The final item of business today is the member's business debate on motion number 12084 in the name of Graham Day on welcoming a more energy efficient retail sector. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would be grateful if those members who wish to speak in the debate could press their request to speak buttons now please. I call on Graham Day to open the debate to Mr Day, seven minutes please. Can I begin by thanking all those MSPs who support the motion, allowing this debate to take place, and those who remain behind to participate in it? The Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee of this Parliament has highlighted repeatedly in its work on tackling climate change and driving down emissions that Scotland will only achieve its ambitions with societal and individual behavioural change. Parliament setting targets and government introducing initiatives is all well and good, but without genuine buy-in we are up against it. To get that buy-in you need exemplars of environmentally responsible practice at community level across the public sector and in the private sector. That is why I am pleased to bring forward this debate and commend the efforts of the Scottish Retail Consortium's membership, as highlighted in the report, a better climate-driving resource efficiency. Promoting good practice is an integral part of ensuring that we very quickly reach the point where behaving in an environmentally responsible way is seen as the norm doing otherwise unacceptable. Let us look at what has been delivered by the SRC's membership across the UK and then consider what it plans to achieve by 2020. Target signed up to in 2008 and exceeded cutting energy-related emissions from buildings by 30 per cent, cutting greenhouse gas emissions from supermarket refrigeration by 55 per cent, cutting energy-related carbon emissions from store deliveries by 29 per cent, cutting the proportion of waste sent to landfill from 47 per cent to 6 per cent, and increasing water measurement in sites from 50 per cent to an estimated 83 per cent. New targets for 2020, again using 2005 as the baseline, reducing absolute carbon emissions from retail operations by 25 per cent, cutting energy-related emissions from buildings by half, reducing emissions from refrigerated gases by 80 per cent, reducing carbon emissions from store deliveries by 45 per cent, and measuring 100 per cent of water usage on sites that send less than 1 per cent of waste to landfill. It is worth peering behind those headlines and considering the specifics of what has actually been taking place. Let us look at as that. Carbon emissions from existing stores, offices and depots is down by a third since 2005. They aim to be having 30 per cent of their energy source from renewables by the end of 2015 and are on target to reduce energy consumption within existing stores by 35 per cent this year. They have reduced their packaging by 27 per cent since 2007 and are travelling 18 million fewer road miles compared to 2005. Despite opening 115 new stores over the period, as they saw a 15.8 per cent absolute reduction in their carbon footprint across the UK between 2007 and 2012, the figure for Scotland is 17 per cent. Despite increasing the space taken up by their UK-wide operations by 46 per cent, energy usage in 2013-2014 remained the same as it was in 2005-2006. They aim to have electricity for all 86 of their Scottish stores from renewable sources by 2020. As of 2012-13, no waste goes to landfill. The co-op is targeting an emissions reduction of 50 per cent by 2020. By 2013, some 98 per cent of their electricity was coming from renewable sources, and by 2017, they aimed to have 25 per cent coming from their own renewable resources. That is up from 7 per cent two years ago. The co-op discovered during a trial in 2011 that they could reduce total store energy use by 20 per cent if they fitted doors to their fridges. 298 of those stores, including in Cerniustia and Montefitha, now have that, and the figure has plan to rise to 2,000 stores by 2020. B&Q have reduced carbon emissions by 29 per cent since 2006 and aimed to get to 90 per cent by 2023, partly through using double-decker trailers to reduce total road miles. Waitrose, for example, their suppliers deliver to a central hub in Cumbernaud rather than having to distribute products around all six supermarkets in Scotland. Greggs have installed photovoltaic systems on 10 of their bakeries, including Clyde Mill and Cambuslang. W.A. Smith are sharing vehicles with other retailers. MacDonald's are recycling cooking oil. Turn it into biodiesel for use across 40 per cent of their fleet, which is saving around 6,000 tonnes of carbon per atom. They have also reduced bundtree liners by 10 per cent in size, which is saving over 85 tonnes of paper each year. By redesigning the boxes for one of their most popular lines and the spoons that are given out for consuming ice cream, they are saving 800 tonnes of materials every year. Can I note, as the motion does, the efforts of my constituent, Peter Stirling, who grows sprouts and strawberries just outside our brode? Mr Stirling was recognised by Marx and Spencer for his outstanding contribution to sustainable farming with their farming for the future produce award for Scotland 2014 at last year's Highland show, after he invested in biomass boilers for his greenhouse blocks and using innovative techniques to extend shelf life and reduce waste. Of course, tackling food waste is very much a further stream of work being undertaken by our retailers. If I may just highlight two examples, both involving Tesco and conjunction with Glenarth of Peebles, they have been trialling a new type of recyclable plastic packaging to restrict seepage from broken eggs to that pack that the eggs are contained within. They believe that that is the potential if the measure was rolled out for all of their free-range eggs to save an average of 1 million eggs each year. In addition, Tesco has launched a new zip to frozen pea packages, which they believe could save an estimated 35 tons of peas from rolling out of the bag and onto the back of the freezer or onto the kitchen floor and going to waste. This is real action to deliver real change across a sector with clear plans to build on what has been delivered. The retail sector has looked closely at how it operates and moved to reduce that environmental impact. Of course, those concerns have cut their overheads as a result, but that is part of the behavioural change message for organisations as well as individuals. Change behaviour and both your pocket and the planet benefits, Presiding Officer. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate speeches of around four minutes or so. Please recall Margaret McCulloch to be followed by Angus MacDonald. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I can apologise that I may have to leave the meeting before 5.30 tonight because I have another meeting on. In the beginning of my contribution this afternoon, I would like to congratulate Graham Day for securing this member's debate on energy efficiency and the retail sector. Graham Day and I have worked together for two or three years now on the cross-party group for towns and town centres. I know that he takes an interest in retail, particularly in smaller retailers and the contribution that they make to the local economies. I also want to welcome the publication of the Scottish Retail Consortium, who is here tonight, in its report, which is referenced in this motion, a better retail and climate driving resources efficiency in Scotland. I want to discuss some of the content of the report in the greater detail, but in the beginning I would observe that this report suggests that the retail industry has made significant progress against the targets that they voluntarily set themselves to reduce waste, lower emissions and improve energy efficiency. Signatories to the SRC agreement have reported the following. Energy emissions from retail buildings are down, greenhouse gas emissions from supermarket refrigeration units are down also, the amount of waste that retailers send to landfill sites is down and even as home delivery services are growing, carbon emissions are coming down too. The target set has not been just met, it has been exceeded and that is a testament to the perseverance and ingenuity of all those retailers who have signed up to this initiative. Among the signatories are some of the biggest names in the industry. Argus, Azra, Bean, Cure, Boots, Stebenhams, John Lewis, Morrison's, Knicks, Sainsbury's, Tesco, The Co-op and many many more. Each of those are large businesses with a substantial footprint in the national economy and in town and town centres all across Scotland. Together they represent over half of the UK-wide retail industry and the scale of the changes that they can make is huge. Take Sainsbury's for example, they have a long-standing commitment to renewable energy. Many of their stores have ground source heat pumps and biomass boilers. However, Sainsbury has also committed to obtaining 20 per cent of its electricity through power purchase agreements by the year 2020. Right now, Sainsbury's is a partner in power purchase agreements with five onshore wind farms providing enough electricity to power each and every one of the company's 86 Scottish stores as well as its depot in East Kilbride. The John Lewis partnership, which is behind Waitrose, is one of the few retailers that have been expanding in Scotland in recent years, just as their new stores will feature the latest energy-saving technology. So, too, will their older stores, as the company rolls out LED lighting, low-flush toilets and low-cabin refrigerators across their existing estates. I have identified that 90 per cent of their environmental impact comes from their supply chain. As I said before, Sainsbury has developed a sustain and save exchange, which aims to support suppliers as they reduce water and energy usage and cut out waste. Those firms are in a unique and powerful position within their sector to not only drive energy efficiency and waste reduction in their own business, but to promote sustainability throughout their supply chain. We cannot green our economy without having business on board. That means green our retailers, but it also means green our suppliers, too. That record of action is welcome, but so, too, is the promise of more. For that reason, I also want to recognise the on-going work of the industry to make further reductions in emissions and to reduce the amount of waste that is going to landfill to just 1 per cent by 2020. Finally, across the business community and big retail chains and small local firms, there is an increase in acceptance that environmentally sustainable models can be both economically viable and socially responsible. The retail sector is uniquely placed to use economies of scale to upscale good practice and to roll it out across the country. I commend their success to date and I hope for more in the years to come. Many thanks. I now call Angus MacDonald to be followed by Jamie McGregor. Thank you, Presiding Officer. At the outset, I thank Graham Day for bringing this motion to the chamber and highlighting the efforts that Scotland's retailers have made in reducing their environmental impact. Clearly, our ultimate aim is zero waste to landfill, and since 2005, when the baseline was set, signatories to the Scottish Retail Consortium's better retail and climate have exceeded all their targets. Graham Day has given some figures already, however. However, some of the figures that he did not cover include reduced absolute carbon emissions from stores and transport by 13 per cent, reduced carbon emissions from stores by 30 per cent, relative to growth, reduced emissions to air from escaped refrigeration gases by 47 per cent, relative to growth, and reduced energy-related carbon emissions from store deliveries by 34 per cent relative to growth. I have some good examples locally in my Falkirk East constituency, where we are lucky enough to have asked a Scottish distribution network operating out of their Falkirk depot. The Falkirk recycling centre handles the waste from all of their 60 stores in Scotland as the trucks take waste back from the stores after dropping off their deliveries, and this approach significantly cuts back their road miles, saves fuel and costs, and reduces pollution. Every year, as the Falkirk centre recycles more than 20,000 tonnes of car and plastic and also uses a rainwater harvesting system that has reduced water usage by a third. In addition, the Asda distribution centre in Falkirk is a strong supporter of the fair share initiative, with all the surplus food that arises in the Falkirk distribution centre redistributed to good causes across Scotland through their fair share partner. Surplus food arises when suppliers send large retailers like Asda too much of a particular product or goods that are damaged in transit. The partnership is the largest of its kind in the UK grocery sector and offers a simple and practical way for Asda to turn an environmental problem into a real benefit for communities. In the last year, Asda in Scotland has donated the equivalent of 265,000 meals to more than 140 good causes, and they have prevented hundreds of tonnes of good food from going to waste. They are now collecting their suppliers' production food waste and delivering it to Falkirk to be redistributed alongside their own surplus food to fair share with Asda covering the cost of transportation and investing £100,000 to grow the capacity of the fair share depots in Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. It is also worth highlighting that none of Asda stores send any food to landfill as waste. If it is still good quality, it is given to charity, but it is sent back to Falkirk to be processed via anaerobic digestion. By making changes to the distribution network, such as using their new double-decker lorry trailers, they now travel 18 million fewer road miles than in 2005 and have reduced transport emissions by 60 per cent. Their double-decker trailers save Asda around 2 million road miles per year by doubling the amount that they can carry on each journey. As a result, they have been awarded the Institute of Grocery Distribution's Sustainable Distribution Award. Asda and Falkirk are doing its bit and leading by example, and other lorry trailers, as we have already heard, have much to be proud of when it comes to aiming for a zero-waste society. We all must lead by example, and it is encouraging that large retailers are now considering the entire life cycle of the products that they sell and are exploring new business models that will enable them to move away from a largely linear economy towards a more circular economy. However, that will require a radical change to how we make, use and reuse materials and products. As our RACI committee highlighted last year following our inquiry into the circular economy, we can all play our part in ensuring that the concept of the circular economy is embedded in all our mindsets. In closing, we are getting there. We will get there, but there is clearly a lot more to do, and we all must lead by example. Many thanks. Our last open debate speaker is Jimmy McGregor. Thank you very much. I am pleased to take part in today's debate, and I congratulate Graham Day on securing it. The Scottish Conservatives commend the Scottish Retail Consortium report, which is very positive and welcome initiative from a sector that has such enormous importance to the Scottish economy. We are also pleased to join Graham Day and others in congratulating the SRC for exceeding all of the targets it set out in its 2008 report. Maybe the Scottish Government could perhaps take a leaf out of the SRC's book in terms of meeting the green targets. Indeed, I would be interested to learn what ministers are going to do to engage with the retail sector to learn from their success and what it is they do to actually achieve their targets, because the achievements of the private retail sector has recorded since 2008 are very impressive, including reducing carbon emissions from stores by 30% and from store deliveries by 29%. These are very welcome achievements given the very real challenges we are facing in trying to reduce emissions further in other sectors like housing and transport. As we have long argued, improving energy and resource efficiency and reducing carbon emissions are not incompatible with growing our economy, rather they should complement each other as David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium States. Consumers are exceptionally well informed and rightly demanding. They want quality, affordable products, but they want them produced in an environmentally sustainable way. In such a highly competitive market, the retailer that cannot meet this test will ultimately fail. And of course, increasing energy efficiency and reducing energy costs helps the bottom lines of companies and reduces overheads as well as being good for the environment. Being resource efficient is good business sense as well as good environmental sense. The report highlights examples of good practice in the Scottish retail sector, and I'm pleased to see a number of examples in my region of the Highlands and Islands. The co-op store in Kilmally Road, Cool Fort William has been that retailer's first shop to switch to biomass heating. The new system replaces ineffective electric heating with new fan coil heaters heated by £130,000 biomass boiler located in a purpose built building. The boiler runs on wood chips supplied from waste wood products and local forestry, which has masses run there. And this new system has allowed the store to make an annual saving of almost half on its existing energy bills and 90 tonnes in carbon emissions. The co-op plans to assess how effective this biomass pilot has been and then consider its use elsewhere. The new waitress store in Helensborough in Argyll and Bute was designed with all the latest technologies including LED lighting, low carbon water cooled refrigeration, low flush systems and waterless urinals. The Helensborough store also won the Scottish designer award. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I welcome today's debate and the opportunity to acknowledge the very good work being done by Scotland's retailers and to wish them every success in meeting the new targets that they've set for 2020. The sector's happy to work closely with the Government but certainly seems to be outperforming the public sector in achieving resource efficiency targets. I now invite Aileen McLeod to respond to the debate. I, too, would like to begin by thanking Graham Day for raising this important issue and for skewering time in the Parliament for this evening's debate, welcoming a more energy efficient retail sector. I am delighted that this Parliament is highlighting the Scottish Retail Consortium's publication, A Better Retail in Climate, which the Rural Affairs and Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead launched a few weeks ago in January, and to also welcome the SRC to the chamber this evening. I very much welcome leadership shown by the SRC's members in driving resource efficiency and in sourcing and producing their products in an environmentally responsible way. Clearly we agree that Scotland's retailers are to be congratulated for their focus on resource efficiency, both for their ambition and for the considerable progress that they have achieved. I would like to thank my colleagues for their contributions and to say that members have made some very valuable points. It was certainly very good to hear so many positive examples from their local constituencies. I am pleased that we are united in recognising the achievements of our retailers and the Scottish Retail Consortium. It is right that we give the sector the credit that it deserves. Margaret McCulloch made a good point about retailers' influence on their suppliers and, as there is good work in helping their suppliers out of cut resource costs, they are not alone. I will mention another example in a moment. Angus MacDonald also made some very relevant points around the benefits and opportunities of a circular economy. Of course, Scotland is already recognised internationally as an early mover towards a circular economy, but it can also commend Graham Day's constituent, Peter Sterling, who, as Graham Day said, was recognised by Mark Spencers for his outstanding contribution to sustainable farming for the Farming for the Future Produce Award for Scotland 2014 at last year's Highland show. There are a few things more important to a business than building a sustainable supply chain. The Scottish Government and its agencies, notably Resource Efficient Scotland, have played their part. Collaboration across retailers and brands through Government-sponsored initiatives, like we are told, and the product sustainability forum, are helping to drive progress and target effort to deliver the greatest environmental benefits, focusing on savings across energy, water and material use, and preventing waste. I am also aware that there are several individual examples of excellent work with Resource Efficient Scotland, such as Mark Spencers' efforts to improve resource efficiency throughout its Scottish supply chain, helping small and large suppliers to manage their resource use and reduce overheads, and Scotland's work on resource efficient retrofitting of its smaller stores, cutting energy use and reducing costs for the long term. This year, Resource Efficient Scotland will take its programme a step further by offering additional support to all our most resource intensive industrial sectors, including retail, through agreeing sector roadmaps for decarbonisation. Through the programme, we will support industry to reduce carbon emissions, while maintaining economic competitiveness. I am pleased that Resource Efficient Scotland is currently discussing with the Scottish Retail Consortium and British Retail Consortium how to develop a road map for the retail sector that can then inform an agreed programme of activity. That road map will complement those in preparation for other energy intensive sectors, such as food and drink and chemicals. Scotland's retailers have an enormous economic and social footprint, and the steps that the sector is taking to manage its environmental impact are an excellent reminder of the influence that it can have on consumer behaviour. Of course, it is now over. Four months since its charge for single-use carrier bags came into force, and already we are hearing anecdotal evidence of significant reductions in bag use among customers. That can only mean fewer discarded bags harming a natural environment and littering the streets in our communities. That is due, in no small part, to the hard work that retailers have put into helping their customers adapt. However, that is just one area where retailers' influence can change Scotland for the better. Just to answer the question that Jamie MacGregor asked, the Scottish Government has established the Resource Efficient Scotland, and that is precisely to work with businesses across all sectors to reduce energy, water and material use and to cut waste. To conclude, I very much welcome this debate. I thank Graham Day again for bringing this important debate to the chamber tonight. In doing so, he has enabled us to celebrate the good work that is highlighted by the better retail and climate report and the leadership that has been shown by Scotland's retailers in driving down resource use. Our retail sector has a very good story to tell, and it is to be commended for taking this issue as seriously as it has, particularly in terms of cutting carbon emissions and reducing its carbon footprint. The Scottish Government takes its role very seriously in this year's agenda because, ultimately, there are significant environmental and economic benefits for us all, and that is why I welcome the real progress that the retail sector has made thus far on resource efficiency and recognise that we must encourage continued partnership working in support of the move to a more circular economy. Many thanks minister. That concludes Graham Day's debate on welcoming a more energy-efficient retail sector, and I now close this meeting of Parliament.


Hunter's gonna be really strong in TBC. It's gonna be interesting. You know, you know what else we should be prepared for is TBC beta And that is almost guaranteed to drop today because I just got the install for it. Oh No, I just got the install for it. So it is up for me restart your battle that let's get this going It's game time boys Burning Crusade we are in we are in we are in whoa. What is this? Lighting It's just took my name Wait, why is that mature language? Yo, why is that mature language with the help? Hold on let's get it started dude. I am excited dude Happy birthday as fan. Check the talents. Oh There it is, dude the crusader strike. Oh Man Dude as I can't do it can't do what I can't I can't The crusader strike is staring me in the face, dude. How am I supposed to not go ret first? I Don't know. Oh, it's hard. It's hard. I don't know. We could try and find a prop halogen Like I'm sure we could find another prop halogen so big deal. Oh, okay. I'll think I'm still trying to decide I'm still trying to yeah. Yeah, I'm flying over right now I'm gonna do my talents and oh go back to your trainer. Make sure you buy all your skills.  Okay. I think there's a trainer and an honor hold. I'm not sure though. Can't remember chat Red or Prott thanks for the sex cult dungeon key Craig has him Dude I could go Prott. Oh that avengers shield dude Captain America. What is more Cornwood? Then Captain America break. I should make up my character named Cornwood I need it. I need the character named Cornwood to be my prop my prop halogen. Wait. What's your name? Zach Rar two hours at the end. Okay. Okay chat here. He is this will be my prop halogen Cornwood Cornwood will be the prop halogen chat. Let's see my food at the title scare of Lord. I the title scare of Lord Cornwood Just go wait. Where's my Grand Marshal? What is just Where's my Grand Marshal title? Okay? It's probably just bugged, but I got the scare of Lord dude former scare of Lord scare of Lord Cornwood former former former dude Sick oh Okay, I'm dude. I'm so hype man. I'm so pumped for this. I think I'm gonna go 51 points in Prott actually I Actually think I'm gonna go 51 points in Prott. So here's what we're gonna do chat. Oh beautiful chat. Oh I'm so hype man. I'm so hype for this. Okay plastic a sanctuary Reckoning spell warding will be good sacred duty one-handed weapon speck.  You get seal of blood at level 70 We will I could take two points out of spell warding and three points out of toughness and put them in like divine strength Or benediction or divine intellect. I don't think benediction is that good chat. Oh, I didn't get improved by just fury never mind Thank you. Okay Let's do that 51 points. Let's do it. Okay, this is see this is good This is why I always check my talents cuz whenever I do it off the cuff It's one of those things where sometimes mistakes are made Jen.  I mean, I'm just gonna go 51 just to get all these towns ardent defender combat expertise Sorry, I'm pumped. Let's head over man. Okay. I just clicked on booty Bay My muscle memory. It's okay. We'll head over in a second. It's tbc beta out right now. Yes, we're playing tbc beta right now I'm getting to it go to netherguard keep we're going to the blasted lands. Oh There it is avengers shield the chat interbays display helm cloak bug reporter bug when I removed helmet on Character it stayed on my portrait. I can't play the jet listen. It's the most important thing This game is completely unplayable now. Yeah, tbc is ruined chat tbc is ruined Oh, there it is chat spiritual attunement a passive ability that gives the paladins mana when healed by other friendly target spells The amount of mana equal to 8% of the amount healed This is why seal of blood is so good one of the reasons why seal of blood is so good and also wait savage play Dude, this is gonna be so fun. Like we're gonna be so stacked Over an honor hold right now. Okay. I'm gonna I'm working my way over there My like have a million different keybinds Asman and I are leveling together so I won't go too long after he ends dream I don't want to get ahead of him because that happened during classic launch And I think a lot of people felt this way like we me and Asman need to play together more We really don't and like really we haven't played together a lot in two years Like we didn't we didn't level in shadow lands together. We didn't we only played the very beginning of classic together Okay, here it is chat. Here's the dark portal Look at that. I think they have some layering active here or the alliance, but here it is, dude Okay, watch commander Ripley Travel through the dark portal find travel commander Duran for 20 years The dark portal has remained a silent monument a eulogy to a time long since forgotten Relthorn looks around. I never thought to see this day yet here We stand looking into the abyss on the other side of this gate We are locked in a savage war a war that we cannot win without support You must go through the dark portal and help our troops paladin cornwood Return report to commander Duran at once. He awaits you in Outland. Be careful. We go It's live. It's live.   Let's get the camera out here, man Max camera distance Look at that guy The pit commander This is the guy we're gonna try and take this guy out chat We're gonna try and get a group together to take this guy out If you guys are what if you guys are interested in trying to take out the pit commander the first thing we're gonna do Okay, go ahead and whisper me Whispers somebody in the raid for an invite.  Are we in same phase? There it is Strength Look at that man, Anna. Oh, thank you for the 20 gifted subs Crom. Thank you for the 40 months 40 months from Crom. I'm leaving no beard. I did imagine being mad. I shaved my beard.  I'm just gonna say it. You know what we're gonna do chat. You know what we're gonna do You guys are right You guys are absolutely right Complete and total character immersion. That's what we need right you got the long haired You have the chiseled jawline Tell me what we're missing chat We're missing the mustache. Okay We're missing the mustache. You're ready for this. Oh Saved okay, is that better? guys complete and Total character immersion. Are we happy now?   Don't I?   Okay. Look at this man. Oh commander doing I Have to I have to RP this is corn wood now the whole time because of my character Welcome now at land corn wood welcome to the nightmare through the initial expeditionary force made it through unscathed The Legion is attempting to retake the dark portal prevent any of our reinforcements from coming through As much as I'd like your aid here or troops and horde soldiers are able to fend off the Legion platoons that are attempting to take Control of this platform. We need you where your talents can be best utilized.  Well, listen now. I want you to speak with I'm a Schwann hammer Standing about 30 paces south of us and catch the first flight to honor hold when you arrive at honor hold You'll be greeted by Marshal Esseldor. You have to be prepared a report detailing our situation here Give him the report and tell him you're ready for duty You have our order soldier now move on out and through and though your blood must be burning to help us against the fiends below Waste no time here on our hold needs even more With all due respect there on we're getting a damn rate together.   Let's get to honor hold chat. You ready? well next safe Okay Marshall I'm trying to go to the fell river Espen. I don't know where it is Like I'm gonna check to see if mags layer is even available. Yeah, we should uh We should go try and just like I guess search for the fell river and see we can find them anywhere So you go check back there and on's I will I will look for the fell river Okay, look at that. Hey ready for the Avengers shield and ready Avengers shield This is an animation bug. That's not what my freedom is supposed to look like. You're the Frick Okay, bug number two press f6 to submit bug report Blessing of freedom animation is Flying into the sky, okay, that's two chat bug counter write it up, dude. Okay. Oh There is the fell river dude. I'm ready to take this dude.   Let's go guys. Everybody run in run in run in let's go


Γεια σας, είναι Vicky εδώ και καθώς ήρθω σε ένα άλλο βίντεο καταλαβαίνω. Σήμερα είμαι σημαντικός σημαντικός πρόταξης από το τελευταίο εργασμό by Simon Says. Και αυτή είναι η εργασμότητα της εργασμότητας που εξηγήσαμε στην νέα εργασμότητα. Παρακολουθήστε να μας δείξετε όπως θα βρήσετε πολλές εμπειρήσεις και πολλές δημότητες. Θα εργασμώ με το καταλαβαίνω με το καταλαβαίνω σημαντικό εργασμό μου από την εργασμότητα. Και αυτή είναι τα νόμια που δεν ουση πίσω, δεν είναι αρυπτικός και μπορεί να χρησιμοποιήσω όλες γυρώντες. Πήρα που εταίς από πράγματα μου για η τρεις εργασμό μου. Στους πάντρες μου θα δώσω και να εμπορύψω πολλές των νέων πρόταξων από την εργασμότητα. Ας βλέπεις τόσο δεν βλέπεις όλα τους εργασμούς. Ξεκινούν ναρώτω από τωρα πάντα ούτε. Και θα εργασμώ με όλα τα χάνες για αυτό. Εθνώ χρησιμοποιής και αλησιακός παρακολουσία. Αυτό είναι ο από να κάνω στα μία μωρατογη σε δυναμό για να μπορούσετε να κουταστατε για να αντιμετωπιθεί τίποτα και τώρα χρησιμοποιώ τα μηκάρα να χριανώ μηκάρες για να φέ Ostas. Τώρα, αυτό είναι το σ curry καλύτερ για μερικά τα και τα φαναδικά, ο Curry reference για ότι κάθε εστιακτήρηση έχει but the other two are perfect for just φαναδικά, στους τους καμιάλονταν ένα λίγο μπτ και ο επάλλο έχει πολλά λ Gates. Εγώ θα χρησιμοποιώ τα μηκάρα να χρησιμοποιώ τα μηκάρες, Αυτό είναι ο αλκοχόρμαρκος bytonic studios και θα πω χώρος σε όλα αυτά τα νόμματα. Δεν θα σας δείξω πώς θα χώρονται σε όλα αυτά τα νόματα. Μπορείτε να έχετε πολλά αλήθεια με αυτά τα νόματα, χώρονται σε διαφορετικά χώροντα και με διαφορετικά κομβόντα, για πολύ διαφορετικά λογές. Και εδώ έχουν όλα τα νόματα. Υπάρχουν σκέψεις για να τα κομβούνται.  Εαν θα πω χώρονται, θα μεταφαίνω με ένα βαίρο πόδο. Ξέρουμε πραγματικά ταστά fires to cut out. Και θα χωρίσαμε ένα από τις χένιστες είναινες, as a focal point, στους πανδ εξαιράς. Τα πρώτα χώρω χώρονται με μια εύκοση αδόρα. Και θα πω χώρονται με ένα άλλο πρότακτας, από το ιδιογρή. Με ένα εγγ. Υπάρχουν δύο τραγές και το τραγό που δίνει όλον το πιο καλύτερο με το πιο καλύτερο στον πιστό και το άλλο που κρατήσει την πιο καλύτερη σχέση του εγγραφού. Θα συμβουλήσω τα δυο από τα πιστόνια στον πιστόνιο και όπως μπορείτε να δείτε ότι έχω ένα μέσα στο άλλο και έχω ένα σκοτσίδι τραγό που μπορώ να πω. Λόγω έναν καλύτερο πιστόνιο στον πιστόνιο. Θα βρήξω με το τραγό μου και εδώ είναι το έργο. Τώρα, έχει been a while since I made a shaker card, so I am going for a shaker card today, which is one of those interactive cards that I absolutely love. You see here I am being very careful as I remove the washy tape, just to make sure that I don't make any booboos on my card, and here are all the different parts that I end up with. Now I am going to put my card together and for that I need to create a background. My basic card is 4.25x5, while the one with the egg window is slightly smaller.  And then I am going to use my Distress Oxide Inks in a lovely color combo. This is one of my favorite color combos when it comes to those inks. And that's Worn Lipstick and Spiced Marmalade. I am applying them with my good old blending tools, just because these are going to apply Distress Oxide Ink quite saturated, and that's what I am going for today. So I am going to blend them together. They blend beautifully these colors. Checking out if I have covered everything. And then I am going to add some splashes just because I love them. The water reacts with ink. I am going to leave it for a few seconds. And then I am going to blot it with some clean paper. And you can see all the splashes coming through. I just love this look. Now I am going to go ahead and put my shaker card together. So I will use some double sided tape at the back of the egg. Then I am going to peel off the backing and stick on top a piece of acetate that I have. You can use any packaging acetate. It would work beautifully for that. I tend to keep all the packaging in a drawer so that I can use it. And that's exactly what that is. Now my egg window is ready. I am going to stick this on top. And for that I will use my liquid glue. I am using Nuvo Deluxe here and I just add tiny little dots here and there. It doesn't have to be everywhere. It's going to stick nicely. And you can use for that a spray adhesive if you like.  So when you cut out this shape you can peel off the backing and it is a sticker. But I won't forget to do that before I do my die cutting. So that's the easiest way for me. It looks so pretty and it would make a great card just by using this egg die. Now at the back I am going to cover it up with foam tape. Just to create the pockets where I will add later on my shaker elements. Now have a jar of confetti. These are iridescent flowers. They are absolutely stunning. And they are by Studio Katia. I am going to link them down below. I am using my Nuvo handy spoon to apply them directly on my card. And then I have already peeled off the backing from my foam tape and I am going to stick the panel directly on top. It is a beautiful Easter card as it is. And think of all the variations with color combos that you can do. But I am going to take it a step further and I am going to stick that bunny gnome on top. I am using my white gel pen. This is a Uniball Signo white gel pen. And I am just adding some highlights here and there. And as I was playing with my white gel pen I couldn't help myself. I had to add some polka dots on my gnome. So you can see here some close up photos. Super adorable and really fun to create. Now let's move on to the second card. For this one I am starting with the background. Since I already have my gnome colored and cut out. For that I am working on a white cardstock which is slightly smaller than the standard card. And I am applying with my blending brush some ink. This is a tumbled glass. I mainly applied it at the top. And I wasn't going for the perfect look. I want this to be my sky. So some variation on color is good. It's going to look like highlights and clouds on my sky. And now I am going to use this layering stamp set. These are the layered tulips. You get only two layers for each one of those stamps. So two layers for the grass and two layers for the tulips. Pretty easy and it creates a beautiful look. I am going to start with the grass. And for that I am using Altenew inks. This is bamboo. And then I have aligned on top the second layer. And this time I am using parrot. Now I absolutely love how dark shades go on top of layered stamp sets. So I am going to stamp one more time just to get a darker shade on my grass. Now you can layer the tulips in between those grasses. They have empty spaces there. It's really easy to align them. And it is a very forgiving layering stamp. Now this is the first time I am using these tulips. They are quite solid. That's why I am just preparing them with my hands. Once they look quite foggy they are good to go. And then I am going to stamp the first layer. This time I am using coral berry. And think of all the beautiful tulips with different color combos that you can create. It's a lovely background for spring. Perfect for birthdays and pretty much for any occasion. Now I am going to layer on top the second layer. Again pretty easy to align. I am going to close the door. And this time I am stamping with a darker shade. Which is ruby red. The moment you stamp the second layer you see how the tulips come to life. And again just because I love that difference in color I am going to stamp it one more time to make it slightly darker. I am really happy with my background. This is perfect for my spring gnome. So again I am going to use one of my stitched rectangle dies. Try to align it. This is going to cut it out to be slightly smaller than my standard card. So I will end up having a white border. And at the same time it's going to give a lovely stitching. I added foam tape at the back of my sentiment. It says spring greetings. I just stamped that with black ink. And it is one of the sentiments from the spring gnome set. So this panel is going directly on top of my card base with foam tape at the back. And again I am going to pop the gnome on top. I love how the tulips are quite tall in comparison with the gnome. So it looks even smaller. I am going to add some highlights with my white gel pen. Since I had it on my table from my previous card. Sometimes I cannot help myself with my white gel pen and the highlights. And I am going to add some shine on my card. Just to make it extra special. For that I am going to use some gems. These are a mix from Pinkfresh Studio. And I am going to add some dots on all my tulips. Just to add a sparkle on each and every one of them. For sticking them down I am using little dots of white glue from my Nouveau Deluxe glue.  It's really handy to work with. And it's also very pretty. So I am going to call my second card done. I think it is lovely. And it would make a great birthday card for a spring birthday. And let's move on to the last card for today. This time I will be using a lovely adai. This is called Happy Birthday. And it gives you both the actual words as well as the outline. I have cut out the outline from my yellow cardstock. I tried to look through my stash to find a yellow cardstock that matches. The color of my gnomes outfit. And then I cut out the words Happy Birthday out of white cardstock. And I am going to stick one on top of the other. And here are some reasons why I keep on using my Nouveau Deluxe. I love how fine the tip is. I like that when it dries out it doesn't show. It completely disappears. And also it never clogs on me.  And this is going to be a window card this time. Not a shaker card but you can easily turn it into one if you like. I'm going to add some sky at the background. Making sure that I cover up completely the back of this window. And again since this can be a sky it doesn't have to be perfect. If you have some imperfections they look like highlights and the clouds. But for this card I have actually cut out a little cloud.  So I used this one. Now I'm going to stick this panel directly on top of my card base. And I have foam tape at the back for some dimension. I tacked my gnome inside the window but some of the details like his hat are coming out of the window. I always have to I love to have windows with things coming out of them. So I have used some dies that cut out leaves from my stash. Just to embellish my gnome a little bit and to create a lovely scene. Now I'm adding bits and pieces from my foam tape at the back of my sentiment so that I can pop it on top of my card.  I'm going to leave it as it is but I do have to add my white highlights since I did the same detail on the rest of my cards. So here are some close-up photos on the last card for today with my yellow gnome. So now let's take a look on all the three spring gnome cards that I made using products from the latest release by Simon Says Stamp. Don't forget this is part of a blog hope make sure to visit my blog you will find lots of inspiration along the blog hope and many giveaways. Thank you all so much for visiting today I hope you had fun that you got inspired and I'll see you all next time.


Felly ydych yn yw porfyniad yw'r arddangosol, mae'r ysgolio maeth yw'r ddweud yn siaradau, mae'r ddweud yn siaradau. Felly rydych yn ystod yn ysgolio, mae'n rhani'n eu bod yn ysgolio, mae'r ysgolio'n wedi bod yn ysgolio'r cyflei. Felly mae'n rhani'n ddweud, a'r ysgolio'n ddweud yn ysgolio'n ddweud yn ysgolio'n ddweud. there's nothing else up there at the moment, apart from that, this talk, and you can follow along at the moment, it should be up at the moment. But I'm hoping there will be in the future because I want to talk about this and share information about this topic a lot more. I'm hoping to be a bit more proactive. Me? I'm autistic, particularly, specifically aspergers. I'm high functioning. I actually realised about a year ago at Pycon UK, and then I got a formal diagnosis. I would say I'm 80-20, I'm 80% high functioning, completely normal, get on okay in social interactions, and I'm 20% completely dysfunctional. So, rather than being an even mix, I'm sort of some things, I'm perfectly fine and some things, I'm terrible at. So, as an example of that, I've been trying to work out ways of putting this in context. I've only been thinking about myself as an autistic person for a year. But I have never decided where to live. I'm 39 years old and I've never made that decision. I've only made it for the first time in my life, this year, as part of realising that I need to change and grow up and take more control of specific parts of my life that I've been allowing to go unthought about. Autism in general and aspergers. Autism and aspergers have been merged together in the latest DSM, which is the dictionary that defines particular psychological disorders. So, aspergers doesn't exist anymore. There's just autistic spectrum condition.  To my own perspective, 16% of autistic people are in full-time employment. For disabled people in general it's 48%. Actually, in this country we're doing fairly well, I know in other European countries like Switzerland, it's only 8% of autistic people are in full-time employment. And that includes the aspergers people. So, a lot of that 16% are the high-functioning people. High-functioning is defined as an IQ of over 70, which is quite a low IQ. I'm sure most of the people in this room are past that anyway. And aspergers is defined as not having any language difficulty, whereas classic autism includes language problems, as well as an IQ of below 70 if you're not high-functioning. Clearly, I'm at the very high-functioning level in terms of autistic people when I sort of go and spend time with them, I realise that actually most of them wouldn't even put themselves in the situation of standing up here and talking and also wouldn't be able to sort of cope with it. I don't want to spend too much time looking at a formal definition of autism. You can go on Wikipedia or anywhere like that, just read up on it. I would like to talk about some of it from the inside out. Just give my picture of it, which I think is particularly interesting in a STEM environment because it definitely seems to occur a lot more in these environments. And also I think a lot of people in an engineering, science background are sort of partially autistic or just somewhere up the scale. Repetition and obsession is one of the most notable, famous characteristics of autism and social awkwardness. There's over stimulation is one of the things that's less talked about outside of autistic circles, but it's one of the things that most affects high functioning people that you feel as if there's this flood of sensory information coming in all the time. There's no filter, there's no sort of... Whereas it feels like there should be a layer between you and everything else that sort of thins this out. You've just got this flood of visual information, of audio information, of smells, things like that sensation. And it's absolutely overwhelming, just this sort of influx into your brain. This leads to meltdowns, which can be from too much social problems when you've been socialising a lot and you can't cope with it, or sensory input. If there's excessive sensory input for a long time, you can completely lose it. I'm at the level that when I completely lose it, I'm often quite good at hiding the fact that I'm having a meltdown, or of stopping myself, seeing that this is coming, predicting it, and going, okay, I just pulled myself out of those environments, go for a walk, and you just wander off. That's fine. When people at the lower end, this can be a complete breakdown for hours and hours and hours. And it ties in with... This is not a medical term, but fizzy mind. This is my term for what's kind of going on in your head of this, with this sort of sensory input flowing in constantly, and it's just bubbling and bubbling and bubbling, and you can't control it, you can't rest, you can't manage it or deal with it. And also, this isn't something that's in the official definition of autism, but it's something I have massively noticed in my dealing with fellow autistic people that I've started to meet, is stubbornness, and a willingness to sort of be completely unreasonable about things, because arbitrary reasons. It's whatever it is that you've decided is your way of doing something, you will stick and fight to that. It also has lots of correlations and what they call co-morbidities. There seems to be a cluster around ADD and ADHD to the extent that these may even be different aspects of the same condition. But not a lot is known about sort of where autism comes from. It is defined from a symptomatic point of view, so it could even be that there are multiple conditions which all cause the same symptoms, but around dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, ADD, ADHD, autism, there seems to be a clustering around them. If you have one, you're much more likely to have another. I have dyslexia as well, it happens. Insomnia is really common in autism, and one of the greatest benefits of being diagnosed as autistic is, oh, okay, my insomnia that I've had for so many years, turns out actually there's things I can do with it, simply just sleeping with a blindfold on. You have an eye mask, something like that, block out all sensory, all visual sensory input, has a massive effect. My sleep has gone from, I pretty much get good 7-8 hours every night. The other thing that works really well about putting an eye mask on is it's a signal to yourself. You can't do anything else, you can't sort of, oh, actually I'll just read, I'll play with my phone, because you're blind for the moment. That's been wonderful. Low muscle tone affects 40% of autistic people. This isn't just a neurological condition, there are issues outside of that. Now these may be secondary that are caused by, I don't know, not exercising or something like that, but low muscle tone and clumsiness are heavily associated. Alcoholism correlates very highly with autism. I myself drank very heavily, consistently for about 15 years, and again one of the benefits of realising that that was a way of coping with fizzy mind, insomnia, stuff like that was alcohol. It also makes social interactions a lot easier when you have awkwardness, you are with a group of other people who are all drunk and you care less about getting things wrong and they care less. Eating disorders, particularly anorexia and bulimia in women correlate highly with autism and digestive problems in general. Again, no one knows why, but there are physical symptoms of autism, not just neurological. There's lots of neurological differences. Two interesting ones, autistic people on average have larger brains than neurotypical people and even in brains of the same size they have more neurons and more connections between neurons with less large branch connections throughout the brain. If you imagine, if this was a street map, this is like a map of lots of tiny back streets and the way I think of it is, for thoughts to get from one place to another, it's a much finer journey of lots of tiny back streets you haven't got this simple straightforward, oh, I can take a highway from there to there. Everything's always going through these tiny roots and at any point it's subject to, oh, actually I'll go this way or I'll go that way or things happen like that. Benefits, there are benefits to being autistic. If I was given the option to be neurotypical and just be completely normal, I'd like to do it for a day, maybe two days, try it out, but no. I like who I am anyway, so I like the benefits. A lot of my success in my career has come through the benefits. Systemising, thinking in systems, constantly thinking in systems and seeing the systems, pattern recognition, all these things are a common aspect of autism. To the extent that actually you can go too far. A common thing I do is over-systemise things including the way I walk down pavements where I'm looking for dualities of slabs, triples are bad and I mustn't step on them. You over-systemise even things like that. In central London I'll just leap into a different vein of traffic in order to correctly touch those two slabs because otherwise I'll have to do a three over there which is no good and doesn't make you terribly popular. Repetition and obsession aren't definitely their positives and negatives, they're on both sides. If you're obsessed about something good or useful, that's actually really useful and tied in with insomnia and things like that, I have in the past spent insane numbers of hours just focused on building things, creating things and the repetition is useful in learning. I'm happy to repeat things over and over again until I get them right. I enjoy trampolining and unlike most of the other people there, I will happily do the same jump over and over and over again for an hour, fine-tuning it, perfecting it, whereas they need to keep changing and doing different things all the time. Radical honesty is something I value in other autistic people and autistic type people. If you ask an autistic person for their opinion on their honest feedback on something you've done or think about you, you better be prepared because it will be genuinely honest and it will just... I value that and I enjoy talking to other autistic people about things like that because we're just completely open with each other. In a work context, sometimes too open, don't always know which parts of my life I shouldn't be sharing with my colleagues. Originality of thinking, certainly you see in Aspergers a lot, it might just come because of a low inability to learn what we should be thinking. We don't take feedback well from society because we're sort of slightly stepped out of it, we're not involving too much. We just haven't been railroaded into a particular route and therefore we can think of these stupid, insane things without any checks, more spare time. I read insane amounts of books and when I talk to people, how do you manage to reach so much? Well, if you don't go out and don't socialise, you can get loads more time to do stuff. This is actually a benefit. It's something I'm trying to work back on and spend more time socialising and being that kind of person actually. It's been unhealthy for me to... but actually I've learned so much that I wouldn't have done if I had a social life. Attention to detail, focus on detail. Partly we can see things. It seems like we can see things that other people can't just because all that raw input is coming in and you can like... Oh look, there's a thing over there. People haven't seen it, they haven't noticed it and also I think a literal mindedness of caring. That's there to tell me. I've spent too much time on that slide. This is why my timing is terrible because another common thing you see in autistic people is just when they start talking they just pause out, they're just sort of splurging this torrent of kind of all the thoughts coming out and I have trouble actually pulling back and only saying small things. There's an archetype of an aspergers person. I think this... you see this, it tied in well with Eiffel. Daniel Procedars' talk earlier. He was talking about the naive programme of the naive artist. I think that's actually an asperger's artist. The people who can stay naive for their entire career. And you see this sort of archetype of the mad scientist, the mad artist sort of... In fact, Hans Asperger himself said it seems that for success in science or art a dash of autism is essential. I think there's some degree of truth to that and I think that's possibly why autism exists. We have evolved to have autism in society. It's there for a reason, and I suspect that might be the reason that one or two people... It's crippling to the vast majority of people who have it, but one or two people benefit greatly from it. And quite a few self-made billionaires have aspergers. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett probably does. If you read any biographies of him, he comes across as aspergers. Ray Dalio as well. So, the workplace bit. How does this affect the workplace? Oversimulation. This is really common in open-plan offices and as we seem to be moving more and more towards open-plan offices and no personal offices, the flood of nights, the movement. If you've got one of those... a desk where you're facing onto the open-plan office, this constant shifting movement is awful. Noise as well, conversations constantly sort of trying to tune out other people's conversations and only focus on the conversations in your head. I find particularly difficult and I find myself listening to everything everyone says in the office. And actually what I've just done is got quite good at listening to other people's conversations while still working and then just interrupting when I've noticed that they're wrong about things. Smell is one that people kind of forget about, but if you wear strong perfume or strong deodorant, that actually really affects us. One of the changes I've made that's been beneficial is unscented washing powder, unscented shampoo, unscented shower gel, things like that. And just get rid of as much of that sort of artificial sense from my life and it's had a huge benefit for me. Unfortunately it means I'm now even more sensitive to the smells of other people.  And there seem to be people who can't quite tell the difference particularly in gym changing rooms. You can't tell the difference between deodorant and air freshener. You don't need to spray it in a big thing around you. And I think we all know headphones are a huge benefit. You don't have to listen to music. If you find music distracting, noise-canceling headphones or just big headphones, a signal that you're doing something, and b, block out lots of annoying noise. Oh gosh. Resting whatever face. So my default face, fairly austere, slightly sort of not welcoming, I didn't know that when you make eye contact with someone and they, if you don't smile or respond, that's actually quite aggressive. So for 39 years, whenever someone, I made eye contact with someone, I just kept my default slightly austere face. Turns out people thought I was deeply arrogant, aggressive, you know, had its benefits. Apparently I came across as quite a powerful person in the office because of this. I've now got, oh okay, right, so when I make eye contact with people, I need to smile or react in some way to the fact that we've made eye contact. I'm still learning, trying to turn that into a habit, I'm learning to do that and actually I have to constantly be in my conscious mode of thinking about who am I making eye contact with, am I doing the right facial expression, and also trying to make it genuine, because if I'm concentrating on too much on that, I can actually do really stupid smiles, which makes people think I'm autistic. So in the work plate, and one thing I found from this is, okay, you're right, I'm actively practising, correctly smiling at people, making eye contact, I make eye contact with someone, smile at them, I get nothing in response, they've just got this stony face.  Maybe the person who isn't responding to you, or who seems austere, or who seems powerful but distant, is actually just autistic, and they don't know any better, and they don't know how to come forward and come out of this. So in the work place, one thing I'm trying to do is also forgive other people who aren't correctly being as friendly to me as I feel they should. Don't fall socialising in the work place. It's great that it happens, I'm perfectly happy for you to go off and socialise as a group, I don't need to be part of that, sometimes I might try and come along, sometimes I won't.   I like to have serious conversations about a topic. If we tolerate meltdowns, not just autistic people have them, other people have them, we don't need to turn it into a whole issue that if someone has a genuine breakdown it doesn't have to be something that is then analysed and everyone feels sorry about or awkward about. Equally if someone blows up in anger because that might just be because of sensory issues throughout the day, just let it go. Certainly if they are autistic or of that type it will just sort of go away an hour later. Nothing, it's fine. You can have a massive argument blazing around with someone and then it goes away and it's fine. Autistic people are less liked to be mentored, they're less likely to come forward and ask for help. This isn't just autistic, there are also shy people as well. But I've never, and again this was something Danielle was talking about earlier, that you get these people who have been autodidactic for in my case 12 years of programming with no real mentoring or guidance from anyone else so I've developed a very idiosyncratic style. By coincidence it's a very good style but it's my own very idiosyncratic one. Work patterns, I won't go into this too deeply but the future is scary and the unknown is scary particularly when you know you're going to struggle adapting to it. Agile and campan are wonderful, anything like that where you can see the future, this is what the next few weeks is going to be like, this is what I'm going to do. I just have to work through a list of things. Someone is juggling that and thinking about that so I'm going to sit down and concentrate and do this ticket, this ticket, this ticket, this ticket. A prefiguring change, if you're moving offices, if you're going to change the code base, if you're going to change libraries, change language, anything like that, just coming in one day and going right, everything has now changed, we're doing things differently, you will certainly get autistic people fighting you just on principle. They may even want the change but they don't want sudden change that they can't control. Just prefigure it over a series of time leading up to it and it's all much easier. Meetings don't expect people to speak up. I particularly notice this in engineer business meetings where there's both sets of people there and the engineers would just be silent or when we have retros, we had mixed retros, there was commercial people and engineers. The engineers had massive problems, they were so... There was such a culture clash and they were really upset and they were angry and had all these issues but they wouldn't speak in retro and the commercial guys, it was just all them talking. They were very much at the not at all autistic end of that spectrum and they dominate that. You need to actively manage discussions. The other problem being when autistic people do get to speak in those meetings, someone sort of said, what do you think, like me, they just spew out tons and tons of information and won't know when to stop and can just keep talking and talking and you need to actively manage that and shut people up sometimes. All meetings benefit from conscious active management of the discussion rather than just letting this sort of amorphously flow because then you only get stuff from the confident people who are all agreeing with each other as opposed to people with these new ideas, things like that. So in general, there's lots of things I can see we can change, we can improve. I think they will help everyone. I think less noise, less smell is going to be a problem for anyone. It will benefit everyone in the office. I'm particularly interested in it from the point of view of autism but I think it's good for everyone. I think managing meetings is good for everyone in the workplace and I think the STEM environment engineering science skews towards autism so I think it can help this environment more. That's it. Please give me feedback. I love feedback. I prefer negative feedback to no feedback. Please ask me questions. I want to try and make more noise about this and do more talks. If you know of anywhere where I can try and talk, I would love to. Hopefully I will actually stop blogging and talking more about autism within a sector. This is my first little foray into it. Thank you.


Ferulic acid, FA, is a natural phenolic phytochemical found in seeds and leaves that provides rigidity to the cell wall and forms other important organic compounds. It exhibits various biological activities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and hepatoprotective effects, among others. This article was authored by Nuresh Kumar and Vikas Pruthi.


Okay next talk gonna be Getting our software on user sense and I'm happy to introduce you Alex. Enjoy Well, we need me thanks for being here I'm going to talk about getting the software and the user's hands. This talk is going to be a bit about Spelling the obvious because sometimes it's needed There's a lot of assumptions that we're taking for granted and I would like to well challenge some of them and some other just Well discard them To get started. My name is Alish. I I work for blue systems and during the day and during the night I do the rest of the things I do just mostly I'm part of the board and I develop in several KD projects like K develop and Katie at you and so on Also, I have a life outside of Katie Some people like to know that Sorry Yeah, apparently have a cat. I can tell you about him later So today we're talking about we're people who makes software who makes applications and What does it look like our our work and as Katie as a as a community? What do we do? the developers in Katie what what we do is We push our code to get and then there's two kinds of projects some of them are Released through the release team and the magical releases. So you just put the things in the right branching it and they have automatically Appear in in the user system somehow There's another kind of projects which is the ones that we used to call extra gear now We don't really have a good name for them But basically instead of having a release team you get the release team hat you put it on and then you create a package out of the software the the code we have In git and then some other sources such as the translations our place somewhere else and then The icons can be also in weird places and so on but essentially what we are doing then is is we release tar balls tar balls are The obvious I was talking about They are source code and they are useful for not really anybody because it's basically redundant with the what we have in git and It's not something that the user can use as as is when the user definitely he will have a compiler He will have All of the libraries in his system and he can compile all of the stuff But essentially this tar ball is not fun to use especially taking into account that people are used to things being reasonably automatic lately and And so on nobody wants to spend 20 minutes or even one hour or five hours to compile the applications so This has been like that though for the last 20 years three server projects release tar balls and then there's People from the woods who come and turn those into things that can be used by by by actual users And this has a certain amount of problems that I will I will I will enumerate a little bit To be able to explain my point of view. The first one is that Since it's the People from the woods who come and turn the the the source code into things that people can use It's them who decide what versions are people allowed to to be using and That can be a bad thing It's good. It's a good thing that there is somebody who is thinking about the user and deciding what think the people should be doing But on the other hand as developers we we like to think that we work for the user And that we work for the people and then when we fix something we expect it to get to the people If the last table version is not on the people's and our users computers we get frustrated This leads to a lack of feedback the if I talk to somebody who's using an LTS release about K develop he will tell me about he will give me feedback about the problems He we used to have in 2012 or in 2014, but not the problems we have now. So it will be a Sad Conversation where he will tell me yeah, we have this problem and then I will say yeah, I remember we something like that Bad times right and then he will not and say yes, I use a stable system So that's why my system is not working or your application is not working and the The problem can be extrapolated to all of the most of the end user application that the the people are using because most of the rules that Are being followed for the for deciding which software to bring to the user are Thoughts for system components such as open SSL or The kernel but not really for Katie at the applications or K develop or office switch, right? But things are like they are right and then as well in Katie We are not only about Linux. We try to think about other platforms because we think it's important and then those minions from the woods Like Linux, but apparently they don't like compiling things for other applications of platforms They don't do windows things. They don't do OS X things. They don't do Android things which are platforms that We like it or not. They're very important like the people we want to get to are often in these platforms and And we want to serve these people as well Despite their lack of taste when it comes to choosing an operating system or a kernel for that matter So anyway, we need to find solutions for that problem for the other platforms because Nobody's going to come from elsewhere and solve the problem for us and in the end We've had to solve the problem as well for for other cases such as the CI. We have an immense set of of computers in the Clouds that are already compiling everything we're doing and in a more very similar Way than the distributions are compiling the things. Of course, there's technical differences, but most of them are not very interesting and In general, it always seems a logical and a good idea that we could be leveraging that But at the moment what we're doing is just throwing it away and That's what if I think about how the communication goes it it's a bit like this So us as developers we have some things on get those things We get feedback from the CI the CI tells us some things about those but the things that We know about for example that the CI is trying those things are discarded because we don't nobody cares about what these computers are doing Right. We just cared about about the warnings at least nowadays on the other hand like I said that those things we have On on get the developers puts on get Is a feedback that the distributor gets and then the distributor pushes the problem the server to the user And then the user has something that some developers worked on in the past by Random tea depending on the distribution you use in fact one of the big Decisions you take when you choose the distribution or another is whether this tea is going to be bigger or old, right? Like the arch Linux user will tell you he likes arch because he really wants to use a lot stuff And then the Debian person will tell you I really like to use old stuff. It doesn't really work this way But it feels that way But in general what the part we're interested in is the red line right like all of the developers or Maybe 95% of the developers in Katie are interested in in in making things for the user making sure that the user is Fed the the best software we can offer him right and And when the user gives us feedback, we don't want the feedback from something that we already Produced in the past, but we want something that is the freshest the possible and and well As Katie and as the people who care about about this problem it sounds like it should be our UT a little bit to See how to improve it prove it So to spell it a bit the problem is that we're not being efficient at solving the problems of the users when the user has the problem is Not at the moment where we can Solve it very often We have some mechanisms, right? Some some of the things we we try to do is to have a separate branch which is basically It's basically what the code used to be when we released that version and We solve things over there and then release Those things from the past again, but that has problems as well, right? It has problems because we have to spend time making sure that some other branch which is basically nothing that The current development team has in his mindset. We're we have to care about it and Then we also have the LTS releases, which is the same solution, but just at It's making the problem a bit a bit bigger, but We still make sure that the people who are using things from one year in the past. They are Not really miserable, which is a good thing But it's still not the solution so when we talk about we want to provide the people the best solution the best Linux operating system that we're looking for we're not talking about Having lots of branches and lots of of stable releases at least that's that's how I see it And I am confident that somebody should or would have to Tell me I'm wrong But I don't see that this is going to be the way that Linux is going to become stable It's going to become useful that the ways I see Linux being useful is by making sure that what the The community spends their time on is the things that the the the users can profit and benefit from so What's the what's the conclusion there the conclusion there is that everyone is sad developers are sad because they spend time fixing things and The users keep Being sad because the things that the developers Sadly did wrong they cannot leverage them and the distributors are in the middle So if a user asked distributor, he will tell you that the developers are doing the job wrong And if the developers tell the distributors the distributors will say well That's our rules and and we need to be played by them because otherwise the wall is craziness, which is true but then Well compromises, I guess I don't know The CI is always sad Because it's doing so many things and nobody's using them, right? So we've been talking about distributions the new trend nowadays is to talk about Phoenix bundles I'm going to talk about a little bit about the bundling bundling systems We have nowadays and then I will talk about the other platforms I want this second part of the presentation to Provide a bit of perspective on how I think we could could solve the problems of outline Otherwise you would be all sad as well when you leave the room and that wouldn't be nice That's why you also make these bad jokes because it's good for the for the brain So knowing this problem one of the big companies in the in the ecosystem I Want to say redhead, but theoretically this is a no idea I don't know. I'm not gonna get into into politics anymore It's interesting because they have exactly the same problems as us and they are trying to solve it How are they trying to solve it? Well They came up with a format where you can Compile applications as upstream and then you can distribute it to everyone who uses Linux These more or less works the idea how it would work on flat back is that when you use an application This application would be run on a sandbox environment and then every organization such as LibreOffice, GNOME, KDE could have a repository or 23 and then you could get the software from it then This is what So to create those packages they came up as well with a format so that you can create the packages easily They support something they call platforms. So since we don't want to have huge packages They they give you the possibility to create for each application one version of what we could consider is the SDK of the platform We use that on on on other platforms like Apple or Windows we have some SDK which is a base where you can build all of the applications That's something that that wouldn't work on on Linux or at least that's not how we work So basically each of us can decide to use a platform and then live with it What I did when I started looking into Flatback is create one a Big package kind of thing that has all of cute it has all of the key frameworks and a couple of components we need to integrate properly and then go by it So basically you say which is the runtime you're using which is the SDK thing then the name of the application. This is the Things you want the sandbox to expose and then you list the modules you want to have compiled within your your bundle It's interesting to note that Everything that is not part of the platform is part of the developer to decide To bring in one of the big problems we have nowadays with the current model of package systems is that When you're developing your application, you have to you can't assume that any of the libraries around you is going to be consistent and That's a problem because some versions will have some problems and some other versions will have other problems The solution is clearly always let's fix it. Let's fix it upstream and make sure everything works But when we want to provide an auto-contained Solution we often want to be able to say well That's what what it looks like for me And that's what it's going to look like for my users and it's it's really powerful to be able to say I've tested that you can use that other than I tested this code send it to the Sky and then you will get something that it's an outcome and probably will look similar to what I sent But you never know that it's exactly the same. So here Specifically I get to say Which is my application which is the the libraries I depend on I can specifically say which are How they are compiled so I have full control of them and Then I get some output that is what the user would get Also, it's not really necessary to use this format. There's More hackeric ways of getting a package. It's just convenient. Did you have a question? You know these girls have these deaf package and then the binary package for libraries It's more or less the same. So you don't want to have a huge runtime You don't want application to require a huge runtime, right? So some things will be stripped out of it because are things that they are things that you only need for compiling applications So it's just split Then there's nappy which is Similar solution also to be able to run applications on every Linux by every little thing in every Linux distribution to some extent it's also using some unboxing and they use a partner for the sandboxing and Instead of having this repository for each distribution they more like plan to provide a huge kind of store To to offer all the applications where you can list them you can have them up there some rating reviews and stuff like that and They also have their own little Format we can look at it a bit So that oh of course not But let me see if I can get internet connection Well, it will take a while Anyway, maybe it's it makes sense to get back to it later If I don't have it yet, I did have it so that's that's the example that they they suggest So it's obviously the nice one But it can give you a bit the idea. So you basically Sorry Yeah, it's a good idea thinking how this isn't off Well, kind of basically here. It's interesting. They are using a lot more the Semantics of of Ubuntu and devian packaging, but basically you pull the dependencies you need as well Here they're talking about binary packages and then you explain a bit how you want it to be executed since all of those systems need some kind of magic to happen to To make sure that the applications will run properly and we'll know about the right environment variables and the right Places of the system. They usually have these things here. They're talking about the Qt5 launch But I mean that's what it's going on there I Want to show as well another example Which is using neon so in Katie we have Advantage that a lot of things have been already being packets for Ubuntu So this is for an application as well So what they're doing here is instead of of compiling the application when you create the the bundle is already Pulling the the application itself and and putting it in the package and then it more or less works What what I really like about these Processes and I think it's something we should look into is to make sure that it's a developers that Create those packages because it's a developer who tests what the end user will be using and It's not some machine that produces something and then it's goes untested That that could be bad. I don't really have good solutions for that yet because we're not doing it so Well, oh, so if you have questions about those you can ask Scarlett and Harold they know more about it than I do and Then the third I wanted to mention is up image Up image The developer is also here in the room. So I will be a bit careful with what I say I don't want any tomatoes but the idea a little bit is It's a very different approach. The other two is about providing something part of the system that We'll be able to execute applications here. What we're talking about. It's a system that will You download the file you click the file and the application is executed deal with it so the It's relying on how Linux works and how Linux has been working for a long time So the advantage clearly is that it's retro compatible by some definition of retro compatible I don't know if it's very easy to be able to tell whether an application is going to work on any system or not It's probably not possible But then it's not possible with snappy or flatback anyway as well because you need to be able to have the runtime on all systems which they want The big difference as well is that the other two solutions provide some boxing solutions Which is important because here we are talking about users installing binaries from random places from the interwebs, so Having some kind of security is is a good idea up image leaves that up to the system. So Well, since it is retro compatible It means that on the normal systems you have nowadays there won't be any kind of of security So you will have to trust whether you're downloading it from Maybe in the future this can be looked into Anyway, you can talk about that with Simon. I don't know anything about it Yeah, we can look at the recipe for K develop for For up image it's a bit a bit Scary, so I will just say take into account. It's a complex application. Don't Don't expect something big, but it's basically a by script So I don't know if you saw there was a docker thing before the idea is that you create a docker with a very old Linux system such as CentOS 6. I think it's they're using and then you Compile your pool you compile all of the dependencies you install them somewhere and then out of it you create the package So as you see it's what I was saying it's The Linux we are talking about we're talking about things that have been possible to do on Linux since long time it just we're doing it now because now it's trendy and Ten years ago. It wasn't handy But some of these things probably should or could have been able to be done back then Then on Android we're doing something similar Android I started working on it with the idea that it's when you create the when you develop the software On using the same build system and build directory you get to generate the APK Which is the thing you send to the device or to the app store. So it's part of the development process Here it's the documentation. I don't I don't know of any person that has a Scripted it's obviously possibly possible to script. You just need to script see make make make install and then make create APK This is all the documentation we have What we tried there is to make sure that it's the same development process that that you use on on Linux Interestingly, it's the opposite way of how all of these systems work on on flat back. They created their own tooling So if you want to develop using flatback from your application from K develop What you should end up doing or you would end up doing is calling the flatback tools that we'll call the source code somewhere But you won't be able you won't be calling make theoretically or You will be calling make through flatback so that things happen On what we're doing on Android is we're just using normal CMake and cross compilation on on Android OS X The new trendy thing on on the KD cross compilation world nowadays is to use something we call a merge This is This is Kate I think I'm not seeing it from here Yeah, so here you see there's a weird loop. It's because they try to compile K write and Kate on the on the same script But basically what it does is? That's the icons remove the things they don't want and then they create the DMG to With the Mac deployed cute thing Yeah, that's only for deploying isn't it well there There's been this tool for and I forgot windows But what I wanted to say is that on OS X on windows? We're using some tool that was created for the KD windows guys that basically pulls all of the dependencies and outputs lots of binaries and From there we create the formats that are used for on those platforms Let's say an MSI for Windows and the MG for For for all sex, but what we're trying here is on all of those platform firms to be Like the most native as possible right like to make sure that the what the user gets from us is something similar That what the user would get from another normal project in in the platform so to sum up we have an opportunity to create a better flow of a better experience between What the user has with and what the developer is offering and what the developer can offer when the user is not happy We don't want to compromise the stability actually having applications outside of the system construction part I Think that it's a good opportunity for so that distributions can rely more on LTS services services solutions, so You won't have to upgrade your Linux distribution so often as soon as you can just upgrade the applications Which is actually what you often want to have up to date right that what you usually interact with? It's with with Kate you want to have all of the features on Kate on K develop you don't want to miss out on those but One is not often really eager to have The last version of network manager it can it can happen and on those cases you will have all of the Linux possibilities But I think that for a user it will The bundling solution makes the most sense when When using an LTS solution Which means happy users and happy developers because we have these Cycle of feedback solved and the system distributors they can focus on making actual Secure and solid systems and that they don't have to be worried about the packaging of all the applications Which I understand it's a problem at least to some level right Because then they need to have these two heads like the people are asking them for Never releases, but what their problem usually is is that they want to offer really good SSL a really good kernel a really good base but An application doesn't applications don't play by the same rules Then as as KD we need to also decide a bit how we would like to work like is it really the developers who need to be providing those packages or Should it be the CI system or the CD so continuous distribution system? Or should we the be the release team that they're outputting all of that? I mean everything has ups and downs. Nobody likes to have to test a package or nobody likes to have to Well compile something weird, but then on the other hand It's it's useful and it will give us the that experience I was talking about that you're testing the same thing that the user is I Think it's related to the that problem that we want to make sure as well that Those new systems that are starting are really part of the development process So it's not ideal that the developer is using For example, let's say may make install for for using his development And then when he makes the final version he starts using the snappy or flatback or whatever he's using I think ideally the developer should be compiling every time the the thing that will be Tested in the end and that what we'll also make sure that the the thing that has been tested and that has been developed on He's the thing that you're using you don't want that on the last step you see to see that lots of assumptions are broken and then we need to make sure that we Done By turn on hands we need to make sure that security isn't Compromised Linux hasn't had lots of problems because of viruses and one of the big reasons for that has been that most of The software we've been getting is from distributions at least that's my impression you can correct me if you think I'm wrong But that's my impression Having things coming from elsewhere could be a problem All of us we've tried if you use Android you see that whenever you want to install something that coming from outside they made you Check out some checkbox That That is saying basically don't let things come from the outside It's not that things from the outside are bad by definition, but while trusting human nature is not also ideal on every case We also need to make sure that Adapting these solutions is bad for When it comes to integrating with the system being in a sandbox environment. It's good. It's great makes everything more Makes everything safer, but then it it is a barrier of communication you have with the whole system It's not bad bad by definition, but it will it will pose problems in the Moments and we need to solve them and it's good that we solve them as early as possible So we see them coming an example is that it's really common nowadays that applications talk with things in the system through debuts that doesn't really work by default on on any of the Sandboxing systems not on on flatback not on snappy it's possible to do and On the desk the test we've been doing it's it can be done But then it's something you need to request and it's something that you need to take into account That's all and then system resources. We don't want that The user by adopting these technologies. He starts wasting his system resources that he has paid for When buying his laptop just because there's a new fancy technology. We don't want less memory by default We don't want less this space I mean we need to make sure that we're doing good good use of the resources Some might be lost, but we don't we need to make sure we're not going back by orders of magnitude That's that's my perception And now if you have any questions you can make any questions So you presented like three different solutions, right? I was wondering if any of these have Have an answer for like optional dependencies because traditional Distributions had like you had K developed and you had the PHP plugin which you can install and then you get a new feature in K Can you do that with this? It's possible to do. It's not trivial So both of them they have on snappy they call them Interfaces yes on on on flatback. I don't remember, you know Yeah, well anyway, the problem is that you need to make sure that the The whole build dependency tree is the same right because otherwise people I have people things may not Work together properly and then you would have problems and I think that one of the interesting parts of this is that Maybe then it's K develops responsibility to offer PHP in in in the bundle. I mean it shouldn't be that hard, right? Well depends on the case right there is this desktop environment I think it's called plasma which has plugins that are called plasmoids and you don't want to install them all by default, right so Well, another another interesting discussion is whether we would make sense to have plasma as As a process or the plasma shell in a bundle, right? it would have good things but then plasma especially it's one of those things that connects to everything like crazy and Well, I don't know we should look into that at least at some point. Maybe Which provides the basis for the actual Samples application so it can't be in the sandbox. It must be outside challenge accepted Shit, I said that Sorry, I think you need something outside Which would present you a window like for file dialogue or something like that at least that could be queen as well, right? Sorry, that could be queen as well, right? What queen what is the window manager? I give it now. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's that could be also I doubt Quinn we can make it a bundle Maybe we can I don't know. I mean we definitely can we can also have a demon, right? It it's not like we're forced to take an approach Anymore question? Yeah. Hey, I'm Simon. So I'm the app image guy I just wanted to clarify one point about app image Which is actually not so much a system for building what's going into the image, but really a format for The image itself. So it's it's a bundling format, which doesn't define what you put inside Which is entirely up to you you can think of it as Basically a disk image that is mounting itself when you execute it and then executes whatever you put into that disk image So far the project hasn't been about how you create that stuff that goes into it So in theory you could use existing Dab files unpack them put them inside or you can go the way shown here That's obviously much more work by spinning up a centos virtual machine and compiling stuff there. So By the way, I will be holding a lightning talk about app image It's actually the very last one in the very last room today So if you have more questions or would like to chat about app image, I would be happy to see you there Thank you So there seems that we are back at having two standards at least to do the same thing maybe three If you had to bet money, where would you bet your money? I?  Anyone else? No one okay, that's your text. Thank you


Tonight, we finish up our three-part series on the problems facing the workforce in rural communities. In our third and final report, we take a look at perhaps the most important part of the series, which is the solution to the workforce shortage. Our Logan Gaye is with us now in our Brainerd studio with more. Logan? Yes, Dennis. Well, the workforce shortage may seem like an overwhelming challenge for the Brainer Lakes region, but business leaders are already working on the solution, and you may be surprised about what it is. When it comes to finding a solution for the workforce shortage, experts have set their eyes on the future. The Bridges Academies and Workplace Connection was created to bridge the workforce gap. What we do is we use high school curriculum to put certain courses together that lead to a specific career. Rural communities like Brainerd are facing a mass exodus of their best and brightest who are choosing to take their talents elsewhere. Who tends to stay around our communities are students who might be in the lowest 50th percentile of our graduating classes. Experts say that the key to ending the workforce shortage lies with that lowest 50th percentile. When we think about developing a workforce, we really need to think about how do we develop the skills in that lowest percentile of academic achievement students so that they can have the skills that fill many of our trades, manufacturing jobs, caregiving jobs, et cetera, in our community. And that is where Bridges come in. A massive amount of communities, a massive amount of businesses in the Chamber of Commerce at the time, looking at how do we really reach out and start to get the business involved and get enough kids, we say go big or go home, because we needed to start that massive kid. So what we really kicked off was our job shadows. The Bridges Academies and Workplace Connection currently does 1,000 job shadows each year and partners with 27 high schools located in central Minnesota. Each academy course basically does three things. It obviously teaches the skills needed for a career, but it also emphasizes employability skills in those courses. For example, working in teams, making oral presentations. One of Bridges most successful events is their Career Exploration Day. At the Career Exploration Day, I think what's really interesting is we have over 200 jobs that we share with students. It's an exciting four hours to really open up their brains, their ideas to really look at a career. The Career Exploration Day gives students a way to discover what's important to them when they make the decision to apply for a job. What I want to go for is like video game designing, because I've always loved math and video games, and I'm both decent at it, so I thought that I could go into that because it's fun and I'm good at it. I think those are the two most important things, is that you're good at it and then it's fun to do. And the Bridges Day camps are getting the students college ready. One of our one day camps are taking a group of kids to a camp for a day and working on their own personal skills, like for example to challenge them. Our goal is to have kids go on to further their education. And the Bridges Academy's and Workplace Connection, it's already planning for their next Career Exploration Day, which is scheduled to be on March 10th. Alright, thank you very much Logan, for those series of reports from the Brainerd Lakes Area Studio, very, very informative. Now the Bridges Academy's newest initiatives located on their website are making it even easier for young people to find jobs and opportunities that pertain to them. And just a reminder, if you missed any portion of this three-part series, you can find them all on our website, LakelandNews.org. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


My own sense is that meditation is the tried-and-true way to investigate the nature of mind. And I think of psychedelics as, in some respects, meditation on steroids. And so to bring this up to the question about, well, so after the diagnosis, have you tried psychedelics, I did have a significant experience. In this case, it was with LSD. And I went in to use it as an opportunity to dialogue with the cancer.