We're gonna have Seth talk to us about everything as code it's gonna be a little bit fascinating since it's kind of operates in my space So I'm excited to kind of see what Seth has to say. So you're live All right, how's everyone doing?  It's very reminiscent So my name is Seth and I'm here today to talk to you about everything as code This is a kind of non-technical talk. I'm actually not gonna show you any code Instead I'm going to talk about the importance of code So my name is Seth. I'm a developer advocate Wow, that was fast. My name is Seth. I'm a developer advocate for Google I focus on infrastructure and operations specifically in the DevOps space but what I want to talk to you here today is about Kind of a narrative or a history of how we got to where we are today. So When we think about infrastructure, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, you had one server And that one server ran one application and when I say server, I mean mainframe and it did one thing and it did one thing very well and That worked for a very long time. We had companies like IBM that dominated the market in this space But very quickly we realized that in order to be efficient. We need more than one of these And this is where we start seeing the mainframes getting smaller They start turning into what we call today as a server and we start seeing More and more use of them we're networking them together But we're probably linking them together with like a serial cable Or some physical connector not like something over a network where we have, you know Different packets exchanging and routers and all of that stuff yet It's important to note that in this world. We still have a mapping of one application to one machine So then we fast forward a little bit to Maybe about seven to ten years ago and we live in a world that looks like this. We have multiple data centers Multiple servers within those data centers, but they're still, you know one application to one machine And this is you know the architecture that a lot of enterprises were running They had data centers in different regions and different geographies so that they could target their users But they had a big problem And that problem was they bought these really expensive servers with a lot of memory and a lot of CPU and they could only run One or two applications on them and the reason for that was that the applications had different requirements different dependencies And it was really difficult to get those on the same machine and then we start seeing companies like Zen and Hypervisors come along and all of a sudden we revolutionize the industry So instead of having one application per server we can now Segregate at the operating system level using hypervisors, and this is where virtual machines start to become popular Additionally virtual machines give us this first concept of a disposable artifact We can build this entire virtual machine with our application and all of its dependencies and deploy it We can use it for testing we can quickly spin them up and tear them down And I'd use the word quickly ironically because you know during this time Quick was like four to five weeks, and I'll talk about the cycle in a second And today we live in a world that looks a little bit like this where we have some VMs some containers some containers running on VMs some apps that run in bare metal and Additionally, we've introduced more complexity in the system So instead of having these servers that are connected by a serial cable. We're running over hardware routers and switches that we may or may not own and we might be going over a public internet Whether that's encrypted or non-encrypted to connect all of these data pieces together And then when we think about kind of a modern application, what does what does a cloud native or or today's application look like? We have things like DNS we have things like CDN databases object storage These are all things that today are often offered as a service. So like Google has an object storage Amazon has an object storage right Google has something like cloud sequel, which is a fully managed database service for you You have third-party CDNs like Akamai and cloud front that are doing CDN management And then you have you know third-party DNS, which also like cloud front and Akamai Or we could be using something like Google DNS and these are all third-party API It's things that used to be managed internally are now an API and this proliferation of As a service so platform as a service software as a service functions as a service Have led us into this world where? You you probably have a very complex setup Especially if you've been around the block a while so a large enterprise or any company that's existed for 10 to 20 years probably has Everything here they have some things that are running in-house. They have what I like to refer to as the closet cloud Which is that one server that runs somewhere that one person manages and you never touch it They probably have some mix of VMware and OpenStack and public cloud and hybrid cloud and it's a very complex world So we have to ask ourselves Like why Why did we get here and Where are we going? But what's important to note is that this world with this hybrid mix of containers and VMs and Everything as a service requires some sort of tooling to manage this complexity Back in the day with one server you could have one operations person who would put their hands on the keyboard and run commands And now we're in a world where one person can't manage infrastructure without the aid of tooling and automation It's just not possible to click buttons in a GUI or run terminal commands. We need a higher level Framework for describing these dependencies Well, let's go back in time again because I like history lessons. How many people here know what the APID cycle is? You shouldn't because I made it up So if you raised your hand you were lying So the APID cycle is a real thing though and it stands for These four words acquire provision update and destroy and it refers to the life cycle of a machine so let's go back 15 or 20 years again and When you worked in a data center the amount of time to acquire additional compute whether that was to deploy a new application or Generate new capacity was done by a vendor you typically called up Sun or IBM or Dell and you said hey, I need some new mainframes. Hey, I need some new servers and That process went through a purchase order and there was approvals and it took a very long time Once you got those servers they arrived in a nice shiny cardboard box and your data center operations team had to unpack those Machines and put them into to racks. They had to connect the networking cables in the serial cables They had to do the initial bootstrapping the initial provisioning of these systems And then over time the sys admins or the systems administrators would be responsible for keeping that server up to date Doing the OS level patching deploying new application versions Monitoring logging alerting responding to pages in the middle of the night and Eventually towards the end of the server's life cycle the data center operations team would be responsible for decommissioning it That might be you know decommissioning it wiping it and doing a fresh install to put it somewhere else or it might be throwing it in the trash and recycling it and this is an important discussion because in The early days these were incredibly expensive processes the the process of going to a vendor Negotiating a purchase order shipping unboxing was weeks So right now if you were you know in in 1990 and you said oh I need more compute You would have to wait weeks to get that more compute Weeks is a subset of months Yeah, it's a multi-week and the data center operations team would often take days if not weeks to unbox those servers and put them in racks and connect them depending on their backlog in the amount of caffeine that they had and This was a very time-consuming process and then the update operation again This is where Jira became the enemy that update operation would take days or weeks for that ticket to sit in the queue Just so you could get Apache updated and this is why for a while operators and developers were against golden images because it took so long to get a golden operating system image updated because of this process and Then lastly the amount of time it took to decommission a server was also days So if you were waiting for a new server to be racked it could actually take six to twelve months So if today This is ironic if today in 1990 you picked up the phone and said give me a new server It could be 1991 until you got that server the cloud changed all of that And I'm doing this backwards because the middle part changed as well But I'm going to talk about the cloud first so the cloud took that acquisition phase that a in the APA cycle from weeks to minutes If not seconds from my phone right now on the Google cloud app I can provision more compute than existed in 1990 And I can do that with one API call and it'll take maybe five minutes to get a server that large for a smaller instance You can get it in two to three seconds That's how fast compute as our fingertips now and at the same time I can use that for my like burst workflow processing I need to do some crazy machine learning and train my Monte Carlo simulations for my bank I can do that. I can pay just for the compute I need and I can delete it in seconds So the cloud completely revolutionized the a and the d of the APA cycle It took the amount of time that we needed to provision a system from weeks or months down to minutes and seconds So what happened in the middle well the middle actually happened before the outer we actually saw configuration management happened before massive cloud adoption But config management took the process of initially provisioning these servers Down from days to minutes and the process of provisioning updates incremental updates from minutes to seconds For days days to seconds So you're using tools like chef puppet ansible or salt you can immediately push out a change to your entire fleet of servers And it's propagated, you know within the hour and this was something that was incredibly unique So we look at where we've come from say, you know the 80s and 90s to now is we have these amazing tools We have cloud providers that give us compute at the snap of our finger We have tools like configuration management that let us provision these systems We have tools like terraform that can manage the complexity of linking all of these applications together We have tools like kubernetes and docker that let us break things down and containerize applications and then schedule them at a large scale So we have to ask ourselves How did we get here? There are so many things This is a word cloud of like the top 100 dev ops blog posts that I found There's actually the word buzzword in there So just to point out some irony There's so much complexity that we we truly have to ask ourselves like how on I miss my mean how did we get here and I don't know about any of you, but Very frequently in my career. I've had this feeling where I'm looking at a system Whether it's an application or infrastructure, and I'm just thinking to myself. This is so unnecessarily complex Sometimes it's reading like hello fresh instructions, and sometimes it's infrastructure, but The point is that at all stages in this journey mistakes have been made and There's a number of places where we can place blame we could blame the cloud providers The cloud providers gave us every API that you could possibly ever want out of the box And it's our responsibility to pick the ones we need That's like This analogy is going to break down because I'm in Singapore. That's like driving a car But in order to go to a car dealership you have to understand how the engine the transmission the car windows the key locks and every aspect Of the car works before you can set foot behind the wheel It's like going into a restaurant and understanding where the lettuce was grown so that you can put it on your sandwich Configuration management also introduced these complexities We have whole new frameworks like puppet and chef invented a new way to describe a system And tools like ansible and salt have pushed that even further We have tools like terraform that invent a whole new way to describe infrastructure and the dependencies We have tools like vault that event a whole new way to describe security and policy and Sometimes it's easy to forget that at the end of the day We did this so that we could move fast and not break things or break few things and Because of that we need a strategy for managing this complexity There is so much complexity in our lives regardless of whether you're a developer or an operator or an AI engineer or a janitor there's so much complexity that we need a strategy for managing that complexity and It turns out that that strategy is code At least this is my theory and this is what I'm going to convince you over the the next few minutes is that that strategy is code That code is the ultimate tool for managing complexity So there's this word that I say a lot which is codify or codify It's a verb in English And it it's this idea of capturing a process routine or algorithm in a text format So if I say hey go codify that I quite literally mean write it down in a programming language or a format that is parsable codification may be declarative or imperative in other words it might describe my desired state or It may describe the series of steps. I should take in an order meaning it could be algorithmic or It can be graph-based. I could say this is what I want things to look like I don't care how you make that happen or it can be here's a series of steps that I want you to take in this exact order and There's a lot of precedence For code as a strategy for managing complexity So to help manage the complexity of managing a single system one server one node We have configuration management Tools like chef puppet ansible and salt enable us to codify a machine's definition in Something like a Ruby script or a puppet module or an ansible playbook or whatever salt calls their things and These tools introduce complexity, but they also reduce the complexity for managing a system Particularly whenever that system Could be windows or Linux or you know red hat or sent us or a bun to we need an abstraction that Abstraction reduces complexity in one area while introducing complexity in another area on the container space We have tools like docker and rocket and the OCI which are designed to reduce the complexity of an application's dependencies Applications that are not single static binaries require runtime dependencies like Ruby and Python have dependencies on the system and one of the challenges with Shipping those applications was that your target system had to have those same dependencies of the same versions and Containers change that they reduce the complexity that we needed to actually Deploy applications the codification of that was the docker file and similar specifications a single text format That allowed us to define the steps to take to prepare our system or our container to receive our application So the docker file is the codification and then docker the docker engine is the automation that Consumes that codification and produces an artifact Infrastructure is code or IAC Helps manage the complexity of the modern infrastructure We have tools like terraform and deployment manager and cloud formation that exist Solely to map the complexity of all of these cloud resources Particularly in hybrid environments where we're using third-party DNS and you know multiple cloud providers Simultaneously using different components of each of those providers together in a homogenous environment So a tool like terraform has configuration and those configuration files are the codification They are the code and then terraform is the tool that consumes that code and produces something meaningful produces infrastructure So you can start to see this strategy that I'm not telling you something new that code has always been the answer We have complexity with continuous integration servers How do you configure your ci there's so many different ways and so many different ci servers? And that's why we have the Jenkins file and the Travis YAML which are code YAML is kind of code But these are these are ways to express complex ideas and dependencies and configurations And then we have the tools like in this case Jenkins and Travis or circle which are going to consume Those configuration files and perform the necessary operations When it comes to security and policy complexity, we have things like api's and policy files which allow us to define the complexity of our system and and codify those policies and security procedures in the forms of api's and Then vault or other tools that do security are the enforcers of those codes And then we have operation complexity Where we have tools like, you know Kubernetes and Docker storm and nomad and mesos and mesosphere that are designed to reduce the complexity of operations Not running containers because that's one bit of it But it's this idea that managing a system is hard and that there is inherently going to be failure So we need schedulers and orchestrators to be able to move our applications around and handle downtime and failure So that less humans are involved in the process The codification here is your yaml your kubernetes spec or your your hcl for your nomad spec And then the tool itself is the automation. It consumes that codified file So there clearly exists this well-defined pattern for many many years that code is the answer That putting things as code is the logical solution for managing complexity but why It clearly happened I just showed you through all of these examples through the past 20 and 30 years that time and time again Engineers have chosen code as the answer, but why? And it's actually very simple. So I'm going to break it down here in the next 10 minutes. The first is linting When we have something that we have to click buttons and move things around or multiple people are involved We can't process that we can't throw a computer and say hey Does this look right to you? But the moment we capture something as code or even just as text we can lint it if you have a resume or Curriculum vitae and you just write it out on a piece of paper You can't do much with that, but if you put it in something like Microsoft Word or a Google doc you could do spell check That's codification Spell check is a form of a linter similarly to like a grammar check if we have a tool something like Go for example a programming language when we write something and go there's a built-in linter that we can ask Hey, am I doing this right and this gives us consistency it enforces consistency within our organization within the programming language And it can help find bugs So this is the first advantage of capturing something as code when we put it in a text file We can build things on top of it. We can parse it. We can use static analysis, etc The next logical step from testing is linting linting is just a subset of testing We can actually automate these tests. We capture something as code We know we have the automation framework on top of it so that we can test it and we get to test things that were previously untestable So whenever you have to provision infrastructure by clicking buttons, you can't really test that Or if you do test it, it's a very manual process the moment we capture that as code Not only can we lint the code we can do unit testing on the code But we can automate the provisioning of that code so that we can run tests on the other end So when we capture something as code we test the untestable or difficult to test One of the most important benefits is collaboration When we have something that is a manual process, it's very challenging to collaborate on that process once we capture that as code we can treat our Whatever we're codifying our infrastructure is code our configuration management the same way we treat application code We can put it in github or git lab. We can treat it as source We can do pull requests into peer reviews. We can have a full version of history So the same way that we treat applications we can now treat whatever we capture as code So change requests we can do the you know in github the automatic PR where we say this will pass or this will fail We get that by capturing things as code We effectively get CI CD For things that weren't previously possible another advantage For capturing things as code is for the separation of concerns. So on one hand we have collaboration Code enables collaboration, but at the same time it allows us to separate concerns I might have my networking team only work in the files that concern networking and they own that domain And then I might have my security team only interact with the files the code the concerns security and Codification enables this when we have manual processes or things that are not captured in a repeatable manner We can't separate concerns. Everyone's reaching into the same cookie jar code allows us to model abstract concepts When we start thinking about multi-dimensional dependencies where we have you know three and four dimensional graphs code allows us to model those dependencies and then produce Visualizations that we as humans can understand using things like D3 or graphics so when we start modeling complex things like policy in a system or network flow or Dependencies within infrastructure at this server depends on this server because this IP address needs to go into this function That is hard for a human to visualize in a two-dimensional format But once we put it in a three-dimensional format or a time series graph We can actually analyze it and we can model these abstract concepts and by modeling them We can actually make better decisions about our system I'm sure you can all think of a time whenever you've looked at a blob of data And you're like well that's some data and then you throw it into a graph or a chart and all of a sudden You see the pattern you see the anomaly you see the the regression or The trend line and lastly and probably most importantly is theft Codification gives us theft It gives us everything you already have for your applications For whatever you're codifying So it's likely that you already have some CI CD workflow for your applications might be Jenkins might be circle might be Travis It doesn't matter the fact of the matter is that you have an existing workflow that was designed around your applications and You should not have to reinvent the wheel to manage your system your infrastructure your security your LDAP your anything you shouldn't have another workflow Instead you should be able to capture whatever you're trying to manage as code and feed that into your same processes You probably have existing Code review processes whether that's you know GitHub or Garrett or you know get lab You have something that will help you review code as a team You shouldn't have to invent a new thing just so that you can use a new tool and code is the common language so You can think of code is is this unambiguous Description of something and it can be written in any language This is gonna be confusing for a second. It can be written in any language, but it lets us speak the same language So it doesn't matter that you're writing in Ruby or Python or HCL or you know puppet What matters is that you're capturing something as text. You're codifying this concept and by doing that We now are speaking the same language Which is automation and codification? That's all I have to say on that. I have this mandatory slide that I have to show all of you If you work for a startup or you think you work for a startup Google cloud is giving you $3,000 in credit You should take a picture of this slide one because it's pretty and two because it has this nice little URL That includes a form you fill out. It's a very short form. I promise it's one page fill it out and Then you'll get some credits. I'll leave this up for a few seconds and that's all I have for you I think we have some time for questions Do we have time for questions? We have time for questions. Thank you very much any questions. I Have floored your minds. You have no questions. I think everyone enjoyed the check You can ask me other questions. Well, if not Thank you Seth and it's good to have you so thank you again. Well, thank you everyone


Presidential candidate of the new Nigeria People's Party, NNPP Rabiu Kwonkoso, has said his party was offering a golden opportunity to pit out the standard bearer of the Labour Party, to be his running mate. Now, Kwonkoso, who stated this after inaugurating the State Office of the NNPP, NNPP, I beg your pardon, in Gombe State, said if he became the running mate of Torbi, the NNPP would collapse. Well, joining us to discuss this is Chike Chude. He is a political analyst and Tunji Abdul Amid is a legal practitioner. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for joining us. Thank you for having me. So this issue has been lingering for weeks and weeks. First, they were speculations that there were talks between the NNPP and the Labour Party presidential flag bearers. And then from rumors, we got to a real conversation that they were in talks. I remember talking with the spokesperson of the Labour Party on this show, and he did say that they were having talks. And my first question was, to what end will these talks be? Do we see anybody leaving his party to the other? Being that, for a pit out be, his followers want him to be the president. For Iquan Qasso, his followers also want him to be the president. And so I ask, now that Mr. Qan Qasso is telling Dr. Obi that he needs to join his party and be his running mate, what do you think this means for both parties? I'll start with you, Mr. Chude. Well, I read the Qan Qasso's speech, or his statement, where he talked about the strategy and all the things that are coming to taking a political decision like this. He also talked about the position of the South East in the order of things and said that in his opinion, the South East is the last on the ladder when it comes to playing politics. But then the question I would ask before I get into the issue is, if they are the ones that are first in politics, if they are the ones that understand the nuances of politics, then I should say really that the people who have held politics, I mean, the political reign of this country for about 60 years after independence should be ashamed of themselves because what you're looking at is what has come out of the outcome of their dexterity, political dexterity and political acumen in a country that is suffering gross insecurity in a country that has suffered a lot of downturn at the economic level, in a country that is ripe with corruption.  And if that is the case, then Qan Qasso himself is making a statement, a case for somebody that is different from them. But beyond that, again, is the fact that shortly before he took the PDP, if he had gotten into a discussion for a major or to join the NNPP, I think it would have made more sense for him to run as Qan Qasso's vice presidential candidate. Because at that particular point in time, yes, PDP was fairly known, but not as well known as visible as it is today. So I would say, since politics is also about visibility, that PDP right now currently has become a phenomenon. And a lot, of course, don't seem to understand what is happening around PDP. Even he cannot see that he understands what is happening around himself. That the movement that we see today is a movement that is bigger than PDP. Therefore, if you are talking about who would run as a vice presidential candidate of one another, that person should be Qan Qasso. The person that is not as visible has not been able to achieve the kind of visibility that PDP has been able to achieve. And so if he wants to run alone, the tendency is that he's not going to get anywhere. And neither am I saying that PDP, if he runs alone without Qan Qasso, would achieve the presidency of this country. But we believe he right now has to stand. He's in a much better position than Qan Qasso is. Let me come to you, Tundri. The PTAB support network has said that the former governor will not negotiate his presidential ambition with anybody, even for a vice president's slots. Contrary to some media reports, because there had been rounds that he might just deputize a Qan Qasso because people are thinking that this merger would be what the third force needs to upstage the two main opposition parties. But now we're seeing that that might not necessarily be the case. Now, a Qan Qasso is coming out to say, well, it's a golden ticket of sorts. But let's look at the structure and the base that, I mean, just like Chikichure has said, there is something happening around PTAB that is maybe even bigger than he expected. But looking at these two merges, could Qan Qasso also be looking at tits not necessarily from a political angle, but from a place of, let's say, strength. How much power and prowess does he come with if he were to be wooing a PTAB? Does he stand a chance whatsoever? I think the alliance between Qan Qasso and the OB are in Europe from the start. So they have a different political position. Qan Qasso left the PTAB not because of anything. He got in the way that he wanted to win the ticket and he wanted to win the PTAB better. It's difficult or impossible for anybody to say, to express that Qan Qasso wants to be learning it, particularly to be, we do respect. Politically, Qan Qasso will seem safe as a more stronger person than the OB. He seems safe as more on-ground than the OB in terms of having been the leader. I'm curious. When you say being on-ground, there's a Qan Qasso movement which is mostly in Cano and a few pockets around the north. But what is that spread? Is that what you translate as being on-ground? I'm not saying that's what it is now. I'm saying you seem safe as more on-ground than compared to OB. I'm talking about complex now. He seems to serve as higher bigger than the OB in politics. So I can't be seen to be deprecating for OB. So now we're standing that he has a top-of-the-line movement and he has a top-of-the-line movement. OB is just coming up with movements. As far as I'm concerned, they're not surprised. This is the first time they are coming up with a top-of-the-line OB. He may be strong. He may be up. They who are willing to bring their support. But now we're standing that. We're talking about politics. There are so many issues in politics that people that will not make Qan Qasso seem safe to be deprecating to what's he called, to a Peter OB. He would believe that being deprecating to a Peter OB is like it could mean. I'm talking about him. The language in itself, he knows where he belongs to. And again, you see this alliance between Labour and the NMPP. We're only looking at Qan Qasso and OB alone. What happened to other members of the party who are contesting for Qan Qasso? What happened to other members of the NMPP, who are contesting for as of late, as of assembly? How would they do their own? What would happen to their own? How would they do it? So we are just looking. There would be a law of even if it happens. Because are you going to say all the people who are under NMPP who are contesting for Senate or Governorship or whatever, to now move to Labour Party or those who are in Labour Party who are contesting for Senate or whatever, to not be a member of NMPP? Because you cannot contest on a two-party. There must be one party. The two of them are going to say it's only about OB and Qan Qasso. And what's to be and what's to be agreed? All other parties, all other members of Labour Party and other members, automatically a member of NMPP. Or once the NMPP agrees, some members of the NMPP, automatically a member of NMPP. It will not be possible because people have one election to contest for Governorship. People have one election to contest as of late. People have one election to contest in the NMPP and the MP. Why we didn't go to a place? They wouldn't want us to go. So I think I have seen that the allies will not work. They cannot work. There's no way to do it. I know. Apart from things that are more bigger than they would be. I'm talking about the case now. Apart from that, there's no way the other issues that are raised will not bring them down. Except the ones who will be safe and say, I'll only think about myself. Once I'm okay, I don't think about what other people are facing. You see, I do not expect Qan Qasso of that kind of thing to say what he said on the TV. TV is not a, if TV will be become the president of the party, people will not vote for it. That is not a negative effect. It shows that when you become, you are trying to work with politicians, believing that certain parts of the country are putting basic, I don't know, I'm not I don't expect a person of the Taliban, a person of equality, so say something that he said on that. Interesting. Back to you, Achike. Is this a more of a play and show of selfishness at play as opposed to what should have been the end game, which is building a third force, rescuing Nigeria, and giving us something new? Now, don't forget, the NNPP came about as a movement of sorts that was supposedly the third force. The Labour Party on the other hand also came to being as a merger of a third force, a movement that was also supposedly that party or movement that would be able to save Nigeria, in quote, from the major political parties who have been leading us over time. Does this mean that there is going to be a crash and burn of the third force, whichever one it might be? No, no, well, again, the use of, I do not think there is the conscious effort. Yes, people have been talking about the third force or so, but I do not think that people have been, there has been a conscious effort to exactly build the third force. But I think what has happened is that there has been a conscious effort to build another political party that would be able to rival the NDP and maybe possibly take power away from them. If you call it the third force, that is okay. And of course, we know that what Labour has done, one must give them good of us.  They had done it, you know, some years back when Mimiko, the King of North, on those days, on the back of the platform of the Labour Party. But that is not the kind of Labour Party that a lot of Nigerians desired, especially the working class people desired. And I'm also not saying that that is that we have exactly arrived at having that kind of a Labour Party. But this is a step in the right, you know, direction. So when it comes to the issue of, you know, Kwon Kwaso and Pito B, I think it's about identity and pragmatism. Kwon Kwaso is being idealistic because, you know, he sees himself as the bigger, the more accomplished politician. So why would he give a diagram with my colleague over there? So why would he give way to Pito B that he might be regarded as a new fight? Well, the reality is that this new fight is bigger than him politically. And so when you talk about even the Kwon Kwaso movement, which is a formidable movement, but only Kano. And if the Kwon Kwaso movement is more, it also has some level of influence, it will be minimal in other parts of the North. But the bastion of the Kwon Kwaso movement is in Kano. So outside of Kano, they are nowhere. So what do you have with Pito B? Why is everybody talking about Pito B? Why is everybody critical of Pito B? Even the political parties that say that telling that Pito B is going nowhere are still, you know, talking about him. If he was not popular, if he was not a danger, you know, to the other political parties, the two big political parties, the AVP and PDP, they will be talking about him. There is something, something present that there is a problem.  And we have seen such movement at the government house, you know, taking the presidency of the countries where they were born. You talk about Tunisia, and a few other places in even Europe, in Spain also, we have had such things happen. And so that is why everybody is worried. Because you see, for instance, even with what is happening on Twitter and social media, where people are now beginning to accuse Pito B supporters of being unruly at the rest. And you laugh, because this is what there is nothing they are doing that has not been done, that was not done by the other political parties. But what has happened is that this space has been taken over by the younger generation of Nigerians who are tired, who are frustrated, who are angry, and who are the solution about the state of their country. And so they want something, a movement forward. And so remaining with what you have with the PDP and the APC is the same, is the same of the same, you know, the two political leaders of the past, you know, and so people are tired of the old guy, because they believe that the old guy have nothing to give, you know, and that is the beauty of the movement around, you know, Pito B, and that makes him formidable, that makes him dangerous. Obviously, there could be a few problems in parts of the North, but not for parts of the North, not central with what we are seeing with, you know, and then of course, the South and the Southeast is also there for the picking. Even Southwest is going to take, obviously, some major votes in the Southwest, especially depending on the kind of politics that Tinobu and the APC are able to play with regards to the choice of a vice presidential candidate. If it happens that Tinobu actually decides that his political fortune will be best guaranteed with the Muslim-Muslim ticket, then you are going to definitely have repercussions from even the Southwest, that is the home of Tinobu himself, because people are going to react. And why is it, it's unfortunate that we find access to that situation, but the political class in this country has divided Nigeria in ways that even the, we did not see, even under the military dispensation. So when you produce a Muslim-Muslim ticket or a Christian-Christian ticket, you're also going to get a backlash, and we're going to see that backlash, depending on what Tinobu does, and that will end up playing the Pito Bisans, to make sense. All right, finally, before we wrap up, Tunji, what are the options, are the other options open to looking, it looks like this marriage between Kwan Kusura and Obimi never happened, it looks like something that's dead on arrival. And so going forward, what are the other options that might be open to Petal B to make him have an edge of sorts and bring him back powerfully into the game? I think, I would tell you, if there's a three-election, Obimi may not be able to take more particularly in the north, because the only people who are shouting Obidian to Obidian to Obidian, it's out. And there's no way you can become a president of Nigeria without having to chase because you've got up to 25% of the country. So I doubt, just like Kwan Kusura, you're not able to make an in-route into the south, particularly south east and south south south, it's the same thing to apply to Obidian, because we're not able to take more in-route because we're not. So you're saying that there is no other candidate, there's no Trump card that Petal B can pull, I mean, I don't want to name names, but I'm wondering, there is no Trump card that he can pick that would make him have that in-route into the north, especially. You see, it's a bit late now, it's a bit late now, it's a bit late now, it's a bit late, because if it has been done earlier, the manager or the alliance has been done before, before even the panelist or the parties, maybe, from now, it's going to be different. Are you going to say you've got one ticket of your card to drop your candidate because of just one person? Are you going to say they all have to now leave their own and support the future of being in there, right? So it's a bit late now, I'm concerned. Maybe they should be working towards the 27th, but it's clear that there's a platform for them to achieve non-success, but if they can maintain their momentum, probably in the 27th, they may have that chance, but I'm telling you, my own reality, Obidia may not be able to make a proper state, particularly because in politics, that's all called structure. The structure is all about where you say that people are in structure. The structure I'm talking about here, and people that are working, people that will do the same with that basis. I think with that, that may be the main point. Okay, well, we've got to go and that's it on the show. I want to say thank you. Chike Tudei is a political analyst. Tinge Abdullah-Meade is a legal practitioner. We keep our fingers crossed and keep our eyes on the stories as they develop. Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being part of the conversation. It's my pleasure. Thank you. All right, thank you all for staying with us and enjoying the conversation tonight. I am Mary Anna Cohen. We'll be back tomorrow talking still for development and looking at the biggest stories in our political scene. Have a good night.


Hi, I'm Carmen Vandenberg and I'm here with Blackstar. The thing about this amp, and I think most Blackstar amps, is that they've got such a good round base of a sound you can build on with a guitar or with pedals or anything. The tone is so clear that it's up to you know, using all of the offers and all of what the guitar offers to then create different tones and everything. With volume and stuff like that you can really play around with it. Not like having the gain up, well I mean that's how I feel about it. And just depending on how you use either your fingers or the pick you can get so much out of it. This would be perfect for when I would accompany Jeff on Day in the Life. For a riding situation this is perfect, it's got everything you need. Like you can basically get any tone out of this amp. Like as we would for bones we'd probably stack up different octaves or anything so you wouldn't even need a pedal. You could just layer them up with different tones and it's got this beautiful clean sound that you can build on. I think it's very versatile especially in the studio because you just can get anything out of it and it's got a very great base to start from.


What's going on, guys? Welcome to another video. So in this one, I want to take a look at one of my favorite Shopify stores, Ridge Wallet. The reason why I want to do a video on these guys and talk you through and show you their website and their products and the analytics behind them, we'll take a look at what sort of numbers they're producing is because in my opinion, everybody who wants to get into dropshipping, this is what you should be striving for. This is what you should be ultimately working towards. Because of the nature of dropshipping and it's such an easy business to get started with, like if you know what you're doing within the space of a couple of days and less than 50 pounds spent, you can have for all given purposes what looks like a legitimate business online. However, because it is so cheap and so quick to get started in, too many people get started without a long-term game plan. They just want to try and get some money in through the door as quickly as possible and they don't really care what happens in six months or 12 months. Or for instance, these guys have been in the business since 2013. Now, these guys have progressed. To be honest, I don't know how Ridge Wallet started out. I don't know whether they started as a dropshipping business, but you can source pretty much or at least a very similar product from Alibaba. So if we have a look at their top four products, if you don't know what Ridge Wallet is actually, let's take a look at one of their products. So this is actually the wallet that I have myself because I've been following them for a while. They kept hitting me on Instagram. And to be honest, I very, very rarely carry cash nowadays. I usually have kind of like six or seven cards. So I thought, what the hell, this looks pretty cool, try it out. And when it came, it's such a nice high quality and luxurious product. And it gave me the idea. I thought I'd do a YouTube video on this because everybody, even though these guys are turning over crazy numbers, 20 million plus a year, this is something that everybody can learn from. So yeah, basically what the product is, it's a metal wallet without the kind of traditional open clothes. You have a strap or a money clip on the back.  It's basically kind of like a modern day world take on what the wallet is. If we head over to Alibaba, we can find like without being disrespectful to Ridge wallet, you can find a product that does pretty much the same thing for like three or $4. So for example, here we have a carbon fiber effect. It says real carbon fiber, but it's probably not. But for all intensive purposes, if you're spending sort of three or $4 per unit, including shipping costs, you can probably get this to your doorstep for less than $10 a piece. However, as we can clearly see, these guys are selling it for about $140, $150 once you've done the conversion, but they're able to charge this premium price because of the branding and because of how much of the market share they have for this product. If we have a look at some numbers then, we can see, so this is ridge.com. This is the American site, the American version. Similar web averages or gives their annual revenue at $15 to $25 million. I think it's a bit more than that and I'm gonna show you why. If we go down though and take a look at their average monthly visits, it's $1.6 million. If we have a look at the .co.uk version and again, we'll go down to the total visits. You're looking at about $300,000 to $500,000. If we take an average, I've kind of like the last three months. So give or take then, these guys are doing about $2 million views a month. So if we go one, two, three, four, five, six, $200,000 need one more. If we go for a conversion rate of, let's go for 2% because it's quite an expensive product, 0.02, so that gives us 40,000 orders a month. The, I paid 120 quid for my wallet, which I think is the same price as all the others. So if we times that by 120, that gives us 4.8 million in turnover per month. And then of course, if we times that by 12, it gives us 57 million. So I reckon I'm there in the ballpark range. I mean, you could give or take 10 or 20 million. I definitely wouldn't be surprised if they were turning over 30, if not closer to 40 million every single year. The next thing I wanted to show you was how are they making those numbers then?  So they probably get a ton of organic traffic, but in the beginning, they must have been running ads. So let's take a look at the ads that they're running right now. So we have this ad here, which is a very nice image. It's not a copy and paste from AliExpress, which I see a lot of people do. They are obviously a big time company, but to create something like this would actually be relatively simple to do using tools like Canva. Let's take a look at this video ad creative. As you can see, an unboxing of the product, UGC type content with some nice special effects. Now, obviously these guys are very established. So the budget they have is massive. It's gonna be bigger than me or you have, but we can still take away the fundamentals and the actual premise of what they're doing here and implement it into your own business, no matter what level you're at. They have the product in hand. It wouldn't surprise me if they filmed this on an iPhone and with some basic kind of video editing skills, they've got some custom original content that really demonstrates in its full glory really how nice the product is. We also have this ad creative here, which has kind of like an amusing opening to it. You won't be able to hear it, but it's basically somebody just talking about the pain points of old wallets and then the new day, which is the new wallet. So it's highlighting the problem and then offering the solution. And then it just goes through the same kind of clips which we saw in that previous video of the fact that you can get an air tag that will fit to it and you'll be able to find it, et cetera. Just to go through the product page then because this is such a nice and slick and professional Shopify store. Everything you can see on here is pretty easy to replicate. There's some apps here or perhaps they've used custom coding because they've got the budget to do so, but everybody watching this video could definitely replicate a product page similar to this. Scrolling down, they've got you may also like. They've got this nice kind of like animation effects of the cards coming out of the wallet with different information about the product. Everything is just super clean and super sleek and in keeping with the brand. That's how they're able to charge so much for the product is because of the actual branding of it. My favorite feature of this website though is this section here. So they would have hired a very experienced coder to create something like this. And then what you can do is you can actually drag this along. So you can say, I have eight cards in my wallet. This is what your wallet probably looks like now and this is what it will look like with the Ridge wallet. So a really nice touch to really kind of illustrate how professional this brand is. So to wrap the video up then and why have I just spent the last 10 minutes or so showing you this company and what can we learn from them and what should we be doing in our own dropshipping businesses? So the message I want you to take from this video is think further ahead. Try not to be so much in a rush that you wanna get your business up and running in the next two weeks and capitalize on a product as much as possible. Instead, perhaps take two months, maybe even three months or however time it takes you but just build something that is different to everything else. Because the truth and the harsh reality is probably 90 plus percent, probably 99% of all Shopify stores or all people who get into dropshipping don't make a single penny and that's because they do it the same as everybody else. So if you do what everybody else is doing then you're gonna fail as well. So spend that extra time, spend that extra budget creating a website as cool and professional and custom as this one. Invest in your product, find somebody who will be able to put the logo and brand the product to make it unique and specific to your brands and nobody else can copy it. Invest in custom packaging as well because unboxing the product is part of the experience. If you think of when you buy an Apple iPhone or MacBook or iMac, the packaging it comes in is so expensive feeling, it all adds and kind of builds towards that kind of feeling of being a luxurious brand. If you try and do things too quickly and try and make 100,000 pounds in your first year, you're probably gonna end up skipping corners, putting money in the wrong places and falling flat on your face. Whereas if you said, I'm gonna try and make 10 orders in my first year because I'm gonna spend so much time on the development of the brand. Then because your expectations aren't ridiculously unrealistic, you're gonna keep working on that business for a lot longer and that's ultimately gonna lead you to better chances of being success in the long run. Whereas if you try and make 100,000 in your first year and you're not on track after the second month, you're probably gonna give up. Whereas if you say to yourself, actually I'm gonna do 1,000 pounds in my first year.  And you never know if you do it right from the beginning, you too may end up with a business like Ridge Wallet. One final note then before I head off is I'm not saying that you have to develop a product and spend thousands and thousands of pounds before you start selling but you can start drop shipping a product and then do things really slowly and reinvest every single penny you make reinvest into improving the products and separating the products from the competition because these guys are so well established now that nobody could copy them without spending a ton of money and they've been able to do that because they've reinvested into the business, into the manufacturer of the product, having their logo inscribed with it, custom packaging for somebody to replicate this business now would have to risk spending hundreds of thousands of pounds not knowing if it's going to work. So you can build it up step by step, you can start drop shipping in the traditional sense but then the second you've established that the product works and you're making money from it instead of just trying to milk it for as long as possible until it dies keep reinvesting into the development of that product and then development of your brand. And so with that being said, thanks for watching guys. I hope you've enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one.


You were not in the original punk scene were you you know I arrived a little late to the punk scene But it was the punk scene in Detroit in Ann Arbor Detroit, okay By the time I got to by the time I got to San Francisco The Mabuhay was nothing but a legend which always inspired my curiosity, which is one of the things that fed into this But really what was driving the initial work on this film was I wanted to do a film about some of my buddies From a similar sort of a setting around Detroit And I realized that living in San Francisco. I was just never gonna pull that off. So I ended up well Let's find something a little closer to home and That's when Kathleen Landino and Michael Reed appeared and said we're about to have this homecoming 2013 and I don't know if it was the biggest mistake in my life or the best But I said well, let's let's let's shoot some footage and see what happens. So Well, it's only been three years. So Six Well, I Shot a little bit of the earliest footage that I shot for this film was the footage that you saw a flipper Which is 2012 in February. It'll be six years six beautiful years. Well films take a long time Thank you for sticking with it. I Promise myself it'll be done before six years more. So That we're hoping yeah Final cut final final cut. Yeah Oh Mia, how is it for you to see this?  I love this movie so much because I get to see all my old friends when we were all young together And it's a super sweet thing and I'm really grateful to Timmy for you know Showing that so we you know, it can all see it as far as my own story. It's it's hard to be object But I mean, you know, there's a long time ago and It's interesting. I I'm glad I learned how to sing since So yeah, and you perform Quite often, right? Yeah, I actually just changed that recently because I was playing I was busking at Farmers markets mostly and making a living But if you do that for a living you have to do it a lot and I ended up I have a pinched nerve now. Oh So I'm not playing guitar right now So your trip that you just came back from was music related or not, you know We did something that is kind of it's kind we did kind of a bucket list thing and that we just We've mastered an album that Abby wrote. Yeah Pretty cool So that was that was super exciting and I'm glad we did it and it made it sound good Wow, that's a dream come true We're gonna take questions. I don't know if we organize somebody with a microphone I don't think we did so if you have a question. You just have to shout it out You know, I'm always seeking archival footage and I'm I'm hoping I'm hoping to put a little more archival footage in because I think It's one of the things that as I've told people who participated in the film Everybody gets to be young for at least a few frames in the film And I want to get some archival footage more of showing people performing younger to contrast I think it works really nicely with the cases where I do have that so that's that's the main focus There's a couple other interviews. I wouldn't mind doing but I'm gonna try and resist the urge You know, there's always there's always somebody where I oh, I'd really like to hear from this person or that person I'm trying to trying to quell that Any other questions The Avengers or yeah Yes In other places You mean when we're performing or the audience All of it I think Yeah, the Avengers have been performing for the last, I don't know 15 years in a Reformatted version with a younger drummer and a younger bass player and we've toured all over Europe and in the US and Some places have really Really vibrant scenes and other places. It's people who are kind of like that remember it from the old days I want to see it again, but I would say in San Francisco When we play Gilman Street, for instance, there's a huge scene there and it's quite vibrant and it continues So it just depends on the location, but but people when I'm performing anyway for me It's I feel the same as I did when I was 19 I've just The songs the music carries you and it carries you to that moment of anger. I thought it was interesting what Celia was saying about Anger now is that she doesn't have to live it. She can just present it But it doesn't have to live inside her anymore and I feel that same way I don't walk around being super angry, but when I get on stage with the Avengers it's you know The songs and the words and are still there and I'm still angry about a lot of shit that happens in the world, but I Think we should be I think that's one of the things punk rock and I would like to point out that all of the interviews in the film including the ones where everybody said what we Really need punk rock now. We're done before the last presidential election. So you can make your own decision about whether it's needed even more now You know, it's my second film the first one was five minutes long and involved plastic army men experiencing existential angst That that one that one is almost finished as well I had a really big learning curve, but I had really great crew I think you know one of the things that's happened over the last couple years and part of what's impacting my creative process is my crew is Escaping I think there's only one is Ryan the other is anybody besides Ryan Ryan that did all the sound is lurking around here Some are rich your hand Ryan embarrass yourself Ryan Ryan but but for instance Noah that did all the camera work with me He's gone off to study cinematography in Europe and there are many cast of dozens of people that did various work They helped me get through the learning curve. So I I learned a lot along the way I I'm still the slowest editor in the world but But it was this film was sort of a developing process for me, so The most thoughtful editor in the world Mindy I just want to say that I think your film is wonderful and you finally got it together In the terms of editing, you know the process Where the previous cuts were like two separate films? Mm-hmm. I think you did a marvelous job of integration. So good speed for you I'd like to recognize Mindy Mindy Bogdan who did the lot of faster shorter films that you saw There's two people whose approval are the highest on my list the first is Mia Mindy second Any other questions out there Yes Bobby It is it is marginally marginally I have this pesky day job now very distracting do not get a day job if you want to make a film and It's really slowed down the process But I keep chipping away at things and there's there's things are progressing with it But it's not nearly as slow as it not nearly as fast as it had been in the past. So Are you happy with it? happy such Happiness has not quite yet been achieved. We're getting close though We have a question here The ones that haven't rejected it already those are the ones I'm trying to go to and Let me tell you there have been a few so I'm still I'm actually trying to sort out the life path of this film I was interacting with somebody recently and they said, you know, this film is very good I don't know if it'll be interesting to people outside of San Francisco. All that happens is they got older And I was like well actually that's kind of maybe the point of the film, but but I don't know I don't know how I don't know what the life cycle of the film is. I'm still trying to figure that out That's why perhaps why I continue editing obsessively compulsively They're able to understand You know, this is something that came out when I was at the Shooting the original stuff at the punk homecoming events that punk rock song circle put on You know, you don't you don't want the same scene that was in the map when you're in your 60s You know, it's although although there was The case where I was shooting the flipper footage at at the new parish in Oakland I had my crew that are all in their 20s Maybe 30s at the oldest and they're all setting up and they're watching and the crowd's assembling and the crowd is There's flipper on stage and the crowd is approximately age equivalent to flipper and my crew is looking and they're seeing the crowd Starting to move like this and they said one of the guys said to me They're not gonna do what I think they're gonna do are there and they did they did and no one was seriously hurt But it was one of those things where there's also a place for a little calmer slower More geriatric punk rock Any other questions in the back? This is this is kind of an open question it depends on some of that archival footage if some of the things that I'm working on with that Workout, I'll probably editing for another three or four months Then there'll be a period of festival rejections followed by crying wailing and gnashing of teeth And then after that we'll probably screen it again. Maybe in time. Maybe if you do another series Yes, well, we're gonna have to have another SF punk I don't know series at the library. It's been super Popular so you have a goal there something to shoot for now.  I Remember they did come To the Mabuhay ones. There was this little scene a little funny little story to tell about the tubes Blondie was in town and playing a show and I went to see Blondie play and They got invited to the tubes warehouse, which was south of market Which was like a big two-story affair and David Bowie was playing an Iggy Pop Span and they had just played the same show with Blondie so inside the club what I mean inside the party was David Bowie and Debra Harry and Iggy Pop and Christine but the guys from Blondie the the rhythm section and guitarists We're hanging out with the Avengers. We're driving around town.  It's huge glass door And then the guy, you know, some of the tubes came out and they're huge we even without their platform shoes They're kind of they came out. We were all kind of running after the door shattered we were all running back to the car and Grab Jimmy Destry around the neck and this choking him and he's not very tall So he was like his feet were going off the ground and I just went up there and I bit that tube's arm Until he let go and We all screwed off and went I don't know to a bar or something but Apparently his arm what got swollen up and That then the tubes were cursing the Avengers and they actually showed up at the Mubuhei one time when we were playing and I was past a cocktail napkin and it said You know, we'll get our revenge or so And I did actually get bit by another human being some time after that But I don't think they actually were doing it for the tubes To get back to my point the tubes were a little bit before they were more part of the glam rock thing and The fact they use the word punk white punks on dope. I don't think really influenced the punk scene in San Francisco I could be wrong anybody We got time for one or two more questions Irene dogmatic An artist and where I live is the world So I don't know how this fits with what I've watched but I found it very interesting But I found it rather sad in a way watching to be able to die all the stuff that's gone down I don't know. Do you think that you've made this but I don't know what Hmm Have other people said that they felt you know like a film about punk shouldn't be this sad or well I think it does I think it does take a different tone than the typical film about it's sort of There's there's a typical music documentary they rocked really hard Then something bad happened and then they came back and rocked really hard again and that you know There's a little bit of that going on in this What's that? Beautiful You know when I was working starting the early stages of this film I thought this film is going to be a lot of Looking back lost youth and a little bit of decrying of lost youth And there's certainly an aspect of that to a lot of what people's story was was you know when Patrick says I'm okay Not being a rock star right now right now There's there's a there's a there's a you know, it something's gone there a type thing Well, I will say that there's something came out for me in the experience Which is that people had found their own place their own at their at their age at their place in life And there was one there's a line that somebody gave me and I know I know from that reaction A lot of people had here when Cecilia came on that a lot of people are aware that we lost Cecilia Kuhn from Freitwijk Last last year It is but they it is but they did happen and it is Yeah, but if let me just conclude that thought by saying you know I I came into with the feeling that people are gonna be talking about their lost youth And there was a moment where I was interviewing Cecilia and she said something that shocked me I could have fallen off my chair. She said I'm so glad I'm not young And I did not end up using that in the film just because it was it didn't fit in with what I was trying to put together But it was one of those things where it's like, okay What I thought her perspective and the perspective was going to be it's not it's everybody's got their own And she certainly had her own perspective on that which I you know, I feel happy with what I captured with her Okay Yeah And We've got time for one more question this this gentleman here For that Yeah, you know, you know to riff on what you're saying there I was in this very room for an event that was put on by the punk rock sewing circle and Penelope about 2015 where it was a panel of people including Vale and Mickey from creep and they were talking about the Documenting of the era and Michael Stewart Foley said, you know, it's up to people to bring their history To the record you don't leave the writing of history to the people who go through life Keeping archives of the personal papers and that sort of thing It's up to us as punk punks and the people that participated in the scene to document that scene Otherwise it will be forgotten or it'll be over steamrolled by that other perspective And that other perspective is usually people who had more money more control of all of those things And so for me the opportunity to document this and I think something anybody gets a chance should do Is document what we did experience even though this is for me a little distant from my personal experience It's really important to put it in the record and I'm happy to do that with this. So I thank you for that That is going to be it for us because we do the library is closing at 8 o'clock But I just want to remind everybody that you can come up to the sixth floor and look at what we've got in the punk archive with your own eyes and hands carefully and Anyone who has things that they think should be in the punk archive, please contact me That we have a flyer up there about how to contact us and what we're interested in getting and Thank you all for coming to the punk film series. It's been super fun