So excited it's this turnout, this is fabulous. I'm so happy to see all of you in some familiar faces and some hopefully soon to be familiar faces. I'm Megan Oakleaf. I teach in the library school at Syracuse University and an associate professor. I used to be a coordinator of instruction at STS libraries, STS libraries, and then I got my degree at Chapel Hill in terms of dark side. So now I teach LAS and make baby librarians as excited. I don't really enjoy that phrase, but I would say that's right. And I'll let my public center Malcolm introduce himself. Go do it now. Sure. I'm Malcolm Brown. Hi everyone. Thanks for coming. I'm the director of the Edgeville Community Initiative. And Art said I was directed back then to be a Dartmouth player working often and happily with my fellow library. Jennifer Taxman is right here. She can attest to that. Oh, fabulous. Okay. And I hope that maybe even more people will come in. I'm excited also that the doors aren't locked anymore because I know they were locked earlier today. I came down today. I have small children and I couldn't come for the whole session and I saw all the tweets about the excitement this morning. And I thought, oh, they're up at four. How sad. But if you're tired, don't mind. So we can all be tired together. So I wanted to talk about this topic. I enjoy talking about this topic and I hope that you guys will bring a lot to it.  And then we really want that to become a discussion. And we really mean that. We want you guys to talk to each other, talk to the full group, and really sort of suss out some of the details of this issue. Because it's new territory. New technologies make new decisions. Think about strategic connections with the rest of our institutions and making sure that the library is at the table for these discussions. And being a resource based on our areas of expertise and also learning from others. So I'm really excited that you came today. I want to thank you for that right after that. I want to start by dealing with the difficult term in our title, learning analytics. I was talking to Malcolm about a year ago, really, about learning analytics and what I thought the future was related to this for libraries. And our first conversation was sort of a dance around, what do you mean by learning analytics? And then when we tried to talk to other people in the library community, we had the same dance. And we ended up really sort of understanding what we meant and then also sort of making a distinction between two likely definitions of the term. So I'm going to give like a more official definition of learning analytics in a minute, but just for the purposes of this early part of our discussion. Basically when I say learning analytics, I mean using and analyzing data, usually big data, educational data to advance student success and student outcomes. Now what that immediately put us into though was sort of navigating the territory between what is that and what is student learning assessment. What is that and what is maybe what we end up calling library analytics. So let's sort this out a little bit because I think if we want to have a discussion, we have to kind of get on the same page. And you might not agree with my definitions, but let's try to agree with me for the purposes of the discussion. Not anything I say, but just a piece of what we're talking about. Okay, so in terms of what the definition is between this and assessment, my background, my research area, my teaching focuses on information literacy assessment. Which I think is relevant here for student success and student learning outcomes. And if I was going to give a 30 second summary of where we've been in libraries in this territory, I would start it here. With a long, long history of surveys, getting at affect, getting at confidence level, how do you feel about what you've learned. Unfortunately, sometimes I don't see you about the library and teaching it, which doesn't really get at learning, but is interesting. Then sort of I would say about a decade and a half ago, there was a heavy emphasis on tests. And a hope that we could come up with some sort of objective measure of information literacy. And that still persists. None of these things go away. Ever. Nothing ever goes away. We got into sort of rubric territory. And we're going to look at artifacts of student learning. And we're going to use rubrics to try to describe what we want to see in terms of learning. Articulate what it is. Articulate how we're going to assess it. And again, that hasn't gone away either. And then I would say probably the last five years, this has been an area of emphasis as well. So back in 2009, Mary Ellen's in the room, so she'd correct me if I'm wrong. The ACRL recognized the need to help librarians articulate their value and impact. And that started off with the Value of Academic Libraries report. And in that report, we defined lots of different ways to talk about value and impact. Most of them in the white are things that we have a lot of literature on or significant value literature on. But the shift for doing the ACRL Value Initiative was to focus on impact of the library and defining it in terms of the goals, missions, and purposes of the institution and how we fill that. Not negating any of those other conceptions of value. But this project has really focused mostly on the library's impact on institutional goals, missions, and needs, which is rooted in our values and our beliefs about learning about higher education. Okay, so since that time, almost seven years ago, we've added really some return on investment research and a lot of correlation, not causation, research trying to pin down what are individual students doing in the library and what does that mean for GPA, for retention, and so on. So that's where we're sort of focusing now and into the future. And the research in this area was almost non-existent in 2010 and is now proliferated rapidly. So there's lots to learn about. ACRL has been busy at work. They conducted summits with higher education leaders and provosts and chancellors and whatnot. And then did the Assessment and Action Project. And hopefully a lot of you are hearing terms and phrases that you're familiar with. So this has been an art of interest in our profession. Now they're looking at ways to expand what they've learned from this progression and other ways to deliver professional development to more people in lighter weight ways than maybe an entire commitment to assessment and action. They've got a new research agenda coming out this spring. So it's still moving forward in a big way. And in some ways, the first image of the Value Report was like a drop in a pump. And now I think it's the next cover. I'm glad you're here. It should be a fire hydrant because it's really expanding. And I think what that demonstrates and it's relevant to our conversation today is the interest in documenting the impact of the library on student outcomes, student learning, student success. However, we define that. It's a little bit different on different campuses. So that really completes our arc up to this position. The next stage, I think, and again, we don't get rid of any of the rest. I believe is learning analytics and paying attention to what's going on in our areas in our institutions of higher education. This does not indicate that like each one is significantly better than the rest, but that all of these things are sort of, it's like more of a time evolution than improvement. They all have damning weaknesses. They all have great advantages. So there's not like you've got one go with that. All of these things are complementary. Okay. So I alluded earlier to the need to clarify what do we need by learning analytics for at least the purposes of this conversation? And what do we mean by library analytics? And I think what a lot of librarians are talking about right now in terms of learning analytics actually ends up being what we had to define as library analytics to make forward progress in the conversation. And what I mean by that are the sort of correlation numbers that we've been talking about. So the students come to the reference desk or participate in the instruction or check out more documents. What does that mean for GPA, retention, and so on? And that's the beginning of this larger thread in our research. But it's not the same as what our institutions mean when they say learning analytics. They're related but not synonymous. So if we move instead for the rest of today to an institutional focus, the library within a larger institution, I want to use this as our working definition of learning analytics. And it's not new. It's the one that keeps being cited over and over again. So there's nothing like really inspiring about my selection of this definition. But I think it's clear and I think it works. The measurement collection analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts for the purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs. So to some degree you could say that library analytics is a part of that. But that's not really what the rest of higher education is thinking about when they're pushing forward in their progress of learning analytics. This chart and also the one on the next slide, because I couldn't decide between the two, I like to vote so much, shows a progression of what the institution considers learning analytics. What they're talking about when they talk about this. Starting with descriptive analytics, which describe what's going on in terms of what's happening with our student populations, who's succeeding, who's not. And then trying to figure out why that's happening. That would be the diagnostic stage. So we're kind of in the bottom left-hand corner right now in higher education generally. Moving in, everyone hopes to greater emphasis on the predictive analytics. Predicting what might happen so that we can swoop in and intervene. If we can figure out where there are problems in the curriculum, we can do instructional improvements. If we can figure out where students are struggling the most in terms of their coursework, we might be able to intervene with those at-risk students. So trying to be helpful with the data that we have rather than just sitting on it. This is a really fun chart too. Basically the same thing but with a little bit more detail. In all cases, I would say, and Malcolm might disagree with me, but I would say we're sort of below that bar going across. I think most of the things that are on the higher level are sort of future. And things that are underneath that bar I think are more current and even sometimes a little bit aspirational. So what's going on? Where is it happening? How often is it happening? Where is it happening? What's the problem and what do we need to do about it? And then the next future in this area would be above that bar mostly. Now the goal of learning analytics is not to gather more data, but to do something with the data. The goal is to intervene or take action. Now that might mean setting policies or procedures or staging interventions. That makes it seem really confrontational. I think we need a different term. But you know, interceding on students' behalf to help them learn. Sometimes these interventions might be passive, might get a notification. They might be active asking students to go meet with someone at tutorial services if they're struggling in a writing course, maybe meeting with a librarian if they're struggling in a research-based course or something where the librarian has the right data set or whatever. But connecting all the dots within the institution actively, getting students ideally a nudge and not a kick in the seat of the pants, but moving in the right direction to be helpful to the students. Also ideally, we want these interventions to happen more in real-time, finding out at the end of the semester what happened. It's a little too late for some portion of students if you're focusing on advocacy students. Finding out even a couple of weeks past when the problem is occurring for many students and something at the bottom falls out of the front or their personal lives or whatever and they stop going to class, wait two or three weeks might be irretrievable to get them back on track. So we want this to be as close to real-time as possible. And also I would just add here that when you're taking actions or making interventions from learning analytics or planning to do that, I think that those actions and interventions should be judged not based on how many students did we send to tutorial services or how many faculty members did we help with the placement courses that their students are getting stuck, but rather what did that action actually result in? Do we have more retained students? Do we have students getting better grades? Do we have students recording higher satisfaction? What have you? So where does the data come from in these systems, generally speaking? They come from places that we already have data, but they're being brought together in a new way. So the student information system, that is usually historical or static data like social-economic status, high school GPA, SAT scores, that kind of thing. Learning management systems, whether those are being used for online courses or campus courses, but there's a lot of click-through data and activity data in those systems that could be drawn into learning analytics system. Information from publishers, like what students are doing with their textbooks, clickers, video surveys, even how often students are going to the dining hall. Do they stop eating? Do they record when you're eating too much? I'd sign up. Or if they stop going to the gym and they have to establish a pattern so something's going on, maybe their advisor needs to know. Or maybe they don't. Maybe that's an overreach. We need to talk about this. Why would we want to bring all these things together? Well, mostly it's for pedagogical purposes. Mostly we're looking to improve the curriculum where students are struggling. Where are the trouble points in a given course or given path to degree completion or program completion? Alright, if at-risk students are struggling, why are they struggling? When are they struggling? What can we do about it? I've prepared a few notes because I don't want to forget anything. Oh, this is also a really important one. Helping students become more aware of their own learning. So a metacognitive role. So places where the learning analytics system is open to students, which many of them are, they can see when they're starting to maybe fall off or go from a green light to a yellow light or a red light. And so that also helps them be, oh wait, but something's going on. My faculty member, my professors, realizing that something's going wrong in my grades or whatever. And it's actually, I've gone from yellow to green to yellow. I need to do something about that. So thinking about those and having the conversations with their advisor as a result. And then also I think we need to acknowledge that that has a small focus in terms of individual students. It also has a large focus in terms of our institutions. And that means also business purpose. To keep students retained, to get in completion with their programs and their degrees. Those are educational goals. They're also business goals. So the two things are sort of together. Now, like I said earlier on the slide with the ARC, all of the approaches to assessment and student learning improvement and student success have advantages and disadvantages. And I want to acknowledge a couple of those rather significant areas of concern as well. So one of them is organizational culture. There are lots of institutions and my friends seem to work at all of them. Where people say that they care about data driven decision making, but they actually don't walk that talk at all. And so more data in a culture that doesn't use data to make its decision is really not all that helpful, right? It needs to be actionable. I was at an ACL value summit years ago where Charlie Blake said, you know, you could have all the survey results all the data you want, but if it resides in binders or on someone's, you know, H drive, it's not actually being used and that's pointless. And actually a good way to fill an assessment effort as well. So organizational issues are really an important area of concern. And also if your campus is like that, not helping them not being part or around the table when issues are hashed out and concerns are hashed out, I think there's a place for libraries at that table in terms of lots of different areas of this... Am I over time? No? Okay. Or this movement, I think libraries have a lot of skills to bring to bear, whether it's understanding when students struggle and intervening in their educational or understanding how to use research data or having professional ethics around the use of data. So there's a lot of things that we can bring to the table that help with the organizational culture issue. Also data, right? You need to have good data, complete data, data that is protected, data that is used properly. Some of the systems when you talk about learning analytics or homegrown, some of the systems are vendor produced. And so when you have systems that aren't homegrown, you might have questions about proprietary or the closed nature of some systems you need to be able to understand because you may have to someday defend decisions that you're making based on data. You don't know how that's coming out of the system or the problem. I am not an expert in data quality, but lots of people are in data quality. You can say that. Data-period quality. The cohorts, if you're looking at small cohorts, particularly for at-risk sorts of things, small cohorts, that we know in research can lead to sort of spurious information if you're not careful. So you need to be careful when you slice and dice down the areas where you could identify people or that your data is actually not high-quality data because you've cut down to such a small population that what the results are are not legitimate. I think also it's worth saying, and I've been talking about this in the value construction, but also learning analytics are at least currently built a lot on correlation rather than causation as well. So looking at how things correlate, that's not the same thing that's causing it. So you could tell a student you need to have these five behaviors and they tend to lead to more success, but you can't say you do these five things and you will get an A. So understanding what to promise, what to not promise, that's a really important part of the process as well. So Malcolm and I are going to take a moment starting now to talk about different types of learning analytics systems that are present and are developing in higher education. I'm going to show you the two easy ones and I'm going to make Malcolm do the hard stuff, but I'm really excited about what he's going to talk about. I want to talk about something that's kind of referred to as an I-PASS system or an integrated planning and advising system and these are rapidly proliferating across our campuses. Malcolm's going to cover some of the more developing areas. One of them, I think a good first example of them, some of you may be familiar with course signals at Purdue. It was created there, it's now part of the Ellucian product line so it's now a vendor supply, but the idea here is that students and advisors and I believe also faculty have access into modules that show, I was earlier referring to green, yellow, red with customized notices and automatic notices to students about what's causing those things. Probably don't need to customize note about not attending, but some things require maybe faculty or advisors to say something specific. There's, I included these links not because they make for a beautiful slide but because these are, I was learning about this myself, these are the places that I thought gave you the most information, quickest, the least amount of time, right? So, high impact, links to learn about this sort of process. Syracuse has also, my institution has also bought into a version of this, it's not this version, but they're rolling it out with our undergraduates this semester. Graduate students, I think either next year or next semester. So this is happening a lot and fast. There's another example slide that I wanted to share and I'm looking at it at the University of Michigan where lots of great learning on what this work is happening. This is a screenshot from their system that is used for advisors so they can address, I don't have to risk students using learning management system data but if you want to learn more about this kind of thing also following what's going on Timothy McKay and others at the University of Michigan great ones to watch and he tweets. So you can pay attention to that as well. Okay, so the ones I just showed you get out homegrown but there are lots of others as well. I also wanted to just acknowledge a few pioneers in our own field who have been doing this kind of work. The University of Wellington in Australia is different from US institutions in that they were the early adopters of using data to look at student success and then go to their campus into it. So that's kind of fun. But the other examples here are not exactly that but they're really progressive in terms of their use and I believe based on my conversations at the Library Assessment Conference that this slide is going to fill up pretty fast because there are lots of campuses that are just getting involved in this and their campus might be involved in the Learning Analytics Initiative but the library now is. Scott Walters is standing in the back looking for a dapper with his cloud tie and he could talk to you about what's going on at DePaul in terms of the library's integration as a point of intervention for students who are struggling. At Texas Tech Laura Hynes sent me a little like three or four sentences I wanted to read to you about what they're doing there. She said, I asked for subject librarians the personal librarians to be included and they were able to add them to the list of tutors so they have access to the system. Advisors and faculty are able to refer students to the librarian for assistance. Students are able to make appointments using the system due to the capability of syncing with public calendars of the librarians. Librarians are able to leave comments for the faculty and teachers to classes reminding them to set an appointment with their librarian for research assistance. This has just launched this semester. Faculty and students are slowly adapting. The reporting feature I hope to be able to use in the future will allow me to look at the students who did meet with their librarian for a course and their final grade in the class. So you can see how this is starting to work out. University of Minnesota presented on this at the library assessment conference and all their presentations are available on the web so I will go into detail on that. Okay, how do I do that? I'm over. Welcome. Go. Thanks, Megan. All right. So what I would like to do in my segment is to come at this from a certain angle and by growing in on it from a different angle I think you'll find that we're again in the exact one spot that Megan just brought us to. So what I hope to do is show some thinking that's coalescing about digital learning environments in general on our campus so we'll put a spotlight on the opportunity that exists while it's opportune now to be thinking of learning about this but it's institutional rather than on the side of the scale. Okay. But first this is an academic meeting so there's a quiz. All right. Let's play around. This flag what is it the flag of? It's supposed to be the fraternity. Anyone know? This is the flag of Esperanto. And I'll get back to Esperanto while I'm talking about something black in Esperanto in a moment. So what I'm going to describe is some research that we've been doing at EDGE CAUSE did do at EDGE CAUSE with some money that they got from the Gates Foundation and these are the two reports we produced on it with a little URL down in the following if you're free to grab these reports if you're curious about them and if you want to hear about this piece in more detail. So the question was from the Gates Foundation what should the next LMS be? What should we go by? What should it do? You know, whether it be LMS 2 or 5 or LMS 523. But when we started off with this research we quickly came to the realization that that's a long question because whether it's LMS 10, 25, 537, you're still in this box thinking about the LMS. So we felt that there's no single application up there possibly because of the diversity that you see across all the percent of the way if you take it. So the wrong question is what should the LMS be? So we decided that this notion of an Uber application that LMS sometimes is seen as a digital learning environment. Again, it's the wrong approach. So we decided to cast them on a side. And we came up with this name which is fairly kidious but you know, something that I guess only has framers for that. We called it the next generation digital learning environment. It's next generational in terms of trying to get away from the underlying associated with LMS. It's digital because the digital infrastructure and our digital environment enable everything that we do and it is a learning environment and not just a learning management environment. So that's why we came up with this name with an even more kidious acronym which is NGLE. Okay. So what we are now thinking that the right approach is is what we call component architecture so that you bring in a variety of digital componentry to allow faculty and students to scaffold together to create the environment that will best support their learning and teaching. So that might be in some cases that you have an LMS augmented by a series of applications. It might mean that you have an LMS that is so kind of covered over by these augmented applications that you already see. It's not really that forefront in the user experience. It might be kind of a backdrop role but it's not the main user experience or you could have an LMS at all just a framework of applications. So our refer, our thinking is entirely agnostic. We're not saying that one of these is better. What we're saying is what we need to do is to have the mobility to construct a framework that will support the learners and our instructors. So what works really styles me is openness and an openness based on standards. So that's why we're using this label metaphor and that's why there was a label fiction at the beginning. So labels as you know allow you to build almost anything as long as they appear to a certain standard. This is the actual specification. So as long as those little tags appear to these standards you can build something like this. You can build whatever you want to build with pieces that can be of any shape or size. As long as they appear to certain standards you can fit them together to suit your purpose. We're thinking that is the best way to approach this. So why that's why there's this sort of Esperanto idea that's certainly important to us. And now with respect to learning data it gets even better I think. So in our thinking we've identified five functional domains that we think that this next generation environment needs to address. So now there's this focus now on the first two which is interoperability and learning and learning data. Okay. So right now learning data is largely silo. We have it from a variety of sources. It could be the LMS of this information system it could be from all over the place. And the fact that this data is silo is one problem. The fact that it's all recorded in different language like one might be playing one might be laughing is another problem. So what we're thinking is is that if this remains where everything is siloed in a sort of different format trying to come together and inform a larger set of learning data it's not going to be on a hardware side and it's going to be a very very hard process and it's going to be very easy to get the storage. It's going to be very easy to get the siloed and speak in different languages. So the idea here that's emerging around the caliper standard is that of something that's called the learning record store and this is at the heart of two very important standards around learning data. One is S-H-P-I which is sometimes called T-Can. The other is the caliper standard for a client as well. They both have this notion that what we want to do is to bring it reservoir or deposit with our learning data and have it all in the same language have it all in the same location that we can then use that analytical intentions to make use of the data to improve our learning environment to improve our learning experience and promote student success. So that's the core of the idea. So this is a graphic from the S-H-P-I site. Again we have students having a variety of experience using a variety of component trees. Why not be able to gather all the learning data from all those various components and have it flow into a reservoir and again so that you can have a much more detailed integrated picture of what the student is doing. Caliper is talking about the same thing the same standard from IMS Global. They're saying look at the variety of experiences and tools that the students are using wouldn't be good if they all spoke in the same language so that you have this learning data repository so that you have on the faces of this interoperability you would have you would enable innovation and also feed it. So now let's look at a few campuses and butchering so those two campuses were out of the gate and we had a session at the Las Angeles Conference I'm just shamelessly following slides from that session. Let's first look at what UC Berkeley is doing here and you probably can't read this all too well so I apologize but what we can see there on the left side is a variety of applications and by means of the California XAPI Open Standards they are feeding data into our learning record store that again makes it available to another company. And they are out of the gate in terms of designing the record store this is some technical detail we can make these slides available so if you're interested in the detail you can grab it then I'll skip through this for the sake of time they are also thinking about student agency and privacy they have a number of privacy principles already in guiding their use of this data and their collection of this data and their aggregating of this data so they've been doing some thinking about this and they also have some recommended practices so they not only have a collection of data they have a series of practices around it to guide their use of it the University of Kentucky has been working early on for a good number two, three years now and again so if you think about in the old days if you were say approaching this from an IT perspective and say now we need to integrate this into one of our central administrative applications if you have to integrate these all by hand it's an immense amount of work it's an immense amount of expense and then when either one of the two changes either the central host system or the remote application that they change you have to do integration all over again so that's why these standards are so important because they will eliminate that cost that loss of time and allow you to be able to make these connections much more effortlessly it's anything about a learning record store again, if all your ancillary products are using or talking this Esperanto learning data then you may all deposit it effortlessly into this learning record store and then explore available for use by the institution for its own two-digit purposes so again they're talking in exactly the same way variety of applications all speaking in the same language depositing this data at a single location so that it can be made into something that's a teaching sense so the caliper I won't go into the details of the caliper but it is essentially the nice thing about it is that it is designed to capture learning data and it is extensible so the set of definitions and expressions in the caliper is not set but it can be extended so that was a quick tour we're going to now go into a discussion portion so Megan the measures are much better okay so what we wanted to do is really hear a lot from all of you sort of facilitate you guys talking to each other but then also report out to the larger group so that we can all have a free and fun and not at all you know fraught with peril conversation initiative on many of our campuses and really we wanted to start you off with sort of a general question which is what's the library's role with respect to institutional learning data and the like what is our role what could our role be what should our role be of course that assumes my perspective which is that we should have a role so maybe you can push back on that as well so what I'm going to ask you to do is to turn to your elbow partners the people near you and if you don't like that person that's fine and if you need to move if you don't that's fine and I want you to engage this question marks like engage this question for a little bit and then we're going to ask for different people to report out and get the everything going but I wanted for you know some of us are introverts and we need to reflect and then talk small so maybe about seven ten minutes to talk small with your partners just a couple things I know it's time I wanted to just point out a few places where you can learn more I know they're going to be sharing these slides so my GA very helpfully selected out of the huge annotated bibliography she's done four resources that are great starting points I've left actually two handouts in the back if you want to grab one we're also going to be talking about this at the ACRL conference one presentation that's all librarians and another one where Malcolm is going to reprise his role as well as some others on the panel I'm really excited about moderating these discussions and also Malcolm has contributed some continue here reading so if you're at the next you're already started and you're at the next stage here are some additional things you can think about as well so I want to thank you guys all for coming we can stick around and talk but I want to also release you because I think you're eating that


The retrieval pinning protocol, okay, so in this case what we wanted to do is to focus on how we can guarantee retrieval for files that are stored on a traditional storage network and in particular, of course, our use case is Filecoin. And we designed this retrieval pinning protocol where, first of all, we have a fixed set of referees. So there's a network in the implementation and there's only five referees, but you can have any numbers and we need to trust only three of them. So it's like this honest majority assumption, you don't need to trust all of them. And then again, we design around this a protocol where the client and the storage to make some deal for specific for the retrievability for the retrievability features. So the client will propose in a similar way as you see in the other project a deal with like some specific parameters, not just the data, the dash of the data, but also the duration for which the retrieval feature has to be guaranteed, the payment for this service and very important, the collateral. So the collateral is some tokens that the provider put down, locked down in the contract if he agrees to provide this service. When if the provider fails to provide this service, the retrieval service, what the clients now can do can appeal to the referees that we have seen before. The referees have this role that they try again to retrieve the file. So they contact the provider and check if the provider really was just a mistake or is really not providing the service. And if the retrieval works this second time, thanks to the help of the referees, we are all happy and the provider gets back his collateral and the payment for the service. If something was wrong, what is will happen is that the collateral is burned and the provider will lose it completely, the provider will go to the smart contract vault. Again, we have the app live, the smart contract is on Ethereum Testnet, the Goerlich one. And we have the app that you can test if you log in in the app as a client, this is what you basically see. You see this interface where again you can start creating this sensitivity deals and you can drop your file here very easily for the file for which you want to do the retrieval deal. You can choose the providers. So in this case, it's not like in the other case, basically, this was not the step because it was only Web 3 storage, the provider, the dealers for which you talk. But in this case, you can choose which one. We have Web 3 where the doc providers that we maintain and you can choose that there are more parameters here about if you want to have collateral or not. Of course, without collateral, it's like less secure. For how long you want this deal, one week, one month. So this is all the parameters that you can choose and of course, when you go and create a deal, this will ask you to connect to your MetaMask and sign the transaction. The transaction goes online. The providers will see this request as to use the accept deal proposal to sign that is accepting the directivity deals. And for that moment, we have a deal active. When the deal is active, if at any point you as a client, you have some problem about the service, you can complain. So you can go here and this means you can request an appeal as you see here. Request an appeal. So we'll activate the referees, the referee network that will contact the provider again and try to, as we said before, try for retrieval. And basically, you can check everything. You can check the status of the retrievability deal. For example, if there is an appeal that is active. You can check what is happening while the referee network tries to recover the file for you. You can check it in the app as well. On the other side, on the provider, the interface is done by command line. We have all the code in our GitHub repo. You can download and actually you can test and try. There is a readme doc there and actually really we love to have feedback from also the provider side. So if you're interested, if you think it is nice, go there and try to play with this. Here what you can see is an example of the command line of what the provider sees when he accepts the proposal. And in general, I have to say that this is basically done. So the provider has to sign up to our protocol and while sign up, he can also choose some default values for the deals that he wants to accept. So like a minimum payment, a maximum collateral, max duration, max size of the file. There are these parameters that the provider can from command line decide. Of course, we have the default values and he provides the controls. And what is happening here is that basically almost automatically when you have these parameters, the parameters that are in the deal are compared with this one and if everything they match, the proposal that this is accepted, otherwise no. What else about providers is that we actually, this is not yet completely deployed, but the theory for this is ready and we want to provide a reputation score. So we are doing all this not just to put the crypto economic incentive for providing retrieval, but we think it's also will be very nice if we can add a reputation incentive. So we want to provide a way to say which providers are doing well and which are not in the provide at least for retrievability for looking at the retrievability. We designed the reputation core that has two components. The first one has the goal of incentivize provider that are willing to put high volume of collateral so the more collateral that you accept, meaning that you are more secure that you can provide a good service. And the second component is actually instead of giving a higher score or incentivize provider that are taking many deals, meaning they can provide the retrieval in a good way for large, large files or actually many files. That's it. Please go and test. We are really looking for feedback from clients and provider sites. Thank you.


Imam Ali was told of Kharejid, that he got up in the night to pray and recite the holy book. Imam Ali said, to sleep with having sincere faith in religion and Allah is better than to pray with wavering faith.


There was a record-breaking number of Asian celebrities that walked their way down the red carpet at the Met Gala this year, and we are going to tell you why it was kind of important that they did. Or not, depending on how you view the development of Asians in America. The Met Gala is an elite institution. It is a very big deal to get an invitation in a way. You know, it used to be reserved for New York's elite, sort of like the Bruce Wayne's of Gotham City, Jacqueline O'Nass's used to go. Then, of course, it started shifting over to be more like celebrities and arts and fashion over the year, but is it significant that a record number of Asians from America, from Asia, from Europe got invited to the Gala this year? Yeah, because they kind of have to be validated by a certain group of people we are talking about the elites. Like Anna Wintour has to know your name. Anna Wintour knows who Simulio is. And Michelle Yoann, Stephanie Sushi knows these people by name. But of course, us, you guys, you know, we have our mind in the industry, but we also are very, very much in tune with what your average Asian American, just trying to have a good life in America is into. And I do think your average Asian American, Andrew, probably has no idea what the Met Gala is. No, I don't think they really care. You maybe don't need to care. But it's essentially like the New York's version of the Oscars, except it's for fashion. Anyways, guys, we're going to go through the list of the Asians that showed up at the Met Gala that got invited. Some of them are familiar and some of them are not so familiar, but they're all bona fide stars in their own way. So we'll talk about Asian representation. Please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the hot pop boys. David, who's the number one person that we got to talk about? We've talked about it before. Who is it? We got to lead off with the new queen of the Chinese English-speaking world or Asian English-speaking world, Michelle Yoann. Born in Malaysia, got rich in Hong Kong and China. And at 60 years old, re-emerged as an Oscar winner in America. Yes, you know, I know that many people are arguing about my origin, whether I am from Hong Kong or from Malaysia. But either way, as long as you call me the queen. You know what's funny? Like, I know that she hasn't got that official title, but I can't personally. I personally cannot think of another like older woman that is like so revered in the Asian celebrity world right now. Right. Like, I'm sure there's some in Japan and Korea that like I don't know, but even of China, but globally, she's kind of the it one. She's it. I would say so. She wore a gown inspired by Carl Lagerfeld. And that was the whole theme of the event, Andrew. It was a gown tuxedo, but I felt like there was still some ancient Chinese traits to the way the silhouette was cut. I thought that was cool. But anyway, I like it whenever they do that, you know, that they can tie in culture into the more Western gown. I mean, I think my cultural hot take on Michelle Yo is it's really cool to see Asian celebrities come over at 60 and they've been rich and famous. And they've gone through these roller coasters in the East, but it's like they get on a upswing playing like mom or grandma characters in America, which is like Michelle Yo story now. And I think that's pretty interesting. I do think it's tough to say that, you know, she rapidly represents like people who struggled because I think she came from quite an illustrious family and had a great, you know, career. You know what I mean? But like, she doesn't think it's good. She definitely doesn't like represent like the regular common person. But I will say this, at least you know all you Asians out there who are in the industry and can't make it for a couple decades. Who knows when you're 50 or 60, they might call you back. Well, you just have to be super successful in Asia first. Do you think it's weird though? Like, do you think any Asian American kids watching media right now are like, why are we looking up to like Rich Brian and Michelle Yo? They're from like Malaysia and Indonesia. Is that the best Asian rapper and best Asian actress? I'll be honest. I think the Asian American identity pretty much is just Asians who speak English right at a like eight or nine out of ten. Yeah, like it could even be with an accent. Like it doesn't matter as long as you're Asian and you speak you do not have to be an American passport holder. Dude, as long as you're Asian and you speak English, you can represent and still help Asian Americans because it's true that a lot of Asians still living in America speak English with an accent to be honest. Right. Statistically speaking. Yeah, it's true like she represents our parents or our aunties or whatever. Moving on to number two, Andrew Key Huey Kwan, incredible comeback story.  He was a refugee from Vietnam. He moved to the 626 graduated from Alhambra High School. He became data in the guiney shortbound in Indiana Jones. And then now he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Yo, his suit, the Carl Largers felt like a homage. That was pretty cool. I honestly thought he was dressed like an assassin. Yeah, I realized that's how Carl Larger felt used to dress. He was a fashion assassin. You know, I only remember Carl Largers felt really from that one line from J.R. Rider, right?  He'll hit you from far as hell. Something Carl Largers felt. Yeah, anyway, they just shot at the dip set. Yeah, I really we really remember that line. Um, I think that he also took some stuff from in the move for love because he actually had that scene and everything everywhere all at once where he was, you know, very classical wearing those exact same glasses. That's true. Um, Andrew, what is your hot take? Because like for us, I think I've been hearing a lot of stuff from a lot of people in Hollywood. They're so proud of Kihei Kwan. He's very pro Asian. You know what I mean? He's got a mixed Asian stories, Chinese Vietnamese, but are some people are like, do you wish that Kihei Kwan would have called out the industry for shutting him out for 35 years? Or is he just good that he's so grateful that they finally gave him this great award after 35 years? Um, you know, I like like in Michelle Yo's case. I don't personally connect with them that closely, but I like to hear the story. I'm happy for them. I think it's good. Obviously we grew up watching Michelle Yo. I remember Kihei Kwan from watching the movies when I was younger that we're already old because he's a lot older than me. Obviously, but personally, like, yeah, he's kind of, he's, he's super grateful for the industry, even though the industry shut him out. So it's kind of weird, but either way, I guess overall I take it. It's great. No, I'm happy for Ki. Um, moving on to number three, Andrew, Stephanie Sue. Stephanie Sue played the daughter and everything everywhere, all at once. Um, apparently she was actually in, uh, some other stuff too that obviously I hadn't seen prior, but that was her big breakout role. I think the thing that really strikes me about her is like, she's very like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, very Silver Lake. Yeah. Yeah. I would say of the Asian stars, I guess, uh, I don't want to say I was surprised that she was here, but because she was a supporting actress in everything everywhere, all at once, you know, even though Kihei was the main male lead and then she was a second nomination. But she is kind of like in that hipster world and she's artsy, even though that's her biggest movie yet, but she is in some upcoming projects that are also pretty big. So, um, I like her look a lot man. She went with a Valentino tuxedo inspired 1970s dress, but with a tie and a dress and the Janelle Monet like haircut. And, um, I thought she did a good job because she's obviously trying to represent her identity. Yeah. And I do like how the Asians who came to the Megala, you know, they try to fit into the theme. They try to do something like really cool and edgy as you are supposed to when you go to the Met Gala, right? You want to stand out and let people know like, yo, I'm here. I made it. And I think everybody was looking at everybody's like unique twist on the Carl's Lagersfeld theme, right? I mean, my hot take is generally like, man, it's really dope to see an Asian American make it that does feel like somebody I know. Uh, it's not necessarily somebody from the city I grew up in because I think you know, from a nicer city for sure than the one we grew up in. Uh, but like Bellevue or something, Bellevue Washington could totally produce like a Stephanie Sue. And I still went to church with people like this and it's pretty cool to see them get big. Jenny from Blackpink, Andrew, um, Jenny is the most popular member of the K-pop group Blackpink after Lisa. And, uh, she actually spent five years in New Zealand. She could speak English, um, but a lot of people describe her as sort of like Westernized, but still shy. So yeah, did you know who Jenny from Blackpink was? I knew of her. I didn't know her backstory. I didn't know she is in New Zealand. Yeah, she speaks English pretty fluently. I think that's cool. I mean, she does kind of remind like, I think I, you know, because I know that they used to sometimes make K-pop stars out of like Korean Americans and American, like Asian Americans. Uh, but I think it's cool that these stars now are a little bit more Westernized or American. They're not necessarily specifically American, but New Zealand is like, you know, Western world as like a British, you know, colony originally. So I guess like, uh, are you surprised that more and more of the younger Asian stars are super fluent in English? Yeah. But I think a lot of them have influences and a lot of them spent time in at least Australia, Britain, New Zealand or America, right? Or Canada, Canada, Canada. Um, her outfit was Karl Lagersfeld inspired, but almost more of like an Aubrey Hepburn type vibe. It was from Chanel has the Coco Chanel vibe to it. I don't know more much about fashion. I just made that up literally. So I just said it looks like Austin Powers to me. I mean, honestly, I had no idea really who she was. I had seen her photo everywhere, but I'm a fan.  No, I had friends. Some of our friends went to Coachella. They went crazy when Jenny and the Blackpink. They headlined Coachella. So yeah, Lisa too. Um, number five, Andrew Simulio. Simulio is probably the biggest Asian American male representation we have in Hollywood right now. He's a friend of ours. We hoop from time to time. I'm rooting for him a hundred percent. Um, he had a Donatella Versace personally designed Karl Lagersfeld joint, which was super flashy because on his what? Is this the lapel or his chest part?  I believe they call those ruffles layers. I don't know. It was cool. I liked how his suit looked different because it had a different pattern on it. So, you know, that was already standing out. No, no, it's dope that he stood out, but I'm not going to lie. That's not the suit. That's the best looking to me. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, overall, I think Simu was out there to stand out to be a good representation.  I guess on the internet, some people as much as Simu says great things and people love him, people try to like bring him down. But it's like weird because he hasn't really done anything that big, but apparently some people don't like his like per online. No, I think it's just because he speaks on a lot of stuff and he like as engaging as he is, as engaging as you are, there's going to be some people who don't like you. And just like us, like if we were to engage more with people, maybe I don't know, there'd be more people who liked it and then some more people who didn't like it. I will say this. I think he challenges the idea that an Asian star is just trying to stay neutral, make as much money as they can and not polarize anybody. Right. Because he's not shy to share his opinions on issues that are potentially divisive or polarizing. I will say this.  Like he'll like, he'll run with like. And I'm saying in a way like the most Asian American to me stereotypical thing is somebody who's like so worried about their career and just trying to make as much money that they almost never even show who they are. To me that would be super Asian and stereotypical. Moving on to number six, Andrew, we got Jackson Wang. He's probably the only Chinese pop star who is crossing over to the West a little bit, but especially with Asian American audiences. You know, I was just got to think about it between Ki Hui, Simu and Jackson. Pretty good representation for Asian males and Asian women, of course, too. But I'm just obviously focused on the Asian male because we usually get shafted the most. So, uh, yeah, I would say between all these guys, I'm pretty proud of a man. They're all cool dudes, chill dudes. I've been able to interact with with all of them on some low. Even Jackson, I exchanged some messages with him. He seems really chill. He did Coachella this year too. And he used to be an athlete, right? He said he hoops, hoops a little bit or at least he used to and he's cool dude. So I mean, I'd say he had on the Michael Jackson blacked out Matrix Carl Lagerfeld fusion joint on.   No, I mean, I'm a fan of Jackson stuff. I would say, you know, his music videos and maybe sonically the music. It's not for me. No, it's not for you. It's not for me. It is not for you. I can see the artistry and he's pushing the envelope in the boundaries of it. Hey, guess what? It's not for you. Moving on to number seven. I lean goo. I lean goo who won a gold medal Andrew interestingly enough for China caused a huge controversy. So are we calling her Asian American or we calling her Chinese and just leave it at that? Well, here's the thing. Once she won the gold medal, she came back to America called herself a Chinese American or Asian American and then some fans in China got mad because they thought that she had taken on Chinese citizenship. But she didn't know. I mean, let's be honest. There are a lot of countries are given temporary citizenship nowadays, six months, one year. Yeah, you know, Eileen, you can be a citizen of China for the next four months. She had a very Asian Americans or Asian inspired dress on from a Hong Kong designer named Robert One. What is your hot take on this man? Because this is this one gets real actually like geopolitical. I'm pretty sure presidents know who I lean goo is. I think to be honest, the average person does not really care about who wins the gold medal for skiing. Like to be honest, like just the average person, right? But I lean to me is almost more of like an icon and model at this point, you know, she's very good looking and but she is also talented and obviously she's still won the gold. Like, you know, what do you think about this argument over like, are you loyal to America? And then people are like, I thought you said your Chinese this seems like all your friends are white. I mean, dude, I don't know, man. I think being a superstar hop is it's complicated. I mean to do your thing and not even think about any of this because you're worried about your lane. Listen, like I do think that it's legitimate. I guess as cultural analysts, you know, analyzers for us to analyze the fray because we're not. I'm not living her life. I'll watch this watch this is the credit I give her. Who knows that maybe in 15 years from now, we realize that what Eileen goo did in bridging Chinese and Chinese America and hop was actually fairly significant. It could be right, right? No, I don't know how the Domino's in the butterfly. You don't know because it's just the first. It's kind of jumbled. It's kind of weird. And yeah, I'll say this, man. I think a lot of hop is let me say this of most hop is are generally not going to be freedom fighters and revolutionaries for like Asian causes like Muhammad Ali.  They're going to be more like Jesse Williams or doja cat for their causes. You know what I mean? Because they're kind of like in between. Yeah. Hey, man, no wrong with the. Hey, man, live your life. Number eight Andrew song. Hi, Co. She is one of the top K drama actresses in Korea. Shout out to her, man. I recognize her face. Yeah, I recognize her face. I'm not familiar really with her work, but I think it's really cool that she got to meet up with Jenny from Black Pink there. So that's kind of like this like buddy, but like look like Korea in the house. Korea number one. Yeah. And she did the Fendi thing. She didn't do the Karl Lager's fell thing. And interestingly enough, Andrew, we got to bring up this point that I researched. Obviously I did not necessarily know this K-pop fans were mad that her and Jenny's dresses weren't as spectacular as they could have been because they kept it pretty clean. Simple. Of course, still super expensive designer, but they were like very like kept it simple because the K-pop fans were like, no, you guys missed your opportunity. You could have stood out. Right. You could have worn something really loud. So I guess what does it say about K-pop fans? Because they make you rich. They make you famous. They follow your every move online. They analyze it almost like, you know, basketball fans in Taiwan were analyzing Jeremy Lin's every move. But then I guess I could see how that could be bad in a way too. Well, you could look at it one way that they kind of stood out by the fact that their dresses were so simple or who knows?  Yeah, who knows? I mean, honestly, I thought it was cool the way they were taking photos there because it was more like squad. Right. You know, I think that's tight. You're not even supposed to have your phone out there. So I don't know.  She's been in Emily in Paris, Joy Ride. She went with the fishnet dress from Michael Kors. Um, I've been seeing Ashley Park pop up a little bit. She's actually from Michigan, just like Steven Yuen. She was also in beef. Yeah, so I mean, a lot of Koreans from Michigan getting on right now and my cultural hot take is that sometimes you need to be from a very Americana Midwest, Murrican, middle America type place. I'm sure they're from good families there, but you know, it's around them, you know, people eating chili bowls and all that stuff to like navigate media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it definitely helps to be very American at your heart, but also Asian. And I think that you have to have like a country. I think that's what Steven Yuen and Ashley Park are. I know that they're proud of being Asian. They can play those characters. Obviously, we know Steven can from Minari, but I'm saying like it's cool that they're from a very American place. Like we're talking about the Midwest. Yeah. I mean, it's like an Asian rapper would probably have to be from the inner city to pass to get by in a wrap world. It makes sense, right? To get respect in the, yes, probably. Something like that. It's basically along those lines. All right, David, number 10, we got Mindy Kaling. Mindy Kaling has been a star for like two decades now. I mean, she was in the office. The office and then she had her own show and then she's doing this and she has another show. And didn't she like write on the office too or she wrote 30 Rock, right? So I forgot. I'm not going to lie.  Obviously, like, I guess. Her new Netflix show, Velma's a little bit more controversial though. Yeah, I heard that. Up and down, up and down. I watched some of it. I did not think it was as bad as the critics. This is our first South Asian on the list. Yeah. She's wearing a Iranian designer called Jonathan Simchai. I mean, I think my big takeaway was that, you know, I think her writing's always been super smart. It's always interesting talking to my Daisy comedian friends about what they think about Mindy Kaling. And but I would say generally they, they, they're way less like critical of her than like internet commenters. No, but I think at a time, a lot of people were viewing her somewhat as like a sellout brown girl because she would always like just a white guy. Love interest and I'm sure she in real life. She probably does date a lot of white guys, you know, but she's in the industry like that's a lot.  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people just do because it's just American entertainment and it's just like, right, right, to get to the bed gala. Don't you have to rise some ladder of the Anglo sphere, whether it was an arts and fashion, but it's not arts and fashion in Asia unless it's a fashion of the Western world. Yeah. And I've been overall a fan of Mindy Kaling. I think she's funny. So shout out to her, but controversial too. Yeah. I mean, some people do it after all these years. I'm going to say she looks good after dude. Any, every community is hyper critical of like the first person from their world to like enter echelons of a new industry. I mean, well, I mean, if, jeez, if the fans want to get mad about a brown girl dating a white guy here, the next one we got Priyanka Chopra. Jones. Oh, I'm sorry. Jonas or Jonas. Yes. Um, she is a Indian actress and pop star who is married to Nick Jonas. She wore a Valentino dress inspired by Carl Lagerfeld. I would say that the back part was pretty cool. It looked almost fantastical to me. Like I had never seen this like big thing that she was holding in her hand. Yeah. I mean, I think Priyanka, she does a lot. Um, obviously controversial in India probably for like patriarchal dudes.  For sure. For sure. Not like IRL necessarily, but for sure. I mean, let's be honest. She is, she was at one point considered like the most beautiful celebrity in India. Right. She was the next one after Ashwari, a riot kind of age. So for her to marry a white dude who's Nick Jonas is cool. I think no one really has a problem with him.  Dude, he's not white, bro. He's Italian. He's Italian. My bad. He might be part of Cecilio. No, it's true. He's a little dark character. I would say that she fights for a lot of women's rights in areas of the world that might be more old school, which is pretty dope. And she married a Jonas brother. And I think it actually is a really interesting story. Actually, I to be honest, I didn't know much about it until I just researched it for this video. It's very interesting. It's multi-layered. Yeah. No, I think they have a great marriage. It looks cool. Good for them. Moving on to number 12. And we got Vera Wang, a famous Chinese American designer wearing Vera Wang. Vera Wang has been around for so long, man. She has been she's still designing. She's been famous in the fashion world for like, I don't even know how many decades. Dude, shout out to the Taiwanese. Andrew Jay-Z had a line. Do I too?  Vera Wang. He probably has met Vera Wang multiple times, to be honest. You know what's interesting about Jay-Z, Andrew? Jay-Z is from the streets where a lot of people, I'm sure they probably don't know what the Megala is either, but he actually is a like perennial person at the Megala now. Oh, yeah. I'm sure he's like probably one of the only guys who made that transition. Number 13, Andrew. We got Olivia Rodrigo. She is a huge pop star. Obviously was an actress when she was younger. She is half Filipino. She's wearing Tom Brown in a stringy eye-catching string dress. Mm, Olivia Rodrigo. I will, what do you think, David? Do you think that obviously I think overall Filipinos are pretty happy for her, pretty proud of her? Does she need to do any more Filipino things or do you think like as far as her proving that? I mean, she's Filipino. She doesn't have to really prove it. Yeah, I mean, I saw the photos with her and her grandparents. I mean, I would say she's definitely Latina passing. I'm not saying that she ever leaned into it or like faked it or anything like that. But I would also say a good amount of Filipinos are also Latino passing. Yeah, yeah. I would like to see her do more Filipino stuff in the future. But if she doesn't, man, I don't think anybody's gonna really say anything. All right. How about this guys? It's different than Eileen Gu who won a gold medal for China. I know a lot of people are like, oh, maybe Olivia. She needs to like, I need to see her make Lumpiers. No, she needs to do a song with Apple to app from, you know, the Black Eyed Peas and stuff. I feel like there's a more relevant Filipino artist right now. Moving on. Christine Chu Andrew. She is a rich woman from Bling Empire because everybody on the show is rich. Rich woman from Bling. She had the wild Madonna vintage Chanel dress on. One thing I thought was cool about it is who was going to think you're going to bust out a dress from the old days from like 30 years ago? You know, shout out to Christine Chu. I think she is, I guess I'm surprised that she's here at the Met Gala. I wouldn't expect like a reality show star from Bling Empire. But she's really rich and a philanthropist. Hey, that's it. In fact, there might even be holding more true to the old ideals of the Met Gala before all the celebrities polluted it. Well, shout out to her, man. You know, and here's the thing guys. You do need rich Asians to care about Asian things. And do you need the rich Asians that were already rich? Because they're actually low key guys. I don't know if you guys know this. I'm sure you guys do. There are a ton of rich Asians in the world, but actually in terms of rich famous ones like Christine Chu, not a lot. Yeah. Do you need these people to be high profile? You don't need them to be high profile, but you do need them to care about Asians on some level. Right. Moving on. Number 15, we got Wendy Deng and Grace Murdoch, who is our daughter that she had with Rupert Murdoch. And interestingly enough, Andrew Wendy Deng from Jinan Shandong, same place as Huang Mengji, yellow braised chicken. Your favorite dish. I bet Wendy Deng might know how to cook some Huang Mengji. Wow. That's crazy to think about. Now Wendy Deng herself, a little controversial on some levels, but we don't have to go into her story. If you guys are interested, you just Google her. Let me just say this. I think she might read power levels, Andrew, better than Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. Let me just tell you this, that when someone is able to do a biopic of her, it will be pretty interesting. Yeah. You guys got to look into it. Moving on. Number 16, we've got Sora Choi, who is a very famous model in New York City from South Korea and probably had the craziest Tom Brown dress out of everybody. It looked fantastical. Sora is already a cool name. Yeah. I mean, I had no idea who she was, but I think she had the best dress there. Honestly, I've never seen a dress that looked like this. But this next dress, from this next person, this next celeb was designed by someone that we know. Yeah. We're talking about Aaliyah Bhatt, who is a British Indian actress and had a pearl dress made by Prabhu Gurung, who we know. Shout out to Prabhu. Prabhu Gurung. We see him around New York all the time. He's Nepalese. He's a cool dude and very supportive of the Asian movement, of Asian empowerment. I thought her dress stood out just because she didn't do the Karl Lagerfeld thing. I was kind of getting sick of seeing people with the leather gloves because I was like, man, shout out to Karl Lagerfeld. But man, there was a lot of too much influence. I don't know. I mean, it's just nice to see a switch up. And last but not least, Andrew, we've got Tsai Shu Kun, which is one of the top male models in China. He's wearing Prada. That's who he's signed with. And it's still kind of looked at some ancient dynastic drapingness to it. But David, David, he's actually not even a model. Oh, he's not a model? He's a singer and rapper. Oh, my gosh. He's one of the hottest. I wouldn't say he's not a rapper. He's not like a Jay Chow or like a Chris Wu type of rapper. He's not a rapper like higher brothers, but he does rap. I think I've heard him rap. He's actually kind of good at it. Yeah, he's got some tracks. Dude, he's big in China. He's huge in China, actually. This is what they love in China, shout out to them. I mean, he's beautiful, man. David, what do you think? All right, to wrap this all up. That was actually 18 Asians. Is there a 19th one? I think they doubled up because of Grace Murdoch and stuff. Anyway, so should the Asians even care that Asians are showing up at the Met Gala or this is more for the industry to care? All right, it's definitely more for the industry. If you're in the industry or you're industry adjacent like us, I guess you already knew a lot of these people off the top of your head. But I don't think your average Asian American should care. But what they should know is that there's more Asians, I guess, entering high society in fields or like rising the ladder in fields that previously had not a lot of Asians at high levels. Do you think it is? Do you think that once you get invited to the Met Gala you are actually part of high society or are you not real? I mean, it's not like you're part of the Illuminati. No, I don't think so. But I think there are people who for sure if there is an Illuminati know them that are at the Met Gala. Do you think it's good that more Asians are getting up to this tier because the more Asians that get validated by the powerful systems, that means there's more Asians with some leverage or say and as long as that they are like good people and pro Asian care about the goodness of the world then overall that makes everything better. I mean, ultimately it's good but in terms of like how much good it does it really depends on what they do with their power and their influence and their platform, right? If they bring it back to the Asian American community what tiers, what income levels are they impacting? What issues do they value and prioritize because everybody only got 24 hours in a day and so much brain power? I would say this, the narrative, the narrative and the image is that Asian celebrities are generally like nicer, better people than a lot of the other celebrities. I feel like that's the general, like Simu is seen as a very good boy, good man in Hollywood, right? He's not going to do a chart. He's not going to do a lot of drugs. He's not going to get into scandal, all this other stuff. It's like clean people. So I guess there's more clean Asians whether or not they're rich or super talented or good looking, whatever it doesn't matter. A lot of Asians have been told to be a doctor at some point. I don't know if Johnny Depp, Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey Jr. had ever attempted to be a doctor. Basically I'm just saying maybe there should be more Asians in politics and at the Met Gala because Asians are nice people. Long story short, the reason why it's impactful to people who don't care and really don't care is because Asians have to be strong in particular fields that they were always traditionally weakened. So anyway, long story short, let us know what you think of the Asians at the Met Gala. Let us know what you thought of our analysis, what you thought of their outfits. Let us know in the comment section below. Hop hop boys, we're breaking everything down. Silly to serious guys, there's no limits. Till next time, we out. Peace.


Today was supposed to be a meat boy day. We were supposed to cook up some short ribs, have a little bit of fun, but there might not be any more meat, and I certainly wasn't planning on talking about cell towers. We were, again, going to say that they're taking our meat away. Claim that these big meat companies are using fear mongering to get people to buy cheap feed lot meat. And I still think that's a possibility. We know there is no supply shortage of animals, farmers are literally culling their herds. And there's no excuse to shut down meat plants if we're still allowing supermarkets, fruit and vegetable processors to operate. There's no logic in that. If anything, more people are handling produce in a less sanitary environment than we are slaughtering and processing our meat. When I was reading these articles, they said the workers were getting sick. And I know that this Toyota Corolla is not transmissible via human contact.  But if these workers are getting sick, what is it from? I decided to look up the meat plants that were temporarily closing and see if there were any cell towers or antennas nearby. And I was hoping to all that is good on this planet that I wouldn't find what I dreaded. Unfortunately, all of this is not a coincidence. The food supply chain is also vulnerable to the disease itself, not just the shutdown. On Monday, Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork processor, closed its Sioux Falls South Dakota factory due to a Toyota Corolla outbreak. raising concerns about a shortage of pork and processed meat reaching consumers. So the Smithfield Foods factory in South Dakota is conveniently located just south of three cell antennas. Yeah, I would assume if your workers are getting blasted by three military weapons emitting dangerous levels of radio waves, they might get sick. The impacted plants include Cargill and Hazelton, JBS Beef in Satterton, CTI Foods Hamburger Grinding Plant in Kingdom of Prussia, and Empire Kosher Poultry Inc. in Mifflin Town. Cargill Meat Solutions, Hazelton Township, Pennsylvania, literally a cell antenna just north right across the street. JBS Beef Plant, Satterton, Pennsylvania, right between two cell antennas. JBS Beef Plant, Greeley, Colorado, just north of a cell antenna. TTI Foods, Kingdom of Prussia, Pennsylvania, cell tower just north of the facility. Empire Kosher, Mifflin Town, Pennsylvania, three cell towers again just north of the processing plant. So what's going on? If you look at the cell tower spacing, it's impossible to say this wasn't planned. They specifically had to have installed these antennas near these plants, and I would be interested to see if these antennas were all from a similar company or if they were installed by the same contractor. There is no f***ing way six different meat plants would be located so close to these towers, five out of six of them being directly on the towers. This is just another military attack using radio wave technology. It's the perfect weapon for an evil government. It's invisible under the disguise of a cell tower, something you need for your electronic devices.  I wouldn't be surprised if I've already been given a legal dose of radiation. It really is an invisible weapon. In this case, I would bet everything. They pointed those towers at those meat plants to stage this, 100%. The point is, these towers are military weaponry that can be used to target anything or anyone. If they don't want you, your business, or anything going on, you are going to get zapped by an invisible laser and they're going to slap a Toyota Corolla tag on that body bag. Sad world, huh? They can do whatever they want. Every time I try to step away from the Wi-Fi tower stuff, it just relates back to these God-forsaken devices. We know what they did. They intentionally targeted these meat plants. Now, why did they do it? Why would you blitz the media with all of these articles, dozens and dozens of news stories, even my parents heard about this, and they're the sheeple out in the field eating the grass? I literally showed my hospital video to my father yesterday and he was like, oh, they must need some joy because of all the death they're seeing. Yeah. Were the soldiers in World War II dancing over in Germany? Why do they need to tell everyone that there's going to be a meat shortage? Is it more predictive programming, preparing you for grain-based slop, the slave diet? Do the nutrients in meat cure the illness? Do they strengthen your immune system to the point where you won't get some random illness so they can slap that Toyota Corolla tag on your coffin? Or is it a plot to get people to buy more cheap feedlot beef? Are other foods selling out of supermarkets but they still have some meat on the shelves?  Yes. People could face minor local food shortages, but they will be temporary. Images of empty grocery store shelves, farmers dumping thousands of gallons of milk, and long lines at food banks have sparked fears this week of mass food shortages in the U.S., a prospect that experts say is extremely unlikely. Though due to the sudden disruption to normal distribution channels, consumers may see temporary, minor shortages on some food items as the food system adapts to changes. Is this young lady psychic? But they will be temporary. You seem awfully confident, lady. As I said yesterday, line needs pricks up in front of a ditch.  Maybe she's not psychic. Maybe she's related to billionaire Barry Sternwicht. I don't know. Oh look, he went to Harvard Business School. Is that where they teach you to steal other people's money? Ok, the food supply chain is vulnerable. So why are you guys only shutting down meat processors? What about all of the rats and animals that get into grain supplies, the dozens of farm workers and grocery store hands that touch produce, fruits and vegetables?  How are people allowed to go to the supermarket, purchase and eat food that dozens of hands have touched yet you can't operate these meat processing plants where they literally spray chlorine and these sanitizing chemicals that will make you sick itself everywhere? Nothing makes sense. None of this makes any sense whatsoever from a sanitation perspective. If you really think about it, the cleanest food you could possibly eat is meat cut out of a freshly slaughtered animal. It's literally never touched anything else. Whereas these fruits, these vegetables are grown in soil, they're touched by insects, bugs, all these things, it's not a comparison. Clean meat from a freshly slaughtered animal is the safest food you can eat. The closing of meat processors create shortages at your grocery store.   All we had to do was create more fake news. We have lots of meat in storage, said Potts, whose members represent 95% of the beef and pork production in the country and 70% of turkey production. We have plenty of plants that are still operating as normal across the country. The National Chicken Bocah! Council in Washington DC also issued a release saying that almost all plants are in operation. Those social distancing requirements are slowing down some chicken processing lines. Fortunately, we're not experiencing any plants closing at this time, the release states. Our top priorities right now are keeping workers safe and keeping chicken flowing on store shelves in that order. Farmers may not be receiving the same variety of products, Randall said, but volumes are still large and alliance members have a lot of meat and poultry in storage. So we know the farmers have plenty of animals, that there is an abundance of meat stored up. The problem seems to be more with the demand than the supply, with all of the restaurants closed, with the elite people literally destroying the middle class, completely decimating any small business' livelihood. There is a sudden excess of specific cuts of meat that were only used in restaurant service. The average American isn't going to be buying bacon and sausage by the case or whole beef briskets. There's an idea that meat is bad for you, but when people go out, they tend to eat more meat as opposed to at home.  They are completely screwed and are going to be out a lot of money if they don't create this fake panic in the media, and they probably view this as a good thing if they're lying because they're not wasting food if people take it. You think they could tell the truth for once? Howdy moz!  So thank you guys for joining me today. Hopefully this incentivizes people to do something about this and they realize that nothing is going to happen when you sit at home. Go hand out some flyers, go speak to some people, whatever it may be. We need to start doing something to get our lives back. So if you guys do want to support me further, please check out all the stuff down in the description below. We will be doing a workout live stream today at 2 PM Eastern time. If you guys would like to join us, just check out my workout and answer a few questions here and there so you guys enjoy the rest of your night.


And now, tonight's presentation of Radio's outstanding Theatre of Thrills, Suspense. Tonight, the ironic story of an actor who played his part perhaps too well, thus leaving himself unable to better his performance. So now with Hans Conrad as Sam, here is tonight's suspense play, Rave Notice. When I'm walking across Times Square like this, I'm just an ordinary man. Plain, unnoticeable. It is though I were invisible, invisible. But wait, come here. Come with me through this door, through here, and into the darkness.  My eyes, drinking the gloomy shadows, become lustrous, bird-like, noble. Here, in this temple of the passions, I throw off my cloak of invisibility, and I reveal myself, my true self. For this is the theatre, and I, I am an actor. Up there on the stage, beyond the empty seats, lit by the single-bear bulb, are my fellow workers. We are here to make a play. Friend Norman, sitting alone in the third row, is our director. This is the fifth day of rehearsal. It's not a bad little play, but you know Norman. Norman will manage somehow the spoilage. Norman will misdirect actors and lose values. I've known Norman for years. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Norman, why not? Why not? Because I am the director, and I say no. No. Very well. No, no. Try again. I wish somebody would tell me what it's all about. Life, I mean I wish somebody would give me the words. Now that is adequate. Well, thank you very much. Oh, please. Oh, I can't take five. Norman. Oh, that's the best. Oh, hello there. How are we coming? Oh, Sam, come over here. I want to talk to you. Sure, Norman, sure. What is it? Now, Sam, I have had to turn over the bell ringer to lose her. The bell ringer? Well, that's my part, the bell ringer. What do you mean, losing her? No, please, don't make it difficult for me, Sam. Difficult? I'm not making it difficult. The bell ringer role is mine. That's all. There's no difficulty involved. Oh, please. You joke. No, it's not as if I hadn't warned you. Well, tell me what's wrong. Tell me where I've stepped off, what irritates you, what doesn't fit, and I'll fix it. How shall I start? Well, that's my role, Norman. I carry the whole cast with that role. No, don't show.  A fool? Why are you doing this to me? Because you are not right for me. Right? No.  No, easy. What do you know, what do you know about acting? You see, Sam, take easy there.  You know nothing. I know you. I know actors. You are no actor. You stink. I'll kill you for saying that.  Witnesses, he threatens me again. Yes? Well, listen well.  You see, you can't even deliver that line. Oh, you stink. I want to buy a gun. Oh, yes, sir. And what sort of gun did you wish to buy, sir? One that will shoot through fat. Sir? Pardon me. I was thinking, what kind of gun? Well, what was it you wished to use the gun for, sir?  Oh, well, a 22 would be about your best bet. Well, then let me see here. Here's a nice little item here. That looks pretty small.  Oh, well, I think a shotgun. A 410. Yes. You think that'll do it? Oh, mister, this is a truly beautiful weapon. Yeah. Uh, bullets. You have bullets? Oh, bullets. Shells you use in this weapon. Very well. I want one. One box. No, one bullet. What? Yeah. This rat I'm not going to miss. It's time now. He'll come out the stage door and he'll walk this way because he's going to Saudi for a drink. I slide it out from under my coat. I smile. And I say, goodbye, Norman. And I pull the trigger. Heart of belly. Heart of belly. Belly, belly. Yes, his cultivated plunge. Fat belly. Yes, his cultivated plunge. Fatted with actors' hearts. Am I invisible now? Mustn't be noticed until the moment. Perhaps standing a little too tall. Sag. That's perfect. The actor plays himself as a non-actor. Oh, you should see this, Norman. Now. Goodbye, Norman. Sam, no! Yes! I am shocked. Norman, you're dying. Please, someone call an ambulance. Please, is this how you play your death scene? Please, Norman, you're dying. Please, play it. What a shotgun he did, right in the middle of 45th Street. Wow. It brought him in an hour ago. You be in any trouble? Yeah, like a land. Oh. You thought you liked to know that the guy, he's still kicking. Alive? He's alive? Yep. So you're not a murderer? Not yet. Oh. Hey, I brought your lawyer. What's that? I'm your lawyer. Oh, how do you do it? Sit down, won't you? Thank you. They say he's still not dead. No, but he's sinking. When he dies, I become a murderer. Yes. They'll electrocute me. Yes. I must have been crazy. I thought of that. What do you mean? Temporary insanity. I thought we might plead that. Why don't we? Because you threatened him before witnesses, at least twice, went to a store, chose a gun with great care, waited for him to appear. You did all this, and then you shot him. That's right, I did. That's premeditated murder. First degree murder. So the temporary insanity thing is our way out? The only other thing I can think of is, if we could prove you were insane all along. What would happen? I mean, if I were.  Of course. You seem very calm. I'm an actor. He's gone, and I sit here, seeming calm. From time to time the guard passes, looks at me curiously. I know what's on his mind. There sits a cold-blooded murderer. I know. All my life I've studied the human being, memorized their gestures, tones, expressions, inflections, emotions. I've learned to probe every moment of my own experience from earliest childhood, searched out every reaction, emotion, learned to feel the parallel emotions of others. The Stanislavski method of acting. Oh, I haven't. I know it. Of course, if we could prove you were insane all along. But I'm not. The insane man moves without motive. I had a motive. I know you. I know actors. You're no actor. But I am. No actor. No actor. No actor. No actor. No actor. Matt. I know a joke. A wonderful joke. I'm going to beat Norman even in his gray. I'm going to have myself exonerated of his murder. Yes, free to the charges. It's so simple I can hear it. Not killed here by a reason no one said.  Play it without makeup, without lights, without script or cue. I'm going to play a part strangely foreign to my nature. I'm going to play a homicidal maniac. You're listening to Rave Notice, tonight's presentation in Radio's Outstanding Theatre of Thrill's Suspense. Radio's only adult western drama, Gunsmoke, now comes to you twice every Saturday on CBS Radio. There's a thrilling daytime edition and the nighttime show as well, bringing you the old west as it really was dangerous, deadly and full of action. Meet Marshall Matt Dillon and all the other citizens of Dodge City who coped with lawless frontier elements just as their real-life counterparts did decades ago when the West was young. On most of these stations Saturday, daytime and night, enjoy Gunsmoke. And now we bring back to our Hollywood soundstage, Hans Conrad as Sam. In tonight's production of Rave Notice, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. I'm going to play a homicidal maniac. How? How? What is the most terrible thing I ever did? Thing closest to murder. I must recreate that mood. Mood, murder, killing, blood. I killed a cat once. I was six years old. I had a stick within an alley. This cat, I poked it, just to laugh. He didn't run. That's all I wanted to make him do, just to make him run. No, he scratched me and I hit him. I hit him with a stick. He started squalling and I thought, I'm going to get into trouble. Stop that noise. Stop that noise. I'm going to hit him again to make him stop. And again, to make him stop. And it was blood. Red blood on the grace of man.  Strike out the lights, strike out the spirit, the spark.  I kill for the thrill of the silence of the cat. I'm a murderer. A murderer. Am I? I kill without reason. That's the character. All I need for turning it on is the memory. Those key points. Grey cement, cat's eyes, my feelings as a six-year-old. There'll be refinements, of course. I'll refine it. Oh, Norman, if you're only here to see this scene, dim the house lights, raise the curtain, and now to get my audience in. Who may I ask? Are you? Huh? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? Ah, come on now, Mac. Calm down. Don't know I asked a civil question. I expect a civil answer. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? This is so nice and quiet for a while now. No, don't answer my question. That's all I ask. There's not much reward for a hero to be asking, or is it? Don't you know who we are? I think he's putting on an act.  We know you hear us. Ah, leave him be. You think he's kidding? What does it matter? Yeah. Well, that was very weak. You think you're better than that. You're supposed to be a murderer. A homicidal maniac, so that's the emotion. Guilty. Guilty, you've got to be guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Smear yourself at the start. Guilty. Bloody hands. Guilty, and you want to be punished. Yes, punish yourself. That'll do it. It'll hurt. So what?  Oh, that seat. 10,000 volts coursing through this poor player's frail body. Murderer. Guilty. Should be punished. One, two, three, curtain going up. Guilty, guilty, then blood on my hands. Blood and filth and disease. I smashed him on the grace of men and smashed him. Murder. Murder. I murdered him. I'm a murderer. So I want to confess to purge myself of this guilt. Oh, take it easy. No, no, I'm guilty. You hear? I smashed him. I smashed him. Well, you're getting so worked up about the guy and even dead yet. Not dead. He is dead while he's been dead these past 36 years. 36 years! Hey, what are you doing? If you want to punish me, I'll punish myself! Hey! Hey! I'm guilty, and I shall be smashed!   Getting the doctor. My hands, my hands are killing me. I think I broke something, then.  Knuckles are even breaking the nails, but I'm not the bones. I want to be sure I can use the dancing when I get out of here. But when? If I ever get out of here! Two cats dead! Murdered by my stick! About 15 minutes, Docs. It's just before essential death. I see. All right, now you can stop that. I don't look. I keep right at it. Keep in the car. Murderer. Guilty. Stop it! It hurts, but I'm paying the price. Stop! I'm paying my way out of being electrocuted. I'm going to be free! All right, grab him. No, please! Please! I want to pay. I'm the guilty one, and I want to pay the sentence of the cause! Let me go! I will pay! Hypodermic needle. Injection. It'll knock me out. I can't act if I'm unconscious. I can't play my pod. My guilty, guilty pod. I've got to hurt myself. I've got to hurt myself. So why is such sweet stillness and peace? Gone in the darkness of the cell, steel and concrete. There's white ceiling there. And they're watching me very carefully. The taller one, he's new. The other gave me the hypodermic. Yeah, hypodermic. How long have I been out? Did I say anything while I was out? Perhaps if I keep still there, they'll let me know. You say, shall definite suicidal tendencies? Suicidal, immediate, or simply self-destructive. While he was unconscious, I listened to him. He spoke, seemed under the delusion that he's invisible. Invisible? That's a new one. Look, he's opening his eyes. Hello? Awake? Who are you? You remember me, don't you? No. I gave you something to quiet you a little while ago. A little while ago? When you were trying to enter yourself, so we'd think you insane. You've decided to give that up, haven't you? I have to carry out sentence, you know. How will you carry out sentence? To be smashed. I'm to be smashed as I have smashed the cat. Is that the law? Yes, yes, I smashed him with a stick. Stick? You mean shotgun, don't you? Oh, why would I say shotgun if I meant stick? I said stick. Have you shot the man with a shotgun? You're out of your mind. After you smashed him with the stick, what happened? What? What came after he was dead? I was frightened. I went home. Mama was there. She said, how did you get blood on your hands?  He had blood on his teeth. Understand you're an actor. We are all actors. We try to act innocent when we are guilty. Doctor, come outside a moment, will you? I've got them. I've got them. Just keep playing it cold and clear. What are they talking about out there? I wish I knew. It doesn't matter. I've got them. I know that. I've got them. I've got them. Well, I guess you'll be leaving us soon. Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're understanding, Doctor. I am guilty and must carry out sentence. You know that. What the doctor means is that you're going to a place where they'll help you get well. Get well? Of course. Doctor, if you'll have the affidavits drawn up outside, we'll get a court order committing him. Right. Seems you were right all along. You know, I wasn't sure until you told me about the man who was shot, about his recovering. Oh, yes. The guards told this man he'd recovered, but he didn't comprehend, of course. He went right on screaming and punishing himself. I see. Well, let's go. What would they have given him, were he sane? It depends. If the injured party refused to press charges, he'd be out of here in an hour. A free man? Recovered? But they didn't tell me he'd recovered. How could he have recovered?  When did they tell me? It was while I was screaming, maybe. I was really into the plot then. I was deep in it. I couldn't have heard them. I couldn't have heard. And now, now he will walk out of here. I'll go off to an insane asylum, married to a role that I loathe that I hate. No! No! Doctor! Doctor, come back! Come back! It was all a joke, Doctor, a game! Come back! Come back! Please, Doctor! What is it? Oh, listen, Doctor, I have a confession to make. I'm not insane. Please, believe me. Believe me. Of course you're not just a little confused, that's all. No, no, no, no. You're wrong. Don't you see? Doctor was just a gag. Just a gag. Yes, of course it was. Now, you're going to a place where you can rest and everything is going to be all right. Oh, no, no, believe me. I am sane, believe me. Why shout? No, I'm not shouting. I only want to impress on you, Doctor. But you were shouting, rather loudly. Oh, look, my lawyer said that if I could prove insanity, I wouldn't go to the chair. Chair? I thought you were to be, you said smack. Oh, forget that. That was part of the method. Method? It's the Stanislavski method. It's a system of acting. What do you think, Doctor? I don't know. The man seems to be telling the truth. Think so? I could fool you all over again if you feel it's necessary to prove my point. No, I don't believe you'll be able to fool me again. Doctor? Same. I say the man is in full control of his faculties, is aware of his crime, committed out of what society calls sober motive. You, sir, do you agree with the doctor? Agree? That's what I've been telling you. And I say, same. That makes it unanimous. Well, unanimous. Gentlemen, never in the history of the theatre has such a performance been rendered, nor under such adverse conditions, believe me. Just one more question. Of course, Doctor. Why did you kill him? Kill him? But I did not. I shot him. That's obvious. Shot? You mean shot, don't you? Don't you? No. He... Norman, he is dead. And you are sane.  Norman is dead! Gradually! Suspense. In which Hans Conrad starred as Sam. Next week, the story of several hours spent by two people in a deserted bus shelter and the slow realization by one that the other is quite mad. We call it the shelter. That's next week on Suspense. Suspense is produced and directed by Norman MacDonald with music composed by Lucian Morrowick and conducted by Ludbluston. Rave Notice was specially written for Suspense by James Cole. Featured in the cast were Lawrence Dobkin, Edgar Barrier, Parley Bear, Jack Prussian, James Nussar, Howard McNeer and John Stevenson. This is the CBS Radio Network.