What's up up is a two-letter word that indicates direction. Oh my word. That's funny.  I think this girl similar to the Bollywood round table Yes, her own kind of thing got it. No, we're not watching the whole thing There's not gonna be an hour and a half long. This is a 10-minute clip, but this is on what South Indian actors think of the India's Hindi cinema So that's okay, that's very interesting topic And what they think but I think it this has a bunch of people in it not just South Indian actors. I think Topeka and Kajgana are in here as well. I could be totally wrong, but this is full of just a bunch of actors So let's this should be interesting now You know, I think it's fair to say that regional is the new national This whole idea of we are this and you are that I think it's just over and thank God for that Vijay, you're working with Aamir in Lansing Chakra, Vijay, you're being moved by everybody What are your biggest concerns about Hindi cinema? What is your fear or what kind of things unsettling about this space? I'm looking at them because you already done My fear is language is the first Fears what? Language I don't watch much about the culture. I don't watch much so And he's working with Aamir, Lansing Chakra Anybody can easily they can learn but the culture is very important Yeah to that culture only we can connect the audience for the truth So more than a language because language so if you go to Saudi if you work for six months, we could learn Arabic also Language is not a big barrier, but I should learn the language, but main thing is I should know the culture What do you mean? That's not the body and the That you may not have a different way and you may think a different way Maybe a family wise See Friendship or yes, great point of financial status at a friendship Not only it can be a random to that Every city has an energy and every state has an energy and they maintain themselves in a different way So so I should know about that thing also because I only I can understand the character and then I can play The way I know the people in my state Myself So so I can connect with South India Every Tamil or Telugu Malayam I can easily connect with them because we are very close And I come to Hindi that I should know the culture most Language is not because Because I was working in Dubai for three years, I used to speak Hindi fluently Now it's been 16 years, so I don't have a culture So but still I can understand Hindi But language is not the biggest problem and the main thing is the culture We should know the culture Then maybe we can connect the audience wherever I go It's a great point So in South India wherever I go People they connect with me And then if you really know the culture If you really care for the people If you know the society well And through your art form you can touch everybody That's what I mean If you have a pure love for the people here And then innocence you have and the purity you have What have you done And if you can just move the cup from here to there You can connect That's what I mean The innocence is very important So for the crowd In every character there is a nuance That you can connect with the audience Whether it be good guy or bad guy That you can connect That's what I mean Vijay, what are your quotes? Teacher told proper I think he said it perfectly I think these are the first things Of course language But coming from Hyderabad There's a lot more Hindi You hear it a lot You speak it a lot But you speak a different dialect So that way I know I can figure that out But definitely to be born in a place To be brought up there To know the social Like I can't play a deli wala for example I don't know how to say deli or deli Or what So I can never do that So definitely the kind of cinema If I do Hindi will be restricted to Some kind of neutral cinema That works across cities It's not very rooted culturally It's not very rooted culturally It needs to be some neutral kind of film That's fun And the traffic and rain Is also very bothersome That's Bombay When I get the movie with the nuja I still struggle I still have this How can you accent coming The nasal trend But I do have a habit of mimicking Like if I spend half an hour with you I'll probably start laughing like you My mom used to find out That his case are the same thing I think it's probably true with most actors It's an actor thing I always start talking to the person That I was spending time Exactly Happens happen happens That's amazing That's fun fun But the thing is That's great for the job But in reality You're almost like come across as big But I haven't spent time with an American For a while and all that Language is great I love learning languages But I've also done Kannada films I've done Tamil films In the first Tamil film I used to make the directors Speak to me in Tamil only So that I start mimicking him It's like a little baby learning to walk Like you'll keep kind of Emilating what the other person is doing But you make mistakes But I think language is the thought In which a character thinks I can't think in Malayalam And then perform in Kailubu Or Kannada So learning the language So sport boys and everyone Have great help So just to ask for water I make the effort to learn The language better minimum And I do beg to them I mean please make me dumb And if I do a bad job Please save the character from me And like you know find the right person So otherwise it gets really fucked up But I would love to use my voice So language is a great thing But bombily I have one concern Is that there's a lot of exposure Of the actor A lot more than South India Like paps Like paps But also there is a reason for it I feel like there is a certain culture Of that here Which overwhelms me If I walk around in Kerala Also I had the resting bitch face So people don't really come to me But and also the feminist And the activism part of the So I feel like Here if somebody does that I freeze Like because in front of the camera Or you know on a film set I am completely naked Like I can be whatever But in front of other people I am like But I am not yours There is a contract That's the film That's our you know Give and take So that's kind of scary To be very honest It's not regarding the Graph The Graph question too I can just dive in But the other thing is a little scary Okay if you guys could take advice On process, graph, acting, film From one actor in Indian cinema Alive or dead Who would it be? I think I know stars Aha But you are D Come on Don't say that It's a tough question What is one? What do you think about? Vijay for you? Sivaji Venesh So not the best actor Yes He's one of the best actors He could do 80 kind of film And then Kamal sir It's a brilliant case Even after he is very brilliant I think he said Kamal also I like Mona also very much She is I don't know how he is performing He just He is very, very easy I also like to spend some time with him I think that is Kamal I think so It is I think so No, there But And then of course Hope you know India sir India sir He is one of the very brilliant actors His scriptions are very useful scriptions And all his voice His songs are very hit He is very brilliant scriptions And He do it on the meter He is very brilliant so All of it And can you, Vijay? As in without him A lot of people on this table Have had massive crushes Like been in love with some of them Oh it has? Yeah Like these two have used She got married But And I used to love there But she is getting married I know By the way I know And I have loved I have loved Some of Manoj sir's performance that I have seen I have watched some of his early films Ranveer's some work Like When I watched Girlie Boy I couldn't sleep Really? Like there are some films When I watch I can't sleep for three nights Because I am like What am I doing with my life So I have always I have already liked Ranveer And I also I always like He is getting married But these two I don't want to talk Ranveer Because The auto generated Actors push it a lot Like they give you some You have to I think you have to be that boy You need to be on set Throughout the day Throughout the film Because I don't even know I don't even think Actors are aware of What all they do completely I think we do a lot Of things That we cannot articulate So you need to be there Be there for For an entire process Of a film From pre-production To post-production Exactly how they are Going about things And do But So I think Ranveer Because He also I started watching Before I never knew I had been an actor And the rest I started watching Once I Kind of became an actor So that was a pure love Yeah Always like A colleague type Feel But then it's like Pure It's like pure Before you got to I wanted to know I wanted to hear from Ranveer and Alia Well it's an entire It's like an hour Long thing Just like the round table one Yeah That was really interesting though Because Obviously we know now That India's India's full of What How many language industries? A lot But there's seven primary ones That's not Something that You know You know it's a different language But you don't Like in America We don't have to think about that When you go to a different state No We don't have to think about Oh I don't know the language Or the cultural difference Being so strong Yeah We have different cultures In America But they're not as I think Divergent Extremely divergent Extremely divergent As others Some are Like they're just All the kind of stuff So there are some extremes But It's not like When you just go to A different state Like he was saying But he's totally correct He's like You have to learn the language Yeah It's even deeper Than say in England Where You go to various Places around England And the accents Just drastically change And also The cultures change But there's a common Throughline there It's similar to the United States You get different accents In Los Angeles Than you do in Louisiana Than you do up in Minnesota Than you do over in Brooklyn Yeah And The But the cultural Shifts Aren't so strong India has Not only the language changes Dialect changes Within the languages And then Cultural references That are completely different Even Some of the comments Like for example My shock with And the unbelievable ability For me of the crying And super deluxe Lots of messages From stupid babies Saying This is how they cry This is not an exaggeration And the cultural thing It's for example A Natsumrat We were like What's the big deal Well for Marathi That The culture there That's a big deal And I thought It was extraordinarily intelligent The comment he had As well as It's making me realize More and more We knew this One of the reasons That Americans Don't pay attention To Indian cinema Is because Americans don't pay Attention to Anything that's not American So To jump Into another culture To take Your hat off Of what you live in Here in America And say I don't just want To watch another film Because we've Even talked about When we recommend films There's certain films We won't recommend Because they need to know The culture first Don't watch Devgas Don't watch Lagann Before you see English of English Or you see Gully Boy Because you're Going to get lost And we're having The same thing happen When we're going into South Indian film I'm sure We could see something now And in five years See it and go Wow I totally didn't appreciate it Five years ago Because I knew nothing About South India Or a Bengali film Yeah, it was It was interesting though That his first concern Is language when That's like If I was to act In Indian film That's obviously My first concern Is the language But obviously I'm not surrounded By Hindi all the time I feel like People in India Are Regardless of the state You're more accessible Than I am here in America Correct Obviously But If you're in a Southern state And then You go all the way up To the northern state That speaks Hindi I It's probably A whole different world Right It's something I just didn't Compute with But that's He's totally right You have to To do those things You have to get the language down Because you don't Want to be thinking About the language You're acting She said that as well And that was a really good point I would want to get To the point where I'm not Like this happened I remember when I was learning Spanish Which I'm not fluent in yet But I got to a place Where I actually Could think in Spanish Which Is a huge jump And is important If you were portraying If I was doing something In Hindi I would want to get The Hindi So embedded in me That I wasn't even Having to think About the words anymore That's one of the reasons The header took so long Is because that's how I Normally when I Can learn a script It's really fast It doesn't take me long No It's Quite simple If it's in my language Because I Have reference points to You know Once this word is said I know what's coming next Blah, blah, blah That's how you want it So you want it to come out Like a thought Right Like it's your thought And so that's why it took so long Because I might Been able to say it But it wasn't like I was thinking About the consciousness I was thinking about it And I didn't want that Because that ruins the performance If you're thinking About what you're saying Right It looks like you're thinking About what you're saying When you're Especially the scene Is he's just spitting off The top of his head Saying it's all Because he's kind of gone Mental a little bit So it was really interesting To hear that In the same country That there's that many Differences It shows you how diverse That country really is Yeah It's insane I would also like To hear the rest of that Entire interview And it also Helps me Understand a little bit Better why so many In say Daniel or Tilugu Or Marathi Are Canada Which I've always mispronounced Want so desperately For people to appreciate Their filmmaking And are Quote on quote Ignoring Because it isn't Just an appreciation Of the filmmaking You have to get Into the culture Somewhat To appreciate What's being told And that's a big Leave Apparently even for Indians To do that Let alone people In the western world And it's one of the Increased Indian film Is Bollywood Because I think The Hindi Bollywood film Is the closest Culturally to American Of anything coming out Of India So it's the farthest Leap for people To have to connect And that's why It's gotten Global recognition And it's oftentimes Not because of the artist There's a lot of films We've seen That came out of Bollywood But it's that Cultural jump That's big But it shouldn't be An excuse to Not appreciate the film Yeah That was great I really enjoyed it I'd like to see more Of that interview I would too Yeah We'll get back to Corbin When his brain starts working again Are you caffeinated? Wow


We view bots different than y'all. Yeah, much different. Like, when we talk about somebody having bots, we're not talking about it from a positive or a negative. Jacory in that episode literally said, hey man, look y'all, might want to find somebody in your team who can flip something like this. It's not like we highly encourage bots for every artist, every moment in time and we need to have real, but there is a legitimate part of the game that bots have a function. They help. They have a function. They have a small piece in the phone, in the overall picture. Yes.


Alhamdulillah, we would like to forward this interview. It's recording already. I like it, I just leave it like that, you know. I like people who take how I learn Arabic because we did hear how you learn Arabic but we never got the actual details of it. You know, we always got the general how you learn Arabic on how you found the scriptures that your father wrote, etc. So the first question I would like to ask you is what was the thing that made you say, you know, the turning point that made you say I really want to learn this language or I really have to or must learn the Arabic language.  JazakAllah Khairan, may Allah accept it from you. We forgot to ask the question about the specifics of learning Arabic and what was the turning point and my hunger and my appetite. Then, you know, first and foremost is Allah's blessing, but my parents, because as long as back I can remember, we always were exposed to Arabic on one form or another. The Calima of Tauheed that she had detained, you know, was hung up in my house or it was in its hang, even to this day, I can take it to my house, it's still there as a child. As I said, you know, my father had the tapes of Abdul Basit and had a stamp from Egypt. We always had books, even though most of stuff was English, but we were always familiar that there was Arabic. And this was the Calima of Tauheed. I remember always knowing how to write la ilaha Allah and how to write lafadul jalalah. Like I said, you had a chain. We call them a large chain. I don't know if you had them, you know, back in the day. Yeah, you had a silver Allah pendant chain and you wore it to school with pride. Even if you was listening to rap or whatever, but you still, it was Muslim pride. And you're always a non-Muslim say, what's that? Is that a good luck charming? No, he said this is Calima. This is la ilaha Allah. This is Allah. So I was always familiar of the existence of the language. And thinking about it now, once you asked me, I always had like a romantic love with it, how it was written and how it looked, especially the lafadul jalalah, the Allah pendant, the chain. It was always really, really nice. You see what I'm saying to you? So I think it was subconsciously and yeah, no doubt, no doubt. Then going to the masjid and seeing, you know, different older brothers talk and speak, even though they weren't the most knowledgeable, but just seeing them say certain things and recite certain sodas, I just fell in love with it. And I was like, you know, when I found, like you said, the scriptures of my father, I found this stuff. It just was reinforced once again subconsciously. My father did it. You know, I can do it. All of these books left in the house. And why not? You see what I'm saying to you? So I think that that's what I think it was like a match. And it was already something that was like laid out, but it was like dormant. And I think that goes back to the tattabi of the parents. And obviously it's away from the question, but the benefit is that oftentimes you just have to tell your children, right? Or just expose them to it. Don't force it on them all the time. Let them get it.  My parents didn't force it upon me. And when Allah willed it happened. So that was the beginning. As far as like when I felt the hunger and the thirst is when you know, I saw different, like I said, different imams and speakers. Let alone when I saw brothers coming from overseas and talking, you know, like I said, you know, brother Musa in the masjid talking with the brothers from Palestine and Jordan and Kuwait getting their respect. You see what I'm saying to you? He's like, well, this is this is serious. And I said, in short, I can do that. And I want to do that. You know, I'm saying to I want to benefit from the book directly. I want to hear the translation anymore. So that was from the turning points and which I said, I have to do it. I must do it. And I will do it by Allah's permission. So it was kind of like gradually, naturally just happening that that love for the Arabic language that I must do it out. Yeah. Being my parents and then seeing the other brothers, you understand. And then also having books in my house that were in Arabic, I was interested in them. Yeah. So in terms of like the method you used, right?  What was the method you used or the markets that you went through or, you know, the technical? First and foremost, the first method was just crazy. There was no method. I got whatever I could get my hands on. Right. I taught myself the letters. I taught myself how to connect the letters, the vows, and, you know, just school myself. And then I just like the books that was in my house, I'll just try to read them, try to look them up in a dictionary until I was exposed to my first teacher. And all the times I told my story would all do justice. I don't think I've mentioned other brothers that did help me out as well. Sheikh Sadiq was from West Africa, Ivory Coast, and he has studied overseas. I believe he studied in reality. I think he's studying Jami'at al-Imam. And those were the books that he used to use with us, along with the Iqra books. And the Iqra books that came from Chicago were books for second generation Muslims that come from Middle Eastern background for the Islamic education. So we had the Iqra series. Then after I did like book one with him, book two with him, started moving forward, book three. Then he started introducing us to those other books from Riyadh and also some books from Medina, but not the Medina books one to three. But one of the books that we studied was the actual Kitab of Tuhid from the Mahad, which is no English, of course. There is no learning, it's actually conversing and talking about Tuhid Naqidah in Arabic for someone who's learning it as a second language. Then it was another brother that I met, American brother from Philadelphia, brother named Tufiq, Abu Zaynab. I don't think I've ever mentioned him in a story before. And he introduced me to Al-Adjurumiya. He introduced me to Mehtan Al-Adjurumiya and he introduced me to studying the Medina books. So all of the foundation that I had with Sheikh Sadiq, the 16 months, you know, 17 months I've studied with him, when I met brother Tufiq, it just merged perfectly. And he forced me to memorize Al-Adjurumiya. He forced me to do it.  And I remember vividly in the Marques, the Dawah senator was a tape of Sheikh Osama Al-Qusay. And it was him reading the Mehtan of Al-Adjurumiya. Before he got into the shot, he was just reading the Mehtan. So I took that tape and, you know, when I didn't have a CD player at the time, it wasn't on MP3 or, you know, AirPods or nothing like that.  And I would just listen to it and I started memorizing it. And then when the Medina books, we started doing a book two, book three, and he started making me memorize that as well.  So I said, how you know I read it 25 times? He said, I'll know. I'll know the next day when you come. All right. There was a couple of other brothers in Philadelphia. What was the brother's name? Abul-Harith. His first name was, I think, Khairi or something like that. It's been a long time. Okay. He introduced me to Anahualwadah. Anahualwadah. He had studied in Jordan and I sat with him briefly and he was introducing me to the Nahul and the memorandum also. It was a combination of stuff. It was a combination of stuff. And I never formally sat down and learned Arabic as a second language in all of the proper steps. So it was a mixture of stuff. Right. But the bulk of it came from Sheikh Siddiq, then the other brothers, the stuff that I had from my father and just my own personal effort, listening to the tapes over and over again, transcribing the tapes, going into the market. Like I said, they're having him laugh at me, ordering food. You know what I'm saying?  If they're just seeing a cucumber and a pickle.  So my question is, all of this, what you just explained, it happened in America, Philadelphia. Philly. I was going to school. I was going to West Philly. No. Mashallah. So after, what would you say was your level already in Arabic before you went to Yemen? You went first? The first year. I mean, I was fluent. Yeah, I could talk. I could have a conversation.  We still, you know, you know, get into arguments or bust on each other or whatever or talk about stuff. You know what I'm saying to you? It was even times we'd be on a train and then suddenly crazy happened on the train with non-Muslims and I communicated with him. And he was shocked. He was like, you know what I'm saying? So before I even went to Medina, I could speak. I was fluent. So you're saying that it's possible to become fluent without being in Arab countries? No question. It's possible. It's very possible. But you've got to be hungry for it. No. And you've got to trust your teacher. And that's one of the blessings of Allah upon me. I trusted my teachers. I didn't doubt them. I didn't question them. I trusted them. You know, the concert was empty in the cup. I had it then even without the terminology. I trusted Sheikh Sadiq. I didn't question them. I trusted brother, those other brothers. I trusted them. And you've got to be hungry, man. You know, I was going to school at the time, high school. I was working in the barbershop. I was playing baseball. I was doing all the stuff too. You know, I was trying to get married. You know what I mean? There's a bunch of stuff I was doing, but that came first. And anyone who knew me, Hamdi La, they knew from that day on nothing else mattered in my life, but it nothing. And everything else was secondary. Barbershop was secondary. Baseball was secondary. Cutting here was secondary. Getting married was secondary. That was the first thing. And a crazy story. And I'm not bragging about it. I'm just keeping it real. It was a sister that I met. I wanted to marry this sister. You know, masha'Allah. You know, she was real pretty sister. She was nice looking, very attractive. And I had to sit down with the sister. I met her father. Um, and she was like my age. And, uh, I'm not saying the sister's name, obviously, so it's not backbiting, but we would, this was like an earhead. And we would say like a Muslim blonde, excuse me for being politically incorrect, the stereotype. I don't believe that about blind people, but what would the people say?   And how are we going to get married? And what type of ring you want to buy me?  Where's that? Isn't that the desert? Don't have dunkes and meals out there. And when she said that, man, I was totally disgusted. Yeah. How pretty she was. I'm going to marry no more. And the crazy fact is she had an older sister that was there to sit down. The older sister was like, man, like, forget my sister, but I want to try to marry her. You say, that's a true story.  And they forget you got to want Arabic. You got to learn it. And it's only going to have a limited window. And I try to tell brothers that. So that was the turning point. And one day I was listening to a lecture. And I understood everything that the sheikh said before the translator came on. And at that time, I was like, I got it. I'm ready to go. That was in America. That was in America. I was jogging around in an Acura, a legend, an old school joint, a white act legend. I remember that. So it was, it was four doors. It's four doors. Yeah. So with Sheikh Sadiq, right? What was the, what would you say a lesson, what would it look like? Like, what, what did you guys go over? Claire, the lesson is basically the daughters, he's going to write it on the board. He got the students to read it. Then they have so many raised the board right down the vocabulary. And then he would just pick you. What? Keda, get this, memorize that. And like I said, the group, it was a group of people, but when I kept studying it, it was just me and him at a time. So the, so the lesson was making sure that the pronunciation was proper. That the Qira'ah was proper. No, no, and then enforcing what's to be my food for the next lesson. You see what I'm saying to you. And then most importantly, like you said in the book, using it, you memorize that one noun pro ahadiyah. And how do you say these shoes and also connecting the words and the terms to other concepts. He would do that often times. Awesome, crazy stories about that. But what I can mention on the camera right now, we said it, you know, enough. But for God's sake that. So, so, so basically it was seeing it, hearing it, and then you using it yourself. And he would limit his speech. He didn't talk about so much. Most of the stuff he would make us do and say and read and practice. You see what I'm saying to you. So there is a question that all beginner in, in, you know, in the Arabic language questions himself, himself, basically, mainly when they use, for example, my method, which is learning a lot of vocabulary in the beginning. They just think, okay, I'm just learning random vocabulary. When does the, you know, when do I start connecting? When do I start making the sentences when, you know, which, which is what I call when everything clicks and now you able to able. So what will you say was the, the timeframe from the beginning, memorize all of this vocabulary until you was able to actually, you know, start putting everything into place. Claire, before I mentioned that, I would say, we forgot to see a theory that I agree with. An example should be made. And that should be an example of building something, making a building and a masjid and mistakes that many of us make in America.  We buy a building. We buy a storefront and we build and collect at the same time. We collect and build, collect and build. Now, oftentimes you have no choice, but sometimes if you just wait a little bit and stack up money and then take a leap, we're not going into this building until we have 50,000 period. I don't care how much you 50,000 or 10,000 or whatever, 5,000. Then once we've knocked out the windows, the structure, the roof is fixed, we get it, we wait another six months and come in with another 10 or 20,000. So that's how vocabulary should be. Don't rush. And you can't even start beginning to conjugate and play with stuff and all the stuff unless you got a what? Yeah, good stuff. You gotta sit on a stack.  If not, you want to get stuck. You're going to lose momentum. You're going to become dejected. Oh, we can't afford the rest. And it's just going to dust. It's going to be collected. And the shaitan is going to come. So I think that's paramount and profound with regards to Arabic is you can't even start building until you have what? A good chunk of vocabulary. When it happened with me, the timeframe, let me, let me see. I mean, it was like, I mean, there was so many different people from the Middle East and University City, Masjid Jamia. I mean, a couple months to be honest with you, because we was learning so much vocabulary in the class. You see what I'm saying to you? So it was a couple months, a couple months. And there were other brothers as well, just thought about that I benefited from as well. Brothers who studied in Yemen, Hassan Abdul Rahman from Philly, I benefited from him as well. I learned from him and his tariqa, he was strong on nahudo, really, really big on nahudo. That was way after I had, you know, could speak and talk fluently and I had a large amount of vocabulary. So I mean, I would say after a couple of months, we were studying with Sheikh Sadiq and listening to the tapes and being laughed at by the Arabs and stuff. You know what I'm saying?  The young boy. Yeah, seriously. And that frustrated me. So it was like maybe four or five months of that. And I started, you know, right? So just to finish, in sha Allah, because I think a lot has been said and it was, you know, the main things that we need to know about your story on how you learn Arabic, what would you give as an advice to everyone who or anyone who knows the importance? Because as Muslims, you know, we know the importance of learning Arabic, you know how amazing it would be. However, for however life is going, because of work or whatever it might be, we just didn't start. Or sometimes it's because I didn't find any teacher. Sometimes it's because misconceptions that I cannot learn if I'm in London or, or, yeah, to all things like that. So what would you give as an advice to everyone trying to learn? The sweetness of the Quran, the intoxicating sweetness of understanding the Quran, the Khushu and the Salah, when a man is reciting, you understand what's being said to you. You read the tafsir, you get the meaning, the quote unquote, the juice of the prayer. The lube of the Salah is Khushu. That's the prayer that Ten Haan and Fasheh and Munkar. That's the prayer which makes you successful. That's the prayer which makes you better than how you were before you came in the Khushu. So how can you have Khushu 100% if you don't understand what's being recited? If you don't understand the grammar behind Allah al-Aqibah, and what's meant by that, those who praise Him, Allah hears everything. So if there was one thing, one thing only, forget your al-Qaeda and doubts about Islam and spreading, but just the juice, the intoxicating sweetness of listening to the Quran being recited beautifully in the prayer, and you're feeling it, you're learning, walking away from it, versus you don't know what the Imam has recited. If he recites, you know the translation, but then he's reciting another surah, you don't have no idea. So just think about praying every day and getting that khushu. Understanding the Quran and letting the Quran hit you, the impact. That's something that is worth a thousand bars of gold. If you had to spend a thousand bars of gold and spend 20 years on an Arabic, it would be worth it. Just for that one fact. If I had to share one of them, no doubt about that. I just want to mention before we end this interview that if you guys are interested in the fluency 15 month game plan webinar workbook that I'm giving for free, the only thing you need to do to get it is basically go to watch the webinar that I have prepared, where I explain you how to go from zero to fluency in Arabic in 15 months and at the end of it, inshallah, 15 months, 15 months. So game plan, blueprint, exactly what I did in 10 months, but I actually make it more realistic in 15 months, because many of our students, they are on the daily life routine, 9 to 5, etc. So you guys can get it on the webinar, at the end of the webinar, you guys can check out the link down below. And inshallah, thank you, and I'm honored to have you here in Barcelona, hometown. Inshallah, we're going to finish by showing you guys a little bit of this, you know, view, this beautiful view here, here, closer to Barcelona. It took us about 15 minutes.


and beyond with Russia's brutal and unprovoked war against this neighbor in Ukraine. With Iran's destabilizing activities here in the Middle East, we've also seen critical changes. For the first time since 9-11, an American President is visiting this region without American troops being engaged in combat and a combat mission in the region. We'll always honor the bravery and selfishness of the – and sacrifices of the Americans who have served, including my son Major Beau Biden who was stationed in Iraq for a year. And we'll never forget the memory of the 7,054 American troops who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere over the last two decades. But today, I'm proud to be able to say that the era of land wars in the region, wars involving huge numbers of American forces is not underway. We – but we maintain both the capacity and the absolute determination to suppress the terrorist threat wherever we find it. We've demonstrated that this year, eliminating the mirror of ISIS on a daring operation just this week, taking out another key leader of ISIS. We're going to continue our counterterrorism efforts working with a broad coalition of countries, including everyone around this table. And we will turn our attention and our resources to supporting our partners, strengthening our alliances, and building coalitions to solve the problems facing this region and the world and the world today. The United States is clear-eyed about the challenges in the Middle East and about where we have the greatest capacity to help drive positive outcomes. Our objectives are focused on – or, excuse me, are focused on realistic and achievable so that we can target our resources, rebuild trust, and deliver real results. And we will operate in the context of the Middle East as it is today, a region more united than it has been in years. The GCC is a prime example of that. Former rivals re-established diplomatic and economic ties. New memberships are being forged, and increasingly the world is seeing the Middle East through the lens of opening an opportunity. Let me state clearly that the United States is going to remain an active, engaged partner in the Middle East. As the world grows more competitive and the challenges we face more complex, there's only becoming clear to me that how closely interwoven America's interests are with the successes of the Middle East. We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran. We'll seek to build on this moment with active, principled American leadership. Our new framework for the Middle East has five key principles. I'd like to very briefly share them with you today. First, the United States will support and strengthen partnerships with countries that subscribe to the rules-based international order, and we will make sure that those countries can defend themselves against foreign threats. The United States and each of the countries around this table are an essential part of that order, because we reject the use of brute force to change borders. When the entire GCC plus Egypt and Jordan voted in the United Nations General Assembly to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it was a watershed moment. It showed that the core values of sovereignty and territorial integrity are truly universal. And I want to be clear, supporting the rules-based order doesn't mean we always have to agree on every issue, but it does mean we align around core principles that allow us to work together on those pressing global challenges. For example, on food security, we're collectively committing billions of dollars to alleviate the crisis here in the region, with more than $1 billion coming from the United States. On energy security, we agree on the need to ensure adequate supplies to meet global needs. Energy producers have already increased production and look forward to seeing what's coming in the coming months. And on the climate crisis, we're collectively investing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy initiatives, increasing our climate ambition, and working together to diversify supply chains and invest in critical infrastructure. And we're looking forward to Egypt and the UAE hosting the next two major UN climate conferences. Second, the United States will not allow foreign or regional power to jeopardize the freedom of navigation through the Middle East's waterways, including the Straits of Hormuz and Bob El Monda. Nor will we tolerate efforts of any country to dominate another in the region through military buildups, incursions, and or threats. The free flow of commerce and resources through the Middle East is the lifeblood of a global economy. That's true today as it has been for decades. And when nations adhere to international rules, it works. So my administration has made it a priority to protect those vital waterways. We've established a new naval task force to work in partnership with many of your navies to help secure the Red Sea. That includes the first naval task force to use multi-man surface vessels and artificial intelligence technology to enhance marine maritime awareness. We're also integrating air defenses and early warning systems to ensure that we can defeat airborne threats. Third, the United States will not just aim to deter threats to regional stability. We will work to reduce tensions, de-escalate and end conflicts wherever possible. This approach has already reaping dividends. As was mentioned in Yemen, working closely with Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, and the UN, we forge a truce that is now in its 15th week. We've welcomed the leadership of Iraqi Prime Minister Qadimi to bring countries from the region together for talks in Baghdad. Thanks to the months of quiet, persistent diplomacy, we help finalize an agreement to remove international peacekeepers from Tehran Island and the Red Sea, and transform an area that once sparked wars into a future hub of peaceful tourism and economic development. And as we continue to work closely with many of you to counter the threats posed by Iran, we're also pursuing diplomacy to return constraints on Iran's nuclear program. But no matter what, the United States is committed to ensuring that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Fourth, the United States will build political, economic, and security connections between the United States and the U.S. partners wherever possible while respecting each country's sovereignty and independent choices. Integration, interconnection, these are the underlying themes of our meeting today. How many years have we been trying to connect Iraq's electricity to the GCC grids? I remember being briefed on it in 2016 when I was Vice President of the United States. I said, let's get it done. Well, today, finally, after years of failed efforts and false starts, thanks to the efforts of so many around this table, it's done. New energy projects linking the region, a new free trade deal, investments between neighbors like the Saudi investments in Egypt and Jordan. And more than we build these connections, the more we'll see the benefits that return to our people and will grow. Fifth, the United States will always promote human rights and the values enshrined in the UN Charter. Foundational freedoms are foundational to who we are as Americans. It's in our DNA, but it's also because we know that the future will be won by the countries that unleash the full potential of their populations, where women can exercise equal rights and contribute to building stronger economies, resilient societies, and more modern and capable militaries, where citizens can question and criticize their leaders without fear of reprisal. I've gotten plenty of criticism over the years. It's not fun. But the ability to speak openly and exchange ideas freely is what unlocks innovation. Accountable institutions that are free from corruption that act transparently and respect the rule of law are the best way to deliver growth, respond to people's needs, and I believe ensure justice. And no country gets it right all the time, even most of the time, including the United States. But our people are our strength. Our countries with the confidence to learn from the mistakes grow stronger. So let me conclude by summing all this up in one sentence. The United States is invested in building a positive future in the region in partnership with all of you, and the United States is not going anywhere. This is a table full of problem solvers. There's a lot of good we can do if we do it together. Thank you again for inviting me to participate in this summit today, and thank you for the many years of partnership between your countries and the United States. God protect our troops. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Now we give the floor to His Majesty King Abdullah, King of the Hashemite of Jordan. In the name of God. And that was U.S. President delivering his speech to the Gulf Corporation Council. Now it's the King of Jordan, King Abdullah, who will be speaking as well as all the other leaders. We won't be taking that speech of King Abdullah, but rather breaking down what President Joe Biden had to say with us still is.


Hey beauties, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee today and today I'm going to give you my skin care update Y'all do you see what I see right now? literally Insane let me turn down this light for y'all So you can get a really good look at how clear my skin Has gotten now if you are new to my channel, you don't understand the epicness of this moment Let me insert a photo. This is how my skin was just about two months ago I think we're at and it honestly got better within the first month and now my skin is Even better if you want to watch my video that shows all that Acne prone footage and my whole store you could watch those videos right here and you could see who Cleared it now my magical skin Esthetician is Mary Scott Mary Scott skincare is where I've been going I think I've had at least five appointments Thus far she is located in Glendale, California I a hundred percent Recommend that you go to her if you are dealing with any acne prone skin. She will clear you up You guys saw how bad my skin was okay? She fixed it so while going to her treatments. She has been doing chemical peels on my skin I have been showing that on Instagram make sure you follow me on Instagram at miss beyond grenades You always could see what Mary Scott is doing to my skin, but the chemical peels have been great They burn for a second or two while you're there You know she gives you a fan then it cools down then eventually you don't feel that anymore You let it sit on your skin for about three hours and then just let it do its magic So I think I've done three chemical peels and I've also been using all of Mary Scott's Personalized skincare products at home so today I want to show you all the at-home products that I've been using Starting with her cleansers the very first cleanser. She put me on is her Envy cleanser and as you could see I Obviously have been using it. It's almost gone And this cleanser does a really good job at cleaning my skin removing all dirt oil Bacteria makeup anything that's on your face after about a month or so She just recently bumped me up to the next level of skin cleansers This is her sunshine cleanser hits the yellow and this is even stronger than the green one So now that my skin is ready. I had to wait till my skin, you know graduated Now it is upgraded to the next cleanser because my skin can handle it and this has been great Now some interesting skincare like myths that Mary has forbidden me to use is makeup wipes I am not using makeup wipes anymore to remove my makeup It's been kind of weird because I just always like to remove my makeup first and then I wash my face But she says that the cloths could be a little bit too much for my skin It could create little micro tears if I'm rubbing too hard So now I'm only allowed to wash my face with just my cleansers to remove my makeup and clean my skin That's what I've been doing and it's obviously been working Another interesting skincare kind of myth that I'm not allowed to do anymore is use exfoliators The exfoliating beads were apparently too harsh for my skin and I will admit that when I used to use an exfoliator I used to like scrub it in my skin like get rid of that acne and that's the wrong thing to do If you do use an exfoliator, you want to just put the lightest amount of pressure and just let the beads do their job Otherwise you're gonna make a bunch of like little micro tears on your skin. I Was probably definitely guilty of that So I use these cleansers every morning and every night But I don't apply any products to my skin in the morning I only do that at night and I'm using two different products The first product is this 10% mandelic acid mandelic acid is a derivative of bitter almonds And this is really good for hyperpigmentation meaning those dark spots that you might have from acne scars It's gonna lighten up all those scars and it also helps inflammation and acne.  I then use my sulfur Resorcinol gel. This is going to help kill bacteria and help fight acne You just put a little pea size on your hand Rub it together and then once again apply it to your forehead and your cheeks moving from the outer parts of your face to the center when I first met Mary Scott I told her that the Makari skin care line worked really well for my skin and those had sulfur in it So then she automatically knew that sulfur is going to react well with my skin and as you can see it definitely did And now one of the main things that you guys know I've been doing to my skin every night and morning is Icing my skin. I'm literally getting an ice cube and rubbing it on my skin Every morning and every night and I've even created the ice challenge if you follow me on Instagram I know you've seen my hashtag ice challenge and that is for me to challenge you someone who's dealing with acne to ice Your skin every morning and every night now because the ice is so cold it helps penetrate your products It also helps with anti-aging Wrinkles redness and inflammation so I'm going to demonstrate the ice challenge today and explain how it works So the first thing you want to do is wash your face you use your cleanser and then Grab your ice cube literally just grab an ice cube from the freezer now because I'm extra I took things to the next level and I actually got this cute little ice tray while I was in Nashville and this is actually for like Whiskey drinks like an old-fashioned those big cubes that they put in the drinks And I just fill up this ice tray not even the full way because I don't need that much halfway and now I have this nice large Square cube it is easier to use if you use a towel of some sorts It's not dripping all over the place. So let's do this So I have my giant ice cube and I'm just going to rub it all over my skin Also proving you guys that I don't have any makeup on right now This is the bear skin the real deal an important thing to remember is that you don't want to leave the ice in one spot For too long. You don't want to get an ice burn. You just want to keep it moving all over your face Down your neck wherever you have acne blemishes Around the eyes help with those wrinkles anti-aging 20 to 40 seconds is all you really need So now that our skin is nice and cold It's ready to take in whatever type of products serums gels that we then put on our skin every night Now I've kind of found it confusing because I always thought that cold water would then close our pores So we're kind of closing our pores before we're applying product But for some reason this has definitely been working.   I've been there Before you go. I do need you to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe I post two new videos every week once on Friday and once on Sunday And I have another DIY skin care challenge coming up to take this ice challenge to the next level Stay tuned for that one and make sure you follow me on Twitter Instagram and snapchat at Miz beyond grenade That is where I post all of my skincare updates and appointments with Mary Scott in my story You also could follow Mary Scott at Mary Scott skincare on Instagram I'll put all her information down below the description box You guys could book an appointment by products get a consultation and you'll get 20% off If you tell her that I sent you for the next month. So all of September, okay Till the end of September 2018 get that discount and save some coins. I'll see you guys in my next video Thanks for watching Bianca Renee today


All right, welcome to the next session at Big Talk from Small Libraries 2017. Digitize It Yourself, a method of in-house digitization. Mandashep is on the line with us from Luleydale, New York, my home state. I'm originally from New York. Not near Buffalo, about five hours away is where I'm from. But upstate New York, none the less. And many said in this presentation, this proposal about doing your own, I thought it was really great for small libraries. Digitization is a huge thing going on in lots of libraries. We have a program here in Nebraska for libraries to do it. It can be intimidating. And how do you do it? And I think this is going to be a great session to see you can figure out exactly how you can actually do this yourself. So I will hand over to you to take it away. All right, hello. So a little bit about my library. I am a rare books and special collections facility in a spiritualist community. It's a very historic place. It began in 1875. The library was originated in 1886. So it's a really old collection that I'm working with for the most part, not a lot of new acquisitions. So my primary focus since I started in 2014 has been digitizing our more fragile and delicate materials. This process is something I've developed at my last few jobs. And I find that it really works for me because of the types of materials that I work with, lots of newspapers, lots of books. You get the random 3D object here and there, because it is a historic vacation destination. There are old souvenirs from the town that we have in our collections that I'm in the process of digitizing, old music books. So there's a pretty healthy variety of stuff. So essentially, this process has kind of been carrying me through in my digitization. I'm currently using it for two separate projects. One is digitizing issues of a newspaper that was published in Lillydale to kind of get that out there because it's not really available online. And I am also digitizing spiritualist music books. They're very interesting and unique. So as I've sort of touched upon why do it yourself, a lot of institutions don't really have the funds set aside, especially if they're rural and small for a massive digitization thing. Sending a lot of your materials to vendors can get quite expensive, depending on how much stuff you have to digitize. If it's fragile, it can be sort of a risk to send it. I'm sort of a control freak, so I like having things in my own situation and I like being able to take part in the process because I feel it gets me to understand the materials and the content of the collection a lot better. So it's something I've really enjoyed doing as a process. I don't find it to be a very technically difficult kind of thing and I find it to be an approachable science. For a newspaper project, we worked with a local college and got an intern. So she's a photography major and she's been working with me along on this project and some of her work is in this presentation as well. So advantages to using the black box or chamber method. It's basically a portable photography studio. You get a lot of better focus with your camera on the object being photographed because it sort of separates it from the background. You have a lot more improved control over your photographic lighting. The box itself is black. It's made out of foam core board and it's lightweight, so you can unfold newspapers inside of it. It's spacious enough to accommodate a variety of materials. And because of the texture of the paper that the foam core board is made out of, it basically acts like a funnel for light. Light sources above or natural light sources or if you have tabletop lights that you're using, it basically sucks up all of the available light and leaves your item that you're digitizing to sort of pop out against that background. It also adds to the consistency of background in your shots and it makes the editing process of these a lot easier. It's easy to use. I mentioned I have interns that I've trained, student workers. You can kind of apply this to them if you have those in your library or if you have a library assistant or even an active volunteer. It's a very open-ended thing. Like I said, you can use it with two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. If you have a maker space, you can also use it as a sort of set box for stop motion animation and things like that. I've seen people use theirs in their library in a variety of ways in addition to the digitization aspect of it. So you can use this in your library or in museums. I have used these for, for making virtual tours and like a visual catalog. You can use them for small runs of in-house collections if you have, say, a collection of 30 items that needs to be digitized. Sometimes a vendor's price will be a little bit striking for 30 objects depending on what those objects are and how far you have to send them and how much money you have allocated for stuff like this. And it's, I find in my experience, it's a bit easier to just do it yourself in-house. You can also test larger-scale projects, digitize a few items with it and see how you enjoy the output of it and see how it looks for you. And then you can sort of take that to your board of directors or take that to your administrators and see if they think that this is worth digitizing and what it would look like or even to display the urgency of digitizing something. You can also use this to create sample images to apply for grants and funding for larger-scale digitization projects. And I have used it at home for a few image-capturing things for, like, eBay sales, things like that. So now that we know about this delightful thing and how to use it in theory, let's see how we construct one. So as I mentioned, you will need foam core board. I used the 30 inch by 20 inch. You need four sheets. I used my trusty hot glue gun. I find that you can build one of these on around four cylinders of glue. Little tiny plastic clamps are very lightweight. They don't puncture your board. I find if you use the smaller metal ones, they do tend to puncture the corners of the board. But if you don't mind, that's OK. Right angle brackets like the kind he would build a shelf with. All of this, all of these materials are things you can find out of Michaels or at a hardware store. So it's not like these are exotic items that you have to get from far away. A straight edge like a yardstick works perfectly and an exacto knife, box cutter, sharp scissors, one of something like that. So step one, you take your two of the four boards. You glue them together at a 90 degree angle. It's important that you work quickly because hot glue dries really, really, really fast as the crafting ones among us know. It's easier to do this with two people, because you can work at a much faster rate to assemble it successfully without having the, oh, no, I have to take it apart and do it again, problem. So once that is no longer hot and stringy, you take your brackets, you clamp it in place, and then you sort of fill that seam with glue to make it reinforced. You can leave it like this for a while to let it dry, reinforce it even further if you need to. What you're basically doing is trying to fill in the crack between the two boards so that light can't filter in through it behind the box, because this can affect how you capture the items in it. So you're basically making a light seal for it. So once you have your back in base, we're going to make the sides. You take one board, glue it to the other two boards along a side, and then you repeat this sort of process where you, once you have it in place, you put the clamps on, you put the brackets on, and then you reinforce it, fill in any small cracks, make sure that the boards are tight together, and then you repeat this with the fourth side. So you should end up with something that looks like this. I have used it like this with just the edges hanging off in the past, but I have found that sometimes this can create shadows, depending on what other sorts of light you have in the room. Like towards the front of your object, if you're using tabletop lights, it can make a weird light effect. So I've found it's easier to cut them off.  You do this with both sides of it, and then you can kind of clean up your edges if you need. So yes, this is detailing the snapping off process. You can do it relatively neatly. But you want to keep the brackets and clamps on during this process because I have found the extra reinforcement for them is a little bit more advisable. But when you're ended up, when you are finished with this, you'll have these nice neat square edges. So hooray, it's built. So let's find out how we go through and use this. This is what my space looks like in my library. I've had a lot more questions in the past on the technical aspect of the rest of the process, so I'm going to get into that more right here. Any questions? Feel free to pop them up whenever if you need. So this is my space. This is a bound journal. It is standard, like, broad sheet newspaper size. And it fits comfortably in here. As you can see, there's not a lot of excessive shadows or anything, and most of the light is focused on the object itself naturally. Inside of that book, this is what the raw image looks like. I prefer to capture two pages at a time, if I can, if the binding allows me to. But as you can see, it's just a very raw image, but mostly it's flat, it's centered, and it's clear to read. If you zoom in on it, you can see even the very small newsprint, which is difficult from a lot of newspapers at this era due to the very small font that they're pressed in. So after you capture your raw image, it depends on how you would like to display your collection. Some display methods, people just use PDFs and make them into, like, a searchable text document through an optical character recognition process. You use specialized software, and the program reads the text. It gives you an output that mirrors the text in this document with the text that is on your PDF, that is actually in the newspaper. You basically go through and check it and make sure that everything lines up correctly, and then you have a searchable PDF from this.  You organize your files in whatever naming convention and system you need to. You upload your images into a PDF creation program, like if you have an Adobe Acrobat Suite, or if you are making PDFs from a software editor, or not a software editor, a photo editing software, or ABBYY is an optical character recognition software that I'm currently using. It is basically the top of the line. It has the highest recognition rate between the native text in your PDF image and the output of the text that it recognizes. So I would recommend ABBYY. There are some other optical character recognition programs out there. They even come on your phone. If you have a smartphone, there is one called Cam Scanner. It's a very nice app-based program that takes very quick PDFs, and it also has a pretty decent OCR rate.  You can OCR them if necessary, and then you display it proudly. If you are not doing text-based things or if you would not prefer to have your text searchable and you just want it in a easily viewable format, which is a little less work and a little bit more digestible sometimes, it basically depends on your patron base and how they're going to use it. So you would make the same tip files from your master, your raw data, and your master images.  There's an open source program, which is basically like a free version of Photoshop called GIMP, a new image manipulation program. I like it. It has a lot of the same characteristics, a lot of the same tools. There's a few slight differences, but overall I find that it gets the job done.  So to kind of visualize this conversion process, because I know that's a lot of words I just sped at you, you take the raw data from your camera. When you take an image of an item in the box with a digital SLR camera, like we use a Canon, you end up with a raw data file if you are not taking it in a JPEG or something like that. The whole point of digitization is to preserve as much information in the images as possible. So you're really trying to get the largest amount of stuff in a single take that you can. It's going to give you a clearer text. It's going to make the processing a lot easier. It's going to give you a lot more to work with. Like with a lot of practices and crafts, it's easier to subtract than it is to add. So you start with a bulkier image and then you sort of take away from it and pair it down into its final form. Size-wise, you're talking about an image file that's about 40 mags to an image file that's about six mags. So it's going to play a role in how you store these projects as well. So this is from our current project, the Sunflower newspaper. These are images from my intern, Brittany Ford. So this is the image that she starts with. It's the bare bones image of the newspaper. It's going to be at a high DPI rate, which is going to be the amount of pixels that fit in your picture. So the higher your DPI saturation, the more information will fit in your picture. She's been taking these at 600. Most common displays want them at about 300, so that also gives you an idea that you're downscaling. So you take your image, this is what you get. I will walk you through the process of how you get your TIF out of it. So if she's using a Mac, this is Lightroom, but it would be the same in Adobe or any other sort of PDF creative program. So she's adjusting her edges first she changes it to black and white because it makes the rest of the process easier. You can change it back from black and white, but it also depends on how you are going to display it, whether or not you're going to OCR it, what you're going to do with the final product basically. So she's black, it's black and white, and now she's going to crop it and take the edges down so we can just focus on the text because that's going to be the final focus of our project. Once the edges are aligned and the text is straight, there's no tilt to it, there's no kerning or key stoning or anything, she can crop down the edges so that you have just this bare text at the bottom. And then from this point, you have basically what you're going to work with in the final product. So she's going to export it to PDF or export it to TIFF so that you have this, this is going to be your master image that you're making the PDFs from. So this is a simplified version of the raw data that you start with. And then this is your final image that you will start the second part of the process with. So as you can see, it's a little bit crisper to read. The text is jumping out from the page a little bit more. Keep in mind this newspaper is from 1905, so it's thinning in the paper. The text is so dark in some instances that you can see the reverse side of the page through the page you're looking at. And that does play a role in how you process the images, especially if it's acidified paper and it's getting to a point in its age where the ink is starting to see through in every, in places that you shouldn't see it, basically. So I'd like to show you some examples of collections that I've digitized with this method. First is the Nickel Snake Oil collection. This is a collection of patent medicines that are basically sold in those old medicine wagon shows and fake mail order remedies and fun things like that. It's held at the Center for Inquiry Libraries in Buffalo and it's currently up on New York Heritage. Is there a lot of people out there now? A lot of kids. Is it two, 30 now? It's getting there. Okay. Can everybody see this? Yep, it's going through nice. Rightful. So this is a patent remedy for Dr. Thomas' Eclectic Oil. It was digitized in the black box. Oh, sorry. We used a lined paper behind it. The texture of the gray paper was basically chose to focus the light before the camera preservation process because it is a medicine collection. You're dealing with a lot of glass bottles. So they are an item that's difficult to capture because they do reflect the light. So it's important if you're using a reflective object to have something behind it in the background that can absorb the light and sort of diffuse that effect basically. Next, the Skeptizium is also in the Center for Inquiry in Buffalo, New York. They have a senior research fellow that has a massive collection of skeptically-oriented items. And he was in the process of creating a digital museum. We used the OMEKA platform, which is a digital display software. We're considering restructuring it because the user interface isn't exactly what we wanted. He wanted something more like an actual museum that you walk through. So I'm also considering a virtual reality display for him. So this is an item from the Skeptizium. This is a shrunken head. As you can see, it's also very, very textured, but to preserve the museum aesthetic, it was done against black velvet. So you have a variety of textures here which plays an interesting role in the photography process. The hair is going to absorb a lot of the light. The wood is going to reflect a lot of the light and the skin itself is very papery and thin. So it's another thing that sort of mutes it. It was a somewhat difficult item to photograph, but I think the capture process was pretty worth it. Next, the Robert Graininger Cell Birthplace Museum is a small institution and dressed in New York. They have a virtual tour. This was an item that was very interesting and is a spoon with Robert Graininger Cell head on it. I thought it was very interesting and neat. Also difficult because of the, it's a silver spoon so it's incredibly reflective. Another tenuous item to capture, but the importance is the paper and the textures that you use in the background. Finally, I'd like to show you another newspaper that I have digitized. This is in the database of the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodical. They are a fun group. They're a bunch of researchers that works in spiritualism to research the edgier parts of the history gap, basically. So this is one of their final PDF products. And as you can see, it is searchable. If you type any event, it takes you to any word that is done or anything that contains that word and this is done with the Optical Character Recognition software ABBYY. It gives you a nice clean document to work with in the end. So that is why it's my choice. Currently, I mentioned I'm working on digitizing music books and the Wrapping Up the Sunflower project. My next project is going to be digitizing precipitated spirit paintings. That will be interesting because most of them are large. A lot of these are life-size portraits of people. So it's going to be a fun challenge. As I sort of mentioned before, once you have this ability to digitize and this little space to do it in, you might want to get some supplements. They're not all necessary. With certain objects, I've found that tabletop lights do help. They are about 60 bucks for a decent pair of them on Amazon. You can get little tabletop-sized ones. I have little LEDs that have barn doors and different little plates that you can stick in front of them to change the tone and color of the light. And if you want to get fancy with it, you can totally get fancy with it. You also need a digital camera that's capable of taking TIF quality raw images. Again, you want a 600 or over DPI for your initial capture process. And then you can pare it down from there to make it usable. You will also need photoprocessing or editing software like Gimp or Photoshop or ABBYY or Lightroom, depending on what you're using this collection for and how you want the public to use it. Optional catnod included. I have found today that this also makes an excellent cat trap. So if any of you have cats that need a tiny clubhouse, that is another use, apparently. Multi-use, yes, good idea. And I hope that I haven't fired you to go forth and digitize. Yes, indeed. So if anybody has any questions, I know I'm ending a little bit early, but I usually get more process in the questions than anything. Yep, we do have a few questions that have come in. If anybody does have questions, use the questions section of your GoToWebinar interface. I can see those questions coming in and I will share them with Amanda here, so she can answer you. Let's just start at the first one we got here. How do you deal with copyright or are you only digitizing pre-1923 items? Because of the age of my collection, the majority of these are pre-1923, but they are also the ones that are in the most need of assistance. My library originated in a tent, so a lot of the books have been exposed to the elements along the way. We're on a lake, on a beach, so there's quite a bit of that going on. The building was also recently heated about seven years ago, before that it has no conditioning, so the collection is exposed to some extreme conditions in the weather. So that's mostly my issues with it. Other than that, I haven't really come into a lot of copyright fanangos because the people having me digitize their items were the owners of those items or it wasn't really a copyright thing. But that's basically my experience with it. You're doing a lot of really historical stuff, obviously. So it's kind of almost a moot point for what you're doing. I was going to ask you about your building. You'd said how old the library itself was, and I was going to ask you about the building. Is the building that old? How old is where you were actually in? And now you've just said you were originally in a tent? Yeah, in 1886, our founder, Marion Skidmore, started a tent outside of her house that was the tent library for the town. But Lillydale started as a summer religious camp town. So a lot of people live in cottages. Now they lived in tent houses previously, like their little structures made of just canvas flaps. So it was seasonal. It was only seasonal, right, not year round. Yeah, it reflects that in our patriges now. We're still a very much a summer tourist attraction kind of thing, or vacation destination. So summer, I get a lot of people coming in and out. We have a historical documentary that we show in the mornings about Lillydale. We do lectures, all my programming is only for nine weeks in July and August, and that's about all I get. Other than that, it's just me and myself and my digitization project. Okay, let's, next question we have, and actually a few slides ago would answer this question potentially. Could you use your cell phone to capture the images? Oh yes, depending on the level of camera that you have, some modern cell phones are like, especially the newer iPhones, the Google phones. Motorola has a phone out that has a full camera on the back that also has a pretty good megapixel count. But if you have something over nine megapixels or so, you can probably use it to make a very successful PDF or digitized image. Again, it all depends on what you're using it for. If you're using it for like a state-funded project, sometimes they have more strict requirements and parameters. But if it's for your own in-house thing and you just want it for your own storage or your own use, yeah, if it works for you, sure. No, it would have to be up to a certain level in order for the OCR software to capture it, if that's the route you're going. Yeah, if that's... Searchable, you'd need it at a certain level. Definitely, yeah. Yeah, in order for you to have the heavy-weighted, data-filled images to pare down into the final thin, nice, pretty image. So, go ahead, try and see what happens. Oh, yeah. Okay, if when you're doing a book like you had in your first example with a book opened up, if the book spine doesn't allow the pages to lie flat, do you have de-curling software or do you use a special stand? How do you deal with a book that won't open up nice and flat like that one in your example? With some of my more problematic pieces, I have an acrylic book cradle, like one of those display things that has it open at a certain angle so that you can kind of read it and then I will just hold down the edges with book snakes. To do the best that you can get in there, yeah. And you can always just angle the camera to get as good a view, I suppose, to get a picture. Oh, yeah. That's kind of the advantage to this move over scanning if you're not just smoothing the item, you can kind of digitize and capture the item within the confines of the item itself. So if there's something you have to hold a certain way or work with, it can make it easier. I've worked with a couple of bound volumes that are extra wide and you can kind of lay only one side flat and have the other side kind of leaning against the edge of the container. But it's not exactly un-condusive to capturing the image because at least you have one side flat. Again, it all depends on the particular item that you're using, too. That actually goes to another question that I've got a little farther down here about. How do you hold the camera there? Do you have it mounted on something on a tripod or you just, how are you doing the camera setup? Because you built, described about building the box and everything, but I wasn't sure about that. The camera itself is what we're using. That all sort of depends on the item and also on the photographer. My intern is a photography student, so she just kind of wung it and free-formed everything and just had the camera in her hands because she was comfortable getting the angle she needed. I have done that before, but there are certain items where I have used a tripod at a distance away. For the skepticism, I had some very small items. There was a clay figurine that was buried with, it would be a little thing that you would wrap into a mummy. So it's about an inch and a half tall and it's made of clay and I had to zoom in ridiculously far on it and I didn't want to take the image too many times. So I had it on a tripod for level and just zoomed it right in and got the image I needed. For something like that, we need to make sure the details of it, especially also like that spoon or something that you want to not be, you need to be very still to make sure that it comes through and those materials that are not just journals or newspapers, they need a different way of doing it. Yeah, it's the nice part about it is this way allows you to be a little more flexible and you're not really forcing your items to do a thing that they might not be okay with doing. Okay, lighting question. You did mention recommendation for lights to buy to have. Do you use diffusion for book lighting? Do you use multiple light sources and how about for textured and sculpted objects? Basically, what's the lighting situation depending on the item you're, for each of the kinds of items you've done? For books, I have found using natural light for the most part is the best. It kind of gives you the best quality but that could also be my reading room. I have really bright overhead lights and that's the only light source in the room. They're very centralized and they don't give a lot of shadows or anything. So I have preferred that. For some of the other things, especially reflective items, light can be really hardcore and difficult. Capturing a spirit trumpet, which is basically a very long cone made out of tin. They're very, very reflective objects and capturing them was one of the most difficult things I was doing. Basically, to do it successfully, I used full scale lights, like video lights, like 12 inch LED lights behind me and diffusers that were closer to the table to kind of soften their reflections against the light. But because of the extremely low lighting to not reflect on the trumpet itself, I ended up basically doing Victorian SLR photography. It took me almost 90 seconds to fully capture the image. Once I pressed the shutter button, so it was a really intense process. So it looks like there's a lot of experimenting for different items to figure out what works best in the end. Basically, yeah. It allows you for a greater experimentation to kind of figure out what works for you and what works for your item because there's, especially for interesting libraries with interesting collections, and I know that there's a lot of them out there. Even historical societies can have a variety of very cool things. There are quite a few around me that have very, very interesting objects in need of digitization and we've found approachable solutions for a lot of them. There's a lady around here that has used this for glass lantern slides. Oh, okay. By putting one of those drawing desks under it that illuminates the paper. Yeah, if you're wondering, uh-huh. By putting the slide on that, because the images were starting to kind of decay and chip away, she wanted to get them and didn't really want to send them out because they are quite fragile. So we back illuminated it, blocked off the lighting from the table and just captured the illuminated slide. Cool, okay. Yeah, we have here in Nebraska, a Nebraska Memories Project where we host here at the Nebraska Library Commission, collecting different, putting different collections from different libraries and historical societies around the state online, but it is specific to certain things, paper items, newspapers, postcards, photographs are what we have in there. I think this would be very useful for places who have other physical items that they might want to digitize that aren't being put into some collection they may know about, something like this that is trying to get all these Nebraska things together. We have certain things. We don't, just based on what we've decided, the content of this particular thing are going to be, they would not fit into that. This would be great for those places that have other stuff that they want to digitize just that we're not doing. Oh yeah, that's part of our program, yeah. If I know we've had certain things have been offered to us and we sometimes have to say, well, that's not really the, in our collection development policy for this project, so try some things, yeah. All right, we'll ask you for questions. So what are the, if there are advantages of photographing a book rather than scanning it? Or what's the difference? It depends on the fragility of the item. My items are pretty fragile and the process of physically taking a book and smushing it into a scanner. Not a good idea. Doesn't really do well with the spines. Also, because of the uniqueness of our items, I don't really have the luxury of stripping the book from its cover and feeding it through a sheet scanner. That would be a wonderful problem solver, but then I wouldn't have any books and I would lose my job. Right. But it depends on a case by case situation. Like if it's a book that you have the only copy that you would like to preserve or make available online, if you have the capability to do that with copyright, it's useful to kind of do something like this in a way that won't destroy the original item. And that's something that is a tenuous topic in the field of digitization. Some people just know it's all about the information and who cares about the physical object, but there are other people that just know that the physical object is fine. Don't hurt it. Yeah, but that's as important as well. The actual, yeah. Yeah. It did come there to actually want to see the item in hand, yeah. Oh yeah, like particularly in my institution, people have a lot of emotional attachment to the books in it. It's a place where people's families have been going for generations, where someone's mother or grandmother or great aunt had been a librarian or had written a book that's in our collections. We've had, one of the most touching experiences I've ever had was watching a lady who came in, her great aunt had written this lovely book of poetry that's got this beautiful gold embossing on the front and it's just this lovely beautiful book. And it was signed and she had never seen a physical copy of the book before and she held this book and just whacked. And I couldn't take that experience away from that lady. No, no, no, you can never, yep. Why? See, books are important, not everything needs to be digital only. Exactly. All right. All right, oh, someone just have a tip about if you are doing the, photographing them, make sure to look up your camera models lens distortion characteristics. For example, GIMP has an add-on that compensates for distortion. So sometimes see what your camera has, see what these software programs have. Yes, really, I do a good picture. Yeah, you'd mentioned the one, the cam scanner. I have that on my cell phone, I actually use it to take pictures of things like recipes and whatnot. And then like I said, they are searchable, which is really very useful. Yeah, I use it for so many different places. Yeah, I use it for e-reference a lot. There are certain people that just, I need this page of this book and that's it. And I can just, oh, make a quick PDF and there it goes. Send it off, awesome. How, someone is trying to figure out if they have time to do this kind of thing. How long would you say a hundred page book would take to do, just to get, photograph and take care of like. This is a process that the more you do it, the faster and better you get at it. Your first few pages might be a little clunky. When my intern first started, she was getting about five minutes a page or so because she wanted to adjust everything and make it just right and perfect. And then after her first round of editing, she realized, oh my God, I can fix all of this later. Why am I taking so long? And she got down to about a page a minute. The group of researchers from the IAPSOP that had that light newspaper, the searchable PDF that I showed you, they come in every few months and just mass digitize using this method. There are just four guys, they come in, they take off their shoes, they take a stack of books and then they just go and they are in there for like six hours. Wow. So it might be a kind of thing you just don't devote like a whole day and say, I'm doing it. Oh, it is their lifeblood. Dang it, I don't know. But in that six hours, they will go through six or seven bound volumes of newspapers and come out with about 64 gigs a piece of captured data. Nice. So it can be a pretty quick and healthy process. I would say if you're doing a hundred page book and it's not too difficult to open it to each page and it's somewhat simple to get through, you could probably have a finished product in about three weeks safely. And a lot of the work, like you said, going into the editing afterwards to make it usable enough depending on what you're doing with it. Yeah. Yeah, once you get into the process. Okay, I have a couple of last questions here. You mentioned the Omica platform for digital display. What other resources can you use to display the images? Hold these. Recommend. There are a lot of softwares out there. Archivematica is one that lets you do a lot more in-depth cataloging and organization of your items. There is, there's like a, I think it's just called the collection or collection software. But that is another open source web platform based one. A lot of people use like Flickr or things like that to host some of their collections. You can use it on a web platform. You can build a nice beautiful gallery out of like a Squarespace website which is another really easy display method if you just want to create your own website for your digital collections. That makes it, it's a service that makes it amazingly easy to do so. Okay, and is that, what are, somebody asked about yours, well you're doing multiple collections. So the ones that you listed there is the examples. Are those all things that are part of your library or just the collections you did for other organizations? Oh. Or make sure. Okay, before I forget, there is another major display thing, Content DM. Is it a very major display software? It depends on your level of patience and amount of metadata, I think for ease of use with that one.  And someone wants to know, can your items be searched from outside the specific organizations? Are they just in-house or are these all like public online where anybody can go and look at them? Most of them, yeah. The Center for Inquiry Collections, the Skeptizium and the Snake Oil Collection. The Snake Oil Collection is available on New York Heritage which is a statewide digital consortia of digital collections from local institutions and historical institutions, historical society, stuff like that. So there's it's physical objects like two and three D objects like postcards, ephemera, I think like that. The Sunflower will be up on New York Historic Newspapers which is a free database of newspapers published in New York State beginning in 1800s. But the Robert Ingersoll is also a branch of the Center for Inquiry Libraries and they are, they're in Dresden, it's a physical museum but their entire collection is available online viewable as a web tour. And the IAPSOP database that's fully available, fully searchable and they've got an amazing array of stuff. Yeah, and I know I saw these, there were links to all these in your presentation slides too. So yeah, afterwards when we do have this up you'll be able to get to those links or just search them. I'm sure a good Google search will come up across all, where all of these are located online. Okay, we're right at 3.50 p.m. central time. Anybody have any other last minute questions, anything you want to throw out right now while we're still here in this section of Big Talk? No, did everybody get their questions out? Looks like it, okay. Well, you know where to find Amanda, there's her email, Twitter account there. She'll be happy, I'm sure, to give you any input and ideas about what she's doing. Oh yeah, your own project's going. I'm also on LinkedIn. You're on where? I'm also on LinkedIn. Okay, awesome. Thanks again for letting me do that. Yeah, thank you, it was very, like I said, very useful, very interesting. I was glad to see, like I said at the beginning, when people get into this thinking about digitization, it can be high technology. I need to know, I need to have this huge piece of equipment, something fancy. I just can't think about it, and not always, no, you can do it yourself. It can be approachable, yes. And I'm glad that the step-by-step was just awesome. Yeah. Well, thank you. All right, great, thank you so much, Amanda, all right.


Narcissists deny responsibility for their actions. They deny their duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. They dodge accountability or be blamed for something that they have done. They refuse to accept the choices that they have made. They refuse to own it. They refuse to accept the consequences of their choices. They cannot take responsibility for their choices or actions because it feels like they're being blamed for a fault or something they have done wrong. In their minds they cannot do anything wrong. They don't take action. They only do something in response to a situation or something that someone else has done. So their behavior must always be someone else's fault. When you point out a fault or mistake that they have made, they may even tell you that it's not their fault. They may even say that they are just reacting to you. They cannot accept that their reaction is a choice that they have made. They cannot accept that their choices are their responsibility. Some of them may not even fully understand that this is true but those who do do not regard this to be of great significance. What is most important to the narcissist is that they are never to blame for anything. They don't want to take responsibility for their actions. It's too painful and uncomfortable for them to deal with because of the choices and actions that they choose to make and they don't believe that there should be any consequences for them. In their minds they believe they have suffered enough or they believe that they are special and do not deserve to experience any consequences. They don't think their choices or actions are unfair but they believe that any consequences for what they have done would be unfair which is why if you get upset or dare to confront them on their behavior they will then attack you just for reacting to what they have done or for pointing it out. They don't want to take responsibility for their choices or actions. They don't want to accept their faults or mistakes. They would rather deny the truth and reality of the situation and act as though everything is fine. If this is difficult for them to do they will just blame someone else but they do not want to take responsibility for anything that they do. It's too painful and uncomfortable for them to accept and they don't want to deal with the consequences of their choices or actions. Many people believe that narcissists do not apologize but this is not true. They will often apologize if they believe that it will help them or make the situation work out in their favor but it will never be a genuine or sincere apology. They might say sorry but then they will act as though they lacked awareness of what they said or did or they will pretend as though they don't even remember but they are sure you must be right. In many cases although they might say sorry they will refuse to discuss or clearly define or identify their behavior. In the few cases where they do choose to discuss their behavior there will always be a justification or excuse. There will always be reasons why it wasn't really their fault or they will see it as though you were just overreacting or being too sensitive. If you continue to question or confront them they will only become more defensive. They will only become more anxious to challenge or avoid criticism and they may even attack you even though you may be a victim of their behavior. They will do whatever it takes to dodge or deny responsibility for what they have done. They do not want to accept the consequences for their choices or actions and that is why they will often apologize. They are trying to end the situation before it results in more things they don't like or things they don't want to happen. They are not sorry for what they have done. They are not sorry for how it has affected you or anyone else. They only care about themselves and their own interests or needs and that is the only reason why they will apologize to further exploit their own interests or needs. They really have no concern for you or anyone else. They only care about themselves. You cannot make the narcissist responsible for their actions. Responsibility isn't just something you give to someone. It is something that the narcissist is supposed to take. Although the narcissist will take your time, energy, money and anything else you have to offer. Responsibility is one thing that they are going to leave for you to deal with. You can try to hold them accountable for their actions but they are not going to take it. They are going to feel like you are trying to blame them when they feel as though they are being blamed.  They will also feel as though you are responsible for their feelings when you try to question or confront the narcissist. They will feel as though you are attacking them. They will feel that you are the cause of their shame rather than it having anything to do with their choices or actions. When you question or confront the narcissist it feels like life or death to them.  Just by pointing out what they have done many of them may even be incapable of overriding this way of reacting to you. It has become fake so habitual. They have spent their entire lives trying to run from their problems, trying to dodge the shame that they feel for the things that they have done and no matter how much you try to help them understand their responsibility and behaviour it is not going to change anything because they don't want to do it for them to understand. They would have to care about your pain and worst of all they would have to accept that they made a fault or mistake.  They are just trying to get through each day without being killed by their own self-hatred and shame for their actions. They have no capacity or interest to consider anything else. Whenever you point out their faults and mistakes they just feel like you are trying to convince them that they are bad. All you can do in this situation is remove that access to you. You will never be able to get through to them. You will never be able to get them to understand your point of view. You will never be able to get them to care about things that they don't care about. You can spend years of your life trying to change them but it will never work. It is not your responsibility to correct their behaviour and it is not possible to make them have any care or concern for you. You cannot make them believe that they are responsible for their behaviour. You cannot stop them from hurting people if that is what they choose to do. You cannot stop other people from falling for their manipulation or lies. When you dedicate your life to punishing or exposing the narcissist you are only hurting yourself. You spend the rest of your life focused on them.  Thank you for watching. I hope this video resonated with you. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. Click the bell icon to receive notifications for my future videos. If you like to donate my PayPal links to the video description. Coach and inquires if you're with me at Nikes for other coaching at gmail.com. Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon.