Hello everyone, I'm Xiao Liang, I'm here to give a short overview of our results on post-quantum semi-littable extraction. This is a joint work with Nehuicha, Kanmin Chong, and Takashi Yamakawa. Extractable commitments are very basic and important cryptography primitive. It requires the existence of an extractor. Given the malicious commuter C-star, the extractor talks to the C-star. It may potentially rewind C-star, but at the end of the execution, the extractor is able to extract the value M-star committed by the malicious C-star. Here I want to remark that in the classical setting, this primitive enjoys some property that we usually take for granted. That is, the extractor is able to not only extract the committed value M-star, it can also simulate C-star's post-extraction state. This property is particularly important for protocol composition. For classical protocol, this is usually easy to do because extractor can just pretend to be the honest receiver to execute the protocol with C-star. And then the extractor can rewind the C-star back to the beginning of the execution and start the extraction procedure. However, what if the C-star now is the quantum industry? In this setting, simulating C-star's post-extraction state turns out to be a hard work. Due to no cloning theorem, we cannot record C-star's state and rewind it back. Now let's take a look at a typical construction of extractable commitments. To commit a value, we commit our first sample to random strings a10 and a11, which acts over to the message M. This actually forms a secret sharing of the message M. Then, the commitor repeats this procedure for N times, where the N is a security parameter. Next, the commitor commits to these shares independently. Next, the receiver samples a random string of length N. The receiver simply sends the random string C to the commitor. The commitor dignifies to its initial commitment, according to the receiver's string C. Now let us recall how to extract the committed value if the commitor C is malicious. Our extractor simply samples a new random string C prime, send it to the C-star, and learn the corresponding decimitements. As you can see, as long as C and C-star are not identical, there will be one column in this matrix, where the commitor decimits to both positions in one column. These two decimitements will allow us to recover the committed message M. This is how the extractor works in a classical setting. Now let's consider the scenario where the malicious C-star is a quantum machine. In this case, it might be still possible to extract the committed value M-star, using, say, the techniques developed by Ong Ru for post-quantum proof of knowledge. However, it is unclear how we can simulate the malicious C-star's post-quantum extraction state. At this moment, you're missing that maybe this construction is not good. If we choose another construction of extract documents, maybe we can extract the committed value while simulating the C-star's post-extraction state. However, it is worth noting that this construction is popular for some reasons. For example, it makes use of only minimal assumptions. Also, it is constantly run and makes black box use of all functions. The last two properties are particularly important for efficiency concerns. So if you want to find an alternative construction for extractable commitment in a post-quantum setting, you may also want to maintain these advantages. Now let's look at the state of the arts, if we want all the properties mentioned earlier. Basically, there are four non-constructions so far. Only the last construction makes black box use of the underlying primitive and only the second construction manages to achieve constant runs. In this column, I also show if these constructions require quantum power for communication and computation. Moreover, the first construction is based on assumptions as strong as oblivious transfers. The second construction needs algebraic assumptions. In particular, it requires the existence of fully homomorphic encryption for quantum circuits as well as the LWE assumption. So it looks like the current state of the arts are not satisfactory. Actually, there is a reason. This problem is hard even if we only require constant run constructions and simulate both C-stars post-extraction state. The reason is such an extractable column satisfying only these two properties would imply constant run zero knowledge, for which we have negative results. Due to time limit, I won't explain these conditions for now. If you are interested, you can check this paper in our reference. Due to the lower bound mentioned earlier, we cannot achieve all the desired properties. Therefore, we choose to emit a weaker notion for simulation called epsilon simulation. That is, instead of trying to simulate the post-extraction state STC star with negligible error, we now allow a noticeable error gap. More accurately, we require the existence of a simulation extractor SE. SE takes a noticeable function epsilon as a parameter. Now we compare two words. The first word is the real execution. We denote STC star as a state of the malicious committer at the end of the execution. We use this notion to denote the transcript which consists of all the interaction messages between C-star and R. In the real world, we concern this tubal. This value denotes the message committed by C-star. You can think of it as bounded in this transcript. The second word is the simulation extraction word. This SE talks to C-star. It can potentially revan C-star. At the end of the interaction, the SE outputs a tubal, which is supposed to be the simulated post-extraction state, and the message committed by C-star. We say that an extractable condiment is epsilon simulatable if these two tubals are epsilon closed for any noticeable function epsilon. I want to remark that this weaker notion of simulation is still useful, because epsilon simulation is always sufficient to imply ND-based or game-based security. Here, a typical example is that epsilon simulates both your knowledge, already implies witness indistinguishability. Now we ask a question. If we are happy with this relaxed notion for simulation, can we build extractable commitments that maintain all the other advantages? And the answer is yes. In this work, we build such an epsilon simulatable extractable commitment. To execute our protocol, the honest part is doesn't need to be quantum, but it is secure against even quantum malicious commuters. As applications, our extractable commitments imply two-party coin tossing zero-knowledge argument of knowledge for NP and zero-knowledge arguments for QMA, and eventually we also obtain secure two-party computation. All these protocols also enjoy the advantages shown here, but since our extractable comm is only epsilon simulatable, we only manage to achieve epsilon simulatable version of these protocols. If you are interested, please look forward to our talk at full length. Here is the information for our talk, and you can also find the full version of our paper at this link. Thank you for your attention.


Hi, welcome to Nursing School Explained and this video on venous thrombosis. As a quick review, a thrombus or a blood clot occurs when there is some sort of damage to the vascular endothelium and platelets start to aggregate and then fibrin also adheres to these platelets and that clot is formed. Now in general, that's a good thing when it comes to like wound healing and any kind of cuts that we need to stop the bleeding but when it comes to the inside of a vein it can lead to thrombosis and then the blood flow is obstructed. So let's go ahead and take a look at this. Risk factors for developing venous thrombosis. Number one risk factor is atrial fibrillation which is a very common arrhythmia and I have a separate video that goes into the details on atrial fibrillation in itself. And then bed rest. So anybody think about who has a prolonged hospitalization for whatever reason. Anybody in the post op period who is not maybe as ambulatory as they previously were. So any kind of stagnation not being able to move as usual puts the patient at higher risk because it interrupts their inner fears with that venous return and the blood flow in the lower extremities. And then also prolonged periods of sitting. So think about somebody who is traveling on a long plane flight or car ride somewhere there at risk for developing venous thrombosis as well as trauma. So any traumatic injury to the lower extremities can cause the damage to the vascular endothelium and then the platelets and the fibrin will start to aggregate and maybe form a thrombus. Heart failure patients are at a higher risk as well as pregnant patients and in the postpartum period. And that is mostly because the blood volume increases during pregnancy and just the sheer fact of that plus maybe decreased ambulation and movement as the fetus grows also leads to a higher risk of developing thrombi. And then IV drug abuse as well as hypercoagulation disorder. So those would be genetic disorders. And then also birth control pills especially if the woman is older than 35 years old and the smoker in addition. So that's a higher risk for blood clots also. And then for signs and symptoms we have to distinguish between whether superficial veins or deep veins are affected and that's just like the term suggests superficial more towards the surface that you can easily palpate and then the deeper veins are the ones that we typically just can, signs and symptoms that we typically just can distinguish by the patient's complaints or whatever their subjective data is. So for superficial veins it might be palpable because it is so close to the surface it might be fur or cord-like. And the patient might say that the area feels a little bit itchy, tended to palpation. It might also have signs of inflammation that are red and warm. But the cord-like kind of a strand that you can feel right underneath the skin and sometimes you can even see it along the superficial vein is pretty tell-tale. And then deep veins. So deep vein thrombosis DVT is sometimes also referred to as VTE which is venous thromboembolism and that is mostly used in terminology when we talk about core measures and the reduction of venous thrombosis in these high-risk patients especially in the hospital setting. And the E here stands for embolus and then just recall that a thrombus is a blood clot that is stagnant stationary in the body part but an embolus is a blood clot that has dislodged from the original location and is now on the move in the bloodstream. And the reason that we worry about embolize so much is because as they make their way through the venous system they get caught as they come back through the right side of the heart they can get caught in the lungs leading to pulmonary emboli or if they come from the heart itself such as in patients with atrial fibrillation from the heart itself they go out through the left side of the heart and then they can break off into carotid arteries causing thrombi or blood clots in the brain which leads to a stroke. Okay so signs of deep vein thrombosis are unilateral edema it typically only occurs on one side and the patient might say that the calf feels kind of full and then there are those signs of inflammation that we always look for tenderness to palpation red warmth and then the patient might even have a temperature because of this inflammation that's greater than 100.4. Diagnostic tests Doppler ultrasound are usually telltale or the standard if we suspect that there's a thrombus going on the lower extremities we certainly also want to check the patient's coagulation time so their PT, INR and then also their fibrin levels because we know fibrin causes the clot in the first place. D dimer is a very good test to see if there's any clotting going on in the body just keep in mind that a D dimer is very nonspecific so it might be elevated for a lot of different reasons and thrombosis is just one of them so it's a good indicator that will let us know that we need to look deeper into this to determine if it's a thrombus or not but there might be other reasons why the D dimer is elevated and we also want to look at their blood count to look at their HNH and platelet levels because again these platelets aggregate and a lot of these tests are also in anticipation that we might have to put the patients on anticoagulants eventually and we'll look at that here. So then complications like I already mentioned number one is a pulmonary embolism because it comes from the lower extremities and the only way it's going to come up is through that inferior and superior vena cava into the right side of the heart and then from there it can go to the lungs and get clogged in one of the pulmonary blood vessels causing a pulmonary embolism. Now if a main blood vessel in the lungs is obstructed for a long time it can lead to backup of the other blood vessels and then we can the patient can develop pulmonary hypertension which is clearly also a major complication. Treatment for superficial veins superficial vein thrombosis is typically nothing needs to be done because it's superficial and it usually goes away with ambulation maybe a little bit of warm compresses and the body will just dissolve it but if it's in the deep veins these clots have a higher risk for breaking off and causing a PE an embolus so treatment here is so treatment here is early infrequent ambulation and position changes so if the patient is not able to move themselves let's say they had some orthopedic spinal surgery we need to be sure that we reposition them and also compression that can be compressional stockings or a ted hose or maybe those inflation devices that we adhere to the lower extremities that kind of inflate and deflate to the lower extremities that will help with that venous return and keep the blood from being so stagnant in those lower extremities and these three very simple measures are usually enough if the patient has low risk factors so if they're generally healthy and now they're having let's say a broken femur from an accident typically these measures will be enough however if the patient has any of these risk factors or maybe a history of blood clotting then many times they're started on the medication and there are many different anticoagulants that the provider might put the patient on and it just depends on the patient's risk factors and lifestyle to determine what kind of anticoagulant the patient will be on and so number one scumadin also referred to as warfarin a very kind of old school medication anticoagulant as well as lobinox which is a low molecular weight heparin and then there's also a category of anticoagulants called factor 10a inhibitors and examples are serralto and eliquids and these medications just work a little bit in different ways on that coagulation cascade from thrombi to form and again it depends on the provider's preference and the patient's preference as well as the patient's risk factors to determine which one the patient is going to be put on if all fails or if it's really serious the patient might need surgical treatment which can be a thrombectomy so ectomy removing the thrombus by doing surgery cutting that vein open removing the clot and then also an IVC filter that's sometimes also called a greenfield filter and that just means that a filter is installed in the inferior vena cava in the patient's abdomen just in case that blood clot breaks off from the legs and it makes its way up to the heart which then can get into the lungs causing a pulmonary embolism so that filter will catch that blood clot so that would be more high risk factor of patients as for nursing care we always want to educate our patients because we know that these three measures are typically enough to prevent blood clotting and many times if we just educate our patients and tell them why it is so important to ambulate to get up all day there and pay although they might be in pain they might not want to they have no appetite all these things we want to encourage them to do these things so that we can prevent this complication of thrombosis and maybe even a PE and then current ambulation and position changes as well as review their medications and supplements because especially kumand in here and some of these other anticoagulants have severe side effects with other medications or interactions with other medications as well as supplements what in terms of what pertains to the coagulation cascade so we want to make sure we review all their medications and supplements and then we also have to administer these anticoagulants and whenever we do that we have to be aware of bleeding because now we're making the patient's blood more viscous and so we have to check their labs that pertain to that PT INR as well as APTT if this was patient was on heparin and then certainly check them for bleeding and all the common sites to make sure that we're not over anticoagulant this patient and then causing some bleeding in turn thanks for watching this video on venous thrombosis I also have a video like I mentioned on atrial fibrillation as well as on peripheral artery disease so this is the venous side and then the artery disease is it's very different so check the video out in my playlist and I hope to see you soon right back here on nursing school explained thanks for watching


Show me something. Hey, set the tone, man. Hey, set the tone. I gotta come see you. Let's match.  That's what I want to see. It's Kevin's defense. It's Jeff's defense. And now it's your defense. I mean, the fans are looking to you to make it happen. Your teammates are looking to you to make it happen. Stepping into that role earlier, you know, like I said, it's allowed me to get out my comfort zone and not only make me a better player, but my teammates around me. So I see the impact, you know, that I can have. And I mean, it's been fun stepping into that role for me, to be honest. So I just look to continue to thrive in that role. Me personally, I think that was just always the mission on what's getting into the league. You know, this is the highest level of our profession. You know, so we don't want to get here just to get here. You know, we want to make the most out of it.  You know, it's just, it just came, you know.


that he's becoming and will continue to improve. In the 39 garden there, they get close and they look out there, they bid on some underneath stuff, play action and he was able to get open deep. Or that, you know, might make the right call on that and get that drive started. Oh yeah, he made the right decision. D-Led, we're not going to sit here and play in our fears.  And you know, the worst thing, y'all make plenty of mistakes, but try not to make the same mistake twice. So we're not going to live in our fears, we're going to be aggressive when we need to be. And credit to the, you know, it was good blocking up front. We didn't give up any sacks today against a really good front. And I want the guys have initiative and Matt launched it and it was a big time play. We needed some momentum.  So we'll continue to improve. We've got plenty of things to improve on. The kicking game, the turnovers. But I'm really pleased with our team and our team's effort. Yeah, I'm not going to, you're not going to want me into that one. I have to look at the tape. I thought our defense played pretty well. They knocked them back in the run game, made the plays they needed to. Those, you know, late stats, the check downs and stuff. That's what you got to do. That's four minute defense. You can pad the stats there. Our defense played, I thought, pretty well all day. How are you with the stadium and the atmosphere? It's a big time stadium and atmosphere. Like I said, we love coming over here. I said, I think it's spectacular. The whole environments as we've been here, we got treated so well. Our operations team, along with everybody, they work together over here. It's an unbelievable stadium and great atmosphere. We're happy to be part of it. But Patterson had a pretty good game today, especially when he picked up on that fourth and the one, the early first quarter, your first scoring drive. That was key. Yeah, so you got your Tennessee hat on for a C.P.? One of my former volunteers. Yeah, no, he had two of them out there. You had Colquitt, too. No, C.P., he continues to help us move the ball in a number of ways. Like I said, I thought today he stepped up big, made a number of plays, won the ball, receiving. Good player, continued to hopefully help us improve on offense. That's really kind of two-fold there. You're going to deal with injuries. Things are going to come up during the NFL season, and that ball is going to get kicked off on Sunday. Whether we're playing in London, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Atlanta, Tom Madder, New Orleans, we'll be there and we'll be ready to go. And we expect the next guys to step up. Same thing happened, unfortunately, as Isaiah Oliver. We had a mid-week injury to Avery Williams. We're not going to sit here, and the next guy stepped up. I thought Darren Hall, a Richie Grant, did a heck of a job today, playing different roles, and we just got to find a way. And that's the kind of what we want our ethos to be. Stand up in tough times and continue to evolve and improve. Yeah, I love working with Matt Ryan. You don't get many opportunities to work with players like that, and you throw for 5,000 completions in this league. I believe he's one of seven guys to do that. It's pretty damn special. He's the leader of this football team. I can't say enough good things about Matt. Oh, yeah, all those guys. Yeah, they continue to improve. We've got some really good veteran leadership guys that got here that are new to this team. And it's a great mix. It's a great mix of guys. We've got some really good leaders in the back end with Eric Harris and Taran and Grady. They continue to help those young guys. That's what you want to see. You want your leaders to be teachers, too, and our guys do that, Lee Smith, Jake Matthews. And it helps. And that's what young guys get confidence in. And I'm really pleased with Adé. Obviously, Jalen Mayfield, he continues to improve. You play every snap when you're in offense and linemen. It's an underrated position. Maybe you have a little bias towards. But happy with him. Obviously, Kyle, Richie, all those guys. Darren Hall, Avery, keep naming them. Dorian and Ethridge, I mean, the guy who plays on special teams would use Felipe. Really happy with our young guys. And so a lot of it, just by we have a plan for Richie. And as he was evolving, and it happened to be, his number got called this week. But we got a lot of confidence in him. He's a good football player. And it was naturally going to happen. It got expedited because of the injuries. And he stepped up. He's another fearless guy that we like, that young guy to build around. Yeah, he just got evaluated until we get back to Atlanta. And our doctors evaluate all our guys. It's hard for me to comment on the injuries. I thought Fabian played a back of a game. He's another guy that's here. It's a veteran. It's a quiet professional. Enjoy working with Fabian. Thank y'all. Yeah, package deal. Yo, two for one special. I just did a close. This one out with the Jets. That big drive here is a foot for your boat. Y'all have some plays in that. I mean, he the one scorer. So I think he should answer that. I mean, man, it feels good, man. Like I said, man, this guy here, man, is the playmaker. So I'm trying to be like him when I grow up. Chill out. What was it about the team that, y'all, you know, fought as they tried to get back in it and pulled out the win here today? At the end of the day, we got the win. That's all that matters. We don't care if we won by 1 point or 100 points.  That's what we did. That's my third time here. So it's fun. I love it. I want to come back every week. I love it too. This is my third time as well. But every offseason I come here. So I love it. To be truthful, we ended up at a spot. We ended up at five guys. I also posed to pay for everything, but they had already paid for there. So when Mike say he paying for something, do not believe it, because he never pays. I took them boys to Roof Chris, so. That's like McDonald's, man. That's how you know he got money. Honestly, man, I mean, we all know what Kyle can do. And like Coach, I always say he expects stuff like that from Kyle, and we do too. I mean, it was a full overall pick. There's nothing shy of that. He got every asset. He got good speed, hands, routes, and stuff like that happening to Kyle. We want it happening every week. And we just proud of the guy. He's been coming each and every week. He's doing everything he can. It's a lot on his plate, but it comes with the territory. So we always got his back. We support him. And we just hope he can continue to doing that. We have it. Every time we get here, they never give us time to do anything. So yeah, it's always the coach's fault when we get here. So we got to blame them for not giving us a lot of time to go watch it. No. Heck no. Obviously. Ain't no bowl, can't get it. That'll be lit. That'll be really lit. I really think that'll be fun. Players really love coming to London. I think we're playing in Mexico City as well. So us to get a game in Germany, that'll be a great experience. Every country. It should be a different game every week in a different country. If we could play a game in Turks and Caicos, I'm pretty sure CP would love that. Oh, it was awesome out there, man. I was out there earlier throwing the football and staying with everybody. It's probably my best crowd I ever had. Everybody was excited. And when they're doing stuff like that, it's just making my job more easier for me. Yeah, 65,000 fans? Yeah, that's insane. It was 65,000? It was 65,000. I can't even comment on that, because I don't know what. Interesting. Yeah, I can't tell you how. I had time for one. What's the positive spin on it getting to win? And you know, it has to get back to work, but I don't want to get it later on. Honestly, I know for me and Mike, it's really in the bye week. We're going to go get our bodies worked on, working out when we go back home and stuff like that. So you can say a bye week, but it's still a long season. So we still got to make sure our body's standing, shaping.  I mean, you need that rest. But at the end of the day, we all grown, and we all know we need for our bodies. So we've got to go in and just get our bodies worked on. Guys. Thank y'all. Cheers. Cheerio. Gentlemen, have you discussed the overall play of the defense? Then we'll get on to your reception later. How did you feel the unit play today with so many guys stepping up? That yourself with the starting role, or your third start, and then Darren and Richard? Man, it felt awesome just being out there with the guys, man. I felt like we all handled our 111. You know, it started off earlier this week in practice. Everybody went out there and executed practice hard. Details was a big thing. Coach put heavy emphasis on details this week. So we all just listened. Having older guys, even though Eric is out and Darren, Eric's still a great leader, helping us out. You know what I'm saying? On the back end, there's younger guys. Having Darren out there, he's a great leader as well. And we all just held each other accountable, and the outcome was the outcome. So, man, just a great collective effort, good rest. For one, I got to thank the guys up front, because they do their stuff. And then, AJ had a great reroute on the receiver, which was nice. That held me out, like that the quarterback, and just trust in my instincts and did my job. Yeah, my dogs, man, they stepped up, did good, man. And I put some good things on tape. I trust them, and then my dogs, and they work hard. And like I said, it all started in practice. They had a good week of practice as well, very detailed, and they pushed themselves. It'll be a great flight back, man, especially on. That's a long-ass flight. It wasn't trying to take the W, you know? So it's good coming home with a W. Still got more work to do, but we'll enjoy it today. And then Monday, come back, watch the film, and make some corrections, and then on to the next. Stadium, I was 15 out of 10. The stadium was crazy. I worked there, and I was like, whoa. I didn't even expect it to be that big. That many fans, man. The crowd was just great. The opening ceremony was great. Everything was just very dope.  But it was an awesome stadium, good experience, good experience. Yes. Thank you, guys. Yeah, we'll get started. Yeah, Matt, how long, just take a few left, grab there, grab the hip, pound, get it started, and put your foot down, and try to get back in the game. Yeah, I thought a great play call by Art to start that drive. You got some quarters-type coverage where the guys were getting down low to stop some very intermediate play-action pass game. And to slip Kyle behind there was a really good call. Great play by Kyle. And that really was the jumpstart for us on that last drive. Got us going. And it wasn't perfect on that last drive, but we made the plays we needed to make. And it was great to get Mike in the end zone at the end of the game. Did you say? Just told him right before I came in here, I'm proud of him. And I think there's going to be a lot of those in the future for him. He's done a great job of focusing on growth and development day in and day out and just trying to get better. And there's a lot of noise, both positive and negative, that can distract you from that. But he's been as good of a young guy of being able to just focus in on working hard every day and getting better. And I think he's done that for the five games we've had. And I expect him to continue that. I think it's showing that he is a really talented player and can be a great player in this league. Absolutely. I think coming into the game, we felt like we wanted to get those guys going. And you never know how it's going to shake out. Coverage can take you to different spots, but we got some man to man coverage looks and our guys won. And I thought Hayden played really well for us today. I thought Kyle did an excellent job. Lee Smith, the big fellow was out there making a few plays for us too in the passing game. So as a group, I thought their entire group played well. I don't know if it's a career high, but I think he might be on pace for a season high. I mean, he seems like he's getting a catch or two every week. Yeah, I'm proud of that. And I've completed the ball to a lot of great players in those 5,000 completions. And I certainly wouldn't still be in this position if I wasn't surrounded by an incredible supporting cast. So I'm very proud to still be doing it and feel like I'm doing it at a high level. And I certainly had a lot of help along the way. So I'm appreciative of that. I feel pretty good. I feel pretty good. It's one of those things. You don't think about it as a player. You focus every week on trying to get yourself ready to play the best you possibly can that week. And I think having tried to stay in that mindset for the duration of my career has allowed me to kind of stack some of those accomplishments. And I won't change. I think I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but I'm focused on trying to help this team win as we move forward. It was incredible. This stadium is beautiful. It's amazing. The atmosphere was really cool. It was probably one of the best flyovers I've ever seen. Those planes were tight to the stadium. So that got my juices going before the game. And it's always, I've done this twice. I've been able to come over here and play here twice. And it's always a special event. And a huge thank you to everybody over here in the UK who makes it such a special event for us. Well, it feels better we left here with win this time. So I'm a fan of this stadium. But even Wembley, the history of that stadium and what it means to this country and the games that have been played here, the magnitude of those games, I mean, it's not lost on us coming over here to play in Wembley as well. So I've really enjoyed both of my experiences over here. Fine. And also adjusting to the time difference. It is a long-ass flight. There's no question about that. We've got a long-ass flight going home tonight too. But I thought our support staff and coaching staff did a great job of getting us ready to play this week. And whether that was preparing early in the morning back in Atlanta before we came over Thursday night to everything that our operations department had planned for us while we were here, we didn't want for anything. We were given great advice on how to get ourselves and our bodies and our minds adjusted. And I thought guys did a good job of being professional about it and getting themselves ready to go. Yeah, it's, I mean, it is another game on the schedule. But it's definitely different. I mean, the routine of the week is much different. When you play back in the States, it's just shorter flights. It's just easier travel. And so I think you've got to embrace the different week, the different routine, and try and do it as well as you can. And so I don't think it's just another game. I think it definitely feels different. It's got a different feel to it. But I thought for the most part we did a great job of embracing that difference all week. And we're happy to come away with the win today. Yeah, I think it's great to expose pretty much an American game to different places. And you see that you get great support. There are fans over here. And you can feel that. And I'm sure with what NFL Europe did during its time here from guys that I played with at the beginning a long time ago, some of those guys played over here. And they mentioned that the atmospheres in Germany were incredible. So I don't know anything about it of what they're going to do. But if it takes Falcon seven more years to get over here, I hope I'm still playing and can come back and enjoy that experience as well. It's coming at the right time. There is no doubt about it. I think it's, and that was a little bit of my message to the team afterwards is that we're building as a team and we're getting better. And we need to approach this by week with the right mindset to get ourselves mentally fresh or bodies fresh so that we can come back in the next stretch at five or six games before we play on a Thursday night and then have an extended period off, we can get ourselves back in the mix. And that's got to be the mindset for us. I don't know if fatigue was or not. I had a lot of confidence in our guys coming in that they would get the job done. And I was pleasantly surprised with some of the separation. And I just tried to give them opportunities to make plays. And I really thought it was an opportunity for a number of our wide receivers to step up and make plays. They had more playing time than they normally have. And I thought, you know, Lamedes Aquias, Tajeshar, Christian Blake, I thought those three guys did an amazing job for us today. I thought the whole line did a great job. I understand that the Jets are one and four, but their defensive line is very strong and a very good group. And I thought our offensive line did a great job today of stepping up to that challenge. They fight, you know, they really do. They fight hard, and I appreciate that. They give it everything they've got and I thought they did a pretty good job today. Well, I think he's an incredibly versatile player. He can, you mentioned it, he runs the ball physical, hard, has the ability to come out the back end at any time, and then was drafted as a wide receiver in this league. And you can put him out there and he can go do what wide receivers do. And not many people on this planet have that versatility. And he's certainly been tough for defenses to adjust to where he's gonna be in the first five weeks of the season for us.  Yeah, it was, you know, quarters type coverage, which we talk about, which is low safeties. And I thought it was an excellent call by Arthur Smith at a time where they were kind of coming down, trying to be aggressive. Our offensive line did a great job of holding up long enough to be able to throw it down the field. Kyle got behind the defense.  And that's not a thing most guys can do. And, you know, I thought that was a great play by Kyle in a really good call by Arthur Smith. All right, thank you guys. All right, thank you. Appreciate it.


Chair, do you happen to see a quorum? Yes. Thank you. All right, we'll see an a quorum. Chair, can you please call the roll? Chair Rogers. Present. Member Stapp. Present. Member McDonald. Here. Let the order reflect that all subcommittee members are present. Thank you. We will... Oh. Chair, would you like to do some housekeeping or should we go to public comment? I believe the chair items are for you, Mayor Rogers. Oh, I'm sorry. So housekeeping. That's okay. I'm like, wait a minute. All right, so subcommittee members need to keep their audio on mute unless they are speaking. Staff will remain unmuted until needing to speak. As members of the public join the meeting, you will be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panelists will be viewed during the meeting. If you are calling in from a telephone and choose to speak during the public, comments portion of today's agenda for privacy concerns, the host will be renaming your viewable phone number to resident and the last four digits of your phone number. Can you please explain how public comment will be heard at today's meeting? At each agenda item, the item is presented. The chair will ask for subcommittee members' comments and then open it up for public comment. The host and Zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item. Once the chair has called for public comment, the chair will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. If you are calling in to listen to the meeting audibly, you can dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on the public who have raised their hands. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on the screen for the subcommittee members and public to see. Once all live public comments have been heard, the meeting host will read email submitted. If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item but also submitted an email, your email comment will not be read during the meeting. Additionally, there was one public comment period on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters, which is item two. This is the time when any person may address the subcommittee on members not listed on this agenda. Thank you. We will now go to item two, non-agenda matters. Again, this is a time that you may address the subcommittee on matter to not listed on the agenda. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial nine to raise your hand. Are there any public comments? We have received no emails and I see no hands raised. Perfect, thank you. Moving on to item three, 3.1, which will be a 2023 quarterly budget review for the second quarter and Mr. Allen Alton, Chief Financial Officer will be presenting. Thank you, Chair Rogers and members of the committee. Welcome to our long-term financial policy and audit subcommittee. I would, if we decide that we want to shorten that name, we would be all for that. But for right now, we just call it the finance subcommittee and anyway, welcome. This is our first meeting together and I think we may have a time constraint at five o'clock. So my comments, I will go through this pretty quickly. I only have about eight or nine slides and I think we can get through this and enough time to have some questions and answers should there be any. So with that, let's move on to the next slide. So this is our quarterly budget review. We'll do a quick overview, go through the general fund revenues and expenditures and then we'll do a thing called dialing, I like to call it looking ahead. We'll kind of update the community on where we are in the next stage of our budget cycle, what we're working on, what we're seeing that may have effects on the budget as we move forward and then open it up for questions. So with that, let's go to the next slide. So we actually do three quarterly reviews. We do the one for the second quarter or mid-year that we're doing right now at the end of January. We'll do one at the end of April and then we do a fiscal year end review at the end of October. We tend to not do a first quarter review because there's not a lot of activity that happens in the first quarter of the year. So and with the timing of our closing the books we're usually have the fiscal year in numbers right around October. So we just use that as end of year review. What we do is we, this is a pretty high level review. We'll go through, we focus on the general fund. We can discuss other funds should the committee want that the general fund is the one that provides the council with the most discretionary funding. So that's the one that we tend to focus on. Basically this is part of the finance department's effort to provide more transparency in the budget numbers to work with this committee to go into a deeper dive into those should we want to do that. It allows the subcommittee to see if we're on track or if there are threats that are happening to that year's budget that we need to alert them up. And again, as a part of the transparency that we want to have, we, I have shared this with our labor groups. We are trying to have an open line of communication and dialogue with things that are going on with city finances. And I think sharing this with them and being open for questions is a way to do this. We did not have a meeting prior to this meeting. I just sent them the presentation with a rather long email of the context of each slide, which is what I'll go through with you. So they have all the same information. Some may actually be on this call as well. However, it's, we're always open that if they have specific questions, we're here to answer those. Next slide, please. So this slide is a visual representation of how we started our year with our adopted budget and with revenues in the general fund. We show it this way mainly so you can see that the lion's share of general fund revenue that comes in is from property tax and sales tax. And then we have other ones there. We, so these are adopted revenues and they're also recurring operations and they're also recurring operational revenues. So what we try to do is pull out those revenues that are one time or tied with grants. The reason why we do that is that they tend to have expenditures that are tied to those. And they're not the things that you would wanna do to build a recurring budget going forward, right? So we wanna focus on what our operational revenues, that's typically what we call them. And at the same point, we look at our operational expenditures. So we'll go into the detail now in the next slide. So as I mentioned, we have property tax and sales tax makes up the largest percent of our budget. What I would say is that we where we are at the current year is actually pretty good. We are on track. You'll notice that it says that we are at 43%. We're at 50% of the year for the month ending December. And we're showing 43%. Some of the revenues that we get sales tax is a great example of that. Come in at a lap. So what we're looking at are prior trends and where we tend to meet up at this time. And what we're seeing is that we are close to being on where we wanna be at that part. We're at least very close in the ballpark. So in going down the list, property tax, we received two installments of those, one in December and one in April. We're usually right around 55% of that revenue coming in at this time. So that's where we wanna be with sales tax. As I mentioned, it's a two month lag. So from a year to date standpoint, we've only received four months. So being at 33, almost 34% is right about where we are. We are a little bit low. We're right now, all things staying equal. We project to be maybe $500,000 off of our revenue estimate, but that's not something that's gonna harm operations. So I'm not too worried about that. And I'll go into sales tax towards the end of the presentation and things that we're looking at. On a statewide level and some trends that we're noticing there. With utility users tax, that also is on a lab. So we're actually trending a little bit high than what we would normally be right now. So that's good. Other taxes is a broader category that we will be looking at. The category that we will, on the next slide, I'll go into more detail about those. License and permits are, those are revenues that mostly come in through planning and economic development. So they're permitting fees and building permits and those types of things. This is a revenue stream that can be seasonal. I'll be honest, what we are trying to do is work with that department to better understand not only the seasonality of those revenues that come in, when the building permits are being pulled, when are those, but also in terms of the larger scale projects that go through where they are in paying their fees on that. And are there other projects that are coming in behind it? So we wanna make sure that we're not seeing something that looks like it's an ongoing trend of revenue when it's really just a spike and it's about to drop off. So that's something that we look closely and we work with the planning department to try to nail those revenues down to the best that we can. Charges for services has a great deal of those are in our recreation department, those where those revenues are. It also has some plan review fees and others that go into it. We are trending pretty much where we wanna be there. Intergovernmental revenue is where we get revenue from the county and other sources. So some revenue that comes in from Roseland, their annexation payment, a lot of those we get at the beginning of the year. So it shows that we have a lot more now and then that will flatten out as we get into the year. But right now we look like we're where we need to be. Binds and forfeiture is coming in a little bit lower. This is largely parking violation revenue and right now we're just, we're low on that. So it's something that we watch, but again, it's not where we're too worried about impacts to the general fund as it's not a major revenue source there.  So we're where we wanna be. And those are from other funds that pay on a monthly basis that will come into the general fund. So it's just a transfer that comes in to cover the general fund share or the operating for other funds. Next slide, please. So as I mentioned, we have other taxes. There's a couple of them that I think we need to take a look at real property transfer tax is one of those. It is coming in lower than budget. We figured that it could and we're seeing that. So real property transfer tax is a tax that goes on the value of a real estate transaction. So typically with the house. And so what that is is I believe it's $2 per thousand of transaction cost. So it is a function of what the, what the real estate sold for and how many of those that we're seeing. So in general, at least as of November, the last time I checked, what we're seeing is that we're having an increase in home prices in Santa Rosa. Those continue to go up. But what we're seeing a pretty rapid decline was at least for that year over year period was in the volume of home sales. So the number of sales was way down. So this is something that we were afraid of because there could be a factor of higher interest rates. And so we kind of had it in the back of our mind that this is one that we may come in low on. And right now it seems to be going in that direction. Our BLS swap, that is, that was a, it's property tax that comes in in lieu of vehicle license fees. So that's why it's called the BLS swap. It ties along with our property tax. So it's where it should be franchise fees. There is a substantial amount that comes in from PG&E in April. So in the fourth quarter is when we start seeing that. So even though it shows that we're behind right now, we know that that's gonna come later on in the year. The small amount of true motor vehicle license fees that we get that's not a part of the BLS swap, we received that in March. So that'll be in the next quarter, we'll get those. Cannabis is we, in prior years, we had budgeted that up to where we thought the peak was gonna be at 2 million. I think we hit that one year. Last year we started seeing that maybe we leveled off at about 1.8 million. And that's around where we came into last year. So we budgeted it at this year and it looks like we're on target for there. So that we may have hit that plateau of what we can expect from our cannabis industry tax coming in. Business tax, we are just now in the business tax filing period that happens from January through, I believe, March. So that is, we'll get that revenue, we'll start showing up later in the year. I mentioned real property transfer tax. The one bright note on this is the occupancy tax, which is transient occupancy tax, so TRT. This is something that we're seeing coming in strong and that is probably a factor of a number of things. One, the tourism industry is continuing to rebound and we're seeing that in Snow County in general. We heard this morning how well the arrivals at the airport is. And so that's all tracking along with that. Plus, in addition, we're receiving more TRT as a result of short-term rentals. So because of our permitting program that we have going on now, those that had short-term rentals but were not paying TRT are now doing it because of the condition of their permit. So either way, that benefits the city and that our occupancy tax is well-rebounding from the COVID years. Next slide, please. So moving on to expenditures, we're about where we wanna be at this point of the year. So the departments are coming in. And again, this is recurring and operational spending so we don't have projects in here that could go over multiple fiscal years. These are your basic operating budget and expenditures for the general fund. And I don't think that we need to go into each department where we can, we will, if you'd like. But for the most part, departments are trending where they should be. It's not even a little bit low. And we are anticipating that we'll end up at the end of the year online or on track with budget and probably have some vacancy turnover coming back at the end of the year. Alan, it's Mark. Just a quick question about the water expenditure. Yeah. Is that typically higher at this point in the year than the rest of the budget? I believe so. This is a very small part of that. It has to do with storm drain or storm water. And yeah, you know what? I don't have in my notes exactly why we are a little bit up. My guess is that it is more seasonal. However, I will get back to you at the next meeting with a better answer for that one. No worries. Like you say, it's a small part of the budget. I would just curious. Yeah. No, it is possible that there was some project that may have caused them to run more over time or something to it. And we should know that. So I will get back to you with that. Thank you. And council member, sorry about that. It looks like council member don't have that question, but are we able to let Mr. Alton finish his presentation and then we can do it in true fashion and ask questions? Thank you. It's on this slide. So just keep that in mind. But I'm fine to wait till the end. Thank you. Next slide, please. So this is the looking ahead portion. So where we are right now is we are we are loading our budget. I believe we finished our salary and benefits programming. So we are ready to open budget screens next week. And then now we'll give us the opportunity to take that information and start from a budget staff to start developing our long range forecast. And we have part of it already with our revenue estimates for next year. We're still betting some of those. We're looking at our expenditure, what we're expecting in expenditures and the general fund going forward for the next fiscal year and on and we start building that. We should have that ready to be reviewed by the committee possibly in March, definitely in April, but we'll shoot for the March meeting to have that. I will, I mentioned, yeah, sales tax is the most, that's the one that we are, we're a little bit concerned about. And I'll get into that in a minute, but in fact, actually, we'll start it up next slide, please. So what we have, we use a revenue consultant that's avenue consulting. They are the ones that help us with our sales tax, but I also sit on the webinars that are done through the other major revenue consultant, HDL. And they show statewide trends of where they are, what their current forecasting is and where they're seeing things. And both of those groups have said that on a statewide basis that they're seeing sales tax start to flatten out for the 2023 calendar year. So right where we're heading into it. They're seeing large growth still for the fourth quarter. So that would be October through December. And like I said, we're on a lag, so we will have that data for another few months. But what they're seeing is that we're showing good growth for that quarter of the year. And then we start to get into either basically flat there on out. Now, what I want to caution though, is that this is on a statewide, they're looking at it from a statewide level, looking at just cash receipts coming out of the state. What we've found is that Santa Rosa tends to buck those trends a little bit. We're fortunate in that way, we have several areas that generate our strong sales tax producers. So I'm a little bit hesitant to go down the ultra-conservative route that those folks are. But it's something that we watch and it's something that I just want to put out to you all that it is. That's where we're looking at in the years. And we'll decide if we're gonna grow or not, but I don't think that the level of growth that we've had over the past couple of years is something that we'll probably continue to go with. And part of that is that we've been looking at the sales tax coming from auto sales that that bubble was gonna burst at some point it never seemed to. Well, we have interest rates are a little bit higher and that may slow that down a little bit. So those are the things that we're kind of looking at that the actual, the normal consumption we get we're still doing well with construction, sales tax is doing well with it also. We have not had our third quarter meeting with Avenue yet we'll be scheduling that a little bit into February and then we'll be able to kind of set out where they are. I've seen the reports, but we'll wanna talk a little bit more and kind of fine tune where we're going and then that will go into our forecast and then we'll bring that to the committee. We do looking beyond just the next fiscal year we are looking at things down the road a couple of years down the road. We know that that at the end of next fiscal year our labor contracts will be up. So we'll begin the negotiating hopefully this calendar year going into it to try to get going there. But I don't know what those contracts are gonna look like but they're obviously gonna have an impact on the general fund and all funds, honestly. And then we also in 2026 we know that the period of performance for our co will be over and that some programs may transition we know one definitely will because it was in the general fund before and that's our homeless services programs. But any other ones that are gonna transition into the general fund should the council continue those on those will be impacts as well. So these are things that we're kind of looking out in the future of what may be out there that could affect whether we're able to balance budget or not. So with that, that's the end of my presentation. I know member McDonald had a question about the expenditure. So we wanna go back to that. I could build those. Council member McDonald. Thank you. I had a couple of different questions as far as this presentation goes will this be similar to what we see in mid-year budget revision which I'm assuming is coming to us next month. And then along the same lines as council member staff but he noticed a higher expenditure in water but I saw a much higher one in transfers but it wasn't clear to me what transfers were or is that you transferring money around where at 88% so if you could just clarify those two things. Sure. So when we transfer out we're transferring out to other programs outside of the general fund. So they're general fund supportive programs but they're located in other funds. So we move the money out of the general fund and into those funds. And we tend to do that a lot more in the first part of the year. So you're seeing a high trend there and then that will move off. It's not a monthly transfer like we do with the transfers in that we're going right on that 50% trend line. Honestly, we do not have a mid-year we're not planning on doing a mid-year budget adjustment this year or having a mid-year item at council. Like I said, our revenues are where we think that they should be. So there's not a need for us to go in and adjust revenues from where the other sometimes we would go in and do one time dollars and put those into programs. We are not doing that this year. We needed to move the funds that would have been our flexibility to do that into the current interchange. So should that we get the grants that we're hoping that we're going to get and then that freeze that money back up to the general fund then we can have that discussion about the one time dollars for right now. We simply don't have any to put out. So we're just not going to do one of those items. Are there any additional questions from the subcommittee members? All right. Chief Financial Officer Alton, thank you very much. This is definitely in your lane and I know why I'm not anything finance. So we're going to go to a public comment Natalie, can I just throw a quick note? Yes. Alan, I just wanted to say that that was a really nicely laid out presentation.  That's obviously the huge wild card as well as the longer term fiscal issues that we're going to have to face. Your message came through loud and clear. Thank you for a very succinct presentation. Thank you. Looks like we're back into questions and comments. And I did have one and it was about the water. Is the water at 60% because we are not seeing the revenue from people paying their bills as a result of COVID? Does that have anything to do with it? No, no, that's an enterprise. Right. That's going to be more on the enterprise fund side. Perfect. Thank you. So no additional questions or comments of committee members. Now we will go to public comment for 3.1. If you wish to make public comment, please raise your hand. If you're on Zoom and if you're calling in by telephone, please dial nine to raise your hand. Seeing no hands raised. We will now go to item four where we will discuss agenda items for upcoming meetings if any of the council members have suggestions or things that they would like to see in the long term financial policy and audit subcommittee. And yes, we probably should shorten that name, Alan. I'll come up with a good one. Thank you. Yes, Vice Mayor McDonald. Thank you. I'd like to have some information brought to us on an average of a decade of unfunded liabilities so that we have a wider understanding of what those tend to trend to be. I know sometimes they run high, but even five years, I think, would be acceptable. But I think over a course of 10 years would be acceptable. And I know it's something I've mentioned in open session twice around looking at contracts. I think we're going to have to start to drill down some fiscal information on how much it would cost us to start bringing folks back to build workforce. So I'm not sure if it should start here or start somewhere else, but I believe that either way, it's something long term financial is going to need to look at for those type of trends and those are the only two I have off the top of my head right now. So absolutely, we can do that. And we've presented Perce, UAL presentation here before. We actually did one. I think it was December was the one that we did the last one. So we can do that. I would say that we have that information. There are a number of factors that go into the cost of UAL. I don't think what you're going to see is a particular trend line that's going to go. It's got a factor on just for let's just take the last couple of years as we're talking about. I think we would need to agendize that since I brought it up as a future agenda item since it's not listed on the agenda right now. We could. Yeah, sure. So we're careful on that. Yeah, that's what I'm going to say right now. OK, thanks. Yeah, no problem. And also a suggestion, maybe if you wanted to go back and look at the presentation that we just had to see if that answers any of your questions. So we're not being duplicative of the information that they're providing about the unfunded liability. And then we can help. When was that presentation then? So it was December 8th, I believe. And this year? Yeah, it was in this committee. So I can send it to the committee. OK, I'll send it to the committee. That'll be thank you. That'd be easy. And then Vice Mayor McDonald, if you continue to have questions or you want us to address something else that wasn't answered, then we can go ahead and get it on an agenda. Perfect, thank you. I think Chief Officer Alton is probably pretty busy. So we'll try not to add too much onto his plate. I can't remember. Snap. Oh, I was going to just make the joking suggestion that we have a separate agenda item for quarterly speculations about the direction of interest rates and their impact on the housing market. But that's that's just a joke, although I will enjoy them. I'll enjoy the sidebar comments. And I guess it's not technically an agenda item. But at one request, if it's not too much hassle, would be in the financial in the financial summaries would be possible to have a comparison to the year prior. You were alluding so that just in terms of the percentages of revenue or expenses realized that we can compare to the year prior, if that data is usually at hand. Yeah, it is. We can work on that. All right, if it sucks up a lot of time, don't worry about it, but that's sometimes helpful. It's more formatting than anything, and we can work through that. One thing I would suggest, Chair Rogers, is we have a short turnaround for the February meeting. So February meeting is normally scheduled for February 9. That's what, two weeks away, a week and a half away. My suggestion, it's up to you. We can come back and I don't really have anything to prepare for that particular one. My suggestion would be to cancel that one. We'll have one in March where we can talk about hopefully by that time, we'll have our long-range forecast in a way that we can talk about that in that particular forecast. Member McDonald, there is a line item for UAL. We do do a five-year look back on it, so that's going to give you some additional information there that I think you're looking for. We could do that. The regular meeting for March is scheduled for March 9. We have goal-setting at that point, so we should move that a week or so after the 9th, so I'm not sure what date that would be, and probably the 16th or the 23rd, if that works out. Then we can have that and then in April, toward the end of April, we will do our third quarter review, and we will try to have that with some better comparative data on there. If that makes sense, I would lay us up for the next couple of meetings, do you think? OK, so we'll work with staff to notice appropriately and cancel the meeting and also what would be at the day to move the March meeting. And we'll get back to everyone in a timely manner so that we can all plan accordingly. Totally agree we need to be very efficient and use our staff time wisely and not just meet to meet. Are there any other suggestions for upcoming meetings or questions or comments before we go ahead and adjourn the meeting? Seeing none, I will see some of you in just a little bit, and thank you very much for your time. The meeting is adjourned. Bye-bye.


Hopefully in this video you'll be learning how to buy Bitcoin because should be told if you're looking to buy Bitcoin at the beginning It's quite complicated for the most part, right? It certainly can be you hear some convoluted stories about wait a second someone go raw for Bitcoin What is this? Where do I buy it? And you're like you have this hesitation So hopefully Ethan and I well today will be educating you on what we believe are the safest But also easiest with those kind of contradictory sometimes Sometimes sometimes but safe is an easiest way to purchase a Bitcoin in a theory now before we begin I want Ethan to introduce himself, right? So yeah, my name is Ethan. I've been in the space since 2012 I really wish I had caught some of the early investment advice and when it was like 25 cents per Bitcoin to pick it up Yeah Do we all wish we were there? But yeah, I've been in the space for a long time Used to do a radio show. I think actually our radio show that I was involved in It was the first live-to-air commercial radio broadcast maze it was became put Bitcoin related It was fantastic. It was a lot of fun But yeah, there's been so much development in this space and as the space develops and as people get more interested in it You get more people who want to want to buy it because they want to find out a bit In fact friends of mine they go back to visit friends and family and they tell them what they've heard from me And then they get they come back and tell me my friends and family Bitcoin stuff and how do you buy it? How do you get your hands on what's going on in the space? So yeah, lots of interest and people who are new to it. They gotta figure out how does they get into it, right? So what do you think right now is one of the simplest ways for somebody who's we'll just focus for Bitcoin for now Right. What do you think is one of the simplest and safest ways for let's say a mom paw to buy Bitcoin? I you know, there are so many ways as you mentioned earlier and sometimes simple and safe doesn't go together Yeah, but I think that if you look at at a market like local bitcoins.com for instance That's that's a popular market where people will trade cash for Bitcoin. There are there are scams on there That's right. So it's like the Kijiji for Bitcoin That's right exactly totally like Kijiji for Bitcoin And you have to you have to just like when you're buying a bicycle often Kijiji that might be stolen or something Right, you really have to kind of keep in your mind that you know, you're dealing with strangers You have to look at ratings and past reviews of people that's something the local Bitcoin actually incorporates into its system Which makes for a safer system is is you you totally can if you want to Buy Bitcoin from the brand-new user account who's got you know, Smith one two three is its username And in a life workout chances are that might be pretty darn risky Or you can you can approach these merchants that have been on local Bitcoin for five years You know what they're there they were there when it started they've got you know a thousand Bits of feedback and review you look for that you look for those people who will be able to trade Bitcoin for you And really it's about as simple as install a wallet on your phone, right?   Okay, right? I even let's say let's say a wallet is a digital version of your actual physical wallet You have in your pocket a little bit different obviously We won't get into technicalities of it and I would I always tell people it's almost like the same thing as if you want To use online banking so opposed of you logging in like for example online bacon I say your TD you got a login to your password Think of that but without all the hassle and without actually without TD owning your wallet you own it It's yours on your phone. You have access you don't have to worry about passwords because it's encrypted in a different matter But that's what it is It's a digital platform on your phone or on a desktop run other devices Which you have access towards a crypto that you buy right exactly so you get something like this on your phone Yes, and it's as simple as Showing your your address your public address. Yeah, so you basically you kind of open up your wallet. Yeah, somebody else here Yeah, give me money stuff cash in there. That's right And that's it's pretty much that simple, right?  They're they'll send Bitcoin to your wallet You'll give them physical cash that you're familiar with right and at that point. It's a simple exchange So what do you say local bitcoins is a good start for some people? I would say it okay Yeah, I would say it's a good start because it's typically it's pretty straightforward It doesn't take a lot to settle my account on mobile phones. It's pretty straightforward So let's kind of summarize So before you get to local Bitcoin you need to get yourself a Bitcoin wallet. That's right. Do you recommend any wallets? I mean, there's so many good moments out there. I mean my favorite is the Jack's wallet That's a good multi currency. Yeah, yeah, it's a good multi currency wallet I think if you're looking for something a little bit more basic you'd probably go with the blockchain.info wallet or bread or bread wallets We're same ever But good wallet, right? I mean, there are a lot of good wallets out there Definitely when you're looking for wallets. Yeah, you do want to go to reputable sources like friends on blockheats.com We have we have some wallet information there. We have a guide. I'll make sure I'll link you below this video So go to reputable sources to look for wallets that you might want to start to use because if you just search out any wallets offered Again, this is a space where you do need to be aware of the potential for getting ripped off on scanners That's right. It's a possibility. So if we summarize get yourself the wallet that we don't have a preference per se Like I said, we have a guide for the best wallets that we think for blockheats There's a link below but get yourself a wallet You can go to local bitcoins register yourself like any other website and then pretty much find people with great Ratings who've been there for a while no different than if you and I go for like trip advisor. I'm like, hey ratings for this Resort garbage. All right. I'm not doing business with them or five five stars out of five great I'm going over there. So no difference in that you meet up and they when you meet up. They first give you the Bitcoin It depends on the person I think the person because I mean They they you have to understand that especially when you're new and you're on this website You are essentially the unknown unknown person. Yes, so As long as you're dealing people with people who have a very good history You might expect some of them to say look, well, I will want you to give me money first and then I'll give you the Bitcoin Yeah, it's it's a it's a security issue where if you get Bitcoin from them Yeah, there's no way for them to get it back. Sure. So if you just run off You know, so that's a risk for them to share it on this platform. There's there's a lot of different angles But yeah, it's very simple. Just sign up. You there's a chat interface. So you can talk to this person before you meet them And you'll essentially hammer out the the terms of your of your trade. So fantastic. That's local Bitcoin is number one What do you say is a secondary option? Well, actually, there's a there is an option. We were talking about this off camera Well, there's an option right here in Canada. It's a quick PT, right? Yes Yeah, and that is very simple and That you're you're pretty much eliminating any of the risks that we talked about with Bitcoin, right? So go to quickbt.com You can buy limited amounts of Bitcoin with interact. So it's super simple. It's it's fast secure quickbt.com Put your interact in it. I do want to state this caveat though.  Yes, I do. I believe the limit is 200 bucks a day for interact Yeah, but it's pretty simple quick and secure like this. There is actually I Know a couple years ago or a year ago when I was using it a little bit more regularly There is a tier where you get into like an inflight. Yes, there is. You can actually start once you have more trust Yeah, yeah, and again, that's the trust thing, right? Yeah But and I think it's really important to make note that the reason that that trust thing is there is because Bitcoin transactions are irreversible Yes, they are once Bitcoin are sent. That's it Refun, please So so that I mean whenever you're buying Bitcoin Yeah, I have to think of that as one of the transaction dynamics that exists is when you get Bitcoin It's all yours and nobody can take it back from you. So that is that is a level of risk So, yeah, but that is a really simple way. Okay quick BT.com. I love that that website. I love it. So let's go to number three Let's start talking about exchanges. Sure. I before exchange. Yeah, I want to talk about BTMs because that's another really simple way Yeah, yeah, we can talk about them. Sure. Yeah, really quickly I mean if you do if you do find Bitcoin ATM machine in your neighborhood Those are pretty simple to and usually all you need is a phone number Yes, the BTM will text you a confirmation code. There's we met BTM or time a little bit of Bitcoin ATM I get ATM for Bitcoin So but those are pretty simple because really you just plug cash into the machine. Yes, so and a lot of Bitcoin ATMs or BTMs they can actually Give you cash as well.  It's like a vending machine Yeah, right. So really easy if you do find a Bitcoin ATM in your local neighborhood I think it's worth checking out. I do want to state though. Some of them do have high fees though That's true. It's like ten percent. So yeah, so some of them are high some of them are low So I do suggest that you figure out what's the transaction fee that you're paying, right? And it's not a bad idea to contact the operator if you can find out the information who runs it Yeah, not a bad idea to contact them directly by email or something. It just kind of yeah How much do you charge because I have seen BTMs that actually turn to zero percent. That's good. Yeah, very rare But I have seen it But yeah, when it comes to exchanges, you know, it's it's worth it's worth mentioning that It can be very difficult. Yes in comparison to all the options. We've talked about already, right? Yeah So we've gone from Barrier of entry from zero and incrementally getting harder. Sure. So local Bitcoin's pretty zero And we'll expand to the second why and then we went to quick BT. It's pretty zero just your interact call card and then BTM where you physically have to go there So now we're getting to exchanges where she have to go through a process a waiting period approval period a KYC system and Based on exchanges and this is really determined on where you live So we may we might make suggestions for certain exchanges that you may not have access to right? So basically what we're talking about right now as Canadians would be speaking about what we have access to as Canadians. Yeah Yeah, totally You see the moose over there a I There's exchanges in Canada like exchanges the most any other country they have to they have to operate under ML and KYC laws Which is anti-mining laundering and know your customer laws, right? These are regulations that prevent financial fraud in in the banking system or at least try to prevent it So When you're setting up an exchange again, have you ever opened a brokerage account for trading stocks that kind of thing? No, I haven't no so I so I have I've done that and that's a complicated process You have to provide identification.  Yeah, right? But yeah, that is everything you mentioned. It's you have to have to be able to provide personal documentation So photo ID you have to provide things like utility bills to prove your address You have to prove who you are, right? if you if you want to withdraw Canadian dollars from the exchange, yeah, you have to send them a check and debit Probably things that automatic withdrawal forms. Oh, it's direct deposit. Yeah, direct deposit for me. Yeah, exactly So you have to provide things like that when you're opening up an exchange account That's what you have to keep in mind is you're going to have to provide a lot of information about who you are Yeah, because you are opening up a regulated account and a regulated sort of Because basically what you're doing is you're connecting your bank account to the bank account that represents the exchange So based on that you have to go through the processes and making sure that you're not money laundering So they're gonna ask you for verification whether it's birth certificate driver's license or passport They'll ask you for Utility bill to prove that you're what you're living somewhere. Yeah, you're gonna have to scan all these documents up to their platform It's gonna take them sometimes two days sometimes a week I've heard sometimes two weeks depending on don't don't even be surprised if this lasts I it went when when Bitcoin especially gets overheated lots of people get interested in it Exchanges for massive amounts of traffic those backlogs. I've seen this as long as a month by not typical, right? But I've seen it get that bad So, I mean that's something you want to keep in mind too is there is a review period just like he said And also don't be surprised if changes ask you even for a picture of you holding your identification for cracking ahead Crackings like yeah, actually, that's only when I'm aware of just where it is Actually that coins were is my favorite exchange. Yeah Free plug guys should see some ether in my account But like it's you have to be aware that all this information is going to be requested of you and the reason for that is because of all Regulation you are proving who you are you are proving that you you are not a Ghost so once you're on there. It's pretty easy from there. Sure. So once you're on there It's pretty simple. They'll have various different deposit methods So you can maybe direct deposit cash. You can wire them my transfer. Yeah, you can send email money Some exchanges use Something called flex pin which is you just go to a corner story by this little flex pin Yeah, enter a code and it's instantly in here, right? So there are a lot of different funding options Some of these options typically come of the cost for instance You might you might find that if you're wiring money to an exchange It will cost you money at your bank to wire. Yeah, and then it will cost you money to even have the deposit in there It's a change on the other end their bank charges them to receive the right double charge So you all of these exchanges should lay out pretty clearly Yeah charges that they'll associate with your deposit options, but that's something to keep in mind So you mentioned one already Maybe give us another one that you kind of recommend Rodrigo CX They are they are currently the largest exchange in Canada for crypto They're they're definitely a popular exchange, they're not my favorite, but they are popular exchange They do have a lot of funding options. So Solid option, I guess they've got a good reputation. Why do you like coin as opposed to Kraken? Well, I mean coin square. Yeah So the reason I like coin square is first partially because it's right here where I live in the greater Toronto area I kind of like that. There's a local company here The person who runs it is very much into trying to advance crypto and trying to get people Involved right and it's just a solid exchange. I mean, here's the thing if you have an exchange run by a mathematician Yeah, this is a guy who's who is absolutely focused on trying to make sure this exchange is solid and usable I really enjoyed it, but it's just got adequate liquidity. Yeah, just a good exchange a good solid exchange But all the other ones are really not bad even there's a new one in Canada. That's just starting up Easy, I think it's easy btc.ca or.com EZ BTC and They're a neat exchange They've got a lot of different deposit options, but very new so the liquidity is very low If you're buying Bitcoin or an exchange, you really want to go where liquidity is because you're gonna get the best market price So let's recap everything number one from the beginning. We got local bitcoins Number two we got is quick BT for the interact number three is Bitcoin ATMs and finally number four is the exchanges, right? So there you have it. That's our summary of how to buy Bitcoin and what we mean by how to buy Bitcoin This is also applicable to many other currencies as well You have a theorem as well at least the big ones the ones with market caps of at least more than a hundred million dollars, right? What I recommend for you is don't just take our word for granted do your own research Look up other people like I said, it really does matter where you live. What country you're in Geopolitics of your area as well, but for the most part, this is mainly applicable for most people my suggestion Like always educate yourself first. Don't just work. Don't just accept information as is Understand the concepts as opposed to just knowing the concepts. So any last questions? Just be aware. There's a slight learning curve Yeah, it's okay. It's okay Everybody I've spoken to has had some difficulty easing into the space force because it's new so don't be intimidated about any purpose I was just gonna be there. Well, thank you, Ethan Thanks a bunch


The best communicators in the world are what I call room changes and that's what you have to be. Your job is not just to sell your wares or get across your content because everybody's doing that. What makes you different is that there's something you bring that changes the room as you are.


Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering AWS re-invent 2018.  Hey, welcome back everyone. Live here in Las Vegas, AWS re-invent 2018. Live coverage from theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante, my co-host. Wall-to-wall coverage day, six years covering Amazon, watching it grow, watching it just an unstoppable force of new services. Web Services being realized from the original vision years and many, many years ago, over a decade, Jesse Rothstein, CTO and co-founder of Extra Hops, our next guest, welcome back to theCUBE. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Good to see you. So first of all, before we get into the conversation, what's your take on this madness here? It's pretty crazy. You know, this is, I think this is my sixth year as well, and this show must double in size every year. It's enormous, spread across so many venues, so much going on, it's almost overwhelming. We remember six years ago, we used to be on theCUBE, and I think we just kept the stream open. Hey, come on up, we had an opening. Now it's like theCUBE, people are trying to get on, no more room, we're dying, we go as hard as we can, 16 interviews, hundreds of interviews, lots of change. So I got to ask you, what is your view of the ecosystem? Because back then, a handful of players in there, you guys were one of them, a lot of opportunities around the rising tide here. What's your thoughts on the ecosystem evolution? Well, of course the ecosystem has grown. This show has really become recognized as the preeminent cloud show, but I see some themes that I think have certainly solidified. For example, I've spent a bunch of time on the security track. That's the largest track by far, I'm told. They're actually breaking it out into a separate add-on conference coming up in the summer. So clearly there's a great deal of interest around cloud security as organizations. So did they actually announce that security conference? They did. So it was in Boston in June, I think it is, right? Correct, they announced that. I think, I don't want to mess up the dates. June, late June. I think June 26th, breaking news here, that's new information. That's a really good signal for Amazon. They're taking security serious. When I interviewed Andy Jassy last week, he said to me, security used to be a blocker. Oh, the cloud's not secure. I was just a couple of short years ago. Now it's actually a competitive advantage, but still a lot more work to get done. Network layer all the way up. What's your take? Never done. Well, so that's what Andy says, and I think that I would rephrase that slightly differently. Security used to be a blocker and it used to be an area of anxiety and organizations would have huge debates around whether the cloud is less secure or not inherently. I think today there's a lot more acceptance that the cloud can be just as secure as on-prem or just as insecure. From my view, it relies on the same people processes and technologies that are inherently insecure as we have on-prem and therefore it's just as insecure. There are some advantages. The cloud has great API logging, building blocks like cloud trail, new services like guard duty, but at the same time, it's hard to hire for cloud security expertise and there isn't an inherent opacity in public cloud that I think is a real challenge for security. And bad human behavior always trumps good security. Of course. Talk about extra hop, how you guys are navigating. You guys have been in the ecosystem for a while. Always an opportunity to grow. I love this. TAM is expanding, huge expansion in the adjustable market. New use cases. What's up with you guys? Give us an update. Where's the value proposition resonating? What's the focus? Well, you can probably tell from my interest that we see a lot of market pull and opportunity around cloud security. Extra hop is an analytics product for IT ops and security. So there's a certain segment of what we do for IT operations use cases. Delivering essentially a better level of service. We attach to use cases like cloud migrations and new application rollouts. But we also have a cybersecurity offering that's a very advanced offering around network behavioral analytics, where we actually can detect suspicious behaviors and potential threats, bring them to your attention, and then since we leverage our broader analytics platform, you're a click away from being able to investigate or disposition these detections and see, hey, is this something I really need to be careful about? Give an example of some of the network behavior, because I think this is a real critical one, because with no perimeter, you got a surface area, you got APIs. This is the preferred architecture, but you got to watch the traffic. How are you guys, be specific and give an example. So some of my favorite examples have to do with detecting when you've already been breached. Organizations have been investing in defense in depth for decades, you know, keep the attackers out at the perimeter, keep the attackers away from the endpoint, but how would you know if you've already been breached? And it turns out, Verizon does a great data breach investigation report annually, and they determined that there are only nine or so behaviors that account for 90% of what all breaches do, what they look like. So you look for things like parts of the cybersecurity attack chain. You look for reconnaissance. You look for lateral movement. You look for some form of exfiltration. Where XTRAP has taken this further is that we've built sophisticated behavioral models. We're able to understand privilege. We're able to understand what are the most important systems in your environment, the most important instances. Who has administrative control over them? And then when that changes, you want to know about it, because maybe this thing, this instance, you know, in an on-prem environment, it could be like a contractor laptop or an HVAC system. It now exercises some administrative control over a critical system, and it's never done that before. We bring that to your attention. Maybe you want to take some automated action and quarantine it right away. Maybe you want to go through some sort of approval process and bring it to someone's attention, but either way, you want to know about it. I want to get your reaction to a comment I saw yesterday morning at a keynote on Theresa Carlson's breakfast, the public sector breakfast. Christine Halverson from the FBI said, we're in a data crisis. And she talked about that they can't react to some of these bad events and a lot of it's post-event. That's the basic stuff they need now. And she said, I can't put the puzzle pieces fast enough, together fast enough. So you're actually taking that from a network ops standpoint, IT ops. How do you get the puzzle pieces together fast? What's the secret? Well, so the first secret is that we're very focused on real-time network data and network telemetry. I often describe extra ops as like splunk for the network. The idea requires completely different technology, but the idea is the same. Extract value and insight of data you already have. But the advantage of the network for security, and what I love about it, is that it's extremely real-time. It's as close to ground truth as you can get. It's very hard to hide from and you can never turn it off. So with all of those properties, network analytics makes for, just tremendous implications for security.  I'm a data geek myself, but you made a good point I want to double down on is that moving packets from A to B is movement. And movement is part of how you detect it, right? It is, but so packets itself, that's data in motion, but if you're only looking at the packets, you're barely scratching the surface. Companies have tried to build security analytics based on flow data for a long time. And flow data, flow records, it's like a phone bill. It tells you who's talking to whom and how long they spoke, but there's no notion of what was said in the conversation. In order to do really high-quality security analytics, you need to go much deeper. So we understand resources, we understand users, we understand what's normal, and we're not using statistical baselines. We're actually building predictive models around how we expect endpoints and instances to behave, and then when they deviate from their model, that's when we say, hey, that's the key point for you guys. And that means you can help me prioritize. Absolutely. Because that's the biggest challenge these guys have, right? They oftentimes don't know where to go, they don't know how to weight the different. So that's one challenge, and I think another really big challenge, and we see this even with offerings that have been publicized recently, is that detection itself isn't good enough. That's just an alert cannon. And there was a session that actually talked about alarm deafness that occurs, it occurs in hospitals and other environments where all you get are these common alarms, and people stop paying attention to them. So in addition to the ability to perform high-quality detections, you need a very streamlined investigative workflow. One click away so you can see, okay, what's going on here, is this something that requires additional investigation? Well, I think you guys are on the right track, and I think what's different about the cloud is that they call this show re-invent, but rethinking existing stuff for cloud scale is a different mindset. It's a holistic, like you're taking more of a holistic view thing. I'm not going to focus on a, quote, packet path or silo that I'm comfortable with. You kind of got to look at the bigger picture and then have a data strategy or some competitive, unique IP. I think that's an excellent summary. What I would add is that organizations, as they kind of follow their cloud journey, we're seeing a lot of interest from security teams in particular that don't want to do swivel chair kind of integration, where I have something on-prem and I have something in the cloud. They want something much more holistic, much more unified, much more seamless, much more automated. You know, I sat in about five different securities track sections and every single one of them kind of ended with the, so we automated it with a Lambda function. Clearly a lot of capability for automation in public cloud. Jesse, great to have you on theCUBE. CTO co-founder of ExtraHop. What's next for you? What's going on? What's next? Well, we continue to make really big investments on security. I wish I could say that cybersecurity would be done at some point, but it will never be done. It's an arms race. Right now I think we're seeing some really great advancements on the defense side that will translate into big success. Always focusing on the data problem. As data goes from 10 gigabits to 100 gigabits, you know, Amazon just announced their C5 accelerated 100 gigabit network adapter. Always looking at how can we extract more value from that data in real time. Well, we got to get you back on the program. We're going to increase our cybersecurity coverage. We certainly will be at the security event. I didn't know it was announced publicly June, I think 26th and 27th in Boston. Give or take a day on either side. Could be the 27th, 28th, 26th, 27th. This is a big move for Amazon. We'll be there. I think it is. Great job. Live coverage here from the floor on the Expo floor at Amazon re-invent 2018. We'll be right back. Cube coverage after this short break. Two sets, we'll be right back.


This research examined the longitudinal dynamics of antibody immunity following heterologous SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infection in six mRNA-vaccinated individuals. The authors found that cross-reactive serum-neutralizing antibodies and memory B-cells, MBCs, declined over time after breakthrough infection, while new Armacran BA.1-specific B-cells were generated. Additionally, public clone-dominant neutralizing antibodies predicted newly emerging Armacran sub-lineages, suggesting that antibody responses continue to shape SARS-CoV-2 evolution. This research suggests that heterologous SARS-CoV-2 variant exposure drives the evolution of B-cell memory, supporting the continued development of next-generation variant-based vaccines. This article was authored by Ching Zai Koku, Tyler N. Star, Pan Pan Ju, and others.


The all-time leading scorer in Johnson Central history officially made his decision to play basketball for the U-Pike Bears next season. A senior shooting guard Mason Blair signed his letter of intent in ceremonies held at the school today. As it stands now, Blair has scored 1,953 points and has made 353-point baskets. He also ranks as one of the state's top five leaders in steals. Blair is excited at playing at the next level. It's been one of my goals since I was in fifth or sixth grade. I gave up on all other sports and I really wanted to focus on basketball. It's taken me a lot of places and I just love the game. To be able to continue that and play at the next level, it's the best feeling. There are a lot of things about him that we love. The fact that he's a relentless worker, he spends time and loves the game of basketball. He's always in the gym, he's traveling, and guys like that improve. Hopefully that will be something that really spreads throughout our entire organization. As far as having him here with us, he's a once-in-a-lifetime kid. The scoring accolades speak for themselves. I think that this time next year we're going to be looking around wanting a Mason Blair to walk through that door. It feels pretty good. All the guys are behind me. The younger guys look up to me and I just want to be a leader for them and give this team some success. Shout out to my family, my friends, they're the best. Bless Coach Willis, give me the opportunity to play at the next level. Go Bears!


The residential sector is currently one of the main contributors to the global energy balance. However, its energy demand is highly unpredictable and difficult to control due to the lack of flexibility in the power grid. To address this issue, demand management strategies are needed to optimize the energy resources of customers and their energy consumption patterns. Demand side management, DSM, is a proactive approach that seeks to make users more energy efficient over time. This paper reviews the existing literature on optimization methods for DSM of residential consumers, categorizing them into three axes, individual user optimization versus cooperative consumer optimization, deterministic optimization versus stochastic optimization and day ahead optimization versus real time optimization. Based on these classifications, the paper provides a comprehensive overview of the key features of various approaches and techniques, and discusses potential future research directions. This article was authored by Antimo Barbato and Antonio Capone. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Ska, Skag, Skagbombs, bombing an embassy seems like one of the most war, crimey things you can do. Yeah 100% because an embassy has civilians in there. Not only civilians from that country but also most likely civilians from whatever country they're from that are working in there. Maybe they're cleaners, maybe they're typists, right? Maybe there's security in front. Well security, I'm assuming, would be the country that has the embassy, right? So they bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria, killed civilians in the process as well. That's pretty, pretty war-crimey. Yeah but Israel, the whole nation is a war criminal organization, right? They're committing genocide right now and 90% of them support genocide. Yeah Israel's committing suicide. Fucking, I've never seen anything like this and I've read a lot of history and a lot of war, right?