Just this June 2023, a rare five-unit townhouse building in West Village, New York City popped up on the market for $16.5 million, one that also has a celebrity history. While he didn't own the place, the late actor James Gandolfini, best known for playing Tony Soprano on our TV screens, rented a stunning and spacious unit here for quite some time in 2009 while he was appearing on Broadway. At the time of his passing in 2013, James owned a $1.5 million main residence in California, New Jersey, a stunning New York City apartment which spanned over 3,000 square feet of space, and even an estate across the pond in Italy which he kept very private. In 2017, James Gandolfini's luxurious apartment located in the West Village area of New York City went up for sale at $7.5 million, but in the end, the place sold a year later for $6.2 million. Sadly, James passed suddenly at age 51 after suffering a heart attack while on vacation in Italy with his family. The beloved actor was well-known for his legendary portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on HBO's hit show The Sopranos. His one-time apartment in West Village spanned a spacious 3,300 square feet and came complete with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. He had lived in the large loft unit with his former wife Marcy Wodarski, who's the mother of his son Michael. While he had remarried since then, the former couple spent many years creating this home by combining two separate units they purchased. James first purchased one apartment here for $850,000 in 1999, and then successfully snagged another unit shortly after for just over $1 million. James and Marcy were able to combine the two apartments together into one larger and even nicer one before they split in 2002. Later on, however, public records show that James transferred the two spaces, apartments 2G and 2H, from him to Marcy. The loft was being sold by Realtor Julie Reprec to Explained at the time. This is where Jim raised his son. He was a wonderful kind person who took the time for everyone. Much of the space in the apartment took on a contemporary feel with an open-plan layout and high 10-foot ceilings. There were also a lot of clean white walls and large windows to let in plenty of natural light, especially in the 30-foot living room which was flanked by windows. Elsewhere, there was a separate den too. Other highlights of this apartment included a master suite boasting a large attached bath with jacuzzi, a separate shower and custom fit walk-in closets, and elsewhere in the unit, two sets of washers and dryers in a cozy office. One of the other features of James' former apartment was the outdoor terrace which created a hidden oasis within the urban landscape of New York City. This gave the family a private retreat where the actor could unwind and soak up the city's energy. Lush greenery, comfortable seating, and breathtaking views made it an ideal spot for both solitude and socializing. Living in a neighborhood like West Village, Gandolfini had access to a wealth of amenities from trendy restaurants and boutique shops to cultural landmarks and theaters. The vibrant energy of New York City was right at his doorstep. Just recently, a building in New York City with quite the history popped for sale at $16.5 million. Located in the desirable West Village neighborhood, this unassuming wide townhouse boasts more than meets the eye. The building itself is the only original in the block dating almost 200 years back and was built back in 1835 being an associate of the Rothschild family. The 25-foot-wide townhouse building was constructed in a Greek revival style and while it served once as a single-family home, now it's a five-apartment dwelling. Back in the day, it was actually home to the well-known robber Jay Gold, one of the richest men in 19th century America, who made his money speculating in real-worlds and often thought to control the stock market. But regardless of that history, James Gandolfini called this building home, renting out a stunning unit here back in 2009 when he was in Broadway and used it as a study or home away from home so he could get into character. His one-time unit was located on the second floor and offered 11-foot ceilings, making the space feel super large and open, as well as two decorative fireplaces to cozy up the place. James also had access to a large 625-square-foot private terrace, which is rare in New York City. Meanwhile, the building as a whole had a massive 2,300 square feet of outdoor space between the flat roof and multiple terraces. James' former apartment here, as well as all the rest, had their own laundry, individual air conditioning, high-end appliances, including in the kitchen, as well as marble kitchens and bathrooms. The building was last sold in 2005 to Lea Pollard, an artist and sculptor who renovated and updated each of the building's five apartments, as well as a medical office on the garden level and a cellar. The building also has the potential to be turned back into a single-family residence or combining apartments to make bigger dwellings. The parlor level offers the original curved staircase and 13.5-foot ceilings and both a studio unit with floor-to-ceiling windows and the original shutters, as well as a one-bedroom loft-style unit at the back with designer kitchen, a mezzanine loft, and a spacious landscape terrace. The parlor floor, the formal sitting room, and what was stunning library in Gold's time could be restored to a 77-foot-long singular space by combining the front and back units, passing Gandolfini's former unit up on the third floor. There's a one-bedroom unit with views for the gardens and above that, the fourth floor, which offers two bedrooms and some bright skylights. Also in 2009, James purchased a family home outside of the Big Apple in the posh seclusion of California, New Jersey, and the wooded hills of Tuke'sbury. He and his then-wife-former model, Deborah Lynn, closed on the property in summer of that year for $1.5 million. While he kept this family residence quite under wraps in order to have some at-home privacy, records show the two-story colonial-style home was constructed in 2006 and sold on 8.76 acres of sprawling land. Inside, the mansion-sized home spent 5,577 square feet with five bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. Other features we know James' former home offered included two two-story fireplaces, high cathedral ceilings in many rooms, high-quality finishes, and roomy living areas. James and his wife's former master suite offered a serene escape with luxurious amenities. The backyard provided a private oasis with landscaped gardens, a patio, and more. A perfect retreat for relaxation and entertainment. Not only was there a jacuzzi outside, there was also an in-ground swimming pool and a sunroom, as well as an open-style porch attached to the home. The one-time Gandolfini residence was invisible from the road and offered plenty of seclusion. According to Gandolfini's publicist Angela Tarantino, the actor had been commuting from Tuxbury to Manhattan for a one-hour drive where he was performing on Broadway in God of Carnage. Prior to this, the late Sopranos star previously lived in a 150-year-old colonial on 34 acres in Chester Township. Gandolfini also owned a property in Italy embracing his heritage and love for the country. Details about this specific residence, including its location and characteristics, aren't widely available. However, it's known that Gandolfini cherished his Italian roots and valued a connection to his ancestral land. It's also said that after his passing, the Italy estate was left to his children. Throughout his life, James Gandolfini enjoyed acquiring properties that reflected his refined taste, as well as his desire for privacy. Whether it was one of his sophisticated New York City apartments, his grand house in New Jersey, or his Italian retreat, his property showed his appreciation for fine craftsmanship, luxury amenities, and a comfortable yet stylish living environment. James' real estate portfolio not only exemplified his success in the entertainment industry, but also allowed him to create havens that represented his personal style and provided a sense of tranquility amid the demands of his profession. Although he's no longer with us, his remarkable properties stand as a testament to his legacy and his eye for exceptional residences, especially to raise a family. That's gonna bring today's James Gandolfini house tour to a close, but before we go, answer this question for me. Is there any character from a TV show you adored so much because of the way an actor portrayed them? Let me know in the comments below. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and follow me on Instagram to chat. I'm Cara the Vampire Slayer, and if you'd like to check out another tour before you go, then stay tuned, because next we'll look at the homes of John Travolta. Hollywood legend John Travolta has had plenty of years in an A-list career to build up a property portfolio to match his success and then some. Currently, he spends most of his time at his longtime airport estate near Ocala, Florida, which he purchased with his late wife Kelly Preston in 2001 for $3.5 million. The 9.5-acre spread is located in a residential air park and includes a 7,500-foot runway that goes right to John's back door and is any pilot's dream. Travolta also added a Calabasas villa mansion to his real estate holdings in 2019, which he spends his time in when he's out in LA while selling two properties, one in Maine and one in Clearwater, Florida in recent years. Also, Michael and I have dropped our own house tour of our new home that we moved into this year, so go ahead and subscribe to our personal channel if you want to see where we're living and more of what we're up to. In these videos, we don't reveal any addresses, even though I've done a house tour of my own place, please do not show up at any private residences because it's not safe for anyone. John Travolta is an actor who rose to fame during the 1970s, first appearing on a sitcom Welcome Back Coder and then landing roles in a handful of box-office hit films, including Saturday Night Fever in Greece. While John's showbiz career hit a slight decline in the 80s, he made a comeback in the 90s with his role in Pulp Fiction, my personal favorite. John then went on to star in many more movies over the years. Aside from his long-spanning career in Hollywood, John is also a private pilot, reportedly owning 4-5 aircrafts. While the actor has maintained an impressive array of mansions across America, his long-time home is his place on the residential air park Jumbolier Aviation Estates in Florida and he and his late wife actress Kelly Preston were among the first residents of the community, which gives home owners their own fly-in and fly-out access. Sadly, his wife Kelly passed away recently in 2020 after battling breast cancer. John still lives there to this day. Hey guys, it's Kara The Vampire Slayer back with another exclusive house tour here on Famous Entertainment, today looking at the homes of John Travolta. Don't forget to like, subscribe and hit me up on Instagram to chat and now let's get into this video. In summer 2021, John Travolta offloaded one of his mega-properties, this one being a waterfront retreat in Clearwater Florida for $4 million. While it might sound like an uncommon location, this home sought right down the street from the Church of Scientology's flag building, which was perfect for one of the religion's most famed members like John. And of course, he isn't the only celebrity to own property in Clearwater with fellow Scientologists like Tom Cruise and Cure Stiali, among others, having homes here. After the loss of his wife Kelly, John decided to also let go of his residents here, making a million more on the sale, considering he bought it over 4 years prior for $3 million. This spread sat on just under 3 acres of land, all of which was protected by a high wall, secure entry gates and tropical greenery. While past the gates and driveway, you'll arrive at the multi-level main house, which boasted a flat roof and pops of orange. Built in 1988, John's former contemporary home had a floor plan with over 6,100 square feet of space, along with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 baths sprinkled throughout. Of course, the home had been immensely updated and renovated to give it the modern look it has today, and its design has expensive finishes like French oak flooring, hand-crafted plaster walls, slate floor tiles, and much more. Past the sunny entryway and down a few steps, the home offered a combo living and dining area with a soaring double-height ceiling and walls of glass. Here, there was also an impressive concrete fireplace on one wall and stairs leading to the upper level. The contemporary kitchen situated next to the main living area offered a large L-shaped snack bar, laminated cabinets from Germany, and a spacious breakfast nick. This space opens to the outside through glass doors while there's also a second and more cozy family room nearby. John and Kelly's former master suite here had the best spot in the house on the top level with a private balcony that offered amazing views as well as a walk-in closet and spa-inspired modern ensuite bath. Each of the guest rooms in the house were also en suite and had their very own unobstructed views of the water. Outside, the large deck off of the home had canvas shades to make for comfortable outdoor dining and relaxing. The grounds also had multiple terraces, a stunning swimming pool, and a private dock. Aside from the main house, the property further boasted a poolside cabana that could act as an art studio. In 2021, John also listed another one of his getaway homes. This one located in Islesboro, Maine, but according to records, it hasn't yet sold. Listed at $5 million, this massive spread has served as the Travolta's family's beloved vacation home on the island of Islesboro, which can only be exclusively accessed by ferry. John first visited this island over three decades ago with his Scientologist and actress, Pal Kirstie Alley, who has her own vacation home here. John and Kelly, who are newlyweds at the time, fell in love with this 48-acre waterfront property and bought it in 1991. This hotel-sized mansion is perfectly secluded and situated at the end of a gravel driveway surrounded by trees. It was built back in 1904 for a prominent banking family by architects Peabody and Stern, and inside it boasts 42 rooms with a colorful and cozy design scheme that suits the country mansion on the coast. Inside, the mansion covers a whopping 10,830 square feet of space with an unheard of 20 bedrooms and 7.5 baths throughout. It's full of classic features like rustic stone fireplaces, gilded fixtures, tutor revival windows, and more. Each room of the home has linen, draping, and velvet upholstery while many of the furnishings came with the vintage mansion. In the 90s, John revealed to architectural digest, the house was already full of English antiques, 30% of which we refurbished and still use. The mansion's entry feels like a hotel lobby with some lounge areas and a bar nearby. There's a formal living room with fireplace and large dining room with equally large table. Other highlights of the estate include a second-level sunroom, which is one of two in the home, that offers amazing views, a ton of floral patterns, and various pastel colors throughout. This sunny country kitchen has chef-grade appliances and butcher block counters, while it also boasts a huge pantry. Within the many many bedrooms, there's still a stunning master suite with John and Kelly shared for many memorable years. This space had a fireplace, private porch, and vintage style ensuite of its own. 14 of the guest bedrooms are located on the second level, with the third level transformed into a fantasy children's wing. The impressive part of the mansion would be any kid's dream, boasting a schoolroom, library, a diner, a theater with its own stage, and four themed bedrooms, two of which are said to be a princess room and another a Peter Pan room. John and Kelly no doubt adored this property and put all the work into changing the mansion from its formerly dark interiors to a bright and cheery ambiance. Outside, the many acres offer everything from a swimming pool to private beach access. It also boasts a deep water dock on Sabbath Day Harbor, plenty of forest trails, and rolling lawns. While John may be offloading that home, maybe because it holds too many family memories and he doesn't need that massive space anymore, he still splits his time between two impressive mansions. In 2019, the couple decided to buy a Mediterranean-style villa mansion in the exclusive Calabasas area of LA for just under $2.7 million. Located in a guard-gated community on a half-acre plot of land, this home was built in the 90s and offers over 7,500 square feet of space with six beds and six baths over two levels. The property also comes with amazing views across the canyon and mountains and interior features like open-plan living areas, high ceilings, and four fireplaces. John and his family spent much of lockdown at the home too, even sharing a pic on Instagram last year with his new puppy Jinx in videos with his kids. The front of the villa offers a courtyard entry with a stunning three-tiered water fountain, and inside there's a double-height rotunda as well as a skylight overtop the sweeping staircase. Some of the airy spaces inside of the home included a double-height living room with wall of windows and a fireplace, a formal dining room, and a top-of-the-line gourmet kitchen. Elsewhere there was a family room with fireplace, wine closet and bar as well as a library with handmade wood bookshelves, lining the walls, and second floor gallery. Many of the beautiful rooms in the home come with vaulted ceilings and natural wood beams, which are super high for an open-air feel. The main floor even has an office space as well as a mirror wall gym. On the outside, John has access to a handful of living and entertaining spaces too, like the shaded patio with outdoor fireplace, barbecue station and dining terrace, and an infinity-edged pool and spa. Sadly, there's no airplane parking at this mansion, but that's where John's final home comes in handy. Last but most definitely not least, John keeps his sprawling airport-style main residence at the exclusive Jumbolare Fly-in Community near Ocala, Florida in the small town of Anthony, and it's here he also keeps his collection of planes right in his yard. In 2001, John and Kelly worked out 3.5 million for this 9.5-acre spread and set out to build their mid-century-style concrete-and-glass dream home here, which spans about 7,000 square feet of space along with six bedrooms. There's even a 6,500 square foot garage that boasts eight efficiency apartments inside. John and Kelly showed off the luxurious estate way back in 2004 to architectural digest, which is any pilot or airplane lover's dream. The custom design mansion is mainly white throughout with thick concrete walls, towering columns and walls of glass. The highlight of the interior spaces has got to be the great room, which boasts a curved wall of double-height windows overlooking the tarmac out back. Here, there are contemporary chairs and low sofas with modern pops of blues and greens, and it almost looks like a vintage travel lounge. There's also a formal dining room with an art deco style and a massive mural on one wall. Travolta was always into airplanes, and he got his pilot's license by age 22. We can see his love of aviation present in the mansion's design almost like you're stepping into the 1960s Pan Am era. There's also a stunning entrance hall with a custom floor design and multiple model airplanes as well as two kitchens, one for serious cooking and one for more casual affairs, creating three separate dining areas. That, according to Travolta, they're like those in hotels. Among the many features in the modern mansion, there's also a bed and breakfast style quarters and multiple suites for guests to relax. Of course, the best part for Travolta about this estate has got to be the outdoor features, like the 7,500 foot runway that extends right up to his back door, as well as two airplane parking pavilions and a separate-lated grass runway. His personal airport has more than enough room to store his collection of aircrafts too, which include a USA Air Boeing 707, Boeing 707-138, Bombardier Challenger, and more. It's said that he currently owns four to five planes. When he's not up in the air, Travolta can enjoy the other features of his home, like the resort-style pool with hot tub out back, it even boasts a slide, patio space, and a dance floor with custom stonework. Another one of his favorite spots on the property is the cabana with bar that looks like an airport lounge and overlooks all of the action. Looking at a handful of John Travolta's massive properties, we can see that he and his late wife Kelly went above and beyond to craft the ultimate real estate portfolio, which included a massive fairy tale-like property in Maine, a Calabasas villa estate, as well as the iconic Florida mansion, where Travolta has his very own airport. Well, that's going to bring this house tour to an end. Let me know what you thought of his homes down in the comments, as well as who we should feature next. Thanks for watching, hit that subscribe button if you haven't. Follow me on Instagram to chat, and I'll see you all in another video. Bye!


I am sure you remember the highly anticipated clash between Muhammad Hijab and P.S. Morgan on the uncensored show. That interview either appeared quite ordinary, right? It felt more like just another political and intellectual exercise to emphasize that Palestinians deserve a fair deal in the Middle East. What was truly remarkable is how some of Hijabi's prediction came to fruiting just a few hours after the show. It was relentless in trying to convince Morgan that Israel had carried out some of the most heinous military operations deliberately targeted civilians sometimes, you know, civilian infrastructure, hospital. The predictions seem to stem from P.S. Profesor to acknowledge Israel's heavy-heartedness and its blatant disregard for the rules of war in Gaza, who it's undoubtedly contributed to the rise in civilian casualties and the collateral damage. P.S. found it rather challenging to hold Israel accountable for any wrongdoing instead clinging to the old narrative of Israel's self-defense. It's worth revisiting the moment when Hijab foresaw Israel's alleged attack on a hospital where it was reported 500 lost their lives. The responsibility for this attack is to be disputed at this moment. I was at home. What was your reaction when you heard? I was actually very sickened by it. And this is something I do want to put on the table because I think it's fair for people to know this. In our religion we do not believe, okay, as a Muslim, I am a Muslim and I do not believe in the killing of any man, woman or children, non-combatants. That is not despite the religious teachings. That is because of the religious teachings. So in terms of condemning Hamas and just jumping straight into it, I condemn not only Hamas but any other entity, okay, wherein it's proven that this has been done, that the killing of combatants has been done, therein I condemn any party that does it. Any party that kills people or strikes at people where it's more probable than not that it will hit a civilian target, I condemn them. And that's why I condemn the IDF because when they strike they know that it's more probable than not it's going to hit civilian targets. They know that the majority of civilians or the majority of people that are going to be affected are civilians. We know that from the various operations that have been conducted. We know that because now in Gaza you find that there is a blockade, as you know, for 17 years, but also they're stopping them from electricity water, which is a war crime under Geneva 4 of the Geneva Convention, protocol 4 of the Geneva Convention. So this is something I'm surprised you didn't actually mention to the ambassador. I did mention it. You didn't say it's a war crime. Well, I think it's an arguable point with us a war crime. Okay, let me ask you another thing. They are saying at the moment, as well as adamant, they are not breaching war crimes, right? No, it showed one baby who's been charred and that picture has been put up on Twitter and has been refuted by many people saying that it's actually AI. That's completely untrue. There's been a thorough investigation into the claim. This is precisely the kind of thorough investigation that Israel claimed it had undertaken after reports of the alleged airstrike when viral all over the world. According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic jihad rocket that had misfired and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened. We as Arab group, as you see all of us united, outraged by this massacre that has taken place. Committed by the Israeli forces against the hospital, the Lutheran hospital, and the Gaza Strip in which according to the initial figures about 500 civilians have been torn apart. This incident is what they tell world and human rights groups have been trying to bring to global attention. However, given the full backing of those who wear the power to determine the true application of the rule-based international order, it appears there's no need to be concerned about allegation of war crimes committed in Gaza. The aggressor enjoys media notoriety and the eyes of the international criminal court seem to be blinded to the extent that Netanyahu is seeing us, I mean, a darling boy merely serving the interests of an occupation force.  I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday and based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, but there's a lot of people out there not sure, so we've got a lot, we've got to overcome a lot of things.  They really are and Americans are worried. Americans are worried because we know there's a, this is not an easy field to navigate what you have to do. But the fact is that Israel, as they respond to these attacks, seems to me that have to continue to ensure that you have what you need to defend yourselves. Nonetheless, there is some solace for the suffering people of Gaza. Allah has promised to alleviate the suffering of those who believe and trust in Him. I understand that the world, particularly the Western world, might seem to be turning a blind eye to the fact that Hamas is distinct from the broader Palestinian, you know, population. They may act as though they don't care because, well, Palestinians aren't Ukrainians, but Allah does care for His children, His words in Surah al-Baqarah chapter 2 verse 155 to 157. And we will surely test you with something of fear and hunger, and the loss of wealth and lives and fruits. But give good tidings to the patient who, when disaster strikes them, say, indeed, we belong to Allah and indeed to Him we will return. Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And if these, those who are the rightly guided, guys, we're putting our hopes on Palestine's triumph, inshallah. Let's give us a thumbs up and share this with your loved ones. And if you haven't done so already, click that subscribe button so we can stay connected with you in the future. As-salamu alaykum.


Welcome back to the shop, Bruce here. We're going to talk now about how to tame the great white LEDs. Surface mount that is. Okay, we've got some Scotch carpet tape here. Set that off to the side. My buzzer. It's off the screen, but it's there. Some solder, a couple of pairs of tweezers, a pair of scissors, and an LED and a resistor. You need a resistor for each LED. We'll set them off to the side. Take a piece of carpet tape that I've already cut. It's got an easy backing on one side, and the tape itself pulled the backing off. Now I have a sticky surface here, and so we can jump right into the LED. These come in these tape real containers that are fairly easy to deal with, but the LEDs themselves tend to be very small and kind of difficult to see and work with. I don't care what polarity I've got here. I'm not going to watch for the polarity. I just want to get the LED out of the container and stuck down on the tape. Now what I'm going to do is take my buzzer and probe it. Well, that didn't work, so I must have the wrong polarity. So I'll come around and probe it from the other side. That's a bad LED. No, it's not a bad LED. See, it lights up right there. So the plus is going to be on the right-hand side. For the rest of this, we're going to work in a zoomed-in mode. It makes it what's going on around it a little harder to see, but it makes what we're doing so much more visible. Okay, now I've got an 820 ohm resistor here in its tape and reel. I'm going to dump it out, and I'm going to position it over here on the side of the LED that we already tested, and we know is the positive side of the LED. To make this connection, first we need to tin the leads of the LED and the resistor. So just get a little bit of heat and a little bit of solder on the resistor and on the LED. Now, see the heat damaged the tape just a little bit, so I'm going to move this over here, so I know I've got a good hold down going for me, and then I'm going to butt them right up to each other. I can get it away from the tape. It doesn't seem to want to come very easily. There we go. Now, butt them right up against each other, and then take the soldering iron and come in and just touch the tip to the joint, and didn't get it quite that first shot. Get the LED very solidly down to the tape there, but now we've got it soldered. We can test it and prove that it works. This should be the positive side. This should be the negative side. Now, you'll notice it's dimmer than it was before. You may not be able to see that on the video. It's dimmer than it was before because you have more resistance in series with it. Now, we're ready to start talking about how to deal with the white color of the bluish-white color of this LED. This is where Tamiya's acrylic clear orange paint, number X26, comes into play. Okay, I've assembled a couple of Q-tips or a couple of toothpicks and a Q-tip here. All I want to do is just dip a little of this orange paint, get a little drop on it, and add a little too much there to see if I can get about the right amount. Come down here and put just a touch of it on top of that LED. Not a whole lot. I'll take the other, take a clean toothpick and kind of smear it around just a little bit. Now, if we look at the LED, we'll see that it has a more of an incandescent look to it. What I'll do is I'll put a little bit of this on, wait a while, an hour or so. If I like the color, I'll leave it. If not, I'll come back and add a little more to it. Good luck with your LEDs.


On a hot summer's day in Milan, a celebration event was held to mark the launch of Target 2 Securities, the single platform for security settlement in Europe. Target 2 Securities, or T2S, went live on 22nd June 2015. The event was held at the Rotonde della Bazzana, a beautiful baroque building in the heart of Milan, and home of the Milan Children's Museum. It was attended by guests from across Europe, including representatives of the EUA system and the T2S community. The title of the event, transforming a shared vision into a winning story, set the theme for the evening, as guests heard the story of the nine years leading up to the launch of the platform. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure and a privilege to welcome you here today in Milano. Drawing on the creativity around me and giving this evening's theme of winning stories, I hope you will indulge me as I tell one of our winning stories, the tale of how the shared vision of Target 2 Securities became a successful European reality. In his speech, President Draghi highlighted the role T2S has played in furthering harmonisation within European financial markets. He also discussed why a capital markets union is needed in Europe. T2S provided the concrete incentive needed to drive the harmonisation process forward. The market could see that aligning their rules and practices would help them get the most out of T2S, and so they began to harmonise out of choice and not out of legal obligation. In my view, two main pillars support the establishment of the CMU, the Capital Markets Union. The twin prospects of greater risk sharing and more diverse sources of financing Target 2 Securities will form the foundation for these two pillars and for the establishment of the Capital Markets Union. Thank you. Appearing via video from Washington, Jose Vinal's of the International Monetary Fund provided the global perspective. We should not forget that the economic benefits from deeper and more integrated capital markets will be much greater if other needed structural reforms are also carried out in labour and product markets. Thank you. Mr Vinal's comments provided a fitting introduction to the panel debate on the path towards Capital Markets Union in Europe. The panellists, representing a variety of perspectives, turn their attention to the future and the possible opportunities and challenges it might bring. It's a great pleasure to be here today. I think to avoid that it becomes too much a veteran meeting, I think the organisers have chosen the Children's Museum because it should have also a future-oriented aspect. The panellists discussed what further action would be needed to make the Capital Markets Union a success. Collateral, we need it. If you don't have it, you borrow it. I think the next wave on the regulatory side, what I see is looking to make it more efficient. Now the challenge is going to be to have the vision, which is large enough and exciting enough for member states to see that they can participate much more in an integrated way. For me, the biggest issue right now is the demographics of Europe and pensions and how people are going to have sustainable income in their old age. So how do we get people culturally to find it much more acceptable to participate in the Capital Markets with at least some of their savings pot? The panel also shared their views on how Europe can be competitive in a global context. What Europe is doing today, building a single pool of liquidity with efficient collateral management, with the Banking Union, with prudential regulation, as well as securities and conduct regulation, moving towards an harmonized process. So it's about improving our competitiveness. So how can we efficiently connect, for example, with Chinese business, with Chinese Capital Markets, if we remain fragmented? ECB Board Member, Eve Merch, closed by recap of the T2S story. That is also why many believe that the post-trade harmonization effort that has come alongside the launch of T2S might have been the biggest benefit of this project. The launch of T2S is a great achievement. Europe with T2S now has a big story. And I am confident that the story of its development will continue to be a winning one. What I am sure of today is that the story of T2S is successful because of each and every one of you. Thank you for listening. The guests were then invited to call off in the garden with a drink, where they had the chance to toast the launch of the new settlement platform and discuss some of the issues brought up during the event. The T2S story is truly a winning one, but it is not yet over. For the next two years, the 17 remaining markets will join the platform and as other markets see the benefits that T2S will bring, there is every possibility that T2S will grow even further to include other currencies and markets. So with the platform that cuts settlement costs, furthers harmonization in Europe, increases financial stability and fosters competition, there was no doubt that this was indeed an achievement worth celebrating.


It occurred of writing an exam. No scribbling paper should be brought in. For any rough work, you may use the inside of the front cover or the back of the script book. Any work that you do not wish to be marked should be crossed out. Do not remove pages from your script book. Most exams write on green 20-page exam booklets, but depending on the exam, you may have blue 12-page, purple 4-page, teleform or scantron sheets, or you may write directly on the exam paper. Write your ID number on every page. Separate answer sheets should be securely attached with the ties provided unless they are a teleform or scantron sheet which should be kept loose. Failure to follow the supervisor's instructions or to return to the examination center carries serious consequences. Your exam won't be marked until you've been seen by the examinations manager.


Item No. SCP-4759 Object Class Keter Special Containment Procedures Existing Foundation elements in state governments are to monitor for SCP-4759 manifestations and discredit it during deliberations. Donut shops in affected areas are to be surveilled for SCP-4759-A. As of March 10, 2017, state legislators are to be investigated for any connections to bakeries and bread distributors. Description SCP-4759 are anomalous additions to existing bills being considered by state legislatures. SCP-4759 instances are usually between 10,000 and 120,000 words and consist almost entirely of nonsensical words and phrases, with the exception of a single section that describes a donut tax in great detail and specificity. The donut tax bill imposes a sales tax of 10-90% on all donuts and related food items and products, as well as a heavier tax on the overall profits of small businesses which sell donuts. Legislators reviewing SCP-4759 will regard the document as non-anomalous and discuss the taxes they would any other. Legislators in support of SCP-4759 will suffer insomnia, persistent nightmares, and develop a severe flower allergy. Occasionally, a legislator that supports the tax will be accosted by a figure instantly manifesting near the location. This figure, designated SCP-4759-A, resembles a humanoid armed with a lance and mounted on a horse and is composed entirely of compressed donuts. Local stores report the sudden disappearance of large amounts of donuts during SCP-4759-A manifestations. SCP-4759-A will vocalize through unknown means and challenge the legislator to single combat. With the condition that should SCP-4759-A win, the legislator must attempt to stop the passing of SCP-4759. If the legislator declines, SCP-4759-A will continue to reappear on subsequent days until they acquiesce. To date, the combined actions of the Foundation and SCP-4759-A have managed to prevent SCP-4759 from being passed into law. Addendum On March 9, 2017, SCP-4759-A attempted to battle Alabama Senator Vivian Davis' figures due to the latter's extremely vocal support for the bill. Upon being struck by SCP-4759-A's lance, Senator Figure's skin was pierced. She removed it and refilled herself to be composed entirely of bagels. Senator Figure's won the duel and fled the scene, and has not been located since. Cover Story 119-L, Golfing Accident, was employed. SCP-4759-A has continued its appearances.


All right, everyone, Basel Chapman, this is the 11 o'clock Eastern Time Tiger Financial News Network. Let me just get this out of the way, a network market update, down to $26 at $34,754. If Friday's action started off at the 200-period exponential moving average of $34,530, this would be the most spectacular breakout, and I would say this is it. Right now, we have to consider that it's just extremely oversold condition with a really good bounce unfolding, so the S&P, you can see it a little bit better here, nicer candle, the candles near the high of the day, $36.41 up, $44.67, the high was $44.72, this is the kind of candle you want to see here again. I would have wanted to see you here on the left, you see the take-off, yeah, you can pull back afterwards, but that fourth session after the take-off, like Monday a week ago at $42.62, it should be much higher right now, but that's also because of the Fed, that Fed really smacked the market down on Wednesday. So yeah, this is very good action, the QQQ, having one of the better percentage gains, it's up 2.07%, up $7.28 and $3.59, if it can start to trade in $2.63 this week, that's going to say, wow, nice action, maybe it has a dreaded age pattern, but even then it could come back and not take out the $3.34.15 low of last week, we'll see. So far, good action, very oversold QQQs, we're looking at the IWM, it's kind of struggling, now it's up $1.17, much better candle than it was, but it needs a lot to catch up because it needs to get from $197 to $203, we're looking at gold, gold had a nice bounce today, it's now given back some, it's up 10, it's okay, $17.96, just trying to form a base in the 1780s, the dollar is pulling back a little bit, it's the TLT that we want to consider here because bonds are down 56 cents, $142.58, the TLT Treasury Bond Fund, that's allowing the yields to go higher, that's kind of helping a little bit, helping the XLF, but the XLF, the S&P's financials need a lot more, they need to be going from $38.69 right now up into the $39.50s and very quickly, and you're looking at crude oil, I might be wrong, but I'm thinking crude oil is just ready for a little bit of a pullback, maybe more time than price, you're going to be watching that one closely up $42.87.24 up near the highs, so I don't know, maybe I'm doing nonsense here, and as I said, the VIX index, what's the VIX index? Later today, after $130, the VIX index now at $26.65 goes under $25, that's really going to help the market, so it's a very important session, end of the month, we'll see what happens going into tomorrow. Have a wonderful day, stay tuned for Larry from the Venture, and great bro!


The PGA Tour is bringing another good field this week to the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village. So let's break down my favorite outrides for this week at Fandall Sportsbook. At the top end, I love Cameron Smith checking in at 19-1 to win this week because Muirfield is, of course, where you can de-emphasize driving if you've been focused more on short game. Who better to take advantage of that than Cameron Smith? Smith ranks second in this field in the approach across the past 50 rounds according to Fandy's National. He is 21st around the green and 9th in bankgrass putting. We've not seen Smith farewell at Muirfield in the past.  But he has shown upside here recently, he showed he can compete against really good fields, and we know he should be a course fit in theory. So I think we see Cam Smith turn things around this week and finally get a good finish at Muirfield for this week's event. I'm also into Shane Lowry for this week. Shane Lowry just been playing really good golf recently, actually ranked second behind Cameron Smith in data golf's true strokes gained across the past six months. We have seen Lowry knocking on the door of a win here recently. He has had top three finishes behind a classic, the RBC heritage, and the Masters as well, which means he's firing well in all aspects of this game, measuring up well, even against tough fields who we do have once again for this week. Lowry has not gotten the job done just yet, but he's got the key components to do so. So Lowry to me a good outright, checking in at 25-1 for this week. I also like Matthew Fitzpatrick checking in at 28-1. If Fitzpatrick is typically a guy you don't want to turn to an outright because his upside isn't typically that high, but it's possible we're seeing that shift here recently. Fitzpatrick has been getting a lot of high end finishes. He finished fifth at the PGA championship. He was runner up at the Wells Fargo a couple weekends before that. And now since January 1st, we've seen Fitzpatrick in nine individual events. He has been inside the top five three separate times. He's been inside the top ten six times. He hasn't won yet, but he's getting good finishes against very tough fields and I think we could see Fitzpatrick changing the equation on his upside. He gained strokes off the tee despite not being super long. His short game is good and I think he meshes well with what Muirfield brings may challenge perspective. So Fitzpatrick hasn't been a high upside guy, but I think we could see that change. So Fitzpatrick to me actually good outright bet at 28 to one for this week. That's all we got here for Quickpicks for this week at the memorial tournament should be a pretty fun event. Another good field in PGA Tour. Let's see if we can catch a winner for this week.


The eighth annual Pink Tie Party is bringing the community of Brainer together to support local breast cancer patients. Sarah Winkelman has that story.  The support that we get from this community is incredible. It's very humbling. Support from the community that gives right back to the members in the Brainerd Lakes area. And it goes to families in our communities, usually Aiken, Crowing, Cass County that need a little financial help while they're going through treatment. Last year the event brought in over $20,000 to help pay for anything from wigs to grocery store gift cards. So many women in our lives and several of them, even friends that are coming tonight are affected. And so to be able to help, whether it be a gas card or paying a mortgage payment or a car payment or something like that just to take the ease of and to see that happen within the community is so powerful. Throughout the evening, guests were able to bid on over a hundred silent auction items, many of them being the color pink. Along with raising funds, the Pink Tie Party brings awareness and more importantly, celebrate survivors. I think it's why this area is so special because people do support one another and their neighbors and especially at times like this. Support that Sally is forever grateful for. I didn't have to prove that, you know, that I was good enough for this. They really just recognized the need and comforted me and supported me and my husband and my daughter. However, she wasn't the only attendee who has personally found relief in the organization. Honestly, before my mom was diagnosed, I was unaware that there was, you know, this kind of support in the area and just knowing that it makes it a lot less stressful. A powerful organization that encourages to think pink. Reporting in Brainerd, Sarah Winckelman, Lakeland News. The pink ribbon covered supports breast cancer patients in treatment regardless of their health care provider. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


My name is Larry Alexander. I'm the associate university librarian for learning and teaching at the University of Michigan and with me are my colleagues Justin Schell who's the director of the Shapiro Design Lab and Megan Satar who's the director of Connected Scholarship. And we're here today to talk about our recent partnership with the University of Michigan School of Information and that partnership resulted in a collaboration around an IMLS grant called library's research lab immersive research education and engagement for LIS students and library professionals. So like many libraries, your library, our library, we're really becoming this hub of digital learning and scholarship and we're increasingly becoming a community anchor for learning research and service missions. And we recognize the need in some cases to develop and in some cases to deepen our own research skills to include systematic collection of evidence, data analysis, and interpretation. And this has become really important as we think about where scholarship is going, how our services are changing in response to that, what new services that we're developing. So in discussion with our SI partners, we really started to focus around this question of how do we realize collaborative and learning focused models to increase student engagement and critical research questions facing libraries. And we spent a lot of time working through this question and different possibilities around that. And the result was an IMLS proposal where we would intentionally create dynamic research teams that included SI faculty, librarians and graduate students. And the idea was to build structure and research methods to further apply design thinking for our library services. So the large grant, the big grant as a whole has three components to it. The first one is about the creation of library as a research lab model. So we really wanted to the work that we were going to put into this, we wanted to think about new educational approaches to building student librarian and faculty teams to really thinking about what that cohort might mean for learning and practicing and engaging in evidence based approaches to research problems. And particular those research problems within the academic library setting. So we hope that this model that we are creating is something that others could take up and adopt on their campuses and different ways that depending on their context. The second goal that we have is building research skills and professional capabilities and future academic library workforce. So what this grant is really trying to get at is building education opportunities for future librarians and current librarians and really thinking again about that application of research into our service development. And the last goal of the IMLS grant is fostering enhancing mentoring capabilities in the profession. A lot of the work that we are doing is really about mentorship. And it's not one directional mentorship, it's the entire team is really thinking through what does mentorship mean. And one of the outcomes of our grant will be it might be a handbook or a tool kit or some some mechanism to capture all the activities that we've done around mentorship so we can again share that as well. And if you want more information about the background of the grant and the details of it, if you go to the URL that's up on the website, which we always kind of laugh a little bit about of lip lab labs. But anyway, if you go to that website, there's the original grant proposal and all the other background information for the grant is there as well. So within the context of the research, the library is research lab. There are actually three distinct labs that we've created. One is around library assessment and student learning. One is around assessment for research and scholarship. And the one that Justin Megan and I have been working on is design thinking for library services. And that's really trying to think through how again how our services would benefit from design thinking and from research practices as well. So with Oh, and this is our this is our team of students. And I don't know what joke we can make, but we always joke that Justin's eyes are closed for this picture, but it's a fantastic picture otherwise, right? So with that kind of background, I want to turn it over to Megan to walk us through more the context around service design and what's been happening in our library and then Justin will take us into more specifics of the activities that the grant has been working on. Okay, thanks. So the beginning of the lab coincided with work we were doing centrally within the library around service design as a whole. We had engaged with bright spot strategy consultants who helped us develop a playbook to determine some ideas we could deploy in our services and spaces. So the playbook itself had concepts at kind of a high level that were responding to the research that bright spot did on our campus. But the idea was that each of these plays would really require additional deep dives of research and another cycle of design to develop pilots and prototypes that would allow us to actually assess the ideas that were built into those. I was part of what is called the service design task force. Three of us, my colleagues colleagues Rachel Vasek and Emily Puckett Rogers are part of that group as well. And we actually presented on that work at the 2018 fall C&I presentation and I realized I didn't put the link in this but we'll make sure it's there to make it easier if you want to go back and learn about what we were actually doing and our capacity leading those efforts. But because of the alignment time wise and mission wise with the lab, we're able to make it a node in the network of those service design efforts. So it wasn't something that was happening separate within the library. It was really part of a constellation of activities that were all focused on different service design efforts. And so the question why design thinking for library services comes up and really we were looking for new ways of seeking solutions and opening up opportunities within the organization. We didn't want to just have groups going off and doing research and presenting white papers with a very hierarchical acceptance of those ideas that would then be fully implemented within the organization. We really wanted to see us testing out smaller facets of ideas engaging with users in the process of iteration and be coming up with ways to really be dynamic in the creation of services and spaces and not getting locked into solutions. When the grant was written, I found these notes the other day that Elaine Westbrook, our AUL for research at the time, was one of the writers of the grant and she was actually inspired by a fall 2016 CNI membership meeting keynote from Ben Schneiderman about the new ABCs of research, which talks a lot about design thinking in research teams. So we saw this as an opportunity for the students for the organization and then a whole bunch of mutual benefits to enter into this work as part of that broader service design effort. For the students, they'd see their work in the grant connected to that large networked idea within the organization, which we thought would help them going into the profession to see how solutions are not implemented in a large organization. They were going to have lots of opportunities to present their ideas back within the structure of that larger project and gain feedback from across the organization while building their professional network. So they were encouraged to participate in brown bags, give updates about the progress of their research. And we also brought people into our meetings, which we'll talk more about, who could provide feedback on different aspects of a service that they were talking about. And they'd be working with real data and real outcomes in that service context. So this was taking them out of the theoretical classroom and allowing them to do research that wasn't just for traditional academic ends, but really was playing out in a real live organization. For us, it extended our capacity to respond to those bright spot recommendations by taking ideas that were there that we knew we couldn't act on right away with our staff, but that we could put into the lab for some additional work. It also brought fresh perspectives and critical reflection to our service design efforts, which has continued to really benefit all of that work. Since the students are engaging with new ideas all the time, and we're working in the same organization. So that that helps a lot. And then the benefits for both were definitely that mentoring experience. And the mentoring experience kind of brought in the student perspective of the changing role of the library, and the challenges of designing services for a diverse campus community. Justin will talk more about a project that really focused on that. So the structure of the lab, as Lori said, there's the three of us. And the first year there were two students. And the second year there were three students. Those are students from our University of Michigan School of Information. They're given a fellowship as part of this work and are expected to work 10 hours a week on this. The first year that we were engaged in this, we did biweekly meetings, which meant we had to come up with 20 hours of work for the students to do between seeing them. We went back to weekly meetings so that we can move the work along faster the second year. And there were some common experiences across the cohorts, which are kind of shown in the slide. We used this sort of framework for design thinking and the activities to guide the projects that came into the lab with both cohorts. So the students would have an opportunity to explore issues and do some analysis. So this included user experience mapping, empathy mapping, persona development, interviews, and contextual analysis. They got to do creative things that they didn't expect they were going to be able to do in terms of generating and exploring ideas, such as sketching and storytelling. And then the synthesis of those ideas into actual pilots and prototyping activities that we would put out into the organization to test the concepts. At the end of each cohort's time in the lab, there was a symposium across the lab, so they did a poster presenting their work. And there was a monthly hands-on meeting across those three labs that Lori talked about, where the students shared out progress on the work that they were doing, as well as having either a guest speaker or one of the librarians in the lab talk about a fundamental research concept, introducing tools like EnVivo or thinking about how to design a good poster in a research setting. So the first year, we had two wonderful students, Ben Ririk and Heather Shukraft. The first year was actually really only a semester that lasted from January to April, so we were working in a more condensed period of time. We had the advantage that both students actually had connections to our work already. Ben had worked with Justin in the design lab. The design lab being kind of a community-driven learning environment that takes in projects for innovation and particular themes like libraries or accessibility or citizen science. And Heather was actually a part-time school of information student who also worked in our technical services department, so we got a unique view of sort of the services and spaces we were talking about from her location within the organization. So what they were given was the research scholar hub play, and this is a page out of that playbook from Brightspot. So the play itself is just a short description of what the research is telling us, and then below that, and cut off in this image, are the drivers, why they're suggesting this needs to be addressed, requirements, what might be pieces of it, and next steps. So one of the next steps, the first bullet there, is currently there is not much understanding of what graduate students are looking for, so that gave us a big wide door to walk through as we sent the students into the design thinking framework to approach this. So they started off with some guidance from us, but we let them really drive the direction of the lab with this big broad question of how might the library meet the research and teaching needs of graduate students. Within the semester they embarked on, they learned about user experience mapping, how to do a good interview, and brought that work out onto campus, and you can kind of see how those activities line up with that framework. Because we are working in a very discreet amount of time from January to April, this was a very limited deep dive, sort of a shallow deep dive, I guess, one way of thinking of it. So within the time that we had with them, they did have time to kind of draft personas based on the research data that we already had from BrightSpot, they created an interview protocol, they waited weeks while we waited to get our IRB exemption, and one of the really interesting things with the IRB piece was that in presenting what we were going to do and using the language of design thinking as our mode of scholarship, it took weeks to get the IRB done because they kept coming back to us and asking questions about what are you really going to do, and because of the way they were expecting some of the more traditional research methods to appear in the IRB, like our colleagues in the library assessment for research and assessment for learning labs, they had to smooth their time with that, so it was a good learning experience for us that we really needed to be very explicit when putting this kind of work through the IRB. They did a small set of student interviews from across disciplines, and then expert interviews with academic support areas on campus, like the Rackham Graduate School and other offices connected to that. So at the end, when they built out their themes for that graduate student experience, they saw things coming up like students wanted to build connections, they were uncertain and they needed a validation. There was the importance of their past research experience as they were arriving on campus, to how well they felt they would succeed or not succeed in their first research projects. They wanted to see the sharing of best practices and resources for their research and studying, and they lacked guidance on pathways to take in their careers. So with those things in place, we did one round of idea generation before the end of the lab, and it left us with more focus around the steps we might take to test out some of these ideas and pursue more focused engagement and service development for graduate students. The work is kind of in the parking lot right now. We don't have a dedicated unit that's looking at the graduate student experience, and so it's really something where we would need to pull a team together to focus on this. But the two ideas that they came up with were good ones. They thought about the idea of a research identity researcher identity program that would help small groups with shared interests learn from PhD students, faculty, and librarians with more experience. So kind of creating a hub for both mentorship and collaboration, and they envisioned kind of a grad pathways tutorial slash game that would be an online environment that allowed newer students to explore resources and service that the library offers and think about career outcomes as well. So these weren't things that we were going to take action on, but we have them in the parking lot and we are ready to work with them again once we decide that the graduate student experience is going to be a focus, more of a focus of our service design that it currently is. So the students did create posters for that research symposium, and it talked about gaining skills that they were able to apply to other challenges. Specifically Heather talked about designing new workflows and her technical services unit where she works around troubleshooting e-resources and communicates a lot with public services staff and she thought about how persona development and user experience mapping might actually help that situation to think about all of the players, all of the stakeholders in the work of reporting an e-resource is not working and then getting it fixed. So they managed to refine their question to doing those interviews and left us with a much richer question to take into any additional deep dives we do by asking how might the library strengthen the connections among graduate students to enhance the research experience. So even within that one semester of research they really gain skills in iterating upon an idea and providing using the tools of design thinking to get to new solutions. So moving into year two we saw an opportunity to connect the next cohort to another service design related project and I'll turn it over to Justin to talk about that. I'm the audio nerd I run the audio studio in the lab as well as the podcast so I'm making sure everything is okay. So in our year two cohort we actually had a full year with the students which was really great we still are with in that year for a couple more weeks. So we have three SI students both second year master students Jordan Grozowski, Sophia McFadding Kiesling and Caroline Weck. And so these three students came from a variety of different backgrounds you know some of them had worked professionally for a while some were interested in community colleges and we're interested in academic libraries and so the projects that we worked on with this group sort of built on some of the aspects of of the previous year and sort of seeking out those connections and better understanding users as sort of part of the design thinking process. And what it really we really focused on was partnering with another project which was this library life cycle project which we'll talk more about in a second but if you've done any sort of persona work or things like that in academic library or in academic institution you usually see the sort of undergraduate graduate and faculty sort of breakdown these are the three communities that you know conventional personas are developed around. And of course you know you can have a lot of different definition within the so undergrad. Dan is a first year undergrad studying biology you know struggles to manage this time you can do research effectively etc etc. But we knew that these were very limited in how they represented the community of the University of Michigan. And so with this library life cycle project oh where'd the poster go? Oh it was... There's a beautiful poster. There's a beautiful poster that is entitled The Tragedy of Faculty Frank. And how this project came about was doing I think 35 or 40 interviews with different people that were you know had a variety of different backgrounds and being able to better understand this broader community of users and just community generally that use the library that are on campus. And so as we're thinking about designing services as part of the service design task force who would we be leaving out when we start thinking of this? If we're thinking of this in a more traditional way when we have those sort of three personas sometimes it's just student you know so maybe you don't even differentiate between graduate and undergraduate student. And so the three students Jordan Caroline and Sophia sort of picked up the sort of low fi prototype that the library life cycle project developed which was a sort of game exercise we ended up calling it a gum exercise because we couldn't really there each iteration of user testing people found a problem with either calling it a game or an exercise and so I think we ended on exercise because there was less objection to it. And so they took this and started developing you know how could this then be used for library staff as they're thinking through designing new services. So the point of this you know from taking these really really rich interviews that were then sort of condensed down into a series of I statements how could library staff be able to figure out their own sort of blind spots or gaps in their knowledge of different user communities on campus. And so from that starting point they went through a variety of iterations some you know post-it notes hand drawn cards things like that and then finally what we'll show you in a second which is the well I sort of briefly showed you already the the final version that's more of like a high-five prototype which is called unseen exploring users campus experiences and I have a feeling nope it's not the poster just disappeared so it goes. So we had a variety of different cards one of the inspirations for the original library life cycle group was this VA project that would give people these sort of stacked identity characteristics and so like I'm a veteran I'm you know I have I have a disability I have you know low income or things like that and you could sort of move these different characteristics around and create these different personas that would result in sort of different levels of thinking required to how best to support them. And so from taking these I statements and take and then sort of moving them into these sort of cards that you could you would get a number of cards as you're sort of going through the exercise and this would allow you to sort of not necessarily like put yourself in their shoes but be able to think about okay well what elements of this am I not thinking about in the service that I'm designing. And so we have a variety of cards here these sort of identity based cards beyond you know sort of race gender sexuality to include health and ability and disability financial status sort of why I came to the U of M study style things like that to really capture that fuller picture that more holistic picture of the student we were primarily focused on undergraduate students at this point but we could see this being more broadly applicable to other students beyond the undergraduate community. So the way that just to hear some examples so there are I think ranging from seven to 10 or so cards for each topic and so one of them is health so I have a chronic health condition which requires regular attention to manage so there's both a sort of a character aspect that you have but then also some things to think about that sort of prompt you know your own thoughts but then because this is is gone through as a group this also can spark some conversation beyond just you sort of reflecting on this in a sort of a single solitary environment. So if I have this condition you know what do I have to prioritize do you have access to the health care things you need does this require time away from class and so this is sort of taking a step back from and this is something that we went through a lot was when do we actually start bringing the library into this at what point do they okay well do we need to think about how they get access to articles as part of this or is this just figuring out okay the you know these folks are part of this community and just better understanding this as a first step and then going forward to the library services element so I'm already minority race important part of your identity do you feel privileged you encounter prejudice or stereotypes on campus due to your race there's also you know why I came to the University of Michigan for a lot of folks it's because they had someone in their family come to it come to the university you know I'm non-binary so things to think about with this some previous schooling you know some some of these cards you know I did not go to a very rigorous high school and that would change how they think about studying and you know and one of the you know one of the scenarios they're they're really struggling because they haven't had to work as hard you know sort of perception of as hard as they did in high school as they do now at at the university and then financial and different different students who are more financially flexible or or privileged than others and so all of these cars that are passed out to participants you're also given a two game pieces which we 3D printed in the design lab they're those sorry pieces and and so at each each stage of this you're you're supposed to mark in two places one as how seen you you feel on campus as well as how safe you feel on campus and so you can you start this from a more general perspective from you having you know this sort of this identity and I should say one of the big questions around calling this a game was making a game out of people's identities and that's something that we struggle with and it was something that we brought up early on we worked with a variety of user groups including our library library diversity council and again we sort of got mixed kinds of results and feedback from that but ultimately we chose not to call this a game even and but one of the interesting things was some people wanted it wanted it to be if it's a game like they wanted to win somehow it's like no no no we don't you know Kathleen's talk like we don't all need to win or like we all win we all do better when we all do better you know come on and so as they're sort of going through this they are given sort of these two cards one is a personal event card so something happens to you this could be a change in health it could be a change in finance or something like that and then you have to adjust your position on the board because of that and then the other one is like a campus event so hateful graffiti graffiti on campus I really like that it just says content it's you know the formalists are really upset and the other ones it's like you know Michigan wins a national championship or something like that shout out to the gymnastics team that just did that I think and and so at each of those points then you sort of move this piece you know around the board sort of you know do you feel seen do you not feel seen do you feel safe do you not feel safe and all of this is an invitation towards the conversation and the reflection within that group and so being able to now that we've you know they've developed this sort of high-five prototype and a very elaborate what's what's the guide facilitation guide for it this can now be used for lots of different folks in the library to start thinking about you know who they might be missing sort of akin to sort of Heather Heather's idea about you know workflows and creating different kind of workflows like who's who's not in those conversations now but this is at a much broader level and sort of how we interact with the broader community you know not just on campus but I think more broadly than you know than in Ann Arbor in Southeast Michigan and and beyond so you you breathe like you're gonna say something and so we wanted to as we've sort of gone through this we wanted to to make sure that some of the students' voices that were part of this as well because you know Laurie mentioned earlier that mentoring was a big part of this and you know we had lots of sessions of just like tell me about your career like how did you get to where you are again the sort of informal thing that's not like okay you need to do this to be a good graduate so you need to do this to get a job and some of that extended to you know what should I eat at an interview dinner like what's a good interview dinner like okay cool like here's the thing do I drink do I not drink like okay well let's you know and sort of some of that more practical advice but it was also a lot of you know I think sort of confidence building and them as you know yeah you can totally go get that job and and being and thinking about what you know a good first job might be what a good first a good first job might not be in terms of responsibilities and environments and things like that so providing some of that that they may not have gotten in their their classes or just sort of amongst their own their friends or their colleagues or things like that and so cool and so in wanting to showcase some of their voices reflecting on both sort of the mentoring piece how they they learned as part of this and there's a more general reflections I stepped into our our studio our small studio and shot short video interview with both of them and cut that together so shout out this whole process has been really good for me personally just from starting out at our lab specifically I was kind of wowed with the three mentor librarians that we had because they had so much knowledge and they brought so much information and skill to the table and I felt like oh crap I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to do that but along the way I've kind of learned and watched what they've done and how they've sort of tackled the problems that we've come into and I feel like it's given me a lot of tools for my big career toolkit I guess I would say my library toolkit has a lot of the stuff that I've learned in the SI program so how to answer reference questions how to do good research how to build a website in Drupal that sort of stuff but then from this experience I've learned the design thinking process so I've now added that into my like my big library toolkit that's something I can take with me on out of here and then also just learning how to not be attached to your ideas which I think is part of the design process but I think this lab did a really good job of actually doing that where it got to the point throughout the process where I don't remember which ideas were mine and which were my collaborators because I just feel like we all have ownership in this but we all also weren't attached to it in a way that was toxic I've learned about the thought process for coming up with library programming coming up with ideas of how to add to that larger design goal that larger goal of creating a new culture for the library is very interesting trying to come up with games and exercises for that I've never I've never tried to create a tangible tool for helping people get to a goal of compassion and empathy before so I think that was really unique about this position this experience has been a really cool way to get to be creative which is something that I feel like creativity is kind of missing from a lot of our courses where you know you have a project and you are just kind of following the steps that have been outlined and you're you're working towards a rubric and so this sort of real-world experience was a really cool way for us to determine what are the deliverables and how are we going to get there and do hands-on project management in a way that worked for our team it allowed us to exert some sort of creative expression over it I really appreciated just the opportunity to grow and actually have an opinion being a graduate student and so not having really that much experience in libraries but being able to be part of the conversation for future library design was really empowering I think that that is not always granted to students and so I really appreciated the respect and being told like this is a non-hierarchical environment we're working in where everyone is able to share their ideas and have their ideas discussed and have sort of go through the process of having ideas accepted and moving on to a prototyping stage and then having learning how to be okay with just like letting go of your idea too because it's going to develop and change as you go and I think that's a really important skill that not everyone is able to learn at the beginning of their career because they're not able to have an idea also at the beginning of their career too which is very beneficial and I've just gotten a lot of like self-confidence out of this whole experience just seeing like okay you can start from not knowing anything and then along the way you can learn a lot and then just as long as you're learning and holding onto that knowledge that you're picking up along the way it's going to prepare you better for the job field I didn't know that something like this existed in a library I thought I was going to be looking at reference librarian positions and just how to best answer library questions and how to best find information for people but I think because of this experience I've started to look more at design and libraries and more of service in libraries and how I can have an impact there how I can help overhaul services and design better for users essentially so user experience in libraries is kind of what I've learned through this whole process that that exists that I like it and that it is sort of an emerging field that I feel like I'm much more prepared for now the library is research lab project gave me kind of a behind the curtain view of what this process really looks like in an academic library I think my classes are really good at you know theoretically saying that oh librarians are on a ton of committees and it's a very collaborative environment but going and working on this project in the library I was really able to see that firsthand and was able to get a sense of you know what an innovative library's priorities are and how they're working together and collaborating and so that's been really good as I go on interviews because I've been able to I think ask more impressive questions and really interview the place that I'm interviewing at in a more informed way I'm able to you know ask what committees I would be on and what this library is doing in terms of initiatives that I've become aware of and been really excited to work on through this program yeah I mean this was a great experience I loved it it changed my career outlook of kind of what I want to do so I'm still searching for the right job so hire me we should say they're all in the market as I've now watched that too many times and cutting it together the piece about letting go of your ideas should not be taken as a give us your idea so we can use them and not credit you I could see how that is that could be interpreted that way but they will are all creating posters they have different presentations coming up on this and so if you're interested in and seeing more of their work once they create the posters which I think they're doing this week we're happy to send that to you so I think that about reps oh yes yeah because you think we didn't see the poster but Denise Layton and Cat King and Shayla Garcia were three of our librarians who did that library is life cycle project um and you know created just so many pieces of paper you know sort of chopping up the interview statements and things like that and really provided us a really great foundation for you know this project to be as successful as it was so I'm not sure where that poster went but we can we can send out that as well I think that's so nothing else I think you can check out that site which I'm not going to read the URL because it makes me laugh every time but we'd love to hear your questions and thank you you


It's the same thing, but it's been twisted a little bit, and it's actually not that bad. Hey guys, this is Jeremy here with my review for episode 5 of Supernatural Season 14. Now you might notice something a little different here. I downloaded a program called Sinistyle. This is the first time I'm using it, so this actually kind of looks a little cool. Anyways, the episode itself, it is a retconning of things, but in a good way, for the most part. The whole idea of this episode is that the brothers go to this house where one of their hunters who is using selfie image thing gets attacked by some sort of ghoul. And when they go to the house, they find this old man and this nurse, and it's kind of like a curator thing. But all the while, they get attacked by different beings, but they explode into dust when they're killed. So admittedly, this episode actually had me going for a loop for a little bit, because I actually couldn't pin down what was happening. Now that they've introduced this whole Michael upgrading the monsters thing, it is basically Mother of All Version 2.0, but it has a little bit of a twist on it. And what it turned out to be was a gen, a genie. What this genie has now is the ability to manifest these dreams and these nightmares into reality just from touch. So that's kind of cool. It's now a projectionist and like a physical on sort of creator, which was kind of cool. And admittedly, we delved into alternate universe Bobby who now has a different form of pain and torment on him and his son was killed during the angel war. And admittedly, they never found his body, which is an interesting kind of story twist. It kind of resembles that of what happens with actual fallen soldiers. Sometimes bodies aren't found and the not knowing is worst of all, right? And so that's what haunts him. They also use that as a means to write Mary and alternate Bobby out of the season for a little bit. They're going out to a cabin to... I don't really know. I don't know exactly what they're doing except going for self-help therapy or some food. But that's probably much the weakest part of the episode. What I actually kind of thought was interesting is that Sam is basically a teacher now. He went to law school and now he's a teacher. So this is the first time that Sam has had development in a long time. So the idea of him being a teacher is pretty cool. Admittedly, we get similar, similar, similar, similar dialogue that we've seen like at the end of the episode. Don't worry, Dean. We're going to hunt down Michael. We're going to kill him. How? We'll find a way.  They hadn't defeated everything they've come across. So, again, I really think that they should avoid this kind of dialogue because it's circumstantial. We know how it will end, so don't kind of pull out it. It's not working. But aside from that, this actually is the best episode of the season so far. It's not saying much considering just the caliber of the season so far, but it wasn't a bad episode. So I'll give it that. In the end, I'm going to give episode 5 of Supernatural Season 14 A5 out of 7. I enjoyed this episode. I actually was quite entertained with just the ooo aspect of it. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this review. If you did, leave a like and if you're interested in more, maybe subscribe. Otherwise, see you guys next time.


Was that save by Jordan Pickford the best save you've ever seen? My reaction to that save was I was on the floor literally like that. We were all shaming as common weren't we? I was like that and I was fully expecting that to happen. Because from where I was sitting there was no way he could have stopped that from going in. It was unbelievable. There was an open goal. You're watching a goal to ask a credit in a small motion and you're just thinking it's a goal? It was unbelievable and the thing is he tipped the first one on to the post with everyone. Did he? Well apparently he tipped the first one on to the post. Got up. If he tipped the third one on to the post which I can run across and I will make Ned watch it 14 million times on slow. Run across his goal. Then it would be the greatest not only save but double save in the history of football. It was unbelievable. It was just jaw dropping. So watch the rest of this video and to access exclusive live content. Scan the QR code or click the link in the description to join us over on Patreon.


A Russian doctor gave President Vladimir Putin a surprise diagnosis during his first visit to Chukotka in the country's Far East, according to Newsweek. The assessment was made after Putin arrived in Anadyr, the capital of the Chukotka region, by Chukotka District Hospital head of department Denis Kloss. The Russian leader is on his first regional trip of the year. Putin's health has been the subject of rumour for years. In October 2023, hundreds of thousands of Russians searched for information on the country's most popular search engine, Yandex, after an unfounded rumour that Putin had suffered a cardiac arrest, made headlines around the globe. Kloss assessed Putin's condition as excellent. Cheerful voice, cheerful gait. How he represents thought. It is accessible. It is understandable. There are no other political leaders overseas, even Kloss. Russia's state-run news agency, Ria Navosti, reported Kloss as saying. The doctor advised Putin to get more rest, saying that it plays a major role in longevity. He also compared the 71-year-old's health favorably with that of President Joe Biden. Age has a colossal impact on Biden. Even though he seems to have a healthy lifestyle and diet, age has definitely taken its toll, the doctor said. Putin told residents of Anadyr that he devotes two to two and a half hours to sports daily. Sharing his secret to a healthy life, Putin said, you need to love the work you do. I love.