It's over, it's every time, it's really like I feel like I do the opening talk and I do a closing talk and I'm not sure exactly what happened in between, but I had a lot of fun. It was fantastic to see everybody again and new people, people who have been here already for longer. I think the quality of the presentations this year was so good. Man, what a fantastic community we have. I just went away from the room next door where they were showing a feature film. I was blown away completely what they are doing. You really should talk to them about anyone who's into 2D animation drawing and 3D, combining with freestyle, they're making a mind-blowing movie. Watch the video later. I had a lot of fun. I would like to thank a couple of people and with that we're going to close the conference. Maybe the slide with the sponsor names in the back. I forgot to ask you that. Is that possible? Of course, we have to thank our sponsors as first thing. That can be the slide behind me when I'm doing all the other thank yous. The first thank you is... It's in my keynote, the last slide of my keynote. So let me first thank Francesco, who's going to find the slide with the sponsors. So Francesco did so much work on getting this conference to work. I hardly have to do anything anymore. He's now doing all the mailing, all the sit-with-the-speakers, the streaming, the video. I make sure here that things were working. I make sure that the speakers had a good belief that they know what to do here. Most of the talks went smooth. We hardly had technical problems, which is always famous on Blender Conferences. Now the technical problems were limited to one or two, maybe. Further, the videos are already online. They're being uploaded right now. This is really the most smooth conference ever, and we have to thank Francesco. But that's not all. I have a long list of names here, so let's start with Andy, for example. Andy Goracic was Andy, Andy. Where's Andy? He made, for example, the program booklet. I would like to thank Pablo, Pablo Baskers. Is Pablo here still? Pablo somewhere? He's hiding somewhere, probably over at the drinking beer. So Pablo, thank you for the web stuff. Online things. Julian Caspar, our new talent. He did the Susanna intro animations with the bees and the starve in between. A master modeler. Geltie did the animation of the bees and the starve. Geltie, are you still here? Geltie is your boss. I don't know. Probably in the back drinking over here. I have Olivier, who did the lightning talks. Olivier, thank you. I have Siebren for the video encoding system to make sure that everything immediately went to the web. And of course Sergei for the technical support to get all the computers to work at least. Where is Sergei? Sergei, gone somewhere. Good. I would like to thank Anja for the administration and getting all the stuff, all the speakers, mailing everyone. And Anna for being in the store. Anja, Anna, make lots of noise. Good. And of course Debali. There's all the technicians here, there in the back and the camera team and the people in the directing room. Thank you. And at last the speakers, right? And you, the audience for being here. Thank you. We'll be back next year. Yeah! Okay, so now the conference is off. The conference is officially closed. Thank you. Bye bye. See you next year.


Did I find it on hero? I see us! Does it sound okay? I see us! It seems like it sounds okay. Okay, so I'm gonna leave that next to the phone. What's up? What's up everybody? So we are attempting to stream from our GoPro something. 8, 9, 9? That's a 9. Our GoPro 9, we found out that it has streaming capabilities and so that's what's happening. Anyways, thank you guys so much for coming and seeing what we're up to today. Hello, hello, hello. So yeah, today I am going to do some texture. I gave it two thumbs up today because we can hear you. Well, thank you very much. So I did these earlier today trying to figure out how to plaster. Nope. How to modeling paste, which I put a little bit of plaster in as well, but I think they look okay and so I'm gonna show you how to do this in theory. Marcy, what's up? Hello everyone. Can we contact Emma until I come over here? Oh, is she on the other one? My failed attempt at a live? Oh, me, right? Marcy with five dollars. Thank you. He had a gut feeling that I was gonna go live with texture after seeing my post. Well, you nailed it. What's up, Betty?  I appreciate that five dollars, Marcy. Every dollar we bring into the channel goes right back into it and every dollar super helps. So super thanks. So I'm using this, I had this leftover from when I did those massive white and gold geoids, burls and Marcy, you're in Dallas right now. Oh yeah, you have that thing. So this is a modeling paste by Liquitex. This jug cost me like, I don't even know how much. There's cheaper. I think golden has a cheaper version. Kathy, thank you so much. I don't even have my perfume. Just getting my perfume. Guess where's everybody hanging out at? I really appreciate that, Kathy, so, so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There you go. So this is what modeling paste looks like. It has slight smell of ammonia, but that could be because it's, this is older. It is goopy. What's up, small bird? You do catch alive.  So here we go. I'm going to use something. I'm going to use this to get some of my this out of here. Now, the modeling paste is awesome, but it tends to dry kind of quickly. I'm glad everybody's here. So it even dried out on the side of my bucket a little bit. Like I have some dried bits, but as far as I can tell, if it's just kind of dry, then you can mix it back in and it'll, it'll be fine because it's water-based. So it kind of can melt, but I think that's only if it's half set up instead of full set up. I don't know. So sketchy. Our cats are having sketchy moments over here. So I already tried this on two little tea tiny flowers, but I'm going to get extra with the rest of this, I think. I'm going to try to get extra. You can also get stuff from hardware stores. Sweet. Roll Tide Lisa. You have something you never used it. So Judy gave me a few different kinds of texture stuff not too long ago. I know it's pretty cool to play with. So I'm using regular plaster. This is what I was using last week in my, what were those? My molds for all those coasters. And I was doing this earlier on a, like a paper plate, a disposable plate. Didn't really work out because of the amount of space I needed to be able to mix things in and to actually get a flower petal. It's a lot more skilled. Okay, that sounds horrible. I'm not saying that people that do texture medium work is not skilled. It's super skilled. I just had no idea how skilled you actually had to be. And today I found out. So this would probably be easier if I was working on a regular, like a palette. But sometimes you got to work with what you got. And today I got butcher sheets. There's no real formula that I could find of how to thicken up your modeling paste. I did read that you could use flour, which I tried and it kind of worked. And you can use cornstarch, which I did not try. But you can also use marble powder, which I did not try to have any. And that sounds expensive. And baking soda. However, the only baking soda I have is the Cranford laundry. And that doesn't really work out quite so nice. You can see on this one, it's kind of gross, not gross, but discolored on the tips. And that is from whatever it is that's in the washing baking soda. So I guess it has a little bit of detergent in it. I don't know, but it didn't like it. So mer. Oh, thank you so much, Marcy. We do work really hard to bring people videos as often as we can. And super chats are amazing. No pressure. I'll take it and I'll love it and I'll cherish it, but no pressure. Maybe we should bring back our giveaways for our channel contributors. So I don't know if you guys can see this, but maybe you'll get you in a little closer. This is still way too fluid. It's a little bit too much like cream cheese. That's awesome, Susan. So I'm going to see that if it just looks like this, it's a little bit too fluid. It's a little bit too nice. I'm going to be trying to pick up the modeling paste with a texture in it that looks like a flower petal. So I have to thicken it up so that the texture stays. I was going to have my original intention was to have all of my modeling paste and colors and everything already, but I wanted you guys to know this process mixing in the plaster. See, that's more like it. Chrissy, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I really, really do. So I wanted to have a little bit more of a grit to it. You can see it doesn't just smooth out. Super easy. It doesn't look like shiny. What was that thing I just said? Cream cheese. Oh, I also saw some people use baby powder, but I don't have any. I may have some gold bond and I have some dry shampoo, but I don't think either of those. That looks like the drying right now. I know it just is going to look like that until I mix in all the powder. Also, if you get it to a state where it's just too solid, like if this were to stay like this, then I would just put some more modeling paste on it. They also mixed in fibers from like toilet paper or baby diapers? Question mark? Actually, I'm just going to put this and this together. Well, you don't have that on a board. It seems like a hassle with that paper. It's not the funnest time with this paper, but it's not going to be in my life for that long, so I'm not going to get worked up about it. All right. So we have our consistency. It's kind of like bread dough. It's got a little bit of stickiness to it, but it's going to hold its shape. I'm going to get a new piece of paper and we're going to start making far, getting a new piece of paper because I don't want to risk picking up just a bunch of, what's it called? Yeah, but more, oh, mom. Nope. Plaster. I don't want to just pick up a whole special of plaster. You can do so many things with this that's not making flowers. I mean, we did this one earlier. It took not a lot of time at all. And so with the leftovers, I will do of this super quick, super fun, super awesome, super, super. So let's split this because I'm going to do two colors. Probably wouldn't hurt to do gloves. That's enough, though. Okay. All right. So this is how you make it different colors. Basically, use just any water-based paint that you have. You could even use Micas. Nope. I feel like tried Micas, but I know you can. This color is Deco Art Metallics in teal, dazzling teal. If you think you add too much paint, then just add more modeling paste. Because the modeling paste and everything you mixed into it is an opaque white color, just know that your colors may end up pastelling up a bit, but you can add more color. And if that makes your everything too thin, then just add more of whatever dry ingredient that you're using, like the plaster, which is what I used, but you don't have to use plaster. You can use any of those other things that I mentioned earlier. I'm okay with this being not all the same color because that's boring. I just want to make sure I don't have any patches of just acrylic paint because that's going to take longer to dry. I bet this would look really cool with chameleons, by the way. All right. And the other one, I'm going to mix a yellow by Folk Art Yellow Flash, number 5195. Hi, Sandy in Vegas. How are things out there? I was trying to get, like, she was, like, scared. Oh, because you had to go under that chair to get it. Girlcat, don't you be mean? She's just, like, following around.  So I haven't really done any successful two-tone pieces, but it's about to happen. I'm about to do a successful one. You guys are going to witness it. It's going to be amazing. Okay? Okay. Hey, Toots. How long do you have to work with this? So if it starts to dry out on you, I have found through more errors than trials, but trial and error, that you can just add more modeling paste if it hasn't fully dried out on you, and that should wake back up your existing modeling paste. All right. Here's the deal. This next process, it took so long to figure out, because no one really goes into detail about it, but you're supposed to, like, put a thin layer of your color out. I saw people do this part, but they didn't explain how thick the layer should be or anything. So I just had to figure it out, because that was not fun. So it's, like, an eighth inch, probably. All right. Oh, it is Ukraine colors, isn't it? So I'm taking my palette knife, and I'm only picking up color from the angle to the tip. So where the bend is to the tip of the palette knife. And I'm going to try to hold it at a 45 degree angle. And I'm just going to press and remove bits of color. It's not thick enough. So what I'm trying to do is pick up color, like this, but more refined. And it should have a texture on it after I pick it up. Clara. So there is none. It's just globs, if you will. And so the answer to that is this. Unfortunately, I thought I had enough on there, so you guys didn't have to see me mix any more of this, but it's not the case. And so I'll try to hurry.  So to do that, I have to thicken it up a bit so that it will hold the texture. That's why I say it's like bread dough, where it's kind of a little bit gritty. So if you tried to, like, smear it, you can see that kind of putty texture. That's what it looks like, play dough. Yeah, it looks kind of like play dough. Arlene, I am trying to make a thick modeling paste with plaster so that I can show you guys how to make flowers and do designs with a texture medium and a stencil. All right, before I get done with this and move on, I have to wipe my this off again. I mean, just make sure of what it looks like before I move on. It's almost there. I don't know if you guys can see that there's just a little bit of texture right in here, but not so much here. So I need to mix a bit more of that. Not a lot. And so then you just fold it in. I swear I didn't know that it would take this long to get the right consistency or I would have already had this stuff pre-mixed for you guys. However, it's also pretty important to know what kind of consistency you need because I tried to do this after watching a couple videos on mute and had no idea that consistency was key. Who knew? I didn't, but now I know. Now I know. You know what bread looks like when you pull it out of a like a stand mixer. I don't know because I don't make bread or have a stand mixer, but this is what I envision it looking like from like the few movies that I have seen that have stand mixers in it and they make bread. Let's give this a shot. Also special thanks to Judy for bringing this way of arting to my attention. I had no idea. Perfect. See how it has like that ripple look. Hope you can see that because our yellow is good to go. Now I just have to do the same thing to our blue color and we can make petals finally. It just wasn't thick enough. I thought it was. That's okay because this is thick enough now and everybody knows what it's supposed to look like. So there are texture mediums and fillers and thickeners that you can use that doesn't have to do with powder or modeling paste. Any thick medium that will hold its shape is good for what I'm about to do. Bonus if you can color it to whatever colors that you like, but yeah. I can still see some shiny in the blue so I know it's not ready yet. Basically yeah, look for ripples. Look for Play-Doh or fresh bread dough consistency. Or you know when you have cookie dough, that's what it looks like. Like when you break it apart and it's kind of not gritty but you can see a texture. It's not super smooth. That's kind of where I'm trying to get to. I don't think I added too much powder, but if I did, not a big deal. All I have to do is add a little bit more plaster. Nope. A little bit more modeling paste. I think we're good. You can also pipe this stuff through like icing bags, which I got today in preparation for me doing some this. All right. So just like with resin, I'm going to show you guys the things that people didn't want to share with me. I didn't ask anybody this time. I just did a quick search. This is my first glass of wine and I just spilled it. Okay. So this is going to be a two-tone flower petal. This is my first attempt slash fail at a two-tone flower petal. It's neither cute or amazing or floral. And so what I do is smear out some color kind of on the thin side. And then, okay, Bowie, I'm going to pick up just slivers of it at a 45 degree angle, concentrating on the tip. Because that's where I want most of my color, most of my everything. And that's going to help it the flower petal kind of curl and create a look. Right, Jenny? I figured you had a bunch. So I'm just going to pick up a bunch and then I'm going to switch to blue so that we have some tone. See, we're picking up two tones. Seems risky for me to do that. Okay. So now I have my first petal. I guess we'll do it on here. There's the two-tone petal. This is a background petal, so it doesn't have to be cute. No. So you really want it to have all that thickness so that you can kind of shape it once it starts to like dry a little bit. So I'll be able to shape this petal. All this down here doesn't count. It didn't matter. All right. Next petal. Oh, forgot to tell you guys. If you are doing a petal on your left right here, then you want to load up like this so that all the fan or the flower petal comes out on this side. Whatever side you want to do it on, you need the fan of pigment to come out on that side. So I'm going to do one on this side, the left side of the center. So I'm going to pick all of my everything up so that... See all those ripples and textures on the back? You be careful, Joe. So I'm going to set it just under this petal and smear it towards the center. That way I can do whatever I want with this part of the petal once it starts to set up a little bit. What's up, Rumpal? Okay. So now we're going to do the other petal. So I have to load... So we're going to do a petal on this side. So I have to load my palette knife opposite. We need some more everything. We're going to put a thin line back out and then load up on that side of the palette knife. So with every scrape that you make, it's picking up more color. And so just like the first one, we're just going to lift this side a little bit so that we can put this petal in there. Do whatever we want to do with that outside edge. Bring it up a little bit. That may be three petals. Oh, do you see Pugsley? He's always back there. All right. So now I need to do another one over here. I'm just going to load it up regular so that it comes off the left side. Nice texture. Now we're going to lift that petal up and put this one right up in there. So we got kind of the pinwheel action going on. Now I need a center. I guess I could make a purple center just because that's what's closest. A lot of people that I saw doing these would kind of just take fake flower centers and use those, which is fine. These two colors are nice together. So from what I saw on the internets, I'm just going to put a little glob right there in the middle. That's going to be our pollen area. Right. Thank you, Judy, for this super idea because she definitely got my brain thinking about it. Okay. These next ones are kind of the harder ones because I can't even show you. I don't know where that thing. You're having to like flip the petals up in the front. And since we made these so thick, you can still move them around and make them however you want them to look. I like the idea of the two-tone ones because then there's separation between the two petals, not the two petals, all of the petals. Anyways, I'm going to quit talking. My stuff's drying out. Just put another thin layer. I was going to try to figure out something that is that thin, but I even put peanut butter thicker than what we're doing right now. Pick up some more colors, colors, more colors, colors. And a lot of times I'm doing a lot of times. I've only done like three of these. I don't like the first part of it, so I'll take that off and just remove that petal with another palette knife so I can kind of control it better. These are so scared. One, yeah, I may need your help with this big stencil. You guys, I have so many ideas for this. This. You guys have no idea. All right, I'm just going to cut the first of that off. Add that petal down there. I got two more petals to do. That is the ring doorbell. Okay, I just got two more petals than what we're going to move on. I just got to smear some more of this out. I'm going to use the rest of this to create a bigger piece with a lot of texture. So all that's going to curl over if I don't stop. It'll like do this and then it'll pick up this crusty stuff from the top of my palette knife. So I'm trying to keep it open. So now I'm going to put it in my piece. No! One more petal. Can I say petal to the metal if I'm talking about flowers? Or is that a no? Probably a no since Jeff was, he just exited. I can show you how to do those flowers as well. A little bit of transfer some of my everything but that's a flower. Not my best. Certainly not my worst. I think my main issue is these are, I need these to be flatter. Maybe come up here. Well that's a great thing about working with this stuff. I can change the way it looks even after it's down. Let's put two petals just going upward. Mold that and that and then we'll just bring these guys. We'll just pinch them and make them taller as well. That looks more like a flower. I don't know if you have to seal them with something. I wouldn't imagine so. I will show you how to do that textured piece behind me in just one moment. This one. This is actually super simple in comparison. I'm going to dry brush these and make them look amazing. Hey B can I borrow yourself? Sticky at all. Just seeing this stuff to refine it more because I know that anybody that's actually worked with this that may be watching is probably like L and G. Why? So yeah I'm going to get better. I'm going to get better. So for this one you can use our hex stencils. You can use any stencil really. Other side. Jeff just sprayed this stencil with some sticky so not the other side. I don't know. It is. It's that side. It's just like not. Maybe because it's so thin. Yeah. It's just kind of going through but let me spray it. I did. I will show you how to do the white flowers. Okay take your sticky this and figure out how you want it. I am a fan for not even a fan. So I like to offset it. It's like dry. Okay so if your this is almost dry we're just going to take some more of our fresh modeling paste and mix it in. Just fold it in. Don't do it with a plastic this because you won't get very far at all. So it was drying out a bit but because we caught it before it was solid. Girl cat. It's not what that's for. But since we caught it before it was solid we can mix just a little bit more modeling paste in it. Wake it back up and make it more usable. As you can see because I'm mixing more opaque whiteness into it it has dulled out my color considerably. So while I have the yellow on my this I'm going to add a little bit more color. I mean you may be able to add water but that's kind of that would be very very delicate process. I feel like you could add too much water a lot easier than you could add just too much more modeling paste. But that's not to say you can't do it. In my one day of studies on this medium I didn't see anybody doing that but that's not to say you can't. That's just I didn't I haven't done it and I haven't seen anybody do it so I can't I can't speak on it but I don't see why it would be an issue. I mean okay we're gonna go ahead and put out the yellow because I already have it mixed up. Let's go inside out. We'll start on the inside and work our way to the outside. After I get this done I'll show you guys how to make the white flowers and then class will be dismissed unless you guys have more questions. Okay so for this these stencils are not thick at all whatsoever and you don't have to put a lot of product down to get your texture. In fact it's better if you keep it on the thinner side. I know it but since I would ultimately be wasting it if I don't leave it on here I'm gonna leave it on here but for real skim it down to where you see your mold. Nope what is this? A stencil. Skim it down to where you see the stencil underneath it and that will help it to be cleaner. Relief no texture. It'll be cleaner. I'm gonna actually mix it. I'm just gonna put some white as it um something transition color to keep from getting too much green. I already know that it's gonna happen but that'll kind of help be a barrier between the colors. Our Ritterhoff did. I will keep that in mind then because we love Ann Marie Ritterhoff PS.  Her new spot looks nice though okay so now we're going to thin out our this real quick and by thin out I just mean mix more modeling paste in it to get it back to a workable state because I don't need it to keep high peak textures so we're gonna just work it back down to something that's a little bit more fluid but not too fluid. Cleaner edges. See I always need clarification. Your dog heard Bowie and started to growl that's funny. Bowie's vicious so I understand. There's nothing wrong with green. I just want it to be teal and yellow. You guys know that green never does what I need it to. Okay we added just a little bit more color so that it's a little bit darker because in my world I love a juxtaposition between dark and light color. Glossy and flat, shimmery and not shimmery and so to keep that theme going strong I'm trying to keep my aqua color a darker shade. Definitely would be easier if I had this on a palette instead of just a roll of butcher paper but you know what sometimes you work with what you got and sometimes what you got is just butcher paper and that's fine right right right. Now let's slather this goodness on here. Slather, slather, slather, bless you, more slather. So now let's just pretend we're icing a cake which 1000% is what this feels like. I feel like I am fully working with some buttercream right now which is fine because who doesn't love buttercream? I would highly recommend spray adhesive for your stencil because all this movement all this action is just going to pick up your stencil and you're going to get under it and then you're going to call me and ask what you did wrong and I'm going to say did you use any spray adhesive? You're going to be like I mean maybe I did but maybe not also and I'll be like well that's why your edges are fuzzy.  So now that we have everything down I'm not really that concerned about blending out the colors as long as there's some color in there. Maybe I'll even let's see what we got this. Let's do what we will do what an out way and then an in way and then an out way. Nope that all looks the same. I don't want my yellow to get too um it'll all look amazing once we pull up the stencil. I'm just trying to get a little bit more visual awesome. I don't know what this is gonna look like but in my head it's gonna look amazing so that's what we're gonna go with. B do you want to see the moment of truth or no? That's not a bad idea Judy. You ready? You can spray paint it if you want some of the stencil on the stencil and spray paint it and then peel it off. Do you want to do that? No just do that. Ready are you ready are you ready. This is a 27%. Yeah but this is fun right there so I can clean it in a minute. So in like an hour depending on how thick this is in some areas I can sand down the high points and then thinking about filling in with resin in between. I'm not going to worry about the high points right now I'm just going to sand it down. Yeah just wait. That's what I did I just waited and I hit that with hit it with some pretty rough sandpaper. Hit it with the high hat. Will you hear me that uh paisley one real quick? I just want to see you know just want to see it. I'm picking up all my extras. She was doing a thin definitely less stressful when I know that it's got um an adhesive on it to keep it from moving. That's okay. I mean it's paisley. How fun that like the perimeter paisley did stuff too. Yes waste not want not and it's easiest to get as much as you can off your stencils with your palette knife and then get up in your crevices. You just like soak it in water and just dissolve right? I mean could we can test it so they don't have tea should I just roll it and put it in there but yeah mind your this because it's going to it'll dry up on you. Okay white flowers are super easy in comparison. I guess let's do it on them. Okay okay that base is not cheap very very true.  A resin running the grooves only had to keep probably going to use a syringe to keep it away from the top areas that I want to keep glossy.   So this outer edge has more height more texture than anything on the inside edge and it kind of fades towards the center. Angela have you been? So then I'm going to do a couple of those. Donna says I have three exhibitions coming up and need to do slideshow for them. My normal program does not exist now any suggestions. Suggestions on what to use for a slideshow? Okay so then we're going to need another pedal pressure down the handle and bring it in. So that's how our seashells are done. Thank you Angela. We had an amazing time at our wedding. Still waiting for videos and stuff to come back but they will. Okay and I'm doing the same thing and on that one I got a little too deep with the pressure so I'm just going to go back through like that. Now it almost looks like two pedals and that's okay. I always like to start with five pedals on the outside. I'm hoping that I can fit five. So that's our basic flower shape of our background pedals. I won't be able to bend or fold these like I did my other ones that I'm gonna be practicing because I promise if you look up plaster flowers they actually look really cool. I just did not do them justice but I'm gonna. I'm so sorry Angela you can always come here for fam. Now we're just gonna do some inside pedals making sure to stagger them so that they aren't laying exactly on top of the pedal before it. Um Angela all the love here from us to you. Also that we're just layering pedals. That's like Angela but we love you. So now we have a center open. We're just gonna take I just have some on the end of my pointed pallet knife and just giving it kind of a texture just kind of stippling into it a little bit. And that's all it takes to do. All right you have 14 percent. One of these flowers. Flower. I only have 14 percent left so I can't do a whole bunch with you guys. I'm just gonna try to do I guess um a little one. Harder to do little ones. Oh percent. My goodness. It's going fast. Okay not used to this kind of pressure. I don't know if you guys can even notice how much more goopy this is than our first flowers. The idea with this is just to have more height on the outside of the pedal than on the inside of the pedal. Seven percent. How is that seven percent? Actually one. What? Okay you guys be kind of one another. You never know what someone's going through. And always remember. We do the test. So you don't have to and we'll see you guys tomorrow. I'll show you guys what this looks like and maybe we'll do something else. Texturety. So till next time. Bye. I said bye.


Good afternoon and welcome. Today we are sitting in Brynston, which is South Africa's most searched suburb. We are at 42B St. Audley and even though this property has a B in the name, this is definitely an A plus property. It has five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, four reception areas, with a floor size of 360 square meters and a land size of 950 square meters and it goes for a very reasonable price of 5,250,000 rents. So what I'd like you to do is follow me because it is time to check out this property. As you come through the beautiful white double doors, you find yourself in a reception slash dining room area. This area cuts immediately into a free-flowing kitchen that really is an entertainer's dream. What you'll find around here is tons of natural light as well as a fireplace that really incorporates an urban chic feel. You can see the exposed brick wall brings a lot of earthy undertones and really, is there anything that you could find yourself not wanting to do in an area an open reception area, dining room area, kitchen area like this? It is wonderful. If you move into the kitchen, you'll find yourself some beautiful granite countertops with ample cupboard space with exposed wood that is beautiful to feel. Right over here, we've got a stove top burner with five burners as well as an incorporated oven. You've got a faucet and your basin there and if we move this way, more cupboard area.  They really put a lot of thought. Another major feature within the kitchen is as you can see this excavator fan with the beautiful stainless steel chimney. The different lighting, the owner has fitted right at the house. It really is a good theme to the lighting and a lot of character brings to the house. Another thing I want you to keep in mind is just to the right of the kitchen. There is a kitchenette or a scullery and in that scullery, you can put your dishwasher, your washing machine, your tumble dryer, so it is out of sight.  So enough about downstairs. Let's take a look at upstairs. There's a beautiful eye beam on these stairs that draws the eye upstairs. Again, double-volted ceiling is a huge feature of the house. Stainless steel balustrade lead up to a loft area where really imagination is the limit. Currently, this is being converted into an office storage room as well as a guest bedroom and bathroom. So we're going to show you this guest bedroom and bathroom right now and really it is being decorated immaculately. There are cantilever windows that open up and let in such a beautiful cool breeze. You can see we've got these plaid wooden ceilings that also brings in that farmhouse vibe. It is such a pleasant experience up here. You've got a shower in the corner as well as a basin, but let's head down to the sitting room. So as you come out of the guest bedroom, as I've mentioned, there's an office storage room right over here. If you move in, this is something you can make your own. If you'd like to put an office in here, it is perfectly situated for you to do so. Floor-to-ceiling window where you get an immaculate view of this whole house. So then let's take a look at this incredible view. I feel like a king surveying my kingdom. Welcome to the sitting room. It's a beautiful open space that leads right out into the garden. Another thing that I wanted to mention and I've mentioned it a couple times before is the amount of attention the owner has paid to lighting. We've got beautiful downlights here and as well as some feature lights in the corner. Just behind me, we've got another half-bathroom as well as a study-slash playroom. However you want to feature it, there is space there for that. As you can see behind me now, what a beautiful open space this is. So much light, so much air. Now as we move forward, behind me, yeah, we have got some stairs that are going to lead to the other bedrooms and to the left, we've got a perfect reading nook. Take a look at this. Who wouldn't want to just collapse into this and read a beautiful book? Oh, didn't see you there. Let's put this away and let's show you the rest of this house. So as we move off of the sitting room and we follow the fantastic feature wall on my right hand side, we're coming to the study-slash playroom. This leads directly off into the garden with beautiful views, very light, very airy, two of the biggest features of this house. And now let's take a look at that half-bathroom. As you come out of the play-slash study, you've got a perfect half-bathroom right here to serve as people coming off of the sitting room, to serve as people coming out of the playroom, as well as a very, very easy accessible guest bathroom. So within the bathroom and the shower itself, you'll see the hand-fitted pebble flooring as well as the isca taps. There's two full-on glass shower walls. Just to the left of the shower, there'll be a fantastic-looking basin with a double-wide mirror. There's a lot of light, there's a lot of air, and it is a refreshing, comfortable place to be. Welcome. Let's take you into the first room. Another theme here is light, is air, is brightness. A lot of attention to the details have been paid to the hanging lights, and this is the first master bedroom. Tons of cupboard space as soon as you walk into your right-hand side with floor-to-ceiling windows on the left. And as you peek out the windows, you get such a stunning view of the garden. As you move off onto the in-suite bathroom for the main bedroom, the first thing you'll see is the incredible floating tub sitting in the corner, just underneath the double-volted windows. Within the in-suite bathroom, you'll see the heater towel rack as well as a heater. It's really going to bring a lot of warmth to those colds of African winter nights. There, you'll also find a double-size shower with floor-to-ceiling glass. It is an incredible shower with some turquoise tiles at the back. You'll also see an ample cupboard room in here for some towels, whatever else your bathroom necessities might need. Again, like the remainder of this house, it's a lot of light, it's a lot of warmth, it's a lot of air. And it's something that you really need within the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg. Upstairs, just outside the master bedroom, you'll find two spare bedrooms. These can both be allocated as office space, or in this case, bedrooms for your children. They have both got very high ceilings, which brings a lot of space and volume to the area. And they are both complete identical copies of one another. So you'll find the mirrors and the windows on the right-hand side and on the left-hand side in the other bedroom. At the end of the upstairs hallway, you'll find a bathroom dedicated for use for the two spare rooms. This is a full bathroom. So inside it, you'll find a shower, a toilet, a bath, and a basin. Within the upstairs hallway as well, you'll find yourself a full linen cupboard. Relaxing on a sunny day outside, what more can you ask for? And in this case, for this house, not much. So let's run through some other features this house has. It has a full double garage, as well as ample parking within the house, but not within the garage for other cars. It also has full block of access to the upstairs bedrooms that we had just toured with the Trilly door gate. Another one of the features is an intercom, both within the main bedroom, as well as within the downstairs living area. So if you do get a visitor, you don't need to rush around the house to try and let them in. And last but not least is a ten strand electric fence around the premises, as well as a Wi-Fi camera system. It's all built in, it's all here for your safety. But let's talk a bit about this living area. You can see outside, just off the inside living area, it is stunning. There's been so much detail paid to the lighting within the outside living area as well. And within this whole porch, just off it to the left will be a bar area. And you've got your wraparound garden. Let's take a look at it. Top of the garden, you'll find a beautiful pool area. Within the pool area there are some built-in sun loungers for you to take advantage of the amazing South African sunny days. And a perfectly sized pool for you to dip in, take a couple of laps, and just relax with friends, with family, every single weekend that you don't need to be hard at the grind. Would you like wine? Would you like whiskey?   Coming right off the outside patio, you have this beautiful authentic bar experience here that you can enjoy with your family, with your friends, or by yourself. Cheers to you. And there we have it folks, St. Orleys Road, Brineston, what a spectacular property and what a spectacular family home. I'm sure you all felt that, enjoyed the tour. So if this is the home that you feel is for you, don't hesitate to contact the agent, Charlene Negus from First Realty, all of her details on the screen right now. Great, seamless natural light. My name is Chad Rivera and I'll be taking you around so that we can show you some of the most luxury homes there is to offer. And I'd like you to join me. Welcome to George Street Brineston, an idyllic and quiet street in one of the most sought-after suburbs of Santon. Here we have a three-bedroom house with three in-suite bathrooms, as well as a guest bathroom on the ground floor that serves as another half bathroom, with a total of 860-metre-squared floor area and 2,522-metre-squared land area. There's a lot to love about this house. And I think it's time for me to show you that. Come on, let's go. So this property is on the market for 7.3 million rand, exclusively advertised through First Realty. And we're going to lead you to the heart of the home. And that heart is undoubtedly the kitchen. We have got incredible quartz countertop. The whole kitchen is bedecked in white. Quality finishes are the name of the game within this house. We've got handscrew taps throughout the whole home. But that is not all when we talk about quality, specifically within this kitchen. We have got a smeg burner, six-top burner, as well as an incorporated oven. Absolutely beautiful in stained steel. Now, there are a few other things about this kitchen that I adore. One is the frosted gloss cabinetry. Let's open this up. It's almost like you're taking the roof of your convertible. I think it is incredible. Another thing that I really, really like are these drawers. They are soft closed drawers. Listen to this. The sound of silence. Another beautiful aspect of the kitchen is the stained steel extractor fan, leading your eyes immediately up to another one of the wood finishes throughout the house. And that is the feature cabinet. You can decorate that however you see fit. Let your imagination run wild. Wood accents are themed throughout this house. We're going to show you a lot more of them. But the final part of the kitchen that I really, really love is this behind me, a sliding door right there by the kitchen. Who wouldn't love a really nice breeze while you're cooking seamless indoor outdoor living? We're going to show you a little bit more of that, but I absolutely adore that. And that is why we're going to head right to the dining room area.  So there is ample space in here for all of your needs.  There is tons of space here for you. I'm sure you can absolutely love it. We have got right at the top some down lighting with these glass lamps that looks incredible. A big feature throughout the house is actually the time the owner's taken to incorporate LED lights throughout. There's also prepaid electricity, so your electricity bill is not going to take a knock from a house this size. Another thing I'd like you guys to pay attention to is throughout the house, there's really, really tasteful decorations, as well as the incorporation of mirrors in strategic areas that bounces the light around. So if you're looking for any tips or tricks about decorating this house, take it from this video. Now behind me is the lounge area, which we're going to show you in depth. But before we do that, let's cut to the rest of the kitchen. The kitchen has an inbuilt scullery, but the first thing you'll notice as we walk in towards that scullery is there's space for a double door fridge, as well as a microwave within the corner. Also on the side of the kitchen is immediately an output there for your TV, so you can pipe not only feed from your cameras live around the house to within your kitchen area. You can also, if you want to, set up a TV screen there. Within the scullery area as well, there is space for a dishwasher, your washing machine, as well as a tumble dryer, as well as a double fridge. So there's plenty of space to do some washing up. Again, beautiful lighting incorporates the art, the kitchen, living in a lot of natural light, and also keeping the feel very airy. And here we are within the lounge. This house has got a lot of built-in convenience features, and one of the most predominant is one you notice in the lounge immediately. And there are the blinds as well as the shutters behind us, completely seamless, built in, you don't need to worry about anything, specifically curtains, bulky curtains, a thing of the past specifically within this house. Another very, very cool feature, and it flows with the rest of the wood touches in this house, that is the TV stand. It is recessed within the TV look, waiting for your 55, 65, 75 inch TV. And on the note of TVs, your security system can get piped directly to the TV. You can monitor your security on the TV, and not only on the TV, but also on your smartphone. The eight camera security system gets piped immediately to your smartphone so that you can see what's going on in and around your house, anywhere in the world. There are another two things you can do on this, and that is reset your beams throughout the house, as well as arm and disarm your security system. Now that is smart security, but onto my favorite feature of this house. So I want you to follow me. We have got seamless indoor and outdoor living. Check this out. Stacking, slideable doors. I'm six foot, and I mean, I can't even touch each end of this. It's incredible. I love the open air, the feel of the breeze, the sound of the trees rustling outside. The smell of fresh air. This is a South Africans dream, in my opinion. I mean, take a look at this dining area. This is the breakfast look. This is where you can entertain your friends. This is where a South Africans can enjoy our brides, because there is an inbuilt brie area, and that brie area comes with a very cool trick. It has got a lighting side. So no matter what's going on and where it's happening, you can always take a look and make sure that meat is grilled to perfection. I want an invite, because whoever takes this house, I'm expecting some lamb chops. Just in front of the brie to the left, you'll see feature wood areas again, integrating and tying in with all the wood, so tastefully decked out within this house. But let's look at this garden area. Just enough. Just the perfect size. Guys, if you're buying this house, and you're worried about the garden, you don't need to. This is a garden that not only can be tailored for garden serves, but also if you want to try your hand and work on that green thumb. I think it's perfect. There's plenty of space for a pool if you're looking to integrate one of those. And again, take a look at these doors over here. Another set of stackable doors leading into the seating area. Let's check that out. And there we have it. These stackable doors open wide, giving you access to your second seating area, as well as to your garden, your kitchen and your living room. It is incredible the amount of thought that has went into the design of this house. But the second seating area can double as another dining room area or another lounge area. But it also brings us right back around to our entrance hall. Now follow me, because I've got two things to show you right there. And here we are back where we started, but there are two very cool things right here. First, to my right, there is the guest bathroom. And to my left, for everybody that is very, very pedantic about storage, there's an ample-spaced storage closet there, as well as easy access to your garage. But that is not all, because we are about to head upstairs and see how much better this house can get. And it's a hint, a lot better. Now, coming up the stair area, one of the things you notice immediately is the beautiful lighting. Take a look at that chandelier above me. I am such a fan of unique lighting within houses, and this house definitely ticks that box. There's also lighting leading all the way down the stairs on the football, making sure you don't take any unfortunate tumbles if you are doing this with some of the lights off. The second thing, and my favorite thing about the stairwell, is that there is that huge picture frame mirror behind me. I absolutely love it, because stairs are so difficult to decorate as it is. And this design has taken that out of your hands and really let nature decorate this, which I thought was a very, very good decision. It also leads in so much light towards this upper floor landing. Now, on this landing, as soon as you arrive, the first thing you notice and a very, very important thing with lockdown in effect is this inbuilt office area. You've got a window on your left and a window on your right, so much light. It feels like you're working outdoors, which I love. So, come on in here. Let me show you what it looks like. Desk was built in cupboards, as well as beautiful framing with these bookshelves around here. I can imagine eking out all the work I need to do right here. So, I love it. It was also very, very thoughtful. It's all built in. Now, on my right hand side is one of the bedrooms, as well as to my left. And let's go show you those before we go into the best bit of this house. And that is the master bedroom. So, let's take a look. So, yeah, we are the first of two guest bedrooms. I love this room because and it is a theme that carries on throughout this house. There is a lot of space. Tons of space, as a matter of fact. You can see this sleigh bed really not taking up a lot of space. And so often in Bryanston, you find the problem in that the guest bedrooms, the spare bedrooms, the extra bedrooms are just very, very small. And that is not a problem you can have in this house. So, there's a window there. There is also a window over there letting in that natural light. Also creating quite a nice cross breeze and right over here, we have an in-suite bathroom. Now, this in-suite bathroom has a free standing tub as well as a hidden system toilet. Very, very quality finishes. Free standing basin as well. Window, mirror, very nice. And continuing with all of these soft closed elements downstairs. Look at that. Nobody's going to be slamming anything in your house. It is going to be as quiet as a mouth. Now let me show you the master bedroom you're in for a treat. Passing plenty of windows. Absolutely love the windows. And in here, there is the most space you'll find out of all of the bedrooms which is very, very fitting for the master bedroom. Two of the things I'd like to mention here which I think are very important is one, the air con. We know how swalteringly hot summers like African days can get. And the second is these fantastic built-in blinds. It all comes with the house. However, as opposed to downstairs, upstairs within the bedrooms, there's a lot of space for you to hang your curtains. They've done this. Another thing, now that I see it, is the TV. So all the bedrooms as well as the downstairs kitchen area which we've already spoken about come with inputs. Jack inputs for your TV. It's all built in. You're not going to need to buy this house and then start wiring, running wires, deciding how you want to do that. It is all here for you. The owners and the builders have taken so much time to make this a home you can immediately start living in. Now, this master bedroom has got something very, very special that I want to show you and that is a walk-in cupboard slash changing area. Come on, let's go.  Within the walk-in cupboard slash dressing room area. Now my producer pulled me aside and she said, you need to pay a lot of attention to this because this is fantastic and really being in here it is plenty of down lighting lots of space for you to get changed. There is so many cupboards, frosted glass accents and some of the cupboards and as I'm sure you might have noticed there is a floor to ceiling mirror here so let's swivel this camera over and here we are.  Again, the very, very contemporary showers the freestanding bath, the double vanities with a huge mirror and that beautiful floating toilet there with the hidden system but something that the designers did yet which is very cool is not only the feature wall and the incredible attention that they paid to lighting but also the two windows creating a great cross breeze in this bathroom.  Now follow me let me show you the second bedroom you'll notice a theme that continues I can't actually stop mentioning this because I love it so much and that is the light that is the windows one, two, three, four, five windows within this guest bedroom it's incredible because it feels so open so airy so spacious this bedroom a little bit bigger than the other bedroom but still ample ample space here in sweet bathroom as well as take a look at this this is where your cupboard's on but not only can this be your little cupboard area maybe a changing area you can also turn this into such a great reading room maybe have a hanging chair sitting there with all that light I am very very jealous for the next owners of this house now there is a bathroom here in sweet bathroom and I'd like to show you that because it does not have a bath this in sweet bathroom it has got a shower so right over here the showers are very very contemporary I love the showers gloss surrounding the whole shower no door because really who needs a door rainfall shower head again floating vanity beautiful mirror and the soft clothes fancy fancy toilet but those are the two bedrooms covered now let me show you at the outside balcony but what will I have you here come a little bit closer a little bit closer I know this is a home for you I know you want this home so if you want this home you need to contact Charlene Negas from First Realty right now all of the details on screen and they will schedule you a showing you can see this beautiful property for yourself and now that I've composed myself I'd like to thank you for watching the Private Property Homebuyer Show and we'll see you next time time baby inside an four bedroom four bathroom penthouse in the center of Menlin this is Menlin main and wow what a door that is it is absolutely cavernous vault-like and it does lend a touch that the rest of this apartment does and that's a touch of quality great entrance hall leading to the first and my favorite feature of this house and that is young Milo here but unfortunately she does not come with the house so let's move on to the kitchen we've got beautiful marble countertops and that is even within the other side of the kitchen which we'll show you in a moment as well as a built-in dustbin so all your food scraps can go right there then we've got a featured sink made by Robert Wolford there's also a splashback that I'm going to show you a little bit later and right over here we've got a fully wood butchers block I'm sure preparing your meals here must be an absolute treat and it lends in just a little bit of homeliness into a house of the size I'm sure you guys have noticed this already but right behind me we've got a wine cellar so let's go take a look at what they've got now with lockdown restrictions in effect I'm sure many of you can sympathize with my need for a good bottle of wine see what they've got let's take a look at this one now let's take a look at that kitchen and find a corkscrew but before I leave take a look at this wine cellar there's plenty of space for some glass where there's cabinetry all over the place where as well as some really nice areas for you to put decorations in here and make it your own space now moving into the kitchen the first thing I'd like to notice is the melee inbuilt ovens we've got the oven the microwave as well as the fridge then right over here we've got the induction cooktop with an inbuilt extractor fan finally that fan is where you want it not floating up in the ceiling and right over here is that Robert Wolfield splashback all the way at the bottom we've got matte gray inbuilt storage with soft clothes on the left hand side we've got a double sink your faucet here and another one of these awesome bins plenty of space here for budding cooks or cooks that are already well established and bakers because there's another oven not one but two ovens to really find themselves you can spend as much time as you want in this kitchen you're never going to feel crowded you're never going to feel like this wasn't made for an aspirational chef now near the back is where you put all of your washing machines as well as tumble drys and there is another sink just to the right here for you to utilize if you need it on my left hand side is an inbuilt scullery for you to utilize all of that cupboard space and make sure you don't take this up with anything you don't want on display because that is what this house is all about coming out of the kitchen area you find yourself within the living room and the dining area there's wood flooring throughout the house as well as a wood feature wall where your TV is now continuing the design elements of this house you'll find yourself a more so fireplace with no chimney so it is nice and compact in the corner resting on some stone blocks and we know we have chilly South African evenings now talking about chili on the summer days you can stack your floor-to-ceiling glass doors all the way open and you have got plantation shutters eliminating the need for curtains within the house leaving the living room area you find yourself in the dining room area and it is a fantastic place to be plenty of space plenty of space this could easily accommodate a 10-seater dining room table with sliding doors on my right and sliding doors behind me if we open them all up you can enjoy Sunday, Saturday, Friday lunches here with families it really is an entertainer's dream that latches on perfectly with the way the kitchen is built up there's two seating areas situated outside a dining area as well as an area just to enjoy the beautiful pool and the stunning views you get from outside and we're going to be showing you that a little bit later also throughout the living area you'll see ceiling fans not one but two as well as down lighting situated everywhere you could possibly need light just off the dining room area and the lounge area you'll find yourself in the study now the study's got plenty of space for you to sit and do all your work and there is a fan above you just in case these bowls are making you sweat just to my left you'll see beautiful beautiful bookcases and above there's some space for some filing there but this house has got four bedrooms and four en suite bathrooms each of those bedrooms have access to the garden so what I want to do now is let's go show you those bedrooms first bedroom here we are immediately on your right you've got some inbuilt cupboards it is the same color as all the other cupboards in the house and the continuity is awesome on the right as well there's a built-in dressing room area marble countertops and as we move into the bedroom you'll see that this is the smallest of the four bedrooms but ample space here to use this as another office space or as in a kid's playroom or a kid's bedroom there are plantation blinds throughout the whole house as well and you'll find that yeah in this bedroom too the bathroom area has got a shower basin as well as a toilet the shower has a garden view so it brings in so much light and so much air to a bathroom that might otherwise be dark beautiful tiling throughout the bathroom I have to give them credit I love the colors and I love the way the light interacts with those tiles to make it look so warm and yet still glossy in this bathroom now let's go to the second one and we are increasing these bedrooms we're going to make them better and better until we bring you finally to the creme à la creme the master suite oh sorry about that so yeah we are within the second of the four bedrooms this one is definitely larger and there are two vanities as I'm sure you've noticed you could DJ at them all like normal persons you can just use them to get ready there's also ample covered space and this incredible garden behind me full garden access like I've mentioned within all the bedrooms now let me show you the en suite bathroom so coming through the hallway and you know you've got a nice house when you've got a hallway for the bedrooms you've got your en suite bathroom going into this bathroom you'll see you've got your toilet your floating sink beautiful mirrors as well as another incredible shower guys I cannot say enough about the showers within this house so much attention have been paid to them and it really does feel like when you walk into these showers they look incredible there is also and I forgot to mention to you this in the previous bathroom and that is heated towel racks within all the bathrooms throughout the house so on those cold South African days you're going to have a nice toasty towel now let's go take a look at the creme à la creme of this house and that is the master bedroom coming into the master bedroom your eyes are neatly drawn to the way the architects use this wood to separate the master bed from the walking closet and you're going to need your sun hat when you enjoy the unobstructed views from this bed of the pool and all that Pretoria countryside but that doesn't end there let's go take a look at the master bathroom right here we have a bathroom of exceptional quality this is without a doubt one of my favorite bathrooms I've ever been in and that is just the way it's designed not only have you got views of the pool from the freestanding bath tub and I mean look at the shape of this bath tub look at the faucets so much attention has been paid to all of this and I absolutely love it then we have got a floor to ceiling glass shower that is enormous and I like that because you've got lots of space to rub a dub-dub and behind me not only have you got the very very nice and stylish sink you've got both a toilet and a bidet you know you're living the life of luxury when you've got a bidet in your master suite bathroom but that is not all for this house let's go take a look at outside coming out of the master bedroom you find yourself in this garden and this garden is completely wraparound so every single one of the bedrooms have access to the garden as the South Africans we're so used to being boxed in by walls but because this house is raised up from the ground floor we get to use balustrades instead of walls and it makes such a difference it is completely open here airy and fresh it really seems like you're having a visit at the botanical gardens but lots of notices lap pool it is heated so winter is not making anything go off limits right here we are talking about the lap of luxury a couple of other features on this house is it does have five parking bays two storage bays as well as a separate domestic quarters with its own bathroom now as I'm sure you've noticed we've said four bedrooms we've said four bathrooms but we've only shown you three of each there is a separate fourth bedroom and bathroom however we didn't have access to it today but we will be showing it to you in this video the outside area other than having three separate seating areas has a chateau-chef grass-bride as well as a melee deep fryer both of these are gas operated it should be easy to use come rain or shine there's also plenty of storage space both below the gas-bride as well as above it there you have it folks four bedroom four bathroom penthouse mansion in Menland, Maine if this is the house for you ladies and gentlemen I'd like you to contact Andre Skiokati from Apple Properties his details will be on screen right now and he'll arrange a viewing for you but that is all we have for you today folks thank you so much for watching The Home Shopper Show proudly brought to you by Private Property and we'll be seeing you next time


Pop quiz hot shot. There's a bomb on the bus. And the only way to keep the passengers alive is with the help of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. The first thing I need to acknowledge is the music. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. It's so good. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, both figuratively and literally as you're watching. As the bus is going around curves, you're kind of moving with them. As it's taken out signs, dun dun dun dun dun. Destroying cars left and right. And Sandra Bullock is Annie. It's just a delight here. I know it's a little bit redundant. Sandra Bullock is always a delight. The effects are almost entirely practical. There are a few moments when you can tell there's a model on display as opposed to an actual two scale vehicle. It's a classic for a reason. It's got the thrills. It has the high octane action. The villain's great. Keanu is very serviceable in the role.


I first read this book 10 or 15 years ago and I remembered it being good but I didn't remember specifically any of the stories. I got this copy recently. I reread it and I remembered them as I was reading and I remembered correctly that they are excellent. All of her stories are tragic in one way or another. They usually involve a personal relationship, mother-daughter, wife-husband, siblings and a number of them involve uncomfortable sexual situations and they all involve the perspective of women. Outside of her novels, Pamela Sargent is known for editing the women of wonder anthologies, some of which I have read and which I should cover someday because they're great. Please remember to press that like button. It helps my videos get seen and then subscribe so you can come back next time. I do science fiction book, TV and movie reviews all the time and please consider becoming a patron. There's a link in the description below.


Okay, I see you are here, I see your camera, I see your slides already here, so that's good. Just give me a thumbs up, up or down, how do you feel about Academy so far? Yeah, that's what I thought. How do you feel about the schedule looking forward for today? Yeah, I couldn't say it better myself, guy. Okay, we still have a minute or so before we go. I think we are settled here, so I think I'll just vanish now and let you do all the talking. Can you hear me now? Okay, yeah, I think this has happened to everyone of you before, so you've came to the right talk. This is Blasma Work from Home Edition, where I'm going to show you a bunch of features and tips and tricks how you can use Blasma to make working from home and online conferencing more fun and more productive. So of course, I have to start with notifications. You know, Blasma has this do not disturb feature for a while now, which disables pop-ups and notification sounds so you're not distracted, except for critical notifications like your computers on fire or the battery is about to run out. So we've had that since 516. You can say for one hour, for four hours, until the next morning and so on and so forth. It was supposed to be configurable what next morning means because not everyone gets up at the same time. Unfortunately, this hasn't been implemented, so I think it's like 6am in the morning, the next day or something. There's also a global shortcut that you can set.  And there's also a middle-click icon. You can middle-click on the icon to talk about do not disturb mode at any time. But what about screen sharing? It's tedious if you have to go into the notification icon and then disable it for one hour, then maybe you forget. So it's like, this is not ideal, right? So there's an inhibit D-Bus API on the notification service where you can set and request or query the inhibition state. So an application might want to disable notifications when you're giving a presentation or I know that, for example, Telegram Disables, it's custom notification sounds when Plasma Do Not Disturb mode is enabled. And also K-Alarm, I think, hides its custom notification pop-up, so kudos for that. And then I made a little project called OBS FDO Notifications DND. So it's open broadcasting service, free desktop notifications Do Not Disturb, which is a little plugin for OBS Studio to do exactly that when you start recording it. In terms of notifications, it was a little side project to just learn like libdbc and like all of these low-level things without Qt. But can we do better? Yes. So what about we flag a recording tools window? For example, sometimes you get this recording controls thing where you have your microphone or you have this pop-up which has your sharing your screen. How about you have a window rule? You can say, okay, well, whenever this window is up, I want notifications off. Or maybe I can use screen scripting and then do some elaborate X property heuristic to find out when someone's sharing the screen or whatever. But you know, that's not really nice, right? So of course, the answer is Wayland will fix it because on Wayland, an application has to go through the xdg desktop portal to share the screen, which means we know when that happens. And as a matter of fact, in Plasma 522, whenever you share your screen, a remote desktop notifications are automatically disabled. So you don't have to think about it. And of course, at any moment, you can click on a notification icon to turn notifications back on. Of course, you can disable this automatically if you don't like it. But the next big topic about remote work and online conferencing, of course, is the volume applet because a big part of conferencing is headsets, microphones and speakers. So there's been lots of work going on in this direction. So you're probably all familiar with the Plasma volume applet. There's a lot of things going on there. So let's just break it down. New features are through the power of David. We added some live volume meters. So if you go on the notification on the Plasma volume applet, you see the live volume peak of your speaker and microphone. It works both on the device and applications tab. So you can actually see that your microphone is like at full blast or the application can't hear you because it's too low or anything like that. And then also there's now some device disambiguation if you hover over the application. And if there's multiple devices, then it actually shows you which device the application is using. And then something that I've been working on right now, which is not yet merged, is an indicator that if the device the application is using is muted right now, so it can't hear you, not because the application is muted, but because the device is muted, there will be an indicator to show you about that. So you don't actually have to leave the applications tab. You just stay on the applications tab and then can see it right away. I haven't figured out a good way to present this yet in a way that the user can understand it. So that's why it's not in it. And also use a corked indicator, which is supposed to speak for pause, not playing. So whenever an application has a stream, but isn't actually playing anything, then it shows a little icon so you can spot that right away. Yeah, the microphone indicator was originally added as part of the KD privacy sprint goal as the kind of privacy feature. So you can see when your microphone is being used, but it turned out really useful for doing online conferencing because you can click it to toggle mute. And then now it also shows again which device is being used. So if whatever conferencing application happens to use the wrong microphone, you can see that right away and then fix that. And then of course, there's the never ending story running gag vaporware award situation about the push to talk feature. I actually bought myself a little USB foot pedal so I can feel like a bus driver when I'm in a conference on my computer and then operate my microphone this way. I started this page, I think on our first ever online sprint last year, but the original implementation was a bit poor. Then I wanted to make it proper with like a criminal plugin using the modifier only shortcuts thing so you can doesn't hold a single specific button like right control key or only like one of them without grabbing the key from the application. But and then I got distracted and so on and so forth. So I have it in use on my desktop PC, but the code is not yet anywhere. So help would be appreciated. And for folk I bought this clicky thingy. So yeah, it will happen sometime, but don't quote me on that right. And then as a closing food for thought, I have some suggestions and ideas for our lovely Queen developer. Because you know, we have this screen thing, which is this amazing violin compositor and window manager. And it has so many built in features that are right there, which would be so helpful for online conferencing. If there were like the last 5% of UX Polish going on. So for example, did you know that Queen has a moustic effect? It's in desktop effect setting and you have to enable it and use some key combination to toggle it on or off.  How about we turn it on automatically when you do screen sharing? So people can easily follow what you're doing or maybe we need some screen share plus more thingy where you can easily toggle those switches on and off. How about a magnifying glass? Again, Queen has a magnifying looking glass effect, but turning it on and off is a bit cumbersome. So why not if I hold down this button, it always shows up or maybe laser pointer or highlighter feature. So you can easily show people what you're looking at that screen. And maybe we can put some annotation drawing thing in there as well. Like maybe can just put spectacles annotation editor in Queen or something like that. But yeah, or what about opening new windows on the non shared screen so that you never accidentally need information because I think every one of you has seen that when people accidentally out of top around it and suddenly you expose your email client to 200 people watching or something. For example, maybe we could flag a window as confidential and then your email client or your chat window will never be rendered out through this type via video feed. Even if you share your full desktop because I personally, I always share my entire screen. I don't share individual windows because I find that cumbersome when you switch to something else or show something else and then with full desktop, you can just move it around. So I think that's something that would be really, really appreciated in Queen. And yeah, let's see if we can get that done. So there's any more ideas you have for what would make your life easier when you're stuck at home. Then feel free to leave a comment on this fabricator task. And yeah, thanks for your attention.


So I'm Sean Jenkins and my role and answer is the group executive of the nuclear business. We make many wonderful products, most importantly our nuclear medicines, the nuclear medicines that are distributed all around Australia and are critical in life-saving diagnosis to help patients across Australia handle them. In addition to that we have other products in minerals and mining, silicon, and radiations and radiation safety. So that's really the start of my work. The health, sustainability, security, I guess they're things we all hear about. Sometimes I often think about how important they're already integrated together. I mean working at a facility that has a nuclear reactor, I'm sure everyone understands the need for security. At Anstow we're as vulnerable to slips, trips and falls as anything else. Or being we have to make sure we deal with radiation retention and radiation we're managing every day. We've got some fantastic approaches to how we manage that and make sure we keep our staff safe. We do some wonderful things with science. But importantly we make products that are used by the Australian medical community. And we must be able to make those in a sustainable way. And what's important for me with health and safety and quality and compliance is that all go hand in hand. If you're an organisation that thinks about health and safety, you think about compliance and you understand quality, those things actually help your business. They help you become more sustainable. The whole concept of moving towards zero, zero injuries, zero defects, zero errors, that's a quality movement that makes my business sustainable. And that's really important for us when we think about everything we do and of course health and safety as well. I asked myself how I know that it's working at Anstow because people tend and you can see in the way people work and interact with each other and it's a small story against the illustrating. On a first start, here you seem to work sometimes in a crisis, but the team were committed to getting product to the customer so their intention and their motivation takes them. But as we introduced that concept of quality and high reliability and mindfulness and thinking, we got into planning, planning, plan B, plan C. And I think the way I measured that was on a Sunday morning, which is our biggest production day, I used to get maybe six to eight text messages before 10 o'clock with all the challenges and problems. Because it works as a plan, people work together, it's integrated and I know they're operating in a very high reliable way in thinking about health and safety. Anstow, as you know, is on the cutting edge of innovation and science, but we've also got to think about how we maintain and stay on the cutting edge around safety at the same time because new scientific discoveries, they lead us into things we're not sure we should be thinking about sometimes. What's important is that as we develop our innovation and our technology, we have to be thinking all the time how we stay ahead in future proof ourselves and the way we offer it. But we're very lucky at Anstow in that from our CEO down through the organisation, there are a lot of people who are constantly thinking about how we improve because the compliance requirement continues to go up, but will not continue to be ahead of them. So for us, an Anstow, what that means is making sure that as we think about the next cutting edge innovation, we stay ahead of it in our thinking. And what that means in practical terms is that we have our plans to do a lot of thinking around risk assessment and understanding what are the hazards that actually happen and then putting in those strategies to deal with it. Obviously, the most important one is elimination. We want to eliminate hazards where we can and take account of all those potential concerns people may have when they're dealing with something that's new. A good example of what we did with nanoparticles, we've all heard about it. So we're just talking about the nanoparticles, you have to understand the implications in health and the environment, and that's what we do. When we talk about things like nanoparticles or new technologies coming up, we have to, of course, take that precautionary approach. We talk about that more deeply as a conservative decision making sure that we have a process to help you think about whatever it is we're doing, whether it is nanoparticles or whether it's just implementing a new machine within a manufacturing facility. We have to take time to think about all of the steps and the risks that could happen. Think as far into the future as we can. And then you know what? We have to come back and check it again because of the conservative approach at this stage that's having an awful lot of the future. The radioactive materials can be challenging and obviously it's imperative that we manage the safety of our workforce and visitors on the channel side. We have, I suppose, a deeply embedded culture of safety that starts at the top of the city and resonates to the city management team. And it's reinforced daily and our meetings and interactions in the manufacturing side. We start every day with the toolbox tools to ensure that we've got those most up-to-date pieces of information we're communicating with. Every meeting across the organisation, we start with a safety discussion. And that safety discussion, of course, takes into account safety. It is more important when you're talking about what is our safety focus for the current two months. And that switches every two months to keeping it fresh, keeping it current, and make sure that we can have some real-life stories from people in the organisation to help us learn and improve. And at the moment the focus is really around positive things we can take out of that investigation so that we do improve. So it's a really good focus on the good things, understanding what happens, not blame, but understanding why things have happened so we can put the right into the future. At ASTO we've got many wonderful scientists, engineers, technical people. But I have a fundamental belief that our goals won't exist. You can't help before we lead you. So if your leadership is a constraint on what you build, that's a challenge. So as leaders, we have to understand those really important skills of situational leadership, engagement with people, understanding and committing to actions and causes of actions around topics such as health and safety. So that we seem to be not just talking about it, but embracing it and living it. So I often talk to the team about the ability to outperform leadership and make sure our leadership is improving all the time so that we can raise performance across everything. When it comes down to talking about the individual teams and the team they're all looking to, we probably attempt to overcommunicate. You never count, of course. But as you take multiple opportunities in meetings, one-to-one and staff forums on the internet to reinforce messages, the most important message though is the time you spend with someone. One-to-one to coach them and support them and help them develop across all of their areas of development, doubly important for health and safety. We've got highly technical and scientific staff on site and what is critically important is that we help and support everyone to be better communicators around everything we do. So for us it's providing leadership to demonstrate communication in team meetings. It's also important about encouraging people and putting in processes that drive, I suppose, a routine regular communication, have a monthly cycle of meetings and events whereby this rolls along every month and people get information that is then cascaded out to the organisation. So that more systematic and embedded approach is a really good way of getting the communication. It takes discipline. So that discipline to keep it going and have the meetings, ensure communication happens, that's absolutely critical for a successful organisation. And so, what's to be the leading edge of safety? So I'm unfortunate that I get to travel and visit other facilities overseas that have similar landline facilities that we do. So we get to see how they operate, benchmark and compare ourselves. And many of my colleagues also get the opportunity to travel, look at other facilities, bring back opportunities at best practice. We also have many visitors that come to us and one of the things we always ask them to do is when they come into Amsterdam, is view us with fresh arms. What do they see as they go around that we might be missing because we're so close to it and we see it every day? And their insight can often be fantastic in helping us improve. Obviously have as much reporting as possible. We take out of that reporting as early as possible those key trends for something we can improve and making that a routine part of our practice and we identify something. Then we put a real focus on that for a short period of time. Look for improvement, measure it, see if it's actually becoming embedded in the way we operate. Then go back to start again, do an improvement again. Take a message you're looking to support the colleagues. Take care of your colleagues in the way they interact. I urge people to be courageous. By the moment, have the discussion in a really positive way. We back that up by using the philosophy of asking all of our staff to assume good intent when they've been giving feedback. So if someone's giving you some feedback, assume they're doing good intent, then you'll take that well. The interaction will be more positive and will finally improve. Last words of advice. First of all, if you're fortunate like I am to work in an environment and a work area that's fantastic. Don't take for granted that people have invested time and effort to make the environment not just a good place to work, but a safer place to work. So all of those people on a daily basis take time to take care of your safety in an organisation. Take time to go and factor because they're thinking of you and you need to make sure you think of them as well every day to make the environment a safer place to work.