So we're going to do our final gravity check on it to see and then we'll be able to compare where the gravity was at first So the original gravity where the final gravity is and then we can work out exactly how much alcohol we've produced so to clarify the gravity is What you call specific gravity is the civic gravity density, I guess so at this point we'll just take a sample And this is a refractometer so this is not the most accurate tool we use hydrometers Later, but for this process. It makes it really easy. We don't waste a lot of stuff And when you work with the hydrometer you have to to calculate with the temperature The sugar right right, but with a refractometer you don't have to worry about the temperature It's how the light passes through the sugar So yeah, you just put a little sample over the over the glass piece It kind of push you down get all the air out of it. And so when you look through there Then you'll see how many degrees bricks are on there, so it's It's about 14.2. So that's how we measure the beer. We take our starting point How much sugar we got at the start? Yeah, and how much sugar if we got at the end and then the difference We can convert to give us the alcohol by volume. So first what we need to do is we need to there's a temperature adjustment So we need to make sure measure the temperature first. This is seven degrees That's because the colder liquid gets it gets more dense But as it heats up it gets less dense So this is a saccharometer from a scale of 10 10 to 10 20 the yeast Basically will eat the sugar in eating the sugar. It will then turn it into alcohol and Carbon dioxide so that's where that's where our bubbles come from in the beer the carbon dioxide Yeah in the natural fermentation process and so as you can imagine as the yeast turns some of the sugar into alcohol The density will get less and less and less because alcohol is less Alcohol is lighter exactly less dense than than sugar 4.5% is bang on the Alcohol that we're aiming for for this beer. So that's great. We had the right starting gravity We had the right final gravity and that means that the beer is consistent with what we're trying to brew a 4.5% best bitter


Okay, so thank you, John, fascinating talk, and this will be yet another talk on security. And actually, half of the talk is praising Tetragon, so maybe this talk will be much shorter right now. So today's topic will be securing CICD through eBPF. In the upcoming talk, I will showcase to you how I take this great technology of eBPF and try to solve for it some of the most, some of the tough issues that we have in securing CICD pipelines. So this is an eBPF conference, so we'll be introducing eBPF, introducing some of the tooling the community built for eBPF. And then we will describe what is CICD, what risks pose to CICD pipelines, what is the security issues we have in CICD. Then we will merge both technology, eBPF and CICD, and showcase what the possible solution could be to solve these issues through utilizing eBPF technology. We'll tackle that solution through looking some of the most prevalent attacks we have over the CICD pipelines in the recent years. Some of them were attacking the software supply chain. Later we will get a bit deep dive into how can we implement such concept, and stay tuned because we have also several demos. And finally we'll talk a bit of the future plan for this concept. Okay. I'm Alex Elgayev, I'm a senior security researcher for CICOD. Previously I was a team leader for the malware research team at Checkpoint, where I reverse engineer some complex pieces of malware that originated both from cybercrime and APTs. And nowadays I'm a vulnerability researcher at CICOD, a research vulnerability, and also mitigations for software supply chain attacks. CICOD is a cyber security company that provides a complete software supply chain solutions for organizations. Okay. I bet some of you already know this architecture by now. So what is eBPF? eBPF is a revolutionary technology that originated in the Linux kernel that allows you to load sandboxed code into the kernel. It allows you efficiently and safely to extend kernel capabilities without modifying any kernel source code or writing complex pieces of kernel modules. So why do we need eBPF? I think we had enough reasons up to this point, but in short we can get great tracing abilities of observability. And of course we can create a security mechanism in the kernel, effectively, safely, without a lot of hard work. So specifically in this talk we won't be talking a lot on eBPF code, on how to write eBPF code. There are more of the concept of taking eBPF technology and solving security issues with it. There's plenty of tutorials explaining that. Some of the eBPF tooling that exists open source nowadays, like I am, I bet some people here are getting started with writing eBPF code, so there are VCC and eBPF trays, great tooling to get it started and get your first eBPF code compiled and running. There's several issues with these tools that demand the kernel headers and recompiling for every operating system. And eBPF is a library that introduced a concept called Coree, compiled once, run everywhere. It solves several issues, like, as it says, you don't need to compile it for every operating system. Most latest Linux distributions contain the BTF headers, which is BPF type format, that allows this Coree applications run easily on every modern Linux system. Some of the popular open source projects that utilize this Coree, Alcelium, Tetragon, and more, that allows you with one liner to install eBPF code on your machine and achieve great things. So a bit on CICD. I bet almost every developer project nowadays embedded some kind of CICD into the pipeline. It helps you to automate processes and quicken the development process. Such simple CICD pipeline could be taking your source code, check out it, compile it, either through a Docker build, make file or whatever your compilation method is, taking the artifact you created from this compilation, put it in some registry, maybe some package manager, and even sometimes take this artifact and deploy it in your production environment staging, testing, whatever. Such processes has a few issues. For example, it demands highly privileged access to some very sensitive assets. For example, the process I just described demands sometimes right access to our code depositors. It demands right access to our artifact registries or package managers, and sometimes even to the cloud infrastructure. So lately we are observing that the attacks on software supply chain are arising because of these risks. So securing CICD is hard. Why it's hard? First, we don't have a lot of security tooling. The standard security tooling like antiviruses, EDR firewalls just don't fit for these purposes. And the other application security tooling focuses more on the finding vulnerabilities and vulnerable packages instead of securing the pipeline itself. And the CICD system usually have a lot of configurations. Whoever tried to play with Jenkins a bit knows what I'm talking about. Each misconfiguration could lead maybe to potential compromise of the system. Next usually CICD system because of lack of security tooling also have really low visibility. So this is another issue security sock team need to handle it. And lastly, some of the systems, for example, GitHub Actions, GitLab and more are built on ephemeral environments. This means that every build is creating a new machine or a new container environment that's creating the build and destroyed afterwards. Does this make security even harder? So I propose let's take this idea of ABPF and try to stop some of the security issues we have in CICD. Why specifically ABPF? It's safe, it's easy to build an ABPF problem, relatively easy. I don't want to say it's really easy. And it can solve some of the observability and security issues we have. As I said about CORE, it can work after the box for latest Linux kernel. So it will also work after the box for most of the CI systems themselves. And of course it has very powerful community and tooling that pushes the technology forward. So this concept of creating an ABPF agent that will be easily deployed on any CI system and will monitor or protect using some configuration. So let's tackle this concept for some of the latest attacks we have over the software supply chain and CI-CD systems in the recent years. The first and maybe most famous one is SolarWinds. In SolarWinds there was a SunSpot malware that was planted on the build server for a SolarWinds corporation that replaced the code file just before it being compiled to a malicious one, which resulted to a malicious artifact that was signed by SolarWinds and deployed to its many customers. So how this specific ABPF agent could maybe solve this issue? First the most straightforward method will be to deny any right access to the source code file during the CI build. It's plain simple but also can be very effective. I'm finding it really hard to find the use cases where a CI workflow or some build process need to have right access to the source code file. And another possible solution would be to monitor process execution and file system execution and maybe compare it to previous execution of the same build. This can work because usually workflows or usually builds can be very repetitive in their task. They're doing the same task over and over again so it can be quite effective to compare it with previous execution of the same task. Let's look at another famous incident which will be the CodeCode Bash installer compromise. The Bash installer of CodeCode was modified by a malicious actor. So it's a code coverage tool that usually was run during the CI workflow of many projects. So on every CI that was installing CodeCode during that was compromised, it was server months I think it was compromised, it also was exfiltrating all its environment variable inside the CI to the attacker control server. modified environment variables because as I said the CI process has a lot of previous access to many systems and usually the access is done by through some secret tokens that are saved as environment variable. Specifically in CodeCode they were after GitHub tokens that will let them access private repositories. So how we could maybe help with this case? First the most naive and simple solution would be let's monitor all the network connection that our builds are doing. As I said that they are quite repetitive that doesn't have to access hundreds of domains or IPs, the list should be quite simple. A more advanced solution let's create an allow listing. Let's say every process that connects to IP or domain that's not in the allow list should be terminated immediately. The third use case is more like, I don't talk about specific incidents but a group of incidents that would see a rising in the recent year are installation of malicious dependencies through the CI. Usually when we are building software we are installing dependencies. Usually we don't know what dependency exactly we are installing, we don't know whether they are malicious or not. And there are many incidents where a project during the build compilation they install malicious packages whether they have been hijacked by some attacker or maybe some type of squatting and mistake for the package name. For example you put in the requirements file for Python, you put request instead of the popular request package. This request package could be malicious. So similar to Kotko we could also stop it through some tight network monitor. So none would explain the concept, let's talk about how we are going to implement it. Let me show you some POC that I have built based on Tetragon to demonstrate the concept that is also executed on GitHub Actions. So first you all heard John's talk, really fascinating to talk about Tetragon. Tetragon is an extremely powerful tool that allows you observability and run to enforcement for security purposes. So I will run it quite quickly because you already seen it. But why I choose specifically Tetragon? Because it's highly generic, it allows you to build policies and to load them to Tetragon Engine which also is a highly capable engine that loads it into the BPF code. Second it has limited but powerful features to enforce based on predefined filters so we can enforce on the kernel level and it doesn't have to write code in the user mode to stop this. And third unlike other powerful tools that exist in the BPF ecosystem, Tetragon also works outside of Kubernetes environment. This is important because the CIC system can work outside of Kubernetes environment and for example GitHub Actions is not working in Kubernetes, it has a dedicated new machine for every new build. So Tetragon answer these requirements. So the architecture of the POC is quite simple, it has two parts, the agent which is the most important part and some server in our lab environment that will get all the results and all the detection we had on the agent part. We don't have to, the server is not a mandatory but it's only to see the results and to use the experiment. So in the agent part we have two pieces of code, we have Tetragon executable and we have a very agent, simple agent written in GoLang that installs Tetragon on the machine and communicates it with the policy that it should be loading to the Linux kernel and extracts all the events and sends it to our lab environment to understand what's going on in the build itself. So some of the functionality we implement in this POC, the first is observability for the build system, understanding all the executed processes, build some simple process tree out of that to see domains and IPs, it's nothing fancy here. Then we implement also a simple source code integrity feature to stop against attacks such as SolarWinds and to experiment with this feature. Then the third which is the most important to my opinion is network protection. This creates some simple allow listing for domains and block any connection that's not in this specific list. These abilities are demonstrated on GitHub actions but it can easily be deployed on any other CI system which works on Linux of course. And this functionality is of course proving the ability to stop the use cases we presented. Okay, so I will be running it quite fast because I don't have time for the demo. So the installation is quite easy, it's through what's called the custom GitHub action. We just add EBPF agent action in the CI. We're not familiar with the GitHub action syntax, it's not really required here. In short, for every installation I'm just putting a Docker container, privileged in the detached mode that installs this tetragone and the agent we wrote to secure the machine. So for example, if we have some hello world CI in the GitHub action, first it has three parts, the first one we're installing the EBPF agent and then we're running two commands, let's comment a curl to Google.com and on the server side we have a simple process tree for all what the builder was doing, the runner.worker process is the main process of executing steps in GitHub action and we also see the contacted domains. So let's go over quickly how we implemented the functionalities. For the tracing part it was quite easy because tetragone as I said is a really powerful tool. It's giving us the entire process list that is executed including it reaches it with additional information such as the parent, the arguments, the binary and more. When we combine it with TCP connect tracing, which is tracing for all the TCP connection made by the operating system, we can also give an addition context to the connection and understand which process did the connection so we can terminate it. In case of DNS tracing, it's a feature that's missing in tetragone so we have to use some external tool that showing us all the DNS requests made by the agent. Of course, ultimately we won't want it to be implemented in EBPF as well but for the POC it was used as external tool. One of the strengths of this tool of this agent comes when we call it deep inspection. The CI usually are using some external models, external tools, binary packages and etc. We don't have complete visibility over what each package is executing. So with this tool we have the complete visibility of the entire, for example, process tree that's executed by the CI even if it was using external dependencies. For example, my CI was using the action to set up a goal which is a very common action in GitHub actions. So I can see the entire process tree of that specific setup goal and understand if it was doing some malicious activity. So for integrity, as I said, we can implement integrity on several levels, specifically for this POC we implemented only code integrity but ultimately we want also to verify the builder hash that wasn't altered. For example, if you say go, make or docker, we want to verify that no memory modifications were made to the process. It could be a valid hash but it was modified in the memory. And we want to verify that no write operation was made for the artifact created by the builder. So this is how we implement code integrity. This is a tetragone syntax, simple policy that we're checking that no write operations are made over file that ends with that goal or goal that sum or goal that month. And lastly, network protection, we are receiving a list of allow list of domains and we're checking that any process that makes connection outside of this list will be terminated. So how we will implement this? For example, we are receiving as a network policy input variable to receive list of domains that allow to be accessed. For example, we are using code code, so we're adding code code domains and other additional domains that GitHub action is using internally. We are resolving these domains into a list of IPs and we're building the right tetragone policy to load it into the kernel, into the BPF code so any IP access that wasn't in this list will be terminated. So okay, let's see some of the demos. First I will start my server. I will demonstrate a real world scenario of SolarWinds. First without the mitigation and later I'll put the mitigation on. So I'm putting remounted, this is the server that's sitting on my machine. I'm tunneling it through Ngrok and I'm starting the CI. Let's see how the CI looks like. Let's start the server. So this CI basically installs the BPF agent. We also install some SolarWinds attack setup. This is of course artificial. This won't be in a real CI but it's only to simulate what the attacker can do if he was getting a hold of the build server. This SolarWinds executable just waiting for the build process and just swap the source file with the other source file with the malicious one. And then we're just having some simple go, hello world goaling program. And finally we're executing it. So let's see what the output was for this CI. It's already over. We have out of the hack text. This means that the attacker managed to replace the goaling file and to create an malicious artifact. If we look on our server, we can see the process tree that we are observing from our agent and some of the main that we're accessing. So let's run it again but this time we will enforce it. And we put a code integrity for goaling language. In this case, we will expect the agent to understand that this binary SolarWinds that we have predefined in the CI system is touching some goal source file and terminate the process immediately. We also want to see that in our lab environment that we managed to stop this threat. So let's wait a few seconds. So when we run the executable, this is benign hello world. This means that the attacker didn't manage to replace the file and we have the original source file. And when we look on the server, we can see that these two processes were killed by the agent. We are searching all the processes that were received, this is our method of finding a mitigation made. So we can see that SolarWinds the executable that we predefined at CI to do the malicious work was stopped. So this is demo number one. Let's look at demo number two for code code attack. So let's look at the code code CI attack. First we run it without the mitigation. So the CI of code code, first we install the agent and then we have a very simple said hello world calling program that builds the code, test it and uploads the coverage to code code but through the compromised batch uploader, not the original one, just to simulate the code code attack from the last year. So I think it's over, not yet. Let's give it a few more seconds, yeah, it's over. So when we look at this, we can see this is the process tree executed. We have an interesting line here. This is under the compromised batch uploader which is the code code batch uploader. It was doing a call to some unknown IPA or a domain. This contains the complete environment available list of the CI. We can also see that in the domain list. So when we run it, let's run it again but this time we'll put in a closed list of allow domains. I have a prepared list that contains a GitHub, code code and a few other domains that should be all allowed and benign. So similar to the SolarWinds in this, we expect in this run, so the agent will identify that the call inside the compromised batch uploader of code code, we're trying to access some unknown domain and terminate it so we could see that it was terminated. So now it's running the coverage, so we will upload it. Okay, so it's quite long and ugly, but this very long list is processes killed. This is the entire argument list of the call command because it was running the end of the command inside the minus D parameter of call. So that's how the attacker initially wanted to send all the environment variables. So we can see that this call command was terminated and it caused the termination of the entire malicious process. So this is for demo. So what's next? This POC has many, many to do, as many issues. It was only to demonstrate this concept. There's a lot of improvement that we could do to the engine. There's an issue that we have to do more smarter domain filtering because the user wanted to give a domain for the allow list on the... But EPPF receives IP, so we need to understand this connection and implement it better. Also, we have many additional features that we want ideally to implement. For example, we want to be more service-oriented with the so-called agent in to understand whether it's running on GitHub Actions, on GitLab, on Jenkins, or Travis. And for example, in GitHub Action, maybe we want to allow certain steps inside the jobs to access to certain domains. For example, we have like a GoMode download. We want to allow only this step to access to the Go Package Manager, and the entire CI shouldn't do it. There's an additional anomaly agent that we could implement. There's an entire work on Salsa, whoever... Salsa, it's a standard that they're building some industry leaders into increasing the supply chain software artifact integrity. So the standard says that good practice for the artifact is to contain their provenance, their recipe for how they were created. So this recipe could also be created using such a tool that was run during the build process. We could also support additional CI systems and more and more. So this project currently is not open source because I didn't have time to create the open source, but it will be in the upcoming weeks, so you can maybe try and experiment with it. And when we're looking at the future, we are considering taking this concept and maybe creating a better solution for many other CI systems that will work also for a production-grade level and maybe could be adopted by many other open source projects. So we would love to hear feedbacks from the community on this idea and don't hesitate to ping me on DM me on Twitter, on LinkedIn, or whatever media you want. So let's wrap it up. What is the takeaway from this talk? First, this is an EBPF conference and I wanted to showcase how EBPF is awesome technology and with great use cases, it enables many innovations, specifically in my case for security purposes, but for others as well. The EBPF community has created really great tooling. I demonstrated Tetragon, how I was able to take it almost out of the box and use it for additional purposes that the maintainers didn't think about it in the first place. And finally, of course, we welcome any individuals who want to contribute to the idea and maybe cooperate on this and create better security solutions for a specific CI system or maybe for other purposes as well. And that's it. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you, Alex. Thomas coming up to set himself up. While he's plugging himself, we might have time for a couple of questions. Who has a question? Good. Thank you for the talk. It was great. In the context of GitHub Actions, when you are, I guess, doing a SIG kill from that EBPF detection, how does actions handle that? Does it just think nothing happened and keeps going about its life or are you actually able to catch that and display to the developer in the GitHub Action panel some kind of meaningful thing of what actually occurred? Can you maybe repeat the second part of the question? Maybe we have the mask. I'll barely hear you. Oh, sure. When it fails from the detection and say the EBPF detections running a SIG kill, can GitHub Action somehow capture that and also capture maybe standard out or standard error from that failure and then display that in the GitHub Action context to the developer or do they have to go to the build machine and find what happened? Yeah, basically, GitHub Action is just VM fully controlled. You can do whatever you want. And what I noticed is that when I'm killing such a processor or a SIG kill, sometimes it stops, sometimes it continues. It depends on the parameters you get for the job. You can give it a parameter that you continue even when it fails. So it will just show you like everything is okay. But one of the core processors like the build was stopped. So I don't trust entirely the GitHub Action log system to show you like the issues there. So it's not its purpose. It's purpose only to show you logs from the machine. That's it. Thanks for doing this. This is great. I just thought about the GitHub Action.  So maybe there's some way that the GitHub Action could catch a specific signal that we send it. We'd have to work with the GitHub folks, but it's possible. Do you plan to take it from a PSC into production? Can it be without the mask? Remove the mask. Will you take this from a POC and keep working on it? Because that would be awesome. And if you keep working on it and you're interested, I saw some of your to-dos. They looked like things that were on my to-do list as well. So we should talk. But if you wanted to submit a link or something to Tetragram, the GitHub page, maybe there's somewhere we can link the two up so people find them. That was just a comment. Thanks. Yeah.


Weldon y toffi TV er is the Everton News Daily. The big news of the day, Wayne Rooney has agreed to join DC United. He tweeted a picture of himself on the plane to Washington this morning. The deal has been about to be completed for about a week, but it has been completed. He's going to be greeted at Dullers Airport at 2pm local time in Washington, 7pm here. He will wear the number 9 shirt for DC United. He's released a video saying, come on, DC, I'm ready to wear something like that. Listen, he could be a really good sign for DC. He's a big name. He's still got loads of ability. His legs aren't what they were for the Premier League, but if he plays up front or there or there about for DC, he could do really well in MLS for a year and a half or so. According to reports, part of the deal is that he retains to Everton as a coach on the coaching staff when it's finished. So the link will still be there with Everton despite him leaving. I've been happy to see him back. I have happy to see him score his first goal against Liverpool for us. I was happy to see him score his first hat-trick for us. It was good to see him for a year, but the time is right for him to move on. So let's give him our best wishes. I know there are people out there who can't bring themselves to do that. That's fine. He goes certainly with our best wishes and I hope that he does really, really well over there. There's a Wayne Rooney video out now when me and Perth go into more detail about it. Check that one out. We've got a Rooney DC video coming out later with a little bit of a different slant on things, so check them out as well. Garner well-cub is over. Senegal have gone out by virtue of having more bookings than Japan despite having the same point and the same goal difference. It means that Garner will return home early, which is not a bad thing for Everton, following on from Guilfee Sigurds and returning home earlier this week. So we'll have two of our three players back home, the two outfield players, while Jordan Pickford is in action today for England against Belgium. Regardless of that result, England will progress so Jordan will remain over in Russia as England look to win their first well cup since 1966. Listen, let's go along with it at the moment of doing well and if the two games won and let's hope Jordan has a good solid tournament and comes back full of confidence. Elsewhere today, Yannach Balasi has been linked with a move to West Ham United. Yannach, who came in from Crystal Palace two years ago, got a bad injury, was out for a year and came back last Christmas. Boxing day wasn't it when he was straight back in the start in 11. Didn't really get going, he done alright. He was involved in five, I think he had five assists at the end of the season with which isn't terrible but he just hasn't looked fully on it. And a move back to London he probably favours to be honest with you. So it kind of makes sense if West Ham are looking at him for him to move on. But Markup Silver, if he doesn't go on, quite sure we'll look at him and get him in on that left hand side and see what he can do between him and Adam Ola Llockman. So be a watch this space on that. Morgan Snidl has again been linked with a move to Marseille. Quite a few journalists carrying this now so you would suggest there is something in it. And again he's hinted that he wants to go back to France if he moves on. So you can see this one happening sometime in the next few weeks. And Ashley Williams has been linked with a move to Stoke City. Gary Rower thought to want an organiser and an experienced centre back at the heart of Stoke's defence. And again this is one, you know, Williams got himself sent off at Burnley and never featured for Everton again through the rest of the season. I think he probably wants to move on. I think a move is probably best for everybody. So again it's one that kind of makes sense. Everton trying to prune that wage bill obviously. Obviously Funes Morrie's gone, Joel Robles has gone, Wayne Rooney is now gone. Looks like Sanzo could go, Bezith maybe and then these three. So he would really be stripping that squad back and giving themselves a lot of wiggle room in the wage department as well as the play and stuff. So there you go it again. It's a watch this space. But Wayne Rooney is left today and again further evidence that Marcel Brands and Marco Silva mean business at Everton. If you haven't subscribed please do so. It only takes a second. We are tantalisingly close to 25,000 subs now. And if you want more videos get over to Peyton you won't regret it. Thanks for watching. See you later.


Hi, my name is Nayeli Kobo.  I invite you to come march with us this May 14th to keep fossil fuels in the ground. We will be meeting at the Los Angeles City Hall at 1 p.m. I will be marching for my community, our health, and climate change. What will you be marching for?


Last time on The Pursuit. We lost by one vote. The Supreme Court held that the mere possibility of economic development, the mere possibility of more jobs and more taxes from a private development project was enough to call the takings for public use. This is The Pursuit, a podcast about government action and individual liberty. I'm Tess Terrible. If you recall from last week, we talked about Pine Manor College, a small liberal arts college in Brookline, Massachusetts. After chatting with Tom O'Reilly, president of Pine Manor College, I decided to visit the campus. I visited the campus in November 2017. I actually used to live in Brookline. I have a pretty good feel for the area, having lived in or around Boston for most of my adult life before I moved to Washington DC. But I can't say I was all that familiar with Pine Manor College, other than its rough proximity to my old apartment. I arrived to Pine Manor College a few days prior to Thanksgiving. It's a really, really beautiful campus. All brick and mortar and ivy. It's intimate, filled with stone paths and old oak trees. It's neatly tucked away in Brookline. I met with Tom O'Reilly. He updated me on the progress of their case. We discussed a recent town hall meeting that he attended. The town voted for a partial step. Perhaps some have called it a compromise. Initially, the target was Pine Manor College from an eminent domain standpoint. The college made a case during the waiting time between the announcement of it being included as a site and the actual town meeting that we should not be a site. And in that public discourse, we were able to help open the town's eyes as to what other options might equally make sense for what they wanted to do. One is the Peer School. The Peer School is an existing 1970s building that the parents are calling substandard, and which they know needs to be renovated regardless. And what they've proposed is rather than coming up with a one-site solution that they expand in place the existing building. For them, that does two things. One, it gives them a renewed building that is worthy of their students. And secondly, it creates expanded space to absorb most of, if not all, of the additional need. And so they voted on a compromise proposal or motion that called for them to include Pine Manor College in their considerations, but also to include two other sites as well as other sites they deemed necessary. So what that means is between now and May when the regular town meeting is scheduled, they will appoint a study commission to look at feasibility of various sites with the goal of coming up with one that is both feasible and likely to be adopted by the community. The town is very divided, and I think that one of the things that became clear is that there was no consensus around the Pine Manor College site. When I spoke, I think that folks thought we're not sure what they would get. And what I decided to do is speak to values. The town has a history of really articulating its values. Commitment to education, commitment to open space, commitment to equity, commitment to a large, a healthy number of values that they put foremost in what they want to be doing. What we pointed out, what I pointed out in my conversation was that the town really wasn't focused on its values. It wasn't adhering to its values in selecting the Pine Manor College site. And I think that that took people a step back and helped them to reframe what we were talking about. The town has been very specific about education being its number one goal. They call it our brand, but brand of Brookline is education. And yet in their proposal to consider taking Pine Manor College, they're pitting two important educational missions against each other. Pine Manor College serves 85% students of color, 84% first generation, first in their families to attend college, 80% low income, 50% multilingual. Traditionally, a very underrepresented population in higher ed, traditionally a very challenged population in terms of graduation rates. And so here we have a college that's being very successful in serving these young folks. And yet in the only proposal that the town has that pits two important educational missions against each other, one is put at risk. This is Jim Sturgeo. He's the executive director of the Pioneer Institute in Boston, a state-based think tank focused on education policy. He is also a resident of Brookline, Massachusetts. The reputation of the Brookline public schools is that they are among the best in Massachusetts. And that is probably true. It's not as good as they think. The policies that I've looked at would suggest they're probably more like 30th in the state out of say 300 districts. What is important to know about Brookline is that the educational attainments of parents there, of families there are exceptionally high. And therefore, if you will, the product coming out on the other side of the public school system is not at a par with the inputs. The Brookline public school system has now for about four years been trying to figure out where to put a school. A monolithic, monopolistic entity. Over time, they have found themselves in the position of thinking about taking land from a park. Decided not to do that. And in this case, they've decided to go to a private college and say, hey folks, you're not in a good financial position. Pine Manor has had financial troubles for well over a decade. We know that it would be difficult for you to fight back on this and yet what we want to do is we want to take your land. So they think that they have a weak, they have a weak party that they're quote unquote negotiating with and they actually popped out this proposal without any real conversation with the college. Jim mentions an important detail here. Pine Manor's financial troubles. The first time Tom and I spoke over the phone he told me how the college had years of operating losses and that Pine Manor was placed on probation in 2016. Could you tell me why Pine Manor was placed on probation? Sure, there were a handful of reasons that caused the accreditation group to put the college on probation. One of those was financial fragility. The college had lost money for 20 years and they were concerned about its ability to continue forward if it was going to continue to lose money. They raised concern about lack of a permanent president. There had been a number of interim presidents who had lost it for very short periods of time, a year and a half typically. They were concerned about the quality and the depth of student support and they were concerned about what they perceived a lack of mission statement and strategic plan for the college. So those are the principal concerns that they had all well founded. So the first thing we did was focus on finances and we turned the college into the black fiscal year in 2016. By end of fiscal year 2017 we had achieved surpluses again and we're in the black again and we are on track for doing that again in fiscal year 2018. Pine Manor was recently taken off probation. I find it a bit too coincidental that the town of Brookline is looking at seizing land from a private entity in this case a private school who's faced financial uncertainty in the past using eminent domain where they know the plaintiffs will already have a difficult time fighting a seizure. It all sounds too familiar. Kilo vs. New London was a case decided by the Supreme Court in 2005. The town of New London, Connecticut planned to seize 20 homes using eminent domain and demolish them as a plan for private economic development to support a new headquarters for the pharmaceutical company Pfizer a private corporation. The town argued that the possibility of economic development more jobs and more taxes was enough to call it public use and the Supreme Court ruled in the town's favor. That was a pretty astonishing decision given the constitutional history. I mean, not only is it not at all a public use to build private condominiums and private office buildings to support a big private project nearby but the court didn't even care that they weren't going to build that stuff at all which we had introduced the evidence at trial that none of it was ever going to happen. This is Scott Bullock and Dana Berliner from the Institute for Justice. If you remember from last week they argued the historic Kilo vs. New London case. And the New London Development Corporation said we can imagine a world in which someone would build some stuff here and it would be nice and produce jobs and taxes. And the court by a 5-4 vote said, okay, sure, that was not a good day. I think it's fair to say that it was my worst professional day ever. Those were some very, very hard phone calls to make. This was a hard blow for everyone involved but it was hardest for that woman in the little pink house. Suzette Kilo and I met shortly before Christmas 2017. We met in a small restaurant in New London, Connecticut which is why you might hear a bit of holiday music in the background. We talked about her case, her life, and the home she fought so hard for. What can I tell you about New London? Well, I guess they describe it as an economic depressed city. I looked at it more like a place to be able to own a home by the water. I really love New London. I do. I think I miss the way it was when I first came here. So, yes, I do miss living by the water. It was a very small neighborhood. It was almost a neighborhood that you didn't even know it was there unless you knew it was there. It was sort of like a peninsula that you could only get to by going underneath the train tresses. I saw it listed and I had wanted to move some place by the water. Of course, places, while I was a paramedic then, it was sort of like only the rich can live by the water type thing. So, I found I was fortunate enough to find this place. I went to see it and it was just a nice place with a nice water view. So, that's really why I bought it. It was in 1999 and 2000 that they started to put the articles in the paper about the redevelopment and the proposed buyout of the neighbors. They said that Pfizer was going to move to the neighborhood, not to the neighborhood, but to adjacent property and build there. And they wanted to build a development to complement Pfizer. I believe that the first people to sell were like the people that were landlord's type people who had just were rent and build as they sold. But the people that had been there all their lives, they said no, most of them, but surely they picked them all off through their offers and family getting involved and stuff like that. Well, I guess our first reaction was disbelief that they could really do something like this. And then my second reaction was to say, no, no, I won't go, really. And that's how it all started. I simply said no, I'm not going. Of course, there was a lot involved with saying no, I'm not going, but simply wasn't the right thing to do. As I said, it was wrong then and it's still wrong today what they did to us. You just can't say, and I explained this to somebody who was having a problem somewhere else and I said, listen, you can't say no and then two weeks later say, no, no, because it doesn't work that way. You got to say what you mean to me, what you said. And I said, no, and that's what I meant. I meant no. You can't take mom and pop coffee shop by a minute to me and it gives the dunk a don't. But I thought because I thought it was wrong and they were judges that they would see it was wrong. So when they came back with the decision, I was like, how can they do this? I guess you could just say we were we were we were shocked, disappointed, hurt, like let down. You know, the wolves were at our doors for nine years and now you're going to let them in.  Suzette's house was sold for $1 to a private buyer. The house was relocated to another area of New London, but Suzette no longer lives in the home. She currently lives with her husband in another small town in Connecticut. So we worked out an agreement with the city so that Suzette's home would be preserved and moved. It was rebuilt about a mile away from where it originally stood. Person who believed in what the property owners were doing owns the home, lives in it. It has a great historical marker out in front of it, including a big post that says not for sale in front of it. It's called the Kilo House. People can go visit it. It's still painted pink and it's a real monument to the fight that all the homeowners waged there. The other homes were folks had to move out and they were bulldozed. And the Fort Trumbull neighborhood now it's been 12 years since the Supreme Court decision. The project has been a total and complete fiasco. I should mention something about the Fort Trumbull area. After this case, fias are left. There is nothing here. It's an empty lot. The neighborhood's been cleared now for over 10 years. There's been nothing built there. The project never happened and so New London spent, the state of Connecticut spent over $80 million in public money and threw these people out of their homes, violated the Constitution, and they have absolutely nothing to show for it. And Pfizer moved out. As soon as its tax breaks were done, it got a period of tax breaks that were substantial. As soon as those were over, it left New London. Not only did they not build anything on the area that had been condemned to complement the Pfizer facility, but they don't even have the Pfizer facility anymore. And it shows what happens when these projects take place. It's not only just having a domain. It's typically massive amounts of corporate welfare that are used as well. And then cities and taxpayers end up holding the bag for these terrible decisions that are made by city officials. But it is just a barren, weed-filled area. Not one single thing was built on land that was taken by eminent domain. Nothing. Not even a shed. Some feral cats have set up home there. This case is so infamous and it went on for so long. In researching this case, I wondered, why fight? Why not just take the money? The Fifth Amendment, which grants the power of eminent domain, talks about owners receiving just compensation for their property or fair market value. But what does just compensation really mean? Just compensation in a market transaction is what price it will take for an owner of land, business, or home to sell. That's not what it means in the eminent domain context. There, it simply means the appraised value of the property for its current use. And when the government exercises eminent domain, that is all you're really entitled to. Some statutes allow you to get some moving expenses and some other types of minor expenses for it. But it is simply the appraised value of the property for its current use. And then parties, the government and the owner can argue about what that might be. But as I said, it's the exact opposite of a truly voluntary market transaction, which is the price that it will take for somebody to voluntarily sell their land. And in a market transaction, sometimes that price point can be reached. Other times people just aren't willing to sell and people have to accept that and move on. But the real tragedy of eminent domain is the voluntary nature of it is taken away and the government has the right to take your property regardless of whatever price you might want for it or whether you even want to sell in the first instance. This is Mike Cristofaro from last week's episode. If you recall from last week, Mike's parents owned a home in Fort Trumbull. His family was part of the group of plaintiffs in this case. They offered my parents $65,000 for that property. And at the time they were paying taxes valued up to $475,000. That's what was on the records. Now, it wasn't about the money. They could have came and offered us $500,000. No, thank you. But we went to an attorney that says, we want to fight this. And he just looked at us and said, I'll be happy to take the case. It'll be a $40,000 retainer fee. But I can tell you right now, you better take the money and just move. How do you fight? They're offering you $65,000. It's going to cost you $40,000 just to retain a lawyer to start a fight. And do you know when the decision came down, we fought for another year. Another year. And the city of New London, they basically came back and said, since we've owned the property since 2000, we're charging you rent. They sent us a bill which for over $120,000 in back rent. Okay. They're going to give us 65. We would have had to pay the city of New London money to move out of our own. They don't make you whole. So this idea of just compensation. It's a joke. It's a joke. Okay. Like I said, my parents own the house free and clear. Whatever they ended up buying, they would have had a mortgage. And it would probably been two or three times more than what they got for the property. And then they would have had to hire a moving truck to move out of the property. You need to make people whole.  She only wants some money, but I never talked about selling. And I never talked about money the whole time I went through the process. Not until I was forced to go. And then I didn't sell it. They took it. Nobody, you know, as Matt had said, nobody asked for this. Eminent domain hits home, right? I mean, it is, as Scott said, it's the power to take away somebody's home or ruin someone's business. It goes to the core of what is meaningful to people, their family, their home, and their livelihood. And eminent domain is the power to destroy all of that. If you randomly select any group of people and say, do you want to sell your home right now? Some will say, sure. And some will say, no, absolutely not. And that's what happens when you use eminent domain over a huge area. And for the ones who don't want to move, there is no way to compensate for what they're losing. It's true of businesses too, though. Just compensation doesn't include most of the losses to small businesses. If eminent domain is used against your business, that business is probably going to be destroyed. I do hold back to an important message that a good friend of mine, when we were thinking about the issue, eminent domain brought to me. And she had a terrific comment, I thought, because she had thought deeply about it. And we're both political scientists by our original background college having studied that. And so we often talk and engage about what does the political process mean. And when we thought about eminent domain, her comments to me, and I'll quote her, is that whether it is coming from the White House or from a town hall in a place like Brookline, Massachusetts, to the extent government officials act without transparency and use or misuse the tools of governance in a heavy-handed manner, erodes the trust of the public at all levels of government. And this is the risk the eminent domain causes when government has not gone beyond the call of duty to be fair, open, equitable, and transparent. Government big or small really does impact people's lives. And more than that, it sets the tone about what people believe they can do about their own lives. And when government makes people feel as though it's untrustworthy or the individual is unempowered, in democracy that's bad. And our system really needs to be a system of laws and not just of people exerting power. There are some things that are just not for sale. No amount of money can compensate for the loss, no matter what the case and why it's being taken. At the time I am recording this, Brookline, Massachusetts has identified a new site that's already town owned. There is some rumor, however, that they may come back at Pine Manor College to secure conservation land to make up for the town land they use for the school. So eminent domain remains a possibility. The pursuit is produced and hosted by me, Test Terrible. It is a project of the Cato Institute and Libertarianism.org.


Give me a mini shawty, I bought it as n***a for a penny, probably not, but I'ma just hit him like Rocky, since he's really cocky It's pretty obvious, Mr. Miyagi taught me, and he don't know what to do with them hands, n***a Ricky Barney You ain't asked for this beef, you just happen to be next, clapping at me and making with casualty V-neck, he'll say what he can, but I straighten the man's ears, I don't speak unless I'm at least making a band You need practice, darling, the edge is back and I'm catching bodies, grind, these men are asking for me Why?


Good morning.  I'm trying to remember. Okay. Hello. I'm gonna take off my glasses for a second. Just doing a quick check-in. I hope you're still making art. Day 100 is on April 11th. So here, I'm just gonna go through where I'm at with some paintings and then what I'm using or doing to move them forward. It's constant problem-solving and there are good tools for the job. Okay. Here we go. Morning, everyone. Okay, so this piece, it's an old piece that I hadn't really finished. This was part of like an art contest. You had to do it really fast. So I've been gluing this paper down and I'm gonna use black inks to outline some of it and then I'll re-resonate. And the exciting thing is this glows in the dark. This cat glows in the dark. Okay. Now this piece, I'm just playing with the idea of, do you remember this art? This is Mondrian. And I don't know what it's called. Hey, season of the witch. Oh, it's blurry. Thanks for telling me.  There. Is that better? Anyways. So I just wanna add like crazy color outside of this. Just an idea I had. So this was fun. I mean, my kids have so many markers and I keep the lids and see. And then every once in a while, I make something out of it. So there's that. I don't know what it is. Just fun, right? That's a pizza tray from the dollar store. Okay. And caps. I'll probably put one more coat of resin on there. Okay. I don't know what this is. I'm gonna add black. Rebecca and I noticed we went to some art galleries recently. Got super inspired. And we noticed lots of the old art had these arches on the top. And we, so I just wanted to play with that idea. So that's just a base coat for something. This is just a base coat for something. I don't know. So this one I'm doing a collage. This is cut out from a picture I found a long time ago. Background. I'm gonna keep adding to that. So having collage going is fun. This is a friend's father retired or something. And this was the top of his cake. So this is actually fondant. This is food, icing. And I, and it dried and I coated it in, I coated it in resin. So there's last favorite. Not nice. Oh, a question. How do you know the exact? I need a regular shape. Okay. How do I know the exact amount of resin? Good question. Oh, geez. How do I know the exact amount of resin? So I've just been doing it for so long. It's a regular shape. Okay. Well, you gotta kind of find the squares. I don't know what USMC means, season of the witch. Sorry, I'm from Canada. I think US Marine Corps, maybe. So this piece, I would look at it and I would say, is it two feet or that looks like, I don't know, maybe, I'll say two feet. No, I'll say this is four square feet. That's a bit more than it is. So all that I do is I say, okay, so four square feet and then a 32 ounce kit. I know a 32 ounce kit covers eight square feet. I just know that. 32 ounce kit covers eight square feet.  So that means I just cut 32 and a half. That means in total you need 16 ounces of resin for four square feet. And then you do half resin, half hardener. So you'll do eight ounces, eight ounces, resin and hardener to cover this and I'll probably have a bit extra. And then I'll use the extra on something else. Then I'll come over, these buckets are great. A U-line has the best buckets so far. To be honest, you gotta buy them in bulk. And where's ounces? See this? Oh, here we go, there's ounces. I hope this is helpful. Yeah, that guess exactly. The season of the witch is saying that they just, that just he or she, sorry, I don't know, just kind of guesses. So look at eight ounce, eight ounce. So I'll fill it at 16 ounce. There you go. Okay, next. So this one, I'm starting to do black. He brother, cool. I'm gonna do black lines all over it. I'm gonna turn black lines, turn this into water. I think it's gonna be water and clouds or something. And then I want to have something growing out of here. Not sure yet though. So this one here, I'm just doing black lines. And for, I don't know what the name of those buckets were. They are, just go to U-line and search mixing buckets. Is what we do. Okay, so for the black lines, I'm using this tip on a Kligrippia pen. I love this tip on a Kligrippia pen. And look, when you press it down, see how it splits like that? So the harder you press, the thicker you're lying. And just Indian ink, right? Now, the buckets I like the best are you get different sizes. The one that's a bit bigger, like this five quart one, if you're doing, this one's just great. And then you, when you're done with it, after you're done with your resin, you just leave it upside down on the plastic. And then you can just peel out the resin. So you can reuse these a bunch of times. Eventually they get too dirty. Okay, so where are we? We're talking about Indian ink, yeah.   I can't even see what brand this is. But it's great, because it's highly saturated black.  He's my favorite artist, and everything has thick black lines, but somehow it doesn't look cartoony. So that's what I'm trying to get. I don't know if you can see it. See, there's lines, big lines. So I'm copying him and I'm doing, this is winter. So right now with winter, I'll just show you. Let me type in my password on the computer because the next step for that one is I'm on the computer. I'll just put this on this, isn't that cool? Okay, I'll come back, this is just loading. Okay, here's a great tool for the studio. I just put this printer and this computer in the studio and it's so helpful for printing off references, right? So what I'm doing for this one is, so this is a collage. This is from a magazine ad I cut out. Just acrylic paint on the back and I'll make this gold leaf, I'm gonna paint over it. But I like this, I'm gonna blow it up big and put it on this one. So I'll use the computer, these freaking computers. I'll use the computer to put that in the projector and I'll project it on here, okay? Oh, I'm getting tired. This piece is called Out of the Darkness.  But that's just that idea out of the darkness. All right, anything else? This is, we did a live video with Joanne and we did a bit of testing some pouring medium stuff but with this turtle, what I realized, look at my son came home with this, the difference between turtles and tortoises and look how we drew that arm, perfect. You nailed it, flipper. So this type of turtle has flippers. So I mean, I haven't really liked these arms at all. So that's kind of the idea that they'll be shorter and flippers and then I'm starting to add some geometry into it.  It's gonna be great. And figure out how to make this look like it's glowing kind of and the heads too small, lots to do. I'll show you, Rebecca's doing massive oil paintings and Rebecca switched from hardboards to canvas and this is oil paint.  It's still wet. This oil paint stays wet for a very long time, very long time. Okay, great work. Thanks everyone. Let me know if you have any questions and I'm gonna end with a quote that I have on my studio wall. Okay, one second. One second. Okay. This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There's no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding and though it is important not to ignore the pain, it's also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that leads to knowledge, even wisdom like art. I just, I like that, like get to work, okay? This is what we gotta do. And then I like this one too. It's right on our door. If you knew exactly what you're going to do, what is the point of doing it? And that's what art can do to us, right? See? I'll read this one to him. This is such a good thing too. This is really great. Okay, bye everyone. Get back to work. Ah, cool man. Great, bye.


Welcome everyone to a community conversation today that I've been looking forward to for some time. I have with me Kyle Shackmuth, the assistant director of digital accessibility at Harvard University and a Rising Star award winner to boot. So welcome, Kyle. Thanks for having me, John. So what can sort of IT leaders or IT organizations or CIOs for that matter, what can they do to advance digital accessibility on their campus even without a Kyle? Digital accessibility is a really great opportunity for CIOs or IT in general to be able to be a leader on campus. I should probably back up and mention. Digital accessibility is making sure that all of the technology that we build and create and we buy is usable to people with disabilities. And we want that usability to be at the same time and with the same ease of use, right? Having a disability shouldn't be a barrier to participation in the programs, services and activities that our universities provide. So for IT leaders and CIOs, digital accessibility is an area where we have the opportunity to lead our campus conversation, to be a really trusted partner and a leader on our campuses promoting inclusion for people with disabilities through the technology products that we buy, that we build, and how we train everyone to create websites, documents, digital resources, disseminating research. All of those areas are opportunities for us to lead. And just like all the other kinds of technologies that we work with, it's a great opportunity to be partners. So we might lead as the technology experts, but we get to partner with our diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging offices or our communications offices or human resources. Our faculty, our provost and presidents for governance, right? It's a great opportunity where IT can be a knowledgeable expert leader in that digital inclusion space. So EDUCAUSE has tried to prioritize digital accessibility and accessibility of all kinds. What has EDUCAUSE gotten right when it comes to digital accessibility? And if you had that magic wand that you could change one thing that we could do better, what would that be? So EDUCAUSE has done some really good things in recent years for digital accessibility and the higher education community generally. I especially think one of the biggest ways we serve as a resource to the community through EDUCAUSE is the IT Accessibility Community Group. It's just a really great resource for people who do this work on our many, many member campuses. We have hundreds of people that join us every month to meet up. We have thousands of people, many of whom actively participate in our community forums and with their people are veterans to the field and they've been around a long time or they're brand new in their first digital accessibility role. That space and that community of people wanting to make higher education more accessible is just an invaluable resource for professionals working in this niche of the field. We all have room to grow in what we do. I think a great space where EDUCAUSE can lead and continue to lead into the future is helping be a bridge and a conduit between technology companies and organizations and member institutions and the roles that it plays in helping set standards or expectations or guide people to resources in formalized ways or programmatic ways. I think about programs that EDUCAUSE runs in other areas like privacy or security research in all sorts of different areas and IT Accessibility is one of those where there's certainly immense opportunity to do so and especially among our vendor partners that we work with so often as educational institutions. I really enjoyed the conversation Kyle. Thank you so much for being with us today to talk about digital accessibility. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me, John.


Prigozin announced the loss of Wagner in Bakhmut, Girkin mocked him. Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozin admitted that the Russian army is suffering huge losses in Ukraine much more than in Afghanistan. As Prigozin said in an interview with Russian propagandists in Bakhmut, mercenary prisoners and regular Wagnerites were liquidated equally. In order to prevent this information from causing an explosion in Russian society, the leader of Wagner immediately lied that the losses of the armed forces of Ukraine were allegedly several times higher. Much fewer people died in Afghanistan than we have now in Bakhmut. At the same time, I had 30,000 to 35,000 on the front. During the operation, I chose 50,000 prisoners of which about 20% died, that is 10,000. They died in the same way as those who came to us under the contract. Approximately another 20% are those who are wounded, Prigozin said. However, Prigozin's statistics were smashed by his opponent Igor Strelkov Girkin. He believes that the Wagner leader is lying about his losses. Okay, let's say only 20,000 killed. I think more. Multiply by two. Another 20,000 crippled or seriously wounded who cannot return to duty. And we get 40,000 irretrievable losses of Wagner. At least during the assault on Ismail Suvorov lost exactly 10 times less killed and wounded and took the fortress in one day. Now, tell me about the military art of Wagner's commanders. Girkin wrote, ironically,


I'm gonna try this line up before the match ends Actually breach do you wanna you want to stun a man and I'll tell fast Last one the last one is cave here. I respect I Know I'm okay. I'm gonna give me a second. You said give me a second. You said once here close. There's two back site here We know what the third one is Almost like close way that they have no idea I'm here. They have no idea I'm here The door Come on I'm gonna watch this through ready.  They're both here, both here, both here, both here, both here, both here. You want to play? Let's play.  He's on top of the truck, on top of the truck. Just wait, just wait. He need to take a job. What? I actually do, I make money, everybody here probably. E-copping. He's on hypes, I think. I'm flashing back site. Come, come, come, come. I wrapped her up. I'm sending it. I'm going. Close your eyes, I'm flashing. Okay, I got one, he's close, he's close. I'm going to ping him, I'm going to ping him. I'm dying. I'm just going off. Sky's one-shot too, then. Yeah, they're both one-shot. Oh my god. I can't cross to you. Bro, my mouse did like the glitch. Kill this guy. Go, go, go. Flash B, back site, flash B, back site. Good flank too. Yeah, good smoke trip. He's smoking fast. He's smoking off mid-door. Okay, they're fighting mid again. They're getting close on her. Fighting R. Yeah, there's a ton mid. I'm on one way, bro. I'm ready to ult, you guys ready? Yep. I'm going now. Two tower, two tower, I'm flashing. One's on deep, one's on deep, one's on top right here. Stop. Planted. They're probably on mid.  Step one, playing fracture, go dish. Look up here, wait for a noise. If they're walking, you just do it anyways. Somebody's there, you grab more. This guy plays anti because he's a degenerate and has a lot of friends and is loved by a lot of people.


Okay, welcome back everybody to the second hour of our lecture on Daniel and Revelation. We are now in Daniel chapter 9 and we are getting into verses 24 to 27 trying to understand what Angel Gabriel spoke to Daniel concerning his people and his city. So just before the break we mentioned in Daniel chapter 9 verse 24 that when Gabriel spoke to Daniel he said, Daniel 70 weeks or if you see in the margin of your Bible it will say 77 and we will explain what that means but what we just pointed out was 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city. So he said Gabriel Gabriel told Daniel this is about your people and your holy city so whatever he has spoken there verses 24 to 27 has to do specifically concerning the Jewish people and their city which is Jerusalem. Now I have shared this with you in the notes and you could look at it carefully that the 70 weeks referred to are 70 each week represents the okay yeah I forgot to cover something important here let me come back and cover that later let's go to chapter 9 yeah the the 77s we are looking at Daniel 9 verse 24 the 77s each seven represents a period of seven years now how do we arrive at that conclusion that there are several ways we can come to that conclusion one is by just looking at the usage of 7s you know in scripture so in Genesis 29 when Laban sorry Jacob is serving under Laban you find its usage once or that Genesis 29 27 and 28 in Genesis 29 verse 27 Laban says fulfill her week and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve with me still another seven years so Genesis 29 27 and verse 28 then Jacob did so and fulfilled her week so he gave him his daughter Rachel as well also so what is Laban saying basically Laban says you fulfill a week but that week actually means seven years Genesis 29 verse 27 fulfill her week what is that week a week is seven days but it is actually used to reference talk about seven years so when it says that Jacob fulfilled her week which is seven days that means he fulfilled seven years he worked for seven years so one way for us to understand let me go back to Daniel 924 70 weeks that means 77s or each week represents a period of seven years like we see in Genesis 29 right so 70 times seven right because each week represents seven years so we get 490 years and I've explained it further that the that one week represents seven years in Daniel chapter 9 right so the 70 weeks 77s the other way you look at it is the word Shabua it's used for both seven days and also seven years right so you can calculate 490 years and so we are we're saying you know whether you that word is days or years but we see that a day is also used to represent a year is equal to chapter 4 4 to 6 so both from Genesis 29 the way we see how it's used and also in Ezekiel 4 4 to 6 how it is used we are confident to say that these 490 77s that's 490 actually represents 490 years okay so back in chapter verse 24 the angel is saying 77 that means a total of 490 years is is determined for your people and for your holy city so he's saying you know whatever I'm going to tell you is going to happen in this period of 490 years so what's what is going to happen so you go back to verse 24 he says with in these 490 years these are the things that are going to happen there will be an end to transgression and to sin and there will be reconciliation or atonement for all sin but there's also going to be everlasting righteousness being brought in the prophetic word a seal of vision prophecy that means to complete fulfill the prophetic word and to anoint the most holy that is the you will see again in your margin the most holy he says the most holy place so when he says to anoint the most holy he's talking about to anoint the most holy place the temple so he's saying in this 490 years period all these things will happen now what I want to point out and we will see also is that there's actually a time gap between the first three and the next three the first three we've seen them fulfilled in Jesus Christ the Messiah the prince which he's going to talk about in the next verse Jesus came he brought an end to sin and he made atonement for sin then as he broke the power of sin he set us free from bondage to sin he dealt with sin basically there there's a time gap and then he Jesus will bring in everlasting righteousness on fulfill all the prophetic words that have been spoken and the most holy place the temple will be anointed or consecrated okay so all this will happen within 490 years in this 490 year period is what Gabriel started to say then verse 25 he says no therefore understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem and until Messiah the prince there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks so seven and 62 seven and 62 that means a total of 69 weeks right seven and 62 that 69 weeks so he says from the time the command is issued to go and restore Jerusalem so that was what King Cyrus did King Cyrus came into power and he gave the decree to go forth and rebuild Jerusalem he said from that time till Messiah the prince now I just want to point out the word the prince he has used that before right so you see this in uh Daniel 8 verse 11 the prince of the most high right and then again in chapter 9 and verse 25 he uses the uh raised prince of princes both referring to the Messiah so here again he said referring to Messiah the prince okay just to point that out but he's saying from the time there is the decree to go and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the prince will be 69 weeks that means 483 years right 69 weeks times seven because each week represents a period of seven years 483 years which was fulfilled so from the time King Cyrus issued the decree to go and rebuild Jerusalem till Jesus came was 483 years so 69 weeks was fulfilled and what did the Messiah do well he came when he came he took care of these three things he put an end to sin and he made atonement for sin that means he took care of this part Messiah came took care of sin and this happened in 69 weeks that is from the time King Cyrus issued the decree to Messiah the prince okay verse 25 Daniel 9 and then he said you know okay the street is going to be built again in the wall even in trouble sometimes that means the city of Jerusalem was rebuilt that that is when King Cyrus issued the decree and the Jews came in they they rebuilt the city the city was established but it was difficult in trouble sometimes that happened but it did happen then verse 26 and after 62 weeks that is seven plus 62 right so he's broken that up so he's talking about after the seven plus 62 weeks that is after the 483 years Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself so what will happen to the Messiah he'll be cut off Messiah will be killed sure enough you know Jesus came and then he was cut off or he died the death penalty he was killed but he didn't die for himself and he was crucified for us sinners and he said and the people of the Prince who is to come so that means there's going to be the king who's who's going to be in that time when the Messiah is cut off he will destroy the city and the sanctuary and this exactly happened so after Jesus was crucified around 80 30 in in 40 years after that around 80 70 the Roman general came in in and he destroyed the city of Jerusalem in 80 70 and he destroyed the temple so it says and the people of the Prince who is to come that's verse 26 will destroy the city and the sanctuary so it was done it actually happened the Romans came in and destroyed the city and the sanctuary right and the end of it shall be with a flood and till the end of the war desolations are determined so till the end desolations are determined it's going to be the city and the temple is going to be under desolations until the end comes the end of the war that means it's it's going to happen it's going to happen in with the war and with the flood but till that time desolations are determined that means the city and the temple will be there will be destructions happening over and over again desolations troubles are determined for the city and the sanctuary and that's what's happening today the sanctuary is not under Jewish control it's under Arab control and there is constant conflict going on in and around the city and the sanctuary and this will go on till the end okay so verse 26 has been fulfilled is being fulfilled but till verse 26 only 69 weeks 67 only 69 weeks seven plus 62 weeks have been what to say used up or have been fulfilled so there is one more week left meaning the 70th week this seven years so one more week left because he said I'm come to talk to you about 77 70 weeks a bit of 490 years 483 years have been used up from King Cyrus till the Messiah from the Messiah till the end the city and the sanctuary will be desolate but now what about the last seven years the 70th week he then speaks about it in verse 27 in verse 27 he says then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week now he's talking about the one week so this one week is referred to as the as Daniel's 70th week it's one week and we can state with confidence when we compare it with scripture in Revelation that this one week is the seven years of tribulation remember this one week represents seven years so this one week he's referring to in Daniel nine and verse 27 is the seven years of tribulation he says he will confirm a covenant with many for one week so who is he talking about we'll wait and find out he will confirm a covenant a covenant meaning a promise or in modern language we will say a peace treaty he will confirm a covenant with many for one week but in the middle of the week that means three and a half years a time times and half a time three and a half years in the middle of the week he will bring an end to sacrifice and offering that means now he's saying there's a temple there's sacrifice and offering happening but he's going to bring an end to it and on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate so who's he talking about he's talking about the one who makes desolate he's referring to that person and this one who makes desolate is going to move on the wing of abomination that means he's going to move very swiftly carrying out abominations doing all kinds of evil things the one who makes desolate even until the consummation and it's till the end till everything is brought to a close which is determined is poured out on the desolate so he's saying till that time this man the one who makes desolate is going to do it so in verse 27 he who's he talking about he's talking about the one who makes desolate and very interesting Jesus referred to this man in Matthew 24 if you turn to Matthew 24 and in verse 15 Jesus referenced him he said therefore when you see the abomination of desolation spoken off by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place whoever reads let him understand Daniel Matthew 24 and verse 15 so even Jesus quoted Daniel 9 27 and he's referring to this one he's saying this abomination of desolation is going to stand in the holy place that means in the temple and what will he do he will confirm a covenant with many for one week and in the middle of the week he will bring an end to sacrifice an offering and this is what he will do so we are tying this back to what Daniel has already seen in chapter 7 and because he's talking about you know Daniel 725 he's talking about this this what this person who speaks pompous words in for a time and times and half a time three and a half years it matches exactly where he says in the middle of the week that means the middle of seven years which is three and a half years so again this matches very perfectly but Daniel 725 and also with what he has shared with us in Daniel 8 when he talks about this little horn who speaks great great things and fears things now and in this will be in the latter time so verse 27 is referring to the antichrist and what he will do in the second half of the tribulation what he will do is he will establish a peace treaty for one week seven years that seven years of tribulation he will come as a man of peace he will set up a peace treaty with many people and he will you know initially he will have the offering sacrifices happening in the temple but in the middle of the seven years he will bring an end and he will be this man who is is the one who makes desolate he will move on the wings of abomination he will do evil things so that's Daniel 9 27 okay so did you let me pause here and just check did you all understand Daniel chapter 9 verses 24 to 27 there is it clear any questions Neelam you understood so he is um Daniel 9 24 to 27 is talking about the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem now this is why we say that the seven years of tribulation focuses in on the Jewish people so remember the first 69 weeks was from the time of king Cyrus till the messiah then there's a gap and then the last seven years the time of the antichrist so there's a gap here what is this gap about it's the church age it's a time when the church is the focus of what god is doing it's the time when the church has been raised up from the time of the messiah that is his crucifixion and ascension till the time of the last week till Daniel 70th week the time of the antichrist that's the church age and that's the age in which you and I are right now we are in the church age and towards the end will be the last seven years Daniel 70th year which would be the time for the antichrist to do you know whatever is is revealed here but before the antichrist comes the church will be taken out of the way how do we know this if you go with me to we just cross friends cross referencing now if you go with me to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 so the apostle Paul is writing here 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 can somebody read verses 5 through 10 let's say let's actually we need to go back 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 3 to 10 somebody could read that 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 3 to 10 could somebody read that for us maybe Dave could you read that 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 3 to 10 go ahead Thomas go ahead 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 don't let anyone deceive you in any way before the day comes the rebellion must occur and the outlaw the destructive sun will be revealed in this true light he is the opposing counterpart who exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped and who is it enthroned in God's temple and makes himself out to be God don't you remember that I went over all these things now you are aware of the ruling power so that he may fully revealed when his time comes for the mystery of lawlessness is already but the one who prevails will do so until he is separated from out of the midst then the outlaw will be openly revealed and the Lord will overthrow him by the breath of his mouth and bring him to an end the dazzling manifestation of his presence the presence of the outlaw is apparent by activity of Satan who uses all kinds of conflict miracles science superiors wonders and every form of evil deception in order to deceive those who are because they are rejected the love of truth that would lead them to being saved so in this passage in 2nd Thessalonians 2 3 to 10 Paul is also talking about the lawless one and he is also referring to Daniel 9 27 he's saying look um you know so in verse 3 he talks about the man of sin or the son of perdition is to be revealed then in verse 4 and I'm referencing 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 4 he's saying that this man will sit in the temple of God and exactly what Daniel had written that this is what this abomination of desolation the one who makes desolate with Jesus referenced says this man will sit in the temple of God and he can and then he says you know verse 7 this lawlessness is already at work only he who restrains will do so until he's taken out of the way so what is keeping the man of sin from being revealed it's the church you're in the church the church age we are here and when we are taken out of the way then the lawless one will be revealed so when the church age is wrapped up the church is taken out of the way then comes the start of the Dan of the seven seven year of tribulation Daniel 70th week the time of the antichrist when he's going to go and trouble and persecute the Jews and of course there would be many people who still would turn to Jesus Christ when they see all this happening the antichrist will persecute them or go after them but what I wanted to point out is that Daniel 9 27 is referenced both by our Lord Jesus in Matthew 24 15 and by the apostle Paul in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 the passage we just read and again in Revelation chapter 11 when we we will read about it Revelation chapter 11 and also in chapter 13 by John the revelator who received the revelation so about this antichrist we see the references made in other passages in scripture okay so everyone is with me shall we go a little forward now chapter 9 any questions on chapter 9 Daniel okay so in chapter 10 we are not going to the Daniel has his own vision and but he doesn't you know there's no prophetic scripture but he begins to pray he begins to seek the Lord and then once again the Michael the Archangel comes and he you know there's this there's revelation in chapter 10 of course of the spiritual what is happening in the heavenly realms how angel Gabriel is sent to come to Daniel but then there are demonic powers that are holding him back Michael the Archangel comes in and you know causes him to be able to come to speak to Daniel right so I just want to point out from Daniel chapter 10 just one verse that is verse 14 he says Daniel 10 14 he says I have come to make known to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days for the vision refers to many days yet to come so Daniel 10 verse 14 once again the emphasis is on the Jewish people and the emphasis is on what is to come in the latter days that means these are things that are being revealed to Daniel there are parts of that prophecy that have to do with future some have our near fulfillment which like we said would be fulfilled in Daniel's time and shortly after Daniel's time and then there are those things that are kept out in the future right so once again he's assured of that now chapter 11 Daniel chapter 11 is a very lengthy chapter and this is one chapter that has caused a lot of problems for Daniel you say what do you mean problems for Daniel because in chapter 11 from the very beginning that's verse one and if you go through all the way till 35 Daniel is actually speaking in great detail of all the kings who who actually came after the Medes and the Persians and the Greeks which we already have read in chapter 8 Daniel is prophesying in great detail verses 5 to 32 of the rulers who would essentially in occupy Egypt and Syria or northern Syria he talks about the rulers of the south and the rulers of the north and then he talks in great detail what each of them will do now he does not mention the names of these people but he's referring to them as the princes of the rulers and he is foretelling in great detail all about all of these so many people who read chapter 11 they say like no this could not have been foretold somebody would have written it after it actually happened because how can you foretell such things in detail right so you know I'm not going to make us read all of that but I want you to just in your time maybe later today to read through Daniel 11 verses 5 to 32 verses 5 to 35 and then just see that you know I mean if you're not going to look up history and read about these kings and leaders or princes from Egypt and Syria but you can just read through the passage and know that Daniel was actually speaking about these leaders or these kings who actually came so in every verse verse 5 verse 6 they were leaders from the south Egypt and from the north so when we talk about the rulers of the south we're talking about the rulers of the Tullimans and we're talking about rulers of the north we're talking about the Seleucid princes and so they're happening in parallel you know and leaders from the south the leaders of the north they're happening in parallel and so Daniel has spoken about all of these people ahead of time so this is what is very astounding or amazing of chapter 11 now he didn't mention the names of these people but sure enough they came they were there and people are amazed that chapter 11 could actually speak of kings who are yet to come and so many of them in sequence so people who are skeptical were doubtful they say no no no this was written later after it all happened but those who of us who believe we understand that God can reveal history in advance now he revealed things in advance Daniel and that is chapter 11 but what we want to do is I just want to point out is in chapter 11 towards the end of this chapter that is verses 21 to 32 Daniel specifically talks about a particular prince of the Seleucid Empire he was the worst of all the previous princes or rulers that's from the northern empire from Syria the region of Syria he was the worst so all of these people they attacked the Jews but he gave himself the name Epiphanes meaning as though he is the what Epiphanes simply means like God has manifest so he gave himself that title as he was God and he you can see in these verses that what Daniel spoke of he actually did all that Daniel foretold he desecrated he also desecrated that the the sacrifices and you know he really showed contempt towards the Jews and of course we know that later on in history the Jewish people faced lots of persecutions from others but sure enough this man or this ruler also mistreated terribly the Jewish people and Daniel actually spoke of him ahead of time in verses 21 to 32 and later on in time this man came and actually did everything Daniel said he will do and finally as you know in previous visions Daniel jumps to the Antichrist this is in Daniel chapter 11 verses 36 to 39 and he again talks about this man who will speak against God and he will act against the people of God and he will roll over many and he will try to divide the land for gain what I want to point out from Daniel 11 36 to 39 is that verse 36 Daniel 11 36 he talks about this king who will do according to his own will he will speak against he'll speak blasphemies against the god of gods and this is similar to what we saw in chapter seven and chapter eight and then he will see again in Revelation 13 and he won't regard anyone he will exalt himself above the wall verse 37 and then you also see that in verse 39 he will divide the land for gain he will divide the land for gain and he's going to try to divide the land for gain and we know one of the challenging or challenges of our times is the land of Israel and the whole issue about you know them Israel wanting their whole piece of land and yet the Palestinians being wanting their part of the land but here we see in Daniel 11 39 that this man who comes in the end he is going to try and divide the land for gain right he's going to try to do the same thing he's going to speak against the god of gods he's going to do his own will and he's going to also try and divide the land so in addition to stopping the sacrifices in addition to causing the sanctuary the temple of the lord to be trampled under foot in addition to speaking blasphemies against the prince of princes or the most high god this antichrist is also going to try and divide the land for gain to do it so that he could you know extend his increases power and influence that's an additional piece of information we get here from Daniel 11 39 okay so i'm not reading chapter 11 because it is if you want to say it like this we could say it's a history written in advance by Daniel and it was all fulfilled by these kings who came out subsequently from around Egypt and from the north in Syria and you can read it just just for as an information but it's amazing that Daniel would be given such details and he wrote it down and sure enough they were all fulfilled in history okay so what is left for us is chapter 12 of Daniel which i i kept it for next week i thought if you can cover till chapter 11 it'll be good for us today and which we have done and i would encourage you to just read chapter 11 although i haven't read it in class i would encourage you to read it and then just follow along with the notes that i've shared and the chapter 12 is something we will get into in next class so next class we will do chapter 12 and then we will start the book of revelation any questions so far is everybody with me you're clear so far any thoughts any comments all right so let's go ahead and pray and then we will dismiss i know we are a few minutes early but it's okay let's pray and we will dismiss we will pick up chapter 12 from next week okay we will finish up at 12 and move into revelation next week can i ask somebody to please pray and dismiss the class go ahead um Thomas why don't you pray please i'm in Jesus name we thank you we bless your holy name a lot you worship your father thank you for this wonderful heart of money you are good lot father deep things need to understand the wisdom of God father as what we call help us to meditate and go through the prayer go through the lecture class and go through the modes help us to understand more and more deeper things father we thank you we praise you we love you daddy keep us safe that you mercy be upon us in Jesus name we pray amen amen amen all right thank you everybody we'll take a break and i will meet you in our next class thank you bye now thank you


Would you build a house without a blueprint? So why are you designing your products without wireframes? That's crazy, you're crazy, we're all crazy. I'm Chris and today we're gonna talk about wireframing. Specifically, what is a wireframe? Why do we do it? The different types of wireframes and the best tools out there. And then finally we're gonna touch on best practices. So let's dive in, what is a wireframe? A wireframe is a blueprint of a website or a digital product that indicates where visual and UI components are located. It gathers your ideas and functional requirements to help you see the complete picture. Similar to blueprints that builders use, designers use wireframes to help them keep track of complex designs and make the entire process run smoothly. Having a complete overview of the user flow is perhaps one of the best benefits to wireframing. If you want your product to run successfully, a user flow is essential. When your app or website becomes too difficult for users to navigate, they are more likely to abandon your product. So wireframes have some distinct features. They don't exactly look like the end product. They're made up of line, borders, and other geometric shapes that you can think of. Wireframes don't involve website features such as text, video, animations, or whatever.  But why wireframe? Well, wireframing is the backbone of a product. And while I understand there's a temptation in terms of jumping into development without spending time on wireframing, I almost would guarantee that decision to be wrong. Think about the Titanic. Iceberg, right ahead! Thank you. Right ahead! The Sinking of the Unsinkable is a classic story of how the tiniest error in the project planning phase that could lead to a total disaster. We know the what and why, but what are the different types of wireframes? Well, the first is low-fidelity wireframes. They're done focusing on the layout and the high-level interaction. Basic shapes like squares, triangles, circles, and lines to represent the UI elements and content. Then you have the mid-fidelity wireframes, the next iteration above the low. It allows you to use grayscale colors to emphasize the layout and the particular elements, but you don't need to choose a color palette or spend time including real copy or text. And finally, the high-fidelity wireframes. They're the more detailed counterpart to what I just mentioned, but they are not concerned with the final visuals, branding, or style. The UI elements look realistic and might even include textures and shadows. Those are the three wireframes typically used in our industry, but what tools do people use to create these? Here are my five favorite tools, and you guessed it, Figma is my number one. Then we have sketch, mural, UX pin, and finally, paper and pen, which is probably the one I use the most. Let's talk about some best practices when wireframing. The first one is color. Wireframes are used to provide a visual understanding of an early product, either to stakeholders or to test users. It's recommended that when you're working on it, you don't add colors because they could draw the user's attention in the wrong way. The purpose of the wireframe is to communicate and evaluate visual hierarchy, not branding or emotion. Two, content. Define the type and the amount of content that you include in your wireframes, conveying the requirements and ideas behind wireframes without falling into the trap of spending too much time on copywriting. Number three, annotations. Include annotations while working on wireframes is important because it helps you give clients a clear explanation of your design decisions. Number four, accessibility. Think about being inclusive. Use components and adequate content hierarchy for users who may be colorblind or older users or younger users or power users, et cetera. Just make sure you include everyone that your platform may affect. Number five, wireflows. This is an easy way to demonstrate the desired interaction and process that a user may follow while using your product. Whether you are designing or redesigning your Apple website, wireframing can help you focus on functionality and user experience before focusing on the visual aspects. Imagine building a house without a blueprint. You're trying to get crazy with it. No schematics, no technical specifications, no material requirements, no structural stability documents, no considerations about using the space, no diagrams of where the financial will sit. I mean, you could try, but it may not turn out as you would like. Think about the chance of your home breaking apart, water leaking, and other problems that you really want to avoid in a new house. So why would you design your product without laying down the foundations? Don't answer that. By showing wireframes in the context of a prototype, you'd also be able to loop in clients earlier in the design process, giving stakeholders a chance to review your product's visual representation before they start working on the creative phase. If you feel that you're spending too many resources on wireframing, have another thing. You can de-risk a project by spotting potential flaws earlier in the process. Your user interface and flows are working properly. That will make the investment more than worth it. If you're interested in learning more about wireframes with detailed guides and templates, check out the link in the description.  Or you could hit the big red button for another Play-by-Play breakdown of UX frameworks. Bye.