Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Barb Mitchell coming to you today from Monaco at Data Cloud 2022 where we're happy to be back in person. And I'm happy to have joining me today, Rudolph Gordon Seymour from Telecom San Franties, TSF. We're proud to have you here and support all the great things that you're doing. Can you tell us a little bit about TSF and what it is you're doing here at Data Cloud this year? Yeah, sure. And it's great to be back. It's been a long break. Last time we were here was 2019. We were kindly invited back by Broad Group and I'm representing, very proud to represent TSF at this conference and also at the Data Cloud Awards last night. So we are the official charity partner and we presented an award and did a presentation on TSF last night. Yeah.  Can you tell us about what you're doing to support in that region? Yeah, I mean, this is, well, it's a terrible situation. I mean, it's on the doorstep of Europe. There's been a huge international response. TSF have been part of that humanitarian effort. We knew when this started that there was gonna be a huge displacement of population and that's exactly what happened. So we put multiple teams on the ground not only in Ukraine itself but also on the border in countries, Moldova, Poland and also put teams within Ukraine itself. So we've provided Wi-Fi access points, calling operations, using various technologies and we've had multiple teams on the ground there for, well, almost two months now since it started. And I suspect there've been some challenges you've had to overcome there. Tell us about what it's been like. I think the biggest challenge has been the, it's really stretching our resources because we've got multiple teams in multiple countries. We're not heavily resourced organizations. So that's kind of really stretched our resources. Also, there's a challenge of the different technologies we're using. So one of the solutions we put in place was actually a hotspot on the coaches that are bringing Ukrainians who are fleeing the conflict zones to, for example, Poland. So there's hundreds of thousands of mainly women and children fleeing those conflict zones and they're having to get on a 16, 20 hour coach journey to move west, basically. So what we've done is we've actually provided a mobile hotspot solution within those coaches so they can keep in contact with their loved ones. And we've also put together an app for the children because any parent will know a child on a long journey is pretty challenging in itself. On a coach for 24 hours would be incredibly challenging. So we've provided kind of an education-based app for them to work with as well. And also, I guess, there's also security aspects. I mean, we're kind of deploying within Ukraine itself. We put equipment near Odessa. We're working with the mayor of Odessa to set up comms down there. And security is obviously of utmost importance to our teams. So I think they've been the main challenges so far. I think the challenge moving forward is this will be a long-drawn out conflict. Most of our emergency deployments tend to be between three, six weeks. This one will go on for months and months. So we need to address that from a resource point of view and also a funding point of view. Well, so that's, maybe you can tell us how people can support. It's obviously such an important bit of work that you're doing there to support the people impacted by this crisis. And I think that people in our industry are gonna want to help out where they can. So can you tell us where they can do that?  So without that funding, we wouldn't exist. So it's incredibly important. Moving forward, obviously, we're always looking for new partnerships and more funding so we can not only respond to more natural disasters or man-made disasters, but also extend our kind of bridging the digital divide programs that we run throughout the globe. So, yeah, we're always looking for new partners. And what I would say is that if there's any companies that are starting a corporate social responsibility program and ESG program who want to modify or change their ESG program, and feel that TSF would be kind of a logical fit for them being part of the community and maybe giving something back, then I'd urge them to get in contact with us and also check out the TSF website, tsfi.org. TSfi.org, yeah, and we will link that here in the video so that all of our viewers can search up more information and learn how to support the work that you're doing. Thank you so much for joining us. It's always great to hear from you. Nice to see you and thank you viewers for tuning in to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts. Happy networking.


Hi everyone, Adam Shaw here from Brewera Media Company. Today we've got another vintage map for you guys. It is a map of Boston Harbor that was originally produced in 1899. As you can see, it is a bird's eye perspective map in that we get a three dimensional perspective of the harbor. We're going to dive right into this map and kind of zoom in and explore this map.  Stay tuned to our channel. We're going to be doing a set of St. Patrick's Day themed videos that pertain to Boston, Ireland, Dublin. We're going to talk about the history of St. Patrick's Day. If you haven't already, definitely subscribe to the channel and definitely check back. If you have subscribed with us, we're going to be uploading videos very often in this upcoming week, next two weeks. Definitely stay tuned. Before we go into this map, I'm going to give you a brief history of Boston that we're going to dive right in. Boston was originally founded in 1630 by Puritan colonists from England. During the years before the regional area was referred to as Trimutane, also known as Three Mountains, which is kind of head scratching because we don't see mountains today. That's because Boston has gotten so developed really on the outskirts of the harbor. There are more rolling hills on the mainland. Just some side information on that. Boston received its official name after Boston Lincolnshire, England because it was the origins of several predominant colonists that moved to the area. They were originally from this section of England known as Boston Lincolnshire. They named it Boston. In 1629, this is kind of interesting as well, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor, John Winthor, led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a document that guaranteed that Massachusetts would be an independent, self-governing colony answering only to the English crown. So essentially it became their own entity, but unfortunately they were still underneath the English crown, which obviously later on they had some conflict during the Revolutionary War. So we're going to get more into that. The Puritans in the area focused on ethics and education, which influences history greatly. I mean, also the first, I thought this was kind of cool, America's first public school was actually founded in Boston in 1635, I believe it was called the Boston Latin School. It was the first school ever in America. But I mean, those traditions still exist. I mean, look at what we have, the schools that we have in Boston, Harvard, MIT, a long-standing tradition of education. So I thought that was very, very unique. Later in Boston's history, as you know, we talked about the Revolutionary War. The city was instrumental in several events in the Revolutionary War. The Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, the Battle of Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Siege of Boston. I mean, it was just a hotbed for the American Revolution. After the war, Boston, as you know, had a long tradition, I guess, in sailor and sea expedition, which made it one of the world's wealthiest international ports that included slave trade, unfortunately, rum, fish, salt, tobacco. I mean, it became a massive trading hub because of its access to the ocean and kind of its sailing tradition. Towards the early to the mid-1800s, Boston dramatically grew due to the influx of European immigrants, predominantly Irish immigrants, came to the city largely because of the potato famine, and by 1850, 35,000 Irish had been essentially lived in the city limits. So that was kind of cool. And then, you know, the pockets of neighborhoods, Boston had several pockets of cultures, you know, I guess you could say the Irish immigrants lived in South Boston and the Charleston area, and you had the Italian immigrants living towards the north end of Boston. So just some information, some history into Boston. We're going to dive right in. We're going to zoom and kind of explore and examine this map. I've already taken a brief look at it already, and we can see various elements. We've got some labeling right here, A and B, A, that's Rose Wharf, right there, B, New Custom House. These are piers by the looks of it, D and E, and we've got the Commonwealth Pier and the Fish Pier right over here. We go over to here, we only get to see a small section of Charlestown tucked away right here, but right here it's illustrated the Charlestown Navy Yard. Very cool. And we see the Bunker Hill Monument, right there, you can see it illustrated right there. Let me zoom in. You can see it right there, very well illustrated. And we can see all these islands, labeled Moon Island, Long Island, Spectacle Island, Castle Island, this is a fort right here on Castle Island, number two. What is number two? Fort Independence. Oh yeah, right there. Fort Independence. We've got Governor's Island, we've got all these routes. You see these sailing routes? I love these illustrations on here. This is a route to Europe, so they go this way to go to Europe, you can show it to Nantucket. We can even see, if we look at the Cape Cod Bay off in the distance, we can see this route, southern lines going to New York. It's just beautiful, I love these maps. And we can really, it's just a gorgeous area. Nantucket Beach right here. Let's look up some other locations. Let's look up by Provincetown, we've got 2230, see 2223. Okay, this is the Light Houses, Wood End Light, Race Point Light. So this is the Light Houses by Provincetown. Isn't that cool? And then we've got 16 right here, that looks like another light right there at 16. Yep, I know it's light. Okay, six, what's six? Range Lights. I saw this Snake Island right over here. It's right by Deer Island. Great Brewmaster Island, Brewster, I'm sorry Brewster Island. Definitely a cool map. I love these perspectives. And then we've got Quincy Bay right here, Dorchester Bay. We kind of get a feel for what, how Boston kind of grew. This is 1899, so we had an idea of how busy and what's five? Five is labeled right there, it's on an island. That's Farm School. Remember we talked about schooling and educational traditions? Farm School, right here on Thompson's Island. Very interesting. A lot of Light Houses are labeled on this map. A lot of Light Houses, only one school unfortunately. But yeah. So just to give you a nice view of Boston Harbor. I hope you've enjoyed this video. Definitely give us a like, give us a share. Leave a comment. If you have any questions about this map, subscribe to us. If you're new, we love uploading videos, vintage maps. We love talking about history. We're going to be doing St. Patrick's Day themed videos soon. We celebrate holidays and the history involved in the holidays. If you like history, you like maps, definitely subscribe to us. Give us a like and I will see you guys soon. Okay, take care. Alright, bye.


Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Iyer's Academy for the date 17th of August 2020. Displayed are the list of news articles along with the page numbers of five different editions. Let us now begin our analysis. Our first discussion for the day is based on the recent verdict by the Supreme Court on the recent contempt of court proceedings initiated by it against one of its advocates. It found that advocate Prashant Bhushan was guilty of contempt of court on two of his tweets. One was on the current Chief Justice of India riding an expensive motorcycle while the court was in lockdown. And the other tweet was about the role of the last four Chief Justice of India's. In case of the first tweet, the Supreme Court bench held that the tweet was not against the Chief Justice of India and his individual capacity but as head of the judiciary. So this reason qualified the first tweet to be considered as contempt of court. And in case of second tweet, the Supreme Court held that that particular tweet tends to give an impression that the highest constitutional court of the country had played a role in the destruction of Indian democracy in the last six years. Now this topic has gained much importance in the recent times and there are various heated debates that are going on in this regard. So one cannot rule out chances for a question to appear from this topic in your problems as well as in your means. So in the context of this editorial, let us discuss some facts related to contempt of court from example perspective. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this editorial is given here for your reference. First, let us quickly refresh what does contempt of court mean. See as per the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971, there are two types of contempt, a civil contempt and a criminal contempt. A civil contempt means willful disobedience to any judgment or decree or direction or order or writ or other process of a court or a willful breach of an undertaking given to a court. When you come to criminal contempt, it means a publication of any matter or doing any other act which scandalizes or tends to scandalize or lower or tends to lower the authority of any court. And when it comes to punishment, know that a contempt of court may be punished with a simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or with a fine which may extend to 2000 rupees or it might be both. And in case of this Prashant Bhushan, it was a criminal contempt. Now let us see some of the constitutional provisions related to contempt of court. Know that Indian Constitution devotes two articles for dealing with contempt power of the Supreme Court. There are articles 129 and 142 clause 2. See article 129 says that the Supreme Court shall be a court of record and shall have all the powers of such a court including the power to punish for the contempt of itself. And the same goes with the case of High Court which is mentioned in article 215. See this article 129 is supplemented by article 142 clause 2. This article deals with the investigation and punishment of the contempt of the Supreme Court. So article 129 confers substantive power of the Supreme Court to punish for the contempt of itself. And this article 142 clause 2 supplements this article 129 by specifically conferring the power of investigation and punishment. Now regarding this article 129, there was a news that appeared in yesterday's edition that is 16th August. In that news article, the Supreme Court bench that dealt with the contempt case of Mr. Prashant Bhushan also held that the court has suomotive contempt powers to take cognizance of the contempt. And this power is given by article 129. The Supreme Court said that the only requirement is that the procedure followed is required to be just and fair and in accordance with the principles of natural justice. Here remember the word suomotive. It means that the Supreme Court need not take the consent of anybody to punish someone for contempt of court because the Supreme Court is exercising its inherent powers as provided in the constitution to issue a notice for contempt. So remember both these articles from exam perspective. Now let us see how the concept of contempt of court is used in different parts of the world. In this regard, according to the law commissioned report, contempt of court exists in many countries like United States and United Kingdom. But if you see it is rarely used by these countries, this means that even though the judicial authorities are criticized by the citizens, they are rarely punished by the court. So these are some of the facts that you need to know about contempt of court from exam perspective. Now let us come to this editorial. In this editorial, the author mainly raises voice against the verdict of Supreme Court. Here keep in mind that this editorial is critical about the recent verdict of Supreme Court on this issue of contempt of court. The author of this editorial tells that the recent verdict of Supreme Court shows that the Supreme Court has low threshold for its tolerance towards criticism. Here the author tells that in this particular case, Mr. Prashant Bhushan merely made a criticism on an authority and he did not use any kind of unparliamentary words in his tweets. But the Supreme Court has not made any deep analysis while pronouncing this verdict. Why the author tells this? Because in the first tweet of the Chief Justice of India Riding Bike, he tells that that particular tweet does not undermine the court's dignity or it does not undermine the authority or it does not interfere with the administration of justice. It only touches partially on the Chief Justice of India's personal conduct and partially on his administrative decision making. So the author tells that it cannot be qualified for criminal contempt. Now coming to the second tweet which we saw earlier, the author tells that this particular tweet is clearly in the nature of a political opinion. So the author questions how a mere voicing of an opinion that the successive Chief Justice of India's have destroyed democracy can undermine the public trust in the judiciary. Why because here the author takes the example of some of the former judges who also resorted to criticizing the judiciary. If you remember before few years back there were some former judges who had gone public with a media conference in order to criticize the then sitting Chief Justice of India. They alleged that the Chief Justice of India was greatly influenced by the executive and they also criticized the master of the roster concept that is the power which the Chief Justice of India asked to allocate the cases to different benches. So the author asked question that how a simple tweet can undermine public trust in the judiciary when some judges themselves criticized the then Chief Justice of India. Now if you look at this Supreme Court verdict, the Supreme Court said that if such contempt of court goes unpunished then it would lower the country's image in the committee of nations. For this the author tells that the Supreme Court has built its reputation in front of the world not through punishing of contempt. It gained the respect of the world through its high quality judgments which were given for empowering the citizens of India and also for the social, economic and political upliftment of the downtrodden people of India. And it was also because of the court's fearless independence that upheld the dignity of the court. So the author tells that the Supreme Court has not built its reputation through punishing of contempt and according to the author of this editorial the reputation of the Supreme Court can be damaged only for a few reasons. The first reason which the author has mentioned is the growing perception of judicial evasion that is when the world and the country thinks that our courts are restraining from deciding on a case due to the pressure from the executive. The second reason which the author mentions is self-imposed retinence that is where the court is silent with respect to problems that are happening in the nation. For this particular reason we have one more news article today which is titled India's Moving Towards a Form of Elected Autocracy. In this one of the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court as mentioned that the Supreme Court is either ignoring or delaying cases related to the important issues such as the recent bifurcation of Kashmir, then the recent Citizenship Amendment Act and even in the case of electoral bonds. So the second reason is self-imposed retinence. Now coming to the third reason which is quite acquiescence it means that the court accepts things without any deep analysis or without any deep scrutiny due to the pressure from the executive. So these are the reasons which I mentioned by the author because of which the reputation of Supreme Court can be damaged. So these are some of the points discussed by the author in this editorial. So to conclude this editorial what is the key takeaway? It is the contempt of court should not be allowed to be used as means to prevent criticisms. In contemporary times it is quite important that courts be accountable, courts be transparent and they do impartial probes rather than threats of contempt action. So here the courts mainly need to be accountable. For this we have one more editorial which is a next discussion. With this we come to the end of the analysis of this editorial and few other news articles along with which we saw. If you see there is one more news article where Mr Prashant Bhushan is facing one more contempt case against him in the Supreme Court for which the hearing has been scheduled today. We shall discuss more on this in our future news analysis. Now have a look at this practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. Now let us look at this oped article which is again based on the recent Supreme Court judgment which held senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan guilty of content of the court. Now why we have chosen this oped article is because this article discusses the same issue from ethics perspective. So sometimes very rarely you get editorials and oped articles from ethics perspective. So let us try to see what the author of this editorial discusses. The relevant syllabus is given here for your reference. As you can see here the title of this news column is the cost of stifling voices. What does it mean? Stifling voices mean that the voice or criticism of the public or civil society is suppressed by the authority. For example an elderly woman was booked under criminal act by CID in Andhra Pradesh for sharing a post against the Chief Minister. And if you see similar incidents happen now and then across country. We also have an example in Tamil Nadu in the year 2003 when five journalists of the Hindu newspaper were arrested for being critical of the policies of the then ruling government. And even if you see similar incident happened in Karnataka where the speaker ordered the arrest of two journalists for breaching the privileges of the house. So this is what is meant by stifling the voices. And what is the cost or consequence of such suppression of criticism is the context of today's news column. As we just saw during our first news article the senior lawyer Mr. Prashant Bhushan shared two tweets which are perceived to be against the institutions of Supreme Court and the chief justice of India. So Suomoto contempt of court proceedings were charged against Mr. Prashant Bhushan by the Supreme Court and recently was convicted for the same. In this case while adjudicating the Supreme Court took a position on an important ethical question. The question is do we strengthen or weaken institutions by criticizing some of the actions of those holding public office. For this question the Supreme Court was of the opinion that criticism may weaken the institutions. See this is quite unfortunate because democracy is built on the bedrocks of deliberation and debate and as we all know there is no debate without criticism. To explain this further the author of this editorial takes the example from a book named exit voice and loyalty. According to the author of this book exit and voice are the two alternative mechanisms for the repair of societal institutions. So what is exit and what is voice. Now let us take an example when consumers switch from one company to another or when an employee moves to a job with better working conditions or when a family moves across neighborhoods all of these three cases are exercising exit. It means we are just moving away without raising our voice. Now take another example when a partner in a marriage complains of abuse or when workers protest against management action it is voice. Generally if you see we raise our voice and exit from the issue. For example if your mobile service provider say GEO or ATL is not offering good service first we will complain which is voice and if this complaint is not addressed properly by the service provider then we shift to another company which is exit. So you can see that exit and voice work together and without any possibility of exit voices would remain unheard and in a condition where exit is too easy then very few people would invest in voice. Now assume that there is only one mobile service provider in India and you do not have any other option to switch to another company which is a classic example of monopoly. In this case you do not have a choice then your voice will not be heard. So these are some of the scenarios discussed by the author to explain what is meant by exit and what is meant by voice. Here the author takes one more example he tells that the public health and education work best in those countries which are inclusive that is when all sections of the society in that particular country are represented. When the wealthy and the most educated exit or shift to private providers then the public systems are often starved of resources and ideas. Similarly in politics if you see exit is used at the time of elections while the voice makes the elected leaders accountable. So you can see with all these examples why voice is very important and stifling or suppressing the voices not good for any society especially for a democratic country like India. Now if the voice or the criticism is suppressed how can the institutions be accountable. So now comes a very important question which is accountability. What is accountability? It is to take complete responsibility by the person for what he did or what he failed to do that person must be able to give a satisfactory reason for the same and the use of authority that is entrusted in that person to carry out that particular responsibility. Being accountable not only means being responsible for something but also ultimately being answerable for your own actions. If you look at ethics and governance accountability is answerability, blameworthiness, liability on the expectation of account giving. So all these three aspects are expected in ethics and governance. Now coming to our current context it would have been much better if the Chief Justice of India or the Supreme Court were answerable for the actions they have reportedly done. Just a quick recap of the issue know that Mr. Prashant Bhushan tweeted a photo of Chief Justice of India riding 50 lakh rupees bike without helmet or face mask during lockdown period and for this social media post Mr. Prashant Bhushan was convicted for scandalizing the authority of court. But later if you see Mr. Prashant Bhushan himself apologized that he missed something in the picture that he posted that the bike was in parking more. Here what the author tries to emphasize is it would have been better if the Chief Justice of India or the Supreme Court were answerable for the actions that they have reportedly done. So while concluding this editorial the author says that the courts exist to promote justice by adjudicating on disagreements. For example courts usually take a very critical view of the other arms of government that is the legislature and executive. And throughout the history of governance if you see by scrutinizing the behavior of the legislative and executive arms the judiciary that is the court did not lower the dignity that is associated with those offices or it did not undermine the democracy. On the contrary if you see from a positive perspective it in fact improved their functioning. And moreover if you see such scrutiny by the judiciary relied on the critical voices from the public and critical voices from the civil society. But in this case if you see the same judiciary which is the guarantor of rights of public has now taken a back step and it has punished a person from the public for being critical of its own functioning. Because if you remember initially we saw that the Supreme Court is of the opinion that criticism may weaken the institutions. So you can see that the Supreme Court is contradicting itself. So what the author tries to conclude is that voice as the potential to strengthen institutions and help them adapt to a changing environment. Why? Because deliberation, debate and dissent are the bedrocks of any democracy. We should discuss, we should debate and we should criticize on any issues which are all necessary in a democracy. But if the voice is tiffled then we risk the disengagement of those who are most invested in preserving our democratic institutions. That is those persons who are involved in the deliberation process, debate process and even in the dissent process. So the author tells that when Mr. Prashan Bhushan tweeted against the Chief Justice of India or against the Supreme Court he did not lower the authority of the court. But by criticizing he tried to ensure that the Chief Justice of India and the Supreme Court are being accountable for what they are doing. So this is all about the discussion of this editorial. From this editorial we saw the view of the Supreme Court, how criticism will weaken the institutions and what kind of ethical stand should the Supreme Court must have taken. And we try to link this with one of the facets of ethics which is accountability, especially accountability in ethics and governance. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article is about the domestic affairs of our neighborhood country, Sri Lanka. If you remember during our 10th August the Hindu news analysis we discussed about the recently concluded parliamentary elections where the party led by Mahinda Rajapaksha, the Sri Lanka Pudujana Perumana, secured near to two-thirds majority in the elections. This news article discusses about certain points related to Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. We will mainly focus on the 13th amendment and the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. We know that the Rajapaksha brothers are at the helm of affairs of Sri Lanka at present where Mahinda Rajapaksha is the PM and Kothabai Rajapaksha is the President. If you look at the election results, they have exposed a fragmented political opposition in Sri Lanka, especially among the parties who represent the minority Tamil population. See one of the major party which represented the Tamils was the Tamil National Alliance. It represented the Tamils in northern and eastern Sri Lanka since the end of civil war in 2009. But in the recent elections if you see their representation has largely reduced because they have just won 10 seats in this 225 member parliament. The author of this editorial tells that the Tamil voters chose candidates from hardline Tamil nationalist groups critical of this Tamil national alliance. They even elected candidates from parties aligned to Rajapaksha's party. This happened because the Tamil voters moved away from their political concerns due to the growing economic distress. Here just have an idea that the majority of the Tamil population in Sri Lanka live in the northern provinces that includes Jaffna, Mullaithivu, Mannar etc. and the northern provincial council was under the leaders of the Tamil national alliance from 2013 till 2018. Though they were in power, they focused mainly on the political devolution. The author tells that they failed to revive the economy of this Tamil population post the civil war. And also if you see at the national level this alliance was aligned to the Maitri Palasiri Sena Ranil Vikramasinghe government. The author tells that this Tamil national alliance was badly led down by this Maitri Palasiri Sena Ranil Vikramasinghe alliance and this led to a bad image among the Tamil people due to which TNA has faced a huge defeat in the recently concluded elections. So in this context the author briefly mentions the economic grievances of the north and east of Sri Lanka. He tells that the unemployment rate is high and the farmers are hit by droughts and floods. And as of 2016, Sri Lanka's poverty hit count was highest in the northern and eastern provinces. So the shift in the voting pattern indicates the need for an urgent economic relief for this section of the Sri Lankan society. Here the author feels that the election results might counteract, that is affect the Tamil community's long pending demand for greater political autonomy. That is political devolution. Why? Because according to the author the prominent supporters of this Rajapaksha party have already sought the abolition of the provincial council system and the 13th amendment. So what is this 13th amendment? Know that the 13th amendment of the Sri Lankan constitution is an outcome of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. Know that it was signed by former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then President of Sri Lanka Jayavardhani. It was signed at Colombo. Know that it is an important agreement since it desires to preserve the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka by acknowledging that Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic and multilingual plural society. Why multi-ethnic? Because there are Sri Lankans, there are Tamils and there are people from other ethnicity like Vedas. And why multi-lingual? Not only Sinhalese is spoken there, even languages like Tamil are spoken. So this 1987 Accord paved the way for the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution. This 13th amendment says that Tamil shall be one of the official languages in Sri Lanka, along with Sinhalese. And also if you see this 13th amendment as provisions to ensure devolution of power to the people of the North and East, that is the Tamil people. So you can see that this 1987 agreement and the 13th amendment is essential for Tamils in Sri Lanka in order to achieve their desire for greater control of their lives in a legitimate manner. The author feels that proper devolution of power is central to both political and economic development of Tamil minorities in Sri Lanka. This is because only devolved political power can enable citizens to build, strengthen and access their local administrative structures. As we know this minority Tamil community suffered the most during the civil war that ended in 2009 and they are trying to just come out of that trauma and rebuild their lives. So this voting pattern by the Tamils in the recently concluded elections indicate their political as well as socio-economic priorities. Why? Because the Tamil national alliance promised for political as well as economic devolution, but nothing really came out of the previous five years of rule. So let us hope that the elected leaders at present will resolve the legitimate issues of Tamils to build a just and dignified future for them. This is all about the discussion of this news article. From this news article try to know about the 1987 Indochilankan Accord and the 13th amendment from exam perspective. Now have a look at this practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. This news article speaks about various measures that are to be adopted to hold the monsoon session of parliament like usage of the chambers and galleries for holding the session, then usage of polycarbonate separators with arrangements in compliance with the physical distancing norms that are to be observed in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. One such measure which has been mentioned in this news article is the ultraviolet germicidal irradiation system which is to be used for the air conditioners. So let us discuss in detail about this science fact. First you need to know about electromagnetic radiation. Know that it is a form of energy that is all around us and it takes many forms based on the wavelength and the frequency. As you can see in this picture radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays, visible light all form a part of this electromagnetic radiation and one such is the UV light that is the ultraviolet light. Know that the ultraviolet radiation that reaches earth from sun has a wavelength between 290 and 400 nanometers. If you see this is shorter than wavelengths of visible light, the wavelengths of visible light are from 400 to 700 nanometers. Here know that the ultraviolet waves are invisible to the human eye. See the ultraviolet spectrum is commonly divided into three types based on the wavelength. Ultraviolet A, ultraviolet B and ultraviolet C. Among these three, ultraviolet C rays are the most harmful and are almost completely absorbed by our atmosphere. So this is in brief that you need to know about the ultraviolet light. Now let us see what do we mean by ultraviolet germicidal irradiation that is mentioned in this news article. See public health concerns like the recent COVID-19 pandemic have intensified the efforts to prevent their transmission that is the transmission of airborne infections using environmental controls and this ultraviolet germicidal irradiation is one such control which is safe and which is highly effective in disinfecting the air thereby preventing the transmission of a variety of airborne infections. As the name indicates, this irradiation method uses the ultraviolet energy to either kill or inactivate various microbial species be it virus, bacteria or fungus. Know that the entire ultraviolet spectrum can kill or inactivate many microorganisms but in specific if you see the ultraviolet C energy provides the most germicidal effect. This has an optimum wavelength of 265 nanometer that provides this germicidal effect. Now you need some lamps to emit this particular ultraviolet C light. For this purpose low pressure mercury discharge lamps are commonly used in the germicidal application to emit this ultraviolet C and this ultraviolet C radiation kills or activates the microbes by damaging their DNA that is deoxyribonucleic acid or the RNA in case of certain viruses. Know that this ultraviolet germicidal irradiation can be used to disinfect air, water and even the surfaces but if you see usually the surface disinfection is quite limited. The water disinfection is currently the most advanced and accepted germicidal application and even air disinfection is accomplished through this irradiation method. There are several methods like irradiating the upper room air only or irradiating the entire room or irradiating the air as it passes through enclosed air circulation and heating ventilation and air conditioning systems. So this news article mentions the usage of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation system in the air conditioning system of Rajya Sabha for killing the microbes in the air supply. So this is all about the discussion of this news article. Whenever you study about ultraviolet rays just remember a fact the ultraviolet lamp should not be used to disinfect hands or other areas of your skin directly. Why because the ultraviolet radiation can cause skin irritation and it might even damage your eyes. So just remember this fact. With this information now look at this question arrange the following radiations in the increasing order of your wavelengths. Visible light, radio waves, ultraviolet, microwaves, infrared. Here the correct order is ultraviolet, visible light, infrared, microwaves and radio waves as you can see in this picture. So the correct answer is option C 31542. To conclude whenever you are coming across such scientific terms try to know the basic science behind that particular technology. Usually UPSC tests only the basic facts related to a particular technology. Now let us move on to the next news article. Now let us look at this question about national cadet crops which has been framed based on this news article which speaks about the defense minister's approval to expand this national cadet cop scheme in all the border and coastal districts. It has been planned to index at least one lakh cadets from the border and coastal districts among which one third would be the girl cadets. And according to the ministry the army will provide training and administrative support to the NCC units which are located in the border areas and the Indian Navy will provide the support to those units in the coastal areas and Indian Air Force to those units close to Air Force stations. In this context let us have a brief discussion about NCC its aim and functions. Know that it is youth development movement in India which is open to all the regular students of schools and colleges which is on a voluntary basis. Remember this fact it is on a voluntary basis. So NCC will enroll cadets at the high school and college level and they will also award certificates on completion of training in various phases. Know that it came into existence under the National Cadet Cops Act 31 of 1948. The motto of NCC is unity and discipline. Know that NCC comes under the ministry of defense. These are some of the aims of NCC one of which is to create a pool of organized trained and motivated youth with leadership qualities in all walks of life. Now coming to the composition of NCC know that it is headed by the director general who is an army officer of the rank of lieutenant general. He is assisted by two additional directors general one a major general from the Indian army and other a rare admiral from the Indian Navy or Air Vice Marshal from the Indian Air Force. Coming to the training know that the institutional training like basic military training to the cadets are given as a part of the curriculum. It is to prepare them in order to join the armed forces. And other important aspects of NCC training include various training camps, adventure activities, military training etc. So this is in brief about NCC and this news article discussion. Now look at this question about NCC. It is a three statement question and you need to choose those statement or statements which are incorrect. Look at the first statement it speaks about one of the aims of NCC. It is a correct statement as we saw during our discussion. So if one is correct you can easily arrive at the answer which is option C two and three since you need to choose those statement or statements which are incorrect. So be careful when you read the question. Now look at the second statement it is wrong because NCC was created by an act of parliament as we saw not by an executive order. And third statement is incorrect because it comes under the ministry of defense not under the ministry of youth affairs and sports. So the correct answer is option C two and three only. Now let us move on to the next news article. Now let us look at this question. The question is which one of the following funds is created in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. Here the correct answer is option D Prime Minister's citizen assistance and relief and emergency situations fund also known as PM cares fund. This question has been framed based on this news article. Now if you look at the remaining options option A Prime Minister's national relief fund know that it was set up in 1948 based on an appeal by the then Prime Minister Javaharlal Nehru. It was established with public contributions in order to assist the then displaced persons from Pakistan after the partition. And if you look at option B the national disaster response fund is financial mechanism which has been set up at the national level under the disaster management act of 2005. And if you look at option C national calamity contingency fund it has been merged with NDRF. This fund was present before this NDRF fund. Now it is merged with this NDRF fund. So here the correct answer is option D PM cares fund. We have seen many times about this PM cares fund in our previous analysis. These are some of the points that you need to know about PM cares fund from exam perspective. You know that the ex-officio chairman is the prime minister of India. And these are the ex-officio trustees of this fund. And this fund entirely consists of voluntary contributions. And there is no budgetary support for this fund. And there are IT exemptions as well. Now let us focus on this news article. Why? Because right from the constitution of this fund there were a lot of controversies with the new fund. First the opposition asked what is the necessity of creating a new fund when there is already a prime minister's national relief fund. And then if you see there were many RTA applications which were filed on this PM cares fund but they were not answered properly or rejected. One such issue has happened a day before which has been discussed in this news article. This news article tells that the prime minister's office has denied a right to information request related to this PM cares fund on the grounds that providing details about this fund would disproportionately divert the resources of the office. Under the RTA act the RTA application can be rejected if it disproportionately diverts the resources of the office from the efficient discharge of its normal functions. Now by using this provision from the RTA act the prime minister's office rejected the RTA application that is filed with respect to this PM cares fund. So this is in brief about this news article. Try to know about PM cares fund from prelims perspective. So the correct answer for this question is option D. Let us move on to the practice questions discussion session. Look at this first question on contempt of court. It is a two statement question and you need to choose those statement or statements which are correct. Look at the first statement. It is a correct statement. The power of supreme court to punish for its contempt is a constitutional power. It is as per articles 129 read along with article 142 clause 2. Now look at the second statement. It tells that the supreme court does not have powers to take suomoto cognizance of contempt of court. This statement is incorrect because as per the recent judgment delivered by supreme court it said that it has powers to take suomoto cognizance of contempt of court. So here the correct answer is option A one only. Now look at this map based question. Five ports are given which of the above are located in Sri Lanka. Gale, Yangon, Trinkomali, Sitve, Hambanthota. Here Gale, Trinkomali and Hambanthota ports are located in Sri Lanka. So the correct answer is option D one, three and five. The remaining two ports Yangon and Sitve are located in the country of Myanmar. So whenever you come across important ports and news try to make a note of it from geography perspective. So the correct answer is option D one, three and five only. With this we come to the end of the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the practice questions discussion session. If you like the video press the like button, comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IA's Academy YouTube channel for latest videos and updates. Stay focused and motivated friends. Thank you.


I'm very pleased to introduce our next keynote speaker. She has a background in computer science, psychology, and design, which I think is a fascinating overlap. And is currently the director of user experience at Blue Wolf, has also written a book, which I think if you ask nicely, she might give you a copy. You can try that out later. I may have overpromised. We'll see. I think so. I think so. We can do that. Thanks for backing me up. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome Chanel Henry. Thank you. Thank you. That was a great intro. It's funny because the past couple of weeks I've been staying with my mother, and I'm 33, so that's usually something not to brag about. She said something that was really hilarious. She said I was too kind, and I said thank you too much. So I'm ignoring her, and I want to say thank you to all the people that made this possible. I want to say thank you to everybody that's here. I wanted to also say just, you know, thank you to, you know, everybody on the board and everyone that has made this conference possible for the future engineers, the builders, and the connectors of the world. And I really want you to give all yourselves actually a round of applause if you can. Please, thank you. All right. Okay. So let's get into the down and dirty. This talk is about a lot about UX, very little bit about Rails, and a lot about awesomeness. So as you know, my background is very, I like to say colorful, right?   Look under your seats. That's where the free books are. There aren't any. Don't look.  I think the best way is to just say hi. So hello. At the bottom of each slide, you'll see my Twitter handle. That's also my handle at Medium, where I write a lot about what's in here. So if you want to go on that journey, you know, I welcome you to in my mind. And then I decided just to use the RailsConf 2016 UX if you want to tag or say anything cool or anything like anything about the talk. You can also download the presentation at bit.ly slash Rails UX 2016. So who am I? I'm a user experience architect and consultant, and it took a very long way to get there. My first computer was at the age of, I want to say five or six, it was a Macintosh plus. So definitely dating myself there, but I already told you how old I am, so you don't have to do the math. And then through that, I just loved doing, you know, a whole lot of IT, was always taking stuff apart, was always getting grounded for it.  So that led me on a very long journey because I also loved doing art. And everyone said there's no, there's no money in art. There's no money in making things look beautiful until you're dead. So I thought about that for a while, and then I decided to, okay, maybe I should look at these computer courses and just, you know, continue to go down that path. I also realized that I was a storyteller. I love to tell stories about my life. I love to write about stories about my life. And then I realized I love to speak about it. I used to be a very, very, very shy kid, like the kind where I think one time I was in a group and the person next to me introduced themselves, and then I introduced myself with their name.  I'm not Melanie. I'm Chanel. And then I had to really just look at that, you know, for a while, which I'll get into later. And then, most importantly, I'm an alchemist, which if no one has read the book, you are not alive. No. You must read the book, the alchemist, of course. It does really help a lot with, I believe, with the journey that we're all on. I believe that we all do this for different purposes and different reasons. And for me, you'll find out what those reasons are throughout this talk. And then the most important part of my life is that I love making beef jerky. It's very random, but I've been making it for about 25 years now. Ever since I was eight, I was the kid that didn't ask for Barbies. I wanted a dehydrator, because I love beef jerky and I loved fruit roll-ups. And what better way to get that than by having the source? So I did that, and now I make what has been told to me by a lot of people, including if you're not... Oh, I'm sorry. I'm from Philly. Philly? In the house? Any Philly in the house? No? Okay. None. Awesome. Yeah! City of Brotherly Love! Like, one of the top news correspondents there, her name is Renee Shenolfo-Tah. Like, she actually said it was the best beef jerky she's ever had, and she's from Colorado, so I think I, you know, I take her word. So that's important to me, because I always feel like, you know, we need a hobby over the things that we do. Unfortunately, every hobby that I had turned into a job, but that's another story. At the core of it, though, I'm a phony, and right here, I should probably walk off the stage because, like, what do I have to say, or what's going to be important? But I think what matters most about this statement is that it's true and false at the same time, and I'll get into that. The first thing is, what is user experience? So I felt like, when I first got here, I was, like, overwhelmed by the brilliant minds that I was running into. Like, I really couldn't have, like, a conversation with a couple, I thought we were speaking, like, Japanese, or maybe another language that I didn't know about, like, that's how far removed I was from, you know, the back end language, and I kept asking myself, you know, like, well, what could I possibly have to say that could be useful? But being the director over at Blue Wolf, which was recently acquired by IBM, woo-woo, feel important because I feel like I can, like, kind of pop my collar a little bit, sorry sound. But, you know, so we were recently acquired by IBM, but coming in there, it was a group of 600 people worldwide. We have about 11 offices, a couple in Australia, a couple, one in France, one in the UK. I think we just got an office in Prague, and then we have a lot over here in the United States. San Francisco, New York City, Atlanta, Boston, just name a city we're probably there.  So I come in there and nobody knows, you know, what design is or what UX is. The first question I got was from a developer, and he was just like, you know, what's the quickest way to make an icon? And I said, going to Icon Finder and trying to find one that has an open creative license, and he was like, oh, like, I never thought about that, like he was actually designing each and every icon, and then I realized that this was going to be a challenge because the internal learning adoption of this company would be difficult because they had never had a design department, but we have Fortune 50 clients, some of the clients that I've worked with, GlaxoSmithCline, T-Mobile, I don't want to call out another bank that didn't work, but Northern Trust and Western Digital, which was my actual, my first project. And that was where I really learned that there was a very big gap between designers and developers. So then, as always, I felt it was my mission, like, I couldn't sleep unless the whole entire organization knew exactly what UX was. That happened about maybe four months ago, and I've been there for three years. So, and it happened when I became a rebel. So, you know, we're titanium partners with Salesforce, and that's basically what the company does. We limit Salesforce into the corporations, into these top 50 corporations. So it was really difficult to try to talk in there, to talk to the business people, the sales people, the project managers, the CEOs, C-level people, everybody, to try to get them to understand what exactly UX is. So this is how it's usually seen. I'm really used to having it above, so that's why that weird thing just happened, this is how it's normally seen. So UX is typically seen just as interface design or visual design. People would actually email me, like, hey, I have a wireframe, or I have this idea, like, can you develop, design a website by tomorrow? And I'm like, no, do you know what it takes? Like, what's the company? Who's the audience? And they're like, oh, that doesn't matter, just make it look pretty. That's the worst thing you can say to a designer, is make it look pretty. Now, the cool part about me is that I'm a tri-brit, right? So actually, let me go back to that slide. How UX wants to be seen is that we do everything from field research, face-to-face interviewing, product design, feature writing, requirement writing, technical specification writing. So we have to know, at some development, to know what we can build. Usability, prototyping, visual design, copywriting, when I never wanted to write, because I'm such a goofball that when Western Digital wanted me to write their copy, I wanted to be fun, and they're just like, that's too much humor. We're, imagine us with a straight tie, but we just loosened it a little bit. Like, not, just don't get too, don't get too out there. I'm like, okay, okay, you should probably get somebody from your marketing team, then.  Like, we really get off, like with, like, you know, doing those strategy sessions and having, like, a lot of fun with that. Like, really thinking about, like, what's possible. And how that happens is by this UX methodology that I actually put together for the company, this is version two, because as you know with a designer, or you might not know, we're never happy with anything. I still, I already want to change this. But the company went through a rebranding, so then I had to try to make it more simple as to what it is that we do. Now, I know a lot of you in the back can't see it, but I'm going to go through it a little bit quickly and then show a couple of examples, but when you really break it down, because I always, I love to look at patterns in the world. Like, I'm a pattern seeker, a problem solver, and then I just try to connect all of them to make it make sense, not only to me, but to everyone else. So the first part is about discovery, and I put together something called an XPR workshop, which stands for Experience Process Review. Some companies may call the regular ones like a BPR, Business Process Review, going through requirements, looking over your competitors, or people not in your field, but that are doing something close to it, doing analytics audit, in which cases most companies are like, analytics, who?  We can't measure success if we don't have a success metrics to measure it against. Value proposition, then we get into the user analysis, which is my favorite part because I love stalking people. I don't know if a lot of you saw me yesterday, but I was a lurker. I had like a red hoodie on because I was in the matrix. Just looking at everybody, just seeing like what everybody was talking about, what everybody was doing, someone sat next to me, and he had like an advanced swift book, and I was like, baller, okay. Like, I just love looking to see what people are doing, and this helps me to do it in a way where I can see the users do focus groups, storyboards, interviews, contextual research when you're like trying to be the fly on the wall. So it's like, you know, you don't really know that I'm there. Then there's information architecture. We bring all that information together, all the content together, all the information about the company together to put together a sitemap, and then wire frames, which puts together a good content strategy. Then that's where the visual design comes in at. This is what everyone thinks I start with. Like, yeah, just top in the Photoshop or sketch and do something cool. But I can't because I need to do the mood boards. I need to go through the pattern library. I need to figure out the style guide. I love style, like both in fashion and in plain eye. I don't like looking at things that are unpleasing. Sometimes I'll run past mirrors because of that. That's another issue. Sometimes this is a therapy session. I just want you guys to know that. Talking for me. So, yeah, then usability testing as well so that we can make sure that all that information that we learned actually makes sense and it can be used by the users because at the end of the day, I always say that UX is just about users and content. And if you don't have either, there's going to be a great disconnect with the product. Now, because I have Dev up here really small, it does not mean it's not important. Actually, it's one of the most important things. But because I'm not a developer, I couldn't put in that process. But I needed the company to know that actually we need to be involved with development because they actually placed us under marketing, which is a whole other topic and a whole lot of legal issues. So, you know, after that, we go into maintenance, which is going over the UX specification document, which really just talks about everything that I talk about, but in plain English, and helps to create an improvement plan, you know, figure out the success metrics and then also get that user feedback. We're like UX, we need to be told how you feel. I need to, I love responses, I love criticism, I love feedback. I like to hear good stuff too, but you know, I always love to just know what's going on in a person's mind. So, some of the things that I was talking about, you know, we're like the competitive analysis where we take the context and, you know, look at the content and the users and try to figure out the best way that your product can be successful. We do process flows in which it's like, okay, you have a lot of screens, and I think the best example was my first project with Western Digital, which is actually up now, it was redesigning their customer service portal. Now, they have three different types of audiences. They have their, you know, the ones for the direct buyer, like Apple, Staples, and then they have the home users and then small business. So for small business, just to get to the login screen, it took about seven, like seven or eight pages. And then the whole entire flow was about 65. We were able to condense that with me and the technical architect to about 20 pages.  You couldn't possibly have put all the features in the process flows, but we did.  And I like those aha moments because we started to have more fun with it.  Like, you know, just trying to figure out what that connection is going to be like. So it became very fluid after that. Branding elements are also a really big important part because this helps the developers to the front end developers to realize, okay, like every page must be consistent. Like we're not just going to use aerial on this page and, you know, whatever, you know, Georgia on this one and whatever, like, so I try to make sure that they understand how important it is in brand consistency because in doing so, then we can create these beautiful products. So the problem with Western digital, even though, you know, it did end up being a success towards the end, but the biggest problem at first was that our, we had offshore developers and, and then they had no budget for UX. They thought we could do a whole entire, you know, customer service portal for this global conglomerate in 150 hours. And in the reality, it was more like a seven to 800 hour product project. I'm a fast worker, so I did, you know, what I had to do, but I started to keep asking myself like, okay, how can I change this for the next product for the next project? There were so many projects that happened after this. Because I was one of the only UX people there, and there was only other one other person. So two for a company of 600, where there's like 100 salespeople going hard every day and selling something that they really don't know anything about. So it's like, I had to figure out like, okay, I used to be a developer, right? I still am considerably somewhat technically kind of a developer, right? Like I can understand the language, I know it's possible, I know what can be built. But how can I marry the two? The semi conclusion that I got from all of this and that I feel like you have got by now is that UX is important in development. Dev needs UX, but it's weird because, you know, as I was reading about this, they kept saying that, you know, user experience, you don't necessarily need to know development. And I actually disagree with that. I feel like in order to know what you're able, what your capabilities are, you have to be able to know what can be built and what's possible. And then I feel like the place where the two can marry are in the process flows. And that's usually when we do come together. Because we're able to see like, okay, can you build this? Can you make this quick? I know it's going to cost the client more, but let them know that they're saving money in the end.  And I kept saying that and they would always laugh like, haha, your grandma's funny. But they never, but they never did it until the end. And then we had to do a change order and it was another million dollars.   But you know, Jason Fried, and I liked his quote back in 2013, he said, here's what our product can do and here's what you can do with our product sounds similar, but they are completely different approaches. And I truly believe that's why 37 Signals is so successful today and why Basecamp is so widely used because he gets it. Just because you can make something doesn't necessarily mean that you've made it for anybody. And this is why I always have to tell a lot of the companies that I go to and it's intimidating because you know, I'm usually like the shortest one and like usually the only woman as well and some other things.    Okay, like let's, let's, let's have this conversation. And I usually let everybody know that everybody is a part of UX. I want, you know, the CEO if he can come in here.  GSK was really good for, for doing that where they brought in their, their pharmaceutical reps, the IT team and, and just a lot of like a lot of people in the, in this meeting and we were able to do, just have such a beautiful marriage between the two. And I remember someone coming up to me and saying like, this was so awesome. Like I haven't used like post-its and crayons and markers like since like grade school. And I'm like, wow, like we can do this in meetings. Like it's not, it's okay to use Crayola. Like it's okay to like, you know, talk about feelings. It's okay to like talk about, you know, these different things because I feel like it gets to the mission and the vision. And that's usually what my XBR workshops are. They're very similar, but not the same to like Google's, you know, design workshops. I just try to, to have that conversation because at the end of the day, and by the way, I love quotes, so you're going to see a lot of them. Design creates stories and stories create memorable experiences and great experiences have this innate ability to change the way in which we view the world. There's a lot of times at my job where I always hear design can't, can't save the world. Like we're not, they always say like, it's not like we're saving lives. And that bothers me because I got into this field. I got into all the fields that I got into and I went to all the schools and got all the degrees that I got in that I have to, to basically, oh, and I also dropped out of a lot of schools too. So don't, don't think I'm like not trying to be arrogant with that, but because you have to learn. Like, but basically what I learned at the end of the day is, you know, like I do want to change the world. And we do have the power to change the world because of this, right? So I'm holding this not because I'm like texting my friends because I'm bored.  And we can build these experiences that are either, you know, sticky, like in a good example of that is Facebook, you can't get off of it. They want you to continue to use it versus slippy, which is like the watch where it's like, you know, I don't know what's there, but it's still providing me with the information that I need to do what I need to do throughout the day. One of my biggest projects that I remember working on was with the United Nations World Food Program. And we were able to design, and I designed with an organization in San Francisco, we were able to design basically a platform for NGOs and nonprofits for Africa. That was kind of a mixture of our census and our food stamps program, to be able to help eradicate like hunger, crisis and sickness within Africa. And to me, that was changing the world, you know, like because something so simple as someone will go into the store and say, we're out of rice. So the guy, you know, closes up all the rice and keeps it for himself. But with this, and then there's a hunger crisis because of that, but it was never true. But then what we were building was something where they will be able to check to see if that was true, or check to see, you know, what they could do about it. Or and then they were able to handle the situation in a better way. That couldn't have happened had we not did the user testing the field testing in Kenya, working with all these NGOs, making sure that we were able to like actually like hit our goal. So that that's one of the biggest things if there's anything I want to leave you with to is about like the fact that you can actually change the world. And I know that sounds very like reading rainbow ish, but it's like, in those that remember reading rainbow, I could sing the song if you don't butterflies in the sky.  I was like in the hotel and they were talking about like, yeah, you know, like join our Kansas City Public School K through 12. And I was like, Oh, my God, that would have been perfect because I hated going to school. Like I liked it, but it wasn't fast enough. And then I was too social. Because but I'm also extroverted introvert. And I know some of you get that I'm an INFJ if that means anything to anybody. But you know, like, it was difficult for me to learn and to also connect with people. So I always suffered in education. The quote up here is from me. UX has come a long way and it's not going anywhere. But we still need to bridge the gap between design and development. And honestly, most of the conversations I've been having have been with all designers or developers. And I'm the only designer. But I feel like we all need to have this talk. But one of the other biggest things about why we can have this talk is because there's a lot of barriers into STEM fields, science, technology, engineering and math. There's ageism, racism, sexism, nepotism. Oh my, like there's just so many like things that can stop people from getting into these fields, or exploring these fields or even exploring the power of these fields, right? One of the biggest things that got to me was actually all of those, plus a couple others. And I remember writing a really, really, really, really, really personal, but not really rant about like, how come Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss are doing all these awesome things? I'm just sitting at home, like, still like just designing this or doing that? Like, why am I not, you know, like riding on the plane next to Bill Gates and doing some like really cool stuff? Like, why am I still, why am I not awesome? What's, what's what's like, where, where is that? And is it too late? So I talked, I spoke to a coworker, and I ended up writing a blog post about it. It was the quickest blog post I had ever wrote. And it was the one that most trended ever in life. And it scared me because it got about maybe 20,000 views the first day, and then became one of the top 10 stories of that month for medium. And that was back in 2011. And that would actually spawn a whole series of events as to why I'm here today. I had to talk about this, this question right here, is it too late to be awesome? Apparently, there's a lot of people that struggle with feeling like it is. And I, and I always talk about this during tech talks, because I'm very existential and very philosophical. And I consider myself like a techno hippie because I really think I belong in the 70s, but I probably couldn't do well without an iPhone back then. So I try to figure out like, how can I mix the two?  And I did, I remember having a podcast back in, I think it was December with Saran, founder of code newbie, and I know you guys all know about that code newbie whoo, there you go.  And she's like, Yeah, no, like, this is good. Like, this is, I think this is what we all need to hear. And she was right. Because like, I had to determine, like, what is awesome? Why do people struggle with this so much? Why do we see so many? Like, if we really take off the blinders, right, and we all know what's been happening in the news, I'm not going to depress anybody, I try not to watch it. I only watch it at night because Jimmy Fallon makes it funny. But, you know, like, there's a lot of different things that cause us to be afraid. But at the end of the day, we have to realize life is life is short. But I didn't want to start off with that.  Like, no, that's no, don't say that, you know, like, there's everything you just don't say. So I'm like, Okay. But this this like post that I would write would begin to let to let me go through a lot of self discovery, and a lot of discovery with other people to find out what what it was that was getting away. So before I had to define what like before I could say what was awesome, I had to define it the same way that I didn't know I was successful until I defined what success was for me. And it's not the same for you. It's not the same for anyone else. And this this definition might not be the same for you. But to me, and to Brené Brown and to Oprah and to you know, to a lot of people, you know, it's being your authentic self. Who is that right? Like sometimes we're so distracted. We're so distracted with the things around us, our insecurities that we're not really sure as to like how to really, as to what that looks like. Well, Brené said, vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. Vulnerability. How do you be vulnerable? I'm going to be vulnerable right now. I have been scared, crapless to talk to you. But this happens every time. Like, I've done many, many talks. But every time before that, I'm like, Okay, okay, what am I going to say? I can't rehearse. I can't do this. I can't do that. Like, I know I have the comedian gene. I know I like to make people laugh. But it's like, do people want to laugh all the time? Or do they want to be taught? How can I do both? And then I was able to find a connection in there somewhere.  Don't talk about like all of those taboo things. But the thing is, we need to talk about them. Because humans are wired for validation. That's why it's like, it's funny, because you know, being a UX person, I say, you know, I value feedback and I can't really see many faces except the ones in the front. And I see you smiling, which is great. So let's be like, okay, doing something to make one person smile. That's awesome. But you know, we're wired for validation, whether it's internal or external. External is the dangerous one. Because, you know, we're always going to look for that answer. We're always going to look for that approval. The internal one is difficult because we weren't taught that. Like we were taught in kindergarten to be like yourself. Do your thing.  Take that class. What are you doing? You're going to be a doctor, not a painter in the woods.  But and this is this was the top highlighted part of the blog. And you know, I love Taoism and Buddhism. I like all the spirituality is actually it's kind of cool. And my undergraduate degree is also to in youth ministry as well. So it's like, it's a nice little mixture in there of a whole lot of different things. But when you are content to be simply yourself, and you don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you. Funny part about that is, that last part doesn't even matter. Who cares if they respect you, right? I think what like the subtitle of the is it late to be awesome was the dangers of perfectionism and comparison.  Like, okay, I get that because I'm always trying to compare myself. So I always, I always try to say, Okay, well, what's holding us back? And in psychology, I actually learned a lot of different things. There's a negativity bias. Our brains are more wired to hold on to the negative things than they are to hold on and see the positive things in life. Meditation as much as we drill it into your head is actually to me brings your spirit back to your body. It allows you to actually see like, and like be present and see like, Hey, listen, it's not that serious. Like, because once you're authentically yourself, and if you can cling on to that one positive thought, you feel good throughout the day. An example of that is a smile. Like, when I see a smile, and I'm having a bad day, I can't mean mug the person back. Like, you know, by the way, Philly is very, very mean. So I remember going to like a bus agent, and I'm all skipping and giving him my money.  And I'm like, Oh, okay, like, he was really serious. Like, why are you smiling? And I was like, I thought it was a good day. But now it's not, you know, like, so, so now I'm just going to continue on with my bad attitude. Thank you very much. But you know, like, you know, in Atlanta, it's a different story. They're so nice there. I walked down the street angry. And I have a, you know, old man like, smile up there, like cheer up there. And I'm just like, Oh, okay, okay, like, yeah, I don't know what I'm smiling about. But now I'm really happy. Like, okay. So there's the negativity bias, then there's the invisible audience, which I'm imagining now. No, the invisible audience is an awesome phenomenon because it's actually the thing that developed within us when we were adolescents. It's the thing where we feel like everyone is watching us, that everyone is paying attention to us. And I always say that if that or that is true, and it is true, then that means that if I'm thinking about you thinking about me, thinking about you thinking about me, then literally less than 1% of my thoughts are actually going to be about you. And when you have that freedom, knowing that nobody's really thinking about you, like, I don't know what you guys are thinking about. I know you're looking at me, but like, I don't really like, it's not as like as serious as sometimes we make it out to be. And once you realize that that will less than 1% is there, then you start to have a little bit more confidence. Now the problem with this invisible audience is that we've been we're manufacturing a society where we need those validations. How many likes am I going to get in the next 10 minutes?  But at the end of the day, once we realize that, like, no one knows what they're doing, everybody's winging it. Like, everybody even Kanye is winging it, right? Like, like, nobody loves Kanye more than Kanye loves Kanye. And it's one of the things I always have to remind myself like, be Kanye, no, no, be yourself because because that's what it's about. Everybody is winging it. And that's what brings me back to I'm a phony and that's the whole imposter syndrome. We have this whole fear about feeling like that we really, really truly don't belong here. Like we really like there must be a joke. It really didn't mean to hire us or whatever, you know, like, but at the end of the day, we have to really think about this equation, focus plus action equals momentum. Focus is a byproduct of choice, you have to continually choose to be focused. Now, as a person with ADHD, it's a hard choice. But I choose that I choose to be like focused on whatever that is, whether it's speaking to you, whether it's writing something, whether it's designing something, whether it's thinking about a new invention, which happens like five times a day, and I need a builder to do that. So if anybody wants to talk to me afterwards, that'd be great. You know, it's just focusing on that and action requires commitment. Because sometimes we get so excited about the idea. And then it just dips off. And, you know, you've mad of read a book, the dip, and it talks a lot about that. And momentum, of course, as we know, is just making sure that we're keeping up with it, no matter how slow, no matter how fast, we're keeping up with that. Then I'm going to do Tony Robbins, because of course, have to write excitement must lead to immediate action, or you will lose the power of momentum more dreams die, because we fail to seize the moment, do it now. Carpe diem, right? Like we all learned this, we say it, but it's like we're so we're still so afraid to do to do that thing to do that one project, to learn that particular language to, to do that particular, you know, path that we want to do, because it doesn't look like the next person. But if you ever notice, it's the it's the weirdos, and I can definitely be called a weirdo more like I could be a millionaire, like if I got a dollar from when they called me, you know, weird, normal or crazy, but it's like, those are the ones that stand out, those are the ones that people want to talk to, or want to be a part of like that movement. So we have to take action. And yet it's time for a small story. So and it's going to be great.  But every year, Gumroad does a really cool thing called small product lab, they do it like four times a year. And they make it so that you come up with a product that you can like execute within to attend a period. So I decided, yeah, okay, I'm going to write a book. This is the book. It's called Mutant Nation. I love long subtitles. So it's called the skeptics quick guide to tackling depression, anxiety and other soul sucking ailments in a distracting world. So this book. And this is what I had. So I did this talk to it as well. And it's been changing.  But like, I did a talk similar to this at South by and I had everybody write down one goal. Right. So my goal for this particular, you know, program was to write a book. Then it was like, what have you been avoiding? I'm like, well, writing a book. So then it's like, well, what's your superpower? And it's like doing things fast and making people laugh. But mainly doing things fast, because usually making people laugh part is by accident.  And it's been working so far. But um, but the big part about this was that I learned a lot through it because I didn't complete it on time. So here's where here were the results. I ended up becoming depressed. Okay, so that would happen, right? So I'm writing a book about depression, I've come to press that's perfect. So so it's just like, okay, like, and I remember like being so excited about this book.  Okay, a lot when you really recognize the universe in your place on it. So it's like, oh my God, I was afraid of the sun rays, like it was crazy. So you know, I had to go through this depression. So then I decided to write the group because it was a Facebook group and I was like, guys, I don't I know I promise you this awesome book, I did a cool cover design, like, look at it's great, right? It's gonna be awesome. But it's not written. And everyone, they did the opposite of what I thought they would do. Like 40 people were like, that's okay. Like it's okay. Like that's expected, like whatever you're going to write is probably going to be amazing because you're going through this experience. And then I was like, okay, all right, all right, cool. All right, I have a little bit of confidence there. And it was during my birthday. So it was during the time where I was turning 33. So I was like, Oh, wow, I'm really a failure. It's another milestone. 33 is a really important number for me. I have nothing to show for it. Mind you, like, all of my friends are like, What are you talking about? Like you have this job. You have this. But it's like, you know, you get in your own way. So I ended up writing a post about how I'm going to do this in a week. And I said, if anybody who's out there is reading this post, nobody is I know, then like if I don't finish it, then please tweet that I'm a phony, never listen to her again, and just like unsubscribe from my blogs. But I said, but if I do get it, I get to like go to my Amazon wish list and pick something like under $50 because it's like long.   So I was like, Oh, no, like, like, again, like, why did the post that I don't want go viral and the ones that it do do so the post went viral. And then I became depressed again. It's like, seriously, like, okay, okay, that's fine. But I kept going. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I thought about it. Friday, I started. And then a book was born by Sunday now. It was surprised me that I was able to write it because I had realized I had already wrote it. I just I was afraid to just put it out there. So I was able to create this book. It's a small book, and it has a different type of I'm like doing it differently because of course, you know, I'm a techie. So I'm doing it as an application. So it's going to be updated. This is version one, version two, will include like my life story version three will include, you know, more applications of that because of the fact of even how I got here by meeting like a random book publisher at South by Southwest that was like, can't wait for that book.  And then after that, I did write three chapters, ended up meeting Oprah handed her like the chapters and she's like, Okay, I'm like, Yeah, definitely not writing that now. Like, and it's just like, what are you doing?  But I ended up writing it. It's on Amazon. Now if you go there, you'll see it.  So the funny part was though, I forgot to reward myself. I was ready for the failure. I was so ready for the failure that I forgot to reward myself. But what I realized from all this was the greatest gift ever to is it's about accountability. Like you can't like it's you have a greater success rate. I've noticed when you share it, you have to share what you're doing. I share everything sometimes some things I shouldn't share like my friend, Scott Hanselman, he's always talking to me like remember, everything is a perm link and I'm like, okay, okay, like, but but I don't like because I don't have a filter and I don't really want to have a filter. It's like I just want to share it and I want to see how the people feel about that and then we can talk about it. Like, let's just let's just talk about it.  And even with the book, I'm like, what do people want to hear? But the biggest quote that I have ever ever encountered and I'll probably have it tattooed somewhere. I have like eight tattoos. You can't see. Well, you see a little bit, but you can't see most of them. But don't ask what the world needs.  And that's by Howard Thurman. And that's really like important quote to really, really take in because we're always wondering what people want. But what we want is you. You know, at the end of the day, it's not about because everybody wants something different and everybody will be a critic. And I can do a whole talk on that. But that's not here. So but the biggest part about this is to remember that we want you. You know, like I always I always quote Jay-Z. And there's two things I'm going to say from him, even though he's like at the doghouse right now. But he always says, you know, like, everybody can tell you how to do it, but they never did it. And I found to be like the best way that I was able to be my authentic self and to be the self that I wanted to be was to be around those that I wanted where I wanted to be. And it wasn't a comparison. It was admiration. And then another thing too is he says, difficult takes a day and possible takes a week. And I thought that was cute because I'm like, oh, you had it. I mean, most rappers always say like a lot of really cool things, but it actually happens for them. So I'm like, this is actually must be true in some way. And it is because I didn't think a lot of things were possible. But I just needed to wait and I needed to be myself. So if there's anything that you get from this, it's that we need to talk more, bridge the gap. But most importantly, be our authentic selves. So go and be awesome. Thanks.