Hello, everyone. I'm James Milan and welcome to this talk of the town, a legislative update with not one, but both of our state representatives. That is Sean Garbley and Dave Rogers are joining me and thanks to you both for being here. Good to be here. Great to be here. We do appreciate it. We love to chat with both of you individually or together whenever we can. And generally we've settled on a rhythm of, you know, once per season of four times a year. We certainly work to get an update from the state house from both of you. And with that in mind, because as we were discussing before we went, we started recording, you know, things have happened since we last spoke to you, but we're also very interested in kind of looking forward, especially as we're at the kind of, at the point where we're looking towards the 2021-22 legislative session. So what I'd like to do is ask each of you to briefly just pick a couple of highlights or particularly compelling issues you've been working on or bills that have been passed from these last months and share those with us. And so in other words, a focus from the last time we talked to you up to now. And then we'll shift our focus for the balance of the conversation to what's to come. So let me ask you, Dave, to go ahead and start with, again, two or three of the things that you'd really like to share with our audience that have happened since we last spoke to you. Sure. And thanks for the opportunity. I guess, you know, despite the pandemic and having to vote from home, like, like all other aspects of society, the legislature has been disrupted by everything going on. And despite that, we've been able to get a lot done. A few of the things I'd highlight is a sweeping climate change bill. The governor vetoed it. So we had to come back in this session. And we teed it up as one of the very first things we did. It's a sweeping bill referred to as the roadmap. It gets the Commonwealth to net zero emissions by 2050. It does so through lots of different methods, one of which is to increase the renewable portfolio standard. That's the percentage of clean power that our large utilities have to get from clean power. We increased the amount of authorized offshore wind to its grand total now of 5600 megawatts. And to frame that number in a perspective the audience could understand, that's enough to power over 3 million homes. Now that won't happen overnight. These are large complicated projects to get the permitting and the regulatory piece of it done and actually construct the windmills and then the run underground cable from... We lost... So these are large, the groundwork, late the groundwork for Massachusetts to have really a booming offshore wind. We increased appliance efficiency standards and really many other things. So that's a wonderful bill in the wake of another thing I'd highlighted in the wake of killing of George Floyd and many other acts, tragic acts of violence by the police around the country who passed a sweeping police reform bill. Like the climate change bill, that's a comprehensive bill, has lots of different provisions. The main one I'd highlight is an independent civilian review board. And so while the new law has many features, one of the most important, I would say probably the most important is there'll be a brand new state agency completely independent, so not controlled by law enforcement but independently managed that has pretty sweeping powers to certify and decertify police officers, has subpoena power, the public can lodge complaints directly with the commission. And that new bill also has significant limits on the use of force and many other features on police training. So it's a sweeping bill. It was difficult, you know, even many Democrats voted against it but we got it through and that was another key recent development. The election bill we passed is a big deal. It led to record shattering turnout. So we passed a vote by mail law obviously with the pandemic wanting people not to vote in person. So from a public health perspective, having safe elections as well as elections where we could get a lot of participation. And it led to literally record breaking turnout even in the middle of a pandemic and we just extended it for town elections like we're just held in Arlington and Belmont. So that's another major development and we'll probably make many of those changes permanent. Certainly I'll be pushing for that. And so I don't want to go on at too great a length. Those are three major bills. There are many others but I think that that'll give you a flavor for some of the big things we've done and happy to collaborate with my partner, Representative Garvely, in getting those things done. Absolutely. And before I let Sean speak for himself, I will just add that as you said, Dave, each of those three pieces of legislation is really sweeping and you could have picked a whole bunch of different provisions to highlight. We could have talked the whole show about nothing but one of those bills. They're large. They're complicated. Absolutely. But my conversations with local officials also show how much those bills dovetail with lots of what's going on here in town. For instance, the net zero action plan that we've developed in town really has some aspects and facets of it that are informed by but also connected to the larger goals of the legislation you were just saying. And of course, we know what you just said about the town voting, having more of that option of voting, absentee voting, and then making that permanent is something that people are really interested in and have responded to here in town in an active way. So I appreciate you kind of pointing out a number of things that really connect to our community as well as being effective throughout the Commonwealth. Sean, let me ask you to just weigh in from your perspective in the same way that Dave just did. Great. Well, first, thank you so much for interviewing both myself and Representative Rogers. And this certainly has been an exciting start to the session. Representative Rogers mentioned several pieces of legislation that we took up early. All three of those pieces were absolutely critical. And I'm proud to have worked with him and the rest of my colleagues to make sure they became law. And when the governor sent them back with some amendments that we rejected many of those amendments and kept with the legislative intent on all three of those important pieces of legislation. Rep Rogers mentioned the roadmap bill. Certainly an incredible piece of legislation, especially on the matter of offshore wind that's really going to set Massachusetts apart from the rest of the country. We really will be the leaders on offshore wind, which is just so very, very important for our future economy here as a Commonwealth. One of the great things about being the chair of the Global Warming and Climate Change Committee is we're having several oversight hearings to make sure that we hold accountable this administration for meeting each of those important goals that the legislation mandates. That is going to be a really important task. I was here in the legislature in 2009 when we passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, which was an outstanding piece of legislation as well. But it's really, really important just as much the theory of the legislation as the implementation. And so it really is going to be critical that we hold this governor, this administration, and quite frankly future administrations to the legislation and what the legislation mandates in terms of lowering emissions and other important standards. And now with a friendly administration at the federal level on the issue of procurement of offshore wind, I think Massachusetts will be in a position to lead on offshore wind and other important areas. He mentioned the police reform bill. I don't want to just parrot what Rep. Roger said, but I associate myself with his remarks. These are just outstanding bills. And he also mentioned the voting piece of legislation. As he mentioned, we extended the vote by mail provisions until the end of June because most of the local elections are done by the end of June. We do have municipal elections in September and November, the preliminary and the general in many areas. So my hope is, and I fully expect, that we will be taking up a further progressive and omnivist voting rights bill that will extend mail in voting, as Rep. Rogers mentioned, permanent. And I think that is really, really important. The only other bill, well, two other bills I will mention. One is, you know, we have all watched in great horror and much disbelief. That is what has happened with the Department of Children and Families recently in the news with the death of David Allman, 14-year-old boy who was sent home, not ready to go home, and it led to his death. And so the House of Representatives actually, before that atrocity, that tragedy took place, passed a really comprehensive children protection bill around strengthening DCF and really mandating that DCF do more to protect children in the care of the Commonwealth. I serve on the foster care caucus. As you know, I was adopted, so these issues are really important to me. No child ever in the custody of the supervision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts life should be threatened, let alone taken as David Allman was. We have a committee on children and families. They've just had a 10-hour oversight hearing with Commissioner Spears of DCF and a number of other stakeholders to find out what went wrong and to make sure that this never happens again. And it's not a pretty picture. DCF failed in many, many ways. And it's coming out now that there were staff, social workers in DCF arguing that David should not have been returned to his home, that the setting was not appropriate in care, that his life would be in jeopardy, and that the family was not ready to be reunified with David. And because of management or other types of situations that will arise with further investigation, David was reunited with his family inappropriately. And this would be due to very unsafe conditions in his home, not healthy conditions. These conditions not fit for human habitation, let alone a 14-year-old boy. This led to his death, and it just should not have happened. So the legislation that we have passed around the Department of Children and Families, I believe is a strong one, and I believe the legislature is going to take further action on the negligent care in this case, but also making sure that kids are protected not only during this pandemic, but in the future as well. And the only other really piece of legislation I'll mention, and I'll be quick about it because I think we're going to go into further detail about it, and that is the 47-something billion-dollar budget that we just passed that is really a great achievement for the legislature during very difficult times. Revenues continue to grow in the month of March, in the month of April, which has allowed us to make some very key investments on things like the Student Opportunity Act and on mental health, disability services, and increasing state support for the first time in many years around the UGA, which is the Unrestricted General Government Aid, which is really, really important. So I can go on further on the budget, but I also want to be mindful of Representative Rogers' time as well. Yeah, so just like we lost Dave's audio briefly during when he was speaking earlier, I'm afraid we have lost his image as well for the moment. So let me just carry on with you, Shawn, until Dave returns. By asking or first of all by noting, I'm really glad that you said, and this goes all the way back to the beginning of what you were talking about, that a big part of governing and a big part of legislating is monitoring and staying vigilant about implementation. And so we are all used to out here in the public hearing big pronouncements and legislators after very hard work justifiably and understandably celebrating the achievement of the passage of a bill, etc. And again, taking some some credit for that words do etc. But we hear relatively little about that incredibly essential and vital work that you were describing that goes on that doesn't make the headlines. That simply is you guys doing the job that you need to do in order to make sure that the benefits accrue in the way that you intended from the legislation.  So you were just describing some of the aspects of the budget that you passed and we have Dave back. So let me just throw it out to both of you. What are the pieces of the budget picture that are most promising or exciting for you guys as and specifically as they relate to Arlington. So for you guys in terms of the populations you represent and the benefits for Arlington specifically, Dave, we haven't heard from you for a little bit and we thought we'd lost you for a sec. So why don't we start with you? Sure. Well, we were able to get a number of local earmarks in the budget for the Jason Russell house, for instance, for the children's room, which is near and dear to to my heart. Collaborating with Representative Garvely. There was some money for the children's room, which for folks in Arlington who are watching and aren't familiar with it, provides grief counseling to young people who've had a trauma or a tragedy early in their life while their children. And so it could be someone's sibling died or they lost a parent or something of that nature. I lost my father when I was just 12. And I visited the children's room a couple of times. It's a remarkable place, remarkable work they do. And I remember thinking I wish they had something like that when I was young. So it was great that we could get some money for them. And some other local earmarks. And then I think, you know, generally the people that I'm privileged to represent care about a lot of these bigger things that we worked on, for instance, as was as Sean mentioned, the Student Opportunity Act, that's sort of a once in a generation transformative new law, the biggest reformed education since 1993, which invests significantly billions of dollars in our K through 12 our public schools. So we know that, particularly in a sort of ever changing global economy, the young people in our communities are going to be growing up and going out into a world that's a full of opportunity, but also highly competitive. And so education now more than ever, both K through 12 and higher education advanced education is just essential to the success of our of our young people. And the Student Opportunity Act, as I said, is sort of a landmark law that addressed some growing shortfall that we're developing in the way we financed education. There was a big commission that studied the way we finance public education. And because of a number of factors, the rising cost of retiree health care, the cost of educating those where English is a second language, and a whole variety of factors, including and also poverty, low income zip codes, that the state was falling behind and meeting the mark to give adequate or strong funding to public education. So in this budget, we made a down payment and over the coming years, we're going to be funding that environmental protection got strong funding, criminal justice implementing criminal justice reform got a good deal of funding. So and again, the budget has thousands of line items, we could again, devote just the show to talking just about the budget. But those are some of the highlights. And when the final thing I'll say on the budget is when the pandemic hit and the downturn in the economy, the consensus among economists and financial forecasters, what was that there might be a that there would be a precipitous fall off in state revenue, because our state budget and the revenue we the state collects is highly correlated with overall economic conditions. That's not as true, for instance, of local taxes, because you're the property tax you pay, if you own a home in Arlington, stays more or less the same in a good economy, a bad economy. But well, what you really mean is it goes up, no matter what. Right, right, right. But anyway, yes, but we wish it stayed the same. But with state revenue, think about it, income tax, capital gains tax, sales tax, they all go down in a bad economy. So anyway, the consensus forecast was that we would see a massive shortfall and the need perhaps for deep cuts. And it's kind of confounded in a good way, a lot of experts and legislators that state revenues, although there's still a little below the consensus forecast, they've held up okay. And between that and borrowing from the rainy day fund, when we and federal and federal help, we've been able to put together budgets that have been pretty good all in all. Yeah, I have to say a couple of things. One is, you know, talking to both of you a year ago, when we obviously didn't know what was in front of us, the situation just felt so grim on so many levels, but including the fiscal kind of ramifications of what we were doing, entering lockdown and shutting everything down and seeing how things would go and prioritizing understandably public health. But yeah, it's pretty, it's confounding, like you said, but in a wonderful way that this seems like really good news in this year's budget.  I think Dave just mentioned the commission that was created to kind of look at the lack of public of adequate funding for our education and hearing the frustration in your voice, Sean, as you would say, yes, these are not being implemented. These recommendations are not being implemented and we need them to be, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I'm just happy to share this moment with you, Sean, where I hope that you're happier with the prospects going forward because of what Dave was just describing in terms of the educational provisions in the budget. Absolutely. And as a former member of the school committee, we know that the state was underfunding its commitment to meeting its own mandates on supporting education. And this is a great budget. The FY22 budget makes a big investment in the implementation of the Student Opportunity Act. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's a lot of commitments that have to be made in the future in terms of the appropriation of education across the Commonwealth. But this was a big one. And the fact that we were able to meet the full implementation of that one year during a very concerning budget, concerning economy, I think it says really clearly where our priority is. And as Representative Rogers mentioned, the fiscal outlook over the past year, and you mentioned it as well, I remember. I was serving in the legislature in 2009 when the market collapse nationally impacted our budget here in Massachusetts. We lost about $5 billion in revenue between April, between March, April and May. I remember seeing sales tax revenue and particularly capital gains tax revenue just plummeted. And at that point, because there was no hope that the economy would rebound over the year or two years, we decided to just go ahead with the House budget. And the Senate did a similar thing. And the House budget, we literally cut billions of dollars in services. We slashed over 200 line items that were very important to the people of Massachusetts. And with this, we decided during the pandemic that we know revenues because of the shutdown, because of the government policy that revenues were not going to pick up. And we knew that was going to have a negative ramification on our revenues to be able to invest in important programs. But we also knew that we did not know what the future would look like five months, six months a year down the road. So instead of just cutting the budget, as we did in 2009, we decided to take a different approach. In FY 21, we used about 49, 50% of the rainy day fund. And we were very careful on moving forward. But you did not see a huge cut to important services for the people of the Commonwealth. And I think that was a wise decision. I'm very appreciative to Speaker DeLio and now Speaker Mariano, but also Chair Mike Lewis, who really guided the Commonwealth and my colleagues, just very smart policy. Last year, if we had taken a hatchet, if you will, to 200 line items and just cut billions of dollars, we really would be in a far worse off scenario because of when you cut, you are literally cutting safety nets for the people of the Commonwealth who really depend on programs and services. Unfortunately, we did not do that. And we can really get to a place where we build back better to coin a phrase as we move forward into FY 23 and start moving forward. So I am certainly excited for the work that lies ahead. Yeah, you just mentioned build back better. And it does feel like what you reminded us of is lessons learned from the 2008-2009 crisis and different tactics and more effective ones. It feels like taken this time around. And that seems both the case here in Massachusetts, but also on the federal level, at least now with the change of administration, it looks like President Biden, who was right there obviously throughout the decisions made in 2008-10, recognized you got to go big as we know that is happening. And let us hope that just like in Massachusetts, it feels like we are getting the benefits of that right now. Let us hope that we are all feeling that way nationally, now and into the future. Dave, we are quickly running out of time, surprise, but we have about 10 minutes left or so. And I wanted to just ask to, again, to focus, pick a few things that are priorities for you as you look forward to the next legislative session that you can share with our audience. Sure. Well, and I appreciate the opportunity. I filed, I think, 70 pieces of legislation this session, which is the most I have ever filed, and I have a lot of interesting projects in the works. One that I'm pretty excited about, because it seems to be gathering momentum, fingers crossed, is a right to council bill. That is, would grant low income people facing eviction, a legal right, a civil right to a lawyer. As we know, low income defendants in a criminal case are given a lawyer we are all familiar from TV and movies with the Miranda warning, if you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you and so forth. But that is not true in civil court. And low income people going to civil court on any issue do not have a right to a lawyer and frequently do not have a lawyer. A matter of fact, we do have civil legal aid societies here in Massachusetts, Greater Boston Legal Services, the Cambridge Somerville Legal Services, with many fine lawyers that provide free or pro bono legal advice to clients, to low income clients. But unfortunately, the budget for these organizations is such that two thirds, two thirds of people seeking that help are turned away and must face our legal system without the advice of a lawyer. The way I always say is every school child in America is, and all of us familiar with, residing the pledge to allegiance and at the end, of course, we say, and justice for all. But the sad fact is, it's not true. We have a legal system that does not really afford equal justice to everyone. I've been working on this for six years now, and it's gathered momentum. The Chief Justice of our State Supreme Court endorsed it, former Chief Justice of the Boston Globe, our flagship newspapers endorsed it, over 100 organizations have endorsed it. Believe it or not, even including some property owners, some landlords who find that housing court would be more orderly, more efficient, more rational if the tenants had counsel. So I was pleased to pick up support of some landlords. By no means, all landlords are necessarily a majority of landlords, but some. And so I jointly filed it with Representative Mike Day from Winchester Stonem, who's now the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, where the bill traditionally has been heard. So there's no guarantee, but I'm hopeful. We have some momentum. Another thing I've been working on was partly wrapped into the police reform bill that is facial recognition technology. Part of the police reform is to put limits on facial recognition technology. What we found out is that the registry of motor vehicles here, the police were rifling through their database looking at individual citizens' driver's license photos without warrant, without any regulation whatsoever. So I filed a bill to put some sensible, you know, rational limits on that. And we got part of my bill included in the police reform, and then we formed a commission to study the issue further. And so police now will have to have proper notice, some safeguards, but we're going to study it further to see if other limits are appropriate. And I was appointed to the commission to study it. That's quite an honor. I'm looking forward to the work of the commission as a retired Supreme Court justice on there, some Boston area legal experts and others. And we're looking at that. I have a number of bills in the housing area to prevent discrimination in housing that I'll be working on. I did file a rent control bill to look at the issue of rent control. You know, it was banned 27 years ago on the ballot, but I think it was 51-49 in a statewide ballot. So it's been a quarter century. It was razor thin when it was banned. Only three cities had it, Cambridge, Boston and Brookline. So the other 348 cities and towns in the Commonwealth got to vote on it. It barely was defeated. And so I say, well, let's kick off that debate. Anyway, I know you have limited time. I have 60 some odd other bills. I'd love to come back and discuss with you. But I joined by my colleague, Sean. I want to give him a chance to talk about what he's working on. But those are some of the things I'm working on. Yeah. And absolutely, you know, this is it is really wonderful to you. And I particularly like it and welcome can't wait till we are all in the same room together, because I love that the dynamic of that conversation that when we have those. But we like to get the two of you on together. But I know that it means that you, you know, you don't get to go into the same kind of detail or cover the same amount of material. Each of you, thanks for your patience, both of you with that, that fact. Sean, the last five minutes, the balance of them are yours. And what what's what's on your agenda coming up? Well, I appreciate this time. It's I would say it's an aggressive agenda. I appreciate the comments from my great colleague rep Rogers. We have filed, I think as many pieces of legislation as representative Rogers. So between myself and rep Rogers, the Arlington delegation is certainly taking up all the clerk's time in terms of trying to pass important bills. And I that's a fact that I'm proud of. Actually, rep Rogers and I have authored a bill to add bereavement to the paid family medical leave law, which is just so very important. And we can talk about that at a later date, but I'm happy to partner with him on that important issue. Just today, before the joint committee on public health, I testified in favor, along with about 50 other advocates on a bill that actually passed the house last session didn't pass the Senate, but we're hoping that this session it will and that is to grant adoptees in the Commonwealth access to their original birth certificates. So unbeknownst to me, there is a law or not really sure why this happened, but there's a donor hole in Massachusetts law. And that is if you were adopted in the Commonwealth before 1974, you can get your original birth certificate. If you were born after 2008, you can get your original birth certificate. But if you were born between 1974 and 2008, like I was and so many other adopted young adoptees in the Commonwealth, you cannot get access to your original birth certificates. So we in the Commonwealth have really created three tiered system of people, people who are not adopted and can get their birth certificate, those who are adopted and can get their original birth certificate and those who are adopted but can't get their original birth certificate. So it's time to close the donut hole, if you will, and give all adoptees their vital records, which really is just about being human. You know, it's about restoring that dignity. So I'm really hoping that bill will pass quickly in the house and then have more time to get it passed in the Senate. Another piece of legislation I'm working on is called the Clean Acts, which I have filed with Marjorie Decker, which kind of increases our attention to climate change. You know, what we did at the beginning of this session and last session, passing the roadmap bill was outstanding, but we still believe we can do more and should do more. And moving to 100% renewable energy has been a priority of mine for quite some time. The Clean Act installs very important dates and mandates on how to get to clean energy, both in, you know, utilities, electricity, but also in transportation and home heating and housing and buildings, and so really important. But it also talks about transitioning in a just way, both with workers and making sure that no worker is left behind as we transition to 100% renewable energy and to focus on environmental justice communities. You know, this bill is really geared towards making sure no one is left behind. We had our kickoff last week. We had over 150 people on the call. So really a lot of exciting momentum, as Rep Rogers will surely remind you, as he is our great new chair of higher education. And unfortunately for him, most of my legislation is in either the Committee on Children and Families or the Joint Committee on Higher Education. So he hears from me all the time. There's a hearing next Tuesday. There's a hearing next Tuesday. And he was kind enough to tell me that three of my bills, I believe, are coming up for hearing for my bill. So I'm excited that he is leading that effort. One is in the aspect, you know, we have been, I would say, BR, which I would stand for before Rogers. The legislature has underfunded public higher education. We have 29 campuses of higher learning. Over the years, we just have not, similar to public ed, K through 12, we just have not invested in our 29 campuses of higher learning, which I believe is the lifeblood of our economy and of the Commonwealth. So I have filed the bill similar to the Student Opportunity Act for K through 12, known as the Cherish Act, which would support state support for public higher education for about 500 million dollars and hold fees and tuition flat, not grow. This kind of investment would really, really be critical for our, you know, whether it's community college, state universities or the UMass system. Another piece of legislation, I know we've talked about it before, is around the what we call the Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Bill. And this is also, unfortunately, for Dave, in the committee on higher education. But he's been so good on these issues that I think he's really enjoying them. And that is, I know we've talked on ACMI quite a bit around my belief that students with autism and Down syndrome and other disability should have the civil right to be able to go to a public higher education institution, which is called Macy. And we have a line item in the budget that I work on every year. That's over a two million dollar line item that allows students to attend if the funding is available, but not across the system. And so my bill would really allow students to be able to attend courses to improve the quality of their lives and the prospects of their future and attend one of our 29 institutions of public higher learning. And that's important because if you see, if you look at the research, you know, there's over 300 schools that Prince College is to participate across the Commonwealth. And if you study the results from how students with autism and Down syndrome do in terms of independence, in terms of employment, the level of success for students who are allowed to attend college versus those who are not, it's really like night and day or day and night. So I'm really hoping that we're going to be able to finally pass this legislation this session. I've been working on this for six years. I will say in the line item in the budget that we just passed for the first time, language that I put in there allows for students with autism and Down syndrome older than 22 if the university allows it was adopted. And that is really, really important. And I would thank the my colleague Rob Rogers for supporting that. I know he had a lot to do with it. So it's really, to me, it's a it's a civil right and it's about time we do it. There are several pieces of legislation that I have filed, but those are just kind of a highlight of the bills that I am filing. But also to there is another bill around DCF to try to really hold the Department of Children and Families accountable so we don't have a situation like we did with the unfortunate death of David Albin from Fall River. It just should not have happened. We really need to prioritize the children who are in the care and custody of the Commonwealth. So thanks so much for having both myself and my good friend Dave Rogers on your program today. Yes, and of course, we have gotten to the end of the program as as quickly it seems as as we always do. And we've left lots left to talk about. And, you know, we may well follow up with each of you individually to be able to flush some of those things out a little bit more. Again, we want to thank both of you for both your patience with sharing the mic, which is not an easy thing to do. And also reminding us that we have very active representation, very effective representation and very committed representation from both of you. The themes that both of you hit on today are familiar from previous conversations, and that just shows that your focus remains strong and clear, and we appreciate that. So I have been speaking with Sean Garvely and Dave Rogers, our state reps, and we will talk to them again in the summer for sure, if not before. But thank you guys again for joining us. Thank you for joining us and listening. And I'm James Milan. This has been Talk of the Town on behalf of Representatives Garvely and Rogers. We do thank you for joining us and we will see you next time.


We have managed to fabricate very tiny structures, the dimension of those structures is 500 less than the thickness of the human hair. Those magic structures are capable to change the intensity of the light, change the shape of the light and at the same time change the color of the light. Our eyes are capable to see objects only in the visible spectrum. If we can fabricate an array of other nanostructures on flat surfaces like glass, at the end of the day we will be able to convert the invisible light in the nighttime or in dark areas to the visible light which finally help us to see the objects in very dark environments. These new nanocrystals can be used for various applications like for example converting light for night vision, also creating security holograms like in our banknotes as well as imaging application and visible displays. In order to measure the tiny amount of light coming from our nanostructures we build this setup, it's a complicated one but we need it to do like that because we need to have a lot of control in every detail of our experiment. We had to overcome three important challenges, the first one is the fabrication of these devices on glass substrate, the second one is measuring them or measuring the conversion of the color, the changes of the colors from invisible to visible and the third one was performing extensive numerical simulations in order to understand the physics behind the operational device. In order to realize this breakthrough research we got very great support not only from the physicists from Australia National University but also from top physicists overseas.


CHAPTER IX The death of poor Fred Borders cast a gloom over the ship for many days. Everyone had respected, and many of us had loved the lad, so that we mourned for him long and truly.  In a day or two after no one would have supposed we had lost one of our best men. Whales appeared in great numbers around us. The old cry of, Dar, she blows, ran out frequently from the mast-head, and the answer and cry from the captain, Where away! was followed by the standby to lower, lower away. Then came the chase with all its dangers and excitement. The driving of the harpoon, the sudden rush of the struck fish, the smoke and sparks of fire from the loggerhead, the plunging of the lance, the spouting blood, the flurry at the end, and the wild cheer as we beheld our prize floating calmly on the sea. And in the midst of such work we forgot for a time the solemn scene we had so recently witnessed. But our hearts were not so light as before, and although we did not show it, I know full well that many a joke was checked and many a laugh repressed for the memory of our dead shipmate. The man who was most affected by his death was the captain, but we were not prepared for the great change that soon appeared in his manner and conduct. After a time he laughed with the rest of us had a good joke, and cheered as loud as the best when a big fish turned belly up. But his behavior to us became more gentle and kind, and he entirely gave up the habit of swearing. He also forbade working on Sunday. Many a whale have I seen sporting and spouting near us on that day, but never did we lower a boat or touch a harpoon on Sunday. Some of the men grumbled at this and complained of it to each other, but they never spoke so as to let the captain hear, and they soon gave up their grumbling, for the most of us were well pleased with the change and all of us had agreed to it. The first Sunday after Fred's death the captain assembled the crew on the quarter-deck and spoke to us about it. My lad, city, I've called you aft to make a proposal that may perhaps surprise some of you. Up to this time you know very well there has been little difference aboard this ship between Saturday and Sunday. Since our poor shipmate died I have been thinking much on this matter, and I've come to the conclusion that we shall rest from all work on Sunday, except such as must be done to work the ship. Now, lads, you know me well enough by this time. I have never been a religious man all my life, and I don't pretend to say that I'm one now. I'm not very learned on this matter, and can't explain myself very well. But what thank you, lads. Shall we give the whales a rest on Sundays? We all agreed to this at once, for the effect of the captain's speech was great upon us. It was not so much what he said as the way in which he said it. He was by nature a bold, determined man who never flinched from danger or duty, and when we heard him talking in that way we could scarcely believe our ears. This was all that was said about the matter between us and the captain, but we had many a hot discussion in the forecastle amongst ourselves after that. Some were in favor of the new move and said stoutly that the captain was a sensible fellow. Others said he was becoming an old wife and that no luck would follow this ship. In the course of time, however, we found the benefit of the change in every way, and the grumblers were silenced because in spite of their wise shakings of the head, we filled the ship with oil as full as she could hold much sooner than we had expected. Shoregoing people have but little notion of the ease with which the heart of a jack-tar is made to rejoice when he is out on a long voyage. His pleasures and amusements are so few that he is thankful to make the most of whatever is thrown in his way. In the whale fisheries no doubt he has more than enough of excitement, but after a time he gets used to this and begins to long for a little variety, and of all the pleasures that fall to his lot, that which delights him most is to have a gam with another ship. Now a gam is the meeting of two or more whale-ships, their keeping company for a time, and the exchanging of visits by the crews. It is neither more nor less than a jollification on the sea, the inviting of your friends to feast and make merry in your floating house. There is this difference, however, between a gam at sea and a party on land, that your friends on the ocean are men whom you perhaps never saw before and whom you will likely never meet again. There is also another difference. There are no ladies at a gam. This is a great want for a man is but a rugged creature when away from the refining influence of women, but in the circumstances, of course, it can't be helped. We had a gam one day on this voyage with a Yankee whale-ship, and a first straight gam it was, for as the Yankee had gam three days before with another English ship we got a lot of news second hand, and as we had not seen a new face for many months we felt toward those Yankees like brothers and swallowed all they had to tell us like men starving for news. It was on a fine calm morning just after breakfast that we fell in with this ship. We had seen no whales for a day or two, but we did not mind that, for our hold was almost full of oil barrels. Tom Locans and I were leaning over the starboard bulwarks, watching the small fish that every now and then darted through the clear blue water like arrows and smoking our pipes in silence. Tom looked uncommonly grave, and I knew that he was having some deep and knowing thoughts of his own which would leak out in time. All at once he took his pipe from his mouth and stared earnestly at the horizon. Bob said he's speaking very slowly. If there ain't a ship ride off the starboard beam, I'm a Dutchman. You don't mean it, said I, starting with a feeling of excitement. Before another word could be uttered the cry of sail ho came ringing down from the mast head. Instantly the quiet of the morning was broken. Sleepers sprang up and rubbed their eyes. The men below rushed wildly up the hatchway. The cook came tearing out of his own private den, flourishing a soup ladle in one hand and his tormentors in the other. The steward came tumbling up with a lump of dough in his fist that he had forgot to throw down in his haste, and the captain bolded up from the cabin without his hat. Where away! cried he with more than his usual energy. Right off the starboard beam, sir. Square the yards. Look alive, Maharties! was the next order, for although the calm sea was like a sheet of glass, a light air just sufficient to fill our top-gallant sails enabled us to creep through the water. Hurrah! shouted the men as we sprang to obey. What does it look like? roared the captain. A big ship, sir, I think, replied the lookout, but I can only just make out the top of her mane to gallant saw. Sailors scorned to speak of top-gallant sails. Gradually, one by one, the white sails of the stranger rose up like cloudlets out of the sea, and our hearts beat high with hope and expectation as we beheld the towering canvas of a full-rigged ship rise slowly into view. Show our colors! said the captain. In a moment the Union Jack of Old England was waving at the masthead in a gentle breeze, and we watched anxiously for a reply. The stranger was polite. His colors flew up a moment after and displayed the stripes and stars of America. Yanky! exclaimed some of the men in a tone of slight disappointment. I may remark that our disappointment arose simply from the fact that there was no chance, as we supposed, of getting news from home out of a ship that must have sailed last from America. For the rest we cared not whether they were Yankees or Britons. They were men who could speak the English tongue. That was enough for us. Never mind, boys, cried one. We'll have a jolly game. That's a fact. So we will, said another, and I'll get news of my mad Irish cousin Terrence O'Flanigan, who went out to seek his fortan in America with two shillings and a broken knife in his pocket. And it's been said he's gotten to a government situation of some sort connected with the jails. Whether it's Captain or Lieutenant of Police or Turnkey, I'm not rightly sure. More likely is a life-tenant of one of the cells, observed Bill Blunt laughing. Don't speak ill of a better man than yourself behind his back, retorted the owner of the Irish cousin. Stand by to lower the jolly boat, cried the Captain. Aye-aye, sir. Lower away! In a few minutes we were leaping over the calm sea in the direction of the strange ship. For the breeze had died down and we were too eager to meet with new faces and to hear the sound of new voices to wait for the wind. To our joy we found that the Yankee had had a gam, as I have already said, with an English ship a few days before. So we returned to our vessel loaded with old newspapers from England, having invited the Captain and crew of the Yankee to come aboard of us and spend the day. While preparation was being made for the reception of our friends, we got hold of two of the old newspapers, and Tom Loken seized one while Bill Blunt got the other, and both men sat down on the windlass to retell the news to a crowd of eager men who tried hard to listen to both at once, and so could make nothing out of either. Hold hard, Tom Loken, cried one. What's that you say about the Emperor, Bill? The Emperor of Rusha, said Bill Blunt, reading slowly and with difficulty, is stop a bit, Miss Mates, what can this word be? The Emperor of Rusha is blow'd up with gunpowder and shattered to a thousand paces, said Tom Loken, raising his voice with excitement as he read from his paper, an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India. Oh, come, I say one at a time, if you please, cried a harpooner.  Come, Miss Mates, cried two or three voices, as Tom stopped suddenly and looked hard at the paper. Go ahead, what have you got there that makes you look as wise as an owl, as Warbid and broke out with a French? I do believe he's reading the births, marriages, and deaths said one of the men peeping over Tom's shoulder. Read him out, then, can't you? cried another. I say, Bill Blunt, I think this concerns you, cried Tom. Isn't your sweetheart's name Susan Croft? That's a fact, said Bill, looking up from his paper. And who has got a word to say again the prettiest last in all, Liverpool? Nobody's got a word to say against her, replied Tom. But she's married, that's all. Bill Blunt leaped up as if he had been shot, and the blood rushed to his face as he seized the paper and tried to find the place. Where is it, Tom?  Oh, here it is. The poor man's face grew paler and paler as he read the following words. Married at Liverpool on the 5th by the Reverend Charles Manson, Edward Gordon Esquire to Susan, youngest daughter of Admiral Croft, a perfect roar of laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence. Well done, Bill Blunt! Mr. Blunt will have to call him here after, said Tom, with a grim smile. I had no notion you thought so much of yourself as to aim at an Admiral's daughter. All right, my heart is chaff away, said Bill, fetching a deep sigh of relief while a broad grin played on his weather-beaten visage. There's two, Susan Crofts, that's all. But I wouldn't give my Susan for all the Admiral's daughters that ever walked in shoe leather. Hello, here come the Yankees, cried the Captain, coming on deck at that moment. Our newspapers were thrown down at once, and we prepared to receive our guests, who, we could see, had just put off from their ship and two boats. But before they had come within a mile of us, their attention, as well as ours, was riveted on a most extraordinary sight. Not more than a hundred yards ahead of our ship, a wail came suddenly to the surface of the water, seeming by its wild motions to be in a state of terror. It continued for some time to struggle and lash to the whole sea around it into a white foam. At once the boats were lowered from both ships, and we went after this fish. But as motions were so violent that we found it utterly impossible to get near enough to throw a harpoon. When we had approached somewhat closely we discovered that it had been attacked by a killer fish, which was fully twenty feet long and stuck to it like a leech. The monster's struggles were made in trying to shake itself free of this tremendous enemy, but it could not accomplish this. The killer held him by the underjaw and hung on there, while the wail threw himself out of the water in his agony, with his great mouth open like a huge cavern and the blood flowing so fast from the wound that the sea was dyed for a long distance round. The killer fought like a bulldog. It held on until the wail was exhausted, but they passed away from us in such a confused struggle that a harpoon could not be fixed for an hour after we first saw them. On this being done the killer let go, and the wail, being already half-dead, was soon killed. The Yankee boats were the first to come up with this fish, so the prize belonged to them. We were well pleased at this, as we could afford to let them have it, seeing that we could scarcely have found room to stow away the oil in our hold. It was the Yankee's first fish, too, so they were in great spirits about it, and towed it to their ship, singing Yankee Doodle with all their might. As they passed our boat the captain held them. I wish you joy of your first fish, sir, said he to the Yankee Captain. Thank you, stranger. I guess we're in luck, though it ain't a big one. I say what sort of brute was that that had hold of him?  He's a killer, said our captain. A killer? Since he just is, and no mistake, if we hadn't helped him he'd have done the job for himself.  To eat him, but I'm told he only eats the tongue. You'll not forget that you promised to game with us tonight, cried our captain, as they were about to commence pulling again. All right, stranger, one half will come to night and four sun down, to other half tomorrow, if the calm holds. Good day. Give way, lad. Did men dip their oars and resume their song while we pulled back to our ship? We did not offer to help them because the fish was a small one, and the distance they had to go not great. It was near sunset when, according to promise, the Yankees came on board and spent a long evening with us. They were a free, open-hearted, boastful, conceited, good- humored set of fellows, and a jolly night we had of it in the forecastle, while the mates and captains were enjoying themselves and spinning their yarns in the cabin. Of course we began with demands for home-news, and when we had pumped out of them every drop they had, we began to sing songs and to spin yarns. And it was now that my friend Tom Locans came out strong and went on at such a rate that he quite won the hearts of our guests. Tom was not noisy, and he was slow in his talk, but he had the knack of telling a good story. He never used a wrong word or a word too many, and having a great deal of humor men could not help listening when he began to talk. After this we had a dance, and here I became useful being able to play Scotch reels and Irish jigs on the fiddle. Then we had songs and yarns again. Some could tell a furious fight with whales that made our blood boil. Others could talk of the green fields at home until we almost fancied we were boys again. And some could not tell stories at all. They had little to say, and that little they said ill, and I noticed that many of those who were perfect boys would cry loudest to be heard, though none of us wanted to hear them. We used to quench such fellows by calling loudly for a song with a rousing chorus. It was not till the night was far spent and the silver moon was sailing through the starry sky that the Yankees left us and rode away with a parting cheer. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Fighting the Whales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Fighting the Whales, by R. M. Ballantyne. Chapter 10. Return Home Six months after our game with the Yankees, Tom Locans and I found ourselves seated once more in the little garret beside my dear old mother. Dear me, Robert, how changed you are? Changed mother? I should think so. If you've gone through all that I've done and seen since we last sat together in this room, you'd be changed, too.  Seen them? I, and killed them, too, many of them.  My mother, he has preserved my life in the midst of many dangers, said I, for which I am most thankful. There was a short silence after this, during which my mother and I gazed earnestly at each other, and Tom Locans smoked his pipe and stared at the fire.  How big? Why, it's as big as a small ship, only it's longer and not quite so fat. Robert, replied my mother gravely, you didn't use to tell untruth. You must be joking. Joking. Mother, I was never more earnest in my life. Why, I tell you that I've seen, I, and helped to cut up whales that were more than sixty feet long, with heads so big that their mouths could have taken in a boat. My mother, I declare to you that you could put this room into a whale's mouth, and you and Tom and I could sit round this table and take our tea upon his tongue quite comfortable. Isn't that true, Tom? My mother looked at Tom, who removed his pipe, puffed a cloud of smoke, and knotted his head twice, very decidedly. Moreover, said I, a whale is so big and strong that it can knock a boat right up into the air and break in the sides of a ship. One day a whale fell right on top of one of our boats and smashed it all to bits. Now that's a real truth.  Being anxious to put to flight all her doubts at once, he said solemnly, Old woman, that's a fact. Robert, said my mother, tell me something about the whales. Just as she said this, the door opened, and in came the good old gentleman with a nose like his cane-knob, and with his good a heart as ever beaten a human breast. My mother had already told me that he came to see her regularly once a week ever since I went to sea, except in summer when he was away in the country, and that he had never allowed her to want for anything. I need scarcely say that there was a hardy meeting between us three, and that we have much to say to each other. But in the midst of it all my mother turned to the old gentleman and said, Robert was just about to tell me something about his adventures with the whales. That's capital, cried the old gentleman, rubbing his hands. Come, Bob, my boy, let's hear about him. Being thus invited I consented to spin them a yarn. The old gentleman settled himself in his chair. My mother smoothed her apron, folded her hands, and looked meekly into my face.  Then I cleared my throat and began my tale, and before I had done talking that night I had told them all that I have told in this little book, almost word for word. Thus ended my first voyage to the South Seas. Many and many a trip have I made since then, and many a wonderful sight have I seen, both in the South and in the North. But if I were to write an account of all my adventures, my little book would grow into a big one. I must therefore come to a close. The profits of this voyage were so great that I was enabled to place my mother in a position of comfort for the rest of her life, which alas was very short. She died about six months after my return. I nursed her to the end, and when I laid her dear head in the grave, my heart seemed to die within me, for I felt that I had lost one of God's most precious gifts, an honest, gentle, pious mother. I am getting to be an old man now, but I am comfortable and happy, and as I have more than enough of this world's goods and no family to care for, my chief occupation is to look after the poor, and particularly the old women who live in my neighborhood. After the work of the day is done, I generally go and spend the evening with Tom Locans, who lives nearby, and is stout and hearty still, or he comes and spends it with me. And while we smoke our pipes together, we often fall to talking about those stirring days when, in the strength and hope of youth, we sailed together to the South Seas, and took to fighting the whales. The End


Welcome to All Hands Update. I'm Petty Officer Brandy Wills with your headlines from around the fleet. Late summer is the peak of hurricane and typhoon seasons. The Navy's Be Ready program has information on how to be safe. This includes tips for disaster planning, emergency supply kits, and resources to stay informed before, during, and after an emergency. Visit the Be Ready program's website at ready.navy.mil. The Boxer Amphibious Ready Group successfully completed their certification exercise, or CERDEX, August 7th. During CERDEX, Boxer was evaluated on scenarios ranging from combat flight operations to amphibious landings. Boxer will be the first West Coast-based ship to deploy with the MV-22 Osprey. You can read more about these stories at navy.mil. From All Hands Update, thanks for watching.


From VOA Learning English, this is the Technology Report in Special English. An international rights group has called on world governments to ban weaponized robots. Human Rights Watch recently released a report called Losing Humanity, The Case Against Killer Robots. It warns that fully autonomous weapons systems could increase the risk to civilians during armed conflicts. Militaries around the world are using unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones, more and more. The drones gather intelligence, help identify targets, and fire weapons, but only if a human operator gives the order. Human Rights Watch fears that within 30 years, developments in technology could remove the need for human operators. David Mepham is the United Kingdom Director of Human Rights Watch. He says his group is concerned that robots will not be able to tell the difference between civilians and combatants. The United States and other militaries have stated they have no plans to remove human supervision over the decision to use deadly force. Human Rights Watch says a treaty would help to guarantee that this does not happen. The group says a ban on what it calls killer robots would be similar to current bans on the use of land mines and cluster bombs. Some experts say that all autonomous technology should be discussed. For example, France sent remote-controlled robots to Japan last year to help contain the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Power Center. This was a job that most people would agree was better left to machines. For VOA Learning English, I'm Alex Villareal.


NATO will increase its peacekeeping force in Kosovo if there is an escalation of tensions with neighboring Serbia. The alliance's chief said on Wednesday on the eve of EU-facilitated talks between the estranged Western Balkan neighbors. We have now a significant mission, a military presence in Kosovo close to 4,000 troops. Jan Sturzenberg told a news conference after talks with Serbian president Aleksandar Vočić in Brussels, who stood alongside him. The threats, risks and challenges that NATO faces in the current security environment are felt by our country as well. Kosovo's institutions and citizens in the current situation have reason to be vigilant about destructive approach of our northern neighbor towards Kosovo and the region in general under Russia's detrimental agenda for Europe and the Balkans. But the only way towards sustainable peace is for Belgrade and Prisna to resolve their issues through the EU-facilitated dialogue. I urge all parties to engage positively and constructively in the latest round of the EU talks tomorrow. It is an opportunity for Kosovo to demonstrate that it is a responsible actor within the Euro-Atlantic community. Viktor is in Kosovo with close to 4,000 troops and that is currently our biggest military presence outside NATO territory. And that demonstrates a very strong commitment to peace, to stability, to the Western Balkans to Kosovo.


Okay, welcome back to SuperCloud 22. I'm John Furrier, host of the queue. We have Ali Ghazi here, co-founder and CEO of Databricks. Ali, great to see you. Thanks for spending your valuable time to come on and talk about SuperCloud and the future of all the structural change that's happening in cloud computing. My pleasure, thanks for having me. Well, first of all, congratulations. We've been talking for many, many years and I still go back to the video that we have an archive of you talking about cloud and really at the beginning of the big reboot I call the post Hadoop revitalization of data. Congratulations, you've been cloud first, now on multiple clouds. Congratulations to you and your team for achieving what looks like a billion dollars in annualized revenue as reported by the Wall Streeters. So first, congratulations. Thank you so much, appreciate it. So I was talking to some young developers and I asked a random poll, what do you think about Databricks? Oh, we love those guys. They're AI and ML native and that's their advantage over the competition. So I pressed Y. I don't think they knew why, but that's an interesting perspective, this idea of cloud native, AI, ML native, ML ops. This has been a big trend and it's continuing. This is a big part of how this change and the structural change is happening. How do you react to that? And how do you see Databricks evolving into this new super cloud like multi-cloud environment? Yeah, look, I think it's a continuum. It starts with having data, but they want to get clean it, they want to get insights out of it. But then eventually you'd like to start asking questions, doing reports, maybe ask questions about what was my revenue yesterday last week, but soon you want to start using the crystal ball, predictive technology of, okay, but what will my revenue be next week? Next quarter, who's going to churn? And if you can finally automate that completely so that you can act on the predictions, right? So this credit card that got swiped, the AI thinks it's fraud, we're going to deny it. That's when you get real value. So we're trying to help all these organizations move through this data AI maturity curve all the way to that, you know, the prescriptive automated AI machine learning. That's when you get real competitive advantage. And, you know, we saw that with the fans, right? I mean, Google wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for AI. You know, we'd be using AltaVista or something. You know, we want to help all organizations to be able to leverage data and AI that way that the fans did. One of the things we're looking at with super cloud and why we call it super cloud versus other things like multi-cloud is that today a lot of the successful companies that have started in the cloud have been successful but have realized that even enterprises who have gotten by accident kind of and maybe have done nothing with cloud have just some cloud projects on multiple clouds. So people have multiple cloud operational things going on but it hasn't necessarily been a strategy per se. It's been more of kind of a default reaction to things. But the ones that are innovating have been successful in one native cloud because of use cases that drove that, got scale, got value. And then they're making that super by being on premise, putting in a modern data stack for the modern application development and kind of dealing with the things that you guys are in the middle of with Databricks is that that is where the action is. And they don't want to go lose the trajectory in all the economies of scale. So we're seeing another structural change where the evolutionary nature of the cloud has solved a bunch of use cases but now other use cases are emerging. That's on premises and edge that have been driven by applications because of the developer boom that's happening. You guys are in the middle of it. What is happening with this structural change? Are people looking for the modern data stack? Are they looking for more AI? What's your perspective on this super cloud kind of position? Yeah, look, it started with, now they are on multiple clouds, right? So multi cloud has been a thing. It became a thing. 70, 80% of our customers, when you ask them, they're more than one cloud. But then soon they start realizing that, hey, you know, if I'm on multiple clouds, this data stuff is hard enough as it is. Do I want to redo it again and again with different proprietary technologies, you know, on each of the clouds? And that's when I start thinking about, let's standardize this, let's figure out a way which just works across them. That's where I think open source comes in, becomes really important. Hey, can we leverage open standards because then we can make it work in these different environments, as you said, so that we can actually go super, as you said. That's one. The second thing is, can we simplify it? And I think today, the data landscape is complicated. You know, the conceptually it's simple. You have data, which is essentially customer data that you have, maybe employee data. And you want to get some kind of insights from that. But how you do that is very complicated. You have to buy data warehouse, hire data analysts.  If you want to streaming, real-time thing, that's another complete different set of technologies you have to buy, and you have to stitch all these together and you have to do it again and again on every cloud. So they just want simplification. So that's why we're big believers in this data lake house concept, which is an open standard to simplifying this data stack and help people to just get value out of their data in any environment. So they can do that in this sort of super cloud, as you call it. You know, we've been talking about that in previous interviews, do the heavy lifting, let them get the value. I have to ask you about how you see that going forward because if I'm a customer, I have a lot of operational challenges because the developers are kicking butt right now. We see that clearly. Open source is growing and continue to be great. But ops and security teams, they really care about this stuff and most companies don't want to spin up multiple ops teams to deal with different stacks. This is one big problem that I think that's leading into the multi-cloud viability. How do you guys deal with that? How do you talk to customers when they say, I want to have less complications on operations? Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, it's easy for a developer to adopt all these technologies and new things are coming out all the time. The ops teams are the ones that have to make sure this works. Doing that in multiple different environments is super hard, especially when there's a proprietary stack in each environment that's different. So they just want standardization. They want open source. That's super important. We hear that all the time from them. They want open source technologies. They believe in the communities around it. You know, they know that source code is open. So you can also see if there's issues with it, if there's security breaches, those kind of things that they can have a community around it so that they can actually leverage that. So they're the ones that are really pushing this and we're seeing it across the board. You know, it starts first with the digital natives, you know, the companies that are, but slowly it's also now percolating to the other organizations that we're hearing across the board. Where are we on the innovation strategies for customers? Where are they on the trajectory around how they're building out their teams? How are they looking at the open source? How are they extending the value proposition of data bricks and data at scale as they start to build out their teams and operations? Because some are like kind of starting, you know, crawl, walk, run kind of vibe. Some are big companies. They're dealing with data all the time. Where are they in their journey? What's the core issues that they're solving? What are some of the use cases that you see that are most pressing? Yeah, what I've seen that's really exciting about this data lake house concept is that we're now seeing a lot of use cases around real-time. So real-time fraud detection. Real-time stock ticker pricing, anyone that's doing trading, they want that to work real-time. Lots of use cases around that. Lots of use cases around, how do we in real-time drive more engagement on our web assets if we're a media company, right? We have all these assets. How do we get people to get engaged, stay on our sites, continue engaging with the material we have? Those are real-time use cases. And the interesting thing is the real-time, so it's really important that you do that now. You don't want to recommend someone, hey, you should go check out this restaurant if they just came from that restaurant half an hour ago. So you want it to be real-time, but B, it's also all based on machine learning. These are, a lot of this is trying to predict what you want to see, what you want to do. Is it fraudulent? And that's also interesting because basically more and more machine learning is coming in. So that's super exciting to see the combination of real-time and machine learning on the lake house. And finally, I would say the lake house is really important for this because that's where the data is flowing in. If they have to take that data that's flowing into the lake and actually copy it into a separate warehouse, that delays the real-time use cases and then it can't hit those real-time deadlines. So that's another catalyst for this lake house pattern. Would that be an example of how the metrics are changing? Because I've been looking at some people saying, well, you can tell if someone's doing well, there's a lot of data being transferred. And then I was saying, well, wait a minute, data transfer costs money, right, and time. So this is interesting dynamic. In a way, you don't want to have a lot of movement, right? Yeah, movement actually decreases for a lot of these real-time use cases because what we saw in the past was that they would run a batch processing to process all the data. So once a day process all the data. But actually, if you look at the things that have changed since the data that we have yesterday, it's actually not that much. So if you can actually incrementally process it in real-time, you can actually reduce the cost of transfers and storage and processing. So that's actually a great point. That's also one of the main things that we're seeing with the use cases, you know, the bill shrinks and the cost goes down and they can process less. Yeah, I'm just gonna see how those KPIs evolve into industry metrics down the road around the super cloud of evolution. I got to ask you about the open source concept of data platform.  But working across clouds is super important. How are you guys looking at the ability to work across the different clouds with Databricks? Are you going to build that abstraction yourself? Does data sharing and model sharing kind of come into play there? How do you see this Databricks capability across the clouds? Yeah, let me start by saying, we're big fans of open source. We think that open source is a force in software that's going to continue for decades, hundreds of years and it's going to slowly replace all proprietary code in its way. We saw that it could do that with the most advanced technology, Windows, proprietary operating system, very complicated, got replaced with Linux. So open source can pretty much do anything. And what we're seeing with the data lake house is that slowly the open source community is building a replacement for the proprietary data warehouse, data lake, machine learning, real time stack in open source. And we're excited to be part of it.  And when it comes to really important protocol Delta sharing, that enables you in an open way, actually for the first time ever, share large data sets between organizations, but it uses an open protocol. So the great thing about that is you don't need to be a Databricks customer. You don't even like Databricks. You just need to use this open source project and you can now securely share data sets between organizations across clouds. And it actually does so really efficiently. Just one copy of the data. So you don't have to copy it if you're within the same cloud. So you're playing the long game on open source. Absolutely. I mean, this is a force. It's going to be there. If you deny it, before you know it, there's going to be something like Linux that is going to be a threat to your project. I totally agree, by the way. I was just talking to him at the end, like, hey, the software industry, someone made me come up with the software industry. The software industry is open source. There's no more software industry. It's called open source. It's integrations that become interesting. And I was looking at integrations now. It's really where the action is. And we had a panel with the Clouderati, we called it, that people have been around for a long time. And it was called the Innovator's Dilemma. And one of the comments was, it's the integrator's dilemma, not the innovator's dilemma.  Can you share your thoughts on how cloud and integration need to be tightened up to really make it super? Actually, that's a great point. I think the beauty of this is, look, the ecosystem of data today is vast. You know, there's this picture that someone puts together every year, all the different vendors and how they relate, and it gets bigger and bigger and messier and messier. So, you know, we see customers use all kinds of different aspects of what's existing in the ecosystem. And they want it to be integrated in whatever you're selling them. And that's where I think the power of open source comes in. Open source, you get integrations that people will do without you having to push it. So us, Databricks is a vendor, we don't have to go tell people, please integrate with Databricks. The open source technology that we contribute to, automatically people are integrating with it. Delta Lake has integrations with lots of different software out there, and Databricks as a company doesn't have to push that. So I think open source is also another thing that really helps with the ecosystem integrations. Many of these companies in this data space actually have employees that are full-time dedicated to make sure our software works well with Spark, make sure our software works well with Delta, and they contribute back to that community. And that's the way you get this sort of ecosystem to further sort of flourish. Well, I really appreciate your time. My final question for you is, as we're kind of unpacking and kind of shape and frame SuperCloud for the future, how would you see a roadmap or architecture or outcome for companies that are going to clearly be in the cloud where it's open source is going to be dominating? Integrates has got to be seamless and frictionless. Abstractionally, make things super easy and take away the complexity. What is SuperCloud to them? What does the outcome look like? How would you define a SuperCloud environment for an enterprise? Yeah, for me, it's the simplification that you get where you standardize an open source, you get your data in one place in one format in one standardized way, and then you can get your insights from it without having to buy lots of different idiosyncratic proprietary software from different vendors that's different in each environment. So it's this slow standardization that's happening. And I think it's going to happen faster than we think. And I think in a couple of years, it's going to be a requirement that, you know, does your software work on all these different environments? Is it based on open source? Is it using this data lakehouse pattern? And if it's not, I think they're going to demand it. Yeah, I feel like we're close to some sort of de facto standard coming and you guys are a big part of it. Once that clicks in, it's going to highly accelerate in the open. And I think it's going to be super valuable. Ali, thank you so much for your time. And congratulations to you and your team on continuous. We've been following you guys since the beginning. Remember the early days and look how far it's come. And again, you guys are really making a big difference and making a super cool environment out there. Thanks for coming on and sharing. Thank you so much, John. Okay, this is SuperCloud 22. I'm John Furrier. Stay with us more for more coverage and more commentary after this break.


Pictures, at a certain degree of excitement to web documents and hyperlinks, allow the user to interact with the content of a web document. These two aspects constitute the focus of this e-lecture. In particular, we will look at the use of images and the attributes we can associate with them. We will discuss hyperlinks and finally we will list those items that web browsers ignore or are made to ignore. Like in the previous e-lectures, we will take the HTML document with the source code I used in my previous HTML e-lectures as a starting point. Well, here it is. To the left you will always see the HTML source code and to the right you will see how the web document is displayed within the browser. Let us start with the use of images. Here is an image. Its file name is Logo PNG. That is, it is an image in the portable network graphics format and it has a size of 150 by 150 pixels. Well, as you know, the image displays the logo of the virtual linguistics campus which I have also got here and the logo of the linguistic engineering team. That is my team that has been developing the virtual linguistics campus for the past 12 years. Now to place this image on our web page, we have to use the image tag. This tag is a standalone tag. It controls the placement and the appearance of images on web pages. To add an image to a page, the image requires at least one attribute. This attribute, referred to as source, has the URL of the file to be displayed as an image in the page as its value. In our case, the value would be logo.png. Without any further attributes, images are placed in accordance to their position in the source code on a web page. So here is our first result. Now, since I placed the image tag before the welcome heading displayed in the H1 tags, the image is placed first in our document. However, with further attributes, we can manipulate the position and appearance of the inserted image in several ways. So here, with two further attributes in the link tag, we have placed the image on the right-hand side in the web document. And the tag that is primarily responsible for the placement, the horizontal placement in this case, is the tag align, which in this case aligned the image to the right. The alt tag alternative tag has a value, a string value, that is shown when the image cannot be displayed. Well, let's look at further attributes. For example, we could use the width and height attributes, which define the size of an image in terms of pixels. Now, with these two attributes, we have now reduced the size of our image from 150 by 150 pixels in the original, the default, to 80 by 80, that is almost 50% of the original size. And at the same time, we've changed the align attribute and aligned our image to the left-hand side this time. With further attributes, for example, the attributes h space, horizontal space, and v space, vertical space, we can, for example, define the horizontal and vertical space between an image and the surrounding text in terms of pixels. So much for images, let's now move on with hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are pointers to another place inside the current document, to another document in the local collection, that is on the same website, or to a document anywhere on the worldwide web. The anchor tag, where a stands for anchor, is the HTML construct to build hyperlinks. It is a container tag, whose start and end tags are wrapped around a span of text, or, as we will see later, an image, turning it into a clickable link. With the attribute href, which stands obviously for hyperlink reference, we specify which document is the target of our hyperlink. And this document, the target, has of course a unique address, the so-called Uniform Resource Locator, or in short, URL. Well, in our example here, the URL, that is the value of the attribute hyperlink reference, is the address of the homepage of the virtual linguistics campus. Do you really understand the concept behind the URL? I hope so. If not, here is a short X course. Every resource accessible on the internet has a unique address. This address is known as the Uniform Resource Locator URL. Basically, the URL consists of the following components. Now, the first component specified in red refers to the protocol name, that is, the process by means of which the resource can be accessed. The most well-known protocol name is the HTTP protocol, the Hypertext protocol. Others are FTP, File Transfer Protocol, and so on and so forth. Now, displayed in blue, we have the domain name. It is a name that identifies a specific computer on the internet. And the final part specifies the path name, that is, the location of the file on that specific computer. URLs can be of several types. They can be absolute or relative to the current document. URLs can be mail links that provide a straightforward way to send email from web pages. And if you want to link a specific point in a web page, so-called named anchors can be used. Let's look at them in detail.  They are primarily used to establish external links to a resource on another computer connected to the internet. Well, as you can see here are several examples. Most of them have the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, then here we have the File Transfer Protocol. The domain names, well, they are displayed in blue. And finally, you have the path names all displayed in green. If you just have a slash here, it is the top level of that particular computer. Relative hyperlinks are used to access resources on the same computer, that is, the server. And they are located relative to the page that contains the relative URL. To link another file within the same directory, for example, where you have your web document, it is only necessary to provide the name of the target to resource, that is, its file name. Well, here is an example which assumes that your target is a file in Formation HTML, and it must be contained in the same folder. To link a file in a directory below the current directory, the path name from the current directory to the file has to be included. So, in this specification, our target file information.html is contained in the folder products one level below our source file. To locate a file on a higher level in the directory hierarchy, one or more folder markers have to be added at the beginning of the path name. Now, each folder marker instructs the browser to go up one directory level to look for the file. Here is an example, and as you can see, the folder marker is displayed as two dots followed by a slash. And this simply means that you will find the file information HTML one folder above the folder where our source is contained. A special type of relative URL begins with a slash. Now, here is an example. When the browser encounters a path name that begins with a slash, it starts at the root, that is, the top level directory of the server and works its way down through the directories and subdirectories of the server tree from there, until it finds the folder you specify after the slash. So, so much for relative hyperlinks, which are used very frequently in web documents. The next type of hyperlink deals with the mail protocol. So, the mail to is the protocol in a hyperlink, and it is possible to create a link with an email address. Now, this is the email address here, of course, a completely arbitrary one. And such a link causes the browser to open a new message in a designated mail program. Well, note that this only works if the browser is configured to launch a mail program. Also be aware that by putting your email address on a web page, you will make yourself susceptible to receiving unsolicited junk mail. You know, this is called spam. In most cases, you do not really want that, do you? Okay, here's the last type of hyperlink, the so-called named anchor. Now named anchors allow for the creation of links to specific points within the same HTML document. All we have to do is to create a hyperlink with an anchor name, a name that you invent preceded by a so-called hashtag symbol. Now here the link would be linguistics, and here is the hashtag symbol. When this hyperlink is clicked, it will move the cursor to a position within the same document that is marked with a simple anchor tag that now only contains the name without the hashtag. This principle is often used, for example, if a long page contains a table of content where each item is linked to a text passage within the same document. Does that ring a bell? Well, Wikipedia, okay. Well, let's now return to our document and see how hyperlinks are created within the HTML code. What happens in the browser when a web document has a hyperlink in the source code? Well, you know by default, two things. First of all, in the browser, the hyperlink is by default underlined. You know this from millions of websites. And then secondly, when the mouse cursor moves over the hyperlink, it changes from the standard arrow to a hand cursor. Remember, these are default settings on many websites. They are overridden by specific style attributes. It is also possible to use images as hyperlinks. To make an image a link, the anchor tag is placed around the entire image. Here is an example. Well, since some browsers by default draw a frame around the anchored image, it is recommended to use the attribute border in the image tag and assign the value zero to it, which means there is no border. And now the hyperlink is no longer indicated by a frame around it. You can only find it by means of mouse rollover, since the mouse cursor changes to the hand cursor. Well, before we finish, we have to mention a set of ignored items that web browsers do not display. When web browsers analyze or the technical term is parse the contents of HTML documents, they interpret all the tags in the document. And during this process, some items are deliberately ignored, not only tags, but also other items. They include, as you have already seen before, line breaks. So if you insert line breaks in the source code, it doesn't really matter. Tabs in multiple spaces are also ignored, so if you use the tabulator, it doesn't matter at all. And if you insert several spaces between words, the browser will ignore it. And then you might have tags, which are by default false, or which you deliberately enter your HTML document. So for example, if you insert the tag linguistics, the browser will completely ignore it. And finally, and this is quite important, you have the special comment tag. So everything that is displayed in the source code between these two tags, here the word comment, is ignored. And this gives us a wonderful opportunity to add comments in the source code, which will not be seen in the browser. Well, this e-lecture concludes our introduction to basic HTML. Having attended our four e-lectures, HTML fundamentals, text part one and text part two, and of course this one, you should now feel confident using HTML in its basic form. Of course, there are more tags and options. For example, the new multimedia tags in HTML5. Well, we will introduce them later in other e-lectures, but there's one additional e-lecture you should attend. This e-lecture deals with the use and the integration of cascaded stylesheets. I strongly recommend attending this one within the near future. So see you there.