Greetings and welcome to the Introduction to Astronomy. In this lecture we are going to discuss supermassive black holes, the gigantic black holes that exist at the centers of galaxies and that are the power source for quasars and other types of active galaxies. So let's go ahead and get started here. And what we see is that some of the, just review some of the properties of quasars and other AGNs or active galactic nuclei, first of all we know that they are extremely luminous. They are brighter than an entire galaxy, so extremely bright and again luminous means not only visible light but also other forms of electromagnetic radiation as well. We know that they are very small about the size of our solar system, so they have to be extremely compact. They emit jets of material in narrow beams that are very close to the speed of light, so another something else that needs a very high energy source. So this much energy emitted from such a small region needs an energy source much more powerful than something like the nuclear fusion that powers the stars. And we also see that quasars were much more common in the early history of the universe, that's when they were around, than they are today, so now they're not around. So let's look for some observational evidence for these supermassive black holes. Do they really exist? And some things that we see, we have some indirect evidence, first of all, we have a large mass in a small volume, what else can it be? We have very short time period variations in brightnesses, again meaning that it has to be very small. These are both indirect evidence for black holes, that it is a supermassive black hole. But to really determine that we have to be able to determine the mass. So we need Kepler's third law, remember our good way of being able to determine the mass. And we can look near our center of our galaxy, near the center of the Milky Way. And we look at some of the orbits of various stars that are very close. And the central object is right down here at the center. And for example, stars like S14 follow very elliptical orbits.  We can use the orbits of S14 and any of these other stars. We can figure out their semi-major axis A, and we can figure out their period P. And the mass of that central object is going to be equal to the cube of the semi-major axis, dividing by the square of the period. So that will tell us the mass of that central object. When we do that, we find 4.1 million solar masses as a good estimate for that central object. The size is about the diameter of the orbit of Neptune. So it is about the size of our solar system. That would be about 60 astronomical units. That's the planets there, from Neptune's orbit from one side to the other. Is that big, would be that far apart? And that is one way that we can use to be able to determine the masses of these black holes and get some observational evidence that they exist. Now another way to do this is to look at the motions at the center of a galaxy. And this is the elliptical galaxy known as M87. And we can do something similar. We can look at the gases very close to the center. This isn't the galaxy itself. We're looking at just the very central portion here. But if we take a spectrum on this side, we get a red peak. It is red shifted. If we take a spectrum over here, it is blue shifted. And what that means is that it is rotating very rapidly, swirling around that central object. And again, we can use those motions to be able to determine the mass of that central object and find that it is a supermassive black hole, much larger than the 4.1 million solar mass black hole at the center of our galaxy. Now let's try to look a little bit and understand how this works. How can we produce energy near a black hole? Black holes themselves can't give off anything. As we know, nothing can escape from a black hole. Once you cross the event horizon, you are done. So how can this black hole produce energy at all?  It's produced in what we call the accretion disk. And that is this disk of material around the black hole. So the event horizon and the black hole itself are right there at the very center. But material spiraling around it can give off energy. It has not yet crossed the event horizon. So material, for example here, may be taken from a star, spirals in and around the black hole. And it accelerates to very high speeds and heats to very high temperatures, hundreds of thousands of degrees. That means that we can convert in this 10% or even more of this mass is converted directly to energy.  So this is far more efficient conversion, meaning that we can convert a little bit of mass to a lot of energy and that can be what powers this black hole and powers the quasars. So let's go ahead and look at what else we have here. And we have that we can also form jets of material. So how can we get a jet of material? We have material spiraling in and there are intense pressures trying to push material outward. And that is trying to push material away. Now it can't move in all directions. As we have the black hole at the center here, we also have material, so material trying to exit out in the same direction that material is spiraling in in the accretion disk will not work. It can't go back out the way it came in. The only way it can is through these jets. And you can get a jet of material going out around the poles away from the accretion disks. This will depend on how thick the disk is. We can see here a very thin disk will not collimate the material very well and it will spread out into a much wider jet. Whereas a much thicker disk will be able to give us the jets that we actually see in a lot of these active galaxies. And one example that we can look at here is this is an example of M87 and this is a large elliptical galaxy and it has a large jet coming out from it. So again here we are looking at the very central portion, the center part of the galaxy here. And we can see this very highly collimated jet coming out and slowly spreading out as it moves out into space. So this would be seeing one side of that material. But we see these very often, so this type of outflow is very common in astronomy. Now when we go back and look at quasars they are a way to be able to study the early history of the universe. Remember when we look in astronomy the more distant an object is the longer ago we see it. So a quasar that is 10 billion light years away is seen not as it is today but as it was 10 billion years ago. So what does it look like today? And this is a really good question. What does it look like today? The number of quasars has decreased over time having reached a peak here, a billion or two years after the Big Bang and their number has declined very quickly to the point where after about 10 billion years ago we don't see any. There are no more quasars. Here we had tens of thousands of them early on in the history of the universe. Here we still had hundreds of them. By 10 billion years we were down to just the last handful. So what that means is that long ago these quasars had fuel for their engines.  Now black holes just don't go away so the black holes are still here today at the centers of these galaxies possibly powering active galaxies today just not as intense as the quasar era. Right now a lot of them are just dormant. So where do we get this fuel? Where do quasars get this fuel to be able to get all of this energy? Well, we can get the occasional passing star or gas cloud meaning that a star passing too close to the black hole we saw some of those that orbited if one were to get too close the tidal forces would rip the star apart. Remember how tidal forces work. The gravitational force on one side is stronger than the gravitational force on the other and if it's close enough the gravitational force here can be enough to actually pull the star apart and rip it apart and then it will be absorbed into the accretion disk and finally give off energy. So that will give off all that energy that we see for these active galaxies and quasars. Another way to do this is through collisions of galaxies. This is another way to provide material for the black hole. When galaxies collide they pretty much pass through each other but if something passed close to the black hole it could be collected and could be added into its accretion disk meaning that it is giving off more and more energy in the past and we also know that collisions were much more frequent in the past than they are today and we can see that in a couple of images here when we look at some of these very distant galaxies so when we look at some very distant galaxies a lot of them are very distorted and disturbed have tidal features here and here very distorted galaxies they don't look like the nice pretty spiral and elliptical galaxies that we talk about today. So galaxies billions of years ago ten billion years ago did not look the same and as they collided material would be added to feed the central black holes of these galaxies possibly producing the quasars. So let's finish up as we do with our summary here and what we've looked at in this lecture first of all active galaxies are believed to be powered by a supermassive black hole at their core this is what is producing all of the energy we can infer the existence of these black holes because of the amount of energy being produced from such a small area and the motions of stars near the center and studying these quasars tells us about the early history of the universe since this is when they were most active and common since for the first few billion years they were around but for the last ten billion we do not have any quasars so nothing has been able to feed a massive black hole enough to make a quasar since the universe expanded up to a certain size and material started to spread out more so that concludes this lecture on supermassive black holes we'll be back again next time for another topic in astronomy so until then have a great day everyone and I will see you in class


Welcome to Digital Asset News, the Catop Stories and Cryptocurrency Digital Assets, and break them down to bite-sized pieces today. I want to go over something real quick which is the ShapeShift Wallet. I was interested in this because of an ad that popped up which looked pretty interesting because it had no KYC and it is a decentralized exchange. So that gets me interested because I'm always looking for a good decentralized exchange where hopefully, I don't have to pay so much in fees but I don't know if that's going to work out because what I like to do is I like to dollar-cost average every day and I buy Ethereum on Voyager and then I transfer it over and I've been buying Celsius. I've been dollar-cost averaging Celsius because it's one of my four tokens that I buy every single day. The problem is that the fees are like outrageous so I was hoping to try this one on my phone and see how it works out so I thought I'd invite you guys along for the ride so let's do this. So first up the website itself is shapeshift.com. What I'm going to do is because there's a lot of scams out there and sometimes I remember there's been scams where like if you type in the wrong uniswap it would take you to a faulty website which looked the exact same and they would take your money. So that's why I have this exchange of wallet fees. There's a link in the description looks just like this and it'll take you here. So I'm going to add this in actually this so it kind of goes like this. These are my recommendations and then as you go over to the right this is all the ones that are like in the no man's land which I don't recommend. So let's put this let's see right here bitcoin.com exchange I'm still evaluating it's certain one to the right and that's it. So you can find the website right there I mean it's shapeshift.com you shouldn't really mess that up but if you're looking for also other places to get other exchanges or wallets this would be my my recommendation because I built it and I'm biased. So but but just so you know all these all these links are affiliate links so if you use them you get between ten to one hundred dollars worth of bitcoin you don't have to but if you do that's what that's what happens. Okay so back to shapeshift I think it is just a wallet so on your phone I don't think they have a desktop version not for sure so we're if you're on your phone it'll just download it but since I'm on my desktop let me put on try shapeshift and yeah so let's sign up oh look at that cool I can just do it right here so I'll do it right here and let's create a count and so now like again if you're on the the website on your desktop you just put it on your phone so I'm just gonna do that real quick let's jump on my phone so I can show you what the heck I'm talking about so here it is I've already downloaded so I'm just gonna click on open it'll open it up it's the same thing I'm gonna pick English that's my favorite language and then if you're new you're just putting all your information but I already have the account because I set it up on the desktop it's the same thing and I will log in it's the same thing with everything else we're gonna create a mobile wallet I'm gonna guess that they're gonna give us the mnemonic phrase in a bit so make sure you have your handy dandy uh stonebook if you're not familiar with the stonebook it's what I use to put in all my mnemonic phrases and passwords all that stuff tear resistance water resistance only chemical real great thing because I was always losing stuff uh if you've watched my videos before you know that I lost 20 thousand uh ADA or ADA tokens cardinal tokens and that's why I put everything in this book I've got two myself ones at my house ones in my safety deposit box and that way I won't lose anything so pick those up there's one uh you can pick them up or link in the description check it out all right so we are back to our wallet I'm gonna click I understand before creating a password this will encrypt your new shapeshift wallet it's also sure and I understand that shapeshift cannot help me recover my funds yes let's create a new password so remember for this one it's kind of odd because they don't because usually you can recover passwords on on wallets but you can't recover the mnemonic phrases but this one like look we can't help you so that's just one of those things with the cryptocurrency assets so just be aware that yes so put this in your shield folio your stonebook and uh just keep it safe I understand now we'll go back to the app click on check status email verified great and you can see over here in the dashboard so we verify the email now we have to verify the ID why do we have to verify the ID if there's no KYC this isn't this is confusing okay so anyhow this is well this is pretty cool because it's got um the dashboard you can take a look at this on your desktop and also on your phone so that works out pretty well actually and then let's see pretty simple on the bottom bottom middle button right there let's see right here you can trade send receive and buy I bet you with the buy that is why you would probably need to verify your ID and you can pay with visa a mastercard apple pay interesting so okay so if I had any Ethereum I could do this right now but I don't have any Ethereum so I need to actually put it in there so let's receive crypto from another wallet I want to receive so there's four options oh wow I can do bitcoin USD coin Ethereum Celsius or whatever I want to I wonder I'm going to take I'm going to pick USD coin and I'm going to go up to my ethernet wallet which is in Brave so I'm going to click on Brave preferences and I'm going to crypto wallets I should have some USDC left perfect I have 10 USDC okay so I've got 10 USDC what I'm going to do is I'm going to transfer the USDC to my shapeshift wallet I'm going to send it's going to ask me for the address I can scan it but what I'm going to do is just copy here on my phone since I have a iPhone and a Mac I can just paste it like so perfect what the f... all right so that's never going to work so right so no this is not going to work so I want to send five dollars to the wallet and it's going to cost me 14 dollars get the f out of here that's retarded all right so let's just try this let me just see if I can do this let's send Ethereum and I want to send 0.10 how much is that going to cost me 125 bucks yeah this is not happening so yeah I'm not sending 14 bucks anything now this is the problem this is the issue with Ethereum 2.0 and hopefully it gets fixed and this is why on yesterday's video when I was talking about everything about how or my price predictions I said ETH could be great but this is the same thing that happened with Bitcoin back in the day when bitcoins the transaction fees went through the roof it was like ridiculous and the same thing's happened with Ethereum people aren't going to tolerate this I'm not going to tolerate this or you there's no way so what we just learned today is this shapeshift may be great but the Ethereum transaction fees are like way ridiculous and it's only going to get worse so that's why I invested in Ethereum but it also hedged my bet with Cardano and I think Cardano just because of this alone is going to beat the tar out of Ethereum I can't believe this is actually going on anyhow that's it for today's video so if you want to try shapeshift go right ahead but you're going to pay fees with a roof and that's all so thanks for watching I appreciate it and I'll see you on the next one


Welcome to this week's legislative update. I'm Jim Baumgart and co-host is Nanette Bolabash and from Elkhart Lake. Yes. And we have a program we think you'll really enjoy. It's a continuation from last week dealing with the Maywood Environmental Park and we've been blessed by having the park director, Dave Kikouk, to come and explain some of the things available for the public because it is a park that's open and available and most things are either inexpensive or free. And people like that in the German community, that's frugal, right? We welcome Dave. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Well, you've been out at Maywood a long time. Oh my gosh. Yeah, 1987 I started working there. Wow. They have a variety of programs. They'll look at stars at night. They'll have the major bike outing in the fall of the year where you get about 500 people, 400 people. Yeah, it's a big event. That's for sure. Raises some money for Maywood and gives people a chance to get out and see the wonders of the Kettle Marine and the back farmland of Sheawin County. Yeah, there's lots to do. And now that we're starting to get that warmer weather and swing into more late spring and summer, I'm really excited because there's all kinds of great changes that are happening. And you mentioned astronomy. And we have the Schweigen Astronomical Society that does free programs usually throughout the summer months, once a month. They come out and they set up their monstrously large telescopes and focus on all of the wonders of the heavens. And people can just step right up and see. And they think they're worth thousands and thousands of dollars. Oh, yeah. Some of them they come equipped so that the telescope is connected to a laptop computer and the scope tracks the stars across the sky. Oh, they're so willing to share their equipment and let people take a look. So that's fantastic. I will be openly biased. Maywood is a local treasure. It is just a wonderful place. And what makes it strong are staffed people like you who've been there, who share your passion for nature, but also your volunteers. How many volunteers would you say are involved with your friends, committee members, and people who come in, lead programs, take people on walks, lead camps? I mean, it's just pretty amazing. Yeah, there are just literally hundreds, hundreds of volunteers. I know for the bike ride that Jim had referenced a few minutes ago, that event in itself requires up to 200 volunteers for that one event. So throughout the entire year, oh, my gosh, it would be really tough for me to get up there. Well, in that bike out, you've got to map the area. You've got to have people out there with walkie talkie, either communication. You've got emergency vehicles nearby, and everything. Yeah, right. Make sure it's safe. And food along the way. See, you're in Sheboygan County. That's exactly right. It wouldn't operate without food. No, no, nobody would have. It's the one time I tell people, here's an opportunity. You can do a 12-mile route if you want to, or a 112-mile route. But regardless, if you did the 112-mile route, I can almost guarantee you're going to weigh more when you finish than when you start food everywhere. That's great. So tell us, we know summer's coming up. Tell us about the exciting things happening this summer. I just brought some notes along because I know that this summer, with our summer camp programs, there are some exciting titles that they have for these camps, such as Off the Grid Camp and Capture the Flag Untamed Camp and the Quarry Quest Camp and Tinker Lab and Archaeology Camp. There's so many great programs that are being offered, and that is through the partnership that we have with Camp Waikota. From kids as young as what to how old? Yeah, so we have, actually, we have a camp where we have really young kids where parents can come out. The equal buds they call. Well, even before that, we have the five and six-year-old for the equal buds, but then there's a parent and child program for the even younger kids that can talk. Oh, that's great. And then, of course, the camps go all the way up to 14 years old. So there's lots of opportunities for kids. Well, one of those programs that goes from about 8.30 to 4.00 or whatever it is, and they can go home in the evening except if they stay on an overnighter. But one of those programs is Capture the Flag. All they do is chase the flag. Yeah, and swim all week long. And they swim at the quarry. Swim all week long, yep. So parents, if you're trying to exhaust your kids, this is your opportunity. They'll sleep good at night, I'm sure of that. Well, and we're sitting in front of this great display that features your partnership with Camp Waikota, features kids outdoors, winter, summer, playing on playgrounds, holding tools, archery. And I would hope it would be obvious, but I do know that children less and less are spending time outdoors. That's, yeah, they're in front of their screen that they can hold in their hand. And Jim had asked how long I had been at Maywood. Starting there in 1987 to now, I've noticed a tremendous difference in the shift of our kids from that point until this point. Really? And there's very few students or kids that come out that are familiar with a lot of the things that kids were familiar with that were very obvious back in 1987. Like, such as what? Oh, things as simple as going out and discovering what's under a log. Or, yes, or sitting on the grass. We've had kids that don't sit on grass. So, yeah, it's mind-blowing and holding a butterfly. That's something foreign to a lot of kids. So that screen time has taken a lot of those sensory type of activities away. And so they just need to get back out there. And why is that important? If some parent really didn't understand why you need to get a child outside, what would you tell them? Well, here's why it's important. We have to have students or kids become adults that are concerned and care about our planet. If we continue on the road that we're going without having any care or compassion towards our planet, well, we're just going to consume all of our resources. And we can't afford to do that. We have to take care of what's been given to us. And you want people that realize that defending the environment is important. We just had the legislature initially introduce legislation that would have disbanded 200,000 acres of isolated wetland because they said isolated means they're not very good, which is just the opposite. Right, they don't understand how important that is. And they ended up getting rid of or making 100,000 acres of water that was vulnerable, including 2,150 acres of wetlands in Chihuahuan County that now can be filled in with less or no work at all. And so you need people to say, no, no, this is going to cause flooding. This is going to cause deaths of turtles and ducks. And if you want to hunt ducks, you won't be able to do that. And so they need an ethic. But on the opposite side of it, Jim, when I started in 1987, we immediately began to do a lot of restoration at the park. So we restored wetlands. We planted literally thousands upon thousands of trees. Since that time, we've seen wildlife that was not there before come back. So the great blue herons coming back, sandhill cranes coming back, greenback herons coming back, otters, mink, all those critters are now there at Maywood that were not there 30 years ago. And so that's all from our efforts of trying to restore. And if somebody didn't have a land ethic that wouldn't have taken place. That's right. That's right. And so we need to make sure the kids come out to these parks and learn so they can instruct their parents on how important this is. You've got some summer camp programs coming up. And fall programs. And this fall, this is new, right? A preschool, major program for children. Yes, that fall program is really, really exciting. We are trying to reach a much younger audience and tap into all of the four-year-old kids that are out there before they have a chance to get sucked into a screen someplace and spend all their time in front of a computer. So we're starting this nature-based preschool where we're going to be taking the kids outside all year long. So even in the wintertime, we'll be outside. And we'll be showing them all of the wonders that can be experienced outdoors. And to help them, of course, as they say in my field, there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. We are equipping our kids with some really fantastic things. We've got some great Gore-Tex suits that they'll be able to wear so that they don't have to worry about getting muddy or wet. And they can still be outside even on some of those days when most people would say, no, no, no. It's tough to get all wet and sloppy and pull them out. And they love it. They just close them up. Yeah. Close them down. There you go. It's terrific. And these are real education-based curriculum as well, not a story. Absolutely. And just letting children discover nature. Different schools, private schools. These are all going to be the same kids every day, so it's not different schools. So parents will enroll their child in the program and will have their child for the entire year. The entire school year. Oh, that is great. They will learn some new things. Great opportunity to really have some impact on the children that attend, getting them to have that same sort of environmental conscious that I'm hoping to instill on every child that comes through our doors. So if somebody's never been to Maywood, you are on the north side of Sheboygan, just off Miller Road, on Miller Road off Highway 42. What are your hours and how can people find more about you? The building is open from 9 to 4 each day, Monday through Friday. And then, again, on Saturday from 1 to 4. However, the grounds are open, basically, from sun up to sundown. And beyond, actually, about 10 o'clock, we close down. So it's OK if I just drive in and walk around. Absolutely. We have lots of trails, and we encourage people to go out and explore on their own whenever they want to. They do a local JC's do a great job of grooming our ski trails in the wintertime. So if we do get some snow one of these years, they could be out there skiing as well. 135 acres. 135 acres, yeah. Right here in the city of Sheboygan. It's really incredible. And people have other things that they can do. They can come to your programs and look at the stars. The easiest way for people to find out is going to just, if they want to check our website, they can show all those programs. So www.gomaywood.org is that website. And they can easily check that and see what is upcoming, because every week there are programs every week. So they need to come on out and enjoy. So we have a few minutes left. What have we not asked you that you really want to make sure people understand? What's the most important thing people should know about Maywood Environmental Park? That they have a jewel right here in their city. I know that most of us think that if you want to go someplace special, you have to drive hundreds and hundreds of miles to find it. And I don't think that that's the case with Maywood. I think you can go right there. That is the special place that everybody can get to within minutes. And you can spend hours there. So it's just a great place to be. Well, I've seen otters along the river. And I've seen great bullherons out there. And then, of course, the kids have got polywogs and other things. It's just an exciting thing, because every time one of those young people sit down by the pond or the river, they're going to see something move. It's exciting. They're making a connection there. Sure. That's experiential education. Not just taking something in, but hands on. So if they have any questions, they can call Maywood. And by the way, we've just run out of time. I guess we have. It always goes so fast. When you get somebody that you really, really relate to, because you graduated from Stevens Point. Correct. And the net reporter and a farm girl by heart. These are nice people to gather around. But we have to leave. Thank you for joining us until next week. This has been Legislative Update.


I think an event like the web summit brings together many people with very different backgrounds and experiences. Very senior people, also a mixture of young and bright upcoming people with their startups. And I think what has helpful for people who are preparing for implementation of their strategy is precisely learn from others, learn from their experience and contrast their own plans, their own ideas with those thoughts that are already being presented. And I think this is just like a learning process, a little bit of a sounding board also in some cases as you talk to some people and I think you take away encouragement maybe on some of the ideas you already have and some specific advice also or even examples of other on how to implement what you have planned as a strategy. Technology and specifically digital has been changing the competitive landscape in pretty much every industry over the past 10-15 years. And this means first technology entering the different sectors, businesses, so there is some necessity to know about technology, but more importantly organizational changes as also the business models change. And what we see right now is precisely that implementation of strategy has a lot to do right now with implementations of organizational change as you want to implement new business models. And organizational change then has a lot to do with of course with people. So not without reason, famous strategist the other day said that in his book that's called Talent Wins that the new game in town is not so much about devising a new strategy which is important to do, you have to get that right also, but it's precisely implementation and that has a lot to do with people. And what we observe right now is precisely that talent wins, so in other words if you only have the right people you are able to implement the strategy that you have thought of and that you have spent quite some time of course in developing. On the one hand there is a need in programs both for senior executives today but also for up and coming executives to understand the implications of technology and what technology can do for you precisely as the source of competitive advantage and the basis of new business models. So there needs to be some primer on what technology can actually do for you even though you may not want to be a deep specialist in this technology but in how it affects your business and what opportunities it gives to you. And then what we see is that new technology with new business models new organizations also requires precisely a lot of skills decision-making skills judgment to be able to implement this change and to prepare also for the new business models. And for specifically young people we observe change everything we know today points to the fact that change will be the normal state of affairs so in other words learning being able to adapt to change is crucially important and as we're specifically talking about change through technology, technology entering organizations what we also see is there is a lot of to be gained from being able to manage organizations meaning managing people in this context. So also the new leaders that we are training today need to be very knowledgeable precisely about how to actually manage a team people in the context of technology being more present in business.


Hey guys a quick video on how to install helper springs or Bags depends how you look at it. They're bags But they're called springs Anna, this is an old seven Toyota forerunner v8 obviously you want those springs to raise the s of your Forerunner because it, you know, if you're towing a heavy thing like a car for example, which I will be The car that the Toyota seems to sag a bit too much It's not an issue going straight on the highway But it is an issue getting up my driveway and and off of it because it the Hitch the lower part of the hitch scrapes and It's not good. I guess right basically I get stuck. So I had to do something about it So this is not a step-by-step Installation how to it's so simple Throw out the instructions basically because you don't need to take anything apart. So this is it coil springs It's support for your coil springs Okay, so it's it's really its bags. This is how it looks more or less Let's see instructions Okay, these are the bump stops that I had to cut out Which I did in frame and okay, so this is what comes with it I also did order an extra T connector. So I did not have to use this guy here So, you know when I inflate them they're they inflate both at the same time Okay, so you get four washers two of these guys and an extra T. I think it was like ten fifteen dollars. I paid hundred hundred five hundred and ten dollars for the whole thing. Okay, anyways, this is These are the bump stops.  So This is what you have to you have to cut out four stacks of the bump stops, you know one on each side, obviously, so What I've done was because this part you cannot if I To cut it in half because the whole thing would not fit through the spring Okay, so I cut the whole thing right here using a long Sharp now. It's got to be sharp. The knife has to be sharp and Then once this was cut. I turned it kind of sideways shoved half of it through the spring it got stuck so I cut this and it just went through no issues So basically this is what you're cutting the four stacks, okay? You want to make sure that the upper part of the bump is cut? You know straight no bumps on it on and whatnot just Make sure you're you're doing that one clean cut you can use I used Windex, but you can use water with soap just to make your job easier So the blade does not catch on the rubber. Okay, and this is basically how it looks right now Okay, I'm gonna fish a line. There's a hole through the The rubber bump stop and through a like this metal Cap on top and that's that's basically it. Okay, these are the instructions The rest is just other languages So here they tell you on the first page To remove this the sway bar links the lower bolts of the shocks The whatever this bar is called None of it Let's go look at it. Have you see you want to raise it all the way up? Well, as you know as far as you can and Here they are You can see this is the cut bump stop I still didn't lower the vehicle because I'm waiting for some paint to dry But this is it now because this Airbag moves you can look at those this line over here See that move as I'm gonna, you know do oil changes and whatnot I'm gonna obviously raise the vehicle So I don't know if this bag is gonna stay up when I raise it or it's gonna move but there's they do provide these Sleeves can here you can see this guy make sure you use that sleeve So it kind of sticks out actually mine I think mine just Came out out of the hole. I'm gonna fish it through so it shows a little bit Over here. I'm probably gonna maybe try and glue it or something. I don't know Yeah, it is out. Anyways, let's look at the other side. The right side is a bit more. Well, there's less room in here Okay, so you get the idea. Okay So what I'm gonna actually do I'm gonna fish the sleeve actually came out to yeah did okay Well, never mind. I'm gonna just leave them once I push the sleeve back through. I'm gonna leave it up Okay, so you can see I ran it Above this heat shield here from the away from the exhaust. It's kind of loose. There is a zip tie here Okay, and this is how it looks. I still got to cut these Tails off the zip ties, but this is the T connector and it goes here Okay, and that's gonna go right through Here I'm waiting for this paint to dry This guy here and that's just gonna go through the other side. So that's where my inflator, nozzle, valve, whatever it is going to be and this is the rest of the stuff So how did I put them in there? Easy. I took the airbag, okay squashed it Held my thumb on the hole. So now it's kind of vacuumed. Okay and I just after I ran the line through and Obviously cut the bump stop. That's when I did it. So once once the bag is in, you know kind of Bottom first and then shove in holding your thumb on it Shoving the top part of the bag in just squeezing it through. Okay common sense But you got to do the lines and the bump stops cut the bump stops first and then now that go of your of the you know Pull your thumb away, and it's just gonna inflate on its own and Voila, no parts removed at all. Easy Really, I didn't remove the spare. All right once that's dry. I'm gonna We're gonna see how it works. I forgot to show you how the Driver's line is ramp. So both lines just go through and up all the way here Above right, you know as close to the floor as possible zip tied wherever you can I've zip tied mine as make sure that both of the lines are somewhat Equal in length. Okay, and then you can run the tee You know meet the meet the two in the middle round the one Whatever you want. I was actually thinking, you know, you can do put a hole here here anywhere really zip tied to the hitch whatever I was actually thinking of Putting it right here. There's actually room right behind this you could drill a hole Here somewhere Have it stick out. Maybe put some washers behind it. So it doesn't stick as far out as as it would but there is room Right over here kind of a neat spot hidden away from the weather. Okay. This is what we got right now As you can see that's pretty low. I know the trailer is not ideal. It is level. It's just dipped on the left side Let's see What happens if I put some pressure in the bags? Let's say 20 PS. I 30 PS I 30 PS I About half an inch. Okay, so I guess it's I'm not set up. Ideally, you know, obviously I gotta Pull out the trailer and make it level and whatnot. I do have The weight distribution kit I do need to remove This box Move these back a little probably four inches because right now they're too close that's gonna also raise that up a little bit and I'm gonna raise the box So I can actually weld weld something over here so it's gonna sit higher so these things you move back So yeah, you do need this stuff guys to be able to haul cars with a Forerunner right now this setup with the car is about 5300 Pounds more or less. I feel like I should grind this Down just a bit get another Entry of clearance, you know, like I said before going straight is not an issue Just going over high dips getting up driveways and stuff like that. Okay guys. Thanks for watching See you soon


Okay well I imagine most of you have replies like, well yeah of course form and matter are real, right? If substance is what exists and substance is composed of form and matter, of course form and matter are real. Okay well let's hold on here. Remember some of the previous discussion we just had. Is form the same thing as matter? No. Form and matter are distinct from each other. They are not the same thing. Okay what does it mean to exist? To exist is to be a substance. So if something is not a substance then it doesn't exist. All right and the question is are form and matter real? Let's just take it one step at a time. Is form real? Well according to Aristotle. Well if something is real according to Aristotle it's a substance. Is substance the same thing as form? No. Substance is not the same thing as form. Substance is composed of form or somehow composite of form and matter. Okay but just like water, you know water's composed of dihydrogen monoxide just like water is not the same thing as hydrogen. Substance is not the same thing as form. Form and matter are distinct from each other. They are not the same thing. Think about matter. Is matter the same thing as substance? No. Same reasons. Form and matter are distinct from each other. Substance is a composite of form and matter. That means substance is not identical to matter. It's not the same thing as matter. Substance is not the same thing as form. Form is not the same thing as matter. Matter is not the same thing as substance. Yet when we ask what does it mean to exist? Aristotle says substance. Substance is real. Anything else that's not a substance is not real or go. Form and matter are not real. Now before you you know chastise Aristotle too much about this keep in mind both he and Plato have fallen to an error or a trap that was set by Annex Amanda before them. Annex Amanda warned you about trying to define existence in terms of the finite. So you know Plato tried with this trying to define everything as being the form of being. Okay but when we ask what being is he doesn't have a definition. He can't tell us. It's just you know it's being. Well Annex Amanda warned us about this. He said look if you if you try to define existence in terms of the finite you're either going to result in you know saying nothing right just kind of repeating a word over and over again or defining it in terms of two other things and that's what Aristotle has done. Okay in reality if if what exists is just form and matter well now we have to say that there's what two more things that exist against substance and we say there's form and we say there's matter and these three things exist oh no right we've lost this unified account of existence. Annex Amanda warned us about this problem a long time ago and you know for what it's worth we keep falling back into it. We keep falling back into this problem. Both Plato and Aristotle tried to define existence and they fell into this problem and if we can't find a way if we can't find a way to answer Annex Amanda we're going to keep falling into it too.


Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has announced that he will be retiring from the Supreme Court at the age of 83 I think that this is a sound decision. Many people were urging him to retire just because Being that old on the Supreme Court not to sound a gist is a little bit of a risk And if RGB's death taught us anything, it's that we can't Take things for granted as a country things can change very rapidly and you don't want to put Democrats in a predicament where They lose another Supreme Court seat where the split is then 7 to 2 I mean him being replaced isn't necessarily going to change much on the Supreme Court But it's good that a Republican like Donald Trump perhaps in 2024 2025 Does not get the opportunity to have one more Supreme Court seat, but the elephant in the room is is This even good and be something that Joe Biden can accomplish given how Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sonoma have obstructed Basically everything that the president has tried to accomplish So there's a lot of details here to unpack for more on this we've got a Brett Wilkins of Common Dreams who explains Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Biden's nominee to replace Breyer will receive a prompt hearing and will be considered and confirmed by the Full Senate with all deliberate speed according to Reuters Advocates urged Breyer to retire while Democrats control the US Senate which must approve the president's pick Given that the upper chamber is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes There are concerns that Senators Manchin and Kirsten Sonoma who have torpedoed their own party's agenda including by refusing to abolish the filibuster Could throat a progressive nominee since the Republican-controlled Senate in 2017 invoked the so-called nuclear option Which eliminated the 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees to secure the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch The first of former president Donald Trump's three Supreme Court nominees a simple majority vote is all that will be required to approve Biden's pick if Manchin and Sonoma try to screw around with Biden's nomination to replace Justice Breyer It's going to be tortures and pitchforks time mark Jacob a former Chicago Sun Times editor tweeted. Yeah, right However, other observers noted that both of the senators have been reliable votes as Biden appoints federal judges at a record pace No, I'm sorry But the pitchfork in tortures land is just laughable whenever liberals huff and puff they Instantaneously back down the second there's even a minimal amount of pressure exerted on them So I don't expect the liberals to put up a fight if Manchin and Sonoma do indeed try to block Whoever Joe Biden chooses to nominate having said though there is some cause for optimism because Biden and or because Manchin and Sonoma Rather have been improving all of Biden's federal judges So we'll see but then again, I think it would be foolish to kind of give them the benefit of the doubt given what they've done so far So I think that we should basically expect the worst but cross our fingers and hope for the best It'll be fascinating to see how this plays out Uh, but there is the question of who is Joe Biden going to pick So, uh, preferably the first thing you should consider is that they are very very progressive in their views And the second most important thing is that they're young because who knows when democrats or are going to have control Once again and seeing as how Mitch McConnell has stolen two supreme court seats from democrats Don't take any chances nominate someone who's safe who's young who can serve for a very long time Now there is someone who Biden is likely to nominate or who is at least considering and that person is Katanji brown Jackson Now billy freeland came up with this fantastic recommendation in my opinion And this is someone who biden is already likely considering. So, uh freeland writes I'm partial to Katanji brown Jackson a dc circuit judge and former brier clerk Judge Jackson is a former public defender and experience sorely lacking on the highest court in the land So her experience as a public defender would be invaluable in my opinion and also really important thing here She's pretty young. She's in our early fifties. I think she's 51 to be specific But this would be really important. She could potentially serve out decades on the supreme court if need be We we want someone who could serve who's capable and also progressive Um now on top of those two qualifications It's really important to note that there's never been a black woman on the supreme court So if she's confirmed her confirmation would be historic So I am really happy with this particular, uh, nomination I'm not necessarily too familiar with her rulings But honestly, we just need someone to vote with the liberal justices there and I'm happy with that Young liberal I'm fine with that progressive ideally, but as long as they're not going to be another vote for conservatives I'll take it. I mean at this point we are desperate with the state of the current supreme court Now there are other options that biden is also considering too in particular Another prospect is u.s district court judge j michelle childs Who was appointed by former president brock obama in 2010 and is reportedly backed by house majority whip james cliburn I'll pass on that a prominent biden ally a third is liandra kruger an associate justice at the california supreme court And former principal deputy u.s solicitor general during the obama administration So I don't know much about liandra kruger, but I will pass on michelle childs. We don't want anyone who Cliburn supports he backed hillary clinton Over bernie sanders in 2016. He backed joe biden over bernie sanders in 2020 We all see how that's working out. So anyone who he believes is good I'm just going to assume by default that they're they're not good So um, and that's reductionist. Of course, I acknowledge that but um, his judgment is bad He's not looking out for the people he's looking at for his donors So I just have to assume that he's opting for someone who's the most corporatist so, yeah, I think that the uh, The one who is probably The most favorable currently the favorite to become the nomination for joe biden is judge katanji brown jackson And I would be absolutely enthusiastic about this choice. It's just a matter of will joe manchin and kirsten sinema actually allow this to happen I just I don't have that much hope I mean again, there's there's cause for some level of optimism I say that very cautiously because they haven't been blocking biden's federal appointments But I wouldn't put it past them to morally grandstand about how this is a far leftist activist judge We don't know. So we'll just have to wait and see again I am anxious to see how this unfolds the way that this plays out But either way, um, I will keep you updated and let's let's hope for the best


So I figured we'd talk about the backup and recovery process. So I did a video the other day and it was all about, you know, the oops, I accidentally said yes to a production server and updated it and people, you know, like I'd said in a video, I'm not panicking because we have a solid, clear backup process the way we can handle all the data. So I figured I'd cover what our disaster recovery process is here in March of 2018. So it is a Sunday, I happen to be here, we just finished recording this Sunday morning Linux review, and I usually take that as an opportunity and I can do this remotely but I do like doing it here, backing up all of our servers. Now for those you don't know, or didn't watch any previous videos, you're new here today, I'm still running Citrix Zen server, and I know someone's screaming, but Tom, Proxmox, Proxmox, and let's cover that real quick. Here is the procedure to import like an OVA over into Proxmox. It's not real in depth, but obviously it's, there's some steps to it, the same with exporting it back out, there's a lot of steps to it, versus in my playlist here, and you can find this in my Citrix Zen server, Citrix Zen server scripts for backing up your virtual machines and how to restore them in OVA format. This is something really nice, well, XVA OVA, their standard formats, and that's what I, that's what we use, and this is why we use Zen server over some of the other ones, and I know the Zen servers made some changes, I'm aware that they want you to license for some of the Zen motion stuff now, though, that closes that out. This is more or less Zen server has very simple ways of backing up and importing and moving virtual machines over. So close that window there. This is Zen Orcasha, and I've talked about this before, Zen Orcasha is a great web interface for Citrix Zen server. This is mostly how we manage it, because I know the tool is in Windows, I know they have a tool that is in Linux, kind of a port of the Zen server tool, one, it's, it hasn't been updated in a while, two, it just don't really use it. I don't need an application. I like things being a web interface. When it comes to most of the backups, we don't really need to backup any of the workstations at our office. Pretty much every tool we use from screen connecting and everything else or invoice center for invoicing, it's all a tool that is web based. So there's not like a ton of data locally that we really have to worry about for the limited data that we do have to worry about. We just use syncing to keep it in sync. And I've covered that in some other videos. You can find them in my channel. So let's cover specifically. Here's like our production machines that we run. This is the Zen Orcasha appliance, wiki for documentation, unify video, screen connect, old point of sale, which we've migrated to the new one, but we keep it running because occasionally just in case any mismatch eventually we're going to kill it. So it's kind of, I don't, it's backed up, but eventually it won't even need to be anymore. This is not, this is a mail server that we run, but the mail server is mostly for notifications for internal servers and let me know things. It's not my primary domain. LearnSystems.com is a G Suite address, but we still have a mail server here for playing around in a couple other random domains and personal stuff that I still test with. Invoicing, gentlemen, we've talked about this before. It's what we're using for invoicing, once again, web facing. And OSEC, if you're not familiar with OSEC and someone asked me if I had done a video on it, I haven't, but OSEC is a host intrusion detection system and this is the host system that keeps an eye on things. Sometimes I'll do a video on that, but look it up. It's a pretty cool project. It's fairly in-depth, so the video will probably be pretty long. Anyways, it's not going to do all on that. So here's all the main virtual machines that we have in-house. And I use Ansible, I've got a whole Ansible tutorial video. I'm not as good at it as Phil, but I've got the structure set up. So I can use Ansible to control all these servers with one command. So that one command is often just shutting them all down. So we turn it off all the servers and then we run the backup scripts that we talked about there. Now that backup script then creates these. And I'll just show you what it looks like. I only need two revisions. So there is the current status of running, then there are two backups created. The backups are dated and the oldest one is automatically deleted. This is part of that script that I run. Let me show you just how big the backup server is real quick. So this was today's backup of InvoiceNinja 9.4 gigs. So let's show you what those files look like. Whoops. And there's just invoiceNinja.xva. No big deal. If I want to import that into another machine, I would just grab that xva file and pull it back into any Zen server, not just this one, any Zen server. If I wanted to right now copy of it, I can just hit this and export it back out of here. And it will just download no VA file. So really no big deal there at all. The backups aren't very big. So there's a 9 gig backup times two. So there's 18 gigs of InvoiceNinja. And overall, actually let's do it this way, 138 gigs to back up all of my virtual machines and there's two copies of each of those machines in here. So those are all the virtual machines. Now the first thing is obviously I care greatly about the security of these virtual machines. This is all mounted onto our FreeNAS box. So there is a SAN setup, and I've talked about this in my lab setup, but it's the same thing. It's the main head end of the Zen server, then tied through a backplane at 10 gigabit to the FreeNAS box. This is how we provision the Zen server, so FreeNAS access storage, and then the Zen server is the head end that actually runs the virtual machines. I know I could run them all directly on the Zen server, but hey, I like running them on FreeNAS. FreeNAS gives me plenty of flexibility with ZFS and everything else. Now I keep, this is where the backup's coming from, I keep in second Zen server, sitting there. I turn it on, I make sure it works, I make sure there's any updates or patches as they need to be loaded, then I will randomly grab one of these virtual machines as part of my testing process, make sure I can restore to that other Zen server, then I destroy it off of that Zen server, then I shut it back off. It sits there, does nothing, doesn't use any watts when it's not plugged in. So it's physically disconnected from the network, that way any high voltage spike that may come through, it's just a extra spare server. It's not quite as fast as our main server, but it's plenty fast enough and has 40 gigs of RAM in it, so I can run all the virtual machines, which as you can tell, even running invoice engine, it just doesn't take much, a couple gigs of RAM, so all these virtual machines will completely fit in there. So if the FreeNAS server dies, if the main Zen server dies, either one of those scenarios, no big deal, we can import all these files over to the other server.  So there's no shares directly to this, we copy all the files back over to my computer and I use full disk encryption and if you're not familiar with LUX, go ahead and look it up, LUKS, I use LUX encryption for the drives. Then to get the files out of the building, we then synchronize them after the backups are run with an external hard drive that's also LUX encrypted, which goes and sits on the shelf in a safe at my house. So there is a complete offset copy. So if something ever happened to the building to give you an idea here, the entirety of all of this is completely restoreable from the external hard drives that we keep an ICID to because I make more than one copy as I rotate which drive I bring in and synchronize. So really simple backup process. It keeps the data offsite. I could synchronize it offsite via encryption and get it off here, but I come here anyways, just about every day or at least once a week. So taking them home, not a big deal. I could have a staff member run this, drop it off at my house if they wanna do as well. So this is kind of just our disaster recovery process. It's pretty simple and it allows us to have a couple different versions of it. Now, in some of you may have seen, I also run a Zen server at my house. That's not by accident either. Zen because it's backups, exports, imports and standard XVA OVA formats, I can import it into my Zen server at home, just grab those files right off that hard drive, pull them right in and have, actually run my company from my home if something happened to the building. So we still have access to all of our data, all of our client data. We'd have to make some DNS centuries to point everything at my house versus pointed everything here into our own server stack. But you kind of get the idea that we keep it all completely separate. Now, a side note too, the spare Zen server, as I mentioned, does not connect to FreeNAS, does have local storage on it. And the reason why, obviously, because if the FreeNAS goes bad, I still have another server but I don't have any data storage for it. So I would still migrate to the other server. So it's about thinking ahead when you put these things in there going, okay, what if this, what if this, what if this? What if the building, something minor happens to server? What if something major happens to the building? What if there's a power outage for a long time? Whatever those scenarios are, we have a plan for it. Now, of course, you may have noticed there's a weaker part on these backups. There has to be things happening between. Yes. Once again, back to the encryption of everything. Everything has to be encryption. You always, always encrypt data at rest. So I don't really need to go over it with you, but they're pretty straightforward. These all run MySQL databases, MariaDB on the backend. So I just run a script that grabs the SQL file before, this is the important part, before it leaves the server, it's completely encrypted. That backup is encrypted, boom, sent over then to SyncThing, which is a, there's a private, SyncThing allows you to have, basically set up different containers. It has a private lockdown container that's not shared with anything other than one other server within encrypted hard drive off site. So it lands on that encrypted hard drive. So it's encrypted before it leaves. The only place that password is kept is within the virtual machine itself. There's not another way to decode it. I don't keep the password anywhere else. So that happens hourly during business hours and during off business hours, it happens every, there's just a couple other schedules, like a three AM schedule, in case something got created afterwards, but from seven AM, and I, business hours are broad for us. So it's from seven AM till nine PM every hour, all the databases are backed up. One of the nice things is even though having thousands and thousands of customers and invoices and everything else, the backups for things like the invoice ninja, for example, which is the bigger one or a documentation, they're not, they're less than a hundred bags once you compress them. So you encrypt, compress, then it leaves the box and hits over there and synchronizes. So it's not really, it's an inconvenience if anything breaks. Obviously it's really inconvenient when things breaks is you still have to, you know, some action has to be taken. But with these steps, we have a copy of every VM. We have a copy of every piece of the pie as it goes. We synchronize it. And even in, I can show you here when we are, let's see if I can actually have it pulled up already. Yeah, here's the script that pulls it over. Let me see if I can view zoom in here. Even in keeping with to make sure nothing just passes across when we've been using SMB share, this is a lockdown spot on the Zen server. I'm sorry, on the free NAS server to get the files. We're just using our sync with an SSH key to pull it across. And that's what copies the data there. And obviously I have cleverly named Vbox back up to local. So this is what pulls all the data back over and we keep a local copy that lands on an encrypted drive on my system. Like I said, I maybe I'll do a video if someone really wants me to for, if someone really wants me to do it for the Lux encryption, you can find a few people who have covered it, it's pretty straight forward to set up. It's built in to Linux distros. So it's not, not anything. Most of the modern distros come with it already enabled. So it's a great way to keep everything locked up. But that's really it. That's all that backups run. The other things that we do, maybe little side notes might be things like we, for any time I changed the free NAS, we download a copy and keep a copy of the free NAS backup configs. It contains the encrypted GEL keys. I've covered the drive encryption on that. So that gets backed up and it just gets dropped into a folder within the Zen folder. So it's once again replicated and backed up and locked down on these Lux encrypted drives. But hopefully this is a little bit insightful for how we do the backups. It's really simple. There's not a lot to it. It's just being able, and this is that, my coverage I have, and I'll put that video right in there for how I backup the Zen servers and that tool. This is all free open source to create full snapshot backups. And someone's asking, well, how do you do it for your clients? If they have a Zen server net, we've actually set this up for some of them and they can take the drives off site. Or a lot of times when they're paying, they use a solar winds system. And I've covered that one as well that will do full image backups of every computer. So if you like to count here, like, subscribe. Just like I said, give you an idea of how these are done. Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. If you got questions or think I'm a moron, leave the question below.  Someone said I do things insecure, that's fine. But can you elaborate? Because I like to learn and get better and not be insecure. So if I'm doing something really wrong, tell me and tell me what I should be doing right. Someone commented on one of the videos that the unifies are insecure, but of course, dead air when I said how. Anyways, if you like to count here, like subscribe and tell me what you think of this. Like I said, I'm open to updates or other methodologies, but maybe you're better. Maybe I missed something. Let me know. Thanks.