OK, well thank you and thanks for coming. The idea is to have this every month, the last week of the month. Not in December, but otherwise when we are open. And which day of the week we can adjust according to the speaker and other things. OK, so what I'll talk about is impartial games, which is, I think, is a very nice theory. And it's very elementary. But I think it's something worth knowing if you've never seen it before. So let me start with the mother of all games of this kind called, at least in English, it's called NIM. Maybe you guys from other countries may have seen it and have different names. And so it consists of the following. You can start with any number of objects in piles. So I'll do this example. And this is something actually I played at least once when I was a kid. So you have five piles. And the game consists there is a game with two players. And each player has a possible move. And the move in this game consists of taking any number of objects from one pile. So you choose the pile, and you take whichever you number of objects you want. And in all of these games, the story will be the same that if you cannot play, you lost. Or to put it another way, if you are the last person to play, you win. Is that the rules clear?  Let's see if I can make this work and see if I can win. Maybe you will win. So why don't you start? Pick any pile, there's five piles with five, four, three, two things in it. And you can choose one pile and take over many you like. No, no, let me repeat. So there's these possible moves you can make, which is to remove from one pile any number of objects you like. So for example, from this pile of five, you can take three out or take five out, whatever you want. And then is the turn for the opponent and repeats. And the game ends when there's nothing left and there's no possible move. In that case, if you face with a situation where you cannot move, you've lost. Remove, yeah. No, no, I mean move as a general idea of something you can do in the game. But in this case, it means remove from the pile. So has anybody seen this game before? Yes? What do you call it in your country? How do you call it in your country? BIM, you call it BIM, OK. So you know the strategy, too? Oh, OK, well, so then you shouldn't play. OK, then you too cannot play something. From this one, you take three. And I'll make a little numerology on the side. And what I'll do is explain what I'm doing later. But if you want to start moving ahead and thinking what the story is, you can look at that. So I'll remove three from here, right? So now I'm going to copy it on the side. So it wasn't such a great move, OK, I'll explain. So I'll try to do a good move now, see if I can do that. I'll change this to 0, 1, 0. So I'll take two out of this. So now it's your turn. Anybody wants to try? Come on, we don't know whether here. Oh, you also want to win, I think. Take all three out of this one. So this one. So unfortunately, if I do this right, now you'll never have a good move. So at this point, if I play this correctly, I'm guaranteed to win. And so what I should do to do that is change, for example, this one to that. So from one of the two, I mean, at this point, it should be easy to see, just eyeballing it. But since I'm bad at that, I'll just do my numbers. And while you look at the game, you should also look at what I'm writing here and try to see what, if anything, is happening. So come on, we're kind of close to the end, I think. So what should you try to do? Remove this one here. So I made a mistake somewhere, no? Oh, now I got lost. So what do we have here? We had a one here, no? Oh yeah, so this became 0. Is that right? So I should just take this one out. So you give out. So on the other hand, what is it that I've been doing over here? Yeah, you tell me? Right, so what I wrote here was the numbers of objects that I had, which I started with 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I wrote them in binary. And then what I did is treat these numbers as if they were vectors mod 2. I forget that they were actually binary expanses and I think of them as zeros and ones. And I added with the binary addition, so 1 plus 1 is 0 and so on.  So that was the thing you saw. And then you did this move. And it went back to a sum 1, 1, 0. And then I did this move that made it into 0, the sum. OK, that's the point that we're getting to. But so this is my move. So what did I do every time? Well, she already said it. What I managed to do is every time I did a move which resulted in the total sum to be 0. Now, what that meant is that any move you did will make the sum not 0 because you can only move one row and you cannot change a row and keep the sum to be 0. So every time I moved, I managed to get a 0. Every time you moved, you managed to make a non-zero and so on. So this went on until we're done. And so the last position is when there's nothing left. And the sum is 0. I got there. And you are faced with not being able to move. And so you lost. So the idea then, one graphical way to think of this that I think it helps in my mind is that somehow the game schematically consisted of something like a lever like this. And it started off being tilted, so the sum not being 0. And what I always try to do is put it into a level situation. So schematically, every move that I did, because I managed to get to a point where I could, is to put it into an equilibrium. And every time you moved, you took it out of the equilibrium in different forms. The sums, other than 0, were all kinds of things. But having I'd been able to get to 0, I managed you to be forced to move it out of the equilibrium, so to speak. So for example, what would have been a good move for you? This is what you saw. What would have been a move that took it from this non-equilibrium situation to an equilibrium situation? In this case, there's only one offending column. So all you have to do is fix that one. And so you can take any one of these that is a 1 and make it a 0. So that is to take one out of the corresponding column. So you have three good moves to make. Take one out of any one of these three columns. And you could also achieve the 0 by making the 0 equal to a 1. But of course, that's not good because in the game, you can't go up. You always go down. So I think with these thoughts, now you can think of a strategy of how you will always win. As long as the opponent doesn't know the strategy or, by chance, manage to put itself, make you face a 0 position or a level position, then you should be able to get to that equilibrium position. And from then on, always move in this fashion. So the game is nice because it has this complete description of the strategy, and it's very simple. Now, for those of you who have already done a bit of research and so on, you may get a kick out of the fact that this was maybe known earlier, but the paper that describes this mathematically is by a Frenchman called Charles Bouton, who published a paper in 1901 in the Annals of Mathematics, where he describes this. And basically, the theory that I'd like to describe to you is that I'll describe these games, impartial games. And the theorem is that they're all equal to NIM. So once you know the strategy for NIM, you know the strategy for, in principle, all other games that are impartial. So what does that mean to be impartial? An impartial game is that you have two players that alternate playing as we did. The moves are the same for both. So the first line could have included chess. The second one eliminates chess because you can't move the other opponent's pieces. There's complete information, so nothing is hidden. Both players know exactly what's happening. There's no chance. You don't throw a dive or anything like that to play. And the player unable to move loses. This is called normal play. And then there is a completely different thing, which is if you do exactly the opposite, which is that the person unable to play wins. And that's called, so this is opposite opposed to, it's called misere play from French. And this one, interestingly enough, has no strategy. This is a very difficult thing to analyze in general. And so the mathematical theorem here, sort of loosely make it somewhat vague, which is all impartial games. Well, a fancy way to say this would be that they're isomorphic. There's a way to convert a game into one that looks like NIM, for which we discuss the strategy. Now in practice, of course, when things are isomorphic, the isomorphism doesn't mean that they're equal. And computing the isomorphism could be very difficult if you have some very complicated games in which this it's not completely clear how helpful it is. But the theory, anyway, is that is this one. And so this, I think, is a pretty remarkable fact. And I'll illustrate a little bit how this works. And if you like this type of thing, I recommend very highly a book by Guy, so Berlachamp, Conway, and Guy, which discuss many, many things among them this impartial games. It's one of the most idiosyncratic books I ever seen. And sometimes the style is a bit grating, but it has an incredible amount of stuff you can't find anywhere else. So rather than, so anyway, in particular, they have many different kinds of games, many of which were invented by Conway, which are, of course, incredibly sophisticated and subtle. But let me discuss only for now one other type of game, which just to give you a flavor of that, there are many different games that you can discuss, which are fairly simple to describe and they all fit into this category. So a simple example would be a subtraction game. So this is an example where you have a collection of numbers, S, in this case 1 and 2, and you start with one pile of objects. And then you can, the moves are, you can take out of the pile one or two objects. So and again, the rule of ending is the same. If you can't move anymore, you're done. So and you can replace the set S for any other favorite set that you like. And the somewhat, you can see, it has a little bit of the flavor of NIM, but it's more than just the flavor. It's actually, in some way, exactly the same as NIM. So let's see. One way to analyze a game is to think that each state of the game, so every position of the status of the game, you can think of it as a vertex, as a dot. So in this case, the state of the game consists of how many things you have in your pile. There's only one pile and it has some number of objects. So let me make a little graph of the possible states. We can have, if we go up to 6, this will continue on. And so one way to describe the game is to say, well, these are the possible states. And in edge, you put an edge for the possible moves that take you from one state to another state. So since we can take one, we can go from 6 to 5, from 5 to 4, from 4 to 3, and so on. And since we can take two, we can go from 6 to 4, from 4 to 2, and 2 to 0, and from 5 to 3, and from 3 to 1. So the game then, or the impartial game, gets rise to a directed graph where the vertices, the dots, are any given position of the game at a given time. And then the arrows tell you how to go from one position of the game to another. So those are the legal moves of the game. So in this case, that's the graph you'll see. So what I like to do is try to assign to these states of the game a label which will be like the zero, non-zero that we had in the case of NIM. And the traditional way, the labels for that is to call the positions to be P or N. And P is like 0 in the NIM case, and N is like a non-zero. And the way to describe that in terms of the graph is as follows. A P is a position where from it, you can only reach N positions. So P is like the equilibrium. And from an equilibrium, you can only go to non-equilibrium. So from P, you can only reach N's. And from N, you should be able to reach at least one P. So if the thing is tilted, you should be able to put it back. You could also sort of tilt it differently. So there's some N situations, but there should be at least one P. So P goes to only N's, and N goes to N's, but at least one P, maybe more than one P. And so now what we do is we're going to label recursively all the dots in this diagram as N or P. So what should this one be? It's one of these two. Well, where do you go from zero? Nowhere. So it's the empty set of places you can go to. All elements of the empty set are N, because there's no element. So it is a P. It's like when we ended the game, or we didn't quite end it, but if you end the game, you see a P. So P is good for you, is bad for your opponent. Because if you manage to get to a P, it means the other guy will have to go to an N. And if he gives you an N, you can move to a P. So the strategy is try to get to a P position, let the other person take you out to N, and bring you back to P. So every time they move the boost to N, you bring it back to P. You go like this until the end game ends. So that's the strategy. That's what we did with NIM. So let's try to figure out what all of these things are, these positions are. So what is 1? N. You guys agree with this? Don't be shy. So why is N? Because you can go to at least one P, right? That's what N means. You should be able to go to at least one. So about 2, also N. How about 3? You can go from 3 to 1, and from 3 to 2. And they're both N. So that's a P. So if you look at this, you will quickly convince yourself that this is periodically period 3 like this.  So if you want to play this game where you have a million and a one things in your pile, what should you do? Can we do a million more 3? Maybe not. Suddenly I can't here. Can somebody know what a million and one is, more 3? I think we can do that. It's 2, right? So what is it? So a million and one, how do you know what the number is, more 2? Add the digits, more 3. I've learned this in primary school, like the visibility by 3. So this is 2, more 3. So since this is cyclic of a period 3, it looks like if it was just 2, right? So we stand in here, which means there's good luck for us. What should we do? We should move to a P position. So we do what? We take 2, right? So the good guys, the P's, are divisible by 3. So we just take enough to make it 0, more 3. If we are lucky enough to face such a thing. So if the opponent saw that and knew the strategy, they will move to a P and you would be unable to win unless the person makes a mistake. So these are all sort of, now you take your favorite set S, any number you like, and you'll see exactly the same phenomenon. The positions P and N could be, you can label all positions as P and N, and it'll be cyclic. It'll be periodic. And it's actually kind of a complicated thing to figure out what the period is. It could be very long periods in the shape of this thing. So I'll give you one other game to think about. This one, I think, is actually pretty complicated. And it was described by this Dutchman Withof. But according to Martin Gardner, he was known in some of the African cultures before. In any case, it's a bit, so these games are first on really strange kind of, yes, go ahead. I'll get to that. I'll get to that. But at the moment, let me just at least let's agree that we've managed to do somewhat similar what we did before, because we managed to distinguish certain positions as desirable, the ones that added to 0, and those that are not desirable did not add to 0. So like a P is like having the columns add to 0, and an N is having the columns not add to 0. And then once you believe that this is doable, that you can actually recursively starting from the ends of the game up and label every position with either a P or an N, you have a strategy of how to win. And in that strategy, it's the same as in NIM. But I'll make that a little bit more precise, and we'll sort of flesh out this statement. So here's this Withof game, which has one pile of some number of things, and you have two possibilities. You take any number from the pile. No, so there's two piles. Otherwise, this will be a little silly. So you take any number of stones or objects from one of the piles, or you take the same from both. So you decide. Either you take your favorite pile and take whatever you like from it, or you decide that you're actually going to take from both, in which case take the same number from both. This is actually a pretty complicated game to analyze. And the answers of which are N's and one's P positions are very pretty, which I won't tell you, but not now. But if you are interested, we can just cast it after the talk. Let me just point out that it has this nice interpretation. You can describe the position in the game as a pair of integers, positive integers, namely how many things are in one pile and how many things are in the other pile. There's two piles. So this dot here would be that one pile has three and the other pile has two. So what are the possible moves? Well, you can take things out of one pile, which will be moving this way, any number of squares you like, or you can move this way by taking things from the other pile any number of times. Or if you do both at once, then you should be able to, then you can only go diagonally. So this is like having a queen in chess. These are the possible moves of a queen, but except that it only have to go sort of towards the order. And again, the rule of the game are that if you can't move any more, then you lost. And so now if you do the analysis, some of these cells will be p and some of these cells will be n. And you can ask yourself, well, what's the pattern that you see? And there's a very interesting pattern that shows up. So I'll leave it as an intriguing thing for you to think about. But that's sort of a fairly sophisticated game. So now back to this theorem and what Stefan was asking, what do I mean by saying that the games are all isomorphic? So here comes another idea that completes sort of the picture, which is that you can make the sum of two games. And what is, I think, beautiful is that this idea of thinking of the games as if there were numbers, so to speak, exactly led to Conway to define a whole new crazy class of numbers called surreal numbers, which is a whole interesting aspect of mathematics that is clear to me that it came from elaborating on this theory. So what is the sum of games? Suppose you have two games, gamma 1 and gamma 2, impartial games, that is. So just like the kinds we've discussed. So I'm going to define a new game, gamma 1, star, gamma 2. So the positions on this new game are pairs of position, one in this game and one in this. So what are the moves? Well, the moves is very simple. So you either move in gamma 1 and don't do anything with the gamma 2 state, or you move in gamma 2. So what's an example of that? Well, nim. Let me give you a very silly game. One pile, move, take anything you like. So that's a pretty trivial game. You have one pile and you're allowed to take anything you like. So if you face that, what would you do? Take the whole thing out, and you're done. But now take gamma 2 to be the same game and take the sum. Now it became interesting because what does this mean? Well, you have two piles, one from the gamma 1 game and another from the gamma 2 game. But now you face exactly in the nim situation. You can take from one or from the other, but not from both. So now you see that something is somewhat missing in this n and p story because in the gamma 1 or gamma 2 games, just one pile, they're the same game. If we were to do our little p n story, what would it look like? Well, the last one is p. I don't draw the graph because it'll meet too many arrows. You can go from anywhere, anything below. From 6, you can go to 5, to 4, to 3, to 1, to 0. And then anything else is connected to 0. So everything else is n. So that's not a very interesting game. And if you take the sum of the two games, it becomes more interesting. And just knowing that this position in the game 1 is n or p and knowing that this one is n or p doesn't tell you what the position is in the pair. Because if there were more than zero things in each one, both positions in the individual games would be n. But clearly, that doesn't mean that the position in the sum game is n. Because playing with two is maybe easy, but not as trivial as this one pile. And you could, of course, add more games. And then if you added five games, you'll have like the name we started with. Is that clear to everyone what I'm saying? So this operation of constructing a new game out of two, you can know everything about this game and everything about this game. And when you put them together, you still don't know the full story about the new game. So what's missing is that this is somewhat a limited information. What we like to do is get something a little better than that. So remember that in the game, the positions were not just labeled p or n. We had a number. We have the sum of the columns was either 0 or wasn't 0. So what's missing is that we're not just going to label these positions with a letter p or a little n. We're going to give them a number. And that information will be enough to recover the corresponding number in the sum of the games. So let me just do an example. And amazingly enough, so the paper of Buton was in 1901. Whithoff was a few years after that. And then in the 30s, these two guys, Praig and Grundy, came up with exactly the same theory. And so it's called the Praig Grundy theory that allows you to extend this notion to games, to any game. So let me, this will be the last thing I discuss. We're going to give a numerical value to a position of a game, not just a label np, an actual number. And for that, I need a concept that's called the mechs. So this, although Praig was involved too, somehow it's called the Grundy function. So this is to each dot, to each state, we're going to associate a number. So that's the function, the Grundy function. And it's defined recursively using the notion of mechs. And mechs stands for minimum excludant. So it's as follows. If you have a subset S of the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on, the mechs of S is defined to be the smallest number not in S. So for example, if the set S is 0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 15, what's the mechs of S? 3. You read it, all these are in order, so you read it from left to right. And you first find the thing, the first gap, the first number not in the list is 3. There may be other things missing, you don't care. And what's the important property of this mechs, which is really somewhat simple, but is what makes the whole thing work? When is the mechs of S equal to 0? How could the mechs of S of a set be 0? Well, how about this set? What's the mechs of that? 1 is not there, but the mechs is still 0. It's just that 0 is not there, right? So this is actually exactly the same as saying that 0 is not in S. So now I'm going to assign to every state of a game a number. And that number is going to be computed recursively, somewhat like what we did, the PN distinction, but a little bit more sophisticated because it will give rise to numbers. So if you have a position V in your game and you have all the possible ways, things you, as an example, all the things you can reach from it, then you define the Grandi value in the game that you're playing of this vertex V to be the mechs of the values of the Grandi function on all the things you can reach. So you start from the bottom, okay, and those are going to get the value of 0, and you move up and you see from each dot where it's connected to, you look at its values, and then you look, you take the mechs of that, and you keep going recursively up. And then because of this property, the 0 value will exactly correspond to be in a P position, and the non-zero value will correspond to be in an N position. But now N got sort of colored. It's not just N, it has a number attached to it, okay? And I'm sure I'll be able to explain this in much detail, but at least I'll give you a bit of the ingredients that go into this. So let's do an example, maybe this is the easiest thing to do. So let's take the subtraction game, the one that we were looking at before, where our set is S equals one and two. So remember that means that from a pile we can either take one thing or two things. Okay, so we take just the diagram we had before, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero, okay? These were, this was P, this was N, N, P, N, N, P. That's what we did before. But now we're gonna give a number to this, okay? So we give the value zero of our function to the terminal vertex. So the one where the game ends. And let's see if we can compute the Grandi function now. So what's the Grandi function of this dot? Well, how do we do it? We look at where we can go from here. From here we can go there, because we can take one out, right? So we can go from here to there. And that's the only place we can go. So the collection of numbers we should mix off consists of the number zero. There's only one number below this one. So we take the mix of the set consisting of the number zero. The mix of that is one. So this has the value of one. What's the value of two? Well, from here we can go there, subtracting one, or we can go there subtracting two. So what is the mix we should be taking? Well, we have two values, the value zero and the value one. So we take the mix of the set zero, one, and that is two. So it looks like it should be pretty easy now. So the next one is three and so on. No, what's the next one? Well, if you believe what I said, you should be able to guess because p should correspond to zero. Well, let's check that. From three we can go to two and we could go to one. So we take the mix of one and two and zero is not there. So it gets the value zero. So now you can trace this up and you'll see that you get this periodicity of now the values of the function, not just the labels of the position. Okay, so then the point here is to make that that there is a recursive way to assign values integers to your positions which follow this recursive rule. And so what we done is that G is defined on all states of gamma in this recursive way. And the statement is that a P position corresponds exactly to the value of the function equal to zero and an N position corresponds to the value of G not equal to zero. So with the analogy of this thing level is like the grantee function some sort of angle if you like. You can have zero angle or you can have any kind of angle which is recorded by this function G in some mysterious way. Okay, and so finally what's the theorem that these guys from Prager-Grandee proved that if you have several games as usual all of these are impartial games that's all I'm talking about. Then the grantee each has a grantee function. So now you make the gain gamma to be the sum in this way that we described of all of these games and tell me what the theorem says. The grantee function of the sum is the sum of the grantee functions. But the sum in a funny way not the sum in the usual sense but in what sense? We've seen it already in a way. A NIM game consists of a sum of these silly games that you take one pile and you take anything you like from them. Okay, maybe let me go slow. So I'll finish with this. So let's just take the one pile any subtraction game. So that was zero, one, two, three, four, five, six. In terms of labels it was simply this but let's compute the grantee values. This is zero was the grantee value of one, one of two. You can go from two to one and two to zero. So it's two, three, four, five, six. So this silly game is just the grantee function is the game. It just tells you how many things you have in its pile.  So a NIM game consists of this same game added any number of times. Each game represents one pile. So you sum as many as piles as you have. And what did we do to play this game? We took the number of things on the pile. We wrote it in binary and then we added the columns in this funny way. So that's what the addition means. So addition here is this funny addition where you write. So the addition say of the number N with a number M is some number R. And what you do is you write N in binary, M in binary and then you add in this mod two form and that gives you the binary expansion of your sum. And that if you're algebraic in incline is gives you on the set of integer zero one and so on it gives you a structure for a billion group. It's just Z two cross Z two cross Z two cross Z two infinitely many times. And that's what this addition means. And Conway, which cannot possibly be improved in any way calls things like this Nimbres. And this is the number addition. So the way to state the sum is that the grand D function of a sum of games is the number sum of the grand D functions of each individual game. So that I think goes some ways into answering Stefan's question that you can think of a grant of any game is going to consist of well even if it doesn't obviously decompose into some of things it has each position has a grand D value and you can think of that as a pile in one pile in NIM with that many things. Except that the game is funny that maybe you can go up sometimes in size. So moves take you up or down depending on some obscure or the obscure way of how the game has been constructed but is in that sense that every game is like NIM because all you need to know to study the game well is the labels but in more generally you can look at the grand D value and that sort of tells you how it should be thought of as if it were a pile in NIM. And so like anything else that involves an isomorphism the question is well can you actually compute this isomorphism if you have a very large complicated game. If you can't then maybe this theory doesn't help you or if it's expensive or difficult to do. So the question is what how complicated is to compute this NIM sorry this grand D function and well this actually could be fairly complicated or fairly expensive computationally. And in some cases I think the actual values of for every state are not known. So there are some games that are really wickedly sort of devised in which you know how to compute it by an algorithm we discussed this recursively but in order to describe the actual function in some sort of closed form maybe impossible or just very difficult. And for example in this I'm not sure how much is known about subtraction games in general the grand D function is some periodic thing in the size of your pile but the periodicity or the actual values of the grand D function I think are in general not known or not obviously describable is sort of by a formula. And I think I'll stop here thank you. Maybe there's a question so now go home and play with your little brothers and impress them. Okay well we have a little coffee and tea reception at the cafeteria for those who want to stay. Yeah Harry I'm certainly not an expert but as I said I think things like how long it takes to compute the you know algorithmic questions you know those are really open and the nature of the function in this completed games is also maybe not known. But yeah I would say that those are the things I've seen that people still are trying to answer. Yes as far as I can tell this is the operation that works for this for describing the strategy and allowing you to recover strategies when you have several games that you combine. You could try to define multiplication of numbers and if you are Henry's Lensstrom maybe you will be able to. But I don't think it's just sort of a a mathematical challenge I don't know if it has anything implications to the game. Yeah yeah yeah the Miser form. It's what I mentioned at the beginning it's called Miser because it's sort of a nasty kind of game. As far as I what I've read there is no theory it's just in general very difficult to understand how to play it efficiently. So it's a completely different story. Well it's an impartial game with a different way of playing it and the theory that we discuss somehow doesn't seem to say very much for that case. So the I'm repeating the question so that we can hear in the video the only the person who starts is the one has a strategy to win. Well it's like what we what we did right you had a chance to win but you didn't know how. So I took advantage of that and won. If both know the strategy and computed these NMP things before coming to play then they should be able to win if they don't make a mistake. So the first one wins with having done the homework. Well sorry let's be clear if this initial stage of the game is a P position then the first person that plays cannot win right so it depends on what the position you're facing. If you see a P and it's your turn you're likely to lose if the other person know what they're doing. If you have an N then you can win if you know what you're doing. OK thank you very much. See you in October.


I believe there's a hero in all of us that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble. Even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most. Among the many modern myths created during the 20th century, few have the enduring appeal of Spider-Man. Born during the boom of the superhero comic book Renaissance, Spider-Man quickly became one of the most popular characters in the medium. In the years since his debut, he has gone on to inspire countless generations of children and adults alike, with his high-flying antics and colourful battles against terrifying foes. Spider-Man has a long history of embracing media forms beyond the printed page. From his earliest appearances in animation to the more recent adventures on the big screen, he's shown up anywhere that fans may want him. Now a brand new video game tackles the ongoing challenge to accurately convey what it genuinely would feel like to be Spider-Man. Fans love the thrill of Spidey's powers of his web-swinging and wall-crawling, but there is another reason why the character has remained so relevant for so many years. While there are many comic book characters with special slogans and catchphrases, none are quite as iconic as Peter Parker's moral epithet. With great power comes great responsibility. Here at Video Game Storytime we love to find the morals hidden within stories. The inspiration that can be taken from the struggles of others can help us all to hold on just a little longer. So out of Spider-Man's moral, a message that has been communicated both in print and multimedia for over 50 years, what in essence is the true moral that drives this character? And what can we learn about ourselves by studying Spider-Man's ongoing, ever-evolving story? I'm not the usual voice for the channel, but this is a video that's very dear to my heart, and I felt that I needed to say this myself. Let's take a look at what it truly means to be Spider-Man, and why great power must also bring great responsibility. It's important to remember that Spider-Man's comic book origin was not originally meant to be a superhero story. Spidey debuted in the very final issue of Amazing Adult Fantasy, a comic book that was aimed at a slightly older audience than the exploits of established heroes like the Fantastic Four. The book was about to fold due to poor sales, and as such, for its final issue, Stan Lee shortened the title to Simply Amazing Fantasy, and used it as a vehicle to push out a character that his boss had rejected. Peter Parker's story is not a happy one. Rather than enjoying a typical hero character's arc, his tale is more akin to a Shakespearean tragedy in which fate, coupled with his own fatal character weakness, conspire to ruin his life. This isn't to say that Spider-Man doesn't show all the classic traits of a superhero, including phenomenal powers and a colorful costume. But in writing this tale, Lee created a subversion of the typical story. Peter Parker is shown to have a comfortable home life with loving surrogate parents. He's smart, but an outsider, mercilessly picked on by his classmates and unable to find friends. In essence, he's a stand-in for the audience. Years before it became cliche, Amazing Fantasy XV posits an answer to the question, what if a real person gained superpowers? We'd all like to pretend that, given amazing strength and abilities, we'd act heroic and serve others. But in practice it's easy to imagine that many of us would do as Peter does in the comic, getting caught up in a web of fame and celebrity, ignoring the plight of the little people that he deems unimportant. This, as we all know, leads to tragedy, when Peter's refusal to prevent a crime ends up leading to the death of his beloved uncle. The message of the story is succinctly summed up in its final panel. With great power, there must also come great responsibility. Or, to phrase it another way, if we have genuine talents, abilities and privilege, it is our duty to use these to help others. If we don't do so, we have nobody to blame but ourselves if we fail to help make society better. This is a heavy theme to throw into a comic book and the tone of the story is a lot darker and more depressing than much of the comics from this era that remain popular to this day. It's essentially designed as a wake-up call to the audience. You think you'd do great things if you could become a superhero, the story says, but what are you doing to help those with the power that you already hold? Originally Spider-Man's story was meant to end here, with the depressing final note right at the end of a cancelled anthology comic book. But the story connected with people. The character stood out among busy newsstands. Sales figures eventually proved that Spider-Man was a hit. So Stanley had a challenge on his hands. How do you turn a one-shot tragic story into an ongoing comic series? As the amazing Spider-Man issue one hit newsstands, Peter Parker's moral development continued to evolve. One thing that stands out about Amazing Spider-Man number one is that Peter still isn't a righteous hero. In his early career as Spider-Man he quickly focused his attention on wealth and fame. In his ongoing comic book he continues to struggle to let go of these selfish desires. Spider-Man attempts to join the world-famous Fantastic Four and does so in perhaps the worst way possible. He breaks into their home and picks a fight with them to prove his strength. An uncharacteristically relaxed Reed Richards attempts to give him the benefit of the doubt. But Peter leaves angrily when he finds out that the Fantastic Four is a non-profit organization. Clearly this is a character that still has a lot of growing to do. Peter is not particularly heroic, or indeed very likeable for much of the story. He's begun to realize the importance of doing the right thing, but he doesn't yet know what that looks like. The comic even features a panel in which Peter considers using his powers to become a supervillain in order to steal from banks to support his family. He quickly dismisses this idea though at the thought of what his poor old Aunt May would do if he ended up in prison. While Uncle Ben gets the majority of the praise as Peter's wise old Obi-Wan figure, Aunt May does just as much if not more to shape the development of her nephew over the coming years of comics. Her quiet, confident faith in his abilities helps to keep him on the straight and narrow, as Peter does his best to live worthy of her trust in him. Over the next few years, Peter slowly begins acting like the hero that we recognize from more modern stories. He helps save an astronaut in danger because he's the only person who can do so. He faces off against supervillains not out of a desire for glory, but because he knows that he needs to help. He makes plenty of mistakes. He's incredibly petty in his ongoing feud with his greatest rival, newspaper editor Jay Jonah Jameson. Ultimately, he acts like a teenager, sometimes dependable and responsible, while at other times still very emotionally immature. As an aside, it's probably significant that Spider-Man's greatest, most pervasive threat comes from a newspaper. Anyone who's ever swatted a real spider with a rolled-up paper can see the irony here. Modern adaptations of the Spider-Man mythos tend to focus on this time period. Of the three Peter Parker's that we've seen in live-action films, only one is older than College Age. There's something powerful about making Spider-Man a direct metaphor for puberty, and this has somewhat overwhelmed the discussion of the character. But the Peter of the comics doesn't stay as a high school student forever. Just a few years after his debut, the story takes Peter to college, where his stories are increasingly focused on relationships both romantic and platonic. He discovers himself and develops as a person, before ultimately getting married and settling down. This is the point where I personally first started reading Spider-Man comics, and it's during this era that I first became aware of the character in other media. As with many children of the 90s, my love of Spider-Man was fueled by the animated television series. I also played a pretty terrible video game on the Sega Master System. I never did get the hang of it, and the unforgiving design hardly helped me to feel like I was really the friendly neighborhood web-head. The original appeal for the character, for me at least, was his cool powers and his colorful costume. It was only as I got older that I began to appreciate Peter's challenges. As a teenager, I saw Spider-Man swinging across the silver screen for the very first time, and it was everything I could have ever imagined. One thing that struck me was just how hard Spider-Man has to work to balance everything in his life. His superhero adventures are never shown as fun or enjoyable. Instead, they come at great personal cost. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man films of my teens remain the most relatable to me. I remember being a teenager, seeing this character getting perpetually kicked and beaten by the pressures of life, and feeling like he stood as a reflection of my own challenges. I was Peter Parker. I was a teenager with a lot of book smarts, but I struggled to make friends. And then I got my webs for real. I remember the excitement when Spider-Man 2 was released. Not the film, although that is absolutely wonderful and remains one of my favorite movies to this day. But the buzz within the gaming world was phenomenal. Journalists were calling Spider-Man 2 the game GT Arachnid, Grand Theft Arachnid, in reference to its big open world. I bought the game a few days before Spider-Man the movie arrived in cinemas. The staff behind the desk in the shop were all crowded around a TV screen as they took turns playing. The guy who served me told me that I had made a really smart decision, and I wholeheartedly believed him. This game felt like being Spider-Man. While I'd played the previous movie tie-in game, it was Spider-Man 2 that made the experience feel real. I spent hours and hours webbing my way through New York, exploring every nook and cranny, and saving countless civilians who were constantly getting into trouble. Sometimes I'd be halfway up a skyscraper, searching for hidden tokens, when I was needed on the ground below. Maybe someone needed to go to the hospital, or maybe a mugger had stolen someone's bag. It was always a challenge to tear myself away from what I was doing, but I figured that was what it meant to be Spider-Man, right? Putting other people's needs before my own, even if they were only simulated people with simulated problems. Although, to be honest, I eventually stopped helping kids who lost balloons. I was a busy Spider-Man, and I did not have time for that. At the time, that was as far as my musings on responsibility went. But little by little, from movies and TV shows and comics, and most especially this video game, I was being taught to see myself as Spider-Man. To appreciate that I had great power, and that I needed to use it for the benefit of all humanity. Whatever that meant. This slogan likely means different things to different people, but there is a fundamental element of Spider-Man's moral that relates to everyone. It turns out that I wasn't alone in seeing myself as a courageous Spider-Man. The rest of the world was learning the very same lesson. With analyzing history, context is key. It's worth pointing out that Spider-Man's origin story was published at a time of great paranoia surrounding the threat of communism and nuclear war. There is a reason, after all, why Peter Parker gains his powers from a radioactive spider bite. The sentiment of the time suggested that anybody who observed a crime, whether domestic or international in nature, had a civic duty to report it. Amazing Fantasy XV reinforces the message of unity against external threats that was the prevailing cultural narrative of the time. Indeed, we can see this idea of patriotism rippling through Spider-Man's stories to this day. There is a reason why this character is shown against an American flag and important cultural landmarks with such regularity. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies came along in the immediate wake of a horrific terrorist attack that was perpetrated in the hero's home city. The message of these films echoes the Cold War sentiment. There is a foreign threat to our stable way of life and it is our responsibility to remain vigilant in the face of danger. All of this is in subtext, and it's important to note that this message is not interpreted the same way all around the world. Take, for example, the film Siriana, released a year after Spider-Man 2. A scene in the movie shows a pair of Middle Eastern men, very removed from Western culture, who are debating the merits of Spider-Man while playing football, or soccer, to our American friends. The pair focus on their cultural views that spiders are evil creatures, as they conclude that the appeal of Spider-Man is the way he balances the evil within himself with his more righteous humanity. The point of this scene is to show that different cultures will interpret the same piece of media differently depending on context. But this isn't necessarily the case with the great power, great responsibility concept. Stanley has stated in the past that he believes that one of the reasons why Spider-Man is so popular is because everyone can identify with him. People of any race or background could imagine themselves underneath his mask. This holds true of his catchphrase. No matter who you are or where you come from, you likely appreciate the importance of responsibility. Ultimately, regardless of our disparate backgrounds, we can all agree that everyone has a responsibility to try and make the world a better place. Comic book heroes are essentially metaphors. Wonder Woman exists as an allegory for feminine power. Captain America is a symbol of patriotism. Superman is a perfect ideal to strive for. Batman is justice personified. Iron Man teaches a somewhat problematic message about big business and wealthy billionaires, but then, unlike Breton Stripe's Iron Team cap, so I would say that. Spider-Man, though, is a metaphor for all of us. The great power that's described in his motto isn't just a reference to the ability to climb walls. We all have a great power in some form or other. Whether it's our talents, our intelligence, or simply our ability to affect others through simple conversation. I'm now older, and I have to say, I don't relate to Spider-Man as strongly as I once did. While the Peter Parker of the comics was once a young husband like myself, he's since been retconned, turned back into a carefree bachelor. This change is understandable, but it did kill my interest in his progression. Specifically because there is no progression. Peter cannot learn any new lessons about the meaning of responsibility. He's trapped as a perpetual man-child. This is a shame. I'd love to see how this character would handle the next stage of life. This is part of the reason why Insomniac Spider-Man game is so appealing. It's about time we got another version of the character who isn't in high school, and who struggles with more mature relationships and the pressures of adulthood. But here's what I mean. In preparation for this video, I took off the shelf a children's book that tells Spider-Man's origin. My daughter wanted me to read it to her, and read it again, and again, and again. The book has always been one of her favourites. So there I was, trying to explain the message of the story to a three-year-old. In my telling of the story, Peter's uncle Ben is simply hurt, rather than killed. But beside that, how can I make this story's message relatable to a child? I told her that we are very blessed. We have a comfortable home, clothes to wear, toys to play with, and food to eat. But not everybody has these things. The moral of Spider-Man is that we have a duty to share what we have with others, to make the world a better place. I told her that we all have the power to change the world, even if it's just the power of a smile that can brighten one person's day. With that power comes a responsibility to help others. We can't live insular lives, keeping all of our talents and skills and money and resources for ourselves. We need to rise above selfishness, look around us, and find a way to make things better for everyone. That's what I told my daughter anyway. I hope she listened. Considering the ubiquity of Spider-Man and his enduring legacy, I suspect that she'll hear a similar message again, and again, and again. Because we all need to work together to share what we have in order to benefit others. With great power comes great responsibility.


And now we're going to have a discussion on a thick topic. Welcome, Sheikh. Salam alaikum, Sheikh. Wa alaikum, Salam wa rahmatullah. How are you today? How are you doing this morning? Alhamdulillah. Thank you very much. Are you ready for our question? Insha'Allah, insha'Allah. Thank you so much. So this morning, Brother Valali could read the question out. All right, no problem. So, Sheikh, we have a question from an anonymous viewer and it reads, there is a brother that I really would like to marry but he is the wrong color in my parents eyes and is a widower with a young child who is two years older than me. How important is it for me to receive my father's blessings? My father will never give his blessings as he is being impossible and I don't want to marry anyone else. I make my own money and I'm 31 years old and this is from, as I said, a sister in the UK who, not a my sister in the UK. There is a lot of sections to this question, Sheikh. Help us out, help us out. Help her out, really? Yeah, indeed. Someone's the wrong color, I don't know what the right color is. Yeah, I actually wanted to understand, I don't understand what's the meaning of wrong color. What's that, by the way? I don't know. Because Allah is the best of all colors, right? Indeed. Allah created all the colors, so I don't know the wrong, the right, but... Indeed. There is no right, wrong color. Yeah. Not in Islam, but maybe, she did specify in her dad's eyes. Maybe, maybe. But maybe to start our morning in a positive note, here maybe wrong color is an expression maybe they use at their house to say someone who is not fitting within their kind of understanding. However... And that could be, actually, a wrong color in terms of it could be sort of an Asian family with even a white person or, you know, it doesn't matter which color they're saying, it's just not inappropriate anyway. That's... Indeed, indeed. And maybe just to add to that, Islam doesn't encourage the idea of racism because if you look at the life of the holy Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam, you could see him with his companions from all over the world, if I can say. Yeah. And Imams of Ahlu al-Bayt, alayhi mus'alam, not only that their companions were from different ethnicities, but even they married, some of them are imma, alayhi mus'alam, and they themselves had features of people who are not from Makkah in Medina, for example, Africans, and you have ladies from Africa who are married by imams, alayhi mus'alam. So Islam doesn't entertain the issue of color because of colors, marriage can't happen. That's very wrong. And maybe to say that someone as a parent, as a father or mother, if they have this idea and notion that we will marry our children only to a certain people from certain background because of color, then they are committing haram because this racism is haram in Islam. So what does a child do where we're taught to respect our parents and we need their blessings, we need their daughters, and they're saying, okay, this person's, I mean, it could be anybody, I mean, Arab, non-Arab community, and everyone is precious about their own community. So what is a child's responsibility that the parents are committing a haram, as you just said? So what can that child do in the context? There is a saying, and according to some scholars, they say it is hadith or principle in terms of understanding Islamic law, which says, la toa'ata limakhloukin fee maasiyatil khalik. La toa'ata, there is no obedience limakhloukin for any human being fee maasiyatil khalik. If that obedience will go against the obedience of Allah, you are not allowed to obey someone. If your obedience will make you to go against the obedience of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So any child who is, for example, forced to marry someone in a haram way, and this is to go against Allah's orders, then that kind of obedience is haram. Yes, I understand maybe because of the question here. I need to obey my parents. That's good. But if you are obeying your parents for you to disobey Allah, you need to bring Allah fast before your parents, because this is what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants us to do. So in terms of marry, will it be haram if this particular individual decides to marry without the blessings of the father or blessings of the mother? Of course, the marriage will be okay. But she's not been, it sounds as if she's not being married before or she's 31 and she makes her own money. Does she need her father's permission? Is she seen as Rashida or how does it play out? Yeah, very important issue here. There are many issues as you said. Number one, the idea that any girl in order for him, for her to be married, she needs blessings. She needs willaya of the parents, of the father or grandfather and so on and so forth. Nowadays, yes, we understand this principle is there. La nikaha illa biwali. There is no any marriage which will take place for a girl except by through the permission of her father. So the willaya, the authority of a father, authority of grandfather if they are Muslims needs to be looked into. However, if we look at modern day's life where a girl, for example, reaches the age where she can support herself. In this case, this particular individual can support herself. Most of our marriage, they say, if she can support herself, she doesn't even need the willaya of the parents here. Why? Because sometimes they may want something which she does in one and it may cause trouble after the marriage also. So she is matured enough, she can agree on, she can decide whatever she wants to do in her life. Of course, there are issues of achlak which needs to be looked at. For example, after the marriage, how and what kind of relationship will be between the husband and the in-laws? The children and their grandparents. So this needs to be looked at. But in terms of committing haram, there's no any haram here if she decides to marry. Yeah. That's good. That's a good start in point. So in terms of the marriage itself, I think probably people feel guilty that they want to upset their parents and they are so precious to us. Is there an effect on the marriage's blessings in the future, do you think, if she is maybe that's part of what her dream is? Yeah, if we talk about blessings in terms of Rida, many children may stop to decide for their own future of their lives because of this idea of we want the blessings of the parents. But the blessings of the parents need to look at their well-being of the children. In this case, this girl here, if she says, well, I fear I may not have the blessings of my parents, so I have to abide by their blessings and so on and so forth, we need to say that the happiness is here, the happiness which will accompany this lady is very important. If in this case she's matured enough and she has come to a point of thinking that this is the man I need to spend the life with, it is my happiness which I need to look at. It is me who is going to live with this particular individual, not my parents, so she needs to kind of try to talk to the parents to convince them. If eventually it comes to a standstill where- Loggerhead, no movement. Loggerhead, no movement, it is her decision which needs to be looked at. She can involve Maulana, Sheikh and scholars to help her, but if she decides to go on with the marriage, the idea of blessings will cause trouble to my marriage, it's not there within Islam. What about the fact that her potentially, her stepdaughter will be her senior by two years? I don't know if it's even a fake issue, but if you could just comment on that, because it's not common that you marry somebody with a child and the child is older than you, but is it bad, good, I don't know, I don't know. It depends if you can say what kind of preparation she has decided to prepare in order for her to enter into this kind of relationship. However, Islam doesn't say it is Haram because there's a daughter who is of this age, no problem at all. And sometimes it happens that the relationship between this particular lady, for example, and that particular child may become a very strong kind of bond. It could work both ways, right? Because if they're the same age group, one could feel jealous and there's a rivalry, or it could become like sisters because they got a lot in common because they're from the same generation, so you just don't know the person that is match. It could be really helpful. Yeah, sure. So she needs to prepare the ground and to say that this is what I'm going to work in order for us to live a happy life together. And in terms of Halal Haram, Islam allows it. It is Mubah to enter into that kind of relationship. This is known as permissible. The permissibility is there, so there's no any issue with that. Excellent. I think we have a caller on line one. Salamu alaykum. Said Ali, you have a question for the share? Yes, Salam alaykum. My name is Said Ali and... Wa alaykum salam. I'm a Sayyid and my parents want me to marry a Sayyid girl. In fact, they've rejected the ritual women due to the fact that they're not Sayyids. And it's been very hard for me. And I was wondering, I mean, is this allowed? You know, can I go against their wishes? Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Subhanallah. This is an ongoing issue. It's very tough. Yeah, this is one of those tough issues. Thank you very much, Said Ali. Number one, are you allowed to marry non-Sayyid? What would you look at the life of the imam, alaihi salam, to get all the evidences? There you are. If we talk about Sunnah of the Holy Prophet, Sunnah of Ima, alaihi salam, they are Sunnah. They married people from their families, or what you call relatives, as well as outside. And most of the time they married outside, they are clans. Clans, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I intercept that? Yeah, sure. So my family are also Sayyid. Okay. And we have this issue. We have had it. So one of the things that was brought up as a justification for Sayyid girls not to marry out is the fact that imam, alaihi salam, had 17 daughters who weren't married. Okay. Because there were no suitable Sayyid men. Has this been proven that imam, alaihi salam, said, I'm not going to marry my children to non-Sayyids? Can we get a statement from imam, alaihi salam? Or is it something which we say to qualify whatever understanding is there? I can challenge this. No, any imam would say, I'm not going to marry my children.  There's no Sayyid there. No, imam, alaihi salam, he married his girls to many who are not Sayyids. Imam Hassan, al-Mujtaba, Imam Hussain, alaihi salam, all of them. So for us to bring our own narrow understanding into the major issues of religion, I think this is wrong. We look at the lives of our Maraji now, now, our Maraji, these are our scholars. You go to their Makatib offices, you will see and you will hear that this particular individual has married a daughter of this Sayyid. So it's not something which you can say it is haram, we are not supposed to do that.  And then he says, illam tafalu aw illa tafalu, takun fitna wa fasadun kabir. If you are not going to do that, there will be two things, fitna and fasad, fasad corruption, fitna we know fitna. There will be calamities. And today men- Seen this Sheikh, we see it. This has come true. Indeed. This is hadith from Maasum, the holy prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Our sisters suffer because why? There is no any Sayyid to marry them. So Sayyid Ali, if he doesn't find a Sayyid sister, Sayyid Ali will die without marrying. Or he'll marry someone who may not have religion or morality. His parents will be happy. And that's another point. Imam Zayn al-Abideen alaihi sallam says, clearly Imam Zayn al-Abideen. According to this, which is known as hadith al-Qudsi, al-Jannahu haqqun liman ata'ani wa lawkaana abdan habashiya, wa naaru haqqun liman aswani wa lawkaana Sayyidan qarashiya. Paradise will be the right of a person who obeys Allah to enter into paradise, even though that person is a slave from habasha, from Ethiopia, from Africa. Paradise is right because he obeys Allah. Hell is the right of anyone who disobeys Allah even if he's a chief from Quraish. So we have these understandings which are from our a'ima alaihi sallam. You know what? Religion will be easy so long as we practice it according to Rasulullah and a'ima alaihi sallam. It will be difficult for us if we bring our own understanding. And I don't know why people have come nowadays to say, well, there's no marriage between Sayyids and non-Sayyids. This is from us, not from Rasulullah, not from a'ima alaihi sallam. Islam is clean, pure. Let us practice it in its purity and then we'll find. Absolutely. And I think, you know, you've explained it so eloquently that if we had, we observed the teachings of Ahubayah, the holy prophet, how they lived and lives would be more enriched and perhaps he wouldn't see this increased divorce rate. He followed those paths of religion and piety and morality rather than looking at the superficial factors that may not make us happy. Which leaders, Fitna and Fasaad. Fitna and Fasaad, Akhir, there are many, many sisters nowadays. They reached the age of about 40. Nobody's marrying them. Why? Because there's no Sayyid here. There's no someone from our clan. You know what will happen eventually? So even this Sayyid has to come from this particular village and that Sayyid has to come from this particular family. Where can we find it? Islam is the religion of all mankind. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, you know what? Universality, if we talk about universality of Islam, Allah is universal because he's Rabbul Alameen. Rabbul Alameen cannot segregate between the people. Rasulullah came to practice that religion. A'ima alaihi sallam. When we talk about the Imam of our time, that he will have people who will follow him 313. Do we want to say that all of them will be Sayyids? No, absolutely not. Thank you so much. And we have time for Sayyid Ali and our original, both permissible for them to marry. I mean, shall we marry for the good reasons, the right reasons. Thank you so much again. Most welcome. And shall we see you another morning? As-santum, Shukran, JazakAllah. And so up next, nutrition and a healthy heart. So we hope to see you after the morning.


I need help balancing studying for step one as well as being a new med student. How do I do it? How should and what tips do I need to know to not only get that 250, but get that 350. Now you probably didn't say the last part, but in this video, guys, we are going to touch base and how to balance being a new med student, studying for step one and making sure you crush it when it's time for testing. Let's get to it. All right, guys, what is going on a luxury of an MD journey helping you succeed on your journey with less stress? If you're new to this channel, first of all, welcome. I'm an internal medicine resident that have been making videos just like this one about step one and more topics for students just like you for the past three years.  And once you do that, stay tuned at the very end, we'll talk about an all inclusive resource just for you guys that I'm creating called the step one academy. So if you're interested and you want some of the bonus tips that I'll be talking about this video, stay tuned until the end. But in this video, we'll be talking about how to balance step one as well as being a preclinical student. So we'll touch on basically a step by step approach as well as some tips at the very end. So let's get to it. So step number one is basically deciding how much time do you want to commit? Now that seems like a rhetorical question.  I want to do the best 350, right? Well, in reality, there is no right answer.   It's really a comfort level. And while it may not seem true, honestly, it comes down to this, when you get to your dedicated and any student who's already studied for step one can vouch for me, you never study for step one the way you do during your dedicated prep. So instead, it's more important that you use your time ahead of it to one, nail down your foundations and two, just get a nice ease and progression into test day. You don't need to stress yourself out because you're going to be stressed during your dedicated anyway. So instead, figure out how much time do you want to commit? And it can be as simple as saying, I could do 20 minutes a day or let's start with two evenings of one hour sessions. Or it can also be, I'm just going to do a Saturday every other weekend. And that's totally fine. I'm going to give you different steps in the next couple of questions to basically help you understand what to do during those times. So the first is figure out how much time you want to commit. Now step two for step one is figuring out what resources to use. And it really comes down to one, a reference material and two, a resource they're going to use for a question source. Now reference material, a lot of students love using first aid, but at the same time, there's a lot of you going, uh, vomit. So friend, I need it. First aid can really be a polarizing resource because it's hard to use, especially if you're not comfortable with the material. It just seems like fax. And that's what it is. So instead, there are other resources that you guys can use, things like physio, pygmonic, sketchy medical, there's a lot. And I'll link down below a lot of the resources as well as the discounts that you guys can check out in the description down below. But find one reference material, give it a shot, try it out. And if you don't enjoy it, then you can consider switching, but don't just get caught up with what everyone else is using, find a few resources, particularly one and make that your reference material. Now, the next part is figuring out a question bank. Now the choice here is a little bit more limited, but you still have some options, including the ones that we talked about in the reference section. So that includes things like physio, which has videos as well as practice questions. They'll be a review video linked down below if you guys are interested in checking them out. But also just going to a generic question bank. So things like you world, Kaplan, um, you assembly RX, I made a total of different video about this on how to use them. I'll link that down below as well. But make sure you pick one and also pick a reference material and make those your main go-tos. If you need to supplement something else like Pat Thelma, when you're doing pathology, you're sketchy farm, when you're doing pharmacology, that's okay. But adding too much just makes it overwhelming, particularly if you're somebody who committed to less time for step one during question number one, which is, I may just do like an afternoon every week. Now you have your resources, you have your time. And basically now step number three is to block off that specific time every week. Try to make it repeatable, try to make it predictable. It can simply be that, you know, Wednesday afternoons are relatively benign.  You're going to do some step one study on Wednesday afternoons from four to five thirty, or maybe Saturday mornings are a little bit more relaxed to you and you feel that you have enough energy to do it. Um, find that time for you. Um, and then fit in whatever resources or question makes you do and make a study schedule around that. It can simply be progressing with the class that you're already studying for. So if you're in cardiology, you can do cardiology related questions and videos through your reference materials, something of that mixture, or you can do it totally random. Honestly, again, it doesn't matter. Pick a plan and stick to a plan. Now the next three tips are going to help you balance being a student studying for step one. So step number three point five is making sure you hit that like button if you haven't done so already. But step number four is just avoiding talking about step one with your classmates. A lot of you guys know it's a very anxiety provoking topic. You probably are anxious already. So you saw step one in the YouTube title and you went click. I got to know. So while I'm glad that you clicked on the video, it's still important that once you come up with step number one through three of creating a plan, dedicating time for it and figure out the resources, you really just don't want to talk to anybody about what you're doing. It just avoids all complications. If you do instead of finding that you're either struggling with your resource or your study strategy, then come to resources like YouTube, Reddit, student doctor forum, get some ideas, make a new plan, and then go forward with it. That also goes into step number five, which is to stick to your plan and make small adjustments instead of 180 degree turns. You probably have come up with a step one studying plan that is probably realistic and works for you overall. It's a good idea, but it has little elements here and there that are not well suited for you. So fix those elements and then just keep adapting versus trying to say, oh, that sounds good. And this person supported 260. I'm just going to do what they're doing. It doesn't work that way, guys. Find a study schedule works best for you with your time and then make a little bit of tinkering here and there to get to your final results. Now, my last tip is a master bonus tip that I feel like no one's talking about a did touch base on it on my question bank video. And that is to make a master file of Anki cards with all of your missed questions and topics from your first two years. So every time you do a question bank, whether it's you, world, you have some of the RX or some other practice question and you miss it completely, or you guess on it and get it right, but you really don't understand what's going on. Just quickly make a flashcard, use your screenshot tools, make a flashcard, add it to a master file that grows over time. And when it comes time for your dedicated, as long as you make a flashcard, you can say, I'm going to spend 10 minutes every morning doing my weaknesses. And so this is a card deck made specifically for you on everything you struggle with. It's not an Anki deck from Bro and Cephalons or Zanki that is made by somebody else. Instead it's made particularly for you and your strengths and weaknesses. And then during your dedicated, you can then work on more weaknesses by adding to that Anki deck as you do your URL questions. So make that master file now, continue to update it and then use Anki during your dedicated to really quiz yourself on all the things that you are weak at as a first and second year med student. So guys, those were my top six tips before we end this video. Let's talk about the step one Academy, which I mentioned at the start of this video. Basically, it's a culmination of all of your pressing questions for my subscribers, my email subscribers, and my blog readers regarding step one. It's how to study specific study strategies. How do I use this resource? Basically, how do you get the best score possible? So this resource is going to help you answer those questions. It's also going to give you study schedules as well as giving you interviews with top scoring students all in one. So right now in the making of this video, we're still collecting more pressing questions that you guys have. So make sure in the link down below, you guys check it out, you'll get forwarded to a survey and just add your pressing questions because then I can make training specifically for needs that you have. But if you're watching this video in the future, you know, the step one Academy may already be live or about to go live. So you guys can check it out down below, but I'll keep updating that link. And again, before you leave this video, make sure, make sure that that like button is destroyed and not on your browser. Thanks. But thank you guys and all seriousness for attending this video. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. Comment down below with any questions you guys have. I'll be happy to make more step one related videos. You guys seem to love those. Hopefully the setup, the video quality, the audio is better than has been in the past. I'm sorry for any of you guys that have stuck with me for years and have crappy videos, but I finally have a good camera or a better camera and good audio equipment. Hopefully it's better. I don't know, comment down below if this style is better because if you made it to the end, then you can take another two seconds to let me know. But I'm babbling. So I'm going to end this video. Thank you guys so much for making it till the end, being a part of my journey. Hopefully, hopefully I've been a part of yours and get that like button. But I'll see you guys later. Peace guys.


The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Issa Pantani says Niger's information and communication technology industry has been witnessing phenomenal growth and enabling social economic development in Nigeria and across the continent. Pantani made this a session in June on the sideline of the 2022 International Telecoms Unions or Telecoms Development Conference, ITUWTDC. By providing statistics from the Niger ICT industry, the Minister said in the last 20 years, the country has achieved robust growth in her telecoms industry, going from less than half a million connected telephone lines to over 200 million active mobile lines as of April. We're all focused on the growth of the ICT sector on the show today. Welcome to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Akadoni. First off, the Lagos State Government is set to formally launch its 30-year development plan at this year's Economic Summit tagged Ehiq-Beti 2022. Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget Samuel Igubay, who dropped this hint, at a pre-Summit stakeholders engagement, says Ehiq-Beti 2022 will focus on detailed discussions and aspects of the development plan. Let's take details of that report now and we'll be right back. Stay with us. The Lagos Economic Summit plan tagged Ehiq-Beti, but said there were two decades ago, is a creation that brings private and public sector players together to deliberate on the development of the state. As the stakeholders converge on this whole, it is time to reflect on the state's development strides in the last 22 years. Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget Sam Igubay reveals the 210 resolutions have been made out of the 222 reached in the past 22 years. And it is not just a talk shop because Ehiq-Beti presents for Lagos State a platform for accountability and transparency as we will always come back at the next Ehiq-Beti to account for what we did with the past resolution. So for example, the interest is expressed in the last Ehiq-Beti, we had about 11,100 people registered for the conference. And out of that, over 10,500 people attended. The Lagos State Development Plan 2022-2052 is said to chart the past of sustainable social economic growth. The government and its consultants explain that part of the phases of the plan includes developing strategic milestones, support implementation, and aligned stakeholders among others. With regards to creating a human centric city, there are four focus areas, education, healthcare, housing, safety and security. And the idea really is that Lagos is able to attract talent and retain talent because it's believed that the biggest enabler to getting to where we want to be is that Lagos continues to be the hub for top-class talent in the world. Between now and October when we hold the summit, we ask for your support as we always do. Your support in considering this agenda and sending your comments through the channels that have already been established. Captains of industries, the organized private sector, as well as the diplomatic community promise support to see to the achievement of the plan. The Lagos State has a great vision to make things better for negotiations. We are a good traditional partner of Lagos and Nigeria, but our economic position was, let's say a few years ago, dominated by revenues in the fossil fuel. Lagos, due to the great works of those that came after us, have turned Lagos into a masterpiece in Africa. Over the years, the YGT summit has served as a beacon of change and helps the future of Lagos through public discourse. Welcome back, that's the Lagos stand for the next 30 years. Now, Dari Medwongi is a tech enthusiast and chief digital officer for S-Insurance and Air's Life Assurance Limited. He is also director at Milky Express Limited. He joins us now to talk about the ICT sector in Nigeria. Thanks for joining us, Dari, on this particular discuss. Thank you for having me, Justin. Yeah, so let's talk about the minister's assertion. He said Nigeria has actually recorded phenomenal growth as of June this year. He said the broadband penetration in Nigeria has increased to over 42 percent. Yeah, absolutely. It's a laudable achievement and we can all attest to that. I think it was about 20 years ago that GSM was introduced in Nigeria and it formed the fundamental fabric for which we all communicate now. Pretty much everyone has a mobile phone and that formed the basis for the growth we've experienced now. Fine, it is enough growth from 2020 to 2001 there about till now since GSM was introduced into the country. But would you really say it is a hurry? Yes, 42 percent is a very good one, but if you look at countries like South Africa and some other emerging countries, you'll notice that they are similarly doing better. We've been talking about getting into the 5G space but how far do you really think we're going? Are we going at a slow rate or are we actually taking it the way it should be? Very good perspective and you're right. As a matter of fact, one of the things I looked out for in the report was the matrix that formed the percentage growth and it wasn't indicated in that report. I think there's a lot to do. There are a lot of fundamental factors that are affecting the growth and the penetration of ICT and technology or telecom communications in Africa or Nigeria specifically and I can mention a few if it's okay. So the first I would say is we need the right policies and I'm aware that government is taking the right steps in that direction. I'm aware of a new bill, I think a new start-up, tech start-up bill that has been passed, that's passed the third reading and we need the right policies that would foster the enhancement and the growth of the right infrastructure for all the kind of growth that we need to have. The growth is critical because it has fundamental underneath brown brand increase and also infrastructure increase and I'll explain that. For every form of communication that needs to happen in this space, it relies on two things, one infrastructure, two internet. We've been trying to get into the 5G space for a while now. The 5G and let me clarify is not just a nice to have, is not the Antichrist, is not any of those things, is critical for us to for it to open up a lot of new business opportunities in Nigeria. And there's a lot of challenges in the area, number one is power. Yes, we will have a lot of people with phones and access to some basic data, but there's still a challenge of power because these base stations that propagate these networks, they need power to run. And of course with power comes petrol, with petrol comes diesel, and all those things are affecting how cheap and available, and how widespread these base stations are. So just to mention a few. Okay, but let's take it one step further. It's been 20 years or over 20 years since the GSM from 2G to 3G to 4G. Now we're talking about in 5G and all of that. But what would have thought that over time, that the price would have been brought considerably down as it is now. But from what we hear, there is a particular plan to have Nigerians pay more for data and calls. Exactly, so that's why I had to mention those fundamental things. And those fundamental things are the reason why I can assure you that the price has not gone down, and may not likely go down, likely increase like you've mentioned, because they form the basis for the availability and the spread. So if you look at the cost of doing business in Nigeria, number one is power. And you would agree with me that in the recent time, the cost of power has increased significantly. As a matter of fact, astronomically. So the providers of this internet service need to power the infrastructure for this to happen. Number two is also the effects issues we are having recently, because these infrastructures are not made locally. They are brought from abroad and they are maintained even by foreign currency, because right now we have a lot of resource drain in Nigeria. And so we have to keep relying on foreign experience to come and help us maintain this infrastructure. And number three is policies as well. If we have the right policies that make it convenient and comfortable for these providers to be able to grow, regardless of these challenges we are having economically, it will help to regulate the price and make it much more affordable. So yes, it's a basic challenge that we have and we need the government to provide the right support to ensure that the ever-changing challenges around infrastructure, around power, around effects does not affect the report effect of the cost of data. Okay, but let's talk about service provision here in the country. In terms of the big players, I don't understand mentioning brands, but over time that particular space has been deepened and new players have come in. But one would have thought that Nigerians will be getting value for money in terms of what they are paying for. But over time we still have this issue of drop calls sometimes and not getting the right speed. What have we failed to see really? Okay, so to put it in simple terms, if I'm going to make a call right now to you, right, this isn't just a few meters away from me. It's not a, the signal does not flow from me directly to you. It flows to the nearest base station, right? And if for any reason that base station is down, that means that it will go to the next available base station, which is probably a bit further away. Now the further away the base station is, the less the quality of the call. So bringing it down to your question, it goes back to the challenges of doing business in Nigeria. These base stations have to be powered from my understanding with diesel generators. For some, some of them will have backup generators. The cost of diesel generator just this year has increased from, I think, maybe 300 naira per liter to over 700 naira per liter. So it's making the cost of doing business very difficult. Number two is that there's a lot of resource drain right now in Nigeria because the world is becoming a global village and a lot of people, a lot of good resources are beginning to see the usefulness of their skill outside Nigeria and they are being offered to be paid in foreign currency. Who wouldn't jump at that? So there's a lot of resource drain. And unfortunately we don't have the right educational system that produces the right quality of resources that we need to take on from there. So despite the fact that, yes, these guys have been around for a while, yes, they made a lot of money, it's not proportional to the expectation of our expected outcome in terms of these challenges that I've mentioned. All right. We're still watching Business Insight and Plus TV Africa and we still have Dari Medmoyer, tech enthusiast with us in the house. We'll take a quick break and return with more to join us again. Welcome back to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. Dari is still with us. Let's talk about the future of the ICT sector in Nigeria. Nigerians have begun to appreciate the place of technology in almost all facets of their business, telemedicine, insurance and banking or even in everyday business. But would you really say that in the next five to ten years the average household would be doing everything techie as it were? Well, to be honest, it's inevitable. It's a disruption. The world has become a global village and the communication protocol of the world or the globe is tech, right? For example, if you're going to have a business meeting with somebody in Asia or the America, the likely tool you would use is Zoom or Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, right? So we have for us to be able to compete at that global level. For businesses that are coming into Nigeria to invest in Nigeria and to play in Nigeria, we need to mature a level of tech to be able to play. So I would say it's inevitable. However, will it be easy or will it be very functional, maybe not, given some of the challenges that we have? I would think that the focus for us to be able to play in a mature level at that time is for us to drive local advocacy and local, shall I say, investment and manufacturing of tech. Right now for every business that if you want to have, if you want to develop an app or you want to develop a service, you would most likely host your service abroad. And by hosting it abroad, you are also more or less like there's forex involved.  It's a great long way to develop our infrastructure locally, because it's not a case of demand or supply. And it would ensure that we are compelled to work towards that maturity. As we wrap up now, Dari, a whole lot has been said concerning what 5G technology would do to not just Nigeria or Africa, but entirely to the world. If you were to break it down to the late times, to the average man on the street, to the average woman who sells tomato, what would 5G do to them or for them? Very good question. Like I said, let's quickly kill the myth of 5G being an anti-Christ. So I would say if you go to a market right now, and most likely you'll probably go without cash because you have your ATM card or you have your phone to do a transfer. Right now, in most markets, you would find POS service agents. So they are there to meet the gap between you and I that don't have cash and the markets with my daddy's cash. For that POS machine to work, it needs internet or it needs some kind of network service. If we are still in the days of 2G or 1G, I don't think that service would work. So you see what I'm going to. So the stronger and the more mature internet service is, the more business opportunities that it brings open to markets, women and other, every form of life. So it's important to have that so that it opens up new business opportunities that would foster business and economy at the end of the day. Well said. You know, I couldn't have been broken any lower. Thank you so much. I'm dying for sharing all of this useful insight with us. We do appreciate your time. Thank you, Justin, for having me again. All right. Barry Medore is a tech enthusiast and he has actually said so much. I'm sure you have taken one or two things from this particular discourse. As we wrap up, the Lagos State Governor Babajdeh Songolu has restated his commitment to building affordable and decent housing apartments that meet different straight hair of the citizenry. Songolu who stated this during the official commissioning of the channel point apartments in Victoria Island area of the state said that these remain a key priority in his administration. The venue of the commissioning was filled with capacity with world wishes and government functionaries. All are seated waiting patiently for the formal cutting of the tape by Governor Babajdeh Songolu. It is a joint venture partnership project between the state government through the Lagos State Development and Property Cooperation, LSDPC and Brooks Assets and Resources Limited. Larry Shola is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Brooks Assets and Resources. She is excited to see the day come true. Governor Songolu, while addressing the people, spoke on the overall goal of the Urban Renewal Program and called for more collaborations with all other private investors in developing the state. And I'm also using this opportunity to say that our plan at ensuring that the opportunity in our land spaces is totally unlocked. Before the end of the year, in fact, we've given commitments that our EGIS project, which unlocks the potential ensuring that title documents, right, can't be processed within a couple of days and the comfort of your houses and the comfort of your offices will be delivered before the end of this year. He also reassured Legosians of his commitment to ensuring decent and affordable housing for all. And so I want to urge all our citizens to be rest assured that the provision of affordable and decent housing remain a key priority for your administration. Like I said, construction is going on in several other parts of the state. On his part, the Oniru of Iruland, Oba Abdul Wasiu, Omogola Honlawa, commanded Governor Songolu for thinking outside the box. He said that Legos state has a very small land mass, hence the reason need for the state to always convert any available space or inactive property to good use. Let us upgrade, let us add value to those projects that are almost abandoned. If not, I don't want to use abandoned. Let us add value to them and make them to look like this. Sitting on a land size of 2,832 square meter, the Channel Point Apartments consist of two blocks of 38 units of two and three bedroom flats. It had just two bungalows on it, housing just two different families, but thus, certainly gone with the wind. From Legos, love Ikuku Uyudoku, plus TV news. And that's the size of the show for this week. I am Justin at the Donyei. See you again next time. Bye for now.


The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on job satisfaction among healthcare workers in sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana and Kenya. Our research shows that healthcare workers in these countries have experienced high levels of job dissatisfaction due to lack of preparedness, stress, and burnout. These factors have been shown to be associated with lower job satisfaction. Additionally, fear of infection has also been linked to decreased job satisfaction. To address this issue, it is important to increase preparedness, better manage stress and burnout, and improve job satisfaction, especially during the pandemic. This article was authored by patients A. Afilani, Jerry John Neuter, Paschalic Body, and others.