Welcome to the Advocate. Your panelists are here to discuss thought-provoking issues in an atmosphere of laughter and seriousness. Here, we call a spade a spade and today we're here to remind you that important conversations are among the necessary tools for a saner society. In what I term, the deja vu effect of the Nigerian society, I'll be talking about the avoidance of future disasters in our country. Ruth talks about the increasing drug problem in Nigeria with heavy focus on math. The saint with no halo, Kule Lawal, is talking about a power shift in 2023 and Tonya ends with a conversation on corporate dressing. The deja vu effect of the Nigerian society. Nigerians are people that are stressed and broken. There is a different narrative every single day, which foretells of a terrible future of doom, uncontrolled violence and unparalleled impunity across board. That is, from the corridors of power to the streets of the ordinary or average Nigerian. Often times, we reference this future of total neglect and chaos, more like dub-chub-dub scenario, and we wonder when will we get there. The good news is, we are already there. Growing up in Festak in the 80s and 90s, residents of Ajigule or Jo Okokomayko looked up to Festak. It was a symbol of what we now know as Banan Island, for the residents of that part of Lagos. It arrived out to Ruleri, and of course, the only difference between Ikoi, from Ikoi rather, are the businesses, foreign missions and other strategic infrastructure put up in Ikoi. While we lived there with pride, residents of neighboring communities looked on with envy. Residing in Festak was the ambition of this neighboring residents. Many years later, the Nuvorish of these communities all moved to Festak. With the mentality of their previous communities, they unwittingly unsettled the calm, opulence and beauty of Festak. Pollution everywhere, gutter started becoming choked. Festak became noisier. Drivers would leave the statutory parking spaces and park on pavements. And there came periodic floods after a heavy rain. An uncommon event a few years ago, drinking spots sprang up in this one-time residential environment of choice. And the old residents, particularly the older children who have made some money, started staying out of Festak longer to avoid the unbearable feeling of staying in Festak. And eventually moved out of Festak. Now Festak is a shadow of itself. If you were to visit Festak for the first time, you would not understand the glory that once existed. It feels like it has gone with the wind. Why do I call this unpleasant condition good news? We are already experiencing all what we assume is to come, unknowingly. And we are getting by to prevent that unstable future of erratic violence, killings and oppression. All we need to do is to think about now, study our current situation and start working towards changing the narrative and event at a time. So the question is, what is happening now? The original residents of Festak refused to defend the integrity of their community when new residents started coming in. These are residents who didn't experience the glory days of regular waste pickup, flowing water and mutual respect among residents. We allow those who don't know the history and the tradition of this community to take over. We then turn around and complain that things are not the same anymore. Well, you know that song. Standard of education has plummeted. Local government officials have become less responsive because the residents that insist on their rights have all left the community. Street lights have become a relic of system that works and the area is less safe because now you have more out of school children and drop out who have been fortunate enough to discover the game betting structure. Festak is no longer as glamorous, as honorable and we are all moving to the glorified villages called Ibejileki anaja. Soon, all those people will left behind in Festak will make more money and see the lights in Leki and they will also relocate to these glorious villages. At that time, where do we move to? Then the cycle repeats itself. Standard of education would plummet. Local government becomes less responsive. Street lights will stop working and the area will become totally unsafe. To prevent this impending invasion of Leki aaja axis, all we needed to do was to support the new entrance in Festak to prevent that disaster of a future which has been foretold. We need to stop existing in our community and start living in it. We need to be intentional with our contribution to the development of our community. Support a school, support a child, look out for your neighbor, let the fence in your house stand for protection only and not a symbol of pride or separation by class. You don't need to care about Nigeria. Care about yourself enough to ensure that you are safe and comfortable and you cannot be safe and comfortable if your neighbor isn't safe and comfortable. Long live the federal republic of Nigeria. That felt more like an Independence Day speech. Exactly. You know for me the way I choose to look at your advocacy is that Nigerians have always assumed that class or the proper way of doing things is in a location. It's not in a location. And that's why we always have these issues. You have the same situation happening in places like in Apuja where you say okay we move to this. Lokuguma is to be quiet and settled places and now become a jam-packed type of activities. Games village is to be quite the place. It's becoming something else. And that is because we do not have any orientation exactly on how places should be run. We have no system. And if you've ever questioned anything in Nigeria, you'd understand that our biggest problem is maintenance. Very true. And it cuts across board. Every area, maintenance is a big issue. And I also think probably in addition to that will probably be the value system that we actually have within our society. Where like you mentioned everyone is thinking of himself and himself only in case where he's not even thinking that the actions of my neighbor is going to affect me. It's going to affect my children. It's going to affect my grandchildren. I mean that fact that there's no emphasis on the fact that we are in a community. You cannot live outside your community. You have to ensure that you protect your community in order for your children. Because I mean one day we live here, we die. Our children and grandchildren have to benefit from whatever money or wealth that we have accumulated over the years. And they can only get it if they live in a safe community. So there's kind of two things that I really pulled out from there. And the first being you build yourself this gilded cage, this gilded prison, high walls. You step outside, you see poverty. I have never been able to understand that. You think it's going to protect you. If everything goes down, they're going to chop the fence. It doesn't take long to put down the fence. Exactly. So what you're saying there is so on it in terms of engage with the community. Know the different people. Yes, the people who are neighbours like you who are middle class or whatever. But there's other people who are in that community. Do you know any of them? Do you engage any of them? Do you guys interact? Because the community is more than just what's inside your compound. The second thing I would say is that it's bigger than what you said. Look at climate change, right? What you said is like the micro story of the bigger story. If we look at climate change, if we're looking at what is going to happen in the future, right? We're planning for these communities. But if you say, okay, let's not make Festa town the subject matter, but let's look at climate change, right? It's the same story but on bigger scale. The local government doesn't engage with the community at a local level to educate. Because it really is about value systems as Ruth said, education. In those days, this is not the first time we're doing hand washing programme, right? In those days that was standard about basic cleanliness, about keeping your environment clean. You do not let keep legos clean. And they would have these programmes about dental, about brushing teeth, about washing hands. These were instituted. These were, every day, this was part of the government's life. Those were the days government and the people were working? Exactly. And this is something, obviously, Kunle, this is your side, that is so important to work at the local government level. Because all these points that you make is really served from there. And we can't just look at it as just reaching out to the grassroots. No, local government also has to reach out to the middle class and above. Because they are also part of that community and have a responsibility. Because everybody is contributing whether it's good or bad. And so you need to engage all the community.   Politics is local just simply means your constituents should be able to have access to you, whether high, rich or low. So yeah, we all know I just moved to Lagos and then I passed by one police barrack and there were posters of local government, there were people running for local government chairman on it. And that barrack I think is the worst thing I've seen in the world. It's terrible. There are many places but I almost had a heart attack looking at that barrack. And you see like what you're saying, which is part of, it fills into what the presentation I made is, I met somebody who stays in one of these estates in Leki and I was telling him about what a project we have for communities. I want to raise funds for police and stuff. He looked at me and laughed and he said in their community they actually take care of the police in that area and as a result the police is very, very committed to securing the area and that is what we are not doing. We rather complain about everything. We are not helping teachers, we are not helping police, we are not helping doctors. All we do is complain. And these people who are like us, they complain. So from whence come help my help. But well, up next is Ruth. Stay tuned. The Lumin Meth Crisis in Nigeria, sometime in the past week some videos surfaced online of men that were being beaten with heavy woods. The men looked very thin, malnourished and almost mud. These videos were taken in south eastern part of Nigeria. These men were under the influence of meth. It's safe to say that they are meth addicts. Crystal meth, also known as umpuru miri by south easterners and formerly called methamephin is a synthetic narcotic with origin from Japan, according to drug literature. Meth is a powerful highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system of an individual. Addicts can take the drug by smoking, swallowing, snorting or injecting the powder that has been dissolved in water or alcohol. The high from the drug starts and fades quickly. People often take repeated doses in a binge and crash pattern. The drug stimulates the aspect of the brain that creates dopamine first, the addiction. Despite the known dangers of this meth, drug dealers have not stopped in its dealing. In fact, its popularity is really growing in so many eastern states and communities. Reports have shown this drug is gaining popularity among youths and thus destroying their lives. In the conversation with some relatives of some of these addicts, I got to understand how the lives of some previously well-off individuals went downhill because of meth. The soldier lands, properties, goods, etc. just to feed their meth addiction, which by the way is expensive. Families are being destroyed by meth and we might have a social crisis in the near future. Suffice to say that this meth addiction might feed more crimes in the future as addicts lose all sense of reasoning in a bid to satisfy their addiction. Again, we call on the NDLEA or governments that is local, state and federal to do something about this time bomb we are sitting on before it destroys an entire generation. They should not think this is only a south eastern crisis because the drug is already sipping into other regions of the country. For me, whenever I hear of drugs, I shrink and I blame an entire generation. The reason is this. Whatever we are saying about drug now, it is even more painful when we say in the future, in the future it will be this, in the future, no. I remember about 10 or 15 years ago when we started hearing news about primary school students getting into causes and taking drugs. The question is what did we do? Someone has been taking drugs from primary school. It would take a lot more effort to win that person of drugs than someone that has just been introduced to it as maybe as a young adult. As a primary school student or pupil you are more reckless, you expose, you just take it as you are giving and it has become a part of your system for 10, 15 years. What have we done as a people? The government, the parents, the big brothers in the area, what have we done? Now you realize a lot of young people. For me, it is good enough to say that almost all of them take it. The reason is this, not because I have a particular statistics that I am working with, but the reason is this. Unlike before when we were younger, when she is someone taking drugs, the person hides to take it. If the person doesn't hide to take it, is taking it where you are, is telling be careful, this thing will kill you. You are not condoning it because you are not taking it. Now people take it more openly and even their friends who are not taking it don't really see anything wrong in it. They will tell you this country stress too much, make it high. So which means that it's only a matter of time before you start taking it. So it's, I don't know if to call it a time bomb or like I said someone, a keg of gunpowder. I said no this is a tank of gunpowder and I don't know how. I have no idea this was happening in this Niger myth. Like I am so shocked because you know you read and hear all these stories from example the United States where myth has for the past 20, 30 years has really caused them a lot of trouble. And you know you think back here to a couple of years ago when there was the issue with the cough syrup. Right? Yes. There was, there still is. Of course there still is but we were introduced to it in the wider population that it was going on. Now this is scary on a different level because anybody can create myth. Yes. And that's the difference to the other drugs. Anybody, you don't have to be smart. You don't have to have gone to school. Anybody can create myth in their kitchen. That easy. Simple YouTube video. You know if you look back into the 80s I remember and I think I'll try and draw a social parameter for this. So in the 80s or early 90s when I was in secondary school if you were wearing a uniform and you were moving around you wouldn't have attempted someone you don't know what are you doing outside. They'll take you back to your school and you'll be flogged. But now it's kind of common anybody can do anything. I think in the freedom of rights that we're giving ourselves as Nigerians we have begun to trample on the rights that will preserve a culture. Exactly. We are totally undermined ourselves. We have gotten to a position where it's not anyone's business. And I will tell you most people will draft this away but my experience travelling in Nigeria would always say this and I'll say this.  And this comes down to the cults that are being used for political attacks. This comes down to training the next range of hard guys that will push an agenda. And these guys get to do things which are not regular which cannot be done normally. A normal human being will probably say no but they need the money and then to dull their conscience they need the substance. And that's where we find ourselves right now. So even our politics is to blame for the kind of situation we have right now especially with the drugs. Everything is to blame but the question is always how do we get rid of this because NDLEA came up with a statement earlier on that the amount of drug in circulation is enough to sustain the level of crime and violence we have in society which means unless we reduce access to drugs violence, banditry, kidnapping all that work. Yesterday I saw five guys in the news they were arrested around Ajah with pump action. I mean these are you know those red bullets that are very thick that kind of gun they were using. The oldest was 24. They had a 24 year old, a 20 year old, a 19 year old a 16, a 17.  What's your state of mind? If crime is going to be even more of a huge factor and unfortunately I don't think it's going to get better I think it's going to get worse because these are young people with no hope. So what do we do? We have to go back to the drawing board it ties into everything we talk about in this show. We have to go back to the basics education, healthcare, power those are the three things that need to be dealt with. Once you address those areas it's a knock on effect on everything because those three areas encompass all the values of a nation and right now the state of things we have no value which is why life is worthless and means nothing. That's it. I think I just add I think I still go back to the same value system conversation but this time around within the families because some of these people have families. Some of these people are well, I mean they probably have people that could guide them through the path way of life or whatever it is but for some reason these days even I mean I was having a conversation with a friend one time ago and this was on the Yahoo crisis then and she was telling me that you see parents going in and registering their children for certain things so parents typically these days are turning a blind eye to everything their teenagers their children are doing or sometimes are even enabling these things to happen. Because they need to eat. Is it because they need to eat? Because if really it's because you need to eat there are so many other options for example farming is one of the easiest it takes too long there are so many other things there are so many other things someone is looking to eat today no back in the day the parents will have sent the person to the streets to do something we are no longer a system that supports meritocracy which has built an impatience for finance so it's inpatience it's not about just eating now it's about I still wouldn't call it inpatience it's inpatience of one person but I still wouldn't call it inpatience it's necessity it's need and some people will compromise everything for that need because they have no other choice you know well well I mean I don't know if you say you don't have a choice but like trying it back to the education thing that I spoke about I mean I remember in a church someone was actually doing something I got angry I was walking out and all these church units and the leader of church said no don't do that blah blah blah I was getting angry then another person came and I was telling you remember how you trained us in this church years ago and the person said to her he said listen let this child go after the child left the person said you we trained you right from when you were younger so we give you all the values all the trainings this guy is coming to this church a teenager what is done to you will even do worse to the mother so you now wanted to apply the training that I gave to you 20 years ago on this guy that's ready you know is like a crayfish already bent you don't get anything out of it so it goes back to the home when the mother misses it every person misses it you know what I'm talking about now exactly so up next is Kolei stated the game of thrones this of course isn't about the TV show that got us on the edge of our seats by HBO this actually is about the shift of power in the most popular black nation in 2023 before I proceed an overview of the state of politics as is first political parties I know most Nigerians are not aware but there are 18 functional parties in the country according to INEC as of now the ruling party of course has started in world congress and has no elected exclusive other parties are yet to clearly define opposition and make the right moves proposing the right solutions while galvanizing the electorate's support they play the same game and expect a different outcome you can't always preach we're going to if you vote us in we will change it we've heard that music a lot in Africa and it's changed nothing secondly the electorate they scream good governance which couldn't be louder or more agitated from a distance from understanding the true power that has never been so far away from them a little example the wukes state in Nigeria is always legals but when you weigh that wukeness against the LGA elections in the mega city of wukeness with less than 5% voting population participation well you have how ready we are for politics third civil societies of course with their grants they look good it's great to see the work in the space and there are things we really need to point out to the inexperienced policy preferring solutions for the politically illiterate now CSOs have said the PVC drive the PVC drive Nigeria has never actually had a PVC problem 84 million registered voters in 2019 and yet only 28 million participated in the federal elections CSOs have also tried to use the problem to create a valid future what do I mean by this inviting the problem in the legislature to teach the future how to handle politics the media houses you'd love to think of them as the fourth estate but in actuality they are the third legs of politicians for brown envelopes and paid time on their airwaves the crucifixion of investigative journalism and the outright abandonment of news worthy material makes them puppies under the dinner table of the average dinosaur politician they ensure the miseducation of the electorate which is the worst thing ever due to a weakened democratic system now for us to understand this we must understand this critical statement the game in politics is always to unfold and is never to be told which means indirectly you do not have access to what exactly is going to happen except you understand the way the chess pieces move in 2023 there will be a generation house shift a lot of people would love to hear this but it's not the generation you're thinking it will be the generation that will take over power have served as ministers and governors and want a seat at the table but I'll tell you there's little good news somewhere down the line as long as any generation is not strategic and unified it will be lost in the ballots another good news for 2023 is that a lot of political dynasties will fall and this will be because of the loss of power that occurs in any changing government there will be a lot of inter-party tussles and most of all a weakened political structure by the two usual suspect political parties but most of all poor dominance by any political heavyweight in nation spread the electorate at this rate will be at its most gullible ever in 2023 leading to bad political structures to the throne which once again will bring in a government that does not know the constitution while in governance and be pregnant with corruption let's also add at this point that political literacy will be at the highest level possible if you thought this different let me ask a question deep in your heart do you know your local government chairman and in case you do do you know he has no immunity the way forward one we must come up with a unified front for once we must build a new tribe and that tribe we must be nepotic too and the name of that tribe is being Nigerian it must supersede any religion, ethnic bias or thought process which limits our front this is the only way we can pick someone not from the usual he has structure which means he drives this G class and has 16 PA's but a Nigerian who actually wants to represent the people secondly we must have a clear understanding that we cannot survive as a nation with eight more years of bad governance if there is a repeat of what we have faced presently over the last time within democracy or the last 21 years of democracy there will be no country called Nigeria the mismanagement of corruption, funds and people will be destructive third political literacy and participation is most necessary to change governance now by participation you think I'm going to ask you to vote no I won't ask you to vote and I'll give you an example it's better we have an influx into political parties that ensures that we can of course change the kind of people that are in primaries and all political parties produce good candidates then we can leave it for 2 million people to vote at the general elections the time to start this I will tell you is yesterday if Nigeria fails the entire black race fails if Nigeria fails the entire black race will fail I wonder why I'm stuttering maybe I need some chicken let me take it from that before I even go to the Nigerian bit so that's simply to say the black race is where it is today because of the current state of Nigeria because we are not doing as well so if we feel further that's what we are saying now bring it back home I believe that you've expressed a lot of my fears my concerns and my views in your narration I believe that the approach to governance and politics over the years has been wrong we've not with the people we've not had our own voice and ideologies the individuals who make up citizens of Nigeria we've not had our own voice and by that I mean that we trumpet what a politician has said it's not anything that will favor us as a people that okay we know that this is what will favor me as a person so what you're saying now if you were to tell them and say it's about joining a political party a lot of people would disagree that don't just go around say you want to vote alone infiltrate the political parties have a say influence who the nominees are and that has always been my view because we're not doing enough Nigerians are at a point that's why in my earlier my presentation I said we're broken we don't see the light anymore we've come to a state where we're stagnated all we like to do is complain so 2023 like you're saying you've outlined all the do's and don'ts how many of us even believe in those do's and don'ts how many of us even understand it so for us to even be able to achieve these do's and don'ts I think it comes back to what you're doing and we need to make it larger and what a lot more people are doing as well which is educating the average Nigerian on what it takes to get it to politics in Nigeria what your rights are saying you have the right to vote out the local government chairman what you really want or you deserve as a people we don't know anymore because now everybody's talking about 2023 and all we are saying is anything but worry and I ask, it's okay hold on you can see that I'm not related to him we're all suffering the same stuff but we said anything but Jonathan now we're saying anything but worry what are we going on who are we as a people and we're accusing the politicians are we analyzing what we're doing you talk about doing things differently if you keep doing the same thing the same way we say it's a mad man that does the same thing the same way and expect a change anything but worry anything but Jonathan now anything but worry whoever comes in anything but that after four years I don't know so listen if most people right are again thinking about their daily needs how much time do they have to really dissect the meat of governance of what it means so they just know what they don't want but what the average person doesn't think about is that it can just be what you don't want right you have needs that are not being met which is why you're struggling which is why you have no time to address or look at these things we need people who are running in government to understand our needs but we also need ourselves to understand our needs and therefore what we need to do to make sure our needs are met and I think that is what Kung-Lei is getting at is that you know and what you're getting at is that there's a lot of talk right we say we want this but then there's anything but anything and then we'll go on and complain again but really it would be helpful like the work you do is amazing right so if more people or it could be rolled out on a wider basis so that it's not just the average citizen that doesn't understand governance it's beyond the average it's actually most of the population and so if we kind of address this we have to really go back to the basics again in everything and really it's like baby it's like weenie right we have to take people back to the milk and that takes a lot of work and it takes commitment and there are young people who are committed to this so we need to find a way to engage and empower and for those empowered to understand that this actually benefits them for this to happen I think there's a lot of fear for them outside of losing power fear of change because you feel that people come after you when you leave or that you will have that loss of power because power is everything but I think they also feel to understand that these things happening can actually benefit both those in power and also the citizens you know in average life I think I would come from the angle of voting within parties because I mean I'm on the school of thought that democracy is not fun on education society preach girl preach so because I mean we end up selecting the majority what the majority goes for and if the majority doesn't really understand what is happening or what governance is like then we end up selecting what kind of leaders we've had in the past so but now that he made mention of going into the primaries being involved in the politics then making that decision to influence the kind of people that are selected in primaries I think it's now making more sense to me and I'm thinking okay this is an opportunity for smart minds to actually go into politics because sometimes I mean I have conversations with some people smart Nigerians doing great stuff and ask them okay so how about going into politics and there are typical responses like they don't want to dirty themselves they don't want to be involved in all of those things because for them politics for them is I have to take on a position but if they get to just understand that as a card carry member of a political party I can decide I can influence the kind of people that will be put forward in the presidential election or the military election or even our states that in itself would sort of be like a mind shift that sort of influence or make them want to decide to go into politics you know talking about people and the influence of people one thing that scares me a lot is in Nigeria today unfortunately everything has to be binary you must either hate worry or love them we don't discuss issues where we say okay this thing worried it is good this thing it did it bad once you start saying good about it you are unstable exactly okay guys I will say continue this conversation it will take a very long time Nigeria has always run a selection and not an election because we rarely participate in the process so rounding up here today is Tonya do stay tuned corporate attire in Nigeria today no long speech I'm getting straight to the point swift and sharp to leave more time for discussion my topic is on corporate attire I confess I've never had a real strict corporate job where I've had to dress in suit and all that corporate wear in the world of banking finance and general business for men is a suit and tie and the equivalent version of skirt or trouser suit for women I have always kind of wondered why this is we live in a hot and often humid climate and so it has never made sense to me that we wear the same corporate wear the brits do for their climate wouldn't it make more sense for our usual corporate attire be more appropriate for our environment why the uncomfortable sweat causing attire in our hot weather well it goes back again to the colonial masters who impressed on the Nigerian people that our way of life and culture was inferior and this has stuck if you want to be taken seriously in the corporate world you must wear a suit and tie does that mean that those who prefer native are less serious the one thing I love about our government is the proud way our politicians wear their native attire something that the corporate world has failed to do it astounds me also that in the 21st century our lawyers and judges are wearing 18th century wigs and gowns frankly it's utterly ridiculous and a reminder of just how deep the colonial mindset goes didn't we take our elders and workers seriously prior to being colonised let's look at it this way I believe we have the best looking men in the world right here in Nigeria and a Nigerian man looks his best in native I also love it when it's dressed down Fridays and you see workers choosing to wear their native it isn't dressed down because you know our Niger peoples know how to give them and this allows for a certain personal expression in the workplace so why do we continue to hold up this outdated suit and tie standard of corporate wear once again I say to you decolonise the mind and we can decolonise our bodies it's one simple thing to me I was going to add the wig and gown thank God you added that and another thing you should add is why policemen wear black under this hot sun yes you don't want them to be nice that is so when they are baking why do we wear black in the hot sun why do we wear black in the hot sun so many things are wrong and it goes back to how we think we just do things because as it was in the beginning it is now and forever shall be what will that end you know for me it's highly I don't know whether I would say crazy because for people that still are culture and tell you that your culture is not good you abandon your culture yet your artefacts are in their museums your music is being translated into their music your entire lifestyle your food let me even tell you how bad it is in medicine everything we know as an advancement in science was taken from Africa even education was taken from us so we had the first university somewhere around Timbuktu Timbuktu had the first university these guys created Harvard and tell us Harvard is better really so for me it would always be that way as long as you don't have a history a trail that you can look back to because you know when you have it's like when comes to tell you now that take this herb as an educated person you want to find out what does it do to me they can explain to you just take it it's time for us to start doing research and penning down all these activities because for example I tell people that when we talk gender balance it's in a way funny to me the reason is this before the colonial masters came a chief let me use the Yoruba area for example which I'm very familiar with a chief cannot take or a king cannot take a decision without the what's this one called the Yaludi who is like the minister for women affairs you remember about the Aba women writer the Kanu women writer women have always been powerful but there comes colonization that tells us okay this is how to go about it then years back we are now being told no let give your women rights give your women rights like we used to we told this not and now we are going back and the same thing goes to remember how the friend who studied psychology and one day came back from school he was saying in human psychology today they learned that when you're pregnant and you're listening to jazz opportunities are that your child will love jazz or music and I got so angry and didn't understand why I said listen when we were younger we had mothers telling us that no when you're pregnant don't go out and fight and our uncles who have trouble abroad will tell you know all this superstition why would that affect the child it's the same thing we just need to do research and write down all these things so the thing that really kind of it's just so strange to me when you know you're going from one place to the other especially in the morning people are going to work and you see people who are you know it's busy legos is hectic getting to work and you can see them struggling with what they're wearing with the heat so by the time they get to work they're sweating sweaty smelling body odor and all that it's just not conducive and that is someone who's a hard worker that is someone who spends how many hours going to and from work see the same person on that Friday where they're allowed to wear the track and it's very very different and I just feel like why is it you honestly if you put a picture side by side of the same person alright if Oluwa Kaede our supermodel on the advocate if we put him in a suit and we put him in a track I'm sorry we win every time actually I'm not sorry the track will win every time you take a second look at it well you know the financing on the advocate today we get to see our supermodel Tonya thank you you know she's so she's so Sydney Crawford like oh my goodness but it's Ruth please go ahead so I think I mean from what's happening now in this bad world sort of changing the narrative and thanks to Kofi because I'm part of my current job I used to work in in more corporate environment where we had that we fought we fought for them to change dress culture because you couldn't wear as a lady you couldn't wear some kind of you couldn't wear this you couldn't wear that and you're asking yourself like the dress doesn't change my influence I'm still going to do the same work without there's always that perception that oh you couldn't wear open toes shoes you couldn't wear sandals you couldn't wear I mean things that do not influence your work performance and also because there's that perception that you're trying to maintain but now with COVID everybody working from home you don't even know what I'm wearing one and then two instead of words there's now that in fact it's cool Max Zuckerberg and Appearance please don't mention Max the whole number of conversations I think it's hard to dress down to wear whatever you want to wear at any point in time so it's just sort of I mean I think it's changing actually it will be times if you go for an interview wearing traditional you'll be asked are you here for an interview yes so it feeds into that perception of what professionalism is we could also talk about hairstyles relating to that as well but I really do believe that there's a place for our earn attire in the corporate workspace we have it everywhere else but it must enter the corporate workplace so thank you so much for your attention while the program lasted we hoped our conversations resonated with you little drops of water they say make a mighty ocean don't forget the advocacy continues on our social media platforms on Facebook plus TV Africa hashtag the advocate NG and Instagram at plus TV Africa hashtag the advocate NG to catch up with previous broadcasts go to plusTVAfrica.com forward slash the advocate NG don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel plus TV Africa join us next week same time on this station let's keep advocating for a better society see you next time


Okay, so when you say start, I'll just start. Okay. No, yes, it's time. Okay. Now start. Okay, thank you very much. I have been watching the presentations here in the LibreOffice conference, and this presentation is probably going to be a little bit different because it's not really a technical presentation. This is a presentation that we gave mostly at schools, at career centers, where there are people that are interested in technology, so we actually use this presentation to introduce them to the magical world of technology and also tell them that when we talk about technology today, we are pretty much talking about free and open source software. I am César Broad. I am the director of community engagement for the Linux Professional Institute for the Spanish and Portuguese speaking regions. And while I'm talking to you, I'm looking at the chat in matter most. So if you do have some questions, feel free to ask. It's going to be hopefully a very short presentation, although I tend to talk a little bit too much. We tend to divide the world of knowledge into major categories. The exact science where we have math, physics, chemistry, and the human science, where we have philosophy, sociology, and history. And we also have the hidden sciences, which is where the information and communication technologies are. In this presentation, I'll try to make a comparison with a character that I am pretty sure that everybody knows, which is Harry Potter. And the career of someone else that most of you are pretty sure they know, which is Linus Torvold, the creator of Linux. And if you think about it, it's probably it probably has some things that had to do with your own career. So this is me by the time of the 10th anniversary of Linux. So it was 20 years ago.  John Matt Dog Hall to the left and Linus Torvold to the right. One thing that I, well, I also participate in the train the training programs that we have in LPI. And one of the things that I try to do is to tell them how important is to tell stories as long as you buy this aside the technical things that you want to teach. Because this helps to get the ideas into the mind, into the head of the students. So this is why this is also going to be a story in here. When we think about Harry Potter, well, and here's the summary of Harry Potter from where he was born until he got to 10 years old. He was born in July 31 1980. And soon after that in October of the same year he became an orphan. In my from that time until 1985, he was living with models, regular people. And then finally in 1985 in September, first 1991, he was enrolled in Hogwarts. One interesting thing is that one year before one month before that, Linus Torvold announced that he was creating an operating system which then became Linux. I compared that when Harry Potter first joined Hogwarts as the first experience in mobile programming that he had with Hermione and Ron. And also, I compare that with the first code that was written a few years before by Linus Torvold's and the code just printed saris the best several times in his screen using basic the basic programming language. But when Harry Potter turned 13 years old, he participated in the tournament of the three magics and almost double door say opening that that tournament eternal glory. This is what awaits the student who wins the three wizard tournament. But for that, he will have to survive in three tasks, three extremely dangerous tasks. So this is where actually happens. This is this is what actually happens in the wonderful world of technology. It's not that easy. You have several tests that you need to fulfill in order to move ahead in your career. They are just not only three. In 1995, Harry Potter joins the Dumbledore Army. So I compare that with his first project with your first project in GitHub, GitLab or other repository. And in June, he gets his ordinary wizarding level. So it is the equivalent of having a Linux essential certification or entering into the world of LibreOffice, the document foundation certifications. In September 7, 1996, he then starts to get in lessons directly from Dumbledore, which I compare of Linux Turbo having his first encounter with Joe Maddokal, which is actually today the chairman of the board of the Linux Professional Institute. Only when he was quite older, like when from 26 to 39 years old, was that Harry Potter really had some high level jobs, let's say that he became someone in the executive level of some companies. First in 2007 as the head of our department and then in 2020 as the head of the magic police. So this was just two years ago when Harry Potter became the head of the magical police. A lot of people tell me, especially when I get into these career events, is that in our world, in the world of technology, it's very difficult for one to know what he or she will do in the future, because things are always changing. But you know, if you are really looking into what is going on in your field, you'll see that the future is not that difficult to predict. So this is an article. It was in, it was released in December 1999. And here it says, it tells about the, and the link will be there for you also. I believe that the organization will provide you with a copy of this presentation. But this is by science fiction writer Dave Gerald. And he took a look at the things that were happening in 1999. And he actually predicted that you would have a very, a very fast and capable computer in your pocket. And he called this a Pitta, a personal information telecommunications agent. This means that he pretty much is telling us here what the cell phone is right now. So if you are looking into what is going on, you can actually imagine what the future will be and will be prepared for the future. I also, this is from a screenshot from a web page here in Brazil very recently. And I always tell people, well, don't be to be very careful when you look into ads like that. Here pretty much says that you are going to learn the whole science technology in a very short time. In this case is going to be one month. And if you're looking to the structure of the course, basically a class one to 12 is windows for beginners, then using Gmail, more for more classes and just one class of Google of how to use Google Drive. Of course, you are not going to become an ICT professional by taking this course. And there are several offers. You probably come from very different regions of the world. And you have these offers like learn data sciences in the weekend. This just doesn't work. I do like though this example from John Washington, and he published his studies on GitHub. And he called this the coding interview university. He wanted to to start working for Google. So he studied for eight to 12 hours a day for several months. He actually studied eight months preparing for a Google interview. What happened is that he did not got the offer from Google that he wanted, but instead he used the same things that he had learned to get a job on Amazon. So you see, eight months, eight to 12 hours a day. So this is this is really a serious way of studying into the to get into the wonderful world of technology. There's really no shortcuts that there's really no tricks. I will just make a few calculations in here. So if you guys do remember from your, your high school, the rule of three or maybe elementary school, 10 hours a day, eight months. So if you have 10 hours a day to study, you need to study for eight months to get your job on Google or Amazon, or you can apply the same kind of thing for any kind of company that you want to work for. And this is of course, it will vary, but it's a it's a good rule of thumb rule or rule of thumb to to know how much you need to study. So you have five hours a day, you study eight months, so you get to the to the rule of three. And I actually created a small calculator for you, which is the study time calculator that you can access here in this link. It's a very simple Google spreadsheet. And I use it a lot to tell young people the real time they will need to study to get a good job. And of course, you should learn about free and open technologies for several reasons. It's easy to build on top of what already exists. Even if you think that you have a very good idea, if you look into GitHub, GitLab and things like that, you'll see that at least part of your, your idea is being built by other people. So use the repository, still look them, use the certain genes to look into things that are closer to what you want to do, or if there aren't, there aren't things that are actually similar to what you want to do. And then you can contribute or modify that product. And this is what free and open software allows you to do. It is more secure. Eric Raymond in this book, the Katrina in the bazaar, he mentioned that, and he called it the Linus law, given enough eyes, our bugs are shallow. So when the code is open, when you have access to the source code, a lot of people are using, even if people cannot actually all of them program. As soon as they find a bug and they tell people about the bug, there will be a lot of people that know how to program and will be able to fix that bug. If there's a problem with security, the same kind of thing. Security is so important that even in our most basic certification Linux essentials, we cover quite a lot of security. Well, it's easy to access. You know, you are in the document foundation, the LibreOffice maintainers. You just download. There's nothing dark between the lines of the license. You just download and you start to use it. It's very easy to adapt. And we just had a very good example in the previous presentation on how LibreOffice is able to work with several languages, even right vertically, horizontally, from right to left, left to right. And this is thanks to a huge amount of contributors that it has from people that are in these different geographies. Another example here, you guys know that GIMP is the equivalent of Photoshop in our community. There is a project that's actually led by a Brazilian which is called Photogimp. It is GIMP, but with an interface that will make it easier for people that comes from Photoshop to start using GIMP. The adherence to standards and this is something that's extremely important for both the Linux community, the LibreOffice community, for all of the free and open source community. The internet actually was created thanks to a mechanism called Request for Comments, where people would contribute to today's existing standards. Starting with the name of hosts that we have an example in here. And it doesn't need to be serious like the RFC for the name of hosts. Pretty much became a poetry at the end, but the TCP IP evolved from the Request for Comments and other things like that. The internet exists since thanks for standards. And also, of course, ODF is a very good example of a standard. This is not enough to convince some people to come into the wonderful world of free and open source software. If we look into the world today, pretty much everything uses free and open source software. Here's an example. This is a tweet from Elon Musk. Elon Musk himself is responding to a tweet where someone asked about the Linux kernel updated that they did for the cockpit system that was running on SpaceX. So if the CEO of a company such as SpaceX, Tesla, the boring company is interested in replying himself tweets regarding Linux, it's a signal that we all should pay attention to free and open source software. We also know that the cloud is populated with pretty much the totality of free and open source software. The 500 supercomputers that most perform the supercomputer world, they run on top of Linux. All of the Internet of Things, the mobiles, they are pretty much on top of free and open source software. So this is really a career that people should consider. We just set up a partnership with the development, the document, I'm sorry, with the delivery office maintainers. And one of the reasons that we set up the partnership is because we have a very similar mission. Like the Linux Professional Institute promotes the use of free and open technologies by elevating the people who work with them. And listening to some of the presentations in here, what I can see is that you are all the time really elevating the people that work with the document foundation with the delivery office. We are a non-profit organization founded in 1999 in Canada. Our group is very small. We are about 50 people all over the world. So we do work with our regional partners that are all over the world. And we are independent of Linux vendors and distributions. And well, since quite a long time right now, we have been leaving from our certifications. There is no other type of income into the Linux Professional Institute other than our certifications. So this means that people actually like our certifications. And even during the pandemic times, a lot of new partners have reached out to us in order because people discovered that you can now. Well, they knew that, but the social isolation times actually enhanced that knowledge that you can sell your services to all over the world. And certifications become very important as credentials to show people that you actually know the kind of thing that you're saying that you know. Here is just a summary of our certifications tracks. We have the essential tracks today. We have Linux Essentials. Soon we have Web Development Essentials. Then we have our Linux Professional Track which starts with LPEAK 1, the Linux Administrator. Then the Linux Engineer, LPEAK 2, which is actually a Linux networked administrator. Then we have our Specialties, LPEAK 3. Now we have Security, Mixed Environment, Virtualization and High Availability. And soon we'll have some other specializations also. Then in the Open Technology, we'll have the DevOps Tools Engineer and this already exists and the BSD Specialist. The BSD Specialist is because the BSD, the Berkeley Software Division, which produced the free BSD, Open BSD and Net BSD, they thought that they should concentrate on their BSD-based distributions and let someone else take care of their certifications. So they came to LPEAK and we adopted their certification and we actually put their certification in our standards. I am pretty sure that part of our collaboration with the Document Foundation is actually to, if not having some of your certifications coming into the LPEI tracks, at least work together to improve our certifications together, because you guys already have a lot of experience into that. And also a lot of C-level executives in the companies, they are facing with more and more free and open source software inside their companies and most of the times they are not sure how to hire free and open source services, products and people who work with that. So we are preparing the BOS certification, which is the business of open source, which is going to be a C-level certification. This is where we are in the world, so we are in all of the areas that are yellow and we do hope that we soon, all the world will be covered in yellow. Soon before the pandemic started, we were working with Cuba and we had our first people certified in Cuba. Unfortunately, the social isolation does not allow us to move too much, but we are still developing works with Cuba and of course several other countries in the world. Getting closer to the end, another question that I received lots of the time is, should I learn to program? The quick answer is yes, you should learn how to program. Even companies, and here is just one example, Disney, which has its project Rosie2.0 that other than including women into the ICT industry, something that inside the LPI also tried to do actually is part of our objectives and key results to work with inclusion and diversity. So we are working on programs like that and this project by Disney here that is an example, they are training their office workers on Python, so they will be able to move up in their career inside the company. Some hints like if you want to, if you are going to know how to program, start learning programming logic. There are several, several resources on YouTube, on YouTube and other places. Once you learn programming logic, we will be able to program pretty much all languages. Choose a programming language. If you don't get into the fight, this is better, this is better. Look into some project that appeals to you and what is the programming language that this project uses. So start by learning that. As soon as you learn one language, it will be easily transferred in your skill to another language. Start programming with a modern IDE. I have been kind of a big fan of the Jupyter Notebook, so you can take a look at that in the Internet. I like the fact that it is web-based and also that there are several examples in there for you to start. And tell everyone what you are doing. Linus Torval used to say, release early and often. Some people think that, well, I have this idea, I'll hide this idea, and when it's ready, I'll show it to the world. You know, the ideas are there. They are everywhere. And if you don't start working your ideas, some other people will. So tell everyone what you are doing. And by doing that, start building your portfolio. It's important that you have your work published in the web. So people will be able to look into it and actually know how you are advancing your career. Most companies are learning that rather than hiring people with a specific knowledge, it's more valuable to hire people that are able to learn anything. Just the URL for the Jupyter Notebook. If you also look for Octaverse on github.com, you'll see projects that are trending and things that you should look into. And I want you to allow you some time for questions. So this is me. Cbroad at LPI.org. This is Jolly Villa-Visa who also helped me with this presentation. The first time that we provided this presentation. And you will find me in all social networks with the nickname of Cesar Brod. So feel free to ask questions now or send me an email. I do receive a lot of email, but I do reply to all of them. So if it takes some time for me to reply to your email, just forward the same email to me. It will bump into the top of my inbox again and I will reply to you. Thank you very much for the Liberty Office community, for the document foundation to allow me to be speaking here to you. Sorry, my voice is still a sleepy one. Although it's 9.30 here in Brazil, I was in another conference until late night. But I wanted to make sure that I will be here talking to you. And with me in the chat are more people from LPI, including I am seeing Juan Ibarra in here. And there are non-patches. Yesterday we also had even live a bit. So we are trying to be as present as possible here in your wonderful conference. Thank you very much. I'm open for questions. Thank you for the presentation. Any questions? I'm looking into the chat and I'm not seeing the end in telegram. I'm not seeing any questions. Or I scared people? Comment is loving the presentation with this. Or yes, only comment. Great. Well, again, thank you guys. Hopefully in the next editions of your conference. And after we'll be talking with the document foundation the following weeks and find out ways where we can work together. We are just starting our partnership. I believe that our mission is very close. Foundation LPI will have several things to do in the future. And also, you know, pretty much everyone that uses Linux in the desktop is also a user of LibreOffice. So we'll, I believe we'll find a lot of creative ways of getting our community work together. And as you invited us for your event, we'll surely invite you guys for our events. And well, we'll just stop and see what we can do together. Oh, sorry. I want question in chat. How has LPI, sorry. Can you see the chat? How has LPI, I don't, I don't know the sentence. I'm going to paste the question here in the chat. Okay. Okay, okay. How has LPI dealt with the problem of people thinking Linux is not good. This is a very, very good questions. And the answer to that has become easier and easier and easier as we move on. Nowadays we tell people, well, we thought at some point that we would also dominate the desktop computing, which we didn't like there's still a lot more windows in the desktop computers. And but we now have more desktop computers. There are more Linux desktop computers than Mac OS computers. So we are important in this market. But if you consider the whole mobile computing, almost the totality of the tablets and mobile mobile phones, they are running Android and Android is a Linux distribution. If you look into everything that's running in the cloud, more than 85% runs on Linux. If you look into the 500 fastest computers in the world, they are running Linux. Linux is the only operating system in Mars. And Linux dominates the servers around the globe, like Starlink, the soon going to be more than 100,000 satellites. They are all running Linux. So if Linux is not good, it wouldn't be the majority of these things. If you think about any kind of embedded system in cars, in your vacuum at your home, they are all running Linux. So if it was not that good, like it would be Windows or Mac OS running these kind of things. But it is Linux. So Linux really is really, really good. Okay. I think that we have reached our timing here. I'm glad to finish in half an hour as you guys asked me. But you know, I provide you my email. I'll be looking and both myself and my friends from LPI will be present in the telegram chat. So do feel free to ask questions for us. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye all.


Hey everybody, this is Brian and happy New Year's 2023. It's actually not New Year's yet. It's not even Christmas yet. Recording this a bit early because I'm probably going to have family over the holidays. Once a year, I try to record like a year in review video and that's what this is. And at the very end, I talk about what my plans are for next year. So if you're here for a video tutorial or magic eight ball or anything like that, sorry, this is just a video diary is just me posting this. So later on in life, I can go back and kind of reflect on the year and see what happened. All right. So 2022 I am not going to miss this year at all. This has been just a horrible year. COVID-19 is still a thing. It's raging across the country still. Everybody just kind of acts like it disappeared and it really didn't. Businesses and companies, they expect everybody to go back to work like nothing happened, but infection rates are at an all time high. And now we've got this thing called RSV, which is a respiratory virus basically. It's up cold flues infections RSV. It's up 300% right now. It's ridiculous. I've literally spent, I want to say the last three months of my life having some sort of weird cold flu thing. And it's like every time I think it goes away, either I get a different one or it just comes back. So I haven't really been recording a whole lot. My health just has not been holding up and that's kind of the story everywhere. I went to my wife is actually sick. So I went to go get her cold medicine and like the cold medicine. I was just wrecked. I mean, there was just nothing there. I had to just get her whatever was left on the shelf. And part of that is due to supply chain issues from COVID-19 and just the state of affairs. It's ridiculous right now. And of course, boosters. Everybody's getting boosters now. I'm not, I'm not going to lie. I don't like the boosters. I take them. I have to for work and I don't like them at all. My body doesn't like them either. And I suspect that may have caused some of my health issues. Speaking of health issues in July, I almost died like no joke. I was in the hospital for four days. What had happened was I was going to an allergist for my asthma. It's where they give you injections for immunotherapy to try to boost your immune system. So your asthma is not as bad. And my blood pressure was already crazy high going in there. And I had been on medication for blood pressure and I kept telling the doctor, Hey, look, my blood pressure is high. Should I be doing this? And he said, Oh yeah, no problem. Here's your shot. And the first shot, I wasn't feeling good.  He saw it's not a big deal. Give me another shot. Boom. Instantly in the hospital. Long story short, my blood pressure shot through the roof. So in case you don't really understand blood pressure, normal blood pressure is about 120. I tend to range around 120 to 139. And right around when let me back up here. When COVID hit the scene right around that time, my blood pressure just shot up and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, it was up in the 170s and 180s. So I was already at high blood pressure stage two. Could have been diet, lifestyle, COVID, all these things. It was just weird that it just for no reason just shot up. But they didn't do anything. But when I was in the hospital for four days, my blood pressure was 250 over, I forget it was like 120. I actually noticed about 150. And my pulse was at about 150 and it stayed that way for four days. The nurses were looking pretty concerned. The doctor was looking pretty concerned and they couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.  And then he walks in the room an hour later goes, Well, I don't think it's your kidneys. I'm concerned you're having a stroke, but don't panic. And then he walks in while you're not having a stroke, but and it just went on from there. It was ridiculous. I mean, he walked in the room one time and I just looked at him and said, If you don't have solid answers, get the hell out of the room. I'm done talking to you. I was just mad at him. He was just doing his job. I'm sure. But so blood pressure just shot up and would not come back down and man. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I'm actually struggling just to record this video, which is why I have not been recording a whole lot. I get it's hard to describe. I get this winded feeling. I'm actually doing much better. I'll go into that, but it just still, I don't feel like I've fully recovered.  I think I'd get another one again. The problem is I really like steak and whiskey and my body really likes vegetables. So me and my body need to sit down and have some sort of conversation. Find like a healthy balance here. I am still married to this lovely woman Tammy. And she gets more beautiful every day how she has not left me or stabbed me in the face repeatedly while I sleep. I have no idea, but we're still together. And you can see in this image, I'm getting kind of hefty there. I was into weightlifting and powerlifting and eating a little too much snacks. I'm getting a little portly and there's me now. That's actually me two nights ago. I slim down a lot. That's my granddaughter, Harmony. And we took them to see the Christmas lights. She was actually very well behaved. And there's Jaconte, the little man. He's super hyper, got ADD, but just try to give these kids a little bit of joy with all the craziness that's going on in the world. And there's the whole troop right there, Harmony, Jaconte, Adriana with the glasses on the right. And then Brittany, who's recently moved down here to town. So she was previously like an hour and a half away. And now her and the grandkids are like literally 10, 15 minutes away. So they've been over a lot more. So just doing the whole family thing. And actually that's me right there with my stepdaughter, Brittany. You can see I've dropped just a lot of weight. I'm actually wearing pants that are smaller than when I was in high school. So I've dropped just a crazy amount of weight. And you can kind of see it in my face. I'm just feeling kind of cruddy and tired. My health is improving. I want to just stress that I'm just not 100% yet. All right, Kay. And this gentleman, we're married. They are not married anymore. I won't go into the details. It just got ugly fast. And Brittany, of course, the other stepdaughter, she's divorcing and moving here to town. See my daughter whenever I can. It just, life's been crazy. Our schedules don't match. I got promoted again recently. That chews up a lot of time. And my health hasn't been the greatest.  And speaking of, let's just offend everybody all at once. So long story short, when I was in that hospital for four days thinking I was going to die, I actually put it out on Facebook and said, hey, I'm in the hospital and isn't looking good. None of my friends, I shouldn't say none. Most of my friends really didn't even reach out. And I'll today bump into people that I haven't seen due to COVID in like a year, year and a half.  Like they have no clue what was going on in my life. So I pretty much just disassociated with a lot of people. I just don't care anymore. It's like if they don't want to be bothered with, you know, me almost dying, then I don't really want to be bothered with whatever drama they got. So it's been kind of like a hobby of mine to see how many times I can get banned off Facebook. I think I've got the high score at this point. And I'm not saying that every single one of my friends has betrayed me or anything like that.  I think part of that is they legalized marijuana in Michigan. And a lot of people are getting into the drugs a little bit more than they should. So watching my health as this graphic really shows just trying to slim down and heal up because I really want to spend more time with family here. I miss my daughter. I see her whenever I can. Kay's always there and then Brittany's closer to town with the grandkids.  Hopefully she doesn't kill me. She probably will.  We're talking three years, five years, 10, 15 years have reached out. It's ironic the people that I've talked to almost, you know, daily, weekly, monthly just didn't seem to care. And then people I haven't talked to in decades plus are suddenly coming out going, bro, are you okay? Unfortunately, some of those friends really are not friends and they've been asking for money. I had one gal. She popped out of nowhere. Like, I haven't talked to her since almost high school pops out and goes, oh, hey, this is crazy, man.  Can I borrow $10,000? I just was like, I had no idea what to say. I was like, no, I'm good. Then she got mad and blocked me and then she unblocked me and asked for $15,000. And I'm like, clearly you've made some choices in life that have been bad and just blocked her and moved on. So not all friends popping back into my life are actually a good thing. Did reconnect with a few folks that I miss and when my health gets a little better, I do want to take a couple of road trips just not yet. Oh, politics. I always have to cover politics. The country is hurting pretty bad right now. I have no idea how he got elected. I don't like diving into politics. It was just funny because everybody thought that Donald Trump was going to destroy the country and that Joe Biden was going to be this pillar of light. And it's actually quite the opposite since Joe Biden got into office.  I mean, it's just getting bad fast. It's likely not all his fault. But yeah, he's probably not one of the most popular presidents we've ever had. I think a lot of it is the state of affairs. We're coming off of a global pandemic and it's not even over. And of course, now inflation is at a massive all-time high. It's ridiculous. I mean, just going to the grocery store, something that used to cost $2 now cost $10. And of course, you know, I feel fortunate to have gotten a raise. Not many folks have, but you know, we're at like 12% inflation and I got like a 2.5% raise. It's like, what am I going to do with that? I mean, at least toilet paper is back in stock in like 2020. And this guy, Zelinsky, he's been in the news almost all year long. So Russia decided to go in and invade Ukraine. President Zelinsky, he's over Ukraine. He's actually a former comedian, believe it or not, a stand-up comedian. And he is just beating the snot out of Russia. It's just Russia is not as strong as they used to be and they're getting their butts kicked by a comedian. It's kind of funny to watch. I hope that the people of Ukraine are safe. And I hope they join NATO. I really do. I hope that this event with Russia really makes people realize the whole purpose of NATO. And I'm not a huge fan of NATO. We as a country, the United States pour a lot of money into NATO and we get very little in return, but it's for this very reason that NATO exists. I mean, if you don't understand NATO, I beg you, please go to Google and research why NATO was even formed. I think all real civilized countries should be a part of NATO. And my spare time, losing my voice again, apologize, like I said, my health's just not holding up. I've been reading a lot of books. I miss books. They're my old friends. So I'm kind of going back to what I love is just reading a lot of books. And unfortunately, part of what I love is writing programs too and playing video games. I'm really trying to, you know, split my time up and find the best use to my time. So what's in the future? Again, losing my voice. Apologize. That's a good question. Sitting in that hospital bed for four days really made me reassess what's important to me in life. As I'm sure that happens with everybody, it's just part of the human experience. So listening to music in the background. I've had a lot of people come out and go, bro, you are not recording as much as you used to. Are you done? And it's funny when people don't see me active. They think I'm just done. I'm just, I'm slowing down. I'm getting older. My health hasn't been holding up. Trying to heal from my hospital visit. Just a long road to recovery. I recorded this video magic eight ball. It's like an hour plus long video and it took me like 12 hours to record one hour worth of footage. Excuse me. My voice is going out again. And you can kind of tell with my voice cracking and going in and out that it's just, you know, one hour of footage taking 12 hours to record. It wouldn't take me forever to make another course. So I'm just, I'm trying to make shorter videos like these magic eight ball videos are only like 13 minutes long. And even these 13 minute long ones take me a few hours. Unless I do them all in one take. And then I got to like hit my health when it's at like the right spot, like the moon, the stars and the planets all aligned and boom, I'm definitely feeling better for a day. So yeah, magic eight ball. It's takes a little bit of explaining here, but basically during the global pandemic, 2020, I started researching options trading as I think a lot of other people did. And I joined a few groups and I really started developing this thing called magic eight ball and it's a stock market prediction engine. You've probably seen some of my videos out there, but this thing is getting just crazy accurate. This is a chart from yesterday for SPX and I was saying all day long, I shouldn't say I was my program was saying all day long was going to be around 3,800. I think it closed right at this blue line. That's where I'm predicting the closes that green is the history. And it did close right around there. I mean just ridiculously getting accurate. So it's not perfect. It does have some flaws. I've actually started an entire discord channel of it and there are about 100 plus members in here. So it's growing and this is only a few weeks old. So it's just exploding. It's helpful for me because I love programming. So I'm just kind of going back to what I know and what I love. And I'm learning something new with options trading. And along the way, I've met a lot of really great people. Like I joined this group called axe options and it's kind of funny because when I was sitting in that hospital bed, I was reaching out to people that I actually know in real life saying, hey, I'm in the hospital and it's not looking good and they're like, oh, okay. And then these folks, complete strangers on the internet were like, oh my God, I hope you're okay. It was like they were more friendly to me than some of the friends I had, which of course makes you reassess who you should actually be friends with. So again, it's just kind of was one of those shocking events, but I've actually made some friends now in the axe group and these are really great folks. And I'm learning a lot in this group. I mean, just it's like every day I'm learning something new. Keeping up with it is kind of a chore because I have work and family and life and all that. And of course, my videos on Udemy and this number is actually very misleading. It says total students 200,000. It's actually way, way higher than that. And most of these students have actually enrolled in multiple courses. So I do, of course, I get it. I do, of course, want to make more courses. But they're just going to be slow going. Like I said, recording has been slow. Healing has been slow. I just haven't been 100%. So I'm not done. I'm not quitting. I haven't stopped. I'm just slowing down and taking a pause. I want to be around for a really long time. I just got to get all this stuff sorted out. And this cold flu thing, man, I'm telling you this RSV just never seems to go away. So I think I've tried just about every cold remedy out there. Anyways, this is Brian. I want to wish you guys a happy New Year's, happy holidays. And I hope to see you all in 2023. Talk to you later.


Hey guys, welcome to SSUnitech, so till this side and this is continuation of Azure Data Factory tutorial. So today we are going to start with the anti-lactivity. So what is the anti-lactivity and where we can use it in the real time? So before going forward, if you haven't watched the previous videos of this video series, so I would strongly recommend to watch all those videos in a sequence. So for that you can directly go in the browser and you can search for SSUnitech in the YouTube and after that you can go here then go under the playlist and here you will see the playlist for the Azure Data Factory. So you can open that one and you can watch all those videos which is related to the Azure Data Factory. So let's get started with the today's videos. So what is anti-lactivity? So basically the anti-lactivity provides the same functionality that do until loop structure provide in the programming languages. If you don't have the idea about the programming languages then don't worry you will see in this video. So here we will be going to have a condition. This loop will be executing until that condition will not reach. So this is the anti-lactivity. So it executes a set of activities in a loop until the condition associated with the activity evaluated to true. So as I told you we will be having a variable and that variable value will be false by default and your loop will be executing until that variable value will not be true. So for that we have to use the until activity. You can also specify a timeout value for the until activity. So for example your loop will be executing for 1 hour and if the value is not going to get true for that variable then your pipeline will be completed. So we can set the timeout. So what is our requirement? So let's try to understand our requirement and where we can use this until activity in the real time. So we want to load the data from the azure blob storage. So this is the azure blob storage. So here we have this employee.txt file. So this employee.txt file is available right here. So in your case that will not be there. So this might be uploading at this source location for any specific period of time. So before going to execute the copy data activity to load the data from this emp.txt file to the sql server table first we want to check whether this file is available there or not. So this is the case if this file is not there and you want to execute the copy data activity then your pipeline will fail. So this is the something validation we can check before going to process the data. So here we can see the data. So it has total four columns employee id name address and department and total three rows. And we want to load this file into the sql server table. So as of now we have this file but later we will be going to delete this file and will execute the pipeline. So how we can use the until activity there. So first we will be declaring a variable and by default the value of that variable will be false. And in this until activity first we will be using the wait. So we just want to wait for five minutes, 10 minutes as per your requirement you can set. In my case I will be going to set for 10 minutes. So after that this pipeline will be paused for 10 minutes and will proceed further after 10 minutes. Inside the get meta data activity we will be going to check whether the employee.txt file is there or not. If that will be there then we have this if condition. So if file is there then inside the if condition we have the true block and inside the true block we will be going to set the variable which is for the until activity as true. So this until activity will not be executed again. So this is the condition for checking the file availability inside the azure blob storage. Now go to the browser and we will try to implement this in practical. So here let me try to add a new pipeline. Let me call this as demo until activity. Now here first as I told you we need to drag and drop the until activity. So we can drag it here and in this until activity here we have to set. So under the expression we can go and here we can set the value for the variable but first we have to declare a variable. So go to the pipeline level and let me add a variable for the status and default value of this is false. Now inside this until activity go to the expression and we want to execute this loop until this status value will be true. So for that we can use the bool like this and this. So until this variable value will be true then your loop will be stopped otherwise this will be executing continuous. Now inside the activity what we need to do. So under this first as I told you we have to use the wait. So it will be waiting let me assume for 10 seconds in our case because we don't want to wait longer time. After that we have to use the get metadata activity. So we can drag and drop it here and let me try to connect with this wait and in this get metadata activity what we need to do go to the settings and we need to create a data set and that data set will be pointing for this employee file. So let me try to go on the new and this is for the blob storage. So we can select comma delimited file that is okay and here we need to select the link service. So in the previous videos we have already created the link service for the get metadata. So that will be pointing for that particular location for this input location. Now here we can see the file. So we can go under this input and we need to select that file directly. Now that is okay we can click on okay. So we have done with this get metadata activity. Next we need to check whether the file is there or not. So for that we have to use the if condition and before if condition in this setting we can see the field list. So we can click on new and under the argument we can check the exist. So if file will be there then this exist value will be true otherwise this will be false. So that will be under the field list. Now we can connect with the if condition. Under the if condition go to the activities and under the expression here we need to check the output of this get metadata. So this is for the exist. So we can also check this as true. So we can set like bool of this. So this will be true then under this true log we need to use the set variable activity. So this set variable activity will be going to set the value of this status variable as true only. So that is it. So what this until activity will do this until activity will be executing until your file will not be there. Under setting tab we can also set the timeout option. So I am not going to set this in my case. Next we need to use the copy data activity. So we can connect with this. Now we need to select the source and destination. So as I have already created the source for this. So let me go into use the same one in the sync. I have already created the sync location as well. So for saving the time, so let me go into select that one. Now go to the mapping and import the scheme from there. Everything looks good. So now we can execute and we will check the output. So let me try to debug. So this time file is there. So this will be executing and will load the data at the first attempt. So we can wait. So as until activity is executing. So we can check in the output section as well. So wait activity is executing. So it will be executing for 10 seconds. So your pipeline will be paused. So as we can see here the wait activity is completed. After that get metadata activity. Let me check the output of this. So exist seems true because file is there. Now we can go in the if condition. So if condition will succeed, then set variable. Inside the set variable this status value is going to set as true. Your until activity will be completed here. Then copy data activity and loading the data. So this is like that. Now go to the Azure Blob Storage and we will try to delete this. So this will be deleting the file in the Blob Storage. Now we do not have that file. Now let me try to debug it. So this will be executing and this time file is not there. So your get metadata activity exist will be false. So we can check it here. So here we can see now we can see the output. So exist seems false. So your until activity will be starting again and again. So here we can see the if condition then wait activity is coming again. So until is repeating here as well. So this will be executing until your file will not be there. Let me try to upload the file quickly and try to upload it. So file is uploaded. Now we can go here and we will try to refresh it. So get metadata activity is executing. So again like if condition is there then wait. So after this wait your file will be there. So get metadata activity will find the file. So the exist will be true. So as we can see for this exist value is true in this case and nostad variable will be true for the status and copy data activity is executing. So this is executed successfully. So I hope guys you have better understanding. Now we can check the table. So this would have the data. So as we can see six records because we have executed points. So thank you so much for watching this video. If you really like this video please subscribe our channel to get many more videos. Don't forget to press the bell icon to get the notification of our newly uploaded videos. See you in the next video.


Hello friends, I am Sanjay Gupta. In this video, I am going to demonstrate you how you can implement the concept of virtual descriptor in C++. Before starting, you can note my information. You can follow or subscribe my YouTube channel that is Sanjay Gupta underscore tech school. You can download my Android app that is Techimace, which is available on Google Play. Now coming on to the topic for demonstration, I have implemented a code in C++. Here you can see IO stream header file is included. Then S3 name space is used. Then class A is implemented here. X is a attribute. Then in public section, first I have implemented a constructor, which will display constructor of class A called message on console. Then its destructor is implemented, which will display destructor of class A called this message on console. Then read function, which is reading a value inside X variable and then show function, which will display value of X on console. This is the implementation of class A. After that class A is inherited into class B. Class B is having an attribute that is why inside is its public section. Its default constructor is implemented, which will display the message constructor of class B called on console. Then its destructor is implemented, which will display the message destructor of class B called. Then its read and show functions are implemented. Then class B is terminated. Then in main function, a pointer of class A is created. This is pointer of base class because A is the base class. Then object of derived class is created. So you can see the comment pointer is of class A and object is of class B. So here with this new B, an object of class B is created. So it will call constructor of class B and then constructor of class A will be called. So this will print both the messages of class A constructor and class B constructor. Here base class is A, so base class constructor always executes first. So it will display constructor of class A called message on console and then constructor of class B message on console. Then its address will be assigned into P1. Now through P1, read function, show function are called. So at compilation time, this calling will be linked with base class functions because P1 is belonging to base class pointer. When this program will be executed, then base class functions will be executed because the concept of virtual function is not used till now. Then delete P1. It will delete P1 pointer and P1 pointer is storing address of B class object. So it will destroy the allocated memory. So here again pointer is of base type. So it will call destructor of base class only. It will not call destructor of derived class. Now I am executing this code so that we can see what is happening after execution. You can see and match the output. Constructor of both the classes are called. Now it is asking for a value. I am entering 3. You can see the output x equals to 3 is displayed. So these read and print functions of base classes are called and destructor of only base class is called. That is A. So I hope you have understood with this P1 pointer all the functions and destructors of base classes are working. So this is also known as static binding. Static binding means the function call is linked with base class functions at calling time, sorry, compilation time and at execution time those linked functions are executed without checking the address which is available inside the pointer. So now I am going to implement the concept of virtual with destructor and function. So I have implemented this virtual destructor and both the functions are implemented as virtual. So this time whenever P1 is used to calling these read and show function and for deletion of this P1 address which is available inside this P1 pointer. So every time virtual will be checking what address is assigned into this P1 pointer. So when P1 arrow read function will be called, virtual will be checking which address is stored inside P1 pointer. So it is containing address of B class object. So control of read function will be transferred to drive class at execution time. So at compilation time read and show of base class will be linked but at execution time control will be transferred to drive class functions. Similarly when delete P1 will be executed. So P1 is containing address of B class. So compilation time it will be linked with base class destructor but their destructor is implemented as virtual destructor. So virtual will be checking which class address is available in this pointer. So it is containing B class objects address. So first control will be transferred to drive class destructor. So drive class destructor will be executed first and then base class destructor will be executed. So now again I am executing this code. You can see it is printing both the constructor messages. I am again entering 3. Now you can see y equals to 3 is printing. So read and print of drive classes are worked here and then destructor of class B called messages printing and destructor of class A messages printing. So this way I have implemented a virtual destructor in this example and also virtual functions. So virtual always checks the address which is stored inside the pointer so that proper functions and destructors are called. So this is all about the use of virtual destructor in C++. I hope you have understood how this concept is implemented in C++. If you want to watch more programming related videos you can subscribe or follow my YouTube channel that is sanjaygupta underscore tech school. Thank you for watching this video.


It's time now to turn to Professor Wang Jizi who participated in the session yesterday. So Professor, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Thomas. I'm happy to join others. Although I'm not able to join you physically, I hope I will be with you in person in the future. You asked great questions. But I cannot be very precise. As some people have said, China is rising strong materially. But in public acceptance of China around the world, the picture is mixed. Many media reports indicate that public opinion polls in the western countries, Japan, South Korea, and India are increasingly favourable to China. Recently, I heard that Mr. Kishida may be elected Prime Minister in Japan soon. It is related to what he and other Japanese see today's China. He was elected, he was educated in America. He is pragmatic, but probably unsympathetic to China's political values. And I would like to know my South Korean colleague, how he will assess the upcoming election of South Korea. And the next president of South Korea may have another approach to China. Last week, the leaders of the four nations that make up the informal grouping, the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, known as Quad, met for the first time in person at the White House. His unstated goal is to stop China from becoming Asia's undisputed hegemo. There have been other events and developments in recent months, not in the picture of China. But they are hardly reported in China itself and hardly known to the general public in China.  We are friends all over the world, freezing our achievements. This self-image makes it difficult for Beijing to show any conciliatory attitude to what whoever viewed this hostile to China. I don't see any prospects that Beijing would back down on major foreign policy issues and become less assertive, but at least in rhetoric. Our French participant asked China to be humble, but I don't see the likelihood of being humble for China in the near future. China and the United States have been engaged in the projected strategic competition that may last for decades. However, at this moment, both Beijing and Washington are preoccupied with their respective domestic imperatives. On the Chinese side, we have electric outage in many provinces, especially in the northeast. The debt crisis regarding Evergrande is another example of China's weakness. The most damaging problem is the slowing down of economic growth. There are issues related to the increasing fertility rate and the aging population. It is difficult to achieve the goal of common prosperity when economic growth is slower, private enterprises are depressed and not doing well, and social safety net has not been markedly improved. In the US, we see continued political policies fighting back for the democratization of the Republic or in the Congress. Infrastructure, construction, pandemic control, legal immigration, gun control, corporate, to name just a few. So are you visage, temporary state in the bilateral relations between China and the United States? All this in the months ahead. I don't see this as an achievement. There can be an assumption of consulates in Houston and Chengdu. There could also be economic dialogue at high levels between the two countries. However, three possible problems are lying ahead for China in the next few months. First, the continued US effort to trace the origins of COVID-19 that worries China. Second, the winter Olympic Games. Western countries are not going to boycott the Games, but their public opinion polls show that these countries are not sympathetic, and they may not be wholeheartedly supporting the Games. That could be embarrassed time. Third, there is a talk about the Democratic summit toward the end of the year, and that is of course not very favorably received in China, especially China's concern about Taiwan's participation in the summit. Maybe not President Tsai Ing-wen or some top leaders, but even a lower level participation will annoy time. We have seen the intensification of China's propaganda war both at home and internationally against the United States. We see reports on racial tensions, gun control issues, bad management pandemic, human rights violations in the United States, and international failures like in Afghanistan. But the propaganda campaign is directed more at domestic audiences to enhance their confidence in the Communist Party rather than at international audiences for them to have a better understanding or positive understanding of China. So I see China's international behavior as mostly defensive in nature. I don't buy the theory that China desires to buy to be the hegemon of the world or even of Asia. As I say in my recent articles, I think the Chinese US competition is basically a game between the domestic order maintained by the Communist Party of China and the international order maintained and advocated by the United States. So in the United States, you see America first as a slogan, but in China, or this slogan I always hear comes partly first. So I see a US-China trade volume increased last year and climate change, the effort of China in China is serious. I'm more worried about technological decoupling. Thomas mentioned the chips, that is a real issue in US-China relationship. And also there is a possible cyber war. I'm not much worried about confrontation despite the increased militant uproars among some Chinese netizens and some commentators. We know that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year made a phone call to his Chinese counterpart to prevent a war between the two sides and there will be improved crisis management arrangements between the two sides. I think the Taiwan policy of China is consistent. Xi Jinping made a telegram to his counterpart, the chairman of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, and he said Taiwan should engage each other for a peaceful solution. Constant will upgrade its military preparedness. There could be air fighters and bombers and flying over Taiwan or near Taiwan, things like that. But I don't see a real war between the two sides. When we talk about... Professor, I'm afraid I have to interrupt you. I will be back to you. Just to respect the time constraint. But as Marcus Noland insisted on the domestic factors, I think also what you have said about the Chinese opinion is very useful to fuel our debates.