Good morning, everyone. Happy Friday. Today is a special day with us We have the one the only the moon the man the myth the legend Mr. Wireless life Anthony Bartolo. How you doing? I was going everybody. How's going Pierre? Did you like that entrance? No Important Thank you It's nice to have you back. Where have you been? Oh wow Big adventure underway So I'm now focused on students in terms of their enablement and they're you know trying to help them achieve Their dreams and their ideas and it's been so awesome Just having that opportunity to talk to you know students in universities and even high school students in some cases In terms of what they're trying to accomplish. I participated in Imagine Cup The one that just passed and just you know sitting down with the students and seeing you know Where their ideas are and and how they want to accomplish it? It's been a great learning experience Just because the perception that these students have in terms of how they're adopting technology Greatly differs, you know, what's currently in you know private sector public sector and so it's the you know Coming of age when they have this ideology of what they're trying to Accomplish and adopt and how that translates to you know Public and private sector and what they understand can be adopted It's been a very very interesting experience. I've only been at it for just over a month But it's been something of you know a great learning experience I'm bringing my infrastructure knowledge in and the team That I'm working with specifically focuses on infrastructure and application Development creation I was gonna say are you are you like deserting the it pro community? No, no not at all. So this is the thing that's interesting right in the student space There isn't a clear defined it pro and developer, right? It's all about enablement It's all about what can the technology do to achieve a goal or opportunity and so hearing, you know these students just Talk from architectural standpoints and security implementations and then flip over to Utilization of services and incorporation of a API so seamlessly. It's like wow. How did this is awesome? So it's like it's it's been a really great learning experience. Yeah, they haven't had time to pick a specialization yet I There are on the security side There's been a lot of you know much more focused individuals in terms of the enablement, but for the most part it's yeah, it's very much general Yeah, there's another thing that's was that came up this week other than your wonderful return to az updates the show is Ignite Reg is open It's all very excited So I have not registered yet It was a little event that happened yesterday that we're going to talk about later today. I think I was helping on a little bit on social and that one to bring visibility, but I've not registered for ignite yet I'm definitely gonna get that done today because I love doing the conversations inside of the chats that are made available when you You know once you've registered and you put your name in Available for for conversations and feel free to reach out to produce of care and I In regards to anything that you want to bring up in terms of what you want to see it ignite always excited, you know, it's something where you have this capability of You know interacting with what's coming out. That's new. What's gonna come come out. That's fresh What can we talk about and yes that definitely was hoping you could share that as well? Yeah We are going to still run our ignite channel in a discord server for side conversations this year again So if you're not already Joined That's the address. That's the invitation come and join and have a conversation with your fellow IT and ops colleagues and We'll be talking about ignite when the time comes And you know what Pierre thank you for the introduction of the whole discord server and setting that up I'm finding out very quickly in the student space That's one of the big mechanisms that use for communication is discord and the amount of discord servers that are available out there It's been, you know learning from the firehose is what we say here in terms of how do we connect with students and discord It's been one of those great tools to do so. Yeah, it's a It's a gamer. It's a gamer tool that suddenly a lot of people have realized that It doesn't have to be just for gaming. It's it. It is really a community server It's like the the next evolution of the bbs that we used to run when we were When we were fresh faced IT pros I've not heard the term bbs in a long time what does bbs stand for again Pierre? Bolton board system. Hey, you got it. I was hoping the chat room would jump in on that one, too Oh, okay. Well, they might they may have I haven't looked speak in the chat chat room who's in there right now Currently we have Andrew McCallum. We have Paul Jensen and we have the boss I rick Welcome to the show there's more people that are watching but they're not logged in so I can't see their names Anyway, shall we get to the news? Let's get to the news. So apparently it was a big event yesterday It was it was we have We had the windows server summit that our illustrious boss Rick Claus was hosting and One of the big announcements that's really resonated out there is the fact that we are now Introducing a Windows server hybrid administrator associate certification That's a mouthful Which is basically Administrating Windows server in a hybrid configuration meaning on-prem and using cloud services two exams AZ 800 and AZ 801 and if you go to our website and I will put the You URL right here if you go to our websites. There are three Blogs from Oren Thomas who was an instrumental in bringing that back. He's been for the last year. He's been Fighting to power fighting to go to fight To bring this back to to the forefront because there are millions of IT pros out there that are certified Or were certified in previous versions of windows That have been Waiting for this so he's he's taken it from infancy to to birth and it's now coming up the Blog post will give you there are some study guides There's information about that and there are Objective listings that he's covering in his blog articles. So go and check it out It's interesting, right? You know Twitter was on fire with the announcement Mary Joe Foley actually shared out the articles as well and our own article that she shared out, you know, it's really Amazing that we have this scenario where you know Everybody's been asking for the Windows server certification to come back because it's still being used in day-to-day activities A lot of IT pros still require that certification For their jobs and so to have this now being reintroduced And you know had soft Oren Thomas in terms of the amount of work that he's put forth to get this back In into play It's something where it brings to light, you know the need for that hybrid implementation So Matt some information has to stay on premises. Some has to stay in the cloud You know in that enablement of Windows server makes that you know So something a lot easier to manage and easier to enable well at that ignite to 2019 So the last time we actually met in person Xander Forget his first name Jason Xander Jason Xander. Thank you Thank you our illustrious corporate vice president for Azure actually said in his keynote that Ibrid is our customers end goal So it we kind of a pivoted a little bit now that's a like we're not expecting everybody to go full cloud native Ibrid is the end goal meaning we now have to learn how to manage it As such and this is a great step forward for that So we could hit you on the news. Yes. I'm just trying to find the right Your is a news item and go ahead All right So next up in the news is the general availability of Azure AD joined virtual machines in Azure virtual desktop a lot of people said well wait Anthony You talked about this a while back in terms of this enablement It's now generally available before it was under public preview So thank you to all those that went forth and did testing on the functionality to make sure it made sense in terms of its implementation What's great about this is now when you're setting up the templates for individuals to use for Azure virtual desktop You can have it automatically connect to a domain Your Azure AD implementation. What does that mean? So now you have the capability of enforcing stuff like multi-factor authentication or post-it lists Emits these Implementations and your policies are automatically pushed down to these templates when they're spun up as opposed to having this guess work in terms of Is this individual going to have the right experience and in the in the current times when a lot of people are working from home Making things simpler for them so they don't have to follow a whole bunch of hops To make the enable security policies are important to your organization is key And so this is a great, you know step forward in terms of this type of capability Yeah There's one thing that I'm a little fuzzy on though is because if when you if you go if you read the documentation It says that it'll it simplifies and facilitate Joining your Azure virtual desktop to an AD But you don't have to have line the site into the DC And then there's a note in there that says that it might even be able to join without actual have access to a DC at all So that's that's interesting because sometimes you don't have your domain Replicated in the environment or whatever. There's some architectural Gotchas there that you have to look at first If you're using a D connect are you using Azure AD? Are you using a domain controller as a as a VM in the very specific V net like all that stuff have to as to be I'm wondering whether or not that will be ported to standard being standard VMs Which I think would be cool But I don't know I have not I have not heard and this is not a product announcement in any way shape or form It's my my wishful thinking Because right now we're doing it a lot with deployments But by using custom custom extensions to to to basically join the machine to a domain on first boot But it'd be cool to see that ported. What are your thoughts on that? So here's here's what I researched when I looked at this news item In the midst of creation of the template for people to use when they're using as your virtual desktop You have the you know drop-down menu in terms of the selection of which as your AD domain You're gonna actually connect to right so there has to be a line of sight to the domain that you're gonna Enable these users to connect to and this can be specified by template right in terms of that type of activation. So Further on down the road, you know making it simpler for people to just gain access to the information that matters to them Most is is going to be key. I think this is the first step in terms of this in enablement in a virtual desktop sense What you know if it's gonna come down the road again not a product announcement We're just guessing right now it would make sense in terms of that enablement But I think it's gonna be more than just that because we're now seeing compute happen on other platforms Right, so it's not just about these devices, you know Laptops and tablets we're talking about you know smartphone enable enablement is which is again still baseline You know the whole explosion of VR and the whole explosion of mixed reality, you know It's becoming that nuance. It's the Ray-Ban sunglasses that were just launched I'm Intrigued with that. I'd like I'd love to try it. So I don't know if I want to buy one because I don't know What I would do with them But this is kind of cool but this is the thing right so We hear launches of new smartphones that are coming out and we hear, you know, the new camera functionality Updated processor, but there's a lot that are talking about in the marketplace that we're nearing saturation in the capabilities of smartphones And what they can actually do and then the next step now is the whole immersive experience with mixed reality Now we've dabbled in this even on the show prior to in the utilization of howl ends and other devices But there's a cost barrier, right?  So the Ray-Ban launch With Facebook is interesting because they look like a normal pair of sunglasses even bows has sunglasses with the speakers built in Which is an audio Immersion as opposed to a visual immersion you're starting to see more of that occur and so What does that mean for interfaces and what the way we experience, you know Information at our fingertips It's going to be something that's going to be of interest in the next five years And where we're going when the device has become smaller and become more Unattrusive as opposed to wearing this helmet walking down the mall I think that the hardware is cool, but I think what's even cooler Or more interesting to me is the possibilities of what you can do with them by leveraging ml Edge computing Recognition of any kind I'm not not talking about facial recognition because there's so many Privacy issues that jump into that but right like I was looking I was working on my Jeep last weekend and I was looking for a bolt because The our nice Canadian winters have basically eaten through on the suspension bolt So I was looking for one so grade grade 10 A very specific boat and I'm going through the store and they've got like It's a Ottawa fasteners so that there's like there's Thousands of little cubbies with bolts in them I would have loved to be able to say like okay This is the one I want and then look at the wall and then also in the one I made actually lights up or like something like that So like what do you can do with with the the the technology? Maybe even able to distinguish between a metric bolt and an imperial bolt. Hmm. I wonder who that would help Somebody in the chat room. That's for sure. I'm in the chat room. That would yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Anyway, uh I get in trouble because I still report to him Let's move on to our next news item, which is Azure VM I get the the right screen here as your VM But Azure VM as your VM where a solution as achieved fed ramp high authorization standard Now you would ask me okay. Well, what does it is that a technical thing? What does it do? It's not it hasn't the the the solution itself hasn't changed at all but now the government or Fed ramp, which is a Arm length or organization for the federal government in in the US, but that standard is used in outside Geographies like I know Canada we use though We use it as well and other places use it as a stamp or approval in terms of how secure And how manageable the solution can be so as your VM where solutions has now achieved that fed ramp certification Which can open a lot of doors in terms of compliance because there's some industries that especially if you deal with government that you must have like in I in in Healthcare you but you got to have high trust and you got to have Epa in if you're dealing with the feds in terms of the DoD or DND National Defense types scenarios you got to have fed ramp and you have sock one and talk to so those those compliance Are very very important, but now a VM where our Azure solution has now achieved that Certification so that's really cool in terms of how many doors it can open now for being used for working Well, not just for the government or with the government Governments because there's multiple multiple geographies But the fact that it's a stamp of approval in terms of how secure our solution really is thoughts Anthony Well, this is the thing anytime you're enabling something for government It means it also helps the people at the end of the day because now that information that's that's you know People rely on in terms of you know, just something as simple as Getting a vaccine shot or you know going to the doctor or you know something in terms of taxes and whatever relates to the government in regards to everything that's going on When they modernize and we enable them to modernize through these tools It makes it a lot easier for us to get in access to information as well So just doesn't just help government also helps the people as well You know a lot of us complain in terms of a lot of the systems being archaic and trying to get information It's it's multiple hops So when stuff like this happens and we see Certifications occur on on solutions that are made available. It's it's something where it helps not only governments But it also helps the people gain access to that information. Yeah, no, I think it's great and It's the first and if you one look at how many of Of our solutions have already received that certification or that standard accreditation I can't I don't even know what you're supposed to call it. Is it a certification? Is it an accreditation? anyway, in any case you can do that by looking at our at the Article the blog article that we put this morning that I put on this morning because I did list or link a Page where all of our services that are fed ramp Approved are listed. So you can look at that and Hopefully that helps you if you've got any kind of compliance issues or compliance requirement in your job All right next one which is I've got too many windows open here I Producing the show and being on the show at the same time, right? Yes. Yes, and we got to I'm starting to think that I got too many monitors That is that is that a really a problem. Is that a first world problem? Oh, no, no six. Is that six is six enough? Do you have six monitors now? She's I know I do I do I Got one two three four five and six. Well the sixth one is I don't really look at it that much but Yeah, five that are constantly on anyway, that's a Your show your your item, I mean Next item up in the news is the enablement of private endpoints within the machine learning workbench This is a great one. It's currently in preview a lot of the challenges, you know, just talking about government right now There was a lot of scenarios where there's a requirement for segregation of endpoints and specific, you know data flows and There's a need to capture that information for machine learning to do Automation of X or decision-making of Y and it's always been a challenge because the two The data streams cannot intersect you can have access to both simultaneously So this whole aspect of the inclusion of multiple private endpoints into machine learning workbench is a big one because now you can actually have Additional amounts of data coming to your decision-making process in terms of your machine learning exercise And they can still be completely separate of each other in terms of the the data flow itself This also includes the whole aspect of utilization of Azure Kubernetes service Clusters as a separate vnet as well injecting into your machine learning exercise for your outcome of x whatever x may be Yeah, um, I Look at it more on the end of on the security side because if you're doing machine learning and you've got your data set Depending on what you're looking at you may have sensitive information into that data set that you're going to be running through By using private endpoints you eliminate the need to have that's that little internet hop to go over the internet to access the the storage account or the Kubernetes cluster or whatever it may be where your data is being crunched So it makes the whole solution so much more isolated and so much more secure which in these day and age with the ethics of AI and machine learning This is something that we really have to be conscious of and Making an extra effort to ensure that all of that data that we're crunching is being secured And it's not just that right there's the whole aspect of ISO certification that you know Requires these endpoints to be separated that a lot of organizations have to adhere to and so having this ability to keep them Separated but still utilize in decision-making processes or automation capabilities It's it's important right the more data that we can bring into machine learning workbench for the outcome of x the better in terms of its preciseness of its decision-making So enabling this functionality where the being it stays separate But the data itself still can be used and still adhere to ISO rules or certification requirements. It's a huge advantage. Yep So we are going to go to our module of the week and Anthony because that was a suggestion from you. I'm gonna like I'm gonna let you take that So really quickly, you know, we talked a lot about technical enablement on the show In certifications in the in the upskilling that's available within Microsoft learn but of late there's been a lot of soft people skills that are being made available In regards to what you should do as a student and if you want to you know Line your first job and what you should do for your interview process and how your resume should look and what have you This one was an interesting one. It was just released. It's how to build your tech resilience And what does that mean right? the whole aspect of an IT professional inside of an organization is The the you know, how are we supporting this organization and part of the challenge is the communication aspect of that It's the whole thing where if you don't have a seat at the table with the business decision makers You're being told I want you to do this. I want you to do that. You're not providing any of your input This is a great tool great, you know learning Module that provides some insights in terms of what are the best practices to have that conversation with leadership in terms of Why things should happen the way should happen security protocols multi-factor authentication private endpoints There's a lot of aspects of the technology that even leadership doesn't understand but they have an opportunity or problem that they need to address and this provides a Way to change a lot of the culture that occurs in terms of the IT professionals role within an organization and What they mean to the business decision-maker and even the developers, you know We talk about DevOps as that intersection between the communication between IT pros and developers But now having this type of tech resilience and having this you know Communications capability and having this open mindset in terms of the possibilities and opportunities that are there Something covered in this module is can be leveraged to have that communication and to establish those relationships with other Parts of the company to make sure that everybody's on the same page when adopting technology. Yeah, I completely agree with you We spend years And I'm when I say we I mean not Microsoft But like the industry to teach those hard skills of like how do you do this? This is but But then we take somebody in IT and operation and we asked them to go and talk to the business dealers or the business stakeholders and say Go and present what you're doing to support their environment and we haven't taught those skills soft skills have been kind of like a An afterthought for many many years and Yes, I understand that in the past let's say five years We've started kind of like bringing that back up to the to the forefront, but it is Extremely important to know how to communicate to know how to To embrace your what the When they call it emotional intelligence, which I am very short on And know how to give and receive feedback and that that Learning path actually has some really good stuff on that and I laughed a little bit this too while you were talking because I noticed that Paul Jensen said that he must have some really good soft skills because he's much softer than he was five years ago So Paul I Don't know if that translates really well, but I Think a lot of us are have been made a lot softer over the last 18 months. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah Actually, no, I I lost 12 pounds. Yes. Don't it's well awesome. Congratulations. It's cool It's the the the byproduct of not eating lunch dinner Breakfast lunch and dinner in the hotel or on the on the plane or at a airport. All right So I think you have an event Coming up that you want to tell us about So really quickly this weekend is hack the north and this is something that's Canada wide But it's based in Waterloo, Ontario And it's the enablement of students for their projects and what they're bringing to the table for new innovations So this is one of the great things like I now get to participate in and so I'm going to be available all week And long if you go to hack on hack the north calm You can see all the new projects that are going to come to life I believe it starts at 8 p.m. Tonight in regards to and it goes for 36 hours In terms of the hack itself Sorry, it is it is a virtual event unless you are at the University of Waterloo There is a staging area for you there But I will be online. It's the staging area inside of Waterloo is only for students So if you're a student of Waterloo, you can't participate But that's the thing it being a virtual event means there are people from around the world That are participating in this event even though it's hacked north and it's it's Canadian base Which is awesome And I hope that's one of the things that doesn't change when you know, we go back to a hybrid model in-person events Yeah, no, I'm really looking forward to All of the in-person events returning but for all of them to have a virtual Component because it removes an adoption non adoption, but a participation barrier That's always been there where if you have somebody that works for a small company and that small company may not have the Five six thousand dollars to send you to ignite to send you to VMworld send you to wear whatever conference You're looking at going to But at least you can participate now and get some most of that information I know with ignite you can still get it, but you don't get it that day of you get it like 48 hours later or or a week later when all of the sessions get published but No, I'm really hoping that this becomes a thing And also this week we are returning to or the boys are returning to patch and switch So mr. Claus who's currently in the Chat room and joey snow. So which one is patch which one is switch? We don't know Will be entertaining you at 9 a.m. Pacific time 12 p.m. Eastern time. I don't know what the uk time is I don't forget about sound guy steve Steve the audio guy If I said it correctly it wouldn't be an ongoing thing Uh, yeah, apparently. Oh, he's like what there's a show today. Well, I hope there is Yeah, mr. Jared the the steve the auto guy is actually uh On his way back through the us to uh, seattle in an rv so hopefully you can find some place to connect the connect the the gigabits and uh be online to Jared the tour Anyway, uh, so if you want to participate and see the shenanigans uh on twitch at twitch uh slash patch and switch And anthony, thank you so much for coming back. It's always so much fun to spend an hour with you and Looking at the news of the day. So thank you and good luck in your new endeavors Thank you very much and this won't be the last time you see me. I'll pop in from time to time But you know keep up the excellent work on the show. It's awesome to see Continue on and if somebody wants to get a hold of you Do you finally me on twitter at wireless life? And I as always will be at wired canucks. So thank you very much everyone and have a great weekend


Going on everyone Sam here with late sports cards switch this title really quick We're ripping 23 top scrone black baseball hobby 12 box case number 43 pick your team style read off a list of our names and our teams We've got Andrew P with the Nets not great Paul and your age for the Royals Anton H. Cubs Brennan our Brewers Brian T Tigers Cardinals Chris D. Mariners Rangers Cooper B Rockies and Pirates Don H with the Dbecks Douglas W. Orioles athletics Eric M Dodgers Eric L. White socks Greg E Marlins Jacob our Padres Jason O Red Sox Jason G Guardians John W at Phillies and Blue Jays Christopher W at Braves and Angels Mark W. Ray's Matt F. Twins Michelle W at Mets Paul B with the Reds Robert L. Giants Ryan D Astros and Taylor R with the Yankees. So good luck everybody Let's do it Charles F with Duke in number three. We are down to two to go. Thank you Charles. Go Let's do it. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a nice guardian hit for you Jason. That'd be pretty sweet MSU and Maryland Maryland and Michigan State Michigan State with four guys on the checklist Which is pretty awesome and then Maryland Jameer Young. It's gonna be your main guy one of the top like 15 guys and PPG this season nine to go in number six Nine to go in number six everybody Stuff there way to dial up a great blitz there Mike McDonald Hello the blitz from Mike McDonald in the Ravens defense camp. Let's go Strabs run for his life back there. I love it. All right Riley Green It's a 1.99. Got an orange of Nolan Arnaud. It's eight of 25 congrats on that Cardinals and then a Chris Bryant We've got base auto Joe Carter going to the Blue Jays on guard congrats on that Blue Jays Very nice. Very nice That is Tanner Bibby rookie a refractor to 199 trade Turner for the Phillies and Vinnie Pascantina We've got a Alec Thomas superfuturado 46 and 99 Grats on that diamond max. There you go Arizona. He's gonna get his buddy now Nick P picking up the Indiana Providence Weber state in both six and eight. Thank you Nick Of the late again, just Michigan State and Maryland in our PYT of Balmincrum University. Oh, you are just uh, yeah, that's fine. Let's I guess you could yeah That's fine. Let's use a red That is Shea Langley's blue to 75 Ron racunia Nice one there and Brett Beatty We've got auto of James Outman to 150 refractor for the doors card is Far out man. Is that it's been okay? Primal like it's uh, it's kind of what you expect to be honest. It's not Not anything super super crazy, but there's I mean you can get some good stuff out of it Which is nice. They have all the big names are the time you pull the no Tanya you hold the trout Hold a poo Hulse, which is pretty cool. Like those ivories are fire. Have you seen an ivory in person? It's it's pretty sick Tim Anderson To 199 Jacob the Grom the Rangers and then a Corey seager We've got green auto Tory hunter to 99 for the twins and we're at the Minnesota That's who would not be having it with that Be saying wrong Jersey Yep, you're live shorts. You're live shorts. You're good to go, buddy You are good my man You got a gold mini diamonds all right Paul Goldschmidt Green wave to 99 Gunnar Henderson congrats on that Orioles very nice Take that all day and I'm at Olson Got gold mini diamonds auto Adrian Beltray. That's pretty sweet man to 50 congrats Rangers Rangers all the already doing well So congrats on that Texas Yeah, very nice gunner right there for sure. That is a solid car Yeah, nice auto on that was that a magenta I believe it's a magenta. We've got Edward Julian To 150 is Joey Manessus For the Nationals and then a Dodger James outman 9 of 10 now that card is far out man For that's on that one there Dodgers Justice looking through and then an auto of Alec Manoa nice one there for it the Blue Jays Because so it goes both of you are banned Ready that is Salvador Perez couple mini diamonds the 150 Chris Bryant for it the Rockies on the color match and then a Yuri Perez base auto Cabrion Hayes going to the Pirates that's on that Pittsburgh Heberg Heberg Heberg shout-out Burke stand up. Oh, I think that's an ivory Jake. I think that's an eye. That's an ivory It's an ivory Bobby Miller blue to 75 Matt Olson Grats on that one there bridge and then a von Grissom. Yes, it is that is an ivory is Mike trout One of 25 go to the angels. Let's go baby. Congrats La that's gross. That's nasty Christopher W. That's nasty one of 25 Mike trout. Hell yeah, man These are these are the Ivory's man. These are so clean so clean man. Yeah, I love that so clean So clean We'll get that into a mad Fainting has seen one in person now. Oh, yeah, well Yeah, yeah, that is Anthony Volpe I was working in shadow purple to 150 Matt Olson I think we started talking about church bands and he decided not that's right joy Manassas fair fair That was so funny colors made it really easy to turn off the screen yesterday morning Raleigh fingers on the auto for it the Um, A's When the Ravens are on offense that is Corbyn bird was earlier earlier. I swear 99 jazz chisel Now you're probably right. That's when they're Marlins and then a Jonathan India and we've got base auto count Mitchell rookie going to the pirates Grats on that pirates Very nice someone launched at Lamar with her head I don't know if Lamar is hurt or if it's the defender. That's her Yeah, honestly, hopefully it isn't either All right, mr. Edward P with The Texas Norfolk States and Oklahoma State in seven and eight and then Creighton Gonzaga, Florida in six. Thank you, mr Thank you. Thank you. You should wear an eyepatch for the Bucks game Did you come out just like Pirate the Bucks game this top load rather be pretty funny That is Francisco Lindor Anthony Volpe on the variation for the inks and then a blue Joey vato to 75 And then we've got a gold Roger Clemens 23 at 50 for the blue jays The blue jays rockets congrats on that very nice Good stuff. You jays and last box break.  It's like SpongeBob. Yeah, exactly Clayton Kershaw gold Corbin Carol 1950 nice for the Diamondbacks do what a this is a good case. This is a very good case Congrats on that Arizona 1950 on the gold Carol and Fernando Tatis Jr. And then a detrain Dantrell Willis Going it to the Marlins nice one there Grats on that Marlins. You got to go with the sideways hat for detrain all the time Understandable very true. All right, everybody do a quick recap here We've got mr. James outman to 10 base autos of detrain Raleigh fingers Cabrion Hayes Alec Manoa Joe Carter Cal Mitchell to one that 50 is James outman We've got green and 99 Torrey Hunter to 99 Alec Thomas to 50 Adrian Beltray and true gold to 50 at Roger Clemens And then of course the Mike trout ivory one of 25 on the auto going it to the Angels Congrats on that halos That'll do it for the break everybody. Thanks again for the fill up next NT baseball


My name is Staff Sergeant Minda Allen. I'm the Security Forces N2IC of the Armory. So our job today is to ensure that the defenders stay ready and proficient on their primary weapon systems in 4 and M9. The readiness to me as an Academy instructor is to ensure that not only security forces members, but each members of the Air Force are trained on their primary weapon systems before they get to a deployed location. I am A1C Sarah Bradshaw and I am an installation entry controller. In the AFI, it is not required to profire on a deployment. So we're actually the first AOR to initiate this type of training in a deployed location. This training is important because when we do what we do every day, it's easy to get complacent and profiring works on our proficiency and efficiency of keeping the base safe and secure. I'm Senior Airman Luciano Madrano and I'm a Response Force member. To me readiness means to be proactive instead of reactive, always staying on top of your game. The commodity that we find here and deployments makes this training a lot better. I'm Staff Sergeant Ryan Smith. I'm a BDOC controller. For this firing course, we'll be all more prepared working as a team and we'll know each other's capabilities during firing. Every day we're arming up. We never know when an incident is going to happen, affecting the base and we'll need our weapon skills to be up to par to handle them.


Yr eiswyddiant ar hyn yn committee immediately ac yn ei dd Idiadog atswrstream ac yn deu gym Can I begin by sincerely thanking all of the colleagues who signed the motion, allowing me to hold this important member's debate this evening? Can I also warmly thank those who are either in the chamber this evening to take part in the debate or are here to simply listen to proceedings? Signed officer, the reason I wanted to lead this debate this evening is because, like many others in this chamber and outwith, I care passionately and have a deep pride in our country. I despair when I see our land tarnished by those who litter, spit their chewing gum on the street, allowed dogfowling or fly tipping, whether that's through carelessness or illegal behaviour. As the brief income keeps Scotland beautiful sent to all MSPs tells us, the statistics on those matters are alarming. 250 million easily visible items of litter are dropped in Scotland every year. Every day, Scottish smokers throw away 2 million cigarette butts. There are 170 incidents of fly tipping every day, 80 per cent of gums not put in the bin, and that costs about £18 per square foot to remove. Goodness knows how many incidents of dogfowling. It's because of statistics like those. What we can see from the evidence of our own eyes is that we should so enthusiastically support Keep Scotland Beautiful's Clean Up Scotland campaign. It is a fantastic mass engagement campaign that is working hard to make Scotland the cleanest country in Europe. Who could not sign up enthusiastically to such a vision? I know that, across the chamber, we all agree that Scotland is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. We have a rich mix of incredible, rural beauty, world-class cities and vibrant urban developments. In order to protect and enhance our country's natural advantages, it is vital to support campaigns like this. The Clean Up Scotland campaign works across all 32 local authorities and has at its heart the aim to try and change people's attitudes and their long-term behaviour towards litter. All of Scotland's 32 local authorities, as you might expect, have thrown their weight behind the campaign, as have organisations such as Visit Scotland, Historic Scotland, BT, Scottish Water, SSE and the Scottish Government, who are also supporters of the campaign. The campaign also has substantial business support, building up an impressive coalition of the willing, motivating more than 80 local, national and global brands to invest in the campaign messages. Those include McDonald's, who have signed the Clean Up Scotland pledge supported by all stores and 13 franchisees who organised cleanups, Bid Scotland, Greggs and Coca-Cola. The Clean Up Scotland campaign is leading community clean-up activities across the country to tackle carelessness and illegal behaviour of those individuals who damage our quality of life and tarnish the country's image. The campaign has seen 500,000 voluntary clean-up actions, picking up 5,000 tonnes of litter. That is two quite impressive sets of statistics for different reasons, obviously. Keep Scotland Beautiful rightly wants to change long-term behaviour by making dropping litter as socially unacceptable as drink driving is today. Of course, the problem is not simply just the visual one. There are social health and financial consequences, as well as environmental considerations. The current cost of dealing with the problem of litter in Scotland alone is more than £1 million per week. Social health is a proven link between environmental disabilities and the fear of crime. People feel safer in cleaner communities. Our health is also affected by higher levels of depression, illness and medical interventions among people who live in areas that are not clean. Finally, there are severe financial consequences, too, for the householder directly in their pocket, their council tax. A big chunk of that has to go and be spent on issues such as this, and landowners spending significant sums of money clearing mess from their own land. Those of you who know me well know that tourism is something that I care passionately about. It is an industry that is worth more than £4 billion a year to Scotland. Scenery and landscapes is one of the top reasons that people give for visiting Scotland. First impressions are that people have. When they visit our country, they are hugely important. People visiting Scotland do not want to see streets full of litter, walls covered in unsightly graffiti or flag-tipping along the side of our country roads. Cleaning up Scotland is helping to make sure that our villages, towns and cities are kept as clean as possible so that people can enjoy what Scotland has to offer without having to worry about an unclean environment around them. One of the ways that Cleaning up Scotland goes about that is through the Hero of a Month award, which recognises a volunteer's outstanding contribution to cleaning up Scotland. In my own constituency of Stirling, Donald Holmes won the award in December 2014. Donald was an awarded hero of the month for his outstanding individual efforts to collect and recycle litter around the village of Baclywy. Stilling Council nominated Donald, who is to date corrected around 90 bags of rubbish and is now starting to recycle the collected waste. People like Donald are inspirational. His work will hopefully encourage others to work in the same quiet, efficient manner and make a difference to the local and therefore national environment. Members like Donald keep Scotland beautiful and all those involved with Cleaning up Scotland do a job that often goes unnoticed. The most recent initiative from Cleaning up Scotland in 2015 will be the 2-minute cleanup, which will campaign under the hashtag 2-minute cleanup for all us Twitter users. The campaign aims to encourage those who may not have time to participate properly in a longer cleanup. Instead, Cleaning up Scotland is providing people with bespoke recycling bags that they can easily use to collect litter for two minutes a day. When we see litter on the streets, we rightly complain about it. However, when we don't and instead we see clean streets, we usually think nothing of it. That is due to the hard work of organisations such as Scotland's councils to keep Scotland beautiful and their cleanup Scotland campaign. I applaud them for helping to keep Scotland and make it beautiful. Excellent. I now move to the open debate. I call on Christine Grahame to be followed by Jackie Baillie four minutes or thereby please. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I congratulate Bruce Crawford on securing this debate and on Keep Scotland Beautiful campaign, because the issue of public dropping litter is one of my bugbears. A head, incidentally, of queue jumpers in the supermarket or motorists who can see that lane ahead is blocked but expect to nudge in when they have reached the ball-ards. That makes it pretty high as a bugbear. Whether it is school children dropping the baked potato or pizza box, the parent letting their child drop lollipop wrappers or worse, doing it themselves in front of their children, the motorist gaily rolling down the window and brazenly emptying the ashtray, I see red. Logoed carrier bags waving at me from the trees, stuck on fences, the debris, the detritus on our shores, I would wish we could name and shame big time the culprits. I went on a trip to Bruges some years ago and settled myself in the square to people watch as I coughed a light lager to wash down some muscles. The square is quaint and apart from the horse-drawn tourist carriages, and by the way, the horses have a special chute attachment to catch their detritus, it's a people place. But there was something very different about the scene apart from the above and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, then I realised there was not one single piece, nay, even a speck of litter. Could any of us say the same for any square or main street in our constituencies? Some even think it macho, a macho gesture to throw litter, no wonder we call them litter louts. Visually it is vandalism with a capital V. It also costs in money and manpower. Midlothian Council spends approximately £850,000 a year on litter removal and street sweeping. It has alone 250 instances of fly tipping from the single item that ubiquitous mattress or the saggy bottom sofa to tipping on an industrial scale. It costs in animal welfare. Discarded fishing tackle causes misery for swans, plastic bags, choked livestock, fish in our seas have their very DNA altered by our disposal of chemical waste. For farmers additionally to the issue of livestock harm, there is a substantial issue of fly tipping, which affects farmers across the borders of Midlothian. It is estimated that some one-third of farms are affected. I may be wrong in this, cabinet secretary, but I understand that it is the landowner who is responsible for the cost of the removal. I am many faults, deputy Presiding Officer, as you know, but being guilty of littering is not one. We have laws, of course, but many are unaware of them and who always has the confidence to confront the culprit. Until society views littering with the same abhorrence and distaste as it says, spitting in public, I am afraid that we will never see the clingliness of bruise here. To put it succinctly, if I were a guest on the television programme Room 101, I would advocate depositing litter, all litter. I have that off my chest, but welcome the continuing work of Keith Scotland, beautiful and hope, though I have to say with this caveat not a great deal of optimism that I need not rant on this issue again. Again, I congratulate Bruce Crawford on bringing forward this debate. Excellent. I now call on Jackie Baillie to be followed by Graham Day. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I too join in congratulating Bruce Crawford on securing debating time and indeed for the content of his contribution? They do say that timing is everything in politics, so we should perhaps note to the reception for Keith Scotland, beautiful in the garden lobby at six o'clock and welcome the clean-up Scotland champions from all across the country to Parliament this evening, and their efforts should indeed be applauded. There is no doubt that we live in a beautiful country. I am proud to have Scotland's first national park in my constituency, shared in part with Bruce Crawford. Loch Lomond is of course iconic and draws visitors from home as well as abroad. We have the most amazing landscapes, dramatic coastlines and just occasionally nice weather to go with it, but of course the blot on our landscape is litter. The stats do bear repeating because I didn't realise the scale of the problem, the 250 million visible items every year. When you actually think about as you're driving along looking at the grass verges, looking at the hedges, you actually begin to understand the scale of the problem that we face. I couldn't believe that there were 170 incidents of fly tipping every day. I suspect that that is the tip of the iceberg, that's only what we know about. It isn't just the grass verges and the hedges, it's the city streets that are littered with whether it's detritus from food or cigarettes or indeed anything like that. I was struck by the example that Christine Grahame gave of Bruges. I actually grew up in Hong Kong. We ran litter campaigns. There weren't so many grass verges there, but we actually had a purple dragon called Lopsapchung and as a child I was most fearful of this purple dragon appearing, but I'll tell you the streets in Hong Kong are absolutely spotless and there is maybe something we can learn from what goes on there. Indeed, sometimes in this chamber we could do with that dragon back to handle you. I would suggest that that's the role of the Presiding Officer, not that I'm suggesting that he is a purple dragon. When you consider the culture that we seem to have, of just drop it behind you, leave it behind, throw it out of the car window, it is perhaps not astonishing that we have the scale of the problem that we do. Keep Scotland Beautiful and the Clean-up Scotland campaign are absolutely vital. The fact that they have encouraged an army of volunteers—yes, that includes many of us—to undertake the scale of voluntary activity, the 300 clean-ups every month, the picking up thousands of litter is just fantastic. I know because I have participated and I have to confess that it's not just about doing something that's useful for the environment, it's great exercise and you absolutely switch off from the myriad things that we have going on in our heads. I was at Levengrove Park, I was at the beach at Dumbarton, yes, we have one, I was at Dumbarton Castle on the banks of the Clyde, there have been litter picks in Helensborough, there is a litter pick in Lus on the banks of Loch Lomond on the 7th of March, I invite you all along to participate, it will be fun. But I commend the Keep Scotland Beautiful campaign, not just for the mass engagement that they have encouraged, but because they have brought together communities, local authorities, the public sector, the third sector businesses, they have had a great job in putting everybody together to take co-ordinated action. As we have heard from Bruce, 80 local national and global brands, McDonalds, Greggs, William Tracy, Wrigley's, Coca-Cola Enterprises, all recognising that we need to do more. It isn't just the visual impact of what is known as environmental incivility, the issue is a lesson of civic pride, a negative impact on wildlife, both on land and marine areas, negative health and social justice outcomes. I'm conscious of time, but let me mention an impact on farms in my area, because I was approached by the national farmers union of Scotland. They reported dogfowling in fields having huge impact on the wellbeing of livestock, with cattle miscarrying on a regular basis. I understand that perhaps there is a consultation, if I'm right, being undertaken, but I would be pleased to hear from the cabinet secretary about what more can be done to prevent this in future, because it is an increasing problem and we do need to help. Education officers has a hugely important role to play in encouraging the next generation not to litter. I know locally that eco schools, part of what keeps Scotland beautiful, have made a huge impact. Education is about changing attitudes and behaviour. We need to make it socially unacceptable to drop litter. Our strategy needs to be about ensuring that people take personal responsibility, that they are proactive about prevention, that enforcement action is there so that those who litter are fine. Finally, not that you are a purple dragon, I congratulate Keep Scotland Beautiful on their work and commend all the volunteers and partners across Scotland for their involvement. One of the key themes to emerge from the work done by the rural affairs, climate change and the environment committee of this Parliament in relation to tackling climate change is the critical need to bring about behavioural change. We will not respond to the challenges posed by global warming, we do not take drastic action to tackle our emissions and we will only successfully tackle emissions if, as a society and individuals, we alter our behaviours. Presiding Officer, in many respects the same essentially applies to addressing the scandal of littering, a subject that I know you take a personal interest in. As the Scottish Government's litter strategy towards a litter-free Scotland has almost as its mission statement, we need to encourage individuals to take personal responsibility to make sure that waste does not pollute the environment in the first place. It truly is a national disgrace that a country as beautiful as Scotland is blighted by littering to the extent it is. The fact that it costs an estimated £78 million annually to clean up litter gives us an idea of the scale of the issue. That figure ultimately borne by the wee taxpayers of course also hammers home the price of behaving in what is a socially unacceptable way. However, it does just seem that, just as the public are beginning to embrace recycling, so they are getting on board and tackling the littering issue. Let me congratulate my colleague Bruce Crawford on bringing forward this motion for debate and highlighting the vehicle for positive behavioural change that KSB's Clean Up Scotland campaign is. The campaign has attracted a coalition of support from the business community and local authorities, and I want to return to the local authority issue in a second. More than anything, it is buying from individuals and local groups, which ultimately will determine the success or otherwise of the campaign, because if the ambition to have 1 million people taking action with the demonstrable impact that will have on our environment is realised, we will find ourselves in a far better place. However, let us also recognise the leadership role that our councils must have and are fulfilling. In the local authority area, which I represent, a Clean Up Angus campaign is being supported by the Pride and Place group of the council. Funding received from Zero Waste Scotland is being deployed in two innovative litter projects. First, we will prevent litter and pick up three campaigns, which were launched earlier this month at the Westlinks area in Arbro. That aims to reduce incidences of littering between Arbro and East Haven by encouraging all users—local residents, visitors etc—to stop littering and to pick up any three items of litter that they see and place them in a nearby litter or recycling bin. Secondly, the Forth Academy litter prevention scheme, which includes adoption of a school litter charter and school pupils and staff and local business is heavily involved in developing the campaign. That followed a survey of school pupils, which found that 84 per cent felt that the area around the campus was moderately to heavily littered, and one in three admitted to littering themselves in the preceding month. We are also seeing branding of new litter bins with a Clean Up Angus logo. The campaign is being promoted via presentations at primary and high schools, free equipment and collection of waste has been offered to groups. A litter awareness short film is currently being produced, linked into the Clean Up Angus campaign. Beyond the work instigated by the council, we are also seeing the individuals and communities sticking up to the mark. Presiding Officer, I would like to highlight some examples of this. Scott Smith, a cerebral palsy sufferer from Cymru, was named Clean Up Scotland's first ever ditched-the-dirt hero in September 2013. Scott was involved in taking the lead in working with primary school pupils at Burnside school and the Canusti Canine capers group in addressing dog dirt at one of the Townspitskelly park. It is worth noting that, in passing, 64 per cent of the litter picks registered with Clean Up Scotland record instances of dog fouling. Chris Hawkinglack of the Money Feith Eco Force was named hero of the month that same month for working on improving the appearance and experience of that town. From four for Whitehall's primary school pupil, Sophie Ann Robson was awarded the Queen Up Hero Award in 2013 for her campaigning work on dog fouling. All three are due to the 10 Bruce Crawford's event in the Parliament, which follows this debate. All three have demonstrated the mantra of this campaign, demonstrating civic responsibility, taking pride in where they live, work and spend their leisure time, and we, all of us, show we must follow that weed. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I, too, congratulate Bruce Crawford on securing this important debate. I want to recognise the good work of Keep Scotland Beautiful and its Clean Up Scotland campaign. Litter in our environment can seriously impact on our quality of life, and the presence of litter sends out an incredibly bad message to visitors and tourists, many of whom are attracted to our shores by what they expect to be our pristine natural environment and well-kept villages, towns and cities, and the costs of remedying litter fall on the hard-pressed taxpayers. The motion is right to highlight the commendable efforts of those who volunteer to help clean up their communities, including many thousands of residents in my region and the Highlands and Islands. I pay tribute to all those constituents who give up their own time to undertake these activities from Quintar to Shetland. I highlight the example of Sandra Macmillan from Beachwatch Bute, who does sterling work on Bute to bring local people and visitors to the island together to remove litter from the coastline and the beach of Bute. She is a Clean Up Scotland hero, and I am delighted that she has won a number of small litter grants to assist her efforts. Tackling litter on our beaches and coastlines is a massive challenge. Sam's did a survey in 2010 and collected more than 53,000 pieces of litter from a sample of 22 kilometres of Scottish beaches. That's more than one item for every step trod. Litter can also do such harm to our wild birds and animals, and, of course, it can be lethal to farmers' livestock. The motion refers also to the role of the business community, and I'm pleased that Coca-Cola Enterprise is one of a number of businesses which readily accepts the part they can play in the cleanup of their product packaging. It's encouraging that Coca-Cola Enterprise is helping to fund and support KSB, allowing them to back up local groups who wish to tackle the scourge of litter in their communities. Things do go better with Coke. We also need to see the behaviour change to which Bruce Crawford referred, and education is the key in this respect. I support the efforts to engage primary and secondary school children about the impact of litter on their own communities. Education can help all to add up behaviour as well. Ash Scotland's briefing for today said that almost 50 per cent of our streets have some form of tobacco-related litter, including cigarette butts matched in packaging, and that this rises to 70 per cent in urban areas. Many smokers think butts will buy a grade, but they don't. And not only that, but discarded butts end up, can leak harmful toxins into our water system that can harm marine life and the environment. So we need to get the message out that tobacco-related littering is unacceptable, as indeed all types of littering is. Highland Council in my region is to be congratulated on its Stubbitt and Binit campaign, which launched last year. Now, I sometimes wish that some local councils would be more generous in aiding litter collection by volunteers. I've been chairman of the Lockhall Improvement Association in Argyll since 1992. During that time, we've organised many clean-ups by volunteers, and our wardens pick up bags of rubbish off the lockshore every week. But Argyll and Bygley, the Association has to pay £380 each for the large bins, of which we have several, and we have to pay hundreds of pounds for black bags, and we have then charged £2,300 for uplifting them. Now, the Association is doing a good job and feels it is performing a valuable voluntary service by running a litter collection locally. We feel that we should be helped by the council rather than charged for it. I would like to know what the minister's opinion is on that, but to conclude, the Scottish Conservatives are happy to give our backing to Bruce Crawford's motion, which rightly has cross-party support. We recognise the continuing efforts of Keep Scotland Beautiful and all the volunteers throughout the country, and the excellent work that is being undertaken, while also acknowledging the real challenges that we face to change behaviour of some people and move towards a situation in which littering is simply socially and culturally totally unacceptable. I, too, welcome Bruce Crawford's initiative in bringing this debate forward today. I also share his passions for tourism and for having a litter-free country. I also welcome the efforts of Keep Scotland Beautiful and General Community Scotland in efforts and campaigns to clean up individual communities across Scotland. When I first entered this Parliament in 2011, I was minded to aim to bring in a private member's bill on litter. I withdrew that intent on the commitment of the Government to bring in extended proposals to deal with the issue. As the motion points out, some steps have been clearly taken, particularly via the Clean Up Scotland campaign. That was and is good news and effective. However, Mr Crawford's motion rightly points out the scale of the problem remaining and that significant further progress requires to be made on levels of litter. Yes, that requires significant behavioural change, but it also requires further legislation, I believe, to support our objectives. I note and welcome the significant changes that the increase has made in the fixed penalties order 2013, increasing penalties in littering, flight tiffing and so on. That seems to have had some effect, but we need more. As has been said, littering is a blight on Scotland, our country. This country is a beautiful country, but litter is one of the few factors—in some cases a major factor—not just on the beauty of Scotland but also on its economy. We do not want litter to be a bad experience for our tourists or, indeed, our citizens. The £60 million of public money that is spent on tackling litter and flight tiffing each year could be spent on other services. One ton of litter represents 20,000 items, which, spread, nose to tail, extends for 12.5 miles. I know where is this more obvious than in our town centres. Oh, I wish that here where near Atun surpasses was known for honest men and boring glasses and not, in some cases, for the litter on its streets. Let me dwell on two suggestions to add to the debate on litter, particularly in our town centre areas. The dropping or spitting out of chewing gum is an offence under section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act, yet the pavements and the streets of our town centre still suffer from a chewing gum pox. That has to be eliminated. I repeat my previous suggestions in the obvious absence of the application of penalties that the local sale of non-biodegradable chewing gum attracts a levy of, let's say, an additional £10 a pack, which will be attributed to local authorities to allow them to clean up the chewing gum mess. The second suggestion is to encourage the creation of a social enterprise in each locality. Each enterprise, and I've had discussions on this and proposals on this locally, use rickshaws with bins aboard to ensure that litter outlets get the message and have the opportunity to deposit their litter appropriately. Each rickshaw rider to have a helmet-bearing webcam to record and immediately find those who continue to drop their litter in the streets. Funding could come from the £60 million that we currently spend on tackling litter. In Singapore, we may never be, but I believe that we can still make even greater strides. Certainly, we have done well and I congratulate Keep Scotland Beautiful and we have made progress, but a lot more needs to be done. Of course, I congratulate Bruce Crawford and thank him for raising this important issue in Parliament today and of course to all members for their contributions. I think that we can hear that many members have been angered by the scale of littering in Scotland and will be tied by any litter layout that comes across Christine Grahame in particular, who understandably is very angered by what we sometimes see in our communities and across Scotland's beautiful landscapes. Likewise, I look forward to welcoming many people involved in this issue from across Scotland at the reception that is being hosted after this debate.  Of course, it tarnishes our beautiful landscapes and harms public health, as many people have mentioned, and of course our wildlife. In many cases, where there are particularly extreme examples of litter, it can drag down the morale of some of Scotland's communities as well. We all, of course, agree that this is a problem that absolutely must be addressed. Many of you will identify with some of the points that I am going to say. Of course, I will do my best to reflect on some of the points that were made by members in the chamber. First and foremost, of course, is that there are many different people responsible for dealing with this issue, and our local authorities, of course, must speak the forefront of the fight against litter. Many local authorities in Scotland are doing a grand job, others perhaps do more, as some members mentioned, and I hope that they do that. There are, of course, other issues. This is not just about bottles and cans and fag packets. As some members mentioned, Jackie Baillie mentioned the issue of dogfowling, which, of course, again is a blight on some of our communities. Again, local authorities have powers to deal with that, and I would urge those who perhaps are not using existing legislation to explore whether there is more that they can do to address that issue with the existing fines that are available. Jackie Baillie Can I thank the cabinet secretary for taking an intervention? We have exchanged correspondence, and my understanding was that the legislation did not cover farmland because it was private land, and there was concern about the scope of local authorities to be able to enforce. I wonder if there is not something clever that we could do to try and help farmers with this problem. Yes, I was clearly referring to dogfowling generally, but in terms of farmland, I take the point that perhaps we should be exploring if there is more that we can do, and I will have a look at that. However, I do hope that local authorities can use existing fines that are available. However, it was part of the responsible dog ownership consultation that took place recently. We are considering the responses to that consultation, and dogfowling was part of that. One of the clear messages that came across was that there is more that needs to be done at local level with existing legislation. Emma Greggor I thank the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. Should organisations or councils wish to put out or give out plastic bags to dog owners to pick up the excrement? Will the 5P tax be charged on those plastic bags?  What I find appalling is how nowadays, when we go out into the countryside, we find little doggie bags on the post's offences that should be taken home and disposed of appropriately by dog owners. I hope that message gets across in the future. One other issue that we agree on is that the total cost is unacceptable to society of littering. As many members have said, it is £78 million a year. At least £53 million of this is direct clear-up costs, and a further £25 million through its effect on a range of other issues such as crime, health and reduced property values. Over and above that, there is a further cost to the marine environment of £16.8 million each and every year. Of course, that impacts on our environment, wildlife industry and tourism. As Jamie MacGregor said, marine litter is not just about the impact on marine wildlife, it is also a significant issue for the fishing industry. Vessels participating in the fishing for litter initiative landed over 374 tonnes of litter between 2011 and 2014, and it is estimated that the problem costs every vessel in the Scottish fleet as much as £17,000 annually, which is quite considerable. Of course, all of that cash could be spent on better things, especially when you consider the discarded plastic bottles that we see or aluminium cans and other materials are said to be worth an estimated £1.2 million when recycled. If we reuse the resources that are dumped in our pavements and communities or at sea, we could get millions of pounds back from the value of those valuable materials. In addressing the litter problem, the national litter strategy and the marine litter counterpart, which we launched last summer, also seeks to boost our economy. The priority remains prevention, and it provides a focus to strategy for all of us to take responsibility over the next four years. That is being supported by our delivery partner Zero Waste Scotland. Zero Waste Scotland has already made £1.5 million available to keep Scotland Beautiful's clean-up Scotland campaign. Keep Scotland Beautiful, of course, has many, many challenges to deal with, not least cleaning up the mess left by litter louts in Scotland, but it is, of course, quite rightly relying on local action taken by individuals, groups and businesses and councils. I am particularly pleased that clean-up Scotland is celebrating local champions, like, for instance, young Brona Dallas from Elgin, in my constituency, who picks up litter every day on her way home from school or to school. Indeed, the Northern Scotland reported that the first thing that she does when she gets home, before she does her homework, is to go on a litter pick on the streets around her home. It goes on to say the article in the Northern Scotland and she even drags her mum and other family members out on litter picks after school and weekends. Brona, of course, is an inspiration to her generation and, indeed, to the rest of us in Scotland and is a worthy local champion, as indeed are the many people mentioned but other members in the chamber today. I should also mention Pete Miners in my constituency, who patrols the River Lossy and has done for many, many years picking up marine litter and he puts on Facebook the pictures of what he finds. It is absolutely phenomenal the piles of marine litter and other litter that he collects on his daily walks along the River Lossy banks. With around half a million volunteer clean-ups taking place across Scotland, tens of thousands of tonnes of litter have been removed, so we owe a huge debt to the many hundreds of thousands of volunteers across Scotland. That is a great achievement, but we still have a situation where one in five adults admit to littering and therefore the problem persists. We have to also remember that Keep Scotland Beautiful and our local authorities are not the only organisations with interests and responsibilities in this area. This is something that we all have to be part of, organisations, individuals and indeed the private sector as well. I recently visited a McDonald's restaurant in Elgin, where, of course, they undertake some activities around the restaurant in the neighbouring streets to collect litter, and it is really important that our private sector continues to play their part as well. In summary, the strategy that the Government has launched has three routes for dealing with the problem of litter in Scotland. First, communication, highlighting what to do and explaining that litter is unacceptable. Secondly, making sure that the appropriate infrastructure is available for people to deposit their litter. Thirdly, enforcement as a deterrent to make people stop and think. We have already introduced higher fixed penalties, £80 for littering and £200 for fly-tipping to strengthen the deterrent. We have, of course, got the carrier bag charged in place now, which should, I hope, fully keep bags from being discarded in our streets, because people will be using bags for life, and there will be less bags circulating in our society, hopefully. Of course, we had the national marketing campaign in 2014 as well, and there are on-going communications to keep this issue in the public eye. Finally, we are rolling out recycling the go points across some of Scotland's most busiest places. To sum up, I welcome this debate. It is a really important issue for Scotland. I hope that we continue to work and collaborate across society to make this socially unacceptable, as many members have said. It is socially unacceptable. It is a vandalism in Scotland's environment and in Scotland's communities. We have to deal with it, so let's please keep working together, as Proust Crawford says, and keep Scotland beautiful.


The state legislative session begins later this month and today two senators put their focus on putting an end to abuse and neglect of elderly by caregivers. In January, state officials said it will take at least six months to clear a massive backlog of abuse compliance at senior care facilities around the state. State senators Kerry Roode of Bruise Point and Karen Housley of St. Mary's Point held a listening session at Central Lakes College in Brainerd today to hear stories from those affected. Roode and Housley both serve on the Senate Aging and Long-Term Care Policy Committee with Housley the Chairwoman. She says it's a high priority for this legislative session to implement the use of cameras in living spaces and notify families if their loved one is involved in a report of abuse, neglect or assault. This is my mission and I will stay on all the state agencies. I will stay on the facilities and I will work with the family members and I will make sure that everything that that that we need to get done will get done this session. From the cameras we'll have some some policy work legislation that will make sense. So it is it is I am on this and it is my top priority this session is to protect our vulnerable adults. The Minnesota Department of Human Services took over 2,000 cases dating back years that have never been investigated due to staff shortages and outdated technology. They hope to resolve them in 6 to 12 months. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland news please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


The Synchrony Cochlear Implant System is designed to restore hearing to individuals with severe to profound sensory neural hearing loss. Individuals with this type of hearing loss have serious difficulty hearing and may not hear at all, or may only be able to hear very loud sounds. The Synchrony Cochlear Implant System consists of the externally worn RONDO 2 audio processor and the internal Synchrony Cochlear Implant. The RONDO 2 audio processor is worn comfortably off the ear. The Synchrony Implant is surgically placed under the skin and a flexible electrode array is inserted into the cochlea. The cochlea is the part of the inner ear that converts sound waves into nerve signals, which the brain processes as hearing. The apical region of the cochlea is responsible for detecting low-pitched sounds, while the basal region is responsible for detecting high-pitched sounds. The cochlea is lined with thousands of sensory cells, known as hair cells, which detect sound waves and send sound information as nerve signals through the auditory nerve to the brain. For individuals with severe to profound sensory neural hearing loss, most of these hair cells do not function normally and are not able to send these nerve signals properly. A cochlear implant system bypasses these non-functioning hair cells by using electrical pulses to send sound signals directly to the auditory nerve. To achieve this, the RONDO 2 audio processor detects environmental sounds and digitally converts them into coded electrical signals. RONDO 2 transmits these signals through the skin to the implant by a communication coil. The implant translates these coded signals into electrical pulses, which are transmitted along the electrode array to stimulate specific locations of the cochlea responsible for specific pitches. The targeted stimulation across the whole cochlea provides a more accurate pitch perception for better sound quality. By mimicking the natural function of hair cells, these pulses can deliver sound signals directly to the auditory nerve. These signals are then transmitted by the auditory nerve to the brain, where they are interpreted as sound. The advanced technology of the Synchrony Cochlear Implant System enables our recipients with severe to profound sensory neural hearing loss to enjoy their best possible hearing.


What's going on, everyone? Sam here with late in sports cards. We are ripping 21-22 Donras Optic basketball choice 10 box break number one tiered random teams. Here's a look again at your random results. As always, you can find these on the website under the results tab, as well as the link in chat. Good luck, everyone. Let's do some optic choice. Stuff's fun, man. Full Nebula. Forest pulls all the Nebulas out of prison choice, so see if I can do the Nebula out of optic choice. That would be cool. I would be very happy with that. Nice. Franz Wagner Hollow. There you go, Magic. We've got Otto as Io DeSoonmu. Rookie Otto going to the Bulls. Very nice. Grats on that. Congrats, Chicago. Ethan S. Very nice. Choice Exclusive is going to be Buddy Heald going to the Kings. We've got nice. John Morant. That is 65 out of 88 going to the Gris. Congrats, Gris. That's sick, man. Christopher S. Followed by our rookies on the back, Jalen Johnson and Herbert Jones. That will do it for box one. Let's do box two. Good luck here, guys. Probably Katie. It releases on Friday, so we might have the breaks up. I don't know if we're doing PYTs for it or just doing random. Usually, we'll do PYTs like in the morning on release day, so we probably have some PYTs up right now. Clay Thompson. Hollow. Got JT Thor. That's going to the Hornets. Not numbered. Rated Rookie Otto. There you go, Hornets. Got D. Aaron Fox going to the Kings on the Choice Exclusive. Here you go, Sacramento. We've got Cam Johnson. That is 63 out of 88. Followed by a Corey Kispert and a Jalen Green. Very nice. Congrats on that, Rockets. That was Alexandros. Yes, congrats, Alexandros. We've got a dragon scale coming up, guys. Got an Ant-Man second-year hollow. Got a Santi Aldema. That is Rookie Otto going to the Grizzlies. No problem, Chris. Nice. Dragon scales. Dennis Schroeder. A little bit of a color match there going to the Celtics. There you go, Boston. Ryan C on a tier two hit. Norman Powell. That's 48 out of 88. 45 out of 88. Going to the Trail Blazers on your Mojo Exclusive. Followed by your Rookies. Usman Garuba for the Rockets. And Luca Garza for the Pistons. There you go, Rockets and Pistons. Congrats. We are on to box five. Box four. Box four. D. Aaron Fox-Silver. Got Kendrick Perkins going to the Celtics on the Opticraps. Not numbered. Very nice, Boston. Nice one here. Barton B picking up A. Isaiah Jackson on the Dragon Scale. Very cool, man. Rated Rookie Dragon Scale. Very cool. Paul George going to be your exclusive. That is 49 out of 88. Going to the Clips. And your Rookies on the back. Santi Aldema for the Grizzlies. And a Josh Giddy going to the Thunder. There you go. Okay, see. Pick up a nice Giddy. Always fun. All right. We got James Wiseman-Silver. We've got D. Aaron Sharp on the Rated Rookie. Choice Exclusive Rated Rookie. No, they're just short printed, Barton. Oh, I agree with that. Who said that? Slaughter or slot? Yeah, they're just short printed. You usually get three or four Ks probably. Got D. Angelo Russell on the Choice Exclusive for the Timberwolves. Got to 88. That is 34 out of 88. Keon Johnson and Rookie for the Clippers. There you go, L.A. Got Scottie Lewis. And we've got David Johnson on your Rookie. I guess Choice Exclusives or Rookie Rhett Mojo Exclusives. I'll fill these up one nothing. We've got McCall Bridges-Silver. That is Ooh, Redemption. Do I have my- Oh, that actually looks cool. This next one's actually kind of funny. We've got Donor's Optic. Optograph's Choice. Card number 28 of Zion Williamson. Wow. Christopher S. on the Tier 2 hit with the Zion. Heck yeah, dude. We'll take that. Nice. Christopher, congrats, buddy. That's actually kind of what was not expecting a Zion auto to come out of this whatsoever. Heck yeah.  Got DeMarja Rosen on the Photon Air. Choice Exclusive. That's actually kind of cool. There you go, Bulls. Got Chris Ops for Zingis. That is 7 out of 88. Going to the Mavs, the one-off Jersey Number.  There you go. Rats on those Jazz and Kings. Nebula, where you at? Jamal Murray-Silver. We've got Tyus Jones on the Optograph's Auto. That's going to the Grizzlies. There you go, Memphis. Christopher S. Robert Covington. It's going to be your Choice Exclusive. Not numbered. That is going to the Trail Blazers. Nice one here. 38 out of 88. Chuma O'Keeke. Going to the Magic. There you go, Orlando Alexandros S. We've got rookies of Jeremiah Robinson Earl for the Thunder, followed by a Jonathan Kaminga. Going to the Warriors. There you go, Golden State. Nice Kaminga.  Mellow Ball. Silver. No Nebula. Nice, Rookie Auto. Going to the Spurs. That's Joe Weisskamp on the Optograph's. No, it's numbered on that one. Roshan Holmes. It's going to be your Choice Exclusive. Not numbered. Red and green. Nice. 78 out of 88. That's Quentin Grimes on your Red Exclusive. This time it is a rookie. There you go, Nix. Nice second tier two hit for Fod H. And we've got Evan Mobley Rookie and a Greg Brown. There you go, Cavs and Blazers. Very solid. Jeremiah Robinson Earl on the Hollow Rookie. Followed by, nice. Going to Denver. Bones Highland on the Red Mojo Rookie Auto. Congrats on that Denver. We've got the nuggets. That would be Stan L. Congrats, Stan. Red Van Vleet. Going to be your Choice Exclusive. Red, green. The Raptors. That's 57 out of 88. That's Jamal Murray. Going to the Nuggets again. Nuggets having a great box here. Rookies, JT Thor going to the Hornets. And Alfred Shingoon going to the Rockets. Last box of the break. Good luck, everyone. Follow rookie Joe Weisskamp. We've got nice. Jonathan Kaminga on the Rookie Auto. I read Rookie Red Mojo Auto. There you go again, Golden State. That is Eric R. picking up Jonathan Kaminga. KPJ, recently extended KPJ for the Rockets on the Red Green. Got the Lanzo Vault. That is to 88. Going to the Bulls. 26 out of 88. Nice Lanzo. And we've got on your rookies, Quentin Grimes for the Knicks. And Franz Wagner for the Magic. There you go. That'll do it for the break, guys. Quick recap here. We've got Jonathan Kaminga going to the Warriors. That's Bones Highland going to the Nuggets. Joe Weisskamp, Spurs. Tyus Jones, Grizzlies. Neyron Sharp, Nets. Kendrick Perkins, Celtics. Santee Altima, Grizzlies. JT Thor, Hornets. Io Desumu, Bulls. Isaiah Jackson, Dragon Scale. And Dionne Williamson going to the Pelicans. That'll do it for the break, guys. Thanks again for the fill. Next up, we've got 10 Box Tuesday. Let's do it.


I was a part of the Assessing Uranium Contamination on the Navajo Nations. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I was thrilled to get this opportunity through the EPSCORE program and it fulfilled all of my expectations and more so it was an awesome summer and I was flabbergasted that I got it but once I got it and got there it was a great experience. I would definitely recommend it to anyone that was wanting an internship or just more experience in anything you wanted to do. Hi my name is Sherwin Vicente and I'm currently an undergraduate student at Navajo Technical University and my major is Environmental Science and Natural Resources. My STEM app experience was great. I was able to go out into the field in Arizona and collect samples and take it back to New Mexico Tech and analyze them. I think that was the biggest thing that I enjoyed the most was actually going out into the field and going back to the lab and analyzing the samples that we needed. Anybody that's in the environmental science or even the STEM field needs to take advantage of this program. Offers great benefits and best of all you get the great experience. Hello my name is Tiberi Chi. I'm a third year student at Navajo Technical University. My STEM experience was, it was very interesting. It changed my perspective. My internship was the Economic Science Department. So it was something different. I do, I study environmental science and it was nice to see the economic side of it, to see a different perspective and how everything relates. So it was really interesting. I had a great time. It's a great way to meet new people. It's a great way to network and it might even help you manage jobs. So I would recommend it to every student. It's a wonderful experience. I'm transferring to ENMU this fall. I worked on the bioalcohol project. I had a really great time this summer. The STEM app program is wonderful and you learn a lot. And I would definitely recommend it to everyone. Do it.


He wins it up top to Penelunborg. Down low, now back up top. See if they can get a shot off here on this 5-1-3. There's a shot safe. Rebell poked around. Steve isn't able to keep it in. Penelunborg, he'll shoot another one. That one is blocked. Rebellion in the near corner, played up. Now it's a 5-on-4. Up top, nice pass. Here comes a shot directed. Score! Play goal and the Mustangs are back in it. Zarchek first through the line. But it is a 2-1 game. Let's take a look at that replay. Excellent job here. The shot and a redirect there. Oh, that was pretty. Nice redirection there, and it's 2-1. Face off 1 by Elmira. They dump it in.


Just how to be a professional and how to study film and just like, you know, just out here is just gonna feel just honing in your craft. How do you like the group? You got some new additions or not? Still fair to know, but it's some really good young kids in here, you know, with the rookies coming in and I think Peevee's really coming along. So, I mean, we got a really talented group. What did you do first part of the offseason? Well, like the first, like the first couple of days? Yeah, when you first got, well, when you first got, I walked out of here in January. Oh, I went to Iceland. What was that like? That was really cool. It was really nice. I got to see some really good friends from college. So, it's a good experience. It's kind of like a college friend's trip. Yeah. And then as far as working, what did you work and what did you do to maybe get better? Okay, what I did better to get off in the offseason. I mean, obviously I was training here and I was just out there training, you know, just a lot of cardio, a lot of running, a lot of lifting. Weight, strength, all that the same? Yeah, pretty much for me. Yeah. Okay, thanks, Matt. Yeah. Karen, now that you do have signed the tender, how much are you looking forward to this year to try to see how much of a step you can take in your game? I mean, it's a really important year and I'm super excited, you know, I'm super excited to be around the building. I mean, I think it's extremely important because obviously this is the last year from like on my contract. So, I'm just excited to see where it goes and I'm really excited to go up and get some new competition. That's pretty awesome. There's a report out while you guys are practicing that DeAndre Hopkins is going to be visiting you guys on Sunday. Just kind of curious what your thoughts on them, kind of watching him over the years as a player and what you think of him? I think he's a great player, but I don't know all the details, but he's just a great player and he's somebody I definitely watched before and he makes some really nice plays, so definitely. What's it like dealing with the highs and lows of practices and then obviously you had a good day today? How would you take from a day like today and what you've done so far here? Yeah, we got a support team because I struggled with a little bit of perfectionism, you know, and we got a great support team, Dr. Manu.  And like today, we were just like just going through some different mental exercises, telling myself, reassuring myself through our practice, even after the good plays, just reassuring myself and letting myself know that, you know, it's in the past. Let's make another one. Let's do it again. Let's let it go. Let's do it again. So no, it's been a fun time seeing myself change in that way mentally. What do you feel like you're making progress not here and it's not easy, but more comfortable for you each day? Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. It definitely is as long as I keep learning the playbook like I'm learning and studying and I'm getting more comfortable and it's a little bit easier to let those mistakes go because I'm ready for that next rep. One of the things people tell you.  You know what I'm saying? Do you feel like this, this D line specifically is very versatile? How, where do you see that?  Take a lot of pride in you. All right.


Now let's look at the overall architecture of diameter and the nodes and the agents which are used to realize the communication between client and server and between peers themselves. The network architecture for diameter is based on certain entities which are known as peers which could be a client or a server or even agents. Let's start with the agents first. The most important agent that allows the communication between client and server to be realized is the relay agent. It roots messages from the client to the server and from one intermediate relay agent even to the other intermediate relay agent. In order to make sure that the diameter messages are actually successfully delivered between the client and the server, it uses routing information which comes in the received message. It is known as the destination real application value pair. Now this value pair is actually a tuple that contains information regarding the destination, regarding the source, regarding additional information that we've already covered. Now this relay agent is actually performing kind of routing activity. So it is at one point in time connected to multiple IP networks. So this means the scope of the diameter protocol spans multiple IP subnet. Since the relay agent is only going to relay the diameter messages, it is transparent or we can say it does not alter the diameter messages. However, it must advertise its own application ID because all the agents have to work with some compatible diameter version and protocol. So for that, the application ID in this case, for instance, if it is going to be all ones are transmitted to show that this particular variant of the application ID is available at the moment by relay agent. If it changes in that case, the application ID means that this relay agent is going to work specifically for a certain diameter protocol. The next agent is the proxy agent as we understand proxy is usually an entity that works on behalf of someone else. So in that case, it could be a proxy for the client or it could be a proxy for the server. Now the proxy also has to perform forwarding, which is quite similar to the relay agent. However, there is some difference. The proxy agent actually routes or forwards the messages through a mechanism known as the diameter routing table. Now this diameter routing table actually is the lookup table, which is consulted to compare the forwarding decision. The only difference which is here in proxy agents is that the proxy agent is now going to alter. It can alter the diameter message contents, so it means depending upon what is coming in, if it has to work on behalf of the client or the server, it can change the contents of the message like it can append its own ID. While doing so, it also maintains state of its downstream peers, that is, the messages which are coming from certain clients are requesting this proxy to work on their behalf, so it has to maintain a log of which clients are making its specific request. And then it also, similar to the relay agent, advertises its own version and its own ID because the policy needs to be enforced for a certain diameter protocol. Then we have the redirect agent. It is used where usually the routing information is not stored, is not available with the relay agent or with the proxy agent, rather it is stored on a central location. So in that case, every node, whether it's a redirect, it's a proxy agent or a relay agent will have to consult the redirect agent. So it means the redirect agent is not going to forward or relay the information to any peer or any agent, rather it is just going to reply and provide information with to whom the information has to be forwarded to. Like the relay agent and the proxy agent, the redirect agent also needs to advertise its own application ID. Then lastly we have the translation agent. As the name suggests, it translates the diameter messages to backward compatible for backward compatibility to radius messages and vice versa. So this makes sure that the earlier versions of AAA protocols and services are also applicable within one administrative domain. Let's finally look at the relationship between the client and server, which is realized through a series of agents. We have the diameter client, which has realm A, the server which has realm B, then we have the request which is being initiated from the client. You can see that it is numbered as one, two, three, four, five, six. However, these two are different. The one that we see here is once no redirection is involved, then it is simply from the client to the server via either a relay or the proxy agent. So you see here that from one realm to the other, the message is sent in a undirected or in a straight manner. But once redirection is required, in that case, the path or the route is now determined by the redirect agent. The redirect agent is not routing itself, but it is only providing information on to which agent, whether relay or proxy, the information has to be forwarded to. So in that case, you see that we have to follow the sequence of one, two, three, four, five and six. Now this is an interesting situation that you can always expect that what if a certain transport of diameter message fails. In that case, an alternate diameter peer that is another relay agent is utilized. However, since it is failover activity, in that case, the rerouting is done with a t-bit set that actually means that this particular message is now being delivered on an alternate path. So this keeps the network administrators fully aware of what is going on in their network.