And I say, this story by Scott Bishop. Put it away! Bill! Bill Andrews, you old hill-roamer. Golly, am I glad to see you. Well, Jim Howard, welcome to K-Powell. You're just the medicine the doctor ordered. And you're the doctor. How are you, Bill? Never better. Say, am I glad to shake hands with you again. You're the same old Jim. Five years haven't changed you a single bit. Well, I'm sorry. I can't say the same thing about you. You look tired, almost sick. I say, you aren't ill, are you? Ill? Oh, no. No, I've just been working hard. Not much sleep lately. Come on, I've got a wagon waiting right over here. Wagon? Sure, nothing fancy about us. We'll take the wagon to the boat landing and then we'll row over to my island. Say, now, wait a minute, Bill. Are you trying to rib me? What do you mean, your island? Oh, didn't I tell you? I haven't lived in K-Powell for three years. I, well, I find it more pleasant and comfortable out on the island. But what island? Folks around here have another name for it. But don't mind them if you hear it. I call it a Chape. Hmm, say that again, Bill. A Chape. What's that, Scandinavian or Esperanto? French. Come on, here's the wagon over here. Young John's waiting on the boat landing. Oh, I say, how is Young John? Jim, I don't know. I'm worried about him. He's having trouble with his studies. Doesn't seem to like books and hate's company. Well, I'd say he's more lonesome than anything else. Smaller than lonesomeness, Bill. Ever since Bill Jr. died, he hasn't been the same. Angela and I were sorry to hear about Bill Jr. Pretty sudden, wasn't it? Yes, pretty sudden. That's the way it is in this country, though. So much fever, so few conveniences. Oh, by the way, you say Angela and the child will be along in a few days? Oh, yes, you've got my wire. Got it yesterday. I didn't know your sister lived at Lowston. Oh, yes, she has for years. Angela wants to visit about a week, and then she'll come on down here to Cape Hall by steamer. Oh, incidentally, old man, do you think this country's all right for the baby? Had her shots, has she? Oh, yes. I did everything you suggested in your letter. You know, that letter you wrote almost scared Angela out of coming. She said if it's that dangerous here, she doesn't think we should risk the child's life by bringing her here. Well, there's no danger at all if the child's been inoculated against the three diseases I mentioned. Oh, I took care of that, all right. You're sure there's no other danger? I've taken care of any other danger there might be. Hm? What do you mean? Just that. There's nothing in the world for your Angela to worry about. Please believe me, James. All right, old man. All right. Hansel and I are on the first vacation we've had since we've been married. And believe you, me, we're here to make the best of it. Good. Come on, the wagon's waiting, see? Right over there. Fine country, eh, what, Jim? Oh, marvelous. We've enjoyed the whole trip so far. Didn't even get seasick on the way across. Not even the baby. And she only a year old. And say I'm anxious to see that girl. How come you named her Sandra? Oh, that's one of Angela's favorite names. But your name, I like it. This is the blameless means of transportation I've ever had to endure. I thought you would at least have your own limousine. No, Jim. I haven't been doing so well lately. I hope you'll be able to put up with what I have to offer you on the island. Rough and rugged, is it? Quite. I built a cabin myself. It's not much, but it's comfortable. Oh, by the way, did you bring the books I wrote you about? Books? Oh, yes, they're in the trunk. And good. I must say, that's the strangest collection of books I've ever heard of. What kind of experimenting are you doing on that island anyway? It's pretty serious, Jim. I assure you. Must be. I read your books on the way across. You did? Yes, indeed. Dr. Helgen Woodward's book on Lycanthrope and Henry Joseph McClure's pamphlet on the disease Lumpus vulgaris, and Guy Ender's story, Werewolf of Paris, and two other books on werewolves. Can't for the life of me imagine, Andrews, what you want with books like that out here in this wilderness. All right, Jim, here we are. Oh, John. Here's Jim Howard. You remember Mr. Howard, don't you, Johnny? Well, sure he does. How are you, John Oldway? All right. Glad to see you, sir. Oh, I'd say, where's that old smile I used to see?  No, sir. I don't want to shake hand. Oh, come on now, we're old friends, aren't we? No, Mr. Howard. Oh, I say now. Jim, just a minute. Let go, Mr. Howard. There, Jim. Oh, there, now, shake just like old friends. Let go. Let go of my hand, sir. Let go. Jim, please. I say, the boy's handbill. Come on, Jim, into the boat with you. Come along, Johnny. Johnny, get into the boat, son. Yes, sir. Come along, Jim. All right, I'm shoving off. All right, Johnny, do you want to take the oars for the exercise, or do you want me to row? Well, son? I told him not to shake my hand. I told him didn't I? Johnny. Can I help you? Is it my fault if my hand's all? Johnny. You want to row or not? Yes, sir. I'll row. OK, son. Up to it. Johnny, sonny, if I did something. Come on. Down to the other end of the boat, will you? Here. Sit here. I see, Andrew, that boy's hand. Quiet, he's upset enough. Bill, the palm of Johnny's hand. Good lord, man. It's all covered with a thick rope of hair. OK, Jim, this is your room. Say, this is fine. You say you built this yourself, Bill? Yep. Every bit of it. How do you like my island? I think it's perfect. But pretty inconvenient. Oh, I don't mind. Sorry we had to arrive here so late. I'll show you around in the morning. Yes, I'm anxious to see the rest of your place, Bill. I want to talk to you more about your work. Yes, of course. Tomorrow, it's pretty late now. Yes, it is late. I'm afraid I'd rather board you, old man, with my chatter at the dinner table. Oh, Jim, you heathen. You've never bought me a minute and all the time I've known you. Oh, that man-raveal of yours is certainly an excellent cook. Yes. He's an excellent tutor for young Johnny, too. You'll find him quite helpful if you want anything. Fine. Oh, by the way, the people in this spot are superstitious, love, Jim. Don't let them bother you with any of their nonsense. Nonsense? Yeah, as silly rots about, well, things in the night. What thing? Oh, there's nothing. Of course. But they take all sorts of means to ward off, well, the evil spirits. Oh, I see. Here, I'll set this charm here on your desk. You won't be using the desk. Charm? What charm? Well, it's just a simple thing that the people here about always insist on putting in the room in which a person sleeps. Here are these three bits of green twigs, two of them standing upright like this. There we have it. Hey, what is this? One cross piece on the uprights like this, then a lake shore pebble, this little bit of charred wood. There you are. Now, you're fully protected. Protected against what?  And now just forget about them, Jim. I just put the charm here in case Raphael comes in. He's very superstitious, and he'll never rest until he's made a charm for you himself. Well, all right, but I see. Now, just forget all about it. Just a whim of Raphael's. Good night, Jim. Night, old man. See you in the morning. Right. Bright and early. You need to spare black as there's one in the closet there. Right, Bill. Good night. Scent and dream. A whim of Raphael's, eh? Three bits of green twig, make sure there's not pebble in the piece of charred wood. Hmm. That's a strange combination. The ward off evil spirits, so Bill claims. But what evil spirit? Great horned toads, what's that? What in the world is that? Bill! Bill, I say Bill. What's that howling? It is nothing, Mr. R. Huh? Oh, you, Raphael. Nothing but a wild animal howling in the night. What?  Wolf, Mr. R. Yes, it couldn't have been a wolf. There are no such animals in this country, you know? I know that, but there, you hear it? It will be all right, sir. Did Mr. Andrews give you the charm? Charm? Oh, yes, the charm. It will protect you, sir, from anything. Wait a minute, Raphael, don't go. Just what is this thing I'm being protected from? Nothing, nothing, sir, nothing at all. People around these parts are curious not at all.  So we humor them by always keeping Charm in the sleeping rooms of a robes. Yes, but I don't see why you should worry about humoring anybody. Way out here alone like this on this island. Well, sir, it is just a habit of Mr. Andrews' arachn. But he said it was you he was satisfying by placing the charm in my bedroom. Yes, sir. That is, well, what I mean is that I'll best be going. Young Johnny isn't feeling so well tonight. I hope you sleep good, Mr. Howard. And don't worry about the arachn. Nothing will harm you. Don't worry about the howling. That howl is coming from the east wing of this cabin. Right over there. Right, George, I'm going to skirt this place and have a look. Quite now, the sound. The light just went on in that room, the sounds coming from. That window is heavily barred. And the window glass is frosted and curtain so no one can see inside. The howl is coming from inside that room. There's the door to the place. Bill, are you in there? Bill! Is an animal in there all right? Bill! Andrews, are you in there? Whatever it is, it's trying to get out. Bill! Bill, are you all right? Are you in there, old man? Bill, are you in there? Bill! Yes, Jim, what is it? I wondered if you were all right. I heard that animal howling and I thought that... Animal? What animal, Jim? Don't tell me you didn't hear it. You went by any chance dreaming already where you were, old boy. But the howling came from inside that room. Say you have been hearing things. I certainly have. Just before you opened the door, I heard an animal sniffing and whining and scratching at the door. Oh, now, Jim, a joke's a joke. But I'm not joking. Come on inside and look for yourself then. Does anybody use this room? Certainly it's young Johnny's. He and Bill Jr. had the room together before. Before we lost Bill Jr. Bill? I'd swear there was an animal in here a moment ago. Normally, Jim, I'd be a little confused by what you're saying. Well, the long trip, the worry about your baby daughter... Look, look, there on the door. Long deep scratches like an animal's nails would make. Oh, those. Jim, those marks are ancient. The boys used to own a collie dog. We don't have him anymore. We used to shut him up in here sometimes and he'd scratch on the door for someone to let him out. What's this? Bill, what is this? A long, heavy chain, securely fastened to the metal bed post and a huge leather collar on the other end. Yes. That was the collie's chain and collar. We, well, we've never removed it from the bed. We'd chain the dog here at night to protect the boys. But look here. Fresh blood stains on the collar and little whips of grayish fur. Jim, forget it. Those stains aren't fresh. That dog hair has probably been there for ages. Yeah. I suppose so. But why the bars on the windows, Andrew? Just to protection for the children. But come on, they're living in the room, old man, and let me get you a drink. Call it a night, shall we? Yes. I suppose we'd better. Maybe a little sleep will do everybody a lot of good. I can't tell you how happy I am to have you and Jim here to visit me. We've looked forward to this for six months, Bill. I envy Jim for having a weak head start on me. Oh, we really like it here, Bill. Baby asleep, Jim? Yes. And it's time we had some rest, too. And that's my hint to clear up. Oh, no. Oh, I forgot. I'm going over to the mainland. I'll be back by morning. Anything wrong, Bill? Oh, no, not a thing. Jim, may I ask a favor? Certainly. What's charm you're wearing? Solid silver, isn't it? Why, yes it is. Do you think you could give it to me? Give it to you? Oh, of course. I have a very special reason for wanting it. I wouldn't ask for it if I didn't have. There you are. Thanks, old man. I... I hope I can return it to you. Well, good night. See you tomorrow. Good night, Bill. Jim, why does Bill act so strangely? I... I don't know, dear. Hmm, I wonder why he wanted that silver watch charm. Odd. Oh, oh, by the way, you said you had that wire for me. Oh, yes. It's here in my purse. I'll get it for you. Would you cover Sandra, dear?  Oh, sure. Here you are, darling. Thanks. Yes, dear? Listen, in answer to your cable, I have been able to learn that the grandfather of William J. Andrews was shot in France almost half a century ago by an angered mob. His grave was recently opened. And instead of the remains of a man, investigators found the almost perfectly intact body of a strange beast, somewhat resembling a wolf. Jim, no. Just a little bit. Oh, Jim, what's that? Something's wrong. Come on, hurry. Look out the doorway of that room with the bars at the window. Some animal running out there near the edge. Hit that creature three times. I couldn't have missed him. And yet the bullets didn't even slow him down. Jim, there's a doorway. It's raised here. Look at him. Only an animal could have done a thing like that. Why, John, John, hey? Look, Jim, that heavy chain hanging from the bed post. The collar's gone. Chain snapped right in two. Angela, you and I have a job to do. I hate to ask you to do this, but I think you've got the courage. Do what, dear? Come along with me. You will see. Ready to get the lid off the box now? Oh. Steady, Angela. Steady. Oh, this thing's terrible. Desecrating Bill Jr.'s grave like this. Sticking up the casket. If I'm wrong about this, well, we see. Let me that bar. That's it. I'll hold the light over here now, Angela. The body in that casket? As far as Bill Jr.'s. But look. Only fur all over it. And that head and face. Like a dog. Like a wolf. Oh, Jim. Young Bill Jr. died. A wolf. His great-grandfather before him had the same disease. That's why Bill Jr. died so mysteriously. That's why Andrews had to leave the mainland to move out here. And over a while, he's been studying to effect a cure. In the palms of young Johnny's hands, not wanting me to shake hands with him. Now I see why Bill was so insistent about the charm of twigs, charcoal. A silver bullet. That held again. Jim? Come on, honey. There's no light in the room. We left it on, didn't we? Yes, we did. Oh, Jim, hurry. There. The light went on. Look out, dear. Let me in there. This door's locked. Who's in there? Open this door. Open up. Oh, Jim. Jim. Open up this door. Open up, I say. It's finished now. Young Johnny. And you have heard Scott Bishop's 13th original tale of Dark Fantasy. W is for werewolf. Ben Morris was heard tonight as Jim Howard. Garland Moss was Bill Andrews. Eleanor Naylor Coran took the part of Angela Howard. Fred Wayne was Raphael. And Don Stoltz played Young Johnny. Next Friday night at the same time, listen to the 14th in this series of Dark Fantasy dramas. An intriguing, exciting story called A Delicate Case of Murder. Written by Scott Bishop. A strange, weird tale of a spiritualistic medium who suddenly finds herself in the midst of a vicious and well-planned murder plot with herself the victim. Murder and fantasy combine to produce one of the most eerie adventures you have ever heard in a delicate case of murder. Tom Paxton speaking. Dark Fantasy comes to you each Friday night from WKY, Oklahoma City. This is the National Broadcasting Company.


Copephora Corganensis is a guided meditative experience for online audience. Across the five stages of this experience, we will use insect anatomy to enhance our own sense of presence and uncover how to listen closer, deeper and wider throughout space and evolutionary time. Now begin stage one start in a seated position facing towards the screen. Let your eyes close as you start to focus on your breathing. Any immediate stresses begin to fall away. They are carried by your exhales into the ground as you breathe. Concentrate on your chest, opening and closing. Visualize the air entering and exiting your body. Lengthen your spine as you inhale. Growing tall as you exhale feel the tension in your shoulders fall away. Repeat this again. Inhale, take your hands and rest them at your sides. Palms touching the ground. I want you to imagine that you have left the room you are in now. Take a moment to imagine you are outside. Beneath your hands is the cool moist earth. Shooting up between your fingers are soft blades of grass. Imagine a vast field. The grass extends far and wide. Take a breath in of the fresh air and lengthen your spine again. Exhale and release all tension into the ground. Once again breathe in. Lengthen the spine. Feel any stresses report through your lower back into the grass. Still with closed eyes let yourself fall backwards into a laying position. Stretch your legs out in front. Bringing your back to the floor. Your palms face the sky. Feel the points of connection between your back and the ground. Any tension seeps away into the grass. Floating above you in the sky is an insect. This insect is the size of your palm.  Its pale green body is almost translucent. With yellowish legs that arch from its body its eyes are like pearls. Round grayish white sunken into its skull.  A small horn protrudes from its forehead. This is the insect copephora gorgonensis. Despite 650 million years of evolutionary divergence, copephora gorgonensis and homo sapien miraculously share the same three-part inner ear structure. As we slowly morph into copephora gorgonensis we will attempt to listen deeper into our present moment within the vastness of space and evolutionary time. Feel the coolness of the grass. One moves at a glacial pace to cover the sun fusing together into sturdy fleshy pads. They divide into three fleshy toes. Your wrists begin to thin away to the bone. They are covered only in a thin layer of skin. The muscles of your forearms begin to shrivel away as this thinning extends upwards to your elbow. The sensation travels further past your elbow into your bicep, into your upper arm and shoulder. Your arms are now oddly skeletal. Bring your focus to your ankles and feet to become three fleshy toes. The same as your hands. They support an ankle thinned to the bone. This thinning extends up your calves. It reaches your knee and travels further through your upper legs which also thins to the bone. Allow this sensation to reach your pelvis and now equally skeletal. Now move your concentration to your hips. Circling your hips is a thin ring of bone-like armor.  Back around to the base of your spine. The armor is translucent and tinted and emerald green. The armor begins to creep upwards like a tube over your waist. It creeps upwards over your belly, spreading to the base of your rib cage. With each inhale, it extends towards your chest.  It grows into your shoulder blades, higher and higher over the shoulders, into your armpits, into the base of your neck. As you notice your breathing, your armor delicately splits at your rib cage, stomach and groin into three overlapping panels. Feel these expanding and contracting as you breathe. This armor covering your upper body is an exoskeleton. Two raised bones sprout from your knees.  This bone has been made obsolete by evolution. It is called an acoustic trachea and its new use is to carry vibrations in your mind's eye. Leave your body and float just above. Imagine looking down at your new form. Notice your color against the grass, your green translucent body and your thin yellowish limbs.   We will save this image for later. Descend back into your body. Your partial hybrid form dissolves as you return to your original human form. Still with closed eyes, return to a seated position. Stage two, bring your hands to your ears. Start to stroke the fleshy edges of your ears. Focusing on the sound. Find an area of your ear that sounds different to touch. Focus on the difference. Explore other areas of your ears. Make pleasing sounds. Now slowly open your eyes and look into the screen. Relax your fingers from your ears. Bring your attention back towards your body. With closed eyes, fall backwards once again into a laying position. Stage three, this high sound exists within the hearing range of both copephora, gorgonensis and homo sapien. Feel its seep into your inner ears. Sound reaches both of your ears at slightly different moments. Different parts of the sound get cancelled out. This phenomenon known as phase cancellation helps us perceive the location of the sound. White noise is comprised of many frequencies at once. Its detail makes it easy for our ears to locate. Return to a seated position. Listen into the sound. Take a deep inhale and exhale. And focus further into the sound. Imagine the white noise conceals other sounds. Upturn the sound like a stone revealing other sounds beneath.  Focus on the new location of the sound. Listen to the sound filtering differently into your ears. With great control, turn your head slowly to the other shoulder. Listening closely as the filtering changes. Focus on this new location of the sound. Fix your head at other points on this horizontal plane. Listening in to different filterings. Find pleasant notes of sound. Return your head to centre. Take a moment to listen deeper. Find these pleasant notes again. Find more of them and leave some behind. Make a growing network of points and flutter between them. Start to move faster and slower. Slow movements are tense and focused. Move your head in new directions. Allow any tension in your neck muscles to govern your movement. Explore the extremes of the range. Make complex, organic, never repeating rhythms. Return to a rest position with closed eyes. Make your way onto your hands and knees. Bring your chin to your chest as you inhale. Curl your spine upwards as you exhale. Uncurl and lengthen your spine, lifting your head towards the screen. Repeat this process as you inhale again with curled spine and exhale lengthened spine. Feel free to perform this stretch if you feel any tension in your body. Remember the image of your body as Gopi Phora, Gorgonensis, your yellowish spindly limbs, your green translucent exoskeleton, split into panels. Reattach your acoustic trachea from your knees to your ear. The white noise is thinning out into the tones produced by the Gopi Phora, Gorgonensis, for mating. Excite the sound with your neck movement as you curl and uncurl your spine. Breathe deeper. Feel the vibrations of the sound on the cellular level. The sound reconfigures your biological framework.  A fluorescent orange, the glow spreads into your forehead, the back of your neck, into your scalp from all directions. Until your head is covered, your cheeks begin to give way to large translucent mandibles. Sound begins to reflect differently into your ears. A small horn begins to protrude from your forehead. This change in shape also effects the reflection of sound. Concentrate on the tips of these protrusions. Eyes jut out from their sockets like domes. The whites overwhelm your pupils. They shrink to half their size. They are like pearls. Begin to steady your head to position and exhale as you fall back into a lane. The stage falls body and look back your fleshy tones. Limb also copephora gorgonensis and homo sapien do slowly drift upwards in meters into the air. Becomes quieter. 50 meters. See the boundaries of the field. Imagine what is beyond them.  Keep traveling higher. You ascend to the height of clouds. Feel the curvature of the earth. Sense the ocean in your periphery as I count up. From 1 to 10, slowly ascend through the lower atmosphere into the upper atmosphere and into space. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. You float in a void. The planet is below you as it slowly turns in the darkness. Day sets in to night. The planet freezes in place as time stands still. Allow it to reverse direction. Moving backwards in time. Let this process speed up. The planet turning faster and faster. Speeding up and up. Becoming a blur of blue and green. Spinning incomprehensibly. Travelling back millions of years. 10 million years. 20 million. 50 million. 100 million. 200 million. 400 million. 600 million. The planet gradually loses speed. Slows down. Becomes static. The blur subsides. A super ocean fills the planet. At the planet's south is a super continent. There are no other land masses. Clouds are rare. On this planet, some 650 million years ago, the evolutionary pathways of copephora, gulcanensis, and homo sapien diverged. As gravity takes hold, you drift back into the uppermost layer of atmosphere. You begin to plummet through the upper atmosphere. Past nascent gaseous formations through the ozone layer. Into the blue of the sky. Into a rare cloud. As you emerge from the other side, only the ocean is below you. Your body is nowhere to be seen. You dive into the prehistoric seas. The water is warm. Enveloping. Empty. Clear. Drifting. Some 50 meters below is your body. It is a different body to the one you left behind. You have devolved 650 million years into a worm-like creature. Something tiny. Transparent. Silky. Cloth-like. You glide in the undercurrent. You have no ears. You have no sensory receptors at all. You have one simple digestive tract, from mouth to anus. That is all you have. The sun glints on the ocean surface. The sun begins to set, suddenly rising again. As we begin to travel forwards in time. The tectonic plates shift. Oceans oxygenate. The sun hums. Imagine your form growing. Evolving. Mutating. Flopping onto land. Riving. Calcifying. Coming back towards your human form. Stage 5. Begin to anchor yourself back into the present moment. As we begin to exit this experience. Bring into your perception the floor beneath you. Imagine the four walls that surround you. Picture what fills them. As you return to your human body. Coming back to the real world. Begin to move your fingers and toes. Allow yourself to slowly awaken from this experience. There is a final written note on the screen in front of you. Thank you for taking part in you coping for Gorgonensis.


A shrine located within the Oshun Oshubu Secret Grove will be conserved for posterity thanks to the 127-thousand-dollar grant from the United States mission in Nigeria. Plans were concluded with the signing of a memorandum of understanding in Lagos for the digital documentation, training and conservation planning for the World Heritage Center. Jacinta Obuco again has details. It was an evening of signing of a memorandum of understanding and reception at the United States Consulate General's Residence. 127-thousand-dollars will be going to Siak, a non-profit, to document and make conservation plans for the Bosoin Shrine located at the Oshun Oshubu Secret Grove. The money is courtesy of Ambassador Fund for Cultural Preservation Program, which aims to preserve historic buildings, monuments, crafts, and cultural expressions. Through projects like this one in the Sacred Grove, the United States and Nigeria are actively cooperating on means to protect Nigeria's cultural heritage. We are also finalizing a bilateral agreement that would establish restrictions against the import into the United States of prohibited items of cultural property. The agreement also would encourage public and private cultural institutions and law enforcement agencies in both countries to work together on repatriating trafficked objects and fostering cultural exchanges. This is a great opportunity to bring in specialists that will work on digitization of our World Heritage site. The Bosoin Shrine is one of eight monuments within the Oshun Oshubu Grove. The groove itself has been hit by natural disaster, which is one of the considerations for a 3D digital documentation. The 3D digital documentation of the shrine is the necessary first step to provide the most accurate record of the current conditions of the site and effectively plan a restoration project that will increase resilience at the site during a natural disaster or extreme weather conditions. They also stress that the MOU signed will foster better preservation that will enable next generation appreciate culture. By signing this agreement, they have moved a step forward by preserving it. We know that it's going to continue because we know now Oshun will not just die and Oshun will not carry Oshun to go. Please come to Oshubu. It's the most extraordinary sculpture garden if you want to look at it this way. It's the most incredible spiritual place. Oshun Oshubu's sacred grove is Nigeria's second world heritage site. The 3D digitalization will allow the grove to remain intact as a cultural landmark in years to come. Just enter Ryukufa Plus TV Africa.


Hi guys, it's MJ, the student act tree, and this is another edition of actuarial discussions. And with me today is Tiffany. She studied actuarial science at Tux University. So yeah, Tiff, welcome to the interview. Thank you very much, MJ. And I'm just thinking for this chat, why don't you just explain to us why you wanted to study actuarial science? What drew you to the subject? Well, so I always had a natural inclination towards maths in high school and did the whole ad maths route and math paper three and all that. I was also very good at accounting and IT, so those were also some options. But I wanted to pursue a career and a degree where I could be challenged and I could delve a bit deeper into mathematics. And the whole actuarial pathway seemed like a good route to go. It seemed like not many people went that way and yeah, so it just seemed like a natural fit for what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. And you mentioned here, I mean mathematics. And that's definitely something that we do a lot of in the undergrad subjects. But in the work that you're doing now, how important is mathematics to an actuary at your level? So I would say it's quite important because we need the foundations of mathematics in order to make informed decisions in the workplace. We need to be able to, if someone questions methodology that we use who isn't mathematically inclined, you need to be able to explain to them or you need to be able to sort of think outside the box and to think outside the box, you need your firm foundations. And that's what maths does. It gives you the firm foundations and it also helps you to prepare you because it's a really tough degree, it's a really tough profession. But you also talk about IT. How important do you think IT programming and all those computer skills are to actuaries? So I think they're really, really important. Something I've noticed when I started working is that a lot of the older actuaries don't have the skills required, such as even basic SAS programming. So they're relying on the new analysts that come in to have some programming knowledge in order to carry on because they're stuck in Excel, they're stuck in access sometimes and there's a big need for someone or for people in the industry that can both program and do other professions. So I think it's super important. I myself am going to stop learning Python when I'm done with my exams just because I know it's going to broaden my career prospects even further. And you mentioned Python. Why Python over, say, Java or Ruby on Rails? So Python seems to be what majority of the people that I have networked with are using. It also seems to be when you get all these advertisements for job offers and all of that, Python is always on the list. So that's basically it. I think it's becoming one of those basic skills like Microsoft Office was 10 years ago that you need to learn. And you also spoke about something called SAS. So I remember I had a job offer and it was going well until they said, do you have any SAS programming background? And I was like, no. And then they're like, thank you very much. And the job offer passed. So can you talk to me a little bit about SAS? I mean, I'm very interested to know what exactly is this, how difficult it is to learn to use it for. So SAS stands for statistical analysis software, I think. So basically it's very similar to R except that it is quite old and it's quite expensive. So corporations favor it for some reason. There's also a legacy issue because a lot of the prior models and processes are in SAS and it's quite a slip to move everything over to the newer programs. So SAS is actually a very easy programming language to learn. And it's not finicky, it's not too tricky, it's easy to debug. So it's a common favorite. I really enjoy working in SAS. And mostly, if you're working with large databases and stuff, you use ProxEqual and then you use SQL code within SAS. So yeah. And Tommy, have you ever wanted to program, say, an application or an app for an Apple phone or your Android phone? Has that ever appealed to you? So it may have. I have been a bit preoccupied with writing exams and studying and all that. So I do have a lot of friends who are developers and a lot of the work they're doing is intriguing and I would love to be a part of that. And that's also one of the other reasons why I want to start learning a programming language other than the functional programming languages that we use. Yeah, so it's all about what is going on at the moment. And that is where we're heading. We're heading into an environment where everyone needs to know how to make an app. Everyone needs to know at least the base knowledge so that they know what's possible. And yeah. And how do you feel about specifically here in Cape Town? I mean, my brother was just talking to me about a salary survey that they did and how IT developers and programmers are earning significantly more than people in the financial sector. I mean, and one of the big draws to actuarial science originally is, or one thing that people are like, oh, actuarial science, is these or are the high salaries? How do you feel about programmers getting paid more than actress? Do you think that's a trend that we're going to see continuing or do we see the actuarial salary dropping some more in time? So I think it depends a lot on where your inclination lies. They're two very different career paths.  And it's a brilliant skill to have, and it's definitely in need. But with actuarial science, you've got your degree, and then you've got this whole pathway of exam you need to take. And I think it attracts a very different type of a person. And I think there will be some people who, the way it appeals to both of them, and they are swayed to computer science. But yeah, I don't think that the salary will be a huge consideration if someone is having a choice between computer science and actuarial science, I think. I don't think it will matter to them. Because I must say the one thing that I think is still very attractive about actuarial science is the fact that we have this professional body. When an employer comes to employ someone, you say, I'm an actuary, they can be like, well, prove it. Let's go to the asset database, see your name there.  But with programming, you don't really have that. Someone says, I'm a programmer. There's no professional body that says, yes, this person can program in Java or this person can program in Python. So a lot of employees say, well, what work have you done before? But it's so easy to go online, copy a bunch of code, stitch it together, and then pass it off as yourself. So do you think that's something that the actuarial profession does have an advantage over all these other fields, all these other industries? Is the fact that we do have this professional body governing us? Do you think that's a big advantage? Or do you think like some other people I've spoken to who think that it's unnecessary, it's unnecessary to get your degree at, say, a university and then write even more exams to get into a profession. You should just get it straight away. Yeah, so I think it's, there's two sides to the coin. I think having a professional body, having a professional body sort of regulating a sector helps with a lot of things. It actually, I think the actuarial role is so crucial to so many different sectors in this country that we can't afford to screw it up. And I think the regulator is there to help us to ensure that doesn't happen. So they want to cover all the bases to ensure that our reputation is actually the sound and we are fit for the purpose that we are supposed to be doing. So what I'm getting at is if we just allow anyone to become an actuary who's just left university, there's no backbone to ensure that this person is going to do the best and most fit job that they can. Whereas with computer science, I think there's a lot less writing on their opinion and their work. Not that I'm saying it's likely. Fair enough, I mean. But I think that we, we're in a riskier environment. No, look, I think you're 100% true on that one. We're actually, we have this massive responsibility, especially when you're overseeing a massive pension fund or just the reserves of the life insurance. You know, these funds go into the billions of rounds. But coming back to the profession, I know that we, we really have voted for the, the council and you have, you were one of the candidates to be the student representative. Yeah. Yeah, maybe can you talk to us, what was your, why did you want to do it and what are you hoping to achieve when you get elected? Hopefully, if you do get elected. So there's a few different reasons that are quite related. So I was having conversations with one of the qualified actuaries in my company and he was very involved with Asaba and working with the council. He might have been on the council before actually, but I won't say his name now. And basically he was saying that out of the pool of people that start studying actuarial science, the pool obviously starts diminishing by the point you get qualified. But this pool, there's a huge difference between, say, white males and then females and then people of color. And it's actually sort of people of color, females, they start falling off the pool a lot quicker than, than white males. And it's all like our country is, is, is shrouded with this inequality and different backgrounds and that sort of thing. But so there's something that we're missing in the equation. There's something that we are, we're not preparing students for, the ones that aren't, they, they don't have access to the skills and the knowledge sets in order to pass all these exams. So how do we empower the students to pass their exams and, and ensure that they actually get qualified without getting disheartened and, and leaving, leaving the industry? So yeah, that was one of the, the big drivers in why I decided to. And also there's, there's even speaking to other student actuaries, there's a lot of people who are frustrated by the process. A lot of people get disheartened. They don't understand why, you know, why do they keep failing an exam? Why did they fail an exam five times? And the, on top of that, you have this huge divide where if you're not a qualified actually, then you don't get any of the good work. And this isn't all the cases. This isn't, of course, this is, I have noticed it is a trend though, where there's this big divide.  You can't go to a managerial level. Whereas. If you've got that profession or you've got that qualification. So, but, but then there's this huge divide and people get stuck in their careers. And then you get these people getting job turn or leaving to go to a different industry or going to another company where the divide isn't so big. So yeah, I think there's a big problem with, with, with exams. Do you think we have maybe too many exams? I don't think we have too many exams because there's a lot of scope for the, to get exemptions at university level. I do think that there's unreasonable expectations put on students by employers. For instance, you do get a lot of leave. You do get certain benefits for passing exams or for study leave and all that. But you also have to work at the same time. And you also have to, you know, it's basically taking, say someone else, a computer science graduate and chucking them into a position and then telling them that they have to write two exams twice a year. It's, it's sort of, it will drive you insane. And it's, it's a difficult process. So this is. We are actually, I mean, we're notorious for, for not having a, a social life. Yes. I mean, I remember when I was at Boots, yeah, I didn't spend a lot of time outside of my, my little study, study nest, call it a nest because there was food was there, the little blanket was there.  I mean, yeah, it's going to be quite interesting. Once we do qualify, we're going to have quite a lot of time on our hands. How confident are you about, because I mean, we both wrote the fellowship now in October, but I know you did very well in your mock exam and I didn't do that well. So how confident are you of passing this fellowship exam?  But I think, so that I had a quite a big advantage because one of the questions in the exam was directly applicable to a project I worked on last year. And so that also comes back to the point where experience helps you pass this level of exam. So I think I'm feeling quite confident in that. However, I know it's not uncommon for people to take two or three times to pass this exam. So I'm not getting my hopes up, but I do feel quite confident about it. And then there's the next year, there's just fellowship if 101, if 102, if 100 levels. The specialist subjects. I still have one of those left. Oh, so one of those to do? Yes. Okay. So I still have that left and then the work base skills, all the admin surrounding that. Yeah, so I'm confident and I don't know what I'll do when I'm not studying, I actually might do my master's. No, you can't go back to studying. Because what do you do if you don't have exams to study for in May and you don't have a master's? You have exams to study for in May and November. Well, yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, that's so. We're socially awkward now. We like, oh my gosh, we have too much time. Yes, yeah. But I'll tell you what, let's call it because how long have we been chatting for? Cool. We've been chatting for 70 minutes. Okay, you want to take a break? So yeah, let's take a break and we'll do another chat soon. Thanks so much. Cool.


Welcome back to our series on the rock cycle. In this video we'll be looking at igneous rocks and in particular how they fit into the rock cycle. We'll be looking at the processes involved in their formation and the controls in particular on texture. So let's start this video with a feel for texture. Igneous rocks are either intrusive, plutonic rocks or extrusive volcanic rocks. The plutonic igneous rocks have a coarse interlocking texture and you can see that these minerals are easily seen with your naked eye. Now these minerals would have cooled over thousands to millions of years so they've had a long time to form these large crystal sizes that you can see. Whereas when we compare that to a volcanic extrusive igneous rock it has a very fine texture. The minerals are still interlocking however you can't see them with your naked eye and this is because they cool very quickly on the surface so they just don't have enough time to grow as large. The really cool thing with this sample is you can see its flow patterns. So this was a basaltic lava flow and you can even see it has a slightly vesicular texture and by that I mean there are little vesicles where the gas bubbles would have been trying to escape as it cooled. So in summary igneous rock textures are controlled by the rate at which it's cooled from the molten rock. Extrusive igneous rocks cool fast so they have a very fine crystal texture. Conversely intrusive igneous rocks cool much slower so they've got time to grow much larger crystals. In our next video we'll be talking about the composition of igneous rocks and the processes that control this.


Hey, this is Brett, and this 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is stock number 13077Z. I am here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, your new and used Dodge and Sports car headquarters. This 2009 Dodge Challenger has the 6.1 liter V8 Hemi engine, puts out 425 horsepower. This car has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this car is 100% ready to go. I'm going to go all the way around in this video, inside, start it up, and take a look under the hood. Hemi orange pearl coat is the color, and I shoot all my videos in 4K, so if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television, I highly recommend turning them on right now, because it is your best way to check out the quality, condition, options, and cleanliness of the vehicle before seeing it in person. And as you go down this side, take note of how clean that body is, I didn't see any major dents or dings on there, looks really good. And if you like the video, and how I do things here at Summit Auto, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash Summit Auto, and then click the bell notifications, you'll get updates on the videos I do each and every day. This one comes with the 20 inch painted and polished aluminum rims, and it has Goodyear Eagle RSA tires. These are 245, 45 ZR20s, and I would say they have right around half the tread left, maybe a little bit more, to take note that you do get the Brembo brakes on here. Front fender is in fantastic condition as well. Front bumper looks really good, didn't see any major dents, dings, or cracks on there. It does come with factory fog lights, the HID headlamps, and the grille is in really nice condition too. It does come with the carbon fiber-esque stripes on it, those look really good, and the sport hood. I didn't see any dents or dings on that hood, looks really good, the stripes are in really nice condition as well. And the passenger side front fender looks really good too, no major dents or dings on there, and the passenger side rim, no major scuffs or scrapes. Now as you go down this side of this 2009 Dodge Challenger, once again take note of how clean the body is, how reflective, and mirror like that paint is. I take these HD videos, so if you are far away or even if you're close by and you just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the vehicle, hear the vehicle, and have confidence in what you're looking at before you can get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises, and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. And if this video helps you make that buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video, that it was helpful, and that Brett sent you. Very clean down that side. This back rim is in excellent shape as well. You get the Brembo brakes in back too, and the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires. And around to the back of the vehicle, you'll notice that it does have Flowmaster dual rear exhaust. The rear bumper is in very nice shape as well. It does have a backup camera, and rear bumper looks really good, no dents or dings or cracks, and it does come with the deck lid spoiler, and the deck lid or trunk lid is in very nice shape as well, no dents or dings on there. Trunk area is very clean. This one does come with the kicker subwoofer. So that would be the SRT option group two. You do get a tire inflator kit, and there is your battery. Those seats do fold down for extra storage, and you can see just how nice and clean inside the trunk is. And you do get the, or I should say the shocks are doing a nice job holding that trunk up. So that's nice and solidly. And for full disclosure, this back rim is in nice shape as well. No scuffs or scrapes on there. And once again, driver's side, didn't see any dents or dings on that. It does come with the heated power mirrors. Inside the SRT package gives you the black leather and suede interior. There are no rips or tears on the seats. You do get the orange stripe on the backrest. The SRT's stitched down the backrest as well. It is a power driver's seat, and the second row seats as long as we're standing here are in excellent shape as well. No rips or tears. Those seats do fold down for extra storage.  Bright pedals, factory floor mats, auto headlamps, tilt telescopic steering wheel, power windows, power locks, power mirrors, and you do get the suede inserts on the doors. That's in nice shape as well. We'll hop inside, check out the miles, the radio, everything that this car has to offer on the interior. Then we'll start it up, take a look at all those lights, and take a look under the hood. 14,370 miles on this car.  You get the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Information center controls on the right and left. This one does have a Sony aftermarket radio. You get AM FM radio on here. This is also where your backup camera shows up. And I'm not sure, I think I have to have the car on for that to work. So I'll show you that a little bit. Looks like it is Android Auto and Apple CarPlay capable on here. Serious XM radio, and it does have Bluetooth capabilities as well. Climate controls, heated seat buttons, does have an electronic stability program, the six speed manual transmission. That's in nice shape. And the passenger side floor mat and seat are in excellent shape as well. Does come with the power sunroof, and the headliner is in nice condition too. You get map lights, home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lighting systems, and an auto gym and mirror. We'll start it up, take a look under the hood, listen to that exhaust, and check out those HID lights. There's your backup camera, that is working nicely. No check engine lights or anything like that there. Flowmaster exhaust sounds really good, all the tail lights work nicely. And I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today. And hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to verify the quality, condition, options, and cleanliness of this car all the way around. There are those HID headlamps, fog lights are working nicely as well. And under the hood, we have the 6.1 liter V8 Hemi engine. It does have a K&N cold air intake. Once again, this car has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and tapped off. And this car is 100% ready to go. You can see the shocks are doing a nice job holding that hood up. There is your emissions sticker. And I would highly recommend this car from a quality and condition standpoint. And to see more pictures of this Dodge Challenger, one of our other 550 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, sports cars, challengers, chargers, Mustangs, Corvettes, Camaros, you name it. We got to go to that website right there. SummitAuto.com. Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations. All at SummitAuto.com. And if you'd like to check out more HD videos, you can go to YouTube.com slash SummitAuto. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. Click the bell notification so you get updates on the videos I do each and every day here at Summit Automotive. In fact, in a second, you'll see a link to subscribe to my YouTube channel in the upper left. A link to more Challenger videos I've done in the upper right. Link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left. And a link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right. Click those, check us out. And we're super excited to help you with this Ultra Clean 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 Option Group 2 in Hemi Orange Pearl Coat. Thanks again for checking out the video. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel. I really appreciate it. Thanks again.


Okay, I think we need to get livened up a little bit. So I'm gonna have some heavy crowd engagement to start this off Are y'all down y'all ready? Yeah, okay, I always bring this to my talks. I don't know how I'm gonna hold it Maybe we'll do okay.  There we go. Come on. You got it. Okay. There we go Okay, so that's how we dust off our our post-lunch energy there Okay, so thanks all for being here Cool. So hey everyone My name is Ben. My stage name is weirdy. It's Yankevich. I discovered that I can do music if it's about crypto And it covers how bad I am at music works great And I'm one of the co-founders of a project called optimism. Oh Yeah, thank you. Okay. I'll take it and And Today I am going to do a talk on what we are building and why Because if you thought that we were building a blockchain if you thought we were building a scalability solution You are dead wrong And by the way, this is the most ridiculous talk I have ever done like by an order of magnitude So in addition to thank you for being here. Thank you for coming along this ridiculous ride and yeah brace yourself. I Believe that we are here to change the future and hopefully if you're here at DevCon you feel that way, too When I discovered Ethereum I dropped everything I saw something something clicked we call it going down the rabbit hole But whatever the heck it is. It's this kind of vibe. Here's one of our great Ethereum shills. Mr. David Hoffman crypto wasn't created to make you rich. It was created to set you free So we've got a lot of shills out there But the reality is that we all have to acknowledge We have a lot of haters look at some of these communities that are all dedicated to poo pooing what the heck we're doing here, right? So what's going on? Why is it so hard to convince these people and what can we do to make that happen? Well, I think really what this comes down to is That when we talk about these systems we describe the properties Of the future that we see we talk about decentralization Censorship resistance digital value, but what we don't talk about are the paths that it we're going to take to get there And the reality is even if some of these properties of the future are inevitable the outcomes Resulting from the paths we take there simply are not 30 years ago Silicon Valley Had an explosion of technological utopians that knew that the internet was the next big thing the information superhighway the world-wide web According to popular mechanics, this was going to be the greatest social revolution since the automobile and probably it was but nobody really Saw what was coming in 1996 this guy John Perry Barlow often called the Thomas Jefferson of the wire generation wrote a very famous Piece called a declaration of the independence of cyberspace. Let me read you some from it Governments of the industrial world you weary giants of flesh and steel. I come from cyberspace the home of mind On behalf of the future. I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us You have no sovereignty where we gather This is good stuff weary giants of flesh and still yeah deserves a plus totally It's great. It's incredibly moving right weary giants of flesh and still what a phrase right? Oh my gosh And this thing went viral back in 96 within months It was on tens of thousands of websites and it had taken a subset of the community I swarmed But it's hard today also not to look back on this message with 30 years of hindsight And feel that in some ways it's a little bit naive What we learned was that the roads of that information superhighway were not Equally paved And the reality is that those weary giants of flesh and steel have been replaced today By siloed giants of concrete and silicon. This is what runs our internet. This is what things look like today So how are we not going to do this again with crypto? What can we say about what's to come? Well, the only thing we know for sure is that technology is keep Is going to keep accelerating it is going on and on and on you can feel it in the air guys I don't know about you, but I certainly feel it seems like every week something crazy is going on The ai have started to do our homework the homework of our children and better than those children are able to I think probably whereas a year ago it didn't exist half of the people at dev con Use an ai to generate the slides that they present here at dev con Here's an ai generation of depicting someone using artificial intelligence to generate their slides, right? It's crazy. This is going on all the time and look. It's all fun and games until we start impersonating world leaders This is ridiculous, but this is what's happening, right? This is the world that we are headed into sure in that video our world leaders were getting a wrong But the reality is we are on a march towards something much different and they're not getting along folks We are maximizing our profits with no regard for the long-term consequences of what we're doing We are civil attacking ourselves with fake accounts and even faker news And we are literally straying dangerously close to nuclear war Call it what you want call it the singularity say it's something else But it's clear that we are moving through a phase shift right now into something new And whatever that is if it's not our destruction will change how life is expressed in the galaxy fundamentally Or at least our solar system anyway, I don't know about those aliens. Maybe they're Already there and in many ways the crypto dream is to forge a path Through this uncertain future Right open source software knowing what code is being run digital sovereignty going bankless living in the metaverse Working for dows right these are things are the promise of crypto. They're the dream What is the reality today though? It's a little bit different Coin voting that's what we have today folks coin voting There are exceptions, but by and large this is what exists in crypto today, right? And this is just sad come on guys look at this guy. This is a 400 year old mechanism This is the founder of the dutch east india trading company Who is basically the first person to make a coin voting structure, right? It was a um, you know, it was a company that you could trade the shares of it's 400 years old His name is johan van olden barnevelt crazy, right the united east india company Do we really think that this guy the mechanism that this guy made If we take it and we make it unstoppable by putting it on a blockchain We're suddenly going to usher in a new era of unity and freedom for the world. It's just not enough. What a joke It's a joke And I want to be clear We should still stand on the shoulders of giants these mechanisms are 400 years old and worked for a reason But the reality is we also have to new use those mechanisms in new ways, right? Much of the anger at the world today that we at crypto in crypto feel like we're trying to solve Is the fact that we let this coin voting mechanism run unchecked and we talk about late stage capitalism and all of that and so Ultimately our anger is about these systems So it's completely ridiculous to say that we're going to go and put it on a coin vote and suddenly the world is saved So we're facing an inflection point. We have to ask ourselves right now Do we want to live in a future? Where those autonomous giant where those giants are now autonomous giants of biting bites and steel and capital Or do we want to be in one where there are benevolent giants of life and liberty? These are the questions that we must be asking ourselves right now Optimism obviously, okay, so we're not going to do it alone But this is what I met at this beginning when I said we're not creating a blockchain here. We're doing something more Optimism is a collection of optimists We are here to align technology with humanity And reject those futures in which capital alone is king because capital is already king today We don't want to just make it autonomous and unstoppable. That's crazy crazy. Look at that echo The technology that we're talking about today is necessary, but it is not sufficient It is one half of the picture if we're going to align with ourselves and with the technology So this is something that at optimism we've been dealing with for a long time So actually we started out as a nonprofit foundation called plasma group plasma was an early precursor to the roll-ups and scalability we see today And basically what we did was we created this nonprofit We released a bunch of code and designs out into the world and pushed forward the space of scaling But very quickly it became apparent That the incentives were broken Because everyone was going and using our technology And we couldn't raise more money. We couldn't hire more people. It was incredibly difficult to get by at the same time cookie cutter d5 projects and scam artists were having money poured into them poured these are the early signs of the dangerous future we need to avoid so after a year We wound down the nonprofit and we said you know what we've got to solve this We created the thing known now as optimism It's a public benefit corporation And our goal was to solve the problems and make it so that we were the last ones to encounter the issues That we had faced as a nonprofit After that we got to building again the technology is critical It is very very very important and we spent the last three years building some awesome awesome tech We've gone through a lot of iterations and what is now known as the op stack Which is the core code base that we have is modular It's scalable and we're confident that it will form the basis for scaling in all forms not just optimistic and not just Roll up for years to come So it was time to look again to the other part of the story because the technology is only half So earlier this year We launched the optimism collective Okay, what is the optimism collective the collective is a band of communities companies and citizens United by a mutually beneficial pact to adhere to the axiom that the impact To the collective by an individual should equal their profits So you can read more about that here another thing that we did was created a working constitution So something to imbue what we're trying to get after and we have a few core principles here One of them is governance minimization if you can do something with a mechanism and without more complex complexity You should do that Another one is fork ability and in particular here. I mean pro fork ability There is a difference between calling your code base open source And having the ability to click fork on github And actually creating systems which are easy to fork This means we need to build tools that make it possible to fork optimism as easily as possible This is very very important. It's not just about being able to make a copy of the code It's about to being able to deploy the exact thing In a new instantiation Okay, so the world is going down this crazy path What is the optimism collective really in all that context?  Look at those little op cheeks. So cute. Okay I think this is a perfect analogy, but it's an interesting one You can think about the different components of the spaceship and particularly things like the engines and life support and things like that As the technological aspects the execution the settlement the consensus But there's also a key component to a spaceship, which is the navigation And the ai presumably that helps you navigate this ship And that is the governance Does anyone recognize this ship in the audience anyone? Yeah, oh, yeah, of course this is from 2001 a space odyssey and of course the ai navigator on that ship The discovery xd1 or something like that was hal 9 000 the most famous ai villain probably of all time and the entire premise Of that movie is basically that how goes rogue and how becomes an autonomous ai that doesn't care about the people on board It only cares about completing its mission So how do we present becomes the question in optimism governance? How do we prevent op 9 000? This is what we need to avoid We have three strategic pillars that we're taking here to try to prevent these outcomes Number one is identity humans over capital We need to give humans in these systems not just a voice But a fundamental ingrained notion of control It must be that the op 9 000 ai listens to its crew Another we have is retroactivity Reward after impact if we want to prevent these dangerous futures That we might be headed towards don't put money into something which might cause that future instead Reward once we know that that thing had the outcome that we were looking for Don't let things backfire And the third I already talked about is forkability, but I just want to stress it again The optimism code base what we'll talk about in a minute the op stack should be a one click Should have a one click ability to deploy everything About the optimism system in an entirely new instantiation and I'm not just talking about a chain I'm not just talking about a sequencer. I'm talking about the governance the voting the off chain tools Which we use things like forums to actually come to consensus on things Everything should be able to be forked you need escape hatches If one optimism main net the one we currently know goes down We should be able to very easily fix that problem and create a new one and get over to it Okay, so how are we doing this in practice? The op stack Is the code base it is the blueprints of the spaceship optimism that we are building And like I said that includes not just parts of the chain Which my my incredible teammates kelvin and carl gave some great talks on and I could do a whole another hour talking about How incredible splitting up consensus and execution and settlement and all these things are and how this is going to Summon an incredible crazy scalable blockchain future But they've already talked about that so i'm going to talk about the governance go watch their stuff and be amazed So the first thing we're doing with our governance is it is that camera? Oh, I love saying that word. It sounds very fancy, but really it's something quite simple It just means that optimism has two co-equal houses in its governance This is an example of us borrowing and standing on the shoulders of giants It's very simple, but it's very clear and it's been very effective something like 40 percent of the world's governments today Are not run by a single entity. There are two entities that are co-equal these two houses that need to come together To make decisions keep each other in check So what are the two houses for optimism house number one is the token house? Like I said before token voting is a very powerful mechanism. It has a great track record of extracting profit But left unchecked that's where we've seen the issues. So the token house is the prudocratic profit seeking house of the optimism collective What does that mean? Well, it means that it sets the parameters and sets the chain up for success keep the chain healthy The other house is the citizen's house. The token house is one coin one vote The citizen's house is one person one vote and its goal is to distribute the profits that are acquired by the token house How does it do that something called retroactive public goods funding? There's our retro activity again Who in the crowd is familiar with this? Let me see a raise of hands for rpgf. Oh, yes, the mean is spreading I love it. Okay. I love it. Oh, I will say It's important to think about when you're thinking from a mechanism perspective about the retroactive funding as what we're doing here, right You can use retroactive funding for other things than public goods. It's just that public goods are the most important So in a nutshell, what is retro pgf? It basically says two things one It is easier to agree on what was good than what will be good. This is this retro activity. We talked about earlier and two It doesn't mean that a dev working on optimism should wait for their code to be merged and like it to be good to be able to Pay their paycheck. It just means that it's not the collective's responsibility. It's the responsibility of the market So the other piece of this is to basically take vcs and free them. Oh, yes So a key piece of this puzzle Is that venture capitalists are very good at predicting what things will succeed and they're very good at what they do The problem is that they are constrained because they need an exit And if you need an exit then you can only invest in things which are going to extract value to provide that exit So rep the point of retroactive funding Is to give the vcs an alternative way out and mean that they can invest in things That are just pieces of code that don't take a fee that don't do anything because they will be rewarded in the future So we're going to change the game for those those sneaky vcs Okay, so that's what we're doing I'll talk a little bit about what is next for optimism and how are we going about Implementing these designs. I'm talking about here There's a whole lot more I could say about the modular retro pgf and some really cool things we're doing there That is very connected to how we're building the tech on the blockchain side But I think the most important thing to say is that when you're building rockets You should expect some failures. Look at that these videos are amazing if you guys haven't watched some of them Just truly truly awe-inspiring the reality is to get the spaceship optimism into orbit We're going to have some crashes and we have built that ethos into the core of what we're doing iterate iterate iterate The governance will self destruct that fork ability that I talked about is built in and expected as we get this thing into orbit The governance will self destruct We even put that in our constitution the constitution can be modified for the first four years Until we reach a final one And another much more practical thing that we do is we run optimism in seasons So we've had two seasons of governance so far We're going to enter the third very shortly and in each one we take a step back We have a something called the reflection period and we look at what's been going well and what's not We fix the things that are not going well. We emphasize the things that are going well. We run in seasons I'm very excited for season three. It's gonna be so good Okay, the last thing that I want to just say here as I close up is that this is not a purely charitable endeavor While we now can see in the distance the end game for blockchain scalability It is going to take a very very long time and a very large number of people to bring us to the technological future We're talking about here There is countless innovations countless pieces of code countless improvements that we're going to need to make So it's not just that we want to fund public goods because We're nice. It's because we need to create a global collective of people that are contributing towards this technology No team alone is going to do it No team alone is going to do it. So we're focused on the critical technological impact. It's not a charity Hopefully I convinced you at the start that public goods like solving global warming ubi deforestation is the right place to go But the op stack is the most important public good for us today So last thing I just want to say is like, okay, this is a big grand vision What does it look like for success for us? I think that If optimism can build the blueprints for the spaceship prove that these kinks can fly And create an initial cohort of citizens that are ready for whatever comes next Personally, I would consider that a success And what we're trying to build at optimism So I'll leave you with that. Thank you very much How do you see that governance playing with the other uh layer two community participants So I think that so the question was yeah, how do we see Governance playing with other layer twos what I hope is that we don't and I've certainly I think that we can avoid Having negative sum games, right? What would be really bad would be if we saw a bunch of layer twos that we're trying to basically Pay different people to move one place or another and just doing extremely Negative sum behavior that doesn't really do anything So I think our goal of the governance should be cooperation And I would also love to see more cooperation like I would love for other Layer two projects to be retroactively funded by optimism for building code that we can use So I hope that I see it going in a cooperative manner And that's certainly a culture that we're trying to abide with optimism. Yeah Hi ben I'm han. Hi Great talk. Hello great great enthusiasm. I think we're all learning a lot from your governance thinking I think I kind of followed the slides, but I really got lost on the vc one Can you just elaborate on how you're trying to disrupt the vc model? What's the thinking there? Yeah, so I mean in some sense the answer is yes. Okay, so I'll go back to my my retrofunding slides. Let's see here so retroactive public goods funding is basically about The collective is prescribing a budget To some thing that it is going to fund in the future retroactively So what's an example of this an example of this is dependencies in the optimism code base, right? So if someone builds a tool we use that tool in the optimism code base that has a value to us It has an impact on us and it should be rewarded with profit And so the point is once we start using that and once we see that it has an impact We will take that and we will give it money What this means is that a vc can invest in the person building that tool Even though that tool is not taking a fee. It has no revenue model. It has nothing But the knowledge that or the hope that it will be funded in the future Will allow the vcs to invest in it. So I don't know about disruption I think the point is to leverage what vcs do really well, which is predict outcomes and put financial bets behind that What we want to do is we want to unconstrained Those investments from having to go towards things that are profitable because they extract money out Instead of extracting money out of some system These projects will receive money from the collective. Yeah, hopefully that helps Thank you, Ben. You and optimism are awesome My question is about season three. How can one get involved? Oh get on the forum get on the discord start talking I mean look if you are a believer in this vision and a participant in the community You are an optimist and something the whole point of doing these seasons is that we have periods of time called reflection periods Where we don't do any votes. We don't distribute any capital We just talk about what went well and what didn't and everything that's going on is out in the public So the best thing you can do is come get involved If you want to sign up to be a delegate and get some people to delegate to you and get some voting power You can even do that But I would say you don't have to do that Just come watch what's going on and make suggestions on how we can improve. That's how you can get involved Yeah, thank you Yeah, I had a question but it was similar, but let me just ask again So i'm one of the projects who wants planning to launch on launching on optimism. So just curious How will this model retroactive funding Maybe affect the current model where typically go you apply for grants after that. There's like some potential VC fundraising So would it potentially bring more VCs early because Or like maybe you can give example a little bit which would be great to understand Yeah, so it's really interesting There's a lot to be said about how and we were thinking very deeply about how to make retro pgf work and work well And the reality is if you want to have people make upfront investments with an expectation of future return You need to prove a track record of Claiming that you're going to give out money and giving out that money and that is not going to be a one-and-done thing You could take a perfectly working retro pgf mechanism And at day zero it might not generate any interest after a year of proving that it does investments It might generate a lot of interest So effectively one way to interpret that question is how do we scope the kinds of impact that we're going to reward and when So at the beginning we're very focused on the core elements of the op stack Which are the technological basis for what we're building and part of that is because we think it's something more manageable It's a community that we're very very well connected to it's something that we think we can take on Over time we need to expand that scope of impact And I think one of the fascinating open questions right now Is how impact works on the application layer because clearly if you're a project, you know a uniswap v1 is a great example of this Didn't take any fee was massively important created an explosion of value for ethereum That's the kind of thing that probably should be retroactively funded to so I would say That's a little bit farther off because we need to give a really good track record And we're going to start with that code, but as we expand that's going to be one of the most fascinating I think components to how we build out the collective Um, so just like this guy get on the forum start talking about it. We'll figure it out together Amazing Ben. Thank you so much. Cool. Thank you guys great presentation with a lot of optimism


Today, California is a third-largest oil-producing state. To state a leader technologically, economically, and for the state of the planet, we must be at the forefront of a just transition towards renewable energies. My name is Chutesca. I'm with Uproxx and I'm here in Sacramento, California in front of the governor's mansion where people from across the state have come together to demand that our politicians and elected officials stop taking money from big oil. Oil has been traditionally a great servant for our Western culture, you know, since the late 1800s. But now we have a lot of technologies which allow us to not be dependent on oil. Imagine if we had the same communications technology that we had a hundred years ago, right? Like, hello, hello. I mean, it's preposterous. When you come to a place like California and you find out that there are no laws or no regulations that say that the drill has to be set back a certain number of feet or miles from a residence, a daycare center, a workplace, it's really alarming. Thirty-two percent of these chemicals cause cancer. Forty-three percent are genetic disruptors. Fifty-eight percent are immune suppressants. It is criminal that people are being poisoned in their own homes and unnecessary. Governor Jerry Brown and I both went to the Paris Climate Talks in December 2015 and he really came wearing the mantle of a climate leader. And in some respects, he deserves to be cast in that role. So while he talks a good game and has done some great things like getting in a million electric cars on the road here in California and creating policy to do that, he's not going after or even addressing the worst polluter, which is crazy. Jerry Brown also in the past six years has taken $10 million from the oil industry for himself and his projects. Because of the money the oil industry is spending, they're making sure that we don't switch to those clean technologies. It's preposterous that we are gambling with our future of our planet and our public health in such a ludicrous way when we have technology that will deliver us the same energy that doesn't cause those health impacts. To mention that there are two jobs for every one job in the renewable energy economy, what do we do? We speak up. And so what that means is our voices have to be louder than the voices of the oil industry. For more information or to get involved, go to oilmoneyout.com.