Hello and welcome to everyone and thank you for coming along to this session which is entitled 20 years in learning technology. We've got six former alt presidents here who are going to discuss what has changed over the last 20 years as far as learning technologies are concerned. So I'm going to hand you over to our speakers who are Jonathan Derby, Stephen Brown, Jane Seel, Linda Creener, Julie Sammon and Martin Oliver. The idea for ALT was born in 92. At that time I was directing something called the Confucian Teaching Initiative which was a short-term funded programme by government. We were coming to the end of our three years of funding and we'd been reviewed and we had a fairly short extension and as a result of the activities of the CTI and other programmes like it that was a distinct and identifiable community of people whose livelihoods were dependent on learning technology or who were getting funded to do something in that area and we were very conscious or I was very conscious of the fact that our existence was at the whim of the funders and it seemed really important to create something that would have a lifespan of its own that would not be dependent on this and also something that would be properly owned by the community and I put the idea to the staff of the CTI centres and it wasn't great enthusiasm for it I have to say actually but one thing led to another and the thing that really helped get ALT going was a chance encounter with someone from BT where I said about this desire to set up an association but how difficult it was going to be without the ability to employ anybody and a couple of weeks later I had a phone call from this person saying you know what you were saying about an association for learning technology would £50,000 help you get going and I said yes it would and that was how that came to be. Wendy yesterday referred to the launch of ALT what we'd done before is I'd written to everybody I knew about 200 people who had some interest in the area inviting them to become founder members and more than half of them did which was an extraordinary response and then we formally launched it at the Cal conference in 93 and what Wendy didn't say was that she came up and castigated me and the others who were involved in this and said have you noticed something you're all men and that's looked rather scarce because I hadn't noticed if I felt mortified to have it drawn to my attention so that was a good start for Wendy. Anyway the conference in 94 was the first time of course when the people involved got together and I looked up the the program and I saw my opening address was what do we need learning technology for and I scratched my brain and hunted through a few old old files to try and figure out what it was I was looking at and I realised what I'd been what I was doing at that point was challenging the audience for the question and this question had wasn't completely new to me I'd been at a conference a little time earlier run by edwcom before it was edw cause and one of the keynote speakers there Louis Perlman went on at some lengths told a story about going to buy a new car and in the car showroom the person selling in the car said and this model sir has headlamp washer wipers to which is reply was and what is the problem to which headlamp washer wipers are the answer and answer came there none I have been obsessed with this this question and I think I asked it even then what is the problem to which learning technology is the answer and if you look at the evidence of the sessions that took place in in in 94 and remember at this time this was pre-google you won't find the word internet anywhere in this book of abstracts you will find worldwide web you'll find information superhighway you'll find a few things like that what you did have was really quite good tools for constructing multimedia see a lot of a lot on multimedia and and so on and my conclusion at the time was that the honest answer to that was because it's there people using it because it was there now they're also using it a bit because they got money under false pretenses the teaching and learning technology programme had to be launched and this was predicated on the notion that it would be possible to substantially reduce the cost of delivering first year courses in university by having a common core of technology supported courses well I don't think anybody in TLTP seriously believed that was going to happen but they were very happy to to take the money and do something worthwhile with it um so I now ask the question again in 2013 what is the problem to which learning technology is the answer do we have a better answer to this question or a better question to this answer I should say than we we had then and I think there is some progress in this area but perhaps not as much as you would have expected in in in 20 years um we have uh the developments things like the OER university which is trying to use technology to specifically answer the question of under provision in in uh global higher education a big deficit there and MOOCs likewise um what you also have is a very considerable number of small scale examples of technology being used to address real problems real issues but the missing element is scaling up we heard from the provice chancellor at the opening session for Nottingham that still some sort of 18 years after VLEs first appeared still have the situation here in this university on whose campus we are where the VLE is used well by a small bunch of enthusiastic academics but in most cases it's just used as a dumping ground so there are still many issues I think we face in terms of what is it that we really should be doing with this learning technology thank you okay that was the early history now we roll forward 10 years um to a period when I think it would be fair to say that ALT was beginning to go through some kind of process of critical self appraisal and analysis but before I get into that I thought it would be quite interesting thing to do just to take a look at how the the association seemed to be viewing itself over the years and and a simple way um I thought to try doing this would be to take the um editorials that appeared in the association's journal I'd just stick them into Wordle and see what happened this is the very first editorial of the very first issue of the association's journal and just look at the words you know what what's really coming out here what's this association about these words oh don't be shy look technology npc pc max um it it's sound cards television this is this is the technology in the association for learning technology writ large before your very eyes courtesy of wordle um learnings in there mind you over there on the right hand side it's it's not too bad um can I can control this wonderful um roll on 10 years what have we got now uh learnings still in there it's about the same size but but the um and video is there it's pretty large as well but can you see the emphasis is changing you know there's not so much technology there's more stuff about people stakeholders tremendous um well I think so um and then if we roll on another 10 years this is where we are now and I think that's a really striking transformation yeah learnings still about the same size but believe me I did not doctor this I just took the editorial stuffed it into wordle pressed go and that's what came out so I think that says a lot about where we've come over the last 20 years but let me just go back 10 years to where we were so halfway between the beginning and where we are now um I think we did some very clever things uh in in the early days of all some things which have done us a lot of good we we began as a a small group within universities um a community of interest a sig if you like a kind of a sig but but set up as a as an association with some funding we took a decision to open up from higher education to include further education to include schools to include industry and also to engage with government through commentary on government white papers to be to become a a player on a much broader stage than we were it right at the very start um I think that was that that was a good thing to do um we've also set up the seamalt scheme which I also think is a good thing to do um because I think it's that if you take those things together it's it's building up the professional um status of the association I think we're on a kind of a trajectory um whether uh whether this is where we want to go to is something that I think that members need to debate but if you take um what we've been doing and add it all together uh that increasing professionalisation establishing some kind of accreditation system for learning technologists the way we're engaging with government in terms of policy issues and strategy and so on we could be looking towards maybe in the next 20 years uh some kind of a chartership status for the association we would be the association for learning technology in order to do that we'd probably have to change just as much as we have over the last 20 years but well we were we to do that uh I I for one think that would be a uh a really um stunning achievement and um I hope I'm still around to see it if it happens so thank you thank you Stephen so um you're listening to all the past presidents um and we each have an agenda and we each have a different voice and I think um it's important that you understand my voice and where I'm coming from I'm a professor of inclusive education and in a sense voice and inclusion is really important to me um so when I first encountered adult was back in 1997 when I went to the Telford conference um and then and now I if I was to label myself I would label myself as a lecturer slash researcher so as a lecturer slash researcher the old community back in 1997 welcomed me with open arms and it was all inclusive and you've heard Stephen talk a bit about that in terms of who's in that we welcome in schools FE universities industry etc etc but I think what what my um kind of reflections are going to be about is in terms of what we've achieved and what the dangers are I think we're coming to a point where we have to seriously think about um what we're saying to people about who's in and who's out whose voice is important and whose voice we're not listening to so that's my kind of agenda if you like so thinking about alt as a community I'm talking less about learning technology what's been achieved but thinking about alt as a community the positive things in terms of voice for me in in terms of whose voice um is I think the association has achieved a great amount in terms of giving learning technologists a voice um so in terms of professionalising a group of people who see it as their role to promote and support the use of tech technology in whatever institution they're working with another president that you'll hear later on we'll talk more about that so I won't labour that point um and so thinking about well what kind of voice if we know who's got a voice learning technologists and for me that's well well I am I a learning technologist I don't know I don't have a role in supporting staff to use technology I'm not an educational developer I just use technology in my own practice am I in am I out I'm not sure I know about that and I'll say a bit more about that in a sec but what kind of voice do we do we have as an association to learning technologists have it's a growing political voice I think another one of the great achievements of alt is that it it moved into trying to influence policy have a voice in that wider funding and policy agenda and so the committees and particularly the the board of trustees have worked hard to make sure that you as a membership have a voice have a say respond to all the consultations that come out from governments and other bodies and I think old is being taken seriously um and you can follow that google trail if you want in terms of what alt has said at various points so I think um we as a group have a growing political voice and that's something really to to cherish um I also think we as a group have a literature informed in voice so that voice so that we um are very capable of um when we're talking about what we're doing our own practice we can link it in some way to what's been written um in the field about what we've done but I'll say a bit more about that on the not so positive side what's not so positive then um I've already started to give you some hints about that I'm starting I'm not saying that that everything's gloomy but I'm what I want to forewarn us about as a group is as we start to think about the future I think we have to start to think about whose voice has been privileged in this association and I am concerned about a move towards people like me lecturers who are who don't have a formal kind of institutional role in technology kind of being pushed out a bit from having a voice in this association and I'm starting to be a bit concerned about what I would call the othering of people like me the othering of lecturers where staff developers and others stand up on this stage and talk about these poor deficient lecturers who are so ignorant and stupid about technology that they need our help and we need to come in and rescue them and we problematise them and they become this deficient other um and so I would just warn us as a group about you know are you happy do you a do you agree with me and if you want to disagree that would be great perhaps I'm just a bit too worried about that but you know should we be worried about the othering of people like myself lecturers and perhaps there's others that I've missed out there what kind of voice is missing although I think as an association we have a literature informed voice my other concern is I actually believe we're very superficial about our engagement in literature in research and I think as an association we're in danger of not developing growing celebrating a really critically evaluative voice that kind of scratches underneath the surface of what we're doing and I still think we're in this danger of the celebratory mode of what we do and not really being very critically evaluative so my challenge for the future is think about who's in and who's out and do we care um and think about what kind of voice you want um yes we want to influence people but we want to influence people with authority and we'll have to think about how we do that so thank you that's my two penna right well what I would like to do is to reflect on three aspects of where learning technology has made a difference and where alt has had a role in that so to start off with I'd like to look at it from an institutional perspective and then back in 1993 or thereabouts learning technologies we've heard was very much a niche area and um most of us were who got involved around that time were in short-term contracts were in project funding so there's lots of interest lots of excitement but it certainly wasn't mainstream it was seen very much as a a techy area and there's lots of acronyms there which if you're old enough to remember them all then you know you've been around for a while and I think since then thankfully within institutions learning technology is now a strategic importance within universities and colleges most of us I think have learning teaching strategies we have strategies which incorporate technology and focus on digital education it's something that has become a high priority generally for institutions we have learning technology teams we have permanent posts we have budgets we have career options again alt has clearly done a lot to promote learning technology as a profession and as a discipline there are qualifications there are master's programmes that is also um seamalt of course as we've heard I think another aspect for institutions to think about is the impact there has been in physical teaching spaces perhaps not as much as we would have hoped I think the main impact has been on learning centres and libraries perhaps the actual teaching spaces haven't changed as much as as they could have but hopefully that will progress in future so have we seen transformation in institutions in the last 20 years not completely but I think we're heading along the right road learning and teaching central to what we do so back then the focus was very much on developing standalone content I'm sure many of you will remember developing computer-based learning materials um aimed at individual students sitting at a PC working the way through these things there was a huge novelty factor in the use of technology back then very few academic staff involved and they were just enthusiasts now of course digital content is everywhere the problem for us is how to manage it how to critique it how to evaluate it and use effectively it's co-creation and collaboration rather than individuals working on their own and in the terms of the technology of course the VLE has become mainstream and very very boring we all hate it really the exciting part is still there though with the new things I've been coming on and will continue to come on stream in terms of technology we now have many more academic staff involved but the issue here is at what level we still I think have very few academic staff who are really engaging in an exciting innovative interactive way in using technology so there's still a big job for us to do with our academic staff and to keep ourselves up to date so are we ahead of the curve in learning and teaching no we're not we still have a long way to go when you look at how technology has transformed other aspects of our lives we're way behind when it comes to how it's transferred education um transformed education and we've heard about that a few times over the last couple of days finally looking at research um back then the focus was very much on evaluation it was focused very much on how to usability factors and again the usability related to usually one student working at with one um package on one pc and the evaluation was very much focused on the technology now I think we have moved a bit more towards a theoretical basis with a lot of literature around now which is helping us to inform directions I think Jane has a point when she says we need to be more critically evaluative perhaps where we're still uh a bit behind in that area we tend to have more evidence informed practice we mostly I hope remember to think about pedagogical factors and we're looking at embedding technology however have we come of age as a discipline I don't think we're quite there yet although again we are heading in that direction and we've made significant progress in 20 years but I think we'll have to come back to that one next year perhaps on our 21st birthday thank you someone's ex-presidents glasses still here that you wonder if you've been looking for um I'd like to try and answer Jonathan's question um these were printed out for me before I came on the 3d printer from our design school in Melbourne um 11 an award this is for drinking beer out of fortunately this is a miniature version and this was um little figure from where you do an architectural join and then it's very easy to print it out they were printed out in a matter of moments and the printer it was printed on probably cost about 2000 Australian dollars but reckon they're all going to have us in our homes in a couple of years so if you'd been shown that 20 years ago what would you have said you certainly would have started thinking I'm certain about the learning and teaching applications and that's what we all do isn't it you see something that is a bit of a novelty and start thinking how can it help students and I think that's the same then as it is now so you know keep giving me the novelties I think I want to take a slightly different tack I'd just like to remember Professor Robbie Mason who was very instrumental in the early days and throughout until her death a few years ago with Alt I believe that she had one of the first sort of what we'd now call learning technology PhDs in the world and then she went on to supervise me and I got one of the soon to become after PhDs after that and I'm sure there's loads of people now and with PhDs that have technology in them perhaps almost any learn and teaching PhD would so I think we are moving from that very early start to really looking at learning technology as a discipline and I don't think it means that you have to have that kind of label all of us are academics here and do have an academic and research base to what we do even if our primary discipline is located elsewhere if you'd like to know more about Robin if you don't know about her I've put the URL up there and I also started thinking about kind of macro myopia in when you look back to look forward you start thinking about all those incredible predictions like when Jonathan said well it wasn't that easy to get it off the ground I'm sure that's true and people are very sceptical but actually the longer term impacts are far greater than the myth of the short term impacts and you know when we suddenly see something that catches media interests such as MOOCs and all the other things that we've seen over the years I think it's important to keep working at it keep making it meaningful keep providing the evidence and and I think oh it's a wonderful example of of macro myopia really um I started to think rather differently about 1993 and what was happening in the world at that time you know at the time oh it was established it looked like a pretty interesting time and almost everything where you can see the seed that was planted in 93 um also you know has had huge impact you could look at the news if you like now and think about all kinds of things where you could track them all the way back during that time so we do need to put our experience in the world and everything that's going on at that moment um in Australia people talk about the seventh wave so not only have we got trends we've also got things that are coming in from left field the seventh wave is that really great wave that you're waiting for that you know well when you're surfing um and and that's what we all need to look out for not only the trends and plod along because everyone can do that but as learnings technologists we're the people who can spot that seventh wave and do something more radical and more worthwhile for our students with it um and it's pretty hidden you know I think you need to look at it and I think one of our roles for Alt is actually to dig about and to dig it out rather than do what's kind of obvious or what the vice chancellor thinks we should do that day or what a technology provider I think we've got something special that we can do to try and work out whether you know it's a black zebra with white stripes or a white zebra with black stripes so I started to think about what else was going on around 1993 this was um just before then Madonna did the blonde ambition tour um and she started wearing her underwear as outerwear um and I think that's what we've got to do really so that's my invitation to you uh you know she changed the world of underwear and I think we need to change the world of learning technology so congratulations we're underwear with pride thank you I think when we got the the set of questions to prompt us about this and one of the things we're told to do was think about what's been most surprising I think in many ways the most surprising thing is that Alt's still here and if you think about the number of groups that have been started up and how many of them have how many of them have lasted this long this is a major achievement just that we've come here that there are people in this room that we're able to do this so I think you know credit to everyone who's been involved in making that happen that is quite incredible the thing that that struck me um you know looking back over the 20 years is is how some things have changed and things have stayed the same and that the terminology is one of these things and you've seen that the wordles that have come up there's a lot of stuff which goes on where to some extent we're being told it's different every couple of years there's a study I did with a colleague um where we were interviewing staff who were moving their teaching online and these interviews were really quite telling for me because the member of staff was saying things like well you know it's transformed my teaching but actually you know it's all pretty much the same and we're trying to sort of get to the bottom that well you know it can't be both things what do you mean and they explained that actually what they were doing on a day to day basis was totally different if they were facilitating facilitating a discussion they were no longer looking at the audience to see who was busy doing their emails and who'd nodded off or and who was actively talking and inviting people in had been quiet they were going to the VLE and generating all this to participants and seeing who hadn't posted yet and emailing them so with that level there was no resemblance with what they'd done before but at the level of values at the level of what was important to them as a teacher they were still facilitating learning they were still encouraging people to participate they were still contributing and I think what we need to do is to start pulling out from this constant churn some of these more permanent things some of these underlying features some of the things which give the field stability and coherence because otherwise I do think we risk losing ourselves in this churn the noise and not actually seeing these patterns underneath it we have done some incredible things and it's been mentioned before but I will bring home the point this trajectory of the learning technologist I mean it started before old you know you can track things back a good 15 20 years before old started there were people called educational technologists working then but we have given collectively coherence and focus to that which I think has been hugely important but it's not stopped I think one of things that's interesting is you know the current word that's being done with teaching administrators where these are people who historically would not have been seen as learning technologists but they're taking on these strategic roles in relation to supporting learners and are now gaining recognition so you know we're not at a point where we have stability we are still welcoming in more people and I think one of things all has done brilliantly is welcome I think one of things that's a challenge for all is what you do after you've welcomed all these people you know what happens after you've got semalt what happens after you've published in our journal what happens after you've done a presentation here and I think there is something which going forward would be quite important to do in terms of challenging those people we've welcomed in to take the next step not just to sort of rest on their laurels right you've made it in you know isn't it nice here but also to think about well okay what are we going to do to up the game what are we going to do next where are we going to go I think one of the things and this this kind of ties into both those points things we haven't done yet I mean one of the I feel quite restless with this as a field I think we've achieved a lot but there's so much more that we could and should do we haven't saved the world this quote from Diana is great you know education is on the brink of being transformed through technology but it's been on that brink for some decades now and I think there's a really important sense in which a session like this is actually like Wendy's keynote yesterday it's hugely important to us as an association we need to know our history we need to know where we've come from we need to know that bigger picture to make sense of our position in it all and this is a quote from an article by Terry Maze is one of Alts ambassadors from just a couple of years after all was founded people have been involved with any length of time with educational technology recognize the experience of this cyclical failure to learn from the past we're frequently excited by the promise of revolution in education through the implementation of technology we see the technology today we confidently confidently expect to see its widespread effects of its implementation but tomorrow never comes and he talks about these previous cycles and we can add now many cycles to this you know we're looking at tablets and mooks and so on we have these things we do see constant turn constant revolution but there is this question about so what back to Jonathan's question what is all this for what do we what do we can we stand back and say we've really achieved with this so I think this for me is the sort of the opening out from a celebration of what we've done to the push to what we need to do next I think we need to come to terms with this growing diversity in terms of all this a community in terms of sectors in terms of categories of staff in terms of the international participation we're now seeing we need to see that recognize and all structures and also find ways to to build that in a into the rich and vibrant community our structures as well as in terms of our welcoming people in but I think we also need to do this moving out I mean this idea that you know for example lecturers need to know about technology we kind of feel that they should come to us we kind of feel that we're important enough and it's obvious enough that we have this expertise why aren't they asking us but it's not so often we actually go and ask them what are you doing what can we learn from you what is it you need to know and I think there is this sense in which we have to be active and reaching out to other groups other organisations other people other disciplines. Neil Selwyn has characterized some of what happens in this field as an ed tech bubble you know we're very good at building our own work but we can be a bit self congratulatory about it and his challenge is really what can we do that then speaks back to the foundational discipline disciplines that we can and should connect to education psychology computer science and so on we should have things to say back to them that make them stop and think because if we can't do that then you know this question about what learning technology is for really starts to buy it so I think you know a huge achievement to be here you know well done to all of us but it's not done yet I think we need to think now about where we go from here thank you


Okay, here we are, trying to investigate the world around us through the technology of Zoom and remote talk shows on ThinkTech.  We do 40 plus shows a week, just like this. We reach out to everywhere in the world. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding you. And we talk to people who can really elucidate what's happening around us. It's like being aware. Anyway, today we're going to talk about cybersecurity with Randy Minus of the Schuyler School of Business who has developed a master's in science program and who can talk to us about not only cybersecurity but ready the psychology of cybersecurity. Hi, Randy. Hello, how are you? Thanks for having me today. Yeah, well, I want to get into this because I have a theory and I want to bounce it off you that COVID is affecting the reliability of our technology systems. We have assumed, for example, that our food chain is okay, but the Sauce Brothers line, I guess they have barges from Portland to Hawaii, they give up the route. And then the Star Advertiser cut a substantial part of its reporters and staff yesterday over the weekend. And so things that we assume are operating okay, may not be. And today we've had a lot of trouble on the telephone systems. Some carriers have gone down and you can't make calls to their exchanges. So, you know, we're approaching chaos here. And my theory is that there's got to be chaos, you know, in the internet, where you assume we all are sort of delighted that it still works even in the time of COVID where we're locked in and all that. But in fact, you know, there are things happening around cybersecurity that we should know about and sort of fold into our thinking. Can you talk about it? Yeah, yeah, I can talk about it quite a bit. I think that there's the interesting part that you're bringing up with the reliability of the technology that we're actually interacting with and how we've kind of reapportioned most of the bandwidth to like residential communities versus commercial. And if people's Wi-Fi at home is not set up as secure in general as something that is set up at a commercial location. But the other part of it is the psychology part that I'll speak to is the work that I do a lot on is understanding how our mind works in processing cybersecurity type messages. So in some situations or in most situations where we're operating in this automatic processing type mode, Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel winning economist, has a book called Thinking Fast and Slow where he talks about two different modes of cognition. And so there's the system one mode, which is like the automatic mode where you're kind of like on autopilot. I wrote a paper about this in relation to cybersecurity last year that are two years ago now. And so most of us are operating in that space where we're going from thing to thing, not thinking too much about certain aspects of it. Most of the time, actually the majority of the time, system two cognition is this deliberative cognitive thought, which is where we're talking like you and I are talking right now. So when you're interacting with like a sphere phishing message, or you get some weird email from, you know, you don't know where or it looks like like we're talking about for that it's an email from a legitimate person that you would be communicating with, but it's got a weird address that whatever you're going very quickly or processing in this automatic mode, I would get an email from Jay, I will I'll I'll look at that email and and if you're not really, really careful about how you how you're responding to that you could be, you know, subject to a sphere phishing message. So the other the other aspect is there is a difference between a utilitarian mindset and a hedonic mindset. So some of the work we've done with social media, you're in a hedonic mindset most of the time, meaning that you're there for pleasure, you're there to, you know, find out what your friends are doing or see what articles are reading or something like that. When you're in the hedonic mindset, you're actually much more susceptible to being basically just being coopted by something and not even realizing it. This is the true this is true with cognitive biases as well as just, you know, if a cyber security event happens on your computer, you might not notice it in the same way that you would notice it if you were using your computer and not utilitarian mindset for purpose, like, like, like a business related purpose like doing a product review or, you know, whatever your business might be, right? Yeah. So, okay. So yeah, if I'm in business, I'm going to be thinking to protect the business. It's beyond me. It's an organization. And I have a duty, you know, not to let anything sloppy happen on my watch. I'll be criticized if I do. But I understand completely about the hedonic thing. And so, you know, I'm just schmoozing with my friends. We're exchanging little chatty things, maybe passing passing documents, news article links or something like that. And so, you know, it's not serious. And so I don't think too much about it. I don't worry about it. I told you before the show began that one of our hosts got an email ostensibly from me and it had my name. But when you look behind and you can always, you know, like, click on the name on the right side of the name, and it'll tell you the email of this person who sent the email.  And then it had the FR extension for France. So I don't know anybody by an unintelligible name in France. And it's certainly not me. Yeah, none that you can remember anyway, right? I'm saying to myself, okay, this is God. And it was an innocuous mail they sent to him. And he was quick enough to spot it. Because he didn't think it was my style, I guess, and call it to my attention. And then, you know, you get into the question of so somebody did this, somebody targeted him in order to fool him in some way. Why? And I get to think of these guys that actually go to college to learn how to do this kind of fishing. And they have a big blackboard in there, a little room down in the basement, which has a scenario about what they say, what you say, what they say, and how they draw you in to some kind of scam. And I'm thinking, well, you know, it's almost like sleuthing. It's like investigating. So you get this ridiculous email and you say, okay, well, I'll answer it. It seems hedonic. And then you're somehow in, you're caught, you're in the net. And you're on the blackboard, you know. Yeah. And with the amount of data that's out there on every one of us, if somebody has some, you know, reasonable knowledge about who you are and what your job is and those types of things, they can lead you into a discussion that seems like it could be authentic, especially via the email. And, you know, we're also, I mean, it is not a separate thing that we're also inundated with, you know, in this information overload mindset, especially with email, where we have so many of them come in that we feel like we have to respond to them right away. But you feel it needs to respond right away. So you're trying to act and maybe you're having this innocuous, hedonic conversation about with friends about, you know, meeting up for a beer afterwards. Your mind's not necessarily going to switch right back to like, oh, I'm, you know, I need to respond to this other email from perhaps my boss or supervisor. And I need to be very, you know, scrupulous about the way I respond to it or who is sending it. And the way that the phishing has become targeted at various people, it can come from somebody you know, it can be written in a very, in a language almost that you would think that they would use. And then there's just, you know, there's just one or two cues. So in terms of psychology, there's there's something called the feeling of rightness. And so when this automatic processing is going on, where you're just like, running from one step to the other, trying to get through what you needed to get done through the day and not thinking a whole lot about specifics, there's this kind of at the threshold of consciousness, this thing called the feeling of rightness. And if everything falls in line, and it seems like what you would expect, you're not going to process it much further. Now, if you have something that falls into the category of it doesn't feel quite right, there's something a little bit off of this, maybe, you know, Jay uses a word that he usually doesn't use or makes a typo in a way that he wouldn't that you wouldn't usually make a typo, then then the feeling of rightness may go off for somebody that's paying at least a little bit of attention. And that would cause more processing of the information perhaps, catch it. So I imagine that's what you're what your friend did. But there are probably, you know, if they can get one or two percent that are that are in the mindset where they don't catch that, then hey, they're gonna, they're gonna be able to get some information out of them. Yeah, that's exactly consistent with with my experience. You know, I look for the feeling of rightness, I look, I look for this feeling of gratification that I'm doing what I have to do, but I'm responding to people who, you know, need to hear back from me and who will be ticked off at me if I don't get back to them soon. I live in that world all day long. Yeah.  And every time I do, I feel right, I feel good. There's a gratification there. And the guy at the other end is playing with that, isn't he? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Especially if they know enough about you just to be able to do the basics of this person's most likely to respond to, this is the organizational structure in this, in this environment, this person's most likely to respond to this spoofed email versus, you know, subordinates or something like that. And information is not hard to find. I mean, it's whether or not, how high a risk are you being targeted by an intelligent hacker versus some AI generated mass phishing attempt, right? So somebody's pulling a few pieces of information together and putting it in an email, they can probably pull quite a few people. Well, you know, I mean, we're talking, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, mostly about phishing. Why, why phishing?  You can just be an ordinary schlub who wants to have fun, maybe harass people or give them a hard time, maybe steal from them. But you don't have to know that much. And you have, what you have to do is you have to have the blackboard and some psychology on how to handle this. And maybe as you say, a little background on your target. Right. And, and the phishing seems to be the thing to worry about now in the time of COVID because there's more phishers out there than there are rocket science, rocket scientists who know a lot about, you know, hacking into business enterprises. Although I'm sure that still happens and maybe happening even more right now. But let's talk about phishing. You know, what are my risks here? What, you know, suppose, oh, you know, now that now that we've had this conversation, the guy that got this email from me, it actually works for the government. That could be on the blackboard. Yeah, yeah, that could be. There could be something that, for some reason, they are targeting in particular. There are, you know, if you are a wise person that's trying to do the spear phishing attempt and can the things, can the things you're not supposed to be into, you're going to be kind of focused on who you're going to pick as a target. And it could be a bunch of people, you can send these out, you know, thousands of these phishing messages out. But you might be targeting in a certain group or something like that. And I think that you're absolutely right. I think a lot, when people come into my cyber security classes, generally they think a lot of the cyber security attacks are like brute force attacks or, you know, penetration type of packing. And that's not really as much of what we're seeing going on right now. We're seeing a lot more of the social engineering type attacks like phishing where you try to trick somebody into thinking, oh, this is from a legitimate source, and then you gain access to the computer in some way. Or, oh, this document that I've downloaded came from a reliable location. And then, you know, it's now installed something on your computer. So it's really about tricking us, because I think we might be the weakest link in the whole process into doing something that's going to compromise our system. Yeah. I don't know why, but it reminds me of a show, a radio show that Think Tech did 10 or 15 years ago about a guy who went to prison. There are not enough of them for hacking. His MO was really interesting. He would send an email to his target saying you know, do you want a free program? We'll do this and that. Let us know. And the target would say yes. Okay. And a few days later, the criminal would appear at the target's door one morning in a UPS outfit. And he would hand him a box. And in the box was a disk. Remember, this is 15 years ago, before downloads were coming in. And the target would take the disk and he would install it, had instructions and he would install it on his machine. Now they had him. He was part of their, you know, network. And the way this guy got caught was so interesting that he appeared in front of one guy's house one morning with one of these boxes. And the guy opened the door and he said, where's your truck? I don't see a UPS truck out there. There's something wrong with this picture. And that resulted in a fellow going to jail. Feeling the rightness was off there.  And, you know, I think, I think right now we're all in the, in the hedonistic, hedonistic category you talked about. And so we have to follow some rules. So you have some rules for us to follow to sort of screen out where they get us. Because otherwise I think we'll be on the blackboard. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that the, the most important thing, one of the things I've advocated for organizations to do is to, and some of them have started doing this already, is to send out phishing emails that's like tests to see if their, their employees will click on them. And if they do, then go to some training or, or, you know, they might get locked out of their account for 15 minutes, who knows. But you can, you can put a bunch of different ways into it. But in terms of us as, as the consumers of the phishing emails and the consumers of the social engineering attacks, it's really about recognizing any type of thing that would throw the situation off. And so you're getting a, you're getting an email. Maybe it seems like it's coming from a legitimate person, but just take that extra few seconds to scrutinize it a little bit better. The idea is to improve the underlying heuristics with how we process this type of information. So some of it has to come tapped down. I know that some of the universities and some businesses now flag emails from external people that are external to the organization. So if I get an email from somebody, it might say this email is coming from somebody outside the organization, pay extra attention. Now, whether or not that actually works is still probably yet to be seen if it really has a measurable impact. But for now, now that it's more of a novel thing, people pay more attention to those. Now they say, oh, okay, I have a, I have a warning. Let me make sure this is coming from the right person. And especially if you know, like I was talking about you, if my department share sends me an email in a context that was completely expected to happen. And asked if I can meet up with them in a few minutes. And that was all within the realm of something he would normally do. And there was a flag on it that said it was coming from an external member of the organization or somebody outside my organization. I would have been much more likely to catch that. I caught it luckily anyway, but just like barely. But I would have been much more likely to catch it had there been a flag that said, this isn't from your department shares email account. This is from somebody else's. So that's the top downside. Now the other side is just, yeah, we got to kind of pay more attention. When you're in these modes of like, I just got to like, get out these, these emails, I'm going to respond to like 50 emails, just triage the ones that seem like they're just a little bit out of place that you can look at a little bit closer later. I think it's probably the best. That's way forward I'm fishing for right now. You can train yourself to do that. You can actually, I mean, I've been trying to train myself to do it, to look at it with the drone's eye just for a second and say, does this fall within the, what did you call it, the feeling of right? Yeah, yeah. Is it in these boundaries of what I would normally expect? Or is it right on the fringe of it? Or is it far away? I mean, like now if we get an email from somebody in a faraway land is talking about our, you know, aunt that just died, we all kind of have that schematic of, oh, that's most likely not something I should be responding to. But, but of course, the attackers evolve and they, and they get a little bit, you know, it's more specific with, especially if that's some information on you where they can be like, okay. I've noticed too, and maybe it's just me, but in the past 30, 60 days, I have received more junk mail, including a lot of political mail. Then you can shake a stick at it every day. I, my thumb is sore from deleting all of it, my index finger, whatever. And it keeps coming at me and everybody wants my email address. Whatever you do, they always get your email address and then presumably they sell it or give it away to somebody and it travels around the internet probably for price. And, and then you got all these people who are sending me junk mail. And some of that junk mail is going to be dangerous. Some of it is going to be fishing mail. So the question is, and this is a sort of a broader question, is I'm having trouble managing this. I don't know how, I tried in the Apple case, I tried to screen it out by saying, you know, mail from this sender, you know, delete it. I don't want to see it. That didn't work because then it was be another sender. They, it's like they're scanning radio frequencies.  Yeah, yeah. So you can't, you can't get away with it. They'll be on you as long as they have your address. I tried to change my address. That didn't work either because they found me in no time. So, so the question is, you know, how do you protect yourself? Now, a lot of gravy local guy, been successful in something called power spam. And my law firm used to use that. I don't know exactly, you know, what he's doing in the local market right now. Maybe, you know, he's everywhere. I don't know. And his, his claim to fame is that he's going to screen out all the spam. But query, do I look at something like that? What do I do to protect myself from this onslaught every day? And in there is this danger in there. I have to look at it all. Well, I think the number one thing and I, and this is probably the most important thing you can do to protect yourself is make sure that you have second factor authentication built in. And it's obnoxious. And people don't like it. I mean, people don't like having to do that second step. So the idea of second factor authentication is your password is something, you know, and then you have a device that is something with you, it could be a hardware device that you plug into a USB, or it can be your phone that has an app installed on it, so that you have these two steps of verification. That way, if your emails compromised or an account compromised, because you accidentally fall for a phishing email, you will not have the same amount of damage as if, as if that weren't set up where they could get in and start sending emails from your address. So having that second factor authentication, yeah, when you log into your email from, especially if you're not at a normal computer, you have to have your phone with you. It's like what the bank does with the code that they text you, there's a few problems with that. So that's, that's the number one thing you can do to protect yourself. Now, how do you stop the onslaught of information is a completely different, a different thing. And I would say, you know, we have spam filters that the University of Hawaii uses and stuff gets through it all the time. And we'll get an email from our tech guy, and he'll say there's a spam that's been a phishing attempt that's been sent out to the professors. Here you go. But sometimes we don't even get that. And sometimes it is, you know, literally the department chairs being spoofed and they're trying to get something specific in terms of account access or information. And so that other than being vigilant right now, and using those spam filters, and maybe, you know, with calls, it seems to still work a little bit where you can block the calls and they're starting to put spam filters on calls as well. Those things work a little bit.  So it's what you do to protect yourself after, if you were to accidentally call for something that's probably more important at this point. You know, I have, I have a password, you know, program, which they tell me that's very secure. I'm not sure I feel all that comforted by it, because if anybody hacked into it, I'd have a real big headache. And I wonder if that's adequate or maybe the technology is moving to a point where it becomes adequate, where there's enough security around these password, password database type programs that are accessible on the net, right? You can, you can find them from any number of machines and places.  Because if I have to remember them or carry around a little yellow pad with all those things, I, you know, I, I'm not functional. I have to have something like that. Yeah. Right. And the ridiculous thing that cybersecurity professionals like me, like advocate, use a different password on every site that's impractical right now. So the best, the best advice I can give is triage the site. It's like your bank site should probably have a unique password. Whereas the blog that you randomly post on every once in a while on the comment that it doesn't need to be, it can be a common password and, you know, you don't need to triage that and memorize it. Now the password managers, I used to, I used to have a different feeling about it until a few years ago. One of them was hacked and the, it was last pass and the way they dealt with it was actually comforting, which is they, the two, the way that it was just technically set up is that there were two different basically databases and the one that was breached was the account information, but you couldn't get through to the actual passwords.  So for them at least, it was, it was a demonstration of what would happen had it been hacked. And since then I've been a little bit more comfortable because, you know, you see somebody's cybersecurity plan in, you know, in effect and, and that seems to be effective also having, they didn't have any passwords that, that got out from it. It makes you feel a little bit more comfort in the whole process. You know, in entrepreneurship, which you guys at Scheidler talk a lot about, you know, the, the first priority is to find out what the problem is. And sometimes what the client wants may not be the, the real problem. You have to use Stanford, what you call design thinking to figure out what the real problem is. Okay. But in other cases, the real problem is obvious. Then you and I today are talking about real problems that need to be solved. So one of those problems is how I can have easy access, individual access, reliable access, safe access to my passwords. And I've always said that that's the kind of problem where the guy who invents an acceptable solution will make Bill Gates look like a piker. So what, what, what kinds of technology do you think will ultimately prevail?  Somebody will invent something. Is it the retina in your eye? Is it your, well, we already have fingerprints. I'm not sure that works really well. What do you think will happen here? Because the, the notion of having a password manager, which is a hassle anyway, and which may not be all that secure like last pass, you know, it may not be a long-term adequate solution. There will be one though.  Well, you know, I would love to be the next Bill Gates, but I don't think that's happened in any time. But, but what I would say is that biometrics is, is not the solution, at least in the way that it's being used right now. So like retina scans and fingerprints. What, what happens is that your phone or your computer is creating a digitized fingerprint for you, like in, in hexadecimal and passing it on. So if that, you know, if that hexadecimal string of characters gets hacked, they may have essentially your fingerprint, right? It's not your real fingerprint. It's a fake one, right? And the same thing can happen with retina, with facial recognition technology. Somebody that comes across your phone might not be able to do it very effectively. But in terms of getting through into an account, having, having a, you know, a fingerprint that gets you, gets you through to it, I don't think is going to be the ultimate solution of where we move from. Now, in terms of like wearables and things like that, something like that that could do authentication. I know, you know, my Apple Watch, you know, for second factor authentication, it kind of like the Duo app is the one that UH uses. It comes through on my wrist. I can just hit approve on the second factor authentication and get through into my email. And so it's not as where's my phone? I got to pick up my phone and got to bypass the lock on that and then hit the accept button. It's just like I looked down and I'm watching it. Okay. So I mean, it's just, I think, I think the first step is making that easier and more accessible to more people, something along those lines. And I don't know what the innovative solution is going to be. There will be one, though, I mean, because effectively, you know, passwords are pretty much junk these days. You know, the longer and with quantum computing, you know, you get longer and longer passwords that are easily hacked. So we've gone to talking about past phrases, which is you put in, you know, a really long line that you remember or use some sort of thing that you have memorized. And that'll work for a while, but there will be computers that are able to act through that at some point as well. And so, so yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There's going to have to be a solution that for the person that comes up with this, which is probably going to make a lot of money. Yeah. I would say voice, voice print.  There's, there are technologies out there that can copy that and they can create your voice. So I'm not sure that would be, you know, fail safe. And then of course, there's DNA, you know, the double helix, which is unique to you. But, but, you know, and these days, we can, we can get a kind of sample of your DNA so easily, but then so can a third person get a sample of your DNA so easily. It's being passed through computers and not like you actually need my, my double helix to actually authenticate me if it's being passed through the digital medium, then that's going to have to be digitized in some way that can be copied. So it's not necessarily the DNA that is going to have to be copied. It's the whatever the DNA is created, whatever the computer does with the DNA, and then passes it along to the server for authentication. So there is something that's more interesting that's a little bit more dynamic and there's certain behavioral biometrics is what they're called. So like, there are algorithms that can pick up on, with pretty good accuracy, pick up on your keystrokes and how you type. And so the pattern in which you type the pressure that you're putting down, all these different types of things could be used and that would be much harder to replicate because it's more continuous and it's more, there's more, like I said, more dynamic than just passing, you know, 256 hash of somebody's DNA to another computer. Sure. It's the rhythm of your keystrokes, how much pressure you put on your keystrokes. Yeah, I've read about that too. That might be a solution if somebody can come up with it. Yeah, I think that's probably more promising. Suffice to say that we are in a time when, I mean, this goes larger than just fishing and for that matter, hacking, even really felonious hacking. Because we live in a time when low on order is under attack and people are going to feel that if they can find an opportunity, they can use it. And in truth, you know, I mean, we can speak about this maybe the next time is, you know, people who do this sort of thing are usually not caught. They're usually not prosecuted if they are caught. And if they are prosecuted, they don't get, you know, a long sentence as would, you know, deter others from doing the same thing. It's still kind of a gag, I think, in a lot of jurisdictions. Yeah, and there's differences. Another, right, like there's, if somebody's doing something in another jurisdiction, they might, it might be really hard to track them down that, you know, there's a Melissa McCarthy movie identity, basically talked about that, how the states have different, you know, rules with that. So yeah. Well, Randy, the world is our oyster on this. And the chaos is definitely there. So let's, let's be on the solution side instead of the chaos side. Let's do some more. Randy, minus the Schuyler College of Business in information systems, professor of information systems, who has developed the master of science program there. We'll talk again soon, Randy. Thank you so much. Sounds good. Thank you. Aloha.


Welcome to the all new and improved Average Golfers YouTube channel. So shall we start here? Here or here? So let's get this thing started from the bit you've actually seen before, and that's here at Cardin Park, where I have been filming since last November. It's an incredible facility. Two amazing golf courses with backdrops like this have elevated the content that I've been able to produce for my on course reviews. And then of course there's this other extra room that we've been filming at at Cardin Park. And that additional facility is right here in this fully equipped custom fit studio down here at Cardin Park alongside the top tracer driving range. It has again allowed us to gather all the dry ball data and provide you with our kind of well our findings good bad or indifferent on all the clubs we test in an incredibly nice surrounding. And I've got to say the team here at Cardin Park have been incredibly welcoming. But this is not the only addition to the channel you've seen all this bit. So where's the new bit then? So welcome to what is our very first new studio in terms of what you've seen on our YouTube channel before. It is our indoor simulator area. We have got fully equipped and we've got some big thank yous to make. And the first one being from Golf Bays in terms of the enclosure that you see behind you which is absolutely superb. We're going to be hitting plenty of balls off this mat into that screen and collecting data via our new launch monitor. And that came courtesy of Foresight Sports and we've moved from Trackman into GC3. That's the latest bit of kit from Foresight Sports. And again a huge thank you to them to help us kit out this room and all the data will be collected and the software that you'll see is absolute. It's just so much different than what we've ever been able to provide in the past. And it's all done in this room that has completely been refurbished with plenty of hard work over the last few weeks. And that wasn't down to me. That was down to the whole team of people here. The question is where's here? Right so first of all that venue is Hollywood Golf Club. But maybe more importantly who am I sharing this room with? We sat alongside me many of you will recognise him from appearing on the channel before. For those who don't Lewis Johnson welcome back. I'm making a comeback. You are making a comeback. I'm here. How are you feeling? Good yeah I'm looking forward to it. So new head PJ professional at Hollywood Golf Club. How's the job going? Yeah really good. Really good. Got a nice room set up here. A superb room where Lewis will be doing all his coaching and custom fit from. But maybe more importantly for me and for the channel is that he's going to be filming a lot of content in here and out on the golf course. And your first task is a difficult one mate. Do you want to explain? It's the big reveal. We're looking at your swing aren't we? We are. So yeah I'm looking forward to getting into that. We're going to document it aren't we so people can see sort of what it's like to change and sort of relate it back to their own game. 35 years maybe swinging it very much incorrectly. Very much not textbook. We're going to try and change things. I've got a few problems that I've been wanting to work on for quite some while. And we're going to record that whole process. But also out on the golf course Lewis will be recording a lot of the sort of hints tips drills types of videos that I've done in testing the tips in the past. So Lewis look forward to seeing it very very shortly. But for now I've got another location that I need to share with you. And for that I've got to shift haven't I? Yeah another new studio is complete which provides us with the final piece of the jigsaw for the channel. We have some new content plan which is not being covered by any other channel right now and I will reveal all that very very soon. Now this new space adds another dimension to what we're able to offer in terms of that content. But it doesn't stop there. You'll notice a new logo has appeared on my cap and t-shirts in recent videos and that rebrand is also now complete meaning we have a whole new range of merchandise available via our brand new website which will be live very very soon. I mean thanks for being patient I know a lot of you have been waiting to buy the new caps and t-shirts that you've had or seen sneak peeks off on the recent content but trust me it will be worth the wait and I will let you know as soon as we are ready to go. Now this has clearly meant a huge amount of work to get all of these things done and maintain our new levels of content which well we're currently running at kind of four videos a week but in moving forward we have to not forget the support of the team at the likes of FourGolf and in the early days at Clarks Golf who both provided the channel with a platform and we are very very grateful. These new studios just give us greater control over our ability to produce the content we need to keep moving forward and that's always been the intention but finally the last and perhaps the most important thank you goes out to everybody who supports and watches the channel over this kind of three or four year period like I said it's pretty they talk about a journey it's certainly been that I don't know whether we ever had any idea where we would get to with it and we still don't know where we'll finish up but all we can keep doing is keep evolving we keep hopefully as you can see investing in the channel to try and make that content that we produce better and better each time so that's you up to date that's what we've been working on probably for the past three or four months I would say and I look forward to revealing the new content types that will be coming your way pretty pretty soon right thanks for watching this video hit that like button give me some feedback and comments and I will see you all very very soon from one of our new studios no doubt


Hey everybody, I'm Greg Sussman joined today by Ralph Michaels of wagertalk.com to break down who you want to bet on the rest of the way in the NCAA tournament. What's going on Ralph? You know what? What an exciting tournament. We didn't have quite those finishes, haven't had the upsets, but we're seeing an elite group of teams here in the sweet 16. And before we discuss exactly who we're betting on and who makes the most sense to bet on, there's a couple of qualifications that I know you're using to try to decide who you want to place a wager on. Where do we start with that? Well, you know, it's a system. A good friend of mine, Mark Lawrence, came up with a few years ago. And of the last 18 national champions, 17 have fallen into these categories. And some things are just common sense, you know, to go through them. Teams have been from the major conferences and have been top three seeds. That means you're a top 12, top 15 team. No surprise. That means you have depth. That means you're a solid team. You've averaged over 73 points. You have have allowed under 73 points. You've had a scoring margin of over seven points per game. You face the top 75 schedule. And you've had a coach with six or more tournament appearances or an elite aid appearance, and you were in the tourney last year, or you have an all American this year, those are the, those are the, those are the scenarios that teams have to fit in to win the tournament. And five teams fit into those scenarios. Four of them, I think in advance, I left one out from the six teams. I am personally willing to bet to win the national championship. This is not what Ralph is just suggesting you do. It's what he is actually willing to do. Place his money where his mouth is and bet on one of these teams. And let's begin with the top team in the country. That's number one, Duke, the number one overall seed in this tournament, who came within millimeters of losing to UCF, Taco, Johnny Dawkins and more. But Duke survives and advances. And that's the name of the game, Ralph. You know, I'm invested in the Zags. I was hoping they would lose, but you go back and you look at the national champions, most of them have had a close game. It's not a surprise. People forget that during March Madness, these matchup situations occur. Duke is one of the teams that fits the system. Duke needed 10 three pointers to win against UCF. That benefits in moving forward. Guys that could hit a meaningful three late in the game. That's going to make him even tougher. I mean, you can't leave Duke out. The value is not there because they're a heavy favorite. But if you're going to say to me, the top six teams to advance, no question, they need to be part of that. Duke always one of the favorites in this year is no different. They have the All-Americans. They have the number one overall pick coming. And well, they have coach Mike Shashevski. Obviously, lots of like when it comes to Duke. Another popular bet that Ralph is in on. It's like Kentucky Wildcats, man, with John Calipari, who got a scare from Wofford over the weekend and now advances to a tough matchup in the sweet 16. Why do you like Kentucky? Again, Kentucky is another team that fits into the system of being one of those teams that can win the tournament. And when you have an injury like PJ Washington's injury, he got hurt against Tennessee in the SEC finals. He's missed the last two games. They may be able to get by Houston without him because Houston is not a very tall team. Six foot nine is Houston's tallest starter. But they'll certainly need them after that. So if PJ Washington is back and healthy, I do like the Wildcats. An elite team, top 11 offense and defense, as far as efficiency is concerned. John Calipari at the helm, you know what you're getting. The freshman almost came up small. That needs to be a lot better on in the sweet 16 in order to get by. Up next, continuing on to the best best from Ralph Michaels here. We get to Michigan State and sporty. You know how good they are with Tom Izzo tough matchup here in the sweet 16. Why do you like the Spartans to move on and have a good chance to win at all? Well, what you said is half of my reason, Tom Izzo, Tom Izzo, Tom Izzo, Tom Izzo and you add Cassius Winston in there and elite point guard. And they have enough to get it done. This year is surprising. They have a much better offense than they've had. They've had an elite defense and they played Michigan down the stretch. Three times in those last couple of weeks, they were down in all three games. They ended up winning all three games easily. That's the perfect type of test to get you ready for the sweet 16 and further into the tournament. The path is there potentially an elite eight matchup with Duke. What we all want to see Cassius Winston becoming a star before our eyes. So anyway, on North Carolina, the one team that you know can beat Duke. Well, they've kind of had it easy for the most part this tournament as Luke May has done his thing in the sweet 16. Well, it won't be any easier anymore. What do you think North Carolina? Well, you know, with North North Carolina, again, you have an elite offense and elite defense and elite coach, but what they do different than everyone else we've talked about so far is pace. They are one of the quickest 10 tempo teams in the country. They come at you at waves. We're going to see a battle against Auburn coming up in this in the sweet 16 round. But again, they just have so many go to scores. They pass the ball so well, but they also press the tempo. You're going to see a lot of team struggle against them, especially the second day of the weekend tournaments, because those teams aren't used to playing this pace this late in the year. Absolutely. It's it's not they're not accustomed to it. They're not ready for it. It could be the difference for North Carolina moving on in the sweet 16. Up next, we move on as well.  And that's the Gonzaga Bulldogs. They survived pretty easily through the first two rounds. And now they face a Florida State team that beat them last year. Why will this year be different? Well, you have a team with Rui Hachimura and Clark that has gotten him here. And those two are all American type candidates, but no one talked about Killy and Tilly. He's only played 11 or 12 games this year. He is just back getting healthy. He put up he put up 18 points in 17 or 18 minutes in his last game. And he's a difference maker. Six foot 10 potential NBA first round draft choice. Fresh rested, a big guy rested in March is something most teams don't have. And the Gonzags, again, they're a team that didn't play that top 75 schedule. They don't fit into that into the method that we talked about. But again, it's a flyer team. And with the experience they've had to get here and advance deep into the tournament the last few years, they're my pick. Gonzaga has been your pick the entire way, despite losing in their conference finals tournament to St. Mary's, you thought it was a real buying opportunity for Gonzaga. And we'll see if you are right. And then they continue on here this weekend. One more team in there and there's a team you're leaving out that kind of qualifies into yours and Mark Lawrence system with that in a second. But the one team left in there, it's Texas Tech who you're picking over Michigan, Michigan and Texas Tech, very similar teams. Why are you going with Texas Tech over Michigan? You know, this is funny to say, but Texas Tech's most difficult game may be this sweet 16 matchup against Michigan because of Charles Matthews, the Wolverines defender. If they get by him, we have the number one defense as far as efficiency is concerned, you have a player that's going to be drafted as a lottery pick in Jared Culver. If Jared Culver can score 20 or more points and get Texas Tech enough offense, the Red Raiders can beat anyone. If someone could shut down Jared Culver, the Raiders are going to struggle. That's the key to the entire run from here on out for Texas Tech. It's all on Jared Culver. If he can do enough, well, they'll move on and potentially go to the final four. If not, they'll be out before even getting to Gonzaga. One last team that is not in your favorite bets, but qualified for the system. Why did you leave Tennessee out? Well, Tennessee is that team that fits all the parameters we talked about. But to me, they have an efficient offense. They don't have that elite defense. I think teams can take their top two scores out of play. I think they really struggle. The ball has to go through Tennessee's top two scores. I just don't think they have enough enough intense defense to be able to move forward and advance to the final four. All right, we'll see Adam Rose Schofield took himself out of the game last time out. He's going to need a big game if Tennessee is going to advance. We're going to take a break. When we come back, Ralph Michaels picks every game on Thursday night. You're not going to want to miss this. It's free money. Stick around more from Ralph Michaels of wagertalk.com right after this. Back with you here on the Fandal Hurry up Greg Susman and Ralph Michaels and Ralph, where could the people follow you on Twitter to get some picks? You know, at Cal Sports LV is my Twitter handle. I like putting up a lot of angle systems, information that people can use to help them handicap, not only for a specific game, but moving forward. So if you go back and follow me and go back and look at my previous posts, there's a lot of little tips in there to help you again, moving forward with your handicapping on Thursday, the first game is one that matters quite a bit to you, Ralph. And that's Gonzaga taking on Florida State Gonzaga right now at six and a half point favorite. What do you think about the Bulldogs against Florida State? And I already know, why don't you break it down? Well, people that have watched our videos are going to think it's an automatic. I'm on Gonzaga, but I'm not. Wow. This is a seven point spread in this game. And that's significant. Yes, they have revenge from a sweet 16 loss. They lost 75 to 60 last year. But again, how much more motivation do you need when you're at the sweet 16? You don't need losing as motivation to advance. What I, you know, this is Gonzaga's first top 25 team they faced since December 15th when they lost to North Carolina. The Seminoles, Leonard Hamilton, six and one ATS as a dog in March Madness. And Florida State is such a unique team. They're one of the tallest teams in the country. They have six foot four and six foot five guards, huge wingspans. It changes your passing lanes. Florida State, I think, keeps us close. I actually like the Seminoles plus the points. But I think Gonzaga wins the game and moves on. Even though Ralph loves the Bulldogs, he's not letting his heart win out here. He's taken Florida State with the points. Leonard Hamilton has had a coach in the tournament.  Not enough this time to get by Gonzaga, says Ralph Michaels. Up next, Purdue in Tennessee, one of the games I'm most looking forward to. It's basically a pick up right now. According to the Fandall Sportsbook, Tennessee is a one point favorite. We've seen that line fluctuate already. Purdue is hot. Who do you like here? Well, when you look at a team like Purdue and you say, well, you played in the Big Ten, you played a non-conference schedule, they've only played three top 15 offenses the entire year. And that was Michigan State twice and Virginia Tech. The difference between Michigan State and Virginia Tech and Tennessee is the Sparty and the Hokies are two of the slowest offenses. Tennessee is going to press this tempo. Tennessee is the most one of the most efficient offenses, their number four in the country. Matt Painter, 0 and 4, straight up in ATS and Sweet 16 tournaments. And SEC teams in the Sweet 16, the last 19, 13, 4 and 2 against the spread. Again, people don't give the SEC enough credit. It used to be Kentucky and everybody else, but now they beat each other up in the regular season. It's helped them quite a bit when we get to this stage. It certainly has. In this spot, well, they have senior leadership. They have Rick Barnes, who's been there. I know he's letting a lot of people down in the past. But Tennessee, Purdue, it should be a really good game. I'm looking forward to it. Up next, the other game I'm most looking forward to on Thursday. And I think most people are in Texas Tech and Michigan. Michigan is a two point favorite against Texas Tech. What are you thinking here? Well, you know, I've got a number for you, which is actually going to go against my play. This is the early 81st March Madness tournament. When a number two seed plays a number three seed, they've actually gone 39 and 24, 61.9 percent straight up. That's a pretty high number when you have two teams this evenly matched. But, you know, to me, this is the matchup of the entire tournament. Charles Matthews, an elite defender, missed multiple games before the tournament, played limited minutes, just came back against Jared Culver. It's if you're going to watch one match up the entire tournament, this is the one. What concerns me about Michigan is this, as we mentioned earlier, they've played Michigan State three times the last two weeks. They had a 41-29 lead in the first game. They got outscored 36 to 19 down the stretch. They had a 35-23 lead in the second game, got outscored 52 to 28. Led 51 to 45, got outscored 32 to 19. They don't have the go to scores late in the game. Texas Tech and Michigan State very similar teams to me. Texas Tech, the number one defense as far as efficiency is concerned. Absolute shutdown. I don't think Michigan can find enough scoring. I also like the under, as I said, with Matthews on Culver, I think it's going to be a game where the winner may be the first team to 50. It's going to be a low scoring game. Two of the best defensive teams in the nation. And will they be able to get to 50? And how quickly? You've actually got to be asking yourselves, Ralph likes Texas Tech. He likes the under, that means you should too. One more game for Thursday night. It's Virginia taking on Oregon. Virginia, pretty heavy favorite with eight points right now being the spread. Oregon was a 12-C in this tournament. But a lot of people like them to get to this spot. What say you on Thursday night, Ralph? Well, I've been on the ducks for a long time. 10 straight wins, 10 straight covers, 54 points per game in that stretch. No team has shot over 42 percent against the ducks and Dana Altman. You have a great March Madness coach in Altman. And you have to remember, the ducks are a team that had to change in November, late November, their seven foot two bubble, five star recruitment. The new bull sun went out with injury. The entire offseason was built around him on offense and defense. It took a while for the ducks to get reformed into this version. This is another game where I like under 119 and I like the dog. I don't see Virginia being able to get enough margin. And while the ducks had couple games go over the total the first two rounds, that's because they had a double digit lead and there was fouls and teams pressed the pace. I like the under and I like the dog in what's going to be a very slow and low scoring methodical game. I like the under a lot. The ducks play a very good defensive game as Dana Altman changes around, as you mentioned, and we all know already how good of a defensive team. Virginia is to the under makes a lot of sense as does covering those eight or has those rather the Oregon ducks getting within those eight points. I like Oregon plus the points myself. That's going to do it for us here on the FanDuel hurry. If you want to thank Ralph Michaels, you could follow on Twitter at Cal Sports LV picks analysis and trends. You can get all of the picks from all the guys at wagertalk.com before the tournament begins again on Thursday. Ralph Michaels, I'm Greg Sussman. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.


Hello and welcome to today's episode of the International Daily Rounder by People's Dispatch where we bring you some of the top stories from around the world. Let's take a look at today's headlines. Indonesian code denies palm oil permits in West Papua. Chilean parliament approves marriage equality bill. Egyptian activist Patrick Zaki released pending trial. And the United States imposes new sanctions on Iran. An Indonesian code has rejected an appeal to reinstate permits for palm oil plantations in the West Papuan region. Surung district head Johnny Kamuru has cancelled permits which allowed companies to turn indigenous forests into plantations. Two companies, PT Papua Lestaria Badi and PT Surung Agro Savitindo, filed a case against Kamuru. Another case was filed by PT Intil Kebun Lestari which is ongoing. According to a Greenpeace Indonesia report, the three companies' health permits covering over 222,000 acres. The land belongs to the indigenous Maui people of Papua. Indigenous groups stated that they had not consented to the conversion of their lands into plantations. The permits were revoked following a review by the Surung government in February. The Jayapura Administrative Council upheld this decision on December 7th. Papua and West Papua are home to 40% of Indonesia's remaining primary forest. However, according to VICE, the area lost over 2.3 million acres of forest cover between 2001 and 2020. 70% of this was within the last decade with the spread of palm oil cultivation. Resistance to this destruction of indigenous lands has been part of the broader struggle for self-determination in the Papuan province. According to Greenpeace, 20% of Indonesia's palm oil plantations have been set up in areas where extraction is illegal. In 2019, President Joko Widodo issued a decree halting the development of new palm oil plantations. While the moratorium expired in September, it had already been overridden by the 2020 Job Creation Law. It allowed companies that had been operating illegally to retroactively secure permits. It also limited people's ability to challenge or be consulted on projects which may cause environmental harm. The law was declared invalid pending amendments by the Constitutional Court in November. In our next story, we go to Chile which has approved a landmark marriage equality bill. The legislation was approved in the Senate with a landslide majority of 21 to 8 on December 7th. It was then passed in the Chamber of Deputies with 82 votes in favour and 20 against. The marriage equality bill has legalized same-sex marriages and adoptions.  It also includes the replacement of words like husband, wife, mother and father with gender-neutral terms like parent and spouse in the civil court. The bill also guarantees spousal benefits including pensions and family allowances. Tuesday's landmark vote was the result of decades of advocacy and a 2012 lawsuit filed by the MOVI LH Group in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The marriage equality bill was debated and voted upon in Parliament starting July 2021. Outgoing President Sebastian Pinera will now sign it into law and it will come into effect 90 days after being published in the Official Gazette. While this is a major victory for LGBT plus rights in Chile, concerns have grown around the presidential run-off elections on December 19th. Frontrunner and progressive candidate Gabriel Boric has supported same-sex marriage and adoptions and consistently voted for LGBT plus rights in office. Meanwhile, far-right contender Jose Cast has openly opposed and voted against expanding these rights. Boric secured 26% in the first round while Cast came in first with 28%. However, Boric has led in polls with a Pulso Ciduando survey placing him at a 15.9% lead over Cast. In our next story, an Egyptian court has ordered the provisional release of jail student and activist Patrick Jorzaki. He was detained at the Cairo airport in February 2020 when he arrived from Italy to visit his family. He is facing charges including spreading false news, inciting violence and terrorism and calling for protest without permission. These are related to an article he wrote on the condition of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority. He is a master student at the University of Bologna and was also a researcher at the Egyptian initiative for personal rights which now represents him. According to the organization, Zaki was subject to beatings, electric shocks and threats after his arrest. His persecutions sparked solidarity actions across Italy which had also been rocked by the 2016 murder of student researcher Giulio Regini by Egyptian forces. Zaki had also campaigned for Regini's case. His trial was scheduled to begin in September after he had already spent 19 months in jail. However, the hearings were postponed until December 7th. The emergency state security misdemeanor court adjourned Zaki's trial to 1st February in 2022 on Tuesday. While he has been cleared for release, it is not clear when he will actually leave jail. His detention was part of an escalating crackdown on activists and dissidents under President Abdel Fadal C.C. Egypt is estimated to have jailed over 60,000 political prisoners. This has taken place alongside an expansion of the definition of terrorism to target all forms of political dissent. And for our final story, the United States has imposed fresh sanctions on Iran amid ongoing talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The Treasury Department named 15 entities and individuals from Iran, Syria and Uganda in a statement on December 7th. It claimed the move was a part of the government's commitment to democracy and promoting accountability. Among those listed are special units of Iran's law enforcement forces and counter-terror special forces. Also included are Iran's Zahedan and Ishafan prisons and eight state officials over alleged rights abuses. Following the announcement, Iranian official Saeed Khadibzadeh stated that the doubling down on sanctions would not create leverage. Remaining signatories of the nuclear deal also criticised the action by the US. The seventh round of negotiations on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action concluded in Vienna last week. Iran presented two proposals to representatives from China, France, Germany and Russia. These were related to the original 2015 deal and mentioned the lifting of sanctions and Iran's nuclear actions. Iran's lead negotiator Ali Bagheri Khani told Al Jazeera that a third proposal would be presented once the first two were accepted. This would be related to necessary guarantees to non-withdrawal in the future. The US reimposed sanctions on Iran after unilaterally withdrawing from the nuclear deal in 2017. Iran has maintained that all sanctions must be revoked for it to return to its commitments under the deal. And that's all for today. For most of the stories, visit our website at www.peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for watching.


Biomass is a renewable source of energy that can be used to generate biofuels such as ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, and biogas. These fuels can be used in various applications, such as transportation, industry, and household use. Recent advances in technology have enabled the production of these fuels from a variety of biomass sources, such as agricultural waste, forestry residues, and municipal solid wastes. The use of biomass for generating biofuels is becoming increasingly popular due to its potential to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate climate change. This article was authored by Akilesh Kumar Singh, Preeti Pal, Surab Singh Rathore, and others.


Good evening everyone. This is Melissa with the stockswish.com and welcome. Welcome to NCR. I wanted to do this. This was actually yesterday's play of the day and I just had enough time to do the video yesterday because I was getting ready for the class for today and I wanted to do this review because it was a really really nice gap and there was a ton of good gaps actually on Friday and you know my rating system told me that this was one of the special ones to watch. It had a great wrist reward trade in it and it actually went to what I would consider the dream target. This is a watch for lower. Now I don't know if this does this right away on Monday but I gotta tell you it could. I mean this absolutely could continue lower on Monday. I wouldn't be surprised if a gap sat again or gaps and opens like neutral and falls. So you know the idea of my system is to look for a number one a quality stock pick that's going to have the right directional bias in the day. For me I like the shorts. And then second of all I want something that's going to have a good wrist reward. Now you don't know if a stock's going to go to the target and you certainly don't know if it's going to go to the dream target. The rating system helps you. The momentum that comes into the stock on the day and how it sets up into the open which I often see in the gaps. And also what helps you is being able to determine the quality of setups in the rating. So if the stock raised 20 points or more I know it's going to have a trade that has a setup that's going to give me the potential for the wrist to reward. Again you don't know until the stock opens and trades live but that's why you have to know what to watch so you give yourself the opportunity to take the trade when it sets up. Because if you don't know what to watch you're never going to get the trade and you're never going to get the entry and then you're never going to get the size and never going to get the right price to get the good wrist rewards you got to know what to watch and that's when the rating system counts. This is kind of wiggly jiggly but you could have actually aggressively done this here. Dropped off. Now I did this here. There was an ad here. Stop here. I mean this is absolutely perfect. Breaks and drops and look at this move. This is actually more than a dollar. From here it's a dollar and from here it's a dollar ten. This is a really really really really really beautiful trade. And this is your day actually. This you could do this and just go home. And at the time of the day when this is over it's 9.50. You could roll back into bed if you want to. From the time the stock set up and it was done it was less than 10 minutes. You go back to bed or you could retake a trade in it. But the point is that it was such a hard move with such great risk to reward that that's your day. Now as it turns out the stock continued the the area here where it was got down to was around 30 to 35 which was the first target. It actually went all the way down to 3170. It actually went another 60 cents from here where the first runoff is. But this immediate move is great. And you can see it here in the 15 minute. Look at this. First bar of the day, second bar of the day. I mean this is fantastic. I love this kind of set up but I love this kind of weakness. So you can watch NCR for file through next week. If not next week eventually. A nice break in this chart here, a nice gap. And beautiful beautiful risk to reward. And I love it when it has an ad real quick too like that. And the confirmation. And the time of the day and everything it does. And again I've talked about this before. I'll briefly say this one last thing that you know you you have to understand what you're doing with your stock. I love candlesticks. And they tell me what's happening with the price. And they're indicators but eventually the price is what really tells you what's going on here. Nothing else. If you're trying to buy this in a buy set up here. Or here. You got stopped out here. The stock was not a buy. If you looked at this as a buy in here. On this miniature time frame. You got creamed. Whether you have to stop here or here. To see where the drift off happened. Now why would someone try to buy this? Who knows. I mean I would never try to buy this. Because it's a bearish gap. And it rated more than 20 points for my system. So I know that it was good gap to short. But there are people that try to buy things like this. Why? First of all the market was rallying on the day. Second of all do you see where this actually opened here into this area. So people are going to think well this is going to hold with the market here into this area. But the fact is it's a bearish gap. They're rated over 20 points for my system. So I'm not going to do anything but short it. It's a short. It's a huge short by the way. And look at the length of that bar. Actually it's pretty nice. Look. More than $2. About $2.30. And one of the biggest bars in here. Now this is the biggest. This is almost four bucks. But this is pretty good over here. And it was a really nice short. And I just love those trades that set up quick like that. Oh my gosh. If I could have a tray like that every day. Every day if I could have a tray like that that goes I can make the kind of money in five minutes, 10 minutes. I would just go back to bed at 10 o'clock every day. Well I'm running the room but you know. But you could.  But it's a great trade and a beautiful gap. And was the stocks we shall play the day on Friday? Great trade to close out the week. Close out the week. Earning season is just getting going here. Gosh there's so many earnings in the next month. February is a great month to trade. First of all people are stuck inside this cold. It swears a snowstorm every three days. And there's a lot of people that like to trade and they're stuck in the house and they're doing it. And it's the time of the year to get in stuff. To take lungs to sell out of shorts to short the stock so they don't want to be in. People are in stuff the markets rally now. They're in stuff it's not performing. They're not going to hold back from dumping the stock. They say wait a minute why am I in this thing? Why am I in NCR long when I should be in Netflix long? Let me just sell out of NCR and get in Netflix. Okay fine. And so you see this is what people are thinking. You have to think about what people are thinking to do with their money. And they're not going to stick with stocks that are not performing. They're going to dump them. And that's when I come in with a short in the gap. This is Melissa with the stockswish.com. Have a great weekend everybody. Great job today for the people that do the Golden God class today. Fantastic. Great day. Have a wonderful safe weekend everybody. Email me and Melissa at the stockswish.com if you'd like more information. I'm doing a live event in New York City February 16. It's actually a week from tomorrow. A live event where I'm going to go over the stockswish. The pattern. There's also going to be a seminar on taxes for traders which is great too. It's a free event. It's in New York. It's actually in my building in my building in a beautiful, beautiful business center. I'm going to have refreshments and you're going to get to mingle with other traders and you're going to get to meet me. So if you're interested or live in the Tri-State City area in the Northeast and are interested in coming to the webinar, the free lecture that's in my building in Manhattan, February 16 and starts at one o'clock, email me. The deadline is Thursday. To sign up for it if you want to come. Thursdays would be the absolute latest that I'd have to get you signed up for it. All names must be registered. Email me and Melissa at the stockswish.com. Thanks everybody. Have a great night.