Hello everybody and welcome to the online award ceremony for Ireland's inaugural Teaching and Learning Research Fellows. As you know one of the key priorities for the National Forum is student success and the icon we use for student success is an acorn with a three inside. So rather than have a zoom background of an office or a white wall I thought it was more appropriate that the background for our word ceremony was the garden of Ireland that captured the potential that they they can bring to the higher education sector. It gives me great pleasure now to hand over to Lynn Ramsey the chair of the National Forum Board to welcome everybody on behalf of the board. Good afternoon it's my great pleasure as chair of the National Forum to welcome you to the very first award ceremony for the Teaching and Learning Fellowships. These are research fellowships which we developed in collaboration with the Irish Research Council and although we can't meet in person we thought it was really important that we gathered virtually to celebrate these outstanding individuals and their contribution to teaching and learning in Irish higher education. We will have the opportunity to talk to the fellows at the end of the ceremony and to explore their plans for how their research will impact teaching and learning practice and scholarship in the future. The National Forum is delighted to have led out on the development of Ireland's inaugural Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships and they are key learning impact award for our sector. They sit alongside our Delta Awards our disciplinary excellence and learning teaching and assessment awards and our student-led teaching hero awards. But we didn't develop the Teaching Fellows on our own. We worked with the sector and we worked with our stakeholders and we worked with an international panel to make sure that the fellowship processes and the fellows that we selected represented the best of Ireland's learning and teaching scholars in Ireland. The advisory group we worked with in the first instance was made up of individuals from the higher education sector who shaped the fellowship call to ensure that in that call we captured the key characteristics that they felt were important that the fellows should exhibit. We worked with our partners the Irish Research Council who helped us to navigate our way through a fellowship process. We worked with the Union of Students of Ireland. Most of all we worked with the sector and I have to say a huge thank you to the sector for the support that they actually gave. We had 54 applications across 16 institutions and all institutional types in our sector were represented. We set up an international review panel. We also set up a technical group and that technical group kept an eye to the process as it actually developed over the six months from the call to the allocation of the fellowship awards themselves. But it was our international review panel along with our own national student representative that made the final selection of our fellows. And many of them are actually have joined us today for the awards ceremony. Kevin Max Stravok represented the Union of Students of Ireland and represented the student perspective on the panel. Professor Mary Dean Sorcelini from the USA. Professor Elizabeth Cleaver from the UK. Professor Linda Castaneda from Spain and Professor Manuel Josacala from Portugal. The panel was chaired by the International Advisor to the National Forum, Professor Frank Cudden. And I now like to ask Frank to say a few words on behalf of the review panel. Let me first of all say what a pleasure it has been to be part of this fellowship process. It's been a great experience and looking at the scheme in its very first year it's attracted 54 applications at the first stage from 16 higher education institutions in Ireland and that in itself is really quite an achievement for a scheme that is in its initial stages in the first year. The review panel has been really impressed by the quality of the applications that we've seen at every stage of the process. Not just in the fellows that have been awarded the fellowships but actually at the very beginning we saw quality. And as the chair of the panel I've had experience of other fellowship schemes. None of them have been as robust as this one. This one has been organised perfectly from the beginning and great credit to the forum for that. But for me what has really made it stand out is the thought that the forum put into the selection process. That has allowed us as a panel to differentiate between the different applications at each stage. The final stage applicants that we had to choose from really were an amazing group of individuals and that made our job extremely difficult. But we did get down to five fellows in the end and what can I say about that group? It's a terrific group of people very talented with complementary skills and I think there's going to be a real benefit to the Irish higher education sector from bringing that group together, bringing that collective experience to bear on a series of projects that these fellows will work with each other on but also they'll work with the forum in terms of defining the areas that they're going to focus on. I think what that will do in the longer term is deliver significant benefit for Irish higher education so I wish everyone well going forward from this point. The work that the fellows that we are celebrating today will do will guide the higher education sector for the future and it's our students who will gain most from their work. Hi there, my name is Kevin McStrabbeck and I am the Deputy President and the Vice President for Academic Affairs for the Unified Students in Ireland and I was also a member of the selection panel for the inaugural Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships as spearheaded by the National Forum. I was delighted to be part of the selection process for this inaugural fellowship scheme and it's a really, really important initiative that demonstrates just how valuable the Teaching and Learning landscape is within the wider higher education sector. I was delighted to see such a heavy emphasis placed on student engagement and partnership throughout the selection process and have the opportunity as part of the panel to meet with and discuss with all of the candidates for these fellowships their commitment and their track record to student engagement and partnership. The caliber of talent from all of those who applied was outstanding and it was an extremely difficult decision to choose who to award the inaugural fellowships to but the five individuals that we chose all demonstrated an incredible talent for Teaching and Learning but also most importantly an incredible commitment to meaningfully engaging with students in partnership as part of the Teaching and Learning process. I'm really, really looking forward to seeing how the research projects that these five individuals will be leading are going to play out and I'm really, really looking forward to seeing how they meaningfully engage with students as part of that process. This scheme, this initiative, is an incredibly important one and one that demonstrates just how vital Teaching and Learning is within the higher education sector but also just how vital the student voice is within the Teaching and Learning landscape. Yes, I were delighted to be part of this initiative and we look forward to continuing to engage with all of those in receipt of this year's fellowships and all of those within the Teaching and Learning landscape within Ireland. These fellowships are strategically important for the higher education sector at this time and the National Forum Board has led and supported their development over the last nine months. The National Forum led and the establishment of these important and prestigious research fellowships in Teaching and Learning because we wanted to celebrate the outstanding contribution that these individuals had made to scholarship and research of Teaching and Learning in Irish higher education. The linkage between research and teaching is fundamental and in many cases has been overlooked. This is a superb opportunity for us to take a look to the future to see what might happen and to anticipate and plan for what might be coming down the line for Irish higher education. I'd like to extend a special thanks to all of those involved in the development of these fellowships in particular to the nominees. Their dedication and belief in the process has created a unique fellowship experience here for us in Ireland. We developed the fellowships in partnership with the Irish Research Council and we extend a warm vote of thanks to all of those in the Irish Research Council who were involved. Hi this is Imer Cahill, Programming Communications Manager with the Irish Research Council. I'm delighted the IRC had the opportunity to collaborate with the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education to run these fellowships. I offer huge congratulations to the nine shortlisted candidates and I really look forward to hearing about the outcomes of the five awardees who are receiving their fellowship today. I hope that the research that you're undertaking will benefit the higher education system for years to come and I'd like to thank all of the applicants for their dedication to teaching and learning in higher education. I wish you all the best of luck with your research. Thank you very much. I can't think of anywhere more suitable than standing in front of this mighty oak to tell you about the award that we will be given to our nominees and to our fellows today. The award recognizes each one of you for being the national teaching and learning experts that you are. The actual award you will receive is a sculpture in oak and perspex that depicts an acorn and a tree. It turns on its head the idea that acorns are small things to show the enormity of the potential that lies within every seed and the amazing transformative growth that in the right conditions will emerge. We think these motives strike at the heart of the concepts of teaching and learning that is our mission to support and develop through initiatives like our teaching and learning research fellowships. Our five fellows will also receive this teaching and learning award however as part of their fellowship conferring our fellows will also receive a parchment that recognizes them as distinguished members of Ireland's higher education teaching profession. The conferring of a teaching and learning research fellowship recognizes your dedication and commitment to the development of teaching and learning. It is the highest individual national distinction the sector can offer those teaching in higher education. So be a no doubt today is it a very important milestone in your teaching career. I'm now delighted to start our awards. Our first awards are to our shortlisted teaching and learning research fellow nominees. Our first awardee is Dr Ronan Brie I'm a molecular bioscience educator at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Ronan on behalf of the Board of the National Forum I'm delighted to give you this teaching and learning award. Thank you for your commitment that you've shown to teaching and learning particularly through your valued contribution to the fellowship program. I hope you will continue to support the work of the National Forum in the future. And Ronan the president of your institution Dr Michael Mulvey would also like to congratulate you. On behalf of Dundalk Institute of Technology I want to very warmly congratulate my colleague Dr Ronan Brie for his being shortlisted for the very prestigious teaching and learning research fellowship. This is a very well deserved achievement and a great testament to Ronan's continued commitment to the area of teaching and learning and the relevant research in this area. Ronan is a valued member of our Department of Health and Life Sciences and he has a long-standing commitment to his disciplinary area of molecular bioscience. His research in the area of teaching and learning allowed him to apply digital technologies to facilitate and enable actionable feedback to students while they're being assessed. This is a very interesting innovation it's a testament to Ronan's continued passion for this area and the award itself is just so well deserved. Ronan congratulations again well done and best wishes. Our second awardee is Associate Professor Tara Cusick from the Department of Physiotherapy at University College Dublin. Tara on behalf of the Board of the National Forum I'm delighted to give you this Teaching and Learning Award. Thank you for the commitment you have shown to teaching and learning particularly through your valued contribution to the fellowship program. I hope you'll continue to support the work of the National Forum into the future. My warmest congratulations to Dr Tara Cusick Associate Professor of Physiotherapy at the UCD School of Public Health Physiotherapy and Sports Science who was shortlisted for a fellowship. Her main area of teaching and research centers around interdisciplinarity. She is one of the principal investigators of the Horizon 2020 Project Chameleons championing a multi-sectoral education and learning experience to open new pathways for doctoral students. This project involves developing education for students undertaking doctoral studies in connected health. She recently linked with the School of Education and Human Development at George Mason University Virginia USA to research best practice and the needs of interdisciplinary doctoral supervisors. Congratulations Tara. Our third nominee is Dr Evnette Leiflund from the Department of Mathematical Sciences from Dublin City University. Evnette on behalf of the National Forum I am delighted to give you this Teaching and Learning Award. Thank you for the commitment you have shown to teaching and learning particularly through your valued contribution to the fellowship program. I hope you will continue to support the work of the National Forum into the future. At DCU we believe that nothing is more important to the welfare of a nation than the education of its people. In this context I'd like to congratulate the National Forum and the Irish Research Council on their decision to inaugurate these prestigious Teaching and Learning fellowships. The timing couldn't be better and I'd like to congratulate the fellows who have been selected because they will play a pivotal role not only in shaping our response to COVID but imagining the new world and the way we will teach in the future, the way we will shape our young people and create the Ireland not as it was but an Ireland as we would like it to be and an Ireland as it can be. To do all of that quality teaching and learning will be essential. In that context too I'd like to congratulate my colleague Dr Avnet Niflain on her award. Avnet has been a pillar of the STEM community in Dublin City University, not just within the university but her influence has been felt nationally. Within university of course she has led our award-winning maths learning centre and she's been a pillar of our Castell, our centre for teaching and learning in STEM education. I'd like to congratulate Castell, I'd like to congratulate Avnet and again to wish our fellows all the very best. Our fourth awardee is Dr Bernadette Barretton also from Dundalk Institute of Technology. Bernadette, I'm delighted to be able to present you this award which celebrates your achievements and contributions to teaching and learning in the higher education sector. I'm sure you go on to do great things in the future and we look forward to continue working with you. On behalf of Dundalk Institute of Technology I want to warmly congratulate my colleague Dr Bernadette Barretton for being shortlisted for the very prestigious Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship. This is a well-deserved recognition of Bernadette's long-standing commitment and indeed her passion for this area. With more than 30 years experience in higher education Bernadette brings a wealth of experience to the area of teaching and learning. Her hands-on experience has allowed her in particular to develop new methodologies in the area of inclusivity and student engagement. As a consequence of her activities and her reputation, Bernadette has been responsible for raising DKITs profiling this area both nationally and internationally. Bernadette, this recognition is very well deserved. Congratulations, well done. I would like to warmly congratulate all of our four nominees today and also thank their presidents for the support they've given to the Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships. It now gives me great pleasure to turn to the awards for our fellows. Each fellow will receive an award for being a Teaching and Learning Research Fellow nominee and also a scroll for conferring the award of their fellowship. Our first fellow is Dr Michelle Flood, a lecturer at the School of Pharmacy and Biomelecular Sciences or CSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. Michelle's research piece will focus on understanding and enhancing interdisciplinary teaching and learning in Irish higher education. Michelle, on behalf of the Board of the National Forum I'm delighted to give you this award for being shortlisted nominee for the Individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship. Also it gives me great pleasure to confer on you Ireland's first-ever Individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship. Thanks for your commitment to Teaching and Learning. The National Forum is really looking forward to working with you and supporting you through your research. We know it will shape the future of development of Teaching and Learning priorities in Irish higher education. I want to offer my sincere congratulations to Dr Michelle Flood on her success in securing this prestigious Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship. Dr Flood has made an outstanding contribution to Teaching and Learning in RCSI's School of Pharmacy and Biomelecular Sciences and indeed beyond it and her work is truly transformational. Her dedication to meaningful student engagement and passion for innovation in Teaching and Learning embodies the values of RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. We have been at the forefront of healthcare education in Ireland since 1784. Healthcare leaders who have gone on to practice in 94 countries have started their journey here at RCSI. Today we remain committed to the educating the healthcare leaders of the future. Innovation in education and research as so impressively showcased by Dr Flood is part of our heritage. Facilitated by world-class faculty like Dr Flood our pioneering approach to education equips our students to thrive in the complex multidisciplinary clinical settings right around the world. These fellowships will influence the future evolution of Teaching and Learning in Ireland's higher education sector. The National Forum and the Irish Research Council are to be congratulated for the initiative. They have taken in recognizing the value of an evidence-based approach to the advancement of Teaching and Learning. Once again congratulations Dr Flood. Your colleagues at RCSI are immensely proud of what you've achieved and we greatly look forward to learning from the research you undertake during this important fellowship. Our second fellow is Professor Chris Lynch. Professor and Consultant in Restorative Dentistry at University College Cork, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Dentistry, and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry at the Royal College of Surgeons, University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Ireland. Chris's research piece will focus on working with higher education institutions and professional regulatory bodies to enhance the competencies of future professionals. Chris on behalf of the Board of the National Forum it gives me great pleasure to give you this award for being shortlisted nominee for the Individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship. I'm also delighted today to confer on you one of our inaugural Individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships. The National Forum looks forward to following your research and to supporting you in the 18 months to come. Huge congratulations to Professor Chris Lynch of University College Cork on your award of the Fellowship, Chris. We're really proud of you at University College Cork as a colleague, as a friend, but also as a teacher and as a consultant. At University College Cork we have a simple mission. They were student-led, research-informed and practice-focused. I can't think of a more wonderful example of someone who's led by their students in terms of their needs of their curriculum, in terms of their support that they need, research-led being involved in a huge amount of research yourself, but also with the editor of journals, and also practice-focused as a consultant. That amazing combination has enabled you to be a magnificent teacher, which has been recognized here today and we're really proud of you, Chris. Congratulations and I hope people won for the year ahead. Thank you. Our third fellow is Associate Professor Geraldine O'Neill, is an Associate Professor and Educational Developer in UCD's Teaching and Learning Unit. She has supported many institutional teaching, learning and assessment projects, recently leading the development of UCD's framework for programme-focused assessment and feedback. Geraldine's research piece will focus on work-based assessment, exploring barriers and solutions to an emerging assessment challenge. Geraldine, on behalf of the National Forum Board, I'm thrilled to give you this award. It represents your contribution being shortlisted for a nominee for the individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships. I also have the pleasure today of conferring on you one of our inaugural Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships. Your research will no doubt be impactful and make a very positive contribution to teaching and learning in Irish higher education in the future. My warmest congratulations to Dr Geraldine O'Neill, Associate Professor and Educational Developer in UCD Teaching and Learning. She has supported many institutional teaching, learning and assessment projects, recently leading to the development of UCD's framework for programme-focused assessment and feedback. In a two-year succumbent to the National Forum, she coordinated the assessment enhancement theme 2016 to 2018. A key aspect of this national project was the shift towards empowering students in the assessment and feedback process. Dr O'Neill has a track record of research dissemination focused particularly on curriculum design, assessment and professional development. She achieved a UK Higher Education Academy Principal Fellowship in 2018. I'm confident that her fellowship will help inform the implementation of key national education and skills priorities. Congratulations Geraldine. Our next awardee is Dr Barry Ryan, a biochemistry lecturer and programme director and an award-winning and research active applied scientist with a proven expertise in the practitioner use of and leadership in evidence-based pedagogies in modern higher education settings at Technological University Dublin. Barry's research piece will focus on identifying and understanding and addressing group work gender patterns in sciences in Irish higher education settings. Barry on behalf of the board of the National Forum I'm delighted to give you this award for being a shortlisted nominee for the Individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships. I also have the pleasure of conferring on you one of the inaugural Individual Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships. We celebrate your contribution to teaching and learning to date and look forward to your research as it develops during the course of your fellowship. As president of TU Dublin it's a great pleasure for me to be able to congratulate Dr Barry Ryan for being one of the first recipients of a Fellowship Award from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. In recognising the achievements of those who have already delivered in the enhancement of teaching and learning this award is particularly appropriate as Dr Ryan has already made significant contribution through the implementation of research-informed practices and policy changes. Within its fellowship Dr Ryan will look at the critical issue of gender and gender issues particularly as they relate to group practice and group work in the sciences. I very much look forward to being able to see the outputs from his work and to develop a further understanding of how his suggestions and implementation pathways can be applied in other fields of study. Once again I'd like to congratulate my colleague Dr Ryan on being the recipient of this award and wish him and his fellow recipients every success in the coming year. Our final awardee is Dr Brett Becker, an assistant professor in computer science at UCD where research is computing education. Brett strives to make computing education more accessible and useful to students of all disciplines. Brett's research piece will focus on teaching and learning for the next era of digital innovation. Brett on behalf of the board of the National Forum I'm delighted to give you this award it represents your work and being shortlisted as a nominee for the individual teaching and learning research fellowships. I'm also thrilled to be able to confer on you one of the inaugural individual teaching and learning research fellowships. Today we're celebrating your commitment to teaching and learning and we look forward with much anticipation to the research that you'll produce over the next 18 months. My warmest congratulations to Dr Brett Becker who is an assistant professor in the UCD School of Computer Science. Dr Becker strives to make computing education more accessible and useful to students of all disciplines. He is author of the textbook Computer Science for Leaving Certificate and president of the All Island Society for Higher Education. He holds several international positions including steering committee chair for the ACM Global Computing Education Conference and associate editor for the journal Transactions on Computing Education. He holds an MA in Higher Education and received the UCD College of Science Teaching Award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. I am confident that his fellowship will help to highlight the critical influence teaching and learning increasingly has in Irish Higher Education. Congratulations. Once again I would like to congratulate all of our research fellows and thank the presidents of their institutions for their support. As we bring our awards and conferring ceremony to a close, as director of the forum I would like to extend my thanks once again to all those who have made these fellowships possible. I would like to say a special thanks to the National Forum team who worked so hard on the development of these awards. The work that the fellows undertake over the next 18 months will be showcased at the National Forum Summit. The team of the summit is valuing Ireland's teaching and learning and it'll run from the 8th to the 12th of November 2021. I invite you all to join our fellows next year when they will share their findings that will shape the future of teaching and learning in Irish Higher Education.


On this episode of DTNS, the Digital Markets Act in the European Union went into effect today with lots of opinions from a lot of companies who are affected by the DMA. RobinHind is also getting into sports, we'll explain why and how, and is TikTok going to survive the US protecting its citizens from TikTok? This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, March 7th, 2024. From Studio Animal House, I'm Sarah Layton. From Columbus, Ohio, I'm Rob Dungley. From Deep in the Heart of Texas, I'm Justin Robert Young. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Happy DMA Day today. Happy DMA Day. Yeah, some of you might like it, some of you may not. In fact, many people don't. We're going to talk about that ad nauseam in this episode, but let's start with the Quick Hits. A new report from stand.earth warns that new semiconductor plants in the US being built by Intel, TSMC, Samsung and Micron could use a ton of electricity, more than twice as much electricity as the entire city of Seattle uses once they become operational. The nine facilities under construction could add 2.1 gigawatts in new electricity demand. Now all four companies building those facilities have made commitments to reach 100% renewable electricity for their US operations. But their plan for doing so, the purchase of renewable energy certificates, or RECs, is viewed as flawed by many due to RECs being a mix of renewable but also fossil fuel powered energy and can be written off as 100% renewable. On yesterday's DTNS, we talked about Fortnite developer Epic Games announcing that Apple terminated its developer account, which would have allowed the company to make its own Epic Games stores on iOS in Europe and relaunch Fortnite on iOS devices. Apple responded to Epic saying it was an egregious breach of its contractual obligations determined by US courts giving Apple the right to terminate its relationship with Epic at any time and at its sole discretion. The European Union has confirmed it is looking into Apple's decision to close the Epic Games developer account. In a series of posts on X Wednesday, Elon Musk said that seen metrics like likes, reposts and favorites counts at a glance would be disappearing from the main feed of X in a future design update, but not going away completely. X user CB Doge, who appears to have inroads to Musk, initially announced this change, also adding that soon users will have to click on the post itself to view these metrics. Musk said in a reply that was on main, only view counts will be shown when you're just going through the actual feed. In a separate post, Musk said, I've been dying to do this for a year. Nikon announces acquiring digital cinema camera maker Red, which will become a subsidiary of Nikon after the deal closes, allowing Nikon to expand into the digital cinema camera market. Nikon says it can draw from Red's knowledge in cinema cameras, including unique image compression technology and color science to help this expansion. Red was founded back in 2005 and currently has around 220 employees. DMA news is going to be a theme on the show today. Apple is readying, letting EU based iPhone users uninstall its first party Safari browser by the end of this year and is working on a more user friendly way of transferring data from an iPhone to a non-Apple phone by fall of next year. A new compliance document published by Apple outlines all the ways it's compliant with the European's new digital markets apps, which is law as of today. Transferring data between browsers on the same device, also a new perk, and Apple plans to make that available by late 2024 or early next year, along with changing the default navigation app on iOS by March 2025 for users in the EU. Alright, I keep saying DMA, so let's get into some of the news that is making headlines today. Today is when the European Union's digital markets act goes into effect. We've been talking about it today is the day. And the US Biden administration is dealing with it. We've got US based industry associations telling the White House that Europe had used subterfuge to hobble US companies. We've got members of Congress claiming that the new EU law is de facto discrimination against US firms and workers. Also warning, it's going to give more power to China and Russia if it continues going forward. The Biden administration has already sent two official letters of protest to the EU raising concerns hasn't really pushed the issue. The Washington Post sources say just raising concerns for now. This is reportedly based on differing views within the administration regarding the interests of big tech with the added complexity of the ongoing war in Ukraine. There are issues with China and other issues where the US has been seeking cooperation from the EU. Now, Justin, we're going to talk about the DMA pretty much throughout this entire show and its repercussions throughout today's show. But let's start with how you think it might be affecting US strategy. Well, you know, there's doing something and then there's doing something when you're dealing with stuff like this. And right now, the Biden administration has relied on pretty official benign channels. What big tech or what we would, you know, collectively refer to as Google, Apple, Amazon and the like. What they want to do is more of a full court press. They want the State Department to be a very much going to Brussels and saying this is something that needs to be either changed, carved out or not exist. Unfortunately for them, it does not appear that that is going to happen. And it does demonstrate right now the arms length that American politics has with these companies. And it's not just on the Republican side that has a lot of culture war issues with them, but on the Democratic side that are facing a progressive left that would like to see more antitrust and sees things like the DMA as a good step forward. Yeah, I was actually thinking that very point. I saw that. Well, there's we're going to send you a letter. Maybe we'll send you to, but we're not really coming at your heart on this just because we need to get reelected in our reelection campaigns. And there's a lot of Americans who are really liking some of the things that the DMA is doing. There's a lot that don't, but there's a lot to do. So I saw this as we're going to say something because we have to support, you know, our business interests, but we're just not going to go. We're not going to take it to that next level to where we actually are really pressing hard with this. Yeah, I mean, it would be impossible to have this conversation without mentioning that, you know, we're in an election year in the U.S. Many countries are having election years this year, but it does strike me as convenient for, you know, a lot of folks who may be able to make some significant changes or even, you know, try to go after the DMA. If they really feel that, you know, it's wrong for these big tech companies, you know, and we're talking about Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, all U.S. companies, but also TikTok, you know, and ByteDance, the parent company, which is headquartered in China. I mean, those are all, for the most part, the companies that are, you know, have had significant changes forced to be made to how they do things and how they treat their users. Again, in the EU specifically, this is the DMA after all, this is not a worldwide thing, you know, and it varies by market. But it does seem to me that unless this is just, you know, the torch you will carry and you really care about it, I think a lot of politicians might say, let's just get through the elections first. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, although I do think that this is long simmering. This is not necessarily something that is particularly inflamed by the election, mostly because you don't see this on one side or the other. It's not like Donald Trump is coming out and saying that the DMA is awful and Joe Biden is defending it. This is pretty bipartisan that big tech doesn't have the kind of burgeoning support that it might have for eight or 12 years ago. What's interesting to me is that these big tech companies will be the first to tell you to keep government out of our business except for when we need government to be in our business to help us with other governments. So, you know, that point is not lost on me, but you're right. There's not a lot of folks who are just saying these companies to make these ridiculous amounts of money that we really feel bad for you because you can't do business that may in some ways be adverse to citizens of other states. Yeah. So if we're going to change gears a little bit, you know, one of the things that I found interesting, there's an article that's talking about Robin Hood and Robin Hood is that commission free investment platform that is popular with beginner and intermediate investors, particularly because of its mobile app and gamification of investing. It has partnered with clutch sports. The rich Paul at sports agency whose biggest client happens to be LeBron James Robin Hood is looking at to take, you know, sports entertainment and media and do just a bunch of different things with it that we normally don't necessarily see from a company like Robin Hood. You might wonder why the company is doing these things. CEO of Latin have said working with the rich and team at clutch sports is really the way that Robin Hood is going to get his brand out there to a wider audience and partner with athletes and organizations that are aligned with our customer needs. Clutch said that it has been connecting Robin Hood executives with teams, owners and athletes as the company looks to expand its reach beyond tech and finance. So, like I said, I thought this article that I read was really interesting about this because you don't normally see agents, which clutch is clutch sport, you know, they support agents LeBron James is clearly the biggest, but there's others out there.  Look at what we're doing. That's just something a little different than what you see generally from agencies that are dealing with sports. But when we were talking about this before the show, I was like trying to wrap my head around why Robin Hood would want to partner with clutch sports besides just being like LeBron James cool. Yay. It's like, oh, are they creating some sort of a fund that someone like me could use Robin Hood to the invest in. But that doesn't sound like it's the case, right, Justin? No, it's not the case. You know, number one, agencies make deals with these kinds of companies all the time. It's really the reason why agencies exist, especially in our more 360 degree world of these these kinds of partnerships. What is fascinating is that as Rob mentioned, that it's this public that it's worth coming out. And part of it is because the media environment agencies have become extraordinarily forward facing in the world of sports media. When you talk about the transactions of basketball, it's very hard to not say the term clutch because of their connections to LeBron James. And if you follow the sport, these players tend to stay together.  You can sort of have the tea leaves be read. And so anything that gets repeated that much on television is going to be something that is worth a media deal. And that's what's interesting is that it's not odd that something like Robin Hood would make a deal with an agency. What is odd is that we know about it. Yeah, so clutch, they help facilitate a three year patch deal with the Washington Wizards. And what's interesting about that is that they're coming out and saying that, yeah, we just signed this deal in October, but we're already seeing the entire Washington DC metro area is now more aware about Robin Hood. And one of the things that this deal reminds me of right now in sports podcasting is enormous. You're seeing clearly you're seeing the people talk about sports podcast, but you're actually starting to see even the sports athletes themselves as you're actively playing these games. They're creating our own podcast as well. And a lot of those podcasts are driven by sports books.  But there are a lot of players who say, no, I don't want to be involved with betting at all. So I'm looking for other types of sponsorships and you're starting to see Robin Hood pop up in that place. I am, you know, two of my favorite things are tech and investing. So when I see, you know, I can tell you I've actually noticed the Robin Hood logos on the billboards, you know, at games, I've noticed the patches on the Wizards jerseys. So this this seems to be working. And, you know, like I said, as as the CEO of Robin Hood said, it's like we want to be in this space and it looks like they're getting into it in a big way with clutch sports. I mean, but like, is this partnership anything more than like a sponsorship partnership? Because I could see, you know, talking about the podcast side of things, I could see where, you know, clutch sports and LeBron James and a variety of things. There's a variety of athletes that are affiliated with clutch sports, either being talked about or being guests on a variety of podcasts or shows in general, whatever, you know, we can talk traditional TV as well. And, you know, Robin Hood being mentioned as like, yep, this is this is the trading app that you want, you know, this is the investment app for the next gen like that's a sponsorship opportunity. I just wonder how much deeper this is.  A lot of times brands will say, hey, they've got millions of people that are looking at them every day, they've got millions of people who are listening to them every day. Let's go do a deal with them because the people that they talk to match up with our demographic. So when you think about Robin Hood, Robin Hood is not the, you know, is not the, you know, the old school type of brokerage firm. There are a lot of first-time investors that are using this type of app. It probably skews a little bit younger than the average investor. And that is absolutely the market for people who watch a lot of sports, folks who may, you know, have some disposable income but have not actively started investing yet. I think Robin Hood has said, you know what, I think we can actually get some people here and it seems to be working thus far. Well, folks, Tom Merritt is writing a book. Tom Merritt has written quite a few books in the past and you might have enjoyed those books. And if you want to be able to say that you helped make the latest book happen, you can get in on the pre-order action right now and be one of the first to get Tom's new book called, Sinked, Understand Technology and Make It Work for You. It's like a version of Tom that you can have on your shelf whenever you need to understand something about tech instead of, you know, knocking on his front door. Or explain it to somebody else because it's always good to be the person who can explain something to someone else in a measured way. And Tom Merritt is that guy. Go get your pre-order in now, tomsnewbook.com. Yesterday we mentioned in QuickHits that a bipartisan bill had been introduced to force ByteDance to sell TikTok, this is in the U.S., if it wants to remain in the country. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Appliance Act would give ByteDance a six-month window to sell TikTok or face a ban from U.S. app stores. TikTok and other similar apps would also need to provide users with a copy of their data in a format that can be imported for competing apps. Despite the name, TikTok referenced several times in the bill. The legislation would allow for banning other foreign adversary-controlled apps. So it's not TikTok specifically, but it's very much TikTok as, you know, the grandmaster here.  So Digital Rights Group and the ACLU are not happy about this. They've all criticized efforts saying that they were unconstitutional and restrict free speech. TikTok itself said the legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform that they rely on to grow and create jobs. So Justin, can you help us break this down a little bit and tell us what the effects would be? Justin's not in the call. Just you two. Justin's not in the call. We'll hack him. Justin was going to tell us all about this. Should we give him a second to reconnect? Oh, he's rebooting his laptop. Okay. So yes, let's talk about this amongst ourselves because Rob, I know you weren't on the show yesterday, but we did mention this in Quick Kits and it was like, huh, this is interesting. Glad that Justin Robert Young is going to be on the show with us on Thursday's show, March 7th, to talk more about this because if anyone can explain this whole thing, he can. It sounds like it's sort of like we've been doing this dance for a while, right? The whole idea of like, hmm, you know, bite dance is a Chinese company, but TikTok is based in the U.S., but a lot of people don't feel like that's enough. And a lot of people feel like the data that TikTok is being collected, you know, because it has servers in Singapore rather than China and some in the U.S. as well based in Santa Monica, California. Still, we're suspicious, you know, we've been talking about that for a couple of years. This sounds like it's like a, we're for serious, serious this time. Yeah. So we have been talking about this for a while and it kind of cooled off, you know, for the better part of 2023, it kind of cooled off where no one was really saying anything. But as you said, Sarah, it looks like the government is for real, for real about this because TikTok has, they basically are looking at this like, okay, something a little bit different. So they've decided to actually go out and do a push notification to 170 million Americans and let them know, hey, contact your congressperson. Let them know that this is going on now. I don't know if that's actually going to work, but it is a bit of a different reaction than we've ever seen come out of ByteDance and TikTok on this.  You need to contact your congressperson and talk about it. So this has bipartisan support. We have not liked TikTok from a government standpoint for a myriad of reasons for a long time. And this one seems like it may have some weight behind it. Justin Rubber Young, are you back with us? Allegedly so, yes. Yes, we can hear you excellent.  We were just talking about this whole U.S. Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act going after ByteDance very specifically in TikTok. But, you know, broad enough to apply to other companies, but this is really a TikTok thing, right? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's a TikTok thing. And look, this, the song has kind of remained the same when it comes to TikTok for the last year and probably more than that. Number one, there's bipartisan support because people are mad about social media for different reasons. There's bipartisan anger toward China, but also there is a push on the left that there is a cost to social media. And then you get into all the issues of bias. When it comes to TikTok, they have not a lot of industry support, so let's go back to the DMA conversation. You've got Apple, you've got Google, you've got Amazon all fighting on the same side. When it comes to this, Google and Meta are saying, well, somebody needs to do something about this Chinese spyware. They do not want to stick up for TikTok. What I'm concerned about, or at least in terms of looking at the strategy of this, is I don't know how many more cards TikTok has to play when it comes to something like this. If they're trying to weaponize their audience, which they are right now, that's pretty much it. If they cannot move the needle with this, then, you know, aside from lobbyists, I don't know how many other cards they have to play. Okay, so let's say that TikTok gets banned in the US. Let's just say that's what happens. Unless you have a clever way to pretend that you're somewhere outside the US, which many people do, but let's just say it means that you can't use TikTok anymore. Does that change some sort of social media landscape? Because right now, TikTok is a major player, not the only one, certainly. I would say it most directly competes with the YouTube shorts or Instagram reels. But it's a pretty big deal. Do people just kind of go, all right, well, I guess it's illegal now. We'll just hang out somewhere else. Or what happens after that? Well, the question becomes exactly what does ByteDance think that its options are? Because the big push here as it was toward the end of the Trump administration is, will you sell? TikTok and ByteDance have obviously been tremendously resistant to that. They do not want to be forced to sell. And they have tried to make deals like they did in the Trump years with Oracle. They have continued to push Project Texas as a solution to allay fears that there are backdoors for the Chinese Communist Party to access this data. But that hasn't really quelled anything. And the government is in a bit of a pickle as evidenced by the White House. They pushed to ban TikTok from all official government phones, and yet the Biden-Harris reelect campaign have an official TikTok account. That is the quandary that we are in right now. It is obviously intensely popular, and specifically during an election year, there are people that very much want to make sure that this continues to be used as a mobilization attempt. But there is bipartisan support in Congress that wants it to be sold and is willing to ban it if it doesn't. I don't see a situation where TikTok just goes away. I think the worst-case scenario for ByteDance is that they end up being sold and they meet the requirements that the United States is saying, this is what it's going to take for you to exist inside of our borders. I do believe that they will ultimately – I don't cave as a strong word, but I think that they would go to that point, just because at one point they were the most trafficked website on the Internet. We're talking billions and billions of dollars that this company ultimately can make, and if a change in ownership is required to continue making money, that will happen. As far as users are concerned, users will be outraged. They will be upset, and then they'll find something else. Because one thing I do know about people on the Internet, we're adaptable and we're fickle. So ultimately, yeah, if it goes away, it goes away, but it's not like people are going to stop making videos and putting them in places where they can actually put them. And ByteDance needs to be careful and not think that people are going to start using VPNs so they can still get that app. That's not going to happen by large enough numbers to make any kind of difference for them. So as I said, I do see that if push comes to shove, they may end up selling this to someone else that actually meets the requirements that the United States is putting set forward. Also call me a cynic, but ByteDance sells TikTok. Let's think about that scenario. So TikTok is now owned by some other entity, and that's where the data is being collected and lives. In a world where companies sometimes have partnerships, ByteDance could still stand to benefit from this whole thing, and you're just kind of moving money around and keeping up appearances. Not saying that that's the solution, it just happened before. The money is not the issue here. And this is contended very, very fiercely by not only TikTok, but some security experts, that the issue is whether or not the Chinese Communist Party has a backdoor to the data. And whether or not TikTok, no matter how much they protest that this absolutely doesn't happen, indeed is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. We are in loggerheads with that organization. And so that is the end all be all of this. TikTok has said repeatedly under oath that this is not an issue. There is no proof that can be produced that this actually does happen. However, the fears are not going away, nor do I think they ever will. Well, we will continue to be watching this story because, again, a lot of people listening to the show right now and everybody on this panel care very much about what ends up happening. So you know as much as we do at this point of recording, and yeah, we will stay on the story. But for now, let's check out the mail back. Got another one from David as far as EV's keeping charge in cold weather. David says, following discussion about EV batteries on show 4719, few things to note about those batteries or any kind of cell batteries. In fact, discharging and charging does generate some heat within the cells. So the battery heater might have to work all the time in cold weather once the battery is warm. Also, a car that has a battery heater will keep the battery warm when it's plugged into the charger. However, one of the biggest drains on the battery is heating that cabin during winter on very cold days. Now, Rob, we talked about this over the last couple of days quite a bit. We've gotten so much feedback, not only because a lot of our audience has an EV and has an opinion, or at least understands a little bit more about how heating up a battery is important and how certain models, particularly the newest models of EVs, not necessarily every single one, takes that into consideration so that people don't experience this huge drain on their charge. But you live in the coldest climate of all of us here, at least in the winter. What are your thoughts? So we got to see, there were some days back in the winter, towards the end of last year, where particularly, I'm thinking of Chicago, it got really, really, really cold. And there were EV owners who were getting stranded at charging spots to where the lines were so long. Which is kind of the EV nightmare, right? Do I park, turn my car off, and go inside a building so I'm not going to run out of battery before I can actually get to the charger? These are real things that you need to worry about. And I just remember a buddy of mine saying, gas burns hot. So I was like, that's not really helping folks who don't have gas in their car though. So yeah, this is, I wonder if maybe, what is it? Not lithium ion, but is it sodium ion batteries? I think they work a little better in extreme temperatures. So maybe we'll start to see more of that type of technology or maybe a hybrid of the two. I'm not certain, but cold weather is a thing in the Midwest, in the East Coast. Definitely in the mountains. When it's cold, cars don't work as well. Yeah. I can say when I was in Iowa, it wasn't just EVs. There were people I knew that in the negative 20 degree weather, which was extreme even for Iowa during January, that their cars just wouldn't start. They had gas cars. But when the battery isn't turning over, then just nothing's turning over. Oh man. Yeah. Negative 20. Oh, it was brutal. So Justin, Robert Young, we got to thank you for hanging out with us again another week. What are you doing? What do you have going on this week? Where do you want people to come check you out? Well, presuming my laptop starts charging again. I will have a full breakdown of the state of the union that people can find on politics, politics, politics. Meanwhile, on the show this week, we previewed Super Tuesday, which obviously has already come and gone. Nikki Haley is out of the race, so go ahead and find us. Politics, politics, politics. We're all podcasts are found. Well, Justin, thanks for being a good sport. We all love a good laptop dying, especially during a live show. Super fun.  Also pros are patrons. Stick around for the extended show. If you're a patron, that's good day internet. You want to know that what's going on with the Apple foldable phone rumor because that is a rumor that's floating around. But I might not want to hold your breath. We'll tell you a little bit more about what we know at this point. You can also catch the show live Monday through Friday at 4pm Eastern 2100 UTC. Find out more at DailyTechNewShow.com for slash live. We'll be back tomorrow with Lynn Peralta and Patrick Norton.


You think anybody gets confused when they see, like, a military commando training and they think it's about going in pants without underwear on? Yes. Because that's what I was taught commando was. And that you need to be trained for that, because you can hurt yourself if you don't do it right. Ah, yeah, absolutely. My dad goes commando to, to, to, to which information?  I'm Rick. You can follow us on Instagram. It's the commando, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. So we got a, uh, kind of informational video. This is, archeologists don't want you to see these two statues. Why? I don't know. But this is the same guy that kind of did like the, uh, about the temples and like their hidden uses and all that. Got it. Yeah, the thing with the ball and the thing. Yeah, so I'm guessing it's going to be a similar kind of thing, but this is that same guy. Indiana Jones is going to find it if you keep it from us. That's true. Greatest archeologist ever was Indiana Jones. That's true. Not even a debate because he fought the Nazis. Yep.  Hey guys, today I'm going to show you just two very strange ancient statues and why these statues are so important to understand. Thank you. This is the first one. Okay. Take a careful look. I found this in a very ancient Indian temple. How do we know? As you can see, it looks quite scary. I can go into a lot of details like what he is, why he looks like this. Please do. Why his hair is looking like this. Why his tongue is sticking out. If he is human or if he is something else. Got a lot of rips. He's mad. I'm not going to describe these details now because there is something much more important I would like to show you today. Okay. Right opposite to the statue, there is the second statue. The hairdo is a little bit different. The eyes are popping out. Again, it looks quite scary. These statues are definitely not for the faint of heart. But this is not the shocking part. The shocking part is this hole on his stomach, on his abdomen. As you can see, this is a large hole. It's large enough for me to put my finger into this. My finger is freely going inside. Why would someone make these scary statues in a Hindu temple and surely they are not put for worshiping. Right? We don't know. On top of that, why would they drill a hole on his abdomen. But this could be a coincidence. Maybe an ancient sculptor was just bored and testing out his drilling skills. Maybe a little kid went in there. Let's go back to the Confucian statue and take a look. Again, the same hole, the same size, in the same spot, on the right side of his abdomen. So two friends go through each other. I'm going to tell you why in this video. The standard answer from historians and archeologists is very shallow. According to them, these are meaningless holes. These are demons and demons have holes in their bodies. These holes are used for breathing, etc. They come up with elaborate names for these statues like Vaitala, Booth, etc. But when it comes to these holes, nobody can give a good answer. Now it's very interesting to me that today doctors put holes exactly in this place on human bodies. Why? Because that's precisely where your liver is. If you ask your doctor, he will tell you that the liver is located on the upper right portion of your abdomen. Just below your ribs. And this is not a coincidence. Because both these statues show the exact same detail. The upper right portion of the abdomen. Now why would a doctor, a surgeon, put a hole here, right? This procedure is called delivery drainage procedure. When the liver is not able to function well and its fluid is not draining well, you can manually drain it by putting a hole right here. The liver secretes a fluid called bile. That's why the procedure is called delivery drainage. I'm not going to bore you with more medical details. And of course, why would your liver not function well? Yes, correct. Liver problems start mostly if you're drinking too much alcohol. Propaganda! And here's a strange part of this. Look at these figures at the bottom of the statue. All these four figures have something in common. They have old monk bottles in their hands. They appear to be drinking. Here, it's clear that he's drinking from a tall glass or cup. The guy on the top has a smaller shallow cup. On the other side, this guy is clearly licking the side of a cup. It must remind you of tequila shots, right? It must be a really delicious alcohol. On top, again, this guy is holding a smaller cup. I think he's offering alcohol to the main guy. I feel like I want to drink. Very strange depiction. These four guys only seem to reinforce the theory that yes, he is an alcoholic. Yes. And that whole was, in fact, done for biliary drainage procedure. Of course, we have to talk about these figures, right? You have to. What do they represent? You have to. Do they represent demons, fallen angels, goblins or aliens? Or are they actually mocking humans? Are they representing alcoholics? Wikipedia confirms that these figures were made of... I think the guy who made them was ribbing us. The term actually means evil spirits. What? What? They're known to be more active at night and trouble normal humans. They're known to be extremely weak and watch shakily and are known for their rage and meaningless talk. I didn't know that.  As anyone would. That's a universal expression, even in English. Eating brain. So is Vitaal just a metaphor for an alcoholic? Alcoholics do that. But there's something even more strange. Watch carefully. These are the scary eyes popping out of right behind this eye socket in the skull. There is another hole. It's very dark in this temple, so I hope you can see this. Again, a perfect control room.  That is so large enough for my finger to go through. You can see it.  This makes it even more strange, right? Yeah. What are the ancient builders doing? What are they trying to tell us? That their statues are holy. This is where it gets really weird. Already is weird. Today, doctors put holes here too. They can put a hole anywhere. There's a surgical procedure called lobotomy in which some part of the brain is actually removed. I've had one. What's more interesting is that today, if you go to Wikipedia and you look at the page about lobotomy, it shows the hole in the exact location. This is a picture from Wikipedia on that page. It says burr hole.  This is exactly where you see this hole in the statue. This procedure was used to fix disturbed patients with diseases like alcoholism and mental disorders like depression. And it would calm the patients down and make them more manageable. Today, such lobotomy is rarely performed, but it was practiced to quote-unquote calm the patients. Did you do weird stuff back in the day? Drill a hole into his brain. He's got the flu. Bleed him out. It's shocking to think that ancient people also knew about the surgical procedure and used it to treat alcoholics. By the way, archaeologists confirm that these statues are at least 900 years old. I will discuss more about this temple in a future video because it's shrouded in mystery. But is it possible that ancient people knew about all these surgical procedures back then? If these holes were not for surgery, why were they precisely put on the liver on both statues? Imagine making a strange statue in the darkest of the places and then drilling a secret hole behind the eye where no one can see. What could possibly be the reason for that? Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I am for the moment. Thanks a lot for watching. I do like how much he cares about this. You can generally tell he's like so interested in all this. It really interests him. I can actually believe that I don't think it's as weird as he kind of thinks it is. I think he might be right that they probably did this stuff. It's a warning to alcoholics. You know how you make that guy stop doing that weird thing?  People are very dumb. It could very well be a statues depicting the demonic influence over alcoholics. And what they did to try to take out those demons out. It didn't work because drilling a hole in your head is not good. You heard it from Corbin, kids.  They did that all the time for people with mental disorders. Oh my goodness. It was a standard medical procedure. He's not mentally well. Let's open a hole in his head so that the demons can come out. That's what they did. Very dumb. That's what they did at the time. The demons shocked me if they did this sculpture to people like do not drink or whatever it's called.  Look at his liver. This person never drank. Look at their liver. Oh, so there's clearly something going on. I'm sure they probably thought one of the ways we can cure alcoholism is we drill a hole in the liver because that's where it's residing. They probably think that's where the demon resided physically and that if you drilled a hole there, you'd get the demon out of the liver. Very possible. Yeah, I think he's onto something. I don't know if archaeologists don't want you to see that. That's, yeah. Let me say again, it's clickbait for videos. It's more clickable. People are like, oh, that's interesting. He didn't even bring up why archaeologists wouldn't want you to see these two statues at all. I understand. It's better in the thumbnail. It looks better for the thing. Yeah, it taps into the... Archaeologists usually want you to know the actual reasons for that. That's why they're there. It reminds me of one of my favorite things I used to do in class to prove to everybody they have a sin nature because sin nature is the nature to break rules because that's what sin is missing the mark. It's breaking the rules. And I'd say, you all here are sinners by nature. No, we're not. The rule I would give them, I'll do it for you right now.  That's why the law is given to prove your own law breaker. And that it's natural for you to be rebellious. And it's inclination.  The natural instinct is going to be, I want to see this.  If I see a sign like it says, don't step on lawn, I have to put my foot on the lawn. I have to put my foot over just a little bit. I'm definitely a rule breaker. Oh yeah. But here's the real question.  Of course. Slouch it. Slouch it. Here's to drinking. Juice.