Good, welcome everyone and welcome to Sean Spicer who needs little introduction as the first White House press secretary of the current administration. Less well-known is his very long-term involvement in the machinery of the Republican Party in Washington and elsewhere. He was communications director for the Republican National Commission from 2011 and that was he's added another responsibility as chief strategist from 2015. In the 90s he also had a number of roles with the Republicans in Washington related to both the House and the Senate. I'm very interestingly and something I hope we will touch on. He was assistant United States trade representative for media and public affairs under the George W. Bush administration, logging almost half a million miles, going to ministerial meetings, Brussels, Geneva, etc. So hopefully we'll get to talk about that. Just a reminder the emergency exits are on this side and this side and through the door we came from. So I want to try and cover three things today. One, American politics, how things will evolve, the second presidency itself, and then what it means to the world. So on the first one I'm gonna wrap up at 8.30. We've got a million questions, but let's get through some. I was speaking to an American friend close to retirement age in Florida over the weekend. She said she'd never remembered a time when the country was so divided. If things are as divided as that, what's driving conservatives to feel more liberal? Is it the media? Is it economic factors? Is it demographics and immigration? What are your thoughts on polarization? That's a great question. I mean, you look back through our history in the 1970s, post-Vietnam, we were very divided as a country. It's different though. I think your question is spot-on. It seems a lot more ideological. People have chosen sides. The thing that I find most fascinating isn't necessarily that as much as the dialogue or lack thereof and the lack of civility and respect. And again, which is an entire separate subject in question. But the reality is is that it's not just the partisanship. It's not just the ideology. It's that everybody believes that if you're not on their team, you're against them. That is I think a bad place for our society and a bad place for our country right now. That people feel like they've got to take sides. And that if you're not on their side, then somehow there's something inherently wrong with that person, their views. And I think there's a lot of reasons why. I mean everyone's been studying this for some economic reasons. I think there's some things that have been simmering for a long time, especially on the conservative side where they felt they have felt dismissed and dissed and not respected and not listened to in Washington by their own part. And it's not just so it's not it's not, you know, Republicans necessarily against Democrats or liberals, there are a lot of Republicans saying we haven't had a voice for a long time. No one's respected us. People have dismissed a lot of our concerns and our frustration. So there's a lot of reasons for it. But I also, but I think the bigger issue is from where I stand as an American is how do we sort of turn the tide? And how do we fix it? And how do we stop the current state of dialogue? Do you have any thoughts on how to do that? Yeah, I mean the only thing I think that one of the things that I find when I talk to a lot of groups is the focus tends to be who started it, who's more to blame as opposed to, you know, I have this when people ask me all the time about the Republican Party and I mentioned this to a group of folks that we talked to at lunch, it's as if they're not part of it. You know, they'll say, how is the party going to do this? And I'm like, well, the party is you if you're if we're talking the Republican group. The country is us as Americans. And so for everyone who wants to be part of it, the challenge that I've given groups as I've talked is to say if you don't like the current state of being, then help be part of the solution, not the problem.   But too often, and this goes on on both sides, is that if you talk to someone and say, well, I'm a Trump supporter, I'm a Republican, they immediately fill in the blank with, well, then you're a, you know, and there's a whole host of them.  And it's like, I think we have to be part of the solution and saying, let that person be hurt. They have a right to believe in that just because, you know, they are on the other side of the aisle, doesn't make them any less American, doesn't make them any less patriotic. We can disagree on politics and policies and candidates, but we should all sort of agree that there's a degree of respect that everybody's entitled to. And do you think that the way the media has gone and social media means that people can tend to listen to the views that they agree with, and they don't actually hear? Yeah, that's actually a really good part of it. I mean, you can literally isolate yourself to the point where you're only hearing voices that support what you believe and further those thoughts, but also then black out the other side. The other issue is frankly, in social media itself, is that you can say things that you never would say in person to somebody and not feel like there's any repercussions for it. I mean, no one would say half of the stuff they say to somebody else in person that they get away within a tweet or post on Facebook. And I think that has led to it. And I think the other issue with the media is it's not just that you can self-program. It's that to some degree, a lot of the media institutions have recognized that then they have to cater to the audience. So on our cable stations, you've got CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. And Fox understands that it has staked out its position, its constituency, its audience, and that they need to continue to grow that audience by putting on certain people, highlighting certain issues, et cetera. But the same is true with MSNBC and CNN. And so there is a business aspect of the media that is also at play. And that's just on the TV side, but I think it's perflates throughout all the other forms and platforms. And just picking up the point about the Republican Party, and it may, in Europe, we have a more sort of centralized party structure. It's a looser kind of thing there. But that said, there were a lot of Republicans who were, as you described, never Trump before the election. You said there were. They were before people who were just Republicans. There was a vocal minority. Those people, what has happened to people who were Republicans who were anti-Trump? Have they been, have they changed their view? Have they left a party? How has Fox like, see all of the above? Okay. You've seen a lot of these folks that, whether they're pundits or consultants that have said, I mean, you saw a lot of people fall in line, right? So President Trump has, by the last poll, 87% approval rating by party. That is the highest approval rating by party of any president in modern U.S. history, save George W. Bush post 9-11. So, yes, there are still a vocal group of those folks. But I think for the most part, it's a small people who have said, I'm leaving the party, I'm going to continue to speak my voice. But it was funny, I talked to a friend of mine who's a political consultant that was sort of in that never Trump camp. Very vocal about it. It said to me the other day, I, he said, you know where I was with respect to the president during the election, but the constant attacks he's under, I can't help but support him now. And there really has been, to your last question, this polarization and this fossilization of if people feel like they've got a two sides, it's tough to be in the middle in America right now. Thank you, Robert. Okay. Tell me, one of the things that jumped out of me at your book was that, which I couldn't really, I didn't have a feel for, was that in the, going into the 2014 midterms, you said there was an energy within the Republican party that you'd never, that you had never seen before. Two questions. What brought that about? And is it still there now? I think six years of Obama brought it about that when you're a party out of power, Republican or Democrat, and you're, you, at some point, and it's usually in that sixth term, you saw that with Bush.  Eight years was tough. And I think the same, you know, once six years into Obama, the Republican party was like, we need to get focused, get together, and understand that if we want to get any of these policies stopped that we, you know, as a party don't agree with, then we need to mobilize. And there's a difference between mobilizing people in a midterm than a general. So it takes, you know, you have a much lower participation race in a midterm. Therefore, getting people fired up and excited is just ramping up a different notch than, say, a general election would be. And just coming to the midterms and about kind of, as you say, the heightened feelings around politics. Do you think participation in the midterms will rise this time? And more importantly, what do you think the outcome will be? I think participation could is potentially going to be a lot higher in certain places. Remember, it's hard in a midterm because a third of the Senate's up every two years, right? So if you have a ton of competitive races one cycle and not another, then participation may not go up, but not necessarily because of that, but because of which states are in play and the level of competitiveness, right? This year, I mean, if we look at the midterms currently, you've got the Senate, the Republicans have a one seat majority. There are 10 Democratic senators in states that Trump won. I don't think there's any question in my mind that we keep the Senate. Probably we pick up a seat or two. There's, I mean, you look at Joe Manchin's, I think he's in a Trump won West Virginia by 30 points. Indiana, North Dakota, even in Florida, where a long time ago Bill Nelson is, Rick Scott's been a very popular and effective governor and right now he's leaving him. So we could flip a couple seats as well that aren't in a column. I see it's coming out there. On the House side, I admittedly am concerned. And I think to your last question, so just lay it land wise, Democrats need 23 seats since the late 1950s. The party out of power has averaged just over 30 as a pickup. So right there, you're not doing well. You've got 43 House Republicans that are not seeking reelection. And the reason that obviously matters is that when you're an incumbent, you have name ID, you've got some constituency that knows who you are, and you've usually done something with or communicated with an open seat is much more costly no matter what the tilt is. So for those reasons, I'm very concerned about the House. I don't think it's over yet. The economy is sort of the saving grace right now for us. 4.1 percent economic growth, low unemployment throughout so many sectors and constituencies. So I think that that could be our firewall, but there's no question. I think it's going to be a lot closer of a majority. And that's in that perspective, this idea. The problem right now is that for a lot of people who went out and voted for Trump, they don't look at this year's midterms as being crucial to implementing his agenda and policies. So they're saying, well, Trump's not on the ballot. I'm not going out and voting. That's where the Republicans could suffer. And I think that the issue, if you're a candidate for office right now, is you need to make that a binary choice. And we did that. There's a chapter in the book I call Upshifting the Downshifters. And there was about 6 percent of the electorate throughout a bunch of the battleground states. And what we found through a lot of data mining was that these folks were high-propensity Republican voters. They voted for everything. School elections, high school elect, you name it. But they would never vote for Hillary Clinton, but they were uncomfortable voting for Trump. And so we went out and did a lot of focus groups and studies and recognized that if we could make it a binary choice, get them to vote early, absentee, get them in person on election day, that by an overwhelming majority, they'd vote for Trump. If they understood, I may not like them, but I understand the agenda and the policy. I'll do it. And it worked.  So it's not just about this candidate or that candidate. That would suggest that possibly that you don't think it is being implemented this time? I don't think it's one thing to implement. It's another thing to make it resonate. And I think that it's just tough because people look at an election, for the most part, as one person versus another. So you hear a lot of people who say, I don't like either candidate or I don't like this. And what I think you started to see the party do, it's just difficult. It's a hard marketing sell to say, don't ignore the candidates. It's the agenda that's on the ballot. And that's a hard concept for a lot of folks. A, to sell and B, to get through. I might come back to the outcome of the election, particularly if the Republicans lose the House. But let's move on to the second part and deal with the presidency. Can I just answer that one quick? Okay. So if the Republicans were to lose the House, like the House won't name post offices or bridges. They're going to sit around all day and talk to each other. Well, we might as well go, if that is the case, what are the implications for Donald Trump's presidency? It's not. I think you still have the Senate, which gets through the nominations and so much more. And then I think it actually probably strengthens him for reelection because you can say, here's how the agenda stalled. It's a great, I think it's bad for the country. It's good for potentially his reelection. But look, I mean, all Democrats, so if you're not familiar with American politics, C-SPAN, which is our covers, our House and Senate has three channels. I joke not to, funnily, that C-SPAN will have to take out a fourth channel just to cover all the investigations because that's all Democrats will do. I mean, they will investigate the investigations. But they will do nothing to help the President get anything done. It will be completely a focus on 2020. So there will not be an agenda. I mean, there's not a willingness on behalf of Nancy Pelosi to work with the President on anything. So you see that as actually working in Donald Trump's favor when it comes to reelection 2020? I think politically you can make a much stronger case and see what happens if you don't reelect me, if you don't flip passes again. It's not a good policy outcome as much as it is a good political outcome. Just on the coming to the presidency of Donald Trump from your own time there and your knowledge of him, when he leaves office, whether it's 2020 or 2024, what do you think he would want as his major legacy, if there were one, two issues? I think his, what he would want is his legacy is a thriving economy. I think he may get that, but I think his biggest legacy regardless is going to be his work on the judiciary. He will have a second Supreme Court Justice, Kavanaugh is getting Peru, there's, I mean, the votes are there. We're going to go through the motions. But what he's done on the circuit and appellate courts in the federal system has, you know, he's appointing young, strict constructionalist jurists. Those have lifetime appointments. That's going to affect the trajectory of the judiciary for a minimum of a generation. And that's one of the things in your book that you mentioned which I was surprised by. You said that his biggest achievement in his first year was the appointment to the Supreme Court. Absolutely. Over the economics tax cuts thing. And I saw in Europe, we don't, you know, occasional politician, this country makes an issue about judicial appointments, but it doesn't tend to be something that becomes an election issue. Whereas it's a pretty, it seems to be a big thing for Americans. Well, I don't even know. I think it's a big thing for some of them.  And you go, wow, that, if we had appointed so-and-so, that could have gone differently. For a lot of Americans, it is part of the nexus in their voting. But I don't think it's enough. I mean, like, I truly believe if you think about how the court has been divided lately and how many 5-4 decisions come down, there is no question in terms of shaping the country that it's, the economies can go up and down. I mean, you can, you know, so as much as I think the policy has been great for our country, these appointments and the rulings that they have affect minimum regeneration, if not much longer in terms of the historical precedent they set. So you specifically said that you thought millions of his supporters, that was a very important issue for the appointment. Just comparing that the tax cut package last December, which do you think was more important for his support base between those two? I think Gorsuch to the court was probably more important. I don't know that if you would ask the question prior to his appointment as much as since his appointment. But if you ask any Republican base voter, I think Gorsuch is probably easily in their top three, if not mostly in their top two. And could it just going further into that, the, is it, could it be the case that economics, economic issues are becoming less important to voters, sort of identity, cultural issues are becoming more important? It's not, I don't, I don't know that I want to rank them, but I mean, I think the tax cuts in the economy are there. I just don't, sometimes the issue with Americans is that we get something and it kind of goes okay, what not. And with the economy, it starts to get baked in. It's like, okay, things are good. And you don't necessarily go, oh yeah, I remember that. It's the tax cuts from a year ago. Whereas the Gorsuch thing, every time there's a ruling, you're reminded, oh yeah, 5-4. I remember why we got this. It's, it's much more of an enduring thing. So it's not a question of what had a greater impact. But it just more has to do with what's at the top of mind for most conservative voters. Okay. From your book, you're clearly a pro Trump person and you remain that way. But one area where I thought you were consistently critical was around the, the issue of the job that you did.  They cut down his own message. You said that he was, by doing this, he was actually working against himself in many cases, and kind of a dry line. You said White House, the White House is not exactly organized for message discipline. Yeah, I mean, I grew up, spent 25 years crafting messages, mostly for candidates or government entities or whatever, where you would plan out, here's how we're going to roll this out. Here's how we're going to execute it. Here's all the tactics that are at your disposal. You work backwards from the effect that you hope to achieve and think about how do we employ all of these tactics to get the result that we want. And I think, look, don't get me wrong. I mean, in the book, I also talk about the fact that, he can be as great. I mean, there is no one that has the ability to message like he does. Hands down. I tell this story, but for a normal candidate in a general election, if you were to have a rally in two Sundays in Columbus, Ohio, you would buy television and radio ads, send emails, post stuff all over Facebook and whatever.  Trump sends a tweet and people lined up around the block for hours on end. That is just not how it's ever worked before. And so he can do things that nobody else has, but he also recognizes there's days when we'd be on like an amazing three-day roll, and he would like suddenly the message, you know, he'd put out something and be like, wow, now we're switching gears. But you wouldn't have necessarily maybe gotten the first three days. So it's like anything else. You can't just look at something myopically and say, let's just take all the good. If you're honest, you say, okay, there's some bad too, but you can't, I think in any scenario, just isolate and say, okay, let's just do all good. That's pretty obvious. In the sense that there's the lack of discipline. One of the things that maybe surprised people with a lot of things is surprised people, but conservatives tend to like discipline and restraint. I don't think anyone would accuse this president of being very strange. Is that something that maybe some conservatives don't like about? Well, again, I somewhat dispute the product. I mean, look, and it's not the polling has been clear consistently. There might be some concerns about some of the style, but at the end of the day, look at the approval rating by party. People are more focused on anything else than results. I think where a lot of conservatives are saying, you know what, we're finally seeing things get done that we have advocated for a long time. And okay, I mean, that's the one thing that I think is fascinating. And I know it's the subject of story after story after story in the US, but it's like, okay, despite this, here's what his approval rating is. And I think for most Americans, especially on the conservative side, they're saying, you know what, I'm getting results. That's what I care about. But do you think it's a fair charge that while he's getting very high polling ratings on his own side, he's getting extremely low polling ratings the other that he's actually contributing to the polarization of America unnecessarily, things like getting involved in the NFL, you know, clearly he's getting involved in the NFL. I mean, I think that there's no question the president's standing up for something he believes in, whether you agree with it or not. Look, if what I would love is to be bringing more and more people together, I would love to be growing our party. I would love to, I mean, my style is not necessarily his style. But at the end of the day, the point that I've said to people is that just from an analytical standpoint, I talk about this extensively in the book, I mean, there are plenty of times during the campaign when I was, you know, then this Trump, hey, this is how we should do this. He'd be like, yeah, thanks. And he would go do it his way. And then he'd turn around and go, okay, that, I guess he did it his way. And he would bounce out of it higher than coming into it. And so at some point, if you think about it just from a mentality standpoint, here's a guy who consistently is told by all the experts not to do something, he does it and he benefits. So it's very difficult to turn around someone who time and time again has been told no, no, no, no, no, and comes out higher than they did that suddenly you're right on this next instance. But specifically on that thing of causing or necessarily helping or helping is a wrong word, but adding into the polarization. Yeah, look, like as I said, I would, I would love to see a greater degree of inclusion. But I mean, I can go through several instances in the Obama administration where they either targeted one after conservatives. I mean, I don't, I didn't like that either. But I think that each politician finds their own voice and style that's effective for them. Okay, look, moving on, I'm sure there's going to be lots of questions on that particular aspect of the talk, our discussion today, but let's move on to the more international dimensions to it. Used to work in the trade side of things. And it's a huge, hugely important matter for Ireland, given how open we are independent of trade. I got the impression from some of the things in the book that the current trade policy wouldn't be, it wouldn't be totally in agreement with many of the, many of the things that have been decided. For example, you worked on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, reading between the lines and sandwiches, though you didn't support abandoning Davos. No, I mean, when I, my job as a spokesman has always been to advocate and to speak on behalf of the policies of the person that I represent. There's no one that I've worked for or any institution that I've had 100% unity. I think I'm a much more bilateral trade agreement person than I am a multilateral treatment. We initiated TPP at the beginning or the end of the Bush administration, but I think it was a concept when we walked out of office. I think the one big issue you have with a lot of these multilateral agreements is that they favor the lowest common denominator. So you have these countries at the bottom that agree to the lowest, to the bottom in the US, which has the largest market access issues, lowest tariffs, ends up agreeing to things that favor some of the folks that are the least opening with their markets. At the core, it's not a question of pro or against any particular agreement. I believe that we should have free, fair and reciprocal trade. There's a public attitudes towards trades. Ross Baroque got 20% of the vote in 1992, and he was one of the big things was the giant suffering sound of jobs going into Mexico. Correct. Has there always been a kind of hostility to free trade that Trump's kind of identified and people that was there all the time? Yeah, that's a great question because I have a working question slash theory about this, which is if you look at trade and the evolution of both parties going back well into the 50s and 60s, it was a bipartisan pro trade US policy. It started to slip away from the Democrats as we headed into the early 80s, and there was this sense of it was taken for granted for a long time, especially in the Republican party. The trade vote came up, and everyone just sort of was supposed to vote yes. But if you look at the trade agreements, trade promotion authority that Congress grants to the president, those votes started getting closer and closer and closer. I sort of had started to really believe that the party had stayed solid, and the people started to float further and further away, and to your point about Perot in the early 90s, that there was the issue kept evolving and the party stayed stagnant. I think Trump just to some degree really recognized where the people really were. So are Americans not re-pro free trade? No, there's a difference. I think that, and this is where I think the labels get screwed up. You can be pro, I mean look, if you look at the US, whether it's tariff or non-tariff barriers, we have a fairly open market. And then we agree to these trade deals, we say great, we'll allow you guys to come in and sell your ag services or manufacturing goods into our market, but when you sell your stuff in ours, there's a 15% tariff, there's a 20% tariff, that's not fair trade. I think we have, you know, if it was at 50 and it goes down to 15, in some ways you think you got a great deal, but if you're an American manufacturer that's competing against another manufacturer from, you know, somewhere in Middle East or Asia, is that really a fair deal when you're now facing a 15% or 20% tariff when maybe they're able to get it for 5 or 10 or 0? So the point is that I think one of the things that the president finally did was called the bluff and say it's not fair. If we're allowing you market access at a very low barrier to entry and you're not giving it to us, how is that fair? It seems that we're getting kind of screwed on that deal and I think his view and he's held this well into the 80s was that we need to stand up for American workers. This putting America first thing gives the impression that America is getting screwed by. I don't think anyone who's ever looked at how US trade diplomats work would ever think that they've ever done anything but put America first. Correct, but as I mentioned, I think that when you start a deal and if someone's tariff is at 50% and you get a time of 15, in some ways you think you've got a really good deal and in most cases you probably have. But I think over 5, 10, 15, 20 years you go, why is 15 good? If we're doing zero and you're doing 15, I get it that it used to be 50 and it's lower but it's still not fair. So it's all in perspective at the time. I think back in the day when you cut a lot of these deals and you said, hey, we went in, whether it was tariff, non-tariff, or in some cases partnership deals where you said you have to partner with an in-country host or ownership has to be split in 2015. We have none of those restrictions in the US for the most part with the exception of certain CFIUS regulations in terms of critical national security interests. But if you want to come in and start a business in the US or a franchise, you're more than welcome to do that. A lot of countries don't allow US companies to have that same access in their country. That's bad for them, good for the US. No, it's not. If a US can't, 95% of the world's consumers live outside the US. So if you're a US company and you want to sell your good or services throughout the rest of the world and you're facing stiff tariff and non-tariff barriers to get there, that's bad for them. That's bad for our workers to be able to export their good. Do you think there's a general view that this openness to trade and globalization has been bad for Americans, that jobs have been lost? No, I think generally it's been good. But I think the question is good what we settle for. And I think that's the real question. There's always this question of is it where was it? And as I mentioned, and so it's one thing 20 years ago, if you cut a deal where it was a 50 or 70 in some cases, 80% tariff and you get it down to 10, 15, that's good. But you start looking over the next 20 years and you're saying, well, wait a second, now we're going from zero to 50 or the regulations in terms of ownership requirements or intellectual property, all these other things in the current world make it unfair or currently, yes, it's not as bad as it once was, but that still doesn't make it fair. It's interesting. You look at, and I just, but you look at in the US, we have this big fight for wage equality. And if you look over time, you go, okay, women used to, and I'm making this up, but let's say women used to make 50 cents to the dollar now that one of the averages is like 76. Well, should women just stop and say, hey, that's a better deal? No. I mean, they should say, until we get parity, it's not fair. So the word fairness, you've used it many times on this, it sort of resonates with many of the things Donald Trump himself has said. It's a lot of speculation that the US could pull out of the World Trade Organization. We're going to wake up some more into a tweet saying, we've had enough, the US is leaving WTO. Do you really think I can predict that? What is it possible? Well, I think it's possible. I don't know. I don't know. I have not seen anything of substance that suggests that we're going to get out of the WTO. But I don't know. And I think, frankly, it depends on what kind of internal talks and reforms that we have. You look at some of the makeup and composite makeups of some of the dispute bodies. I think the US does think that the playing field is tilted against them. Hopefully, through dispute resolution mechanisms, we can solve this. Okay, maybe move on to the EU. David O'Sullivan, the EU's ambassador in Washington, who you know, spoke to us recently. He mentioned that the ESO, that Donald Trump had animosity towards the EU. Is that something you've seen? Can you explain why that might be? What's... I would respectfully disagree with David on that. And I do have a lot of respect for David. I've known him a long time since his work with the EU Commission on Trade. Look, and I say this, like, the President speaks glowingly of Europe and the people. But I think, again, this comes down to fairness. And there's a difference between liking somebody and agreeing with the policies. And I don't... I think that there's a difference. Just if you have, just because someone is a brother or sister or friend or relative or co-worker, and you like them or care about them or love them, whatever, doesn't mean you can't say, hey, this situation is untenable, unfair, one-sided, whatever it is. I think that's how he views a lot of the economic relationships that exist in Europe. I don't think it's a... It's not a personal thing. In fact, I think, I mean, if someone didn't like it, he wouldn't come around and build properties and talk about deals. I mean, he clearly has some kind of affinity for both Europe and Ireland in particular. Okay, I'm sure people will come up with the questions about Ireland. So I'm going to leave that. No, I'm not sure. We could be here again for tomorrow with quite a number of questions, I'm sure. Some of the things that people would view as more destructive, Paris Accords, pulling out of the Paris Accords without anything to replace it, the Iran nuclear deal. But this is a precedent in your book, amongst other things, described as erratic and mercurial. How does this help Americans? Does pulling out of the Paris Accords, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, does that make America more secure or less secure? Well, let me just stay at the outset. I mean, just to be completely... I'm not a policy guy. So I'm not here, whether it's the economic stuff or the foreign policy, to get into it. I can tell you that I know from what the President said at the time, is that to use the refrain again, I just... He believes that those two deals, in particular for various different reasons, are not fair to the United States. In the case of Paris, he believes that the arbitrary levels and agreements that were made by some countries, especially China and India and others, didn't put the US at a disadvantage in our ability to grow jobs. That's his view. On Iran, again, he did not believe that it was in the US's best interests from a security standpoint, the deal that was had, and he didn't believe that Iran was compliant with it. Somebody has coined the term diplotainment, that the President looks at diplomacy as a form of entertainment, but to... Oh, okay. That, you know, I don't think anybody would ever accuse them of having a small ego, that this is a guy with a big ego who likes to be at the center of attention, the Summers with the Queen North Korean leader as an example. Do you think there's anything to that? That this is somebody who wants to be at the center of attention and US foreign policy has been decided to some extent by headlines? I think he understands two things. One is, he gets the imagery of a lot of this, but he also gets the relationship aspect of it. I mean, his view is, I give me... Look, I think he looks at a lot of these things and says, okay, for all of you, assistant secretaries and your memos, what have you gotten done? So sit me down with this person. He's a guy that, as a deal maker, is a business person, believes he can sit down with somebody and either decide whether or not that they can come to an agreement or not. But that's kind of how he views a lot of the diplomacy. And if you look at Chairman Kim in particular, when you stop for a second and realize, okay, he sits down with the guy. Everybody says that I can't believe you're doing this. We should have all of these talks whenever. And you go, okay, so let's look at what happened. One, they released our hostages. Two, we got the remains back for our fallen soldiers that have been missing for a long time, which is a huge value in our country in terms of those who serve. And I frankly think it's, I disgrace for the lack of attention that it's gotten in our country. For all the talk that people talk about service in the United States, the idea that these service men were brought back, and this was a commitment from the United States and it happened, received absolute scant coverage. And I found it fairly disgraceful that that was the case after what I believe is a huge get. And then third is that from a security standpoint, you saw missiles flying off over and over again throughout the first year of the administration and they've stopped. That is a security issue, not just for the Korean Peninsula, but for our allies and frankly for our West Coast. So if nothing else, we are at least safer for that meeting. And yet everyone focused on the style, not the substance and the results. President looks at this and says, okay, I did this. I may not have done it the way so it's not my interpretation of anything as much as it is what the results show. Sean, I wanted to ask you about Steve Bannon and his influence on the election of Trump and how much you think he may be missed or otherwise in his election next time round. And also how much of an influence has Steve Bannon in terms of the president's hostility towards Europe? So Steve joined the campaign, I think it was on August 19th. I think he was a good steward of the president's message and Steve's been talking about populism and his website highlighted a lot of that stuff. And the president's obviously was the vehicle to it, but I mean it's not to undermine Steve in any way, but the bottom line is the president beat 16 other candidates, secured the nomination and then in August, September, October, November, less than three months before the election, bottom line. I think Steve not only understood but was totally in sabbatical with this thing. I mean there's a bunch of stuff in the book that Steve helped direct or channel the president's policies and views and statements and messaging in a way that I think in some cases proved to be fairly effective. He did things that I would have never done as a political operative, but in many cases turned out to be highly effective. So again one of the things that I find is it's difficult, it's again more of an analytical discussion than it is a writer. It's like this is what he did and this is how it turned out. I'm not saying I agree with every tactic or message or phrase, but it worked and you could look and say okay well if you had done that then you might not have won. I've not kept up with Steve.  I know he's got some projects he's going on in DC. Look the bottom line is though for 2020 Trump knows where he wants to be. The question is do the people around him help channel that in terms of hey here's where the data says to go. Here's the messaging and the advertisements we need to do etc etc. All the political tactics but it's not like he's some candidate that's saying to his consultants hey tell me what I need to think. He's 72 year old. I mean no he tweets on his own. All of that he's not exactly looking at his aides saying hey guys can you draft me something. I mean so I think Steve understood the president's message. He understood how to channel it but I think in terms of going forward he knows exactly how he is. One thing I want to just back up on the last part of your question because I just want to make sure I'm clear. I think I've been very clear about this from a personal standpoint. I used part of my book to write about a lot of the issues that I have with the press but I also talk about a lot of good reporters that are there that do a good and fair job. I don't use the phrase that you use because I don't think it's good for any industry. I think there are good people and bad people. There are good lawyers and there are bad lawyers. There are good doctors and bad doctors etc. There are good whatever and when you throw everybody into one bucket or sweep them with one broad brush you throw out the bad and the good and we should be highlighting the good. In my book I literally go through and name some of the good reporters specifically because I think that there are a lot of reporters in that briefing room and throughout American journalism that are tough to nations but fair and professional. I want to make sure that we highlight those people who I may not agree with every story but I go you know what you are a good fair professional reporter and I think that that is how you know frankly for any industry because I know as a conservative and as a republican I don't like it when I walk out and someone says oh you must be and throw it in so I don't want to use that same tactic back at any other group or industry. I don't think all journalists all democrats all whatever are monolithic. There's good and bad in every group and what I think is the most effective thing is to highlight the good in people the good in a profession the good in a company the good in association and highlight and insult those people and those standards and say let's be more like them than like this. We've run over time just I'm going to take advantage of the chair and I will we need to think about Donald Trump for over two years another six years. Six. Okay. Good. Good. Thank you all for coming. I hope you found so you've got an insight into into how the current administration works and please show a sign of appreciation to our students. Thank you.


Hydrogels are three-dimensional networks composed of polymer chains that can absorb large amounts of water or biological fluids. They have been studied extensively due to their potential use in biosensing, drug delivery, and tissue engineering. This review discusses the advantages of hydrogels over other biomaterials, including their responsiveness to various stimuli, gelation mechanism, and mesh size calculations. Additionally, the review covers the preparation of hydrogels from natural materials like polysaccharides and polypeptides, as well as synthetic hydrogels from recently published literature. The review also focuses on biomedical applications of hydrogels, including cell culture, cell healing, and drug delivery. This article was authored by Chin Yuan Chai, Yang Jiao, and Xin Jiu and Yu.


Coming up on D T N S Europe may stop Google from acquiring Fitbit Apple updates the I Mac and Amber Mac is here to tell us about robots that make for happier cows This is the Daily Tech news for Tuesday August 4th, 2020 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt The show's producer Roger Chang. Sarah Lane has the day off, but tech expert Amber Mac is here. Welcome Amber. Good to have you back Yeah, thanks so much for having me. We were just having a good conversation with Amber about Schooling from home about the future of conferences with virtual events If you want that expanded conversation become a member and get good day internet at patreon.com slash D T N S Let's start with a few tech things you should know You may see headlines about this so I'm gonna mention it Apple told the verge directly There are no talks at present for Apple to acquire tick tock and it has no plans to pursue such a deal The statement came in response to an Axios report that sources outside of Apple had told Axios that Apple was interested Apple says no we're not Microsoft announced it will launch project xCloud on September 15th on Android devices project xCloud will be bundled as part of the Xbox game pass Ultimate subscription that cost you 15 bucks a month with more than a hundred games available on Android tablets and phones Apple's Phil Schiller is stepping down as marketing chief taking on the role of Apple fellow He will remain in charge of the App Store and Apple events and continue to report to CEO Tim Cook Greg Josiak Jaws will take over as SVP of worldwide marketing for Apple President of the United States withdrew his renomination of Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Reilly Monday O'Reilly had been submitted for renomination in March and was awaiting Senate approval O'Reilly recently spoke out against efforts to limit protections offered to social media companies by section 230 safe harbor The president has petitioned the FCC to reinterpret those protections O'Reilly clarified that his critiques are not directed at the president But doesn't look like he's gonna be an FCC commissioner Google is finally in the last stage of shutting down Google Play music poor little out YouTube music is now the replacement You can move all your stuff over there last month Google enabled a really easy ability to migrate your library from play music to YouTube Later this month Google will shut off music manager the way you upload and download stuff and purchases Streaming will shut down in October and then Google music and the app and website will go away in October as well in December any music left in your account will be deleted So if you want to use the Google data transfer service you have until December to get it out that way But after December, it's gonna be just gone from your account and Twitter alerted investors that the Federal Trade Commission might find it up to $250 million for violation of a 2011 consent decree between 2013 and 2019 Twitter says an error caused it to target ads based on phone numbers and email addresses provided For safety and security purposes. The FTC is saying we don't care if it's an error I think we're going to find you anyway. All right Let's talk a little more about some new Apple products Apple updated its 27 inch iMac to include 10th gen Comet Lake processors You have options from six cores up to a 10 core i9 The model also now offers GPU choices. You can get the 5300 XT from AMD the 5500 XT with 8 gigabytes of VRAM or a 5700 XT with 16 gigabytes of VRAM speaking of RAM You can also start all your iMacs with 16 gigs are paid upgraded to 128 of DDR4 Solid-state drives are now standard with a base of 256 gigabytes up to 8 terabytes solid-state on everything The 27 inch iMac also now includes the t2 security chip a 10 gigabyte ethernet port and the webcam got upgraded to 1080p and The mics are now the same studio quality microphones You find in the 16 inch MacBook two on the chin one on the back the display now comes with true tone for more natural color and An option for you to pay for a nano texture, which is essentially the matte option the 27 inch iMac didn't get a price change either All these changes still start at $1,799 available now and the solid-state drive across the line was applied to the 21.5 inch iMac as well Which also still starts at a thousand ninety nine dollars any of this make you want to run out and buy a new iMac Amber yeah I mean I think one of the interesting things here is when you talk about the studio quality microphones and also the web camera and improvements there It just reminds me of how many people are going to be working from home over the course of the next six months to a year Maybe even beyond that and I think how much more important that particular feature will be for people who maybe didn't think much about it Previously and if you're wondering out there arm silicone, what about what about Apple silicone? That is going to come eventually but Apple had said they would still have Intel based Models in the channel and this is one of them. So these are Intel based iMac updates It's funny to me The the tech press couldn't seem to make up their mind whether this was a minor spec upgrade or a major upgrade It kind of depended on which headline you read. Do you fall on one side or the other there? I Feel like it's minor. I mean really if you look at the new iMac I just feel like I also think we're in a time right now where I don't feel as though people are paying as much Attention to these types of updates because there are bigger things to think about so I think that diminishes a little bit of the excitement around Technology news where maybe we'd be impressed in the past. We're a little jaded these days Yeah, yeah, you either you need to buy it for your work from home situation or not, right? It's it's not a as much of a discretionary purchase What's up announced a feature to help you search the web for information about frequently forwarded information Frequently forwarded information often leads to disinformation a message forwarded more than five times Already includes a little double arrow on it to let you know Hey, this is getting spread around a lot It will also now have a magnifying glass icon on it when you click on that magnifying glass icon It'll open news results or other info related to the content in the message The feature is being rolled out in Brazil Italy Ireland Mexico Spain the UK and the US What's interesting about this to me ember is that what's app is ended and encrypted So they can't see what the message is there has to be an algorithm acting locally To guess what's in the message and provide that link and I wonder how good that is Yeah, I mean that's gonna make a lot of people who are concerned about privacy and who value encryption a little bit nervous I would also go one step further. I think one of the things that's been a little bit discouraging I think when we look at the ecosystem of Facebook platforms and apps is they tend to roll out Different features for different platforms where a lot of these features would be great across the board, right? I mean, I think on Facebook if you look at its shares and how content is being shared I mean, it would be great to see something similar on the Facebook platform. They do the same thing with Instagram I would argue that some of the anti-bullying features they have on Instagram to Allow you to kind of block people and not let them know that they're blocked Those would be valuable over on Facebook But they don't seem to share some of the knowledge that they have around improving those platforms Whether it's for privacy or security or even just to stop the spread of misinformation and disinformation Yeah, it is it is Revealing fact isn't it about the fact that these are different teams with different product roadmaps? You know as much as we think of it as Facebook I'm sure the people at WhatsApp are like, yeah It would be great to put that anti-bullying feature in but we have you know this list of priorities that our manager gave us And and it would take someone unifying the product up at the top to sort of coordinate that but I think you're absolutely right It would be nice to see this magnifying glass type thing show up on Facebook show up on Instagram At least the concept of it even if it's implemented to slightly differently Yeah, it just makes me a little bit nervous that they wouldn't do that right I mean because it makes me think is that many of the things that you hear about Facebook as a platform in Terms of how they're making an enormous amount of money are in fact because all of this Information is shared so readily and so many times among people even if it is Misinformation or disinformation the algorithms kind of push that to the top like they would on YouTube or other platforms So that it just feels to me. It just it's something that just doesn't sit right You know Made me think when you were when you were talking about this and I hadn't thought about this before The one difference is Facebook can see your message So they can actually do more than just a magnifying glass icon. They can put an actual label. They can put fact-checking, etc So maybe that's maybe that's part of the difference here. I don't know Yeah, it's a great question if we get a chance to ask them one day. Yeah, yeah Sony reported a 53% increase in net income last quarter beating estimates for operating profits So I occasionally tongue-in-cheek call Sony an image sensor company But it's not true this quarter video games led the way with revenue up 33% to five point six billion dollars in the video game sector of Sony Led by the last of us part two which saw four million units in its first three days I think that's the biggest selling first party Game in three days that they've ever had ghosts of Tsushima also sold 2.4 million units In its first three days, but that released after the quarter was over So its sales will be reflected on the next quarter's results, but it does bode well for that PS Plus subscribers rose 3.4 million to 44.9 million Sony forecast that its image sensor business which usually is its strongest division as I said We'll see operating profit for the year fall because of weaker demand for high-end smartphones they said it'll eventually bounce back but this year is going to see a bit of a dip and You might think movies would be a soft spot for Sony to and yes theatrical revenue fell to six million dollars Can think about that like one movie usually makes a hundred billion dollars So theatrical revenue for Sony pictures entertainment last quarter was six million dollars But home entertainment revenue rose 60 percent to 319 million dollars The growth along with reduced advertising expenses because they didn't have to spend a bunch of money put in trailers in front of sports games And stuff led Sony pictures to have its first profit in this quarter in five years Now usually is profitable in the December quarter when all the blockbusters come out But this is the quarter where it usually loses money And the rest of the year makes up for it I found that fascinating that when they stopped putting out movies. They had a more Profitable quarter in the spring. Yeah, it's it's so interesting. I mean and to go back to your comments about the image sensors What was fascinating to me as though even though we saw the actual profits drop I didn't realize and I was reading this in Forbes that Sony continues to dominate the image sensor industry accounting for more than 50% of global sales And a lot of that is because of the computer vision technology built into these sensors So basically our cameras have brains and it totally makes sense that if you look at the premium smartphones that are being sold right now those numbers are coming down because Even just today at Google announced a new or yesterday a budget-friendly smartphone Well under a thousand dollars, so we are seeing this movement happen right now with the smartphones where the prices are coming down Yeah, and Sony said in its earnings call like for the next year We're gonna have to readjust to marketing our sensors to The mid-range to that pixel 4a kind of kind of crowd. Yeah, absolutely. It makes sense, right? And I think we're gonna you know once people get comfortable with that price point I know I mean I think it's gonna be hard for some of these smartphone makers to actually hike the price up again The European Commission launched an investigation into Google's proposed Acquisition of Fitbit Tuesday if you remember Google agreed to acquire Fitbit back in November They've been waiting on regulatory approval. It's fairly normal Google promised to the European Commission It will not use Fitbit's users health and wellness data to target ads and instead keep that data Siloed off from other Google data sets and you'd think oh, well, okay That then that should make everyone rest easy if they believe Google But it wasn't enough the Commission said that the silo that Google talked about to them Didn't cover all the data it would get through the acquisition and that's a problem remember They said health and wellness data. There's other data metadata IP addresses, etc even non-health data like that in the European Commission's opinion would increase Google's advantage at personalization and targeting over competitors and What Europe is worried about here is will this acquisition not just give Google a look at your health data But will it help them drive out competitors and even if they don't use the health and wellness data EC saying maybe it would Google posted Tuesday that this deal is about devices not data and I'm pretending like the EC responded that they said this before Google said that but in addition to the concerns about the Acquisitions effect on advertising the EC is also investigating whether Google would have quote the ability and incentive to degrade interoperability of computing wearables on Android Health wearables on Android. So the EC is saying yes, it is also about devices We're worried about you cutting off access to withings and and other things like that The Commission has 90 working days to investigate the acquisition Making December 9th 2020 the latest that it could decide this is not an antitrust investigation the way you think of them Investigating and then finding them. This is an an acquisition Investigation to prevent an antitrust situation Are do you you fall on one side of the other here? Yeah, I would just say that I'm glad that the European Commission is having this conversation right now because the wearables market is something that I've been paying a Lot of attention to especially during COVID-19, you know We've seen new wearables on the market such as the aura rings that the NBA is using We see the whoop band which I'm wearing right now What's interesting about these is the ability to measure things such as respiratory rate and also your heart rate variable Variables and you see that many of those can be early signs in terms of COVID-19 symptoms and we are in early days of actually making that connection But we're starting to see that so I expect when it comes to the wearables market knowing that wearables can help so much in this fight Against COVID-19 the next six months We're gonna see the numbers of wearables really surge as far as sales So it's good to I think to have this conversation right now around the data and health data and and see this kind of play out Before more and more people I think start wearing these wearables every single day Yeah, and there's gonna be more and more pressure on Google To promise that it's going to manage data properly to not be anti-competitive to protect privacy Alphabet owns a company called Verily that could just take over the health data part of this Verily Operates under very strict health industry situations I feel like that would be a smart thing beyond that though if the EC is saying yeah But you still got the non-health data and you can still use that for ad targeting. That's a problem I think Google and I've heard some other people suggest this needs to pivot into being the company that allows you to manage your data The smartest thing in the world in my opinion would be for Google to go and sign up for MIT's solid project that Tim Berners-Lee is leading and say we are now going to be the company that protects that data Because if they don't someone else is gonna do that eventually and it's going to hurt Google They could do themselves a favor and get ahead of it if they did it now Yeah, I mean I couldn't agree more and I think the days of people not caring about the privacy Are going to eventually be behind us. I mean if we look at contact tracing apps Which one just launched in Canada a really simple privacy policy that was essentially three lines I said we don't have any of your data. I think people are more aware about privacy now And I think you're exactly right like if I had to pay a subscription to actually get access to all my data anywhere I wanted it. I mean that could be a better way again to allow the user to have access to their data And not think of so much about Google again selling that data and advertising as well. Yeah, absolutely Google announced new features for its smart displays speaking of Google Smart displays and speakers these features are meant for children participating in school at home a family bell can be programmed to go off At a specified time each day it emits a chime and speaks a message like time for school You can also just speak to a display and something say something like start the school day and have special visual Display have the lighting turn on in a room or or something maybe the blinds, you know turn off Not exactly school related is an update to the broadcast feature that lets you exclude a speaker So if you want to send a message from one room to another but not the whole house You can now do that and an animal of the day feature with sounds and tasks Which I think is for little kids and sounds kind of cute actually. Yeah I mean honestly, I think the back to school season for many many parents is going to be challenging I mean if you look at the past few months many parents I know have let their kids stay at much later than they're supposed to have let them play fortnight much longer than they're supposed To and so getting back into those routines is really difficult. So I think these are some good little features that they're launching I do have to say that the broadcast feature in terms of actually eliminating a speaker If you don't want to broadcast everywhere in the house if people aren't familiar with that It's just like Tom said you can use the broadcast feature to basically create an intercom from your Google home Or Google Nest hub or Google Nest smart speakers in the home And I love the idea that you could exclude a speaker because sometimes it gets a little annoying when you're broadcasting everywhere Yeah, or somebody sleeping in you don't want to wake them up, etc. Yeah Folks if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines comm Amber you just went to a farm run by robots. Is that correct? It absolutely is so we had a really unique opportunity to head out to a farm around about it an hour west of Toronto and I'm sorry. You mean an hour west of Hamilton And I know I know not of Hamilton Are you saying that is that it like a funny Canadian joke that I'm not getting time I that's a joke for my friends in Hamilton who try to pretend Toronto doesn't Sure, yeah, we'll just say the greater Toronto area around an hour west and it's a dairy farm that Is a fourth generation dairy farm They it had been entirely manual and what was really interesting is they have switched to robots to essentially run the dairy farm Because they just didn't have enough hands anymore They had people helping them who were no longer able to help the family wanted to hold on to the farm The only way to do it was to introduce robots. So they have a Milking robot. They have a feed robot that kind of pushes the feed up to the cows as they're eating Also, the entire barn is high tech So it's temperature control because the cows like it a very precise temperature So the blinds will go up and down based on the temperature. It was phenomenal You know, I've done a little bit of speaking in the agriculture world in terms of ag tech But actually putting your feet on the ground in one of these barns and seeing it firsthand was really eye-opening for me So I have so many questions With with the with the milking I know that that you were you were telling me before the show that the cows can decide when they get milked It's not like the robots are rolling around going up to the cows Yeah, absolutely. So it's called the the lelly astronaut This is the milking machine that is in the middle of the barn and what's really fascinating about this is exactly What you said like I used to think about high-tech farm and thinking okay You have to force the cows to go get milk They would be prodded to get into their space But actually what happens after about a week of training the cows and and teaching them to go to the robotic milking machine The cows understand that this is a place where they can go to get relief when they need to be milked Also, they get a little treat as well. And so the whole time we were there Which was probably around four and a half five hours There was a lineup of five or six cows waiting to be milked and I kept thinking like, you know Where where are the prods like who's pushing them in that direction? But they would just they were free to roam throughout the entire barn they all wear a little kind of like fit bits and They would just come when they wanted and as soon as they went to get milked You would see on the screen of the robotic machine that it would have their name all their other details So again, I think it really speaks to how Technology on a farm like this can be beneficial not just to the farmers to have that extra help But also to the cows who can potentially be healthier in that type of type of environment So the you said they get a little treat I assume that that's part of the motivation to go get milked But but it is may if people don't realize who didn't grow up in dairy country It's mostly about cows feeling like you know what I need to get milked Like that is that is a thing that that cows are uncomfortable when they have too much milk, right? Not not just cows Tom I will say as a mom who nursed.  And I think what used to happen in most dairy farms is that they would bring the cows together at the same time They would milk them all at the same time, but of course some of the cows aren't ready to be milked Right, I mean not all women produce the same amount of milk at the same time So it kind of makes sense when you go into that environment that the cows get that relief when they want that relief And there's no like you said there's no people pushing them over there There's no people even really like standing around monitoring it just sort of happens It just sort of happens so in the entire barn as I mentioned, they're free to roam around So they have their collars on so they have all of the diagnostics as far as their health But they're free to roam around each go to the robot machine when they want to go to the robot There's also a robot feeder that pushes all the feed towards them But you're right. I mean I had a lot of misconceptions before going there I would have thought that you know the cows were chained up. They were in tiny little stalls They weren't free to roam and what I saw with technology again is that I believe that the welfare of the cows is actually enhanced Because of this technology because no longer does a farmer have to come and kind of guess if the cow isn't healthy They'll get an alert on their phone because they're measuring all of those health diagnostics And this robot, I mean it's really kind of a big station with some moving arms and stuff to To milk do the milking and everything it does not look welcoming to be honest Well, have you ever seen a pump in terms of a breast pump?  I mean I I think the interesting thing again Is that the cows are coming there on their own to be milked and because it does give them that relief And because the actual pump will sort of measure their teats and understand because they know which cow is coming up It starts to learn the comfort level of being pumped You know, that's probably not going to happen with a human right, especially at 4 30 in the morning Yeah, it's you're you're just bleary. I'd sitting on a on a with a pale This is definitely better Then now we're focusing on the milking here, but there were some other technology in in the operation as well You mentioned the the trackers the Fitbit like things on them What is there anything else that that we missed that we should talk about? Yeah, so there was a feed robot. So it looks a little bit like r2d2 This is something I never realized either is that oftentimes if you see a cow feeding in a barn They're sorting through all the feed because they like certain parts of the feed better But they're pushing a lot of it away with their noses And so what what has to happen in the barn is that the feed is always pushed towards them Historically for decades that has actually happened manually with a farmer who comes in and pushes the feed towards the cows You know every couple of hours or however much they need to do it Now there's this r2d2 little robot that comes along and is constantly pushing the feed towards the cows So that was another interesting experience and the particular dairy farm we were at The woman who was a fourth-generation farmer, she said her grandfather used to do that job He left the farm. He was almost a hundred years old. He's still alive But now the robot has replaced him and they've named the robot after the grandfather knowing he has Assumed responsibility of that particular job. He has a he has a legacy. He has a robot legacy. That's amazing We can only wish for as much as you. Yeah, right You know, I was reading about Some of this this kind of technology in the columbus dispatch and they noted that this isn't really new It's just advancing somewhere between two and three percent of the approximately 36,000 dairy farms in the united states use automated milking systems And douglas j. Reinemann professor of biological systems engineering at the university of wisconsin madison Said the 20-year trend in the u.s. Is that the number of cows milked with robots has been doubling about every three to four years So this is this is an up-and-coming trend Yeah, it absolutely is and it was interesting talking to this particular woman because she had said that they used to get Up at 4 30 in the morning. I already mentioned that now with all of the robots in the barn They don't have to get up until about 7 30. So she was saying even for the health of the farmers who typically I mean, it's a grueling job, right? It's very Physically intensive. She said even for them. They were all feeling better and healthier because of all of this technology So I asked her I said, you know, are you worried that this is taking jobs away from farmers? And she said well There's a lot of people who don't want to work on these farms number one And she said there's a lot of families who want to keep these farms and they're only able to really maximize Their production if they put these robots in place Yeah, this is this is one where I you know agriculture in particular has a labor shortage we've talked about that before on the show and uh while there are situations where Automation does replace or push jobs into other arenas We have to pay attention to them. This is one where it actually helps the farmer avoid being taken over by by a larger business Which which I think is really interesting and really cool to look at Also up with the cows now means robots Yeah, I mean it's you know, I I think it was fascinating to just to think about the cost savings overall with some of this technology on the farm I mean, it's a huge investment, but you can reap the benefits of that over the years Well, thanks to everybody who participates in our sub reddit Uh, I know in the past you've sent us some good agricultural stories there Keep in coming submit stories and vote on them at daily tech news show dot reddit.com Let's check out the mailbag. Shara had a thought regarding the cai tags with photos Uh, did did you hear about this? We talked about it yesterday on the show Adobe is putting in or pushing forward along with twitter in the new york times an open source standard to use encryption to Have images Have the ability to list the history so you would know whether they were Manipulated or not, right? It would be a way for you to tell like oh this image has been changed I can see how it was changed It could also just be used for authorship to say like this image was created by me and nobody can change that Shara said stock image providers like adobe are going to love this Stock image providers probably have a nice secondary income from people who are using their images without paying for them If you download an image from a site and put it on your site But adobe actually owns the image you get a letter saying pay them Do you think this information is something adobe could crawl the web for yet? This feels a bit like aws to me where amazon made a thing for themselves But now it's a product for the public adobe is keeping the it's really for us part quiet Yeah, I think I think the fact that this is an open source project And that they're wanting others to come on board makes me feel a little less concerned about the aws part of that This isn't a private business for adobe. It's something they they really want to make an open platform But you're not wrong that the digital rights management aspect of this is something that not only adobe But getty and others could could definitely take advantage of Yeah, I mean I could see that for sure. I mean it reminds me There is a company based here in toronto called tin I and for many many years they've worked with some of these big photography companies That allows people who are publishers to essentially take a photo that They have the rights to and then match wherever else that photo has been on any website To potentially get in touch with the people who have used that image So I think anything that kind of protects the creative rights of Photography is a good thing, especially in this day and age where I think a lot of those people are hurting right now Yeah, and if we didn't make it clear yesterday, it's optional You don't have to put the history of the image in there. You don't have To put stuff in there. It does mean that you leave it open to me mistrust it if you don't But if you are The photographer and you don't want someone to see how you created the photo or how you touched it up You don't have to do that. You don't have to add that Hey folks, Austin from the google accessibility trusted user tester team Gattut would be how you would shorten that I guess He got in touch with us because they're looking for volunteers in canada to test google products for accessibility needs Testing like this helps the engineering teams at google better understand accessibility needs so they can incorporate them into future product enhancements If you're in canada or even in the united states, but they're focusing on canada right now And you're 18 years or older and can provide feedback in english and are willing to have a google account or already do Head to g.co slash a11 ytt or we'll have the link in the show notes as well And you can apply for the program. It's a way to kind of help contribute to accessibility at google Very cool, you know, I've been thinking so much about accessibility because we produce a lot of online video content And you know, I try to caption things sometimes we forget to caption things and I think at the end of the day I hope this just becomes the the standard and I'm happy to see companies out there Like rev that introduced that plugin for zoom.  I know google's been doing this for a bit But I think google's been at the forefront of accessibility if you look at the the big tech players They seem to really be leading the way. Yeah. Yeah, google's done a lot of great things apple and microsoft have also Done some really good accessibility things as well. I want to give them credit as as well But I like this idea of you have asking people to help because that that shows that you're taking it seriously Like we need the general public to help us test this So that we don't just introduce our own in company biases and I hope more companies are doing that Shout out to patrons at our master and grandmaster levels including ragnald varmidal read fishler and paul reese And of course, thank you amber mac for joining us. It's great to have you Thanks so much for having me if folks want to find out more about what you're up to where should they go these days Probably the best place is my email newsletter. I know that sounds so old school But it's amber mac.com slash newsletter. I send it out every tuesday. No strings attached. It's all about technology I like to say technology plus uh artificial intelligence all the latest stories. So uh, you can sign up there Yeah, new newsletters are so old school. They're new school again It's like podcasts right people ask me to do a podcast and they explain to me what it is And i'm like I I did a podcast like 13 years ago. I don't know what you're talking about Oh, that's great. Uh, go check it out folks amber mac.com slash newsletter Also, uh, we're asking folks if you get a chance even if you don't use it to review us in the apple podcasts store It helps raise the profile of the show Uh, we we think it has some effect on how the list goes up You can just leave a rating that helps or if you want to write a few things in there as well That would be cool too. Uh, so if you are on ios or macos, it's easy You can even go to the web and do it as well But if you're looking for a free cheap and easy way to help the show Just go review us in the podcast app or any podcast app out there You can also support the show directly and get some cool perks We got a new security threat wire, uh about a a bootloader vulnerability from shannon morse in there Go check that out patreon.com slash dtns Our email address is feedback to daily tech news show dot com. We're live monday through friday 4 30 p.m Eastern 20 30 utc find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live back tomorrow with scott johnson And senator lane talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network Get more at frog pants dot com Well, I hope you have enjoyed this program


In support of the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations has called for a data revolution. Vietnam, together with UNU Wider and its partners, have established data sets charting the country's rapid development. This series shares some of the lessons learned. It was involved in several data set development during the period from 2004 until now. We work closely with partners related to different types of data sets. For example, CIM collaborates with ISAD, which specializes in labour issues. CIM also collaborates with ISAD, which is a leading institution on the aspect of agricultural and rural development. From our collaboration, I could see the most important thing is to choose relevant collaboration partners. We are the kind of very closely linked between the research and the policy-making process. CIM did the same research work and the policy formulation. We are very close to the government, so that's why we confident that our work could influence to our policy formulation process as quick as possible. The Vietnam case can be a good example for other developing countries in the world. I think this experience can be documented and can be disseminated around the world so that other countries can learn and know about Vietnam and our experience.


The reason why narcissists live double lives. The narcissist lives two separate and very different lives and they appear to be a different person in each. And one of them could be regarded as embarrassing and moral or unlawful and it may be kept hidden from their family, friends and work colleagues. They deceive people by having two separate homes, families and sets of activities, one of which they keep secrets. But why do they do it? Why do they live double lives? Why do they have secret relationships? Here are three of the main reasons why. One, they love to keep secrets. Narcissists love to keep secrets because it makes them feel in control by knowing something you don't know, which is why they will always be hiding something from you. They will always be cheating once they have secured you as their source of supply because they get bored and they always need something fresh and new. So they will always be looking for the next shiny new toy and they're very skilled at convincing their new supply that they are their soulmate or the one. They will make you feel like you are the center of their world while they are doing the exact same thing with someone else. The narcissist is like the sun. They have multiple planets orbiting them. You are never the only one. Two, narcissistic supply. Narcissists live double lives to get more narcissistic supply, to get more attention and admiration. They enjoy the brush of meeting someone new, someone who doesn't know who they are and someone who they haven't learned. It excites them. It feeds their ego. It makes them feel special and important, desirable and attractive. So whenever they find the opportunity to float with someone new, they will take advantage of it. They love putting people under their spell. They love having people wrapped around their thumb. People who they can toy with. People who they can manipulate. It makes them feel like they are the center of the universe, which is what every narcissist desires and wants. And when they live double lives, they can get both positive and negative supply. They can get positive attention from their new supply while they're still getting negative attention from you. They will devalue you and put you down. They will do everything they can to make you hate them while they're still receiving positive attention and admiration from their new supply. But eventually, one of you will be discarded and replaced. Three, insatiable desires. Narcissists have insatiable desires that can never be fulfilled. They have an appetite that is impossible to satisfy. They're never happy with anything they have. They always think they can do better. They always want more. They will do whatever it takes to get you. But once they've got you, they want anyone but you. Because they get bored. It's no longer fun or exciting. Your supply loses its potency, so now they need to find new supply. Narcissists live double lives. They enjoy keeping secrets because it makes them feel in control. They're only concerned with their own self-interest and needs, but they fear being exposed. Their secrets would expose their lack of empathy. It would reveal to you that they never really cared about you. It would reveal to you that they were never exclusive to you. You were never the only one. You were never special to them. You were one of many. They were never loyal to you. They never loved you. And that is why they live a double life. Because they only care about what they want. They only care about themselves. There's no amount of your time, love or money that could make them happy. They will always be looking elsewhere. Because they will always want more. One person could never be enough for them. But they will not take accountability for their actions. They will not accept the truth of what they are. When you discover their double life, they will blame you for their cheating. They will make it your fault. They will accuse you of cheating. They will ghost you. They will disappear for days, weeks or even months at a time. They will give you the silent treatment because they have another life. They're involved with someone else. They're telling them the same things they say to you. But none of it is real. It's all a facade. They become cold because someone else has that attention. They're distracted by that other life. But sometimes they will come back and love bomb you. They will give you that attention again when they get bored of their new supply. Narcissists live multiple lives. But they're not satisfied with either of them. Which is why they always go back and forth. It's just a matter of time. Thank you for watching. I hope this video resonates with you. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. If you would like to donate, my paypal link is in the video description. Coaching inquiries, you can email me at coaching at Narcissify.VerticalUK. Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon.