So I've been really critical of people who Joe Biden is appointing to his administration, and I think for good reason. And I've made my arguments, but I think it's really important that we hear from people who have been activists for quite some time because their perspective is very valuable because they know the intricate details about how specific companies hurt communities in this country. So the Intercept reports, Biden EPA transition team member helped Dupont dodge responsibility for PFOA. Michael McCabe, a former EPA official and aide to Joe Biden led the defense of the toxic PFAS chemical PFOA. Now the fact that anyone associated with a company who did any polluting whatsoever is going to work for Joe Biden in and of itself is scandalous, but I'm not going to share my opinion about this because I think that Erin Brokovic, a longtime activist, she said everything that I wanted to say in an open letter to Joe Biden titled Dear Joe Biden, are you kidding me? And she writes, Dear I say I had hopes that this new administration would usher in the dawning of a new day. As picks for president-elect Joe Biden's environmental protection agency transition team were announced, I felt concerned and disheartened about a chemical industry insider being on the list. Are you kidding me? Michael McCabe, a former employee of Biden and a former deputy environmental protection agency administrator later jumped ship to work as a consultant on communication strategy for Dupont during a time when the chemical company was looking to fight regulations of their star chemical, PFOA, also known as C8. The toxic man-made chemical is used in everything, from waterproof clothes, stain-resistant textiles and food packaging to non-stick pans. The compound has been linked to lowered fertility, cancer and liver damage. The Guardian reported this week that Harvard School of Public Health Professor Philippe Grandjean, who studies environmental health, warns that PFAS chemicals of which PFOA is one might reduce the efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine. This smells of the dawn of the same old. To quote the who, meet the new boss same as the old boss. It should go without saying that someone who advised Dupont on how to avoid regulations is not someone who we want advising this new administration. PFOA pollutes the blood of nearly every American it can pass from mother to unborn child in the womb. This toxic product of industry is a stable compound not easily broken down in the environment, giving it the nickname forever chemical. Scientists have found it in living beings across the globe, from animals living in the depths of the sea to birds on remote islands. The Environmental Protection Agency has set no enforceable national drinking water limits for perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA. Tens of thousands of community drinking water systems across the country have never even been tested for these contaminants. The Caves started managing Dupont's communications with the EPA about the toxic chemical in 2003, according to an article in The Intercept. This was the time in which Dupont faced a barrage of litigation after the company dumped 7,100 tons of PFOA filled waste in West Virginia, which made its way into the drinking water of 100,000 people. Countless members of the community faced debilitating illnesses as a result. The legal battle with the company was turned into the film Dark Waters in 2019. According to you, Dupont suspected that their product was harmful since the 1960s. Experiments they conducted in 1961 showed that PFOAs affected the livers of dogs and rabbits. McCabe's work inevitably contributed to staving off costly cleanup and additional regulation headaches for the company. Are we the people supposed to trust a former Dupont man in a transition team tasked with reviewing the chemical safety board? Is this how the newly elected leadership wants to start what is supposed to be a healing and unifying administration? And the answer to that is yes. Because Joe Biden is going to be a healer and a unifier. Not for the working class, though. For the capitalist and business class. For corporate America. They're all going to love him. Because his policies aren't going to be that different from Donald Trump. There's going to be some positive changes. But for the most part, you know, there's no mean tweets. People can basically ignore Joe Biden. He's not this spectacle as Trump is. And you know, it's easier for people to put aside all of Joe Biden's laws and go back to brunch and pretend as if everything is copacetic when in actuality, Joe Biden needs to be fought. It's not a matter of pushing Joe Biden to the left because that would suggest that he was ever malleable in the first place. It's a matter of fighting Joe Biden. Fighting him on things like this. Because an industry shill for Dupont, that's not someone who's going to be looking out for us.  It's idiotic.   And you know, they need breathable air, too.   It's why when there are people who tried to make the case for Joe Biden by championing his so-called progressive platform, I mean, this is why we were skeptical because Joe Biden has a long history of doing things like this. According to Erin Brockovich, it's important that she speaks up because she knows about all of this. She has firsthand experience dealing with this. There's literally a movie about Erin Brockovich. So you know, it's not surprising, but because we're not surprised doesn't mean that we should be unmoved and not be infuriated and not call him out. We have to educate people about these sort of things. And I think that Erin Brockovich is doing a public service by calling out Joe Biden Mike is a total loser. So don't hit the subscribe button, okay? And whatever you do, folks, do not hit the notification bell either. Mike treats me so unfairly.


At Audiology Associates of Prestonsburg, you can live your life the way you want and find the freedom of better hearing. With 40 years of being in the hearing care industry, you'll experience patient care that is specific to you with exceptional follow-up care that ensures your hearing and balance needs are being met. Audiology Associates at 1428 North Lake Drive in Prestonsburg. The Cowan Creek Mountain Music School will be holding their story supper and sang an event at the Cowan Community Center on Saturday, November 11th. So one of the reasons that we wanted to do this event is because food is such an important part of identity for people from Eastern Kentucky. In this time of year, we're often thinking a lot about our favorite dishes and our favorite traditional foods. And in the mountains, having a good meal goes along with having some good music and some good singing. And we just thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to bring everybody together. The event is a way for the community to come out, share recipes, stories, and listen to live music. All of these things are core parts of Appalachian heritage and provides a way for the community to come together over their shared tradition. We wanted to bring people together so that not only could we share food and share some of the traditional foods that help define our region and our regional cuisine, but also to remember our strength and remember our resilience and give each other comfort in the stories that we tell about our loved ones. For more information about the event, you can visit the Cow and Creek Mountain Music School Facebook page. For Mountain Top News, I'm Kelcey Fadell.


Ysbyt yw, yna genedlaeth y cyfnod Gwladolau i hynny. Gwladolau i hynny yn gystafell, Arferwisode 1, ydw ichi Douglas Ross. Gwrsiau hynny yn y familymenau i chi i wneud y prysgwp agteniol yn gweithgau i Gweithiwr Steve Clarke a'r unig hynny i chi'r ein ddim yn yn defneddoli. Mae ym Mesaad yn y meddwl, ond mae'r unig hynnyroed nafór iawn i chi gael trafodi gast i'r unig hynny sy'n cymdeithasol erbyn gweld, gwaith hwnnaeth i midol sydd yn 1998. I know the whole Parliament will wish them well. The players on the pitch, the manager, the team around them and, of course, the outstanding tartan army, who will be roaring them on at a victory tonight. We wish them all the very best. Yn dechrau i'r ystyried, in the middle of the cost of living crisis with so many families struggling, why is her Government allocating another £20 million for an independence referendum? I will begin by taking the opportunity to wish Steve Clark and the team every success at Hamden this evening. I will be there cheering on Scotland. We all want Scotland to win and to qualify for the first world cup that we would be at in a long, long time. That said, I can speak for everybody at Hamden this evening when I say that no matter how strongly we will be supporting Scotland, a bit of all of our hearts will be with Ukraine as we continue to stand in solidarity with Ukraine in this hour of need. Just as the Tartan army this evening will, as it always does, belt out flour of Scotland, I hope that we also stand and show real passion for the Ukraine national anthem as well this evening. Good luck to Steve and to the team. I also take the opportunity to thank Douglas Ross warmly for giving me the opportunity today to set out exactly why giving the people of Scotland an opportunity to choose a better future is so important at this particular moment in time. The resource spending review that Kate Forbes set out yesterday in many ways sets out the very heavy price that people across Scotland are paying right now for continued Westminster decision making. UK Government decisions have cut our budget this year by more than 5 per cent in real terms. They will constrain growth in our budget over the next four years to 2 per cent, while inflation is close to 10 per cent. Inflation in the UK, of course, which, thanks to the folly of Brexit, is the highest of any G7 country. Every year right now, the Scottish Government is having to invest more than £700 million mitigating the impact of Westminster policies that Scotland did not vote for—the bedroom tax, the rate clause, the removal of universal credit, plunging more people into poverty. I think that £20 million, 0.05 per cent, one-half of one-tenth of one per cent of the entire Scottish Government budget, to give the people of this country the opportunity to choose a better future, yes, and will be a really good investment. The First Minister's answer never once mentioned the cost of living crisis that Scots are facing right now. Never once even attempted to address that issue. She gets very excited, very animated speaking about independence, inviting our country all over again, but not a single word to the people struggling right now who do not understand why her Government is prioritising another independent referendum. Spending £20 million on a divisive referendum in the middle of a cost of living crisis is shameful. Nicola Sturgeon's eye is off the ball all over again. She is obsessing about independence when people across Scotland overwhelmingly want the focus to be on— Members, please resist the urge to heckle from a sedentary position, Mr Ross. She is obsessing about independence when people across Scotland overwhelmingly want the focus to be on the issues that really matter to them. Let's look at that at £20 million. That could pay for more police officers, more teachers, more nurses. It could pay more support for people facing rising energy bills and higher costs at the supermarket. Charging ahead with a plan to divide us is the wrong priority when now more than ever we need to pull together using the strength and security that we get as part of the United Kingdom to see us through the cost of living crisis, just like it saw us through the Covid pandemic. First Minister, just how much worse does the cost of living crisis have to get for individuals right across Scotland before you will divert money away from an independence referendum? First Minister, Douglas Ross stood up and said that he did not mention the cost of living crisis. Can I suggest that Douglas Ross might want to consider what it is that is causing the cost of living crisis? It is soaring inflation. As I said in my answer, inflation that in the UK, thanks in large part to the utter folly of Brexit imposed upon Scotland by Tory Governments, is the highest of any G7 country. That is part of the price of Westminster Government. It is a Tory-created cost of living crisis. How much worse does it have to get before the Conservatives take it seriously and provide real proper help to people across this country? Douglas Ross stands here and asks me about £20 million, as I said, one half of one tenth of one per cent of the entire Scottish budget, to give the people of this country the option of a better future. Douglas Ross never stands here, as he should and apologises for the fact that this Government every year is required to invest more than £700 million to mitigate Tory policies that we in Scotland do not vote for. That is to mitigate the awful rape clause imposed on Scotland by the Tories. That is to mitigate the awful bedroom tax imposed on Scotland by the Tories. That is to mitigate the poverty that Tory policies are plunging so many people into. To mitigate the austerity that we heard the Glasgow Centre for Population Health Research say has caused a stalling in improved life expectancy in Scotland and across the UK. So, yes, I do think that £20 million to give Scotland the choice of a better future—a Tory-free future—is a good investment. If we look at the opinion poll, I suspect that Scotland is well on the way back to being Tory-free anyway. Can we say this? Let's remind ourselves that, thanks to this Government, we have more police officers in Scotland. Thanks to this Government, we have more primary school teachers than at any time since 1980, so I will get on with the job of delivering for Scotland. I hope that it will free Scotland from continued Westminster Tory Government. The First Minister now just makes it up as she goes along. She is saying that the UK Government is doing nothing to help people £37 billion investment in this country to help those who are struggling. Each million people of the lowest earners across Scotland will get at least £1,200 in additional support announced by the Chancellor just last week. Despite what the First Minister tried to say in her first answer, we know that her Government has received the biggest block grant from the UK Government ever, and it has squandered it. The spending review shows the real cost of the SNP's failures for the Scottish public—a fortune wasted on ferries, on bi-fa, on presswick airport, failures at Queen Elizabeth hospital. The list goes on and on and on. The consequences of those failures for our country are devastating. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the next few years will mean, and I quote from them, really big cuts in planned spending on public services. First Minister, because of your Government's failures, we are facing severe cuts to budgets for the police, prisons, schools, councils, rural affairs, enterprise, tourism and higher education. Scotland is paying the price for Nicola Sturgeon's mistakes. The spending review was damning. Does not this all show that we are facing the worst financial outlook from a Scottish Government since devolution? First Minister, let's first look at the help that was announced by the Chancellor last week. I will say in passing that it is deeply regrettable that it took yet again the party-gate crisis that Boris Johnson wanted to divert attention from for the Chancellor to lift a single finger. If you take the universal support, £400, welcome though that is, it is a fraction of the projected increase in energy costs that families across the country are facing. You take the support for the lowest income families, again very welcome, but it does not even come close to putting back the £1,000 taken out of the pockets of the lowest income families given the clawback of the universal credit £20 a week. There is much more that needs to be done from the UK Government. Secondly, on the Scottish Government's block grant, it would not be better if we had responsibility for raising our own revenue rather than having to rely on a block grant from someone else. However, Douglas Ross says that it is the biggest ever. This year, Scotland's budget, because of Westminster Tory decisions, is reduced in real terms by 5.2 per cent. If that is the biggest ever, I am not sure that that is much for the Tories to crow about. Next, Douglas Ross says that spending money to save BiFab, to save Ferguson's, to save Presswick airport is wasted money. That says everything that we need to know about the Tory approach to jobs. They do not care about people's jobs. Finally, Kate Forbes set out ambitious plans backing our priorities of tackling child poverty, of protecting public services, of moving to net zero and supporting the economy. Do I wish that we had more money to allocate? Yes, I do, but this Government's budget is largely determined by decisions taken by the Tories. Therefore, everything that Douglas Ross has just said actually makes the argument, does not detract from the argument, it makes the argument for this Parliament, this country becoming independent. First Minister, stop running from your failures and start to own them. This blaming the Westminster bogeyman does not cut it with the public who are struggling because your decisions are devastating for the people of Scotland. The SNP, the Scottish Government are the ones running our finances into the ground. All we have heard from the First Minister today is that they have cash for another referendum, but cuts for Scotland's public services. The most damaging cuts are going to be on Scotland's young people. The First Minister used to grandstand and she said that she would close the attainment gap between Rich and Poor. How is that going, First Minister? She promised to make education her number one priority. How is that going, First Minister? The Scottish public were told to judge her on education while she has failed and now she has given up even trying. The education budget is being slashed to the bone. The First Minister likes to talk about Scotland's future. Will we want money invested in Scotland's future but on schools, not on separation? First Minister, why put £20 million behind your push for another referendum when it could be spent on delivering opportunities for our young people across Scotland? It is a fact that the size of this Parliament's budget is largely decided by decisions taken at Westminster. If Douglas Ross does not like the outcome of that, perhaps he should have a word with his bosses at Westminster or better still support this Parliament and this country having full financial responsibility. How is the work to close the attainment gap in education going? I am delighted to give him a progress report on that today, and he does not have to take my word for it. Let me quote the commissioner for fair access just yesterday talking about the progress in closing the attainment gap in access to university. What the commissioner said is that the work of the Scottish Government has been an unambiguous success, and Scotland is now leading the UK. There is your progress report on education. Of course, we know the real reason for all of Douglas Ross's bluster today. Before I go on to that real reason, let me re-attribute. First Minister, if I may stop you a moment, I have already asked for members to resist the urge to make a contribution when it is not their turn to speak. I would be grateful if you could bear that in mind. First Minister. Let me re-attribute for the avoidance of doubt. If spending £20 million wins this country a better future, a future where we do not have to spend £700 million mitigating Tory policies, then yes, that is a good investment. However, the reason for Douglas Ross's bluster is that we know that the Tories and Douglas Ross are not very popular among the Scottish people, but we now know, as of this week, that Douglas Ross has never been less popular with Conservative voters. He is now, for the first time, got negative approval ratings. Douglas Ross is in the unenviable position of the only Tory, who is less popular among the Conservative voters than Douglas Ross is Boris Johnson. No wonder that he is in a bit of a state today. Tonight almost everyone in the world will be supporting Ukraine. If they were playing any other country in the world, I would probably be supporting them too. However, as they are playing us, I will be cheering on Scotland and the Tartan army. I wish Steve Clark, Andy Robertson and the entire Scotland men's football team all the very best for tonight. I hope that they can take us to a world cup. How many people were on the NHS waiting list a year into an SNP Government, pre-pandemic in March 2020, and how many Scots are on the NHS waiting list now? I will provide the precise figures. I do not have them to hand. What I know is that there are more people on the NHS waiting list now, post-pandemic, than will have been the case at many points over recent years. That is the case not only in Scotland, but it is the case across the UK and across much of the world because of the pressures of Covid. I also know that, before, we had the pandemic. There was significant progress being made in reducing waiting times. If we take out patients, for example, before the pandemic, the number waiting for a first outpatient appointment had reduced by 21.3 per cent. Over the same period, the number waiting for over 12 weeks for an outpatient appointment had fallen by more than 30 per cent. More appointments had been carried out in terms of the inpatient treatment time guarantee, and the number waiting over six weeks for one of the eight diagnostic tests was down 25 per cent. That is the progress that was being made that has been clearly set back by the pandemic, which is why a recovery plan and a significant additional investment going into the NHS is so important. The First Minister needs to send me the stats that I have for her right here. The answer the First Minister was looking for was that there were over 260,000 people on an NHS waiting list a year into an SNP Government. That had risen to almost 420,000 on a waiting list pre-pandemic in March 2020, and today that stands at over 708,000 people, one in eight Scots on an NHS waiting list. The First Minister references the recovery plan or catch-up plan. Surely catch-up means that the number waiting would go down instead of going up, but there are nearly 60,000 more people on an NHS waiting list compared to when the Government announced the catch-up plan back in August. Let me try another one. How many people were waiting over a year for inpatient treatment when the First Minister took office and how many people are waiting over a year today? There are more people waiting over a year today, and I think that most people understand that that is because of the impact of the pandemic. In fact, the latest quarterly figures show an increase in people seen inpatients, outpatients and diagnostic procedures compared to the previous quarter, which again shows the impact of the improvement and catch-up work that is being done. Of course, we are still in a much better position, but we are still in a pandemic. Since the recovery plan was published, we have had another wave of the pandemic. I think that people understand the impact that that is having on our NHS, but they also see the increased number of people working in our NHS, and they see the increased investment in our NHS. They will start to see the increase in numbers seen and the impact on waiting times. Regardless of what party is in Government across the UK, SNP in Scotland and the Tories in England and Labour in Wales, the NHS is facing the same challenges. On many of those measures, the NHS in Scotland is doing better than the other UK nations. I have already referenced to the First Minister that the figures are going up since the catch-up plan was not coming down in terms of those on waiting lists. As is typical when the First Minister is struggling, she wants to talk about Wales. I remind her that she is paid to care about the people of Scotland because she is Scotland's First Minister. Here is the answer that the First Minister could not give or does not want to give. Let us remember that there is a legal guarantee of treatment for treatment within 12 weeks. The number of people waiting over a year when Nicola Sturgeon took office was 21. As of today, that number is over 30,000 of our fellow Scots waiting over a year, not the legal 12 weeks waiting over a year for inpatient treatment, like a hip replacement, a knee replacement or a heart operation. Let us look at Nicola Sturgeon's record on the NHS. She has broken her own treatment time law 490,000 times. She has cut over 4,000 beds out of her NHS. On her watch, we now have record vacancies for nurses and midwives. We are 6,000 nurses and midwives short. That is a litany of failures—a black hole in our public finances, railways that do not run, ferries that do not sail and soaring waiting lists in our NHS. Which one is Nicola Sturgeon most ashamed of? First Minister, I am proud of the work that the Government does to support the NHS. I am proud of the fact that there are thousands more people working in our NHS and I am proud of the fact that the NHS budget has increased by about 90 per cent in cash terms since the Government took office. Anasarwar literally must be the only person in the country, perhaps the only person in the planet that does not understand or is not willing to understand the impact of a global pandemic on health services in Scotland and around the world. We were seeing significant improvements before the pandemic. The pandemic, when we literally had to pause surgery and other treatments in the NHS, has clearly set that back. Now we are investing and introducing the initiatives to catch up on that progress. Anasarwar also mentions beds. I know that he does not like comparisons to Wales when they do not suit him, but the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, of course, who was talking about bed numbers this week and said important things, also pointed out that Scotland has a higher number of beds per head of population than Wales and England. Yes, we have lots of work to do, but we have a better foundation to build on than where Labour is in government in the rest of the UK. We will now move to constituency and general supplementaries, and I call Eleanor Whitham. Can I ask for the First Minister's response to the research that she referenced earlier, published by Glasgow University in the Glasgow Centre for Population and Health yesterday, which has suggested that people across the UK are dying younger as a result of UK Government austerity? It is appalling and it displays and gives evidence for what many of us have suspected is the case over some time now. What the researchers at the Glasgow Centre for Population and Health found is that austerity is highly likely to be the most substantial causal contributor to the solved mortality trend in Scotland and across the UK. It is down to Tory austerity. Tory austerity was kicked off by Labour under the last Labour Government, and we now see the impact of that on people across the country, which is another reason for wanting to get a better future for Scotland. There is an inequality across my region when it comes to supporting children with complex needs during the summer. Robin Holland from the National Autistic Society Scotland has said that the lack of services heaps further pressure on families and risks pushing them to breaking point. The availability of short-term break services should not be wholly reliant on where autistic children live. What action is the Scottish Government putting in place to rectify this postcode lottery for which autistic children have to endure? I agree with the member that children with autism should have access to good services, regardless of where they live in Scotland. Of course, we would expect to see local authorities ensure that that is the case. Our duty, which is one that we take seriously, is to support local authorities financially and in other ways. I am happy to ask the education secretary to look at the situation in the region that the member represents and write to him in greater detail, but I hope that all local authorities take the responsibility to support children to catch up their education very seriously. This morning, we learned that the number of people suffering from long Covid has risen to 155,000. That is almost one in 30 Scots. Last weekend, Dr Kevin Deane told BBC Scotland that the need for long Covid clinics was absolute and it was urgent. We cannot not do this, he said. His intervention destroys the baffling arguments from SNP and green benches that clinics would somehow get in the way of support. Presiding Officer, the First Minister is devoting twice as much money to her referendum as she is to this awful condition. What does she have to say to the 155,000 sufferers, many of whom are children, and will she revisit the issue of long Covid clinics today? The first thing that I would say is that Alex Cole-Hamilton should not certainly misrepresent my position here. I have not said that clinics get in the way of other support. The argument that I have made and will continue to make is that there is a range of support that health boards need to put in place and long Covid clinics may well be part of that, and that is for health boards to consider. We will continue to provide funding for health boards and support for health boards, including research support, to enable clinicians and others to continue to develop their understanding of long Covid and the impacts that it has. That is something that we take seriously and we will continue to take seriously. Given that Alex Cole-Hamilton is right to point this out, the significant numbers of people who are living with long Covid and who are likely to continue to do so for much time to come. Last May, the SNP Government pledged a replacement for the Erasmus scheme to ensure that over 15,000 students every year from across Scotland have a chance to experience life, learning and culture abroad. The First Minister has described the removal of the scheme as cultural vandalism. The Welsh Labour replacement scheme starts this September. I know that the First Minister is very keen on the comparison. Here, First Minister, is the comparison. The spending review yesterday confirms that the SNP scheme will not open until 2026, five years after the promise was made. How can the First Minister justify this astonishing delay to the 75,000 Scots who will miss out forever? I am not sure whether that was a leadership bid that was being launched by Michael Marra there, or if it was an entirely inadvertent attempt to undermine his leader, who has just told me that we should never talk about Wales in this chamber. Perhaps Michael Marra will want to clarify that in the future. I can say this unashamedly. We will continue to look at the example in Wales. We remain committed to an alternative to Erasmus, and we will set out further details of that in due course. I tell you what else I am committed to. That is to see Scotland rejoin the European Union as an independent nation, so that we do not have to have a second best alternative to Erasmus. We can be back in the actual Erasmus scheme, benefiting young people for generations to come. Thank you. There are eight higher and further education institutes, nine including the open university in my constituency of Glasgow Kelvin. As a former teacher, access to higher education and increasing opportunities is a cause that is close to my heart. As schools and colleges are finishing this year's national qualifications exam diet, can I ask the First Minister for her response to the report that was published yesterday by the Commissioner for Fair Access? I very much welcome the report published yesterday by the Commissioner for Fair Access. It is, of course, this Government's ambition that every child growing up in Scotland, regardless of their background, should have an equal chance of going to university. So I very much welcome Sir Peter Scott's recognition of the excellent progress that has been made, and indeed I appreciate his role in delivering this outcome. Let me acknowledge, since this was his final report yesterday, that I want to acknowledge my thanks for his commitment during his time as commissioner in progressing access to higher education for those from the most deprived areas. The number of entrants on full-time first-year courses from the 20 per cent most deprived communities has increased 39 per cent since Sir Peter Scott took on his role, and the Scottish Government will consider all of his recommendations carefully and respond in due course. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Universities Scotland has warned that eight of Scotland's universities are set to receive cuts to research funding this year, with four high-performing research institutions facing a decrease of greater than £1 million from August. Can I ask the First Minister, with the 85 per cent of Scottish research being rated as world-leading or internationally excellent, why is her Government cutting funding to this vital work? We will continue to support our universities, we will continue to support fair access to our universities, and of course we will continue to support the world-leading research that happens in our universities. However, it is a bit galling to hear a Conservative member stand here and talk about the threat to university research when the biggest threat and the reality for universities has been that Brexit has damaged their research potential. Perhaps the Conservatives want to look to themselves before they start raising questions for others on university research. I recently raised with the First Minister the case of a constituent who had waited seven months to be diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. We now hear from the ICBP and Cancer Research UK that almost two-fifths of cancer in Scotland are only being diagnosed at A and D. I hear this week from Myloma UK that, in the case of Myloma, that can be up to the third. How can the Scottish Government reassure my constituents that they will not be made to wait dangerously long for cancer diagnosis? We are already investing in early diagnostic centres for cancer and, of course, we have the detect cancer early programme that we have invested in for some time and continue to invest in it. I absolutely agree with the member that early diagnosis for all cancers is vital and it is really important that we do everything to support that but also encourage people who have symptoms that could be indicative of cancer to come forward to see a doctor as quickly as possible and we will continue to do everything possible to support that early access because we know that earlier somebody is diagnosed the better chances they have of survival and recovery. Ross Greer. The First Minister will be aware of the long-running campaign to prevent Yorkshire theme park operators from England from developing what they described as a luxury tourist resort on the banks of Lochomand at Baloch. Our successful campaign to defeat their first applications saw records 60,000 objections lodged, setting damage to ancient woodland, risk to protected species, strain on local roads, access to local residents and a range of other concerns. Sadly, though, from England are back, having just lodged a new application, does the First Minister agree that our national parks are for all of us and that it would be unacceptable for one of the most accessible locations on Lochomand to be closed off to all but the select few who will pay to stay at this resort? First Minister. Obviously, the Lochomand and the Trostlux national park authority is responsible for considering planning applications within the national park and therefore it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the specifics of any planning application and indeed not helpful for me to do so. I do, however, note that any development must comply with Scottish planning policy and the local development plan for the national park and that any development must also be in keeping with the park authority's statutory aims. It is for the park authority to fully consider the application and assess the balance between the impact of the proposed development on the environment with any potential benefits. Thank you very much to ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is regarding the impact on Scotland to the energy profits levy, commonly referred to as a windfall tax, on the oil and gas sector to help support families that are struggling with the cost of the living crisis. First Minister. Well, after months of delay, the UK Government belatedly conceded the need for a windfall tax to help those struggling to make ends meet action that the Scottish Government had been urging them to take. However, we have also made the point that oil and gas companies are not alone in profiting from recent global events and that a windfall tax should apply to all companies posting significantly higher profits. The Chancellor's failure to implement that fairly now means that the Scottish industry is carrying a disproportionate burden of funding what is a UK-wide response. It also means that the support available is still far too limited. By widening out and using the fiscal headroom available, the Chancellor could have gone beyond one of measures and introduced long-term strategies such as, for example, introducing an equivalent of the Scottish child payment. Stuart McMillan. I thank the First Minister for that reply. The First Minister gave with me that the limited actions last week by the times that Richelis Chancellor, Richie Sunak, although welcome, do not go anywhere near far enough. The Tory cost of living crisis is real for millions across these islands, but food prices going up, which the ONS reported on this week, energy costs going up and expected to rise again in the autumn. At the same time, the UK Government's Department for Work and Pensions have underpaid claimants by almost £3 billion. Does the First Minister give with me that the one thing that the windfall tax shows is the strength of the Scottish economy? As 90 per cent of the revenue raised in the levy will be drawn from the profits made in Scotland, meaning that, not for the first time, Scotland's resources are bankrolling the rest of the UK and demonstrating how much stronger position we would be in as an independent country? In fact, I may go as far as to say that the broad shoulders of Scotland are helping all of the UK at this time, but Stuart McMillan is absolutely right. He is absolutely right, firstly, and this is extremely serious to say that the help announced by the Chancellor, welcome though it was, does not go nearly far enough given the inflationary cost of living pressures that people are facing right now, and I hope that we see and hear very quickly further action from the Chancellor. He is also right to say that Scotland's economy, industry and resources are bearing a disproportionate burden to prop up the UK Government's policies. We called for a windfall tax, but I think that it would be better to see one that is fair and that applies to all companies that are benefiting from excess profits from current global events or from the pandemic. I think that the Chancellor has missed a trick with this watered-down levy and, of course, left Scottish industry to foot the bill for the whole of the UK, not for the first time. Liam Kerr Energy profits levy will also encourage investment in and the development of new fields, such as Cambo. Does the First Minister agree that a growing and prosperous North Sea oil and gas sector is just what we need to support tens of thousands of jobs and fund the type of interventions to cut energy bills that she has just welcomed? My position on Cambo is well known, but what I think we need to see, of course, is greater investment in renewables. Scotland's potential in oil and gas over the past five decades is matched now, of course, by our potential in renewable energy, not least offshore wind. The Scottish Government is investing in that, and I think that it would be far better to see the UK Government follow suit. To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government plans to address the reported potential spending gap of £3.5 billion in its budget by 2026-27. The spending review is balanced each year, so it is simply not true to claim that there is a £3.5 billion gap in our spending plans. However, in the face of rising inflation, our spending power will be significantly smaller in real terms than what was forecast just a few months ago. What makes matters significantly worse is that the Tory Government is denying Scotland both the powers and the resources to properly address that. The finance secretary confirmed yesterday that the Scottish Government's budget is today around £7 billion higher than was forecast just four years ago. That £7 billion extra from the UK Treasury that the Scottish Government was not expecting just four years ago. At the same time, both SPICE and the Institute for Fiscal Studies are telling us that we will see real-terms cuts thanks to the Scottish National Party Government's choices, real-terms cuts of 8 per cent and more in the years ahead to education, to policing, to justice, to enterprise, to universities, to tourism, to trade promotion and to local government. How on earth did the Scottish National Party Government manage to turn an extra £7 billion from Westminster into such savage cuts? Myrdo Fraser should probably think twice about quoting the IFS, since it had to take to Twitter this week to correct things that he was saying on social media. The facts are deeply uncomfortable and inconvenient for the Conservatives, but they continue to be the facts. This year, and I believe that these are Scottish Fiscal Commission figures, the Scottish budget in real terms is 5.2 per cent less than it was last year, and over the four years of the spending review will be projected to grow in real terms by 2 per cent at a time when inflation is hitting 10 per cent. That is the reality. It is also the reality and the fact that the size of the Scottish Government's budget is largely determined by decisions taken at Westminster. If he wants the Scottish Government to have a bigger budget, then I will say the same to him as I said to Douglas Ross. Either have a word with your bosses at Westminster or better still, back this Parliament, having full fiscal and financial control over our own budgets. To ask the First Minister what her position is on whether Scotland's census 2022 has been a credible exercise. Yes, it has. NRS is confident that the national return rate and the coverage across the country, coupled with the normal planned post-collection quality control and assurance work, will provide credible high-quality outputs. As I have said previously, NRS is working with a number of statisticians and experts in census and administrative data to help steer the work over the next few months. The support and advice from the steering group will help NRS to produce a high-quality census dataset, one that will ultimately provide them with the right statistical outputs that they need to inform future service planning. When I asked the First Minister about the problems with this year's census last month, she said that questions would need to be asked, including about the credibility of this census. We clearly now need answers about the timing of the census, how it was conducted, resourced and its accessibility. However, now we know the response rate. Does the First Minister agree with my concerns that people on lower incomes will now be doubly hit, given the importance of census data in targeting resources to invest in communities and tackling inequalities, and given the lower rates of return in disadvantaged communities across Scotland? What action will she take to ensure that people will not miss out? Of course, we will review experience and ensure that any lessons that are required to be learned are learned. It is important to repeat that. However, it is also the case that there is normal planned work that always follows the census, which is about the assurance of the credibility of the exercise. NRS is now focused on planned post-collection quality control and assurance work. That includes the census coverage survey, which is the second largest social research exercise in Scotland after the census itself. That involves door-to-door interviews with a sample of around 1.5 per cent of the Scottish population—about 50,000 households. That survey, alongside the use of other data, builds on the census returns so that the census outputs are representative of the whole of Scotland's population. That addresses the concern about those in our more deprived communities. An expert steering group of experts has been established by the Registrar General to help steer that work, and it is important that it now gets on with it. Latest NRS numbers show that well over 1.5 million census field force address visits took place across Scotland in the lead-up to the deadline, demonstrating a vast mobilisation and an incredible effort on the doorstep. I met with some census field force last Friday morning in air and spent some time knocking on the doors and discussing the challenges that have faced in recent weeks. Can the First Minister join me in expressing immense gratitude to those field staff who endured that the return rate was as high and the data as sound as possible? I thank Chavon Brown for her question. I am glad to hear that she took up the Registrar General's offer to meet the very hard-working census field force. Over 1.66 million field force address visits took place, including some multiple visits with field staff providing advice and support, leaving calling cards, providing paper forms to householders and supporting doorstep data capture. I want to add my thanks to the hundreds of field staff who have worked tirelessly over the past few months, mobilising across the country and providing invaluable support to the people of Scotland. Let me also take the opportunity to thank the nearly 2.3 million households who have completed the census. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the finding of the Royal College of Emergence Medicine report, Peds in the NHS, but since 2010, 4,227 hospital beds are taken out of active service in NHS Scotland. First Minister, we are committed to ensuring that the NHS has the right number of beds and staff to meet the needs of people across Scotland. We will continue to work with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and other front-line staff with the aim of reducing unnecessary lengths of stay and avoiding unnecessary admissions to help to increase capacity in hospital for those people who require it. The Royal College acknowledges that bed numbers prior to the pandemic have reduced, and I am quoting, largely because of shortened hospital stay and the very real need to reduce the length of time that people stay in hospital and provide care for them in as homely or at home and environment as possible. The report examines bed reductions not only in Scotland but across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and finds that Scotland has the higher number of beds per head of population with 3.6 beds per 1,000 population compared to just 3.3 in Wales and just 2.2 in England. Julie Mackay One of the biggest issues that are facing hospitals is staffing pressures, and Brexit has worsened matters. Dr John Paul Lowry, vice-chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said yesterday that across the whole acute system we have lost staff members who would have come to work in the UK or who have had to leave the UK because of the situation with Brexit. Does the First Minister agree that it is a time when the NHS is faced and continues to face unprecedented pressure? Brexit, which Scotland overwhelmingly rejected, has made those pressures so much worse. Can she outline how the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland are working together to address the situation? I very much agree with that. Before I address the issue of staff shortages, let me just complete my answer in terms of bed numbers. It is important and a big responsibility of Government working with health boards to ensure that we have an appropriate number of beds in the national health service. Julie Mackay is absolutely right to say that one of the biggest challenges facing health and social care is staff shortages. Indeed, Dr Lowry described the situation as, and I am quoting again, a real problem and a real challenge. We should be in no doubt that Brexit has put unnecessary and harmful obstacles in the way of potential new members of staff joining from the European Union, particularly in relation to social care roles. We are working with NHS boards to support international recruitment to try to overcome the barriers that Brexit has put in our way. We are also investing £11 million in international recruitment over the course of this Parliament. Indeed, that has already delivered 191 internationally recruited nurses in the past year with a pipeline of many more due to joint. The average number of available staffed hospital beds in NHS Scotland is at its lowest level in a decade, decreasing by 10%. In NHS Grampian, the number of available staff beds has fallen by nearly 30%. That is a shocking figure. First Minister, what urgent steps will this Government take to restore beds in our NHS and boost capacity for patients in the north-east? Of course, as the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said, reducing bed numbers is largely because of shortened hospital stay. If you look at the average length of stay for hip replacements, that has fallen from just under 14 days to six and a half days. The average length of stay for knee replacements has fallen from 12.2 days to 5.7 days. Of course, for cataracts, which used to involve a hospital stay, they are now done on a day-case basis. It is important that we ensure that there is an appropriate number of beds in our NHS and we will continue to do that. As I have already said, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine also pointed out that Scotland has a higher number of beds per head of population than in Wales, or in England, where the member's party is in government. There are big challenges in Scotland, but that suggests that this Government is getting to grips with those challenges better than we may see elsewhere. As the First Minister already knows, delayed discharge rates are soaring, with an increase of 8 per cent in March of this year, that is one in 10 beds occupied by people ready to be discharged. That is the result of continued failure by this Government to properly fund social care in Scotland and support the workforce. Does the First Minister accept that if her Government was serious about freeing up bed capacity in an NHS, she would properly fund social care and show that she values social care workers and unpaid carers by committing to a proper workforce plan, decent terms and additions and a wage of at least £15 an hour? I agree with much of the sentiment behind that question. It is vital that we have a good quality system of social care, because not only is that right for its own sake, it helps to reduce pressure on our national health service. That is crucial in getting delayed discharges down. Of course, we are investing significantly in trying to reduce delayed discharges. We are also investing in hospital at home, for example. On the social care workforce, to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude, there have been two pay increases for the social care workforce over the past year. Of course, all of us want to see that go further still. As I have just said in response to Gillian Mackay, that is also about underlying staff shortages that have been deeply exacerbated by Brexit, so we need to focus on how we overcome that, as well as the other challenges that we continue to focus on. Thank you. That concludes First Minister's questions. The next item of business is a debate on motion 4716.


A very good way to teach kids a new song, especially new, or to review one that you've done for a while, is to incorporate some kind of visual aid and especially things that help them move, where they can add their hands as well as their voices. This is the old song, Five Green and Speckled Frogs, how I do it. I just take advantage of the fact that I have this drum with the bands on it, so I can put these little bookmarked frogs in it, that I made, and then we just sing the song. Five Green and Speckled Frogs sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. Yum, yum, one jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool, then there were four speckled frogs. So in addition to the music, they're also doing a math activity as well. The other kids who are waiting, I would have a student up here doing this. The other students who are waiting would be playing instruments like drums, doing a beat on a drum, or if you have a frog wiro, you can do that. That gives you a good frog song, and they can still do a beat. So I'll do a beat on the drum while we play it. Do the next part. Four Green and Speckled Frogs sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. Yum, yum, one jumped into the pool where it was nice and cool, then there were three speckled frogs. So the students would be doing this, and actually I would ask them before we do the next verse, I would say, now we have three frogs, how many are going to be next if the class is ready for that. So I use a blue scarf or anything that's blue to designate a pond, and then anything, you could just put these on the ground if you don't have a log to use and just have them jump it in. You can make it as big or as small as kids want to do it.


coming up on DTNS why it might be illegal for you to embed that Instagram post autonomous cars might reduce crashes by about a third and where to position your speakers for better listening. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday June 5th 2020 in Los Angeles I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood I'm Sarah Lane. Drawing from Studio Cleveland I'm Len Peralta. I'm the show's producer Roger Chang. And coming to us from St. Louis, Missouri Mr. Patrick Norton host of AVXL how's it going Patrick? I'm excited that I didn't jump into the opening at the wrong start at the wrong points. I'm good. Good man. Good. Thanks for coming and tell us where to where to shove our speakers. Hopefully someplace not anatomically improbable. I await with baited breath to find out. We were just having a conversation about leaf blowers and Wizard of Oz remastering and all kinds of cool stuff on Good Day Internet if you want to get that show. Become a member at patreon.com slash D T and S. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Doc. Go search engine CEO Gabriel Weinberg told Bloomberg that officials investigating Google for antitrust violations asked him about the idea of forcing Google to offer search alternatives on Android and also in Chrome. US state and federal investigators are examining Google's dominance in mobile OS digital advertising and other businesses. And this just breaking as we're doing the show. US state attorneys general investigating alphabet for potential antitrust violations are leaning towards breaking up ad technology from the rest of Google. That's according to a source talking to CNBC co-founder of Reddit. Alexis Ohanian resigned from Reddit's board of directors Friday. Ohanian said on Twitter he has urged the board to fill his seat with a black candidate. Ohanian also promised to use future gains from his Reddit stock holdings to serve the black community starting with a million dollar pledge to the know your rights camp. Ohanian's wife and daughter are black. Dropbox launched a private beta of a new password manager on Android called Dropbox Passwords. The app lets users create unique passwords store them online and then sync across devices using zero knowledge encryption giving only users access to those stored passwords. Amazon and Slack announced a new partnership under the deal. Amazon will offer all employees access to Slack's workspace collaboration tools and in return Slack will migrate its voice and video calling features to use Amazon's Chime platform on the back end. In addition AWS will work to better integrate services like AWS Chatbot and Amazon app flow into Slack. EA launched over 25 games on Steam previously only available on EA's origin storefront. Games include titles from the Dragon Age crisis and Need for Speed franchises as well as the new newly launched command and conquer remastered collection. Valve also plans to offer benefits for EA access subscribers on Steam expected to be available later this summer. All right, let's talk a little bit more about why everybody seems to be downloading Twitter. Yeah, according to data from both Apptopia and sensor tower the Twitter mobile app had its most global downloads and installs ever in the past week. Sensor Tower estimated that Twitter received more than a million downloads on both Monday and Tuesday. And Apptopia estimated that Twitter reached a record number of installs on Wednesday with 677,000 downloads worldwide, including more than 500,000 outside the US. Apptopia also reported that Twitter peaked at 40 million daily users daily active users on Thursday and Twitter also reported 31 million monetizable daily active users, which is the number that Twitter actually cares about the most. Yeah, that's their last earnings report the 31 million. So the peak of 40 million is sort of by comparison all those little bit apples and origins because they do the monetizable thing. And a lot of this is explained by people around the world wanting to know what's going on to the United States. As as things are moving more rapidly, their local news outlets may not be posting stories as fast as they would want. So they're wanting to see what's happening on Twitter, they hear a lot of people posting on Twitter and they want to see what those people are actually saying on Twitter. And I think that explains a lot of it but I also think those of us here in the United States are using it more. I use Twitter regularly. It's not like I downloaded it new, but I was using it in a much different way this past week, specifically on Monday when we had protests a mile away from here, and some looting happened. And I was keeping tabs on that all day because I knew the protests were scheduled and I was trying to see like, Okay, what's happening? Is it is this one seem like it's under control, etc. And Twitter, even though you have to sift through a lot of misinformation and exaggerations, was the best way to know, Okay, this is an actual video of what's happening. I know that that's in my neighborhood, and see what's happening minute by minute. So I imagine that's part of this as well. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I I've actually fallen off of posting on Twitter. Probably a lot of my followers are happy about that. You know, like a lot of just kind of silly stuff that I use Twitter for I just I no longer do because I don't know people get busy and we find other apps to do so but I definitely find that if there is some sort of major news events, and this, you know, the last, I don't know the last three months really are the most major news events that we've had in some time.  And then sometimes I have to go other places to get a little bit more context because Twitter. Pat, I wonder how you feel being in a different part of the, you know, the US for the first time and in some time and and how you keep up on the news. It's it's been interesting because the place I was we were sheltering in place for several weeks in the San Luis Valley in southeastern Colorado. And it's a part of the United States where technically there's like five people per square mile. And in reality, I think it's much lower than that because, you know, a third of more than a third of the population of Valley is in one town. And I bring this up because when you get someplace like that, a lot of what you find out is by actually physically talking to people who live there or who talk regularly to law enforcement because there there is a paper it comes out weekly. There is no huge Twitter presence. There is no huge. There's just not a lot of social media to keep track of stuff. And it was kind of an interesting moment because you're looking at what's going on with the state, you're trying to keep abreast of what's happening locally. You know, for me, at this point, the noise to signal ratio is or is so bad on Twitter, I find it incredibly frustrating. And I've just been easing back into it. Also, there's 82 towns in St. Louis. And I still don't know the name of 60 of them. So it makes it really hard sometimes to kind of track what's going on and where it actually Kirkwood, where's Kirkwood? I know where Kirkwood is. My grandmother lived there. All right, back in April, Mashable won a case against photographer Stephanie Sinclair. Mashable had embedded one of Sinclair's Instagram posts. And the judge you might think reasonably concluded that Sinclair licensed the photo to Instagram. That's part of the Instagram terms of service. And so the embed was essentially a sub license. But Monday, a judge ruled against Newsweek in a similar case with photographer Elliot McGuckin. That judge said that there was not enough evidence of a sub license granted when embedding. So ours Technica went and asked Instagram, what do you think should happen here? And they got a surprising answer. Instagram told ours Technica that it does not provide a copyright license to users of its embedding API. The company said their terms of service allow them to grant sub licenses. But that quote, our platform policies require third parties to have the necessary rights from applicable rights holders to embed. In other words, you need permission from the owner of an Instagram post to embed an Instagram post that isn't yours. This is likely not done yet as Newsweek can appeal. And there's precedent at the circuit court level. The ninth circuit court has ruled about something called the server test, which kind of sidesteps this whole sub license thing and says whoever runs the server delivering the content has the liability. So in this case, if you were using the server test, the judge would have said, well, Instagram is serving the photo and Instagram has the license for the photo. So it's fine. That is the judge in this case did not use the server test. I imagine Newsweek will try to assert the server test in its appeal. And that appeal is likely to make it to the second circuit appeals court, which might or might not follow the ninth circuit precedent on the server test. If it does, then this is kind of done and dusted. And the server test will likely be solidified as the law of the land. But if the second circuit appeals appeal to court, denies the server test, then you've got two circuit courts at each other's odds. And that's when you start to see a Supreme Court case shaping up. What a mess. Well, and you know, does Stephanie Sinclair have a have a case back, you know, in the mix? Given that clearly right now she won. And so yeah, it all it all depends on well no mashable one against her. Oh, Stephanie Sinclair. Sorry, you're right. You're right. Would Stephanie Sinclair be able to like relitigate? Yeah, I'd be like, hold on a second. Yeah, like how are these two things different? Sure. News or, you know, publication embedded one of my photos. I take issue with that. You know, what what course do I have? She may be exhausted, though, since she didn't appeal it because she did go to court. Yeah, that's true. It's hard to say. But the broader implication is for the time being now, Instagram's policy is you should not be embedding Instagram posts, which is against the way the web works, the way the web has worked until now has been by the server test. But Instagram also wants you to go to the Instagram app or the Instagram webpage, but only if the Instagram webpage is signed in. You know what I mean? They they what they they've been working very hard to try to force people into using their app, because their app is a shining beacon on a hill or or something. But mostly that that comment to ours technically sounds like a cop out. Well, you know what I mean? Like the quote to Instagram from ours technically to me just reeks of, you know, we really don't want to get involved in this litigation. So we're going to tell you something that is technically true internally that we've probably never published anywhere.  Well, and they also want to keep their photography clients happy. And the photographers want this to not be licensable. They want people to have to get permission, which is why they're going to court over this. Well, guess who we haven't talked about in a while on this show? Broadcom. During Broadcom's quarterly earnings call CEO, Haktan said that a large North American phone mobile customer didn't say who just said, you know, just a big one, normally contributes a double digit uplift in revenue for Broadcom, which supplies parts like modems. Hmm. Tom said that Broadcom is now quote, not expecting to see this uptick in revenue until our fourth fiscal quarter and quote, he said Broadcom is is in on the device, but has questions about the timing. Apple happens to be Broadcom's biggest North American customer didn't say that's who it was. Just just might be an analyst have speculated that a new iPhone might be delayed from Q three to Q four. So wait a minute. Are you saying that Broadcom says one of their biggest customers is delaying a device and Apple is Broadcom's biggest customer. So it might be Apple that's delaying a device until the fourth quarter.  It one, one might get on the case gum chew together. And I think it's somewhat obvious that that's what Broadcom is talking about here. And it's pretty obvious. Yeah. Yeah. So and so it doesn't surprise me that an iPhone release that might normally happen in September is probably going to happen in October. And it means you that even if you do order an iPhone, a new iPhone in October might be harder to get might be unlimited, more limited supply. This is the fallout from disruption of supply chains and quality control that whole story we had yesterday about Apple not being able to send their engineers to China and maybe looking for alternative ways to do quality control because of that. That that's part of what causes these delays. So this is just this is actually some solid information, not just an analyst talking about sources, but but it's some solid information that like, yeah, it does look like there will be a new iPhone, but it will be Q four, not Q three, which is a tragic, to be honest. Two weeks ago, Sam Machovic from ours Technica wrote a story about Maxis business solutions. Of course, Maxis, the maker of Sim City, created Maxis business solutions in the wake of the success of Sim City to make simulators for business use. Chevron was one of the companies that engaged that division wanted Maxis to make a simulated oil refinery, not for training purposes, because it just wouldn't be safe to do that. But to help employees at a Trichman, California plant understand how the entire refinery worked to say like, look, we're not going to train you on every job here. But this gives you a sense of how these jobs are all interdependent. So in 1992, Maxis made a prototype game called Sim refinery. Librarian and archivist Phil Salvador tried to find a copy, but it seemed like it was lost forever. He found lots of references, but couldn't find the actual code until an ours Technica reader hearing about Salvador's efforts in the ours Technica article posted to the comments with an image of Sim refinery on a 3.5 inch disk that he said belonged to a retired chemical engineering friend. That poster called themselves post a bebop and promised to try to recover the disk. And after apparently some annoying extraction, did so. And on Thursday returned to ours comments saying that the code had been posted at archive.org as part of its playable DOS emulation. And you could now play the incomplete but existing game of Sim refinery. That game is available to play on the web now as much as you can. A lot of the buttons don't work because it was never completed. And Salvador himself has been streaming the game on his Twitch channel at twitch.tv slash obscuratory. I gotta say, I mean, not working in the refinery field in any sense. And I don't necessarily plan to. This is such a like cool way to learn something in a sense of, I don't know, somewhere that you would never have the opportunity to learn otherwise. Like I would like to play this. I want to know like what the company wanted to gain Chevron in this case by saying, Hey, play this game and then give us some feedback of what makes sense to you and what doesn't make sense to you so that we can be a better company overall. I mean, we are talking about, you know, gas and oil companies, but think of all the companies that might have done this and being a fly on the wall. Patrick, do you want to play Sim refinery? Partially, I mean, one, I've already opened the link and I closed it immediately because I'm supposed to be doing something instructive right now. But it's also, I was like, I was listening to Sarah and I'm like, Oh, you know, this is like the farm simulator and the truck diving simulator and the train. There's all these insane simulations of job scenarios these days. Most of them coming out of Europe where you're looking at it and you're like, Oh, that's just that's just and then 19 hours later, you're like, Did I just drive a tractor for 12 hours? I learned a lot. I tell you, I did try Sim refinery earlier today. You have to know a lot about the refinery for this to make any sense. And like I said, a lot of the editing buttons don't work. You can't go and change the refinery. You really can only re control it. And none of the buttons make any sense to me. But I imagine if I worked at the refinery, these would all be terms that I was familiar with. Yeah, folks who do know about it, say it's really fun.  And if you do something wrong in one place, it explodes somewhere else. And it's it's like you said, Sarah, it's all for like, helping people understand how they're how their roles interrelate. And that's a cool idea. I just having worked so close to it, I just want the chance to understand like some of the different sections and what they were doing when they were glowing at night or not on fire in Richmond. Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of not on fire, hopefully a study from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety estimates that autonomous cars could prevent about one third of US car crashes if all cars on the road were autonomous. Autonomous cars will be better at identifying hazards. They can react faster. They won't suffer distractions that humans suffer. The problem comes when events happen too fast for even a computer to react to such as a bicycle unexpectedly varied into a car's path. We know all about that story with Uber back in Arizona. Autonomous cars are not expected to be able to prevent all errors or misjudgments like that. But a group of autonomous vehicle makers called Partners for Autonomated Vehicle Education pointed out that the study assumed that humans could alter car programs to break traffic laws, which accounted for another 38% of crashes. Yeah, so the people who make the automated cars are saying, oh no, it would if you actually make sure that people can't like change it to speed, then it's going to prevent two thirds of crashes or more. And the Insurance Institute is really just looking for like what's the way we can reduce payouts, which means they want to get it accurate. They want to get they don't want it the number to be too high or too low. So I tend to trust the Insurance Institute. But that is that is a controversial assumption to say like, you know, will will we be able to have our autonomous cars go faster than the law allows? Or will we be, you know, prevented from that? Well, even if I own the autonomous car, will the car go, no, no, I can never go more than 70 miles an hour because that's the speed in this zone. I think that's a question in some parts of the United States. Well, if all the cars are autonomous, I guess it wouldn't. But while it's mixed, it absolutely could. Yeah, you're right. And they were also taking taking the the more forgiving assumption of all the cars being autonomous, which, of course, won't be the truth for a long time. Yeah. Yes. No. OK. Everybody's like, I don't know.  I'm like, yeah, but that's still a third. That's that's I'll take it, you know. I mean, listen, yeah, it's I feel like we're we're so and we talk about this all the time on the show, we're on the precipice of this being the norm, but we're not there yet. And so, you know, there's still this this ongoing conversation of like, well, is it just safer to like keep it as humans or are the robots going to start, you know, making really bad mistakes on the road and and we as humans will suffer? And and all the research shows that, no, the cases that autonomous cars are going to make us safer, but it's still a very it's a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people because it's going to change life. Yeah, it's also I mean, a lot of the autonomous car companies have grossly exaggerated the current state of how effective their autonomous driving systems are. And that's been kind of interesting to watch, because what you hear from local news reports or locals who live in the area who interface with these autonomous vehicles when they're being tested sometimes doesn't jive with the claims that they're making when they're talking about how in two years our car will do everything in people in in Phoenix or like, OK, but no, because look at what's actually happening on the road where you only have fully autonomous tests even happening in Houston with new autonomy. And that doesn't involve carrying people that involves carrying groceries and Phoenix with Waymo in a very limited case carrying passengers, which isn't even happening right now during the pandemic. And and look at that, look at the results, don't look at the promises. If you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes, be sure to subscribe to DailyTechHeadlines.com. Well, I know a lot of folks are spending a lot more time listening to things at home. And obviously, you know, having good TV is a part of of watching stuff when you're in lockdown, even as lockdowns easier, you're probably still going to be spending a little more time at home than you used to for a while. So we wanted to improve your audio as well. If you got some speakers, Patrick, maybe you got new ones or maybe you just have old ones. What are some tips on how to place them to get the best sound? Oh, my goodness, it's I was giggling when we were talking before the show started because there are some people that have gotten sort of, you know, they're using like creation formulas to describe, you know, the artistic ideal for your speaker placement and how it's going to create magnificent and mostly, you know, sound is a lot more physics, I think than art. But one of the things with speaker placement is it's it differs in every room because every room is different.  So I'm going to assume you have some furniture, maybe a carpet. You've got some stuff up on the walls. A real simple equilateral triangle is the kind of the best place to start, especially if you're on a desk. If you can just get the speakers so that, you know, your head is one corner of the equilateral triangle and one speaker's here and one speaker's here and then toe in the speakers towards your head. Some speakers, they don't want to be toeed in. The manufacturer may have recommendations on that. They'll be too bright if they're pointed towards you, but they'll be perfect, you know, if they're kind of, you know, perpendicular to you. But, you know, you want to start kind of with an equilateral triangle. Ideally, your seat would be in the middle of a room if you're setting up speakers in a room, probably not practical if you have a desk. But one thing you do want to do wherever the speakers are, you want to try to get the tweeters at your ear level and you want to make sure there's nothing between you and the speakers. I laugh because a friend of me was like, I'm having trouble hearing the right channel. And I was like, well, that chair is between you and the speaker. And he said, well, I can't move that chair. I'm like, you're not really going to hear that right channel because all the audio is going into the side of that chair. And it sounds silly when I say that out loud.  You know, it's, you know, a friend of mine refers to as the spousal acceptance factor, but he's gender-specific. And I actually had a really great email several years ago from a woman who was like, stop saying wife acceptance factor because it's me that's buying the speakers in this house. So I've since been referred to as the spousal acceptance factor. But you want to get the tweeters at your ear level. And if you can get stands, if you have little speakers on your desk, if you can elevate those speakers, it can often make a huge difference. And, you know, make sure that you have stands under speakers. Unless they're, if they're floor-standing speakers, that's one thing. But if you have a bookshelf speaker or small speaker, getting it up off the floor, getting the tweeter around the ear level where you're listening makes a huge difference. The placement of the speaker in the room, you can experiment with this and it's often kind of amazing and alarming how moving a speaker six or eight inches can make a huge difference in the sound. Starting with the speakers a few inches from the wall and working them out till they sound good and then keep working them out till they sound bad. And then moving them back is a nice way to kind of figure this out. The closer you get to a wall, it tends to reinforce on some speakers or make the, you know, over, it'll either reinforce the bass and make it more solid or it will make the bass overwhelming and bloaty and awful. A lot of folks use what they call like the one-third or the one-fifth rule, which again, that I, you know, I have this room and it is my audio or home theater room and my seat is kind of in the middle and the speakers are like one-third or one-fifth the difference from the back wall to that's kind of like an ideal start. That's way too far into the room for most people and for a lot of living rooms, but that situation where you get them away from the wall can help create to help prevent creating things called standing waves that kind of make super important parts of the audio spectrum just go away because of the way that the audio is bouncing around the room. A couple of good places to look at Cambridge Audio, the art of positioning speakers is a nice walk-through on stereo speakers. They kind of give you some basic tips that I think are pretty solid. And if you're setting up surround sound speakers, the gold standard is Dolby's Guide to Surround Sound speakers set up where they tell you literally because it's math and science. They're like, they want this speaker 120 degrees from your head or 60 degrees and this speaker at 120 degrees and these speakers at 90 degrees. And that's because when you're creating surround sound, you kind of need the speakers to be where they want them to be or the whole thing doesn't work quite right. That sounds like good advice. I mean, as somebody who I had floor standing speakers with a center and it was a whole 5.1 and it was a beautiful setup. And as I moved to, I don't know, smaller apartments over the years, I kind of, you know, gifted them to other people and then went Sonos. And Sonos is very good about, you know, trying to figure out what your room situation is like. I also have, you know, like a dramatic A-frame in my living room now. So the sound bounces differently than before. And I think a lot of the speaker companies do have apps now where they're trying to help you figure that out. My question is over the years, always having a sub on the floor when there were people living under me was like the worst thing ever because I really like to blow that out. I don't happen to have that problem anymore. But what would be your advice? Like what do you do? Where do you put it? It really depends a lot on the, it depends a lot on the structure you're in and how solid is. If you're in an apartment building with concrete floors that are like reinforced concrete, they tend to absorb a lot of the base and maybe you put a pad underneath it and that kind of decouples the subwoofer from the floor and that helps, that actually helps isolate the sound somewhat. The problem is, is a friend of mine works for a company called, well, he started a company called the Source AV down in Torrance, California and they make amazing home theaters. Like close your eyes, imagine a Hollywood producer with too much money and a blank check and that guy builds those systems and to eliminate all of the base. Like when they have somebody who's like, it has to be perfect. They basically pour three feet of concrete and create this giant bunker and that eliminates all of the base from trucks going by or strains, things happening outside or planes going over. So it can be really challenging and a lot of it's for me when I lived in an apartment building that was made out of toothpicks and spit, figuring out like I basically put all of the speakers sort of at the far end of the one room and pretty much could only operate them when my neighbor was at work or out partying because he once complained that I opened the refrigerator and drank water and he's like, you can't be making this noise. And I explained to him that I actually opened up the refrigerator and I put a towel down so the cup coming out of the thing wouldn't wake him up and pour them and he's like, oh, it's just too much. I'm like, so you're telling me I can't drink water when I'm thirsty in my apartment. He's like, I really would prefer you didn't after 10 o'clock at night. And I'm like, great. Tonight we're gonna have a demonstration of what loud is so we can recalibrate your needs and so that I can actually have a life that involves using my refrigerator. You see, see, yeah. Apartment life. This stuff really matters. It does really matter. It's tough. Also shout out to Sonos. They just released the arc which just came out as shipping actually in five days and that brings Dolby Atmos into one of a wider skinnier bar and that's pretty slick. But yeah, it's subwoofers are tough because those deep frequencies penetrate all the walls and drive all the neighbors insane. I'm sorry. Well, I mean, I am too. Neighbors of mine over the last decade plus. If you feel our pain, you can join our conversation or Discord which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com slash DTNS. Let's check out the mailbag. Oh, let's. So Steven wrote in and took me to task and I'm glad you did Steven because he said, I have a quick correction for DTNS 37.95. That was our show yesterday. Ben Gomes is my fiance's cousin. I just want to correct the pronunciation of his last name. That was me. It's pronounced like homes, not like Gomez as in Gomez Adams. Per my fiance, it's an obscure surname. Even in India and that's where the family is from. So easy mistake. I had not heard the name myself until they came part of the family. I, you know, a lot of people send in pronunciation corrections. We do our best and we usually don't pay attention.  No, I really appreciate that because I was sort of like, I think I got it right, but I didn't and I appreciate that Steven also appreciate patrons at our master and grand master levels, including Dr. Carmine M Bailey, Mike Glofflin and Phillip Lass. And Len Peralta has been drawing during the show. What have you drawn for us this week, Len? Well, we were talking prior to the show, what a long week, what a long year this week has been. And we, you know, with the topic being speaker placement, I thought it made a lot of sense to address what's going on here in this country as far as messaging and hearing things. So that's what this one, this image is called is called speaker placement. And you can see there is a couple in front of a TV set that's watching the protests going on. And the gentleman saying the sound is crystal clear. Are you hearing it? And yeah, this one's a, this one is sort of a response to your show on Monday, Tom was really moved by that. And I wanted to do something personally for this as well. This image is available if you're a Patreon backer, it's there Patreon.com forward slash Len. I'm not putting this up for sale. What I'm going to say is if you would are interested in purchasing something like this, I would say take the money you would have used to give to me and give it to somebody else. Give it to another organization, which I have linked on my Patreon and also on my Twitter account. So there you go. I usually don't like to get political, but I felt there's no way around it this week. I think this is lovely. I don't think this is political. Len, you're showing what's happening. People are watching this. And you even tied in the main topic of speaker placement just to be extra clever. I think this is fantastic. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Also thanks to Patrick Norton for being with us from your bunker in the Missouri Valley. Patrick, let folks know where they can keep up with all of your work. Oh my goodness, got a couple of projects. Eventually when I get to my video gear, which is back behind boxes in that corner, I got a new thing coming up. But for right now, do me a favor, check out A-V-E-X-C-E-L.com, the home theater and audio show with Mr. Robert Herron every week. Excellent. Don't forget, folks, you showing support through all of the past three years since March has been amazing. And we thank you for that. If you wanna become a member, get ad free shows, get good day internet, get extra content, even get some free digital art from Len every month, become a member at dailytechnewshow.com slash Patreon. If you have feedback for us, our email address is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com and we would love to hear it. If you can join us live, guess what? We are live, Monday through Friday, 4.30 p.m. Eastern, 20.30 UTC. And you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash. Stay safe out there, folks. We'll see you Monday. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Club, I hope you have enjoyed this program.