know, it's it's a symbol of joining together and coming together in union. That's really what the intent is behind marriage Now the more you start to understand the metaphysics of this world you start to realize that that when you have two separate human beings that perceive themselves as private individuals with private minds and private thoughts that the attempt at joining It's going to you know, there's going to be all hell breaking was before this union is consummated It would be so easy just to have sex to consummate the union But that's not the way it works Because there's going to be what people enter into a committed relationship But it's just a significant other or whether it is actually a legal marriage or whatever What you're going to find is there's an enormous amount of mirroring that's going to go on and flushing up an enormous darkness unconscious fear and guilt and hatred and worthiness issues and All these past issues that have been pushed down under awareness get flushed up in significant other kind of relationships, so In one sense you might say there's it's a nice impetus behind it or to become as one But when you get into what Jesus is teaching us in the course is the two never become one But you have to let go of the mask of your individuality to recognize that you already are one that God created you Whom God has joined together and let no man put us under you can't Really break apart from each other or from God and that's really the goal of Marriage and if it's given over to the Holy Spirit or if it's given over to your higher power The Holy Spirit will use that commitment to flush up everything that's not love so you can see that you are truly one line Sometimes you hear about like my grandmother I mentioned earlier she and Lillian and Harry were married for 57 years and They went through lots of stuff in those 57 years, but a lot of times if you really do move move towards that union experience It's like two people finishing each other's senses It gets really telepathic if it's truly used by the Holy Spirit You start to lay down the walls lay down the projections and the grievances and you reach better and better communication loving respectful open-minded heartfelt intimate communication and actually starts to take you actually into telepathy And that's what soulmates are all about You know where you you your souls kind of beat beat as one and you're so tuned in that you hardly need words You just can look at each other know what you're thinking now to the ego The ego has its own version of marriage bodies together minds apart And we've heard about those marriages that may seem to last But the quality of the marriage is not good at all. It's like it's dark. It's like ships passing in the night It's a sense of privacy. It's a sense of like, you know, just digging in and saying well I will stay together for the sake of the kids or the sake of the whatever the sake of Finances or whatever and that's when the ego's got a hold of the so-called marriage and it's using it to reinforce separation and So divorce is so there's a connotation around divorce. It's a terrible thing divorce isn't always a bad thing if If the ego's got the whole of your marriage The Holy Spirit may come swooping into your mind and go It's time to get a divorce Because you know you want to grow and you want to open up and and it's one thing to Open towards this high quality, but it's another thing to just stick it out Just for the sake of hanging in there to keep the bodies together So if the minds aren't really communicating and you don't really share a purpose Then it's good to be actually good to start the question. What's the purpose of hanging on here? Where's the aliveness? Where's the joy? Where's the happiness and freedom? Now when you get to the Course of Miracles, he says The only true union is at the level of the Christ mind so Even the best of marriages in this world, you know Aspire to that but the Christ mind the level of the Christ mind That is a realm of pure oneness because the Christ mind is pure oneness And that really gets into mysticism. So you might say that That some of these mystics and saints when you are just playing st. Francis and you think of Jesus and the apostles and St. John the cross and all these mystics and saints They've been going for union with God too When I've met I've gone to convents. I've gone to monasteries I've talked to priests nuns Revised monks when we really go deep into the discussion What we find is that they're going for union with God too. They're going for a marriage of their own kind In fact nuns go through quite a series of steps to become the bright Christ Literally, and I had a friend that traveled with me in the early years. She went into the convent at 14 And then stayed in there for like eight years until she was supposed to take her final vows and they get dressed up and Wiped and married Jesus and she left Jesus at the altar though. She couldn't She got that all the way to that point to take her final vows and then she went I'm out of here And so and I had worked with her You know after she left there She had done that she talked to the most superior says I can't do this. I'm out of here She just bolted from the convent and she got married within like a couple years to a man And then they were married for a while then she he seemed to go insane and crazy and didn't know who she was And so she divorced him and then she tried the peace corps and all these things and I had worked with her Many years ago and then when she found me again. I was so lit up with joy. She just was like, what have you been doing? What are you into? I mean my gosh, you are just so lit and that's now it's been a course of miracles and that So she ended up taking off and traveling with me But that was another good example about how even when you're trying to be the bride of christ You've got to face those unconscious dark things That are there whether you do it through a partnership or you do it with the mother superior Whatever you're going to have to go through those dark things and so I kind of keep it in a larger context of It's really about following your inner prompts and it's really about being True to that guidance because this holy spirit is inside you And there's nothing special about being married or single And there's nothing special or better about going into a convent or going through a marriage relationship


If you first had three between the Yanks and Rays at the Tropic, it looked like it was going to be a great weekend in Boston with the Yanks poised to win the three or four, but Flash, they end up losing three or four. They lost three or four, and two of those losses were just devastating for the Yankees. And then you throw on top of that an off day yesterday where you have extra time to think about it. So much negativity around the Yankees with that weekend, but they're looking for some positive news, and you mentioned it. Aaron Judge is back. Once he walks into that clubhouse, that's going to breathe some life into this team. We know what type of a player he is out on the field, but maybe more importantly, showing up in the clubhouse and leading this team, trying to get them back on track. Right, he's their best player. Can he be the player who helps gives them a boost? And we've asked this question over and over after the Yankees have had painful losses. How are they going to bounce back? This is another one of those situations, and it's perfectly appropriate to ask the Yankees, who are you at this point in the season? They're general manager. Their manager have all talked about how they have underachieved. So how do you climb out of that hole? How do you change the narrative? It's about playing more consistent baseball and avoiding dreadful late-inning losses. They've had eight games that they eventually lost when they held the lead in the eighth inning or later. Well, we've got a lot to talk about here, but right now let's get out to Tropicana Field. Meredith Murakovic standing by with the clubhouse report presented by your local Ford stores. And Meredith, let's talk about reinforcements in the return of Aaron Judge tonight and how that might change things for the Yankees. Well, Bob, there's no doubt about it. The Yankees are excited to have Aaron Judge back in the lineup and back in right field. He was actually here in Tropicana Field about 3.30 this afternoon, tracking some pitches as someone was throwing a bullpen. He came by and said, he is ready to go tonight. You better believe that he's been upset that he hasn't been able to be in the lineup. Missing 10 games post all-star break. Kyle Higashioka is also back. He is not in tonight's lineup, though. Earlier, Aaron Boone spoke about penciling number 99 back in the lineup. That's huge, obviously. Really excited to have him back. We're over at the complex yesterday. We're him and Luke and Higgy. We're all hitting and hitting off the Velo machine and breaking ball machine looking really good. So yeah, obviously very excited to have him back.


So this smartphone cost less than $200 and it's still pretty good. Let's find out. Hey guys, Thunder E here and I know I haven't done a video in a while but you can understand why. I'm back here with a new device that I think you will love because it really cuts down to the core especially of what's going on today. Now this device retails for starting around $180 and of course because of the price depending on what variance you're getting because it comes with either 6GB of RAM or 8GB of RAM. Now this Redmi Note 9 Pro Max is quite interesting for its price point. It looks more expensive first of all. It looks like something that you would pay more money for. Comes with a 6.67 inch display, 1080p by 2400. It also has a fingerprint sensor on the side by the power button which is nice. It is fast. It is responsive. It works really well. Now under the hood there you've got a Snapdragon 720 processor. It's a little older processor but still a good processor and especially if you're spending this amount of money you shouldn't be worried about what you're getting in here. The performance is fast and snappy. As you scroll through you look around within this device. You can see how fast and smooth it works and it does a really good job. So I like that. I like that with you. Now you can get as I mentioned the 6GB or 8GB variant with either 64GB of RAM or 128GB and you've got microSD storage. So with all that there I'm going to ask okay I like to game. What about gaming? How does it actually function on a device like this? Pretty smooth.  You can play still play at you know high levels. It's smooth and it runs really well. It runs well, runs without any hiccups and it feels comfortable to play. If you're playing PUBG mobile it's the same thing. Now in terms of temperatures you're going okay it must have a lot of heat. 97 degrees. It's better than the 1 plus 8 Pro which ran up to like 105. So I'm liking where this device stands right now. Now when it comes to audio it's a good audio. It also has a headphone jack as well so that's actually not bad. And you know you've got a bottom firing speaker as well. Now this charges via USB type C and it's got a 5,020 mAh battery. Massive so which means you can spend time gaming using this device and you will have no issues because you've got a big battery which charges by the way up to 50% in 30 minutes with a 33 watt charger that comes in the box. So again that's dope. I mean I like that it has all these cool features. Now adding to that you've got a 64 megapixel camera at the back. It's megapixel ultra wide. You've got a depth sensor as well. So it gives you quite a bit in terms of photo functionality and that's actually pretty cool because at this price range you're expecting just horrible images. And images come out well. There's an AI functionality built into it. This is something that Huawei has tried to take the feature. This is something that Xiaomi has tried to take its features from its high end phones down all the way into the Redmi line here. So that's actually pretty cool. You can take photos 64 megapixels in portrait as well. Also video. There's nighttime photos. It goes on. And as you can see they're good. Again less than $200. So that to me is actually quite key. I think overall I do like the packaging. I like what it brings to the table especially for those who are looking to cut and save costs. Now speaking of other things you can add to this. Now this is not sponsored. I wanted to kind of throw this in there because I felt it paired quite well. I'm talking about the Soundcore Spirit Dots. Now a lot of you asked me to review this and it was great to actually pair this with a device that doesn't cost that much because also these are budget true wireless buds that also give you some really great performance. So the Soundcore Spirit Dot have a bunch of really cool features. First of all it's a charging case. You just call them USB type C. It's got a lot of bass in there as well. So giving you some nice sound. Overall the auto quality's been really good. It's a bit bassy but I like it. You're paying about $79 for this. I think it might be even slightly less. Check the prices in the description. And it gives you a lot of really good sound. Again they are sweat resistant. So of course you allow you to work out. They fit pretty well in your ears. IPX7 rating. Now you've got an hour charge. You've got an hour use with 10 minute charging. So that functionality is built in there. 5.5 hours with use with the earbuds and up to 16 hours of playtime altogether. Touch controls, double tap to play and pause. I like it because it's just portable, simple and it works well together.  I think they work well. Now the microphone is not that great on the Soundcore but it's passable enough for your phone calls. That's something I would like to see improved but I really like it. I think a lot of people will too. Overall I think this is a really great pairing between both of them. I really like the Redmi Note 9 Pro Max. It gives you a lot. Great battery life. 5000mAh right? You've got solid cameras for under $200 actually for under 500mAh. Let's just be real here. You've also got great performance while gaming. You've got a 720 processor end gear. I think overall most people will like this package and I definitely if you want to pick up something that's under $200 or 200 bucks the 9 Pro Max from Redmi is the way to go. So if you have any questions or any comments let me know guys otherwise don't forget to like, share, subscribe, stay safe and always enjoy your entertainment.


Meteorology, meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences which includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics, with a major focus on weathered forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data. It wasn't until after the elucidation of the laws of physics and, more particularly, the development of the computer, allowing for the automated solution of a great many equations that model the weather. In the latter half of the 20th century that significant breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved. Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events that are explained by the science of meteorology. Meteorological phenomena are described and quantified by the variables of Earth's atmosphere, temperature, their pressure, water vapor, mass flow, and the variations and interactions of those variables, and how they change over time. Different spatial scales are used to describe and predict weather on local, regional, and global levels. Meteorology, climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry are sub-disciplines of the atmospheric sciences. Meteorology and hydrology compose the interdisciplinary field of hydro-meteorology. The interactions between Earth's atmosphere and its oceans are part of a coupled ocean atmosphere system. Meteorology has application in many diverse fields such as the military, energy production, transport, agriculture, and construction.


Mary, thank you very much for Cisco being such an active partner of the Green Digital Action track here at Scott28. Why is it important for you? Climate change is the crisis of our generation. We need to make progress in this decade for future generations and we know that Cisco's products and solutions, technology products and solutions can help accelerate the transition to cleaner energy, create new twin transitions whether it's green and digital, like smart buildings, hybrid work in a very secure way. We're going to do that by doing it together. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for being on that for us. My pleasure. Thank you.


I've been working on this channel a while now, and I've done videos on just about all of the major Super Nintendo role-playing games, like Lufia 1 and 2, Breath of Fire 1 and 2, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, Mario RPG, Earthbound, I've even tackled a ton of Japan only Super Famicom role-playing games, but hell, I'm not even sure I've even mentioned Final Fantasy 4 on this channel before, outside of a couple music compilations. Why is that? It's very simple, the original US localization of Final Fantasy 4, known as Final Fantasy 2 at the time, has a lot of problems. Certain events are censored, there's missing spells, they made the game 100 times easier, the translation is absolutely terrible, really it's to the point that I hardly even see Final Fantasy 4 as a Super Nintendo game, since you're way, way better off playing one of the later releases for Game Boy Advance, PS1 or PSP. I'll give you some examples of what I'm talking about, your main character Cecil has a command called Dark that was removed entirely, I mean if Dark was considered to risk A for Nintendo of America's censorship policies at the time, then you can imagine the amount of other stuff removed, pretty much all references to death are taken out to the point that even a sword hanging over a character held captive is removed, and a spell called Holy was renamed White, you get the idea, it's pretty ridiculous by today's standards. Another problem is that they dumbed down the difficulty here big time, I know role-playing games are usually pretty easy, since all you really have to do is grind and level up your party, well unless you're playing 7th Saga, but yeah, you could cruise through this version in your sleep if you wanted to, that may not be a deal-breaker for some people, but it's just disappointing, I like at least some challenge in a role-playing game. What is a deal-breaker, however, is the translation, which is just laughably bad. First let me give you just to the story, which by the way is very good and very well told in other versions of the game. We start out as Cecil, the noble leader of the Red Wings, no not those Red Wings, creating a village to recover the water crystal, to bring to the king for reasons that have yet to be explained. So Cecil storms into the throne room and wants to know what's going on. Now in one of the many well made fan translations, this being one of the early ones made by J2E, Cecil asks what the hell the kings deal is, and what he wants to do with these crystals. The king responds, so you distrust your own king, Cecil? And Cecil replies, no, I didn't mean that at all. But meanwhile in the original translation that same sequence reads, disobeying me, no I don't. What?  Later Cecil is so bothered by this, by burning down villages, not the translation, that he's lying awake in bed lamenting, is it something so necessary that we must take it by force from innocent villagers? Well the original translation has him say, did we really have to snatch it from the peace loving people? I mean this reads like it was written by a fourth grader for God's sake. The newer English patches that have since come may not be perfect, but they are imminently more readable than the original nonsense. Of course I have to mention the most famous line. When you recruit a mage to your party, he's trying to find his daughter who ran off with a bard because, tell her the mage wouldn't consent to their marriage. He eventually finds the guy in a so upset that he fights him, shouting, you Spoonie Bard! This line is so ridiculous and so absurd that even official releases kept the line in as is.  But yeah, I want to be clear here, these problems are all with the original Super Nintendo US release, because Final Fantasy 4 really is a great freaking game if it's played elsewhere. I want to be clear about that too. With a great story and sound battle mechanics, the kind of stuff you've come to expect from the older Final Fantasy games is just a really well made, fundamentally sound role playing game. Nothing too fancy, just the basic stuff executed really well. Anyway, the story continues with Cecil joining his friend Cain, the captain of the dragoons, who's also wondering what the hell's wrong with the king these days. They're sent to deliver a ring, which of course releases a horde of hideous monsters that destroy the village and allows them to take the next crystal the king needs. In this attack, they find a summoner named Rydia. Cecil and Cain get separated, and Cecil feels compelled to take responsibility for his actions and guard this young woman's life.  And it goes on from there, finding new characters with their own problems that eventually join your party and all that. The red wings get a new leader, who's this ruthless dude named Golbez, and everything is essentially centered around a theme of redemption, as Cecil looks to make up for his previous wrongdoings.  The battle system featured some innovative stuff for the time, like active real-time battles instead of turn-based, but that's kind of old hat now. This is the usual Final Fantasy stuff with summoners, ninjas, and mages that can use black or white magic. There's 12 playable characters with up to five that can be in your party at once, and some have special abilities that might remind you of something out of Final Fantasy VI, like Edge's ability to steal. Two other things about the Super Nintendo version that I have to mention, number one is the visuals. I mean, if the translation wasn't enough evidence for you that this game was rushed out the door as quickly as possible, then the graphics are another hint, because this game essentially looks like a slightly beefed-up NES title. Some enemies and bosses look pretty cool, but overall it's pretty weak. What makes up for it, though, is the music. Final Fantasy IV, along with Actraiser, were the two early SNES games that had that huge orchestral soundtrack that makes the game sound like such a huge deal. It really adds to the experience, especially the opening track when you're flying around as the leader of the Red Wings. So yeah, is Final Fantasy IV worth playing today? For the original US release on Super Nintendo, if you just play that as is, I'd say no way. It's just too flawed. If you're going to play that version, it's gotta be with a fan translation patch through emulation or on a Retron 5 kind of device, and there are tons of patches to choose from. Some increase the difficulty, some add features like a dash button, but really, if you want to experience Final Fantasy IV at its peak, you gotta play the PSP version. Sorry I can't really get any footage of it here, but I can definitely say it's the best realized version of the game. I recommend checking out H.C. Billy's Let's Play on it if you're curious. Anyway, to sum up, skip the original Final Fantasy IV cartridge. If you insist on playing it, play it with a patch. Otherwise just play the PSP version. Or hell, you can't go wrong with the Game Boy Advance or PS1 or the DS versions either.