Thank you for having me here at Drupal South Sydney 2024, I'm sorry I couldn't make it in person. Today I'm talking about the history of web accessibility. So the history of web accessibility. The first thing I would like to do is acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the traditional owners of the land that is basically being used for the Drupal South Sydney conference. And I just want to talk a little bit about my team. We're a little bit smaller. COVID had our way with it with us. But this was back in 2018 when about two thirds of us went to CSUN. And one of the things that I specifically wanted to do when I started with Accessibility Oz was to basically provide employment for people with disabilities as well as making the world a more accessible place. And so you can see us, we don't necessarily look like we have disabilities. But at any one time I've had a staff with at least 60% of people with disabilities. I've had people with dyslexia, moderate vision impairment, epilepsy, migraines, severe vision impairment, physical impairment, post traumatic stress disorder, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and long COVID. The last one is something that I suffer from myself. I caught COVID at CSUN in 2023 and unfortunately I'm still recovering. And the one thing to remember when it comes to accessibility is it's not just about vision impairments. A lot of people think accessibility is only about people who are blind using a screen reader and that's absolutely not the case. In fact, the largest group of people with disabilities who use the web are people with cognitive disabilities because they're the largest group of people with disabilities. A little about me, why you should listen to me and why I'm talking about the history of accessibility. I started in accessibility in 1998. I worked on the very first accessible website in Australia which was the Vision Australia Foundation closely followed by Disability Online. And I created Australia's first automated accessibility testing tool called Purplecop. I was an invited expert to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2 working group. I spent six years with them working on WCAG 2 and I also worked on the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. In fact, we've actually been involved in all Commonwealth Games since then including the not happening Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games which took us all by surprise. I spent five years managing usability and accessibility services at Monash University and then I left in 2011 to fire found accessibility OZ. We released OZ player in 2012 which is our accessible video player OZART, our automated accessibility testing tool in 2014. I spoke at the United Nations on the importance of web accessibility in 2015, nominated for Australian of the Year in 2016 and from 2018 to now I've been chairing the ICT mobile site and native app testing committee talking about mobile accessibility guidelines and I won the inaugural Australian Access Award accessibility person of the year in 2019. So that's why I can talk about the history of accessibility. So the very first thing that happened was the first HTML specification was released if you want to talk about web accessibility. It was published by Tim Berners-Lee who is known as the founder of the web also the founder of the W3C. It supported only text and it had 18 tags. The world was a lot easier to make accessible back then and in 1995 what ended up happening is the unified website accessibility guidelines were released. Now these were compiled by Greg van der Heiden who has been in the industry a very long time, was developed by people in the accessibility industry with no input or direction from policy bodies and it actually came from a discussion between Tim Berners-Lee and Mike Passiello and Mike Passiello is a titan in the accessibility industry. Tim Berners-Lee went to a pre-conference workshop run by Mike at a WWW conference talking about web accessibility and because he went to that pre-conference workshop he actually mentioned disability access in his keynote and so the first version of the unified website accessibility guidelines was released in 1995 and version 8 was released in 1998 and was the starting point for WCAG 1 so they managed to go through 3 versions sorry 8 versions in 3 years pretty impressive. The next big thing is 1995 HTML2 was released which included support for things like images and 1995 a programming language called Mokka was released. It was written in 10 days by Brendan Eich and then renamed to LiveScript and then to JavaScript in May 1995 so JavaScript as we know and love it was actually written in 10 days. 1995 the first Internet Explorer was released before that we used things like Netscape and Opera and that was really the beginning of the end of accessibility I joke but yes Internet Explorer did make things difficult for the accessibility industry for its lack support of tags and misrendering of a lot of content. In 1997 the web accessibility initiative was created which is a part of the W3C and in 1997 HTML3 was released and it was the first HTML specification to be published as a W3C recommendation and they took over HTML from there. December 1997 HTML4 was released and it had 3 variations and this is where it got really complicated they had the strict variation in which deprecated elements are forbidden and if you actually used a deprecated element often the page itself wouldn't render at all transitional in which deprecated elements are allowed and frame set in which mostly frame related elements are allowed and it was phasing out visual markup features in favor of things like CSS so CSS was fairly new back then too. 1998 section 508 was released in the US and section 508 is really important because it really put accessibility on the map from a policy perspective. Bill Clinton signed the work force investment act into law which is basically section 508 which required accessibility for electronic and IT systems for all federal purchases and the W3C as a result started working on WCAG 1. So a year later WCAG 1 was released which was really quick. It had 14 guidelines and 65 checkpoints and it was often seen to be too complex which is hilarious and it was not technology independent it referenced things like client side and server side image maps it didn't allow click here links etc. So I'm going to read you the priority one checkpoints which are basically the level A checkpoints of WCAG 1 so you can understand kind of what we were dealing with back then. So in general priority one 1.1 provide a text equivalent for every non text element e.g. via alt, long desk or in element content. This includes images, graphical representations of text including symbols, image map regions, animations e.g. animated gifs, applets and programmatic objects, ASCII art, oh remember ASCII art, frames, scripts, images, sorry images used as list bullets, spaces, graphical buttons, sounds, played with or without user interaction, standalone audio files, audio tracks of video and video. So that was 1.1 it's the most complex of all of them. 2.1 ensure that all information conveyed with color is also available without color for example from context or markup. 4.1 clearly identify changes in the natural language of a document's text and any text equivalents e.g. captions. 6.1 organize documents so that they may be read without style sheets for example when an HTML document is rendered without associated style sheets it must still be possible to read the document. 6.2 ensure that equivalents for dynamic content are updated when the dynamic content changes. 7.1 until user agents allow users to control flickering avoid causing the screen to flicker. 14.1 use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content. So that was the general checkpoints and then you have the and if you use images and image maps checkpoints. 1.2 provide redundant text links for each active region of a server side image map and 9.1 provide client side image maps instead of server side image maps except where the regions cannot be defined with an available geometric shape and if you use tables 5.1 for data tables identify row and column headers 5.2 for data tables that have two or more logical levels of row or column headers use markup to associate data cells and header cells and if you use frames title each frame to facilitate frame identification and navigation and if you use applets and scripts ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported if this is not possible provide equivalent information on an alternative accessible page and if you use multimedia 1.3 until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track provide an audit to read description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation and 1.4 for any time paced multimedia presentation e.g a movie or animation synchronize equivalent alternatives e.g captions or audit tree descriptions of the visual track with the presentation and the very interesting last checkpoint in priority one level A and if all else fails 11.4 if after best efforts you cannot create an accessible page provide a link to an alternative page that uses W3C technologies is accessible has equivalent information or functionality and is updated as often as the inaccessible original page and that's where things get really interesting so this is why we often see things that seem to be okay like separate sites for people with disabilities and that's where this comes from this WCAG 1 checkpoint and it's actually not allowed in WCAG 2 so that's something that you know you can sort of see how it's progressed in that way but it's definitely not something that you should be implementing now and 2001 VPAT 1.0 was released which was developed in partnership with the US government general services administration and information technology industry council so that's a US thing and one of the reasons why that was created was because a year before in the year 2000 there was the first web accessibility litigation and it occurred in Australia Bruce McGuire who is a Sydney man and is vision impaired wanted to buy tickets to see the Sydney Olympic Games and so he couldn't buy tickets and he complained to SoCog which is the Sydney operation operating committee of the Olympic Games they ignored him so he went to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission which is now called the Australian Human Rights Commission and they talked to SoCog and SoCog ignored them so it ended up in court so the case itself was based on three sorry two major issues one they used JavaScript for navigation and back then screen readers couldn't interpret JavaScript so you needed to have a kind of backup alternative if you ever use JavaScript and instead of having coded tables of results they had screenshots of tables so basically SoCog in court argued that it would cost 16 million dollars to make the site accessible the judge finds them $20,000 because he deemed it would cost would have cost $10,000 to make the site accessible and he doubled that figure however he awarded attorney fees to McGuire and Herriock and they were in excess of half a million dollars so SoCog was up for the 20,000 but also up for the half a million of attorneys fees for Herriock and also of course their own attorneys fees and they blew out experts from the US to talk about how difficult it would be to make the site accessible the interesting thing I was working in accessibility at that stage at a company called Sausage Software which was the very first WYSIWYG so what you see is what you get HTML editor and it hit the front page of every newspaper in Australia and around the same time a little bit related I joined the web content accessibility guidelines working group and we started working on WCAG 2. 2002 Firefox was first released which is a great browser and really made things a lot easier because really IE was running the show at that point and then we had the very weird situation of the WYSIWYG and the HTML text working group so in June 2004 the web hypertext application technology working group which is the WYSIWYG was formed in response to the slow development of web standards by the W3C so you might have noticed that back in 99 HTML4 was released however you know it's 2004 and there's still no HTML5 this is because the W3C was really looking at XHTML and XML which of course died a slow death but they basically this this group formed outside the W3C to work on HTML and this is something that as you can see happens quite a lot in accessibility you know the first accessibility guidelines were created outside of policy I'm working on a set of mobile guidelines at the moment outside of policy groups like the W3C and it's something that tends to happen when we feel that you know policy is not keeping up with the IT of accessibility so basically XHTML was too unforgiving in terms of error handling so if you wrote your XHTML a little bit incorrectly once again you just get a page that wouldn't render and I mean the whole point of the web is rendering pages so it was just something that was not particularly helpful so in 2006 the first public draft of WCAG 2 was released and it was quite controversial for a number of reasons the first reason was the testability requirement which they still require I actually wrote a list of and a list of part article called testability costs too much and basically the concept of testability is that eight out of ten accessibility specialists agree on the outcome so it's not about automated testing but you as you know you put you know ten accessibility specialists in a room you'll get ten different answers it's really hard for us all to agree and so that was kind of my argument with testability is that it's something that you just you just can't reach and so it made it was the reason why certain requirements that were in WCAG 1 were not included in WCAG 2 so for example the clear and simple checkpoint ensured that your content is clear and simple was relegated to level 3 which does not need to or AAA which does not need to meet testability requirements and as I like to say AAA is where success criterion go die so we were a number of people were quite unimpressed that the clear and simple checkpoint had been relegated to AAA and the reasoning was this testability and my argument was you know testability you know you couldn't meet it on whether an alt attribute was accurate you couldn't meet it on whether captions were 100% accurate etc so it was not something that you should you know decide as to whether a requirement should be in AA or AAA because the clear and simple checkpoint got moved to AAA Lisa Seaman lodged a formal objection of which about 35 to 40 accessibility specialists cosigned including myself and her formal objection was that WCAG 2 did not address the needs of people with cognitive disabilities as a result of that formal objection WCAG 2 was pulled from public release and basically the working group split in a little bit of a way now in the the guidelines that were finally released there is actually a section which says that WCAG 2 does not accurately or sufficiently make things accessible for people with cognitive disabilities so instead of actually changing WCAG 2 to improve things that people with cognitive disabilities may require they just added this clause that says hey WCAG 2 is not sufficient you need to do other things as well which is a bit unfortunate however before WCAG 2 was released as I said this WCAG version in 2006 was pulled from public release and a small group of accessibility specialists worked on something called the WCAG samurai rata and basically this was run by Joe Clark who was very big in accessibility at the time doesn't really work in accessibility now and he said instead of creating a WCAG 2 what we need to do is create a WCAG 1.1 and so basically he got together a group of anonymous accessibility specialists and they wrote a WCAG 1.1 which they called the WCAG samurai rata and he got a couple of accessibility specialists to present a third party review of the document and I was one of those specialists in terms of reviewing what we thought was good and what we thought was bad and if you do enough searching you can still find that on the web now WCAG 2 was published in 2008 and I published a blog post called why I'm still using WCAG 1 but you know after a year or two I did jump on the WCAG 2 bandwagon as they fleshed out the you know understanding the success criteria sections and things like that but it was very controversial now in between that time really interesting thing happened Apple released their iPhone and so it was the first real smartphone I mean I used Palm pilots and things like that which I thought were fantastic but you know I had to synchronize it with my computer through a cable when I got home and it was monochrome and even though when I was on the working group what we wanted to do was ensure that the WCAG 2 with the last web content accessibility guidelines we really tried to make some technology neutral which is why you've got some very generic language in WCAG 2 we really kind of wanted to make sure that whatever technology came along you could apply WCAG 2 however of course when the majority of WCAG 2 was written there was no iPhone there were no native apps and the kind of ways that we see people use the internet now through their smartphones we just had not conceived of and so really even though Apple released in 2007 it took a few years before native apps really keep you know started and so we had to really kind of missed that unfortunately and 2008 Watwood published their first public working draft which was then closely followed by the W3C publishing HTML5 so there's real controversy between the two basically eventually HTML5 took over. 2008 WCAG 2 was published very busy first 10 years and 2008 the W3C begins work on this thing called ARIA which is accessible rich internet applications so ARIA is not a true programming language but a set of attributes that you can add to HTML elements to increase their accessibility you know these attributes communicate roles state and property to assistive technologies via accessibility APIs found in modern browsers and this communication happens through the accessibility tree however it's really important for people using ARIA to know that if there are ways that you can use HTML to do the same things then you need to use HTML because HTML has accessibility built in and HTML is available to everyone not just assistive technologies so for example your old attribute on your image is the standard HTML way of providing an alternative text of the image you don't want to use ARIA described by because ARIA described by is only available to people who use assistive technologies and you might say oh but only assistive technologies need to use the old attributes and that's not the case there might be some people that want to browse with images disabled due to say security concerns and they're not going to be able to access the ARIA described by but they are going to be able to access the old attribute so that's why it's really really really important to use HTML when you can and not use ARIA in 2008 chrome was first released chrome I love chrome before chrome I was using opera because opera allowed you to have multiple tabs open I actually released a newsletter had about 5000 people that I sent it to from about 2004 to 2006 I released it monthly and it was like the latest on accessibility and in order to do that I would go through all the links that I've been sent to open up all in the browsers I'd read through them and decide which ones were necessary to be included and of course if you open 40, 50 IE versions that's going to crash your computer but opera you can have multiple tabs and when chrome first came out it had tabs as well and I switched over another interesting thing that happened in 2008 is target in the US so was sued by the national federation for the blind now target argued that there was a lack of alt text that online purchases required a mouse the inaccessible image maps I mean seriously 2008 headings missing and basically they formed a class action lawsuit they had been complaining since 2005 and had just been given the run around which is very common when it comes to accessibility complaints and target basically argued that because they the website was not connected to a single physical location because it's under the accommodations acts that you sue people in the US and they argued therefore it doesn't need to be accessible the judge found that that was not the case and they ended up settling out of court now they settled for damages of six million dollars and they also had to pay NFB's legal fees which were an excessive three and a half million dollars and they also had to get NFB to test their website for a very hefty fee every year afterwards so they they're looking at about 10 million dollars which is a huge amount of money for a an organization for any organization and so basically that really turned people on to accessibility again a little bit like how the accessibility litigation in 2000 did in Australia in 2009 the W3C went XHTML we have decided that that's not a great idea and decided that they would continue HTML5 only and then the most important thing happened which was 2011 accessibility OZ was founded and although 2011 accessibility OZ was found another small thing happened that year which was Twitter Twitter who would have thought it released the first CSS framework bootstrap and basically bootstrap as a CSS framework was an open source project in 2002 bootstrap two was released with a 12 column responsive bridge layout which is why you see that everywhere alongside many other new features and in 2013 bootstrap three was released which had redesigned components and had a mobile first design philosophy that's over a decade ago and this is why it's really interesting once again that if you are outside of policy organizations you can actually get things released pretty quickly and that you have organizations like Twitter seems really strange you know moving accessibility needle 2012 Netflix was sued by the National Association for the Deaf and this is the first time once again in the US that a company was was sued that didn't have a public location and so Netflix argued quite a lot of things as to why they didn't need to provide captions to their content even when there was captions so they firstly argued that they didn't have to because there was a they weren't a public location and then they argued that if they provided captions it would be a copyright violation so the judge kind of said that's not a very good defense in judging words and he required that Netflix provide captions within 24 months and awarded the two complainants $795,000 in damages and so what's interesting about that is in 2015 a TV show called Daredevil was released which is about a blind superhero and you think perhaps blind people would like to watch a TV show about a blind superhero and it was released without audio descriptions now captions are for people who are deaf audio descriptions are for people who are blind or vision impaired and there's a real difference between how people or how policy deals with captions versus audio descriptions so in the US everything needs to be captions you need to provide captions for all your content TV cable everything whereas you only need to provide 20 hours of audio described content for per say cable company or something like that 20 hours a week which is very very peculiar and this you saw that as well in WCAG one so WCAG one required sorry WCAG two WCAG two required that captions are provided at the bottom level at level A and only required audio descriptions at the double A level so it is something that is peculiar about the accessibility industry that audio descriptions are not seen on par with captions so in 2015 this TV show was released in its entirety about a blind superhero without audio descriptions and there was a bit kerfuffle in the accessibility industry and Netflix actually provided audio descriptions for Daredevil within three days of its release and the audio descriptions are absolutely excellent so if you ever want to see here really good audio descriptions then have a look at Daredevil and it's absolutely impossible to get audio descriptions for that much content done in three days so there is a small minority of the accessibility industry who thinks that maybe it was a bit of a stunt on Netflix's part to kind of get a bit of publicity they say there's no such thing as bad publicity and then in 2012 WCAG and the W3C decide to cooperate so as few years there are two in throwing and so the W3C took over the HTML5 specification and decided to focus on a single definitive standard HTML and it was considered as a snapshot of Watwig so the Watwig does actually continue its work with HTML and is seen as a living standard so Watwig actually talks about things that browsers might start to support but aren't actually included in the snapshot version of HTML5 so that's how the two are different. In 2013 in May at a JavaScript conference in the US a new library called React was introduced it was created by Jordan Walk who's a software engineer working for Facebook once again strange companies to be pushing the accessibility envelope so basically our existing CSS frameworks even such as Bootstrap also built things like versions for React and today React is the most popular JavaScript technology unfortunately it's not very accessible so there is that problem. A year later Coles was sued in Australia and so this is an interesting story so basically a woman vision impaired again in Sydney again Chazelle Monage she had been working for several years with Coles to make their systems accessible and in early 2014 she could finally do some online grocery shopping and get it delivered to her door and then mid 2014 Coles released a new app and a new website which was not accessible and Chazelle was understandably annoyed so she went to the she complained of which Coles did nothing so she went to the Australian Human Rights Commissioner who had been assisting her with talking to Coles but the coalition government had at that point retrenched or laid off the disability discrimination commissioner from the Australian Human Rights Commission now 47% of all complaints the Australian Human Rights Commission receive are regarding disability and they have a lot of commissions like aged care commissioners gender commissioners racial equality commissioners sexuality commissioners etc and you know it's really kind of strange to retrench the commissioner that is responsible for the most number of complaints but that's what they did back in 2014 so Chazelle had no other option than to actually sue Coles so she did now they settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and Coles then went on to work very hard to make their content accessible but once again it was another thing that basically lit a fire when it came to accessibility. Another thing that happened in 2014 was EN 301549 I mean seriously they really need to get a better name and it was about the public procurement of ICT products and services in the EU so this is basically the section 508 of Europe except it also includes a whole lot of other things as well and when it says hey you need to make your website accessible clearly I'm paraphrasing it references WCAG 2 so it's basically now at a stage where WCAG 2 is seen to be the standard across the world. In 2014 WAIA 1.1 was released sorry 1.0 was released once again takes a long time to do anything in the W3C and at the same time the BBC released their mobile accessibility guidelines and so basically the one thing about these guidelines is the first mobile accessibility guidelines to be released is that they merged the native app and mobile site requirements so you never really knew whether it was something you needed to apply to a native app only or to a mobile site but these were seen as the de facto mobile accessibility guidelines for quite some time until about 2019-2020 the BBC came out and said we never expected anyone to actually use these guidelines we just released them you know so people would see what it is that we follow and you should really be considering other things you know like e-commerce that aren't covered by these guidelines but for many years the BBC mobile accessibility guidelines were watched people followed. The same year HTML5 was released and it was basically a very concerted effort by the W3C HTML working group and it included things like audio and video tags and made things like audio and video much more accessible. The same year WAIA 1.1 was released and you also got the VPAT 2.0 in the US and then in 2008, that's 18, WCAG 2.1 was released so it did address issues around the requirements of people with cognitive disabilities and low vision because they were left out of WCAG 2 however there was one thing that a number of mobile accessibility guidelines agreed on that weren't really addressed properly by WCAG 2.1 so by 2018 all the big accessibility companies, accessibility OZ included had their own mobile accessibility guidelines and one of the things that we all agreed on was that touch target sizes were needed to be a sufficient you know largest size and so that requirement was in WCAG 2.1 however it was relegated to AAA and as I said AAA is where success criteria and go to die and so that was something that the industry itself was fairly unimpressed about something that we all thought was really important that had just kind of been we felt ignored by the W3C and so why do we need this WCAG 2 thing and why did I go on to work on mobile accessibility guidelines so before we talk about WCAG 2.1 we need to talk about WCAG 2 so WCAG 2 success criteria are applicable to mobile so mobile sites or native apps or whatever however not all aspects of mobile accessibility are specifically covered by WCAG 2 we really tried but we didn't make it particularly we didn't make it perfectly technology neutral so for example although WCAG 2 requires sites to be accessible to the keyboard user it does not specify that it should also be accessible to the touchscreen user so as a result and because things were moving very slowly with WCAG 2.1 in 2018 we well 2017 we formed a group called the ICT mobile site and native app testing methodology subcommittee and we did this because in 2017 at the ICT accessibility testing symposium to the conference aimed at accessibility testers we all got together at the end and talked about what it is that the industry needed and basically what we required was a standard set of mobile accessibility guidelines because you got different things if you went to different companies so we knew that WCAG 2.1 would be released at some point so we thought this was a short-term issue we thought WCAG 2.1 would address all our requirements we were wrong and so we knew we just wanted to make sure until that happened we were all working off the same kind of guidebook so what we did is we amalgamated everyone's mobile testing guidelines and put them into a nice you know pretty order and we released them in 2018 and around the same time that WCAG 2.1 was released so WCAG 2.1 great it did build on WCAG 2 address more criteria related to touch screens such as pointer gestures sensors small screen devices however the accessibility industry really didn't feel like it covered all the user needs related to mobile accessibility of course touch targets sizes being the largest one so we reformed the committee and the second ICT mobile site and native app testing methodology was released in early 2020 and so that was something that you can still get it's on the accessibility OS website we're thinking of reforming the committee to write a new version we did kind of get you know waylaid by COVID but that is something that we do as a company follow and a lot of the large accessibility companies were involved in their development in that development as well in 2020 VPAT 2.4 was also released which incorporated WCAG 2.1 and then of course you know the end what happened in 2020 nothing happened after in March 2020 nothing happened after March 2020 basically COVID really threw a spanner in everyone's works there was a real belief that it would be you know a new age of accessibility in terms of everyone having to go online you know people ran out of money and accessibility once again was the thing that dropped off people's lists unfortunately uh basically in April 2022 WCAG 2.2 was released actually hold on a second no it wasn't April 2022 was September 2022 no it was November 2022 no February 23 no April 23 no June 23 these are all the times that the W3C said WCAG 2.2 would be released uh June 2023 way aria 1.2 was released which was great uh October WCAG 2.2 release 23 which is the case which is great um and it did have a few additional things that did improve accessibility so that is something that we are happy about however there were some things that we were not happy about let's start about with the things that we were happy about so touch target sizes were there was a new requirement added to AA which required touch target sizes a little bit smaller than the version in AAA but we all counted that as a win another thing that was included was dragging movements which was something that was in the ICT accessibility testing symposium mobile site and native app accessibility guidelines got to be a shorter way of saying that um so we were happy to see that included in WCAG 2.2 however the big one was uh success criterion for 0.1.1 passing was removed now what is passing a lot of people have no idea what passing is so the success criterion reads in content implemented using markup languages elements have complete start and end tags tags tags tags let me start again in content implemented using markup languages elements have complete start and end tags elements are nested according to their specifications elements do not contain duplicate attributes and any ids are unique except where the specifications allow these features how on earth are you supposed to test this like go through and look at every single tag open tag go does it have an end tag there is an easy way to do this which is called validation so HTML validation and it was a mainstay of WCAG 1 and it was a really easy way to determine if something wasn't accessible you throw it through the validator the validator spits out all these errors you go hey this site is not accessible however because a whole lot of uh companies were creating these WYSIWYG uh creating HTML through WYSIWYG editors they were finding that the HTML that was output was not passing the validation so in WCAG 1 you had a requirement for validation but in WCAG 2 you don't have a requirement for validation you have a requirement for passing now validation is one way to meet the passing requirement but it is not uh the only way so you could have people argue that their page doesn't validate but they still pass pass pass the passing requirement because who would ever know so this has meant that uh it was an easy way to check but it also meant that you could easily tell where the code was uh created properly so it could easily be interpreted by things like browsers or assistive technologies um and so they decided to remove it in WCAG 2.2 which has split the accessibility community a little uh there are people like myself who think that passing is important and there are the groups that think that it's an unnecessary test that needs to be performed so that's once again one of the many controversies of accessibility so thank you very much for coming to this talk I am sorry I can't be there in person I hope you learned something please don't um be offended if I did offend you I did not mean to it has been a very interesting 20 too many years 26 years in the accessibility industry um and it's something that I mean I love with a passion but uh the politics can be a little bit too much for me sometimes uh so once again thank you for listening to my Ted talk thank you for listening to my Drupal South talk and uh please reach out to me if you have any questions thank you


ed that they've had an accident or because of our roads or sidewalks being in such disrepair? Mr. Baccoman. So anyone who has a claim against the town is referred to our insurance company and our insurance company handles all of that. Whether them and actually, usually those things get resolved between the insurance company and the person who has the claim. And whether there's been an actual lawsuit, I can't, I don't recall any. Thank you. Yes, in the back, foreign from the... Pat Church precinct five. I live on South Prospect Street. It's a one-way street from Amity to Route nine. I live on the Route nine end. I would like everyone here in the next couple of days to drive down the one-way street and then take a right and go back up Lincoln Avenue. It's a challenge. So, I don't know. I don't even know what to say anymore about this. We have said this over and over at town meeting and people think it's funny that we have streets to complain to our DPW people about, but it's not, it's really bad. We're gonna jump forward now and see if there's any discussion on the remaining six items starting with waste processing just to clear those out of the way and then we're gonna open up to anything. So discussion on waste processing through to flood mapping revisions is what we're limiting to now. Yes, over in the front row there. Denise Barveret, precinct nine. I was, I see we can't divide this particular item from the article. I'm not ready to make a motion to lower the amount, but I do have similar concerns to the previous speaker's concerns about the way finding signs. This is discover, list, and price all personal property. And in the JCPC report, it says complete discovery of personal property in town, potential revenue growth, very exciting. But I'm gonna totter down memory lane for a minute. About 10 years ago, I seem to remember that there was a flap in town over some unpaid personal property taxes. I believe Larry Kelly was the one causing the flap. And I think it got to the point where certain taxes that were owed were forgiven because it would have cost more to actually do all the processing and the collecting and things like that. And I'm not sure that there is an exemption for a certain, up to a certain amount of personal property taxes, but here we are wanting to spend $40,000. I'm assuming that will be another consultant. It's a lot of money. It certainly sounds like a lot of work for the complete discovery of personal property in town. And I'm wondering if what we're going to gain from it is really worth that expenditure. Thank you. Ms. Krueger. So I can't really speak to flaps from the past that you mentioned. I know it's come up at different times. I do believe there is a threshold which we may have raised. But I'm gonna try for a minute to channel Mr. Burgess, our principal assessor. He's not here, but what I remember is his asking the Joint Capital Planning Committee quite specifically for this money so that we could contract with a firm. We do contract this out because it's time to update the list that we have. A lot of the personal property taxes actually paid by the utility companies less with, and again, I'm kind of remembering as best I can. But because it's time to update, his feeling was that once we had a better list we might actually recover most of the costs and it's time to do it. If somebody here wants to add from their memory of this item, their other, I see an affirming shaking head from one of my committee members, but that's why we put it in. We're really trying to balance a lot of things. It was time to do this and we were asked quite directly to put this in so we could get done in a timely manner. Okay, just a little more maybe on those last six line items. Yes, I see a hand right in the corner there. Vince O'Connor, precinct one. So I have a similar problem with the flood mapping. We hired a consultant two or three years ago. The consultant produced maps. We've had maps of especially of North Amherst. We actually redid the flood zoning for the Fort River and its tributaries, oh, maybe 15, 20 years ago. But every time flood mapping gets done of North Amherst, it indicates that there is the, that on the property of the largest private landowner in Western Massachusetts there are flood plains and that information is never brought to town meeting, has not in the time that I have been in town meeting, has never been brought to this town meeting for action in terms of ratifying the professional staff findings or the professional consultant findings and putting that flood mapping in place. So why in heaven's name would we be spending $40,000 to do more of it when we have not yet been able to put in place the two or three previous studies in North Amherst. The Fort River seems to be fine. We can always, we've redone the flood mapping there, but every time we flood map North Amherst, the action, it's never brought to town meeting and I don't see why we should spend $40,000 to do more studies if we're not gonna take action. Ms. Krueger. We had quite a lengthy debate about this ourselves at the committee because we needed to understand this. I might mention that town meeting doesn't ratify flood plain maps, but planning director Christine Brestrup spoke to us and it was compelling and convincing when we got our questions answered and if I might, I think she could give more technical information about why we need to do this. I hear a point of order. Sorry, Mr. Moderator, but we don't ratify anything here. We do zoning. Okay, I'm interrupting right now. That's not a point of order. If you disagree with somebody else's comment, maybe you'll get recognized to talk about it, but lots of people disagree with other people's comments. I'm opening up the discussion to anything and which means also I will accept a motion of the previous question if it happens to appear before me and I hear a point of order. Jim Olden, Precinct Five. Mr. Moderator, this follows up on the earlier question I had about dividing. So, and I just want to understand is, do you see these capital items as similar to budget items in the operating budget where we are voting on the bottom line? Does it, if we pass this amount is would the, would it be within the power of the executive to spend the money differently from what's in this list? And, or another way to put the question is, does this body have the capacity to change items in the list or again, only the bottom line? I believe only the bottom line. That's my understanding of how it's been done in the 26 years that I've been involved in town meeting. That suggestions can be made, but it's I believe the town manager who gets to determine how the money is actually spent or the different departments. Yes, right there, five rows back in the center with the white card. Michael Greenbaum, Precinct Six. My question really builds on the last several items. I would be glad to be shown why I'm wrong, but I'm not sure why consultants such as the LSE consultant that was my concern at the $15,000 item belongs in the capital budget. We faced this many years ago in town meeting when comprehensive planning was the issue, but could somebody explain why consultants belong in the capital budget rather than say the operating budget or the CPA budget? Ms. Krueger. And I'm gonna look for some backup on this from either Ms. Aldridge or Mr. Bachmann, but it isn't readily apparent just from reading what is capital, but actually plans and studies do fit in the capital category. And like I said, if I could have a little backup on that and if the moderator's willing. Mr. Bachmann. That's true. You're allowed to use plans and studies under your capital budget. Yeah, way over against the wall there. I hear a point of order. Jeff Blausdine, Precinct Six. I hate to ask this, but do we have a quorum? A lot of people left after the last question. Are you formally asking for a quorum call? And that if the rules of town meeting are, if a quorum count is formally asked for, we need to count. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna use our electronic voting devices and it doesn't matter if you press button one or two or three because we will count all three together and see if we have 124, I believe I said. Did I say 124? 124. 124. So press any button, one, two or three. Okay, could we freeze the vote please and do it again? Okay, so we're not gonna count this vote, actually, if we get a quorum, we're gonna count it. So let's see what happens. If we're one short, we're gonna wanna fix that device. Okay, that's true, we can do that too. So you can go ahead and display the results. 85 plus 15 is 106 is 106, we do not have a quorum. Hang on, hang on, everybody? Everybody, could everybody take a deep breath? We are going to do another count. We're gonna do it again. Everybody has to press either one or two or three and we'll see if the total adds up to 124. Hang on, is there still a point of order? Microphone please. I just thought that it might be good to do an actual physical count because what if somebody just chooses not to press a button, I mean it's. No, we're gonna do an electronic vote. Is there anybody who's planning on not voting because I would ask you to walk out now if that was the case. But I think everyone's put in the time in there here so we're gonna use the electronic vote to determine it. So we're gonna do this again, see what we get. Okay, one or two or three. 97 plus 21 is 100, who can do the math? 126, we have a quorum. I hear a point of order. Stand up if you call the point of order so we can identify you. Steve Schreiber, precinct nine. So there are 254 town meeting members. Wouldn't a quorum be 128? So 254 divided by two is 127 plus one is 128. There are 247 town meeting members according to what the clerk told me. Some people may have resigned and up and replaced or something like that. So we do have a quorum and we may continue. So you've been recognized, identify yourself. Jennifer Page, precinct eight. I moved to reduce the buildings and facilities appropriation by $90,000 removing the downtown wayfinding system. Motion's been made and seconded. So the only, the pertinent part of the motion is to reduce the bottom line by 90,000 and your reason can be in the motion but the pertinent part is removing the bottom line. You may speak to your motion. Thank you. It's late so I'll be quick. We recently have been discussing debating spending $15,000 on after school vouchers. $25,000 on a preschool and now we wanna spend a small fortune on signage for downtown Amherst based on what sounds like anecdotal evidence from some UMass parents who may not have had smartphones I guess because most people these days when they wanna get somewhere will look at their smartphone to find how to get there. So thank you. Okay, so when we come to a vote very soon now we will first vote on the larger amount and if that fails we will then vote on the lesser amount. Is there further discussion before we come to a vote? I see a hand in the finance committee. Tim Neal, precinct four and finance committee member. I'm gonna oppose this. I do think earlier on we're talking about a bottom line with the manager's discretion and taking $90,000 out to satisfy a particular need or position that they don't feel the need is there. I think a short sighted. I think we should approve the full amount and have the town manager take the discussion that we've talked about in this town meeting too late and appropriate the appropriate funds. So I would be very, very hesitant to reduce the total dollar amount for that reason. Further discussion. Yes, I see a hand way back there. Wait for the microphone please. Nancy Pagano, precinct five. I'd like to call the question. Motion of the previous question has been made and seconded. Okay, I hear a point of order. Amy Minnellman, precinct five. The previous speaker raised a red card. You have said many times that- Wait, wait, I did not see a red card. I saw a white card. I'm sorry, but if the red card maybe was visible to you but I saw a white card here. Sorry, I saw a white card and I called on her. So whether she raised a red one or not I called on her thinking a white card. So I'm going to accept the motion for the previous question. I hear a point of order. Please de-call in precinct nine. We have a new motion and aren't we supposed to be able to hear at least one point of view from each side after we get a new motion? I'm accepting the previous question because I feel that we did hear points of view before the motion was made. I feel it's been discussed enough that if two thirds of you feel that it's discussed enough that we can come to a vote. If two thirds of you don't feel that, so if more than one third feels we need to discuss it more we will, but I feel that it's been discussed enough that it's an acceptable motion for the previous question. That's a good point and there would be some cases where I wouldn't accept it, but in this case I did. So we're now going to come to an immediate vote. If two thirds of you vote to end debate we will end debate and then first vote on the higher amount than the lower amount. All those in favor of the motion for the previous question please say aye. Opposed, please say no. No. Moderator, here's two thirds, but I'm pretty sure someone's gonna want electronic vote. Okay, all you have to do is say electronic vote please, okay? Let's have an electronic vote. 86, yes, 36, no, two thirds has been achieved. We will now come to an immediate vote. So we are first voting on the higher amount, which is $2,007,864. If that fails, we will then vote on the lower amount, which is $90,000 less. All those in favor of the motion under article four, I hear a point of order. Yes, so there are two dollar amounts that are before us. One is the amount in the initial motion by during capital planning committee for $2,007,864, and then there was a motion to lower that by $90,000, so the second amount is $1,917,864. Our first vote is for the higher amount, $2,007,864 requires a majority. All those in favor of appropriating the higher amount please say aye. Opposed, please say no. No. Moderators in doubt, we'll have an electronic vote. Okay, we've got another one that's dead battery perhaps. There's no way to kill it. Can we just shut it off the screen? Thank you, good. Good job. There's always a power switch at our disposal. I hear a point of order. Is Lawrence Quigley precinct going, is the higher number always- First, thank you. What we vote on first, yes. Okay, are we ready? So let's bring that vote back on the screen. Don't hurt yourself. Okay, this is again the vote for the higher amount. The vote is yes, 65, no, 62. One abstain, the higher amount has passed. I now call on Mr. Slaughter to make a motion. Move to adjourn till 7 p.m. Monday, May 14th. Okay, hang on, before we vote on adjournment, everybody make sure to turn your devices off and return them.  Everybody come here earlier on Monday. We had a 709 quorum, which is not good. All those in favor of the motion to adjourn, please say aye. Oppose no. We are adjourned.


Hello, my name is Lucia Schultz. I am one of the project associates with the Center for Rural Affairs. I work closely with beginner farmers, but especially with Latino beginner farmers. We're learning circle is an opportunity to educate people of like-minded. In this case it would be for beginner Latino farmers, and so there's a topic that is discussed from either the same Latino farmer or a professional from NRCS, RD or an extension employee that comes in and specifically talks about that topic. There's also a question-and-answer part where the farmers will ask the professional, the ag professional anything that they might have thought about during the presentation. But at the same time at the end of the learning circle, there's always an opportunity to network among each other to see what they also can learn but also develop relationships with one another. And so there's been that opportunity with these learning circles and it's really simple. It could be an hour, an hour and a half long, or maybe even two hours. So depending on the topic and how many, how long the Q&A is. These were designed to create a network of Latino beginner farmers, which we don't know any of them that exist currently in Nebraska. And so to be able to bring these farmers from different countries together was really a privilege for me. And so to be able to kind of get these learning circles underway with different topics that actually were they were able to really understand but also were very important to them. It's a privilege to be able to work with the center and to be able to get more professional development, you know, through different ways of being able to help our farmers. And that's basically the reason why I always geared towards additional training is to be able to help my farmers and to supply them with what they need, especially their resources, which are very important to them.


Today, you're going to learn how to use the word eventually in your speech in both future simple and past simple sentences. Of course, I'm Jennifer from jforeasenglish.com and this channel is dedicated to helping you sound like a fluent, confident, natural English speaker. Now before we go any further, make sure you subscribe and hit that bell icon so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. Now let's dive in with this video. In this lesson, you're going to learn how to use the word eventually. We're going to look at both future simple and past simple sentences. Now let's jump onto my computer and I'll explain exactly how to use this. Let's take a look at eventually. This is another great adverb. Adding these adverbs to your speech as transition words are really going to help you sound more advanced and more fluent. Now we use eventually when something will happen at some unknown point in the future. So what will happen? We just don't know when. Justin Bieber will get another mustache. We just don't know when. So because of that, our structure would be eventually plus future simple. This is the most common structure, but did you know that we can use eventually with the past simple as well and it's actually really commonly used in this case? Of course, we're not talking about something that will happen because it's the past simple, which means it did happen, right? So in that case, when we use eventually with the past simple is to say that something happened in the past, remember completed past action, but it took longer than expected. So let's see eventually in some example sentences using both the future and the past simple. Of course, Justin's example, I'll eventually regrow my mustache so you can grow a mustache. That would be the verb you grow a mustache, but he already had one, which is why I'm using regrow, grow it again. Now notice the placement of eventually here in the future simple, I have it before my main verb. I'll eventually regrow my mustache. The placement is flexible. I could also put it at the beginning of my sentence and say, eventually I'll regrow my mustache. This here with our comma just to tell me to take a slight pause. Another example, we were wandering around downtown and then we got lost. Luckily, we eventually found our hotel. All right, so notice the verb tense, it's in the past simple. So here eventually means that this action is completed, but it took longer than expected. We eventually found our hotel. Now in this case, because I'm starting with luckily, I would have to put eventually before my verb. I can't say luckily, eventually we found our hotel. That would sound a little awkward. I need to separate my two adverbs with a subject, but it definitely is possible to use these two adverbs together. Luckily suggests good fortune. Eventually suggest something took longer than expected because they have completely different meanings. It's okay for me to use more than one adverb. So in this example, we have three of our keywords in one sentence very naturally. Now let's say you ask a friend, did Kara RSVP? Of course, when you RSVP to an event, you either say, yes, you're coming or no, you're not coming. Did Kara RSVP? And notice my verb tense for the question. This question is in the past simple. Now as an answer, I could say, yeah, she eventually did. So Kara did RSVP. This is a completed past action, but when I add eventually, it suggests that it took longer than expected. And notice my placement, yeah, she eventually did. It's before our verb. Now let's see this example in the future simple. Let's say my friend asks, when is Kara going to RSVP? I could reply back and say, don't worry, she'll eventually RSVP. So by using eventually, I'm saying that this action will happen at some unknown time in the future. She'll eventually RSVP. So notice I'm using this in a positive encouraging way. So eventually can be quite a diverse adverb. You can get a lot of use out of it in meaning and verb tense and even in placement as well. All right. So now you know how to use eventually, but there's one thing I want you to do in us to test your listening skills so you can hear your new vocabulary in a natural context. So we're going to use a clip from the Ellen show where Ellen is having fun chatting with Justin Bieber. Now Ellen's asking Justin Bieber about his mustache, okay? So you're going to do a listening exercise and I want you to see if you can hear your new keyword at a natural pace. So let's do your listening exercise now. All right now Justin's talking about his mustache, his mustache. All right. So the next listening exercise where Ellen asks him about his mustache. What does he say in reply? Here's your listening exercise. You need to fill in the blank. I'll play it three times. I hope so eventually, but right now I'm going to keep it clean. I hope so eventually, but right now I'm going to keep it clean. I hope so eventually, but right now I'm going to keep it clean. Did you get this one? I hope so eventually, but right now I'm going to keep it clean. I hope so eventually, but right now I'm going to keep it clean because my wife, she's not really liking it. She didn't like it. She didn't like it. All right. So now you have your new keyword. You know how to use it in different verb tenses and you're getting comfortable with understanding it at a natural pace as well. That's awesome. One thing left to do, you know what it is, you have to practice. So I want you to leave an example using eventually in the future simple and eventually in the past simple and put those in the comments below. If you found this video helpful, please hit the like button, share it with your friends and of course subscribe. Now before you go, make sure you head on over to my website, j4isenglish.com and download your free speaking guide. In this guide, I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. Until next time, happy studying. Awesome job adding some advanced vocabulary that you feel really confident using because you practiced, right? You put your example in the future simple and the past simple in the comments below. Way to go. Awesome job. I'll see you in my next video. Bye.


In ultra-business news, the Federal Account Solocation Committee has shared 695.03 billion nara to the three tiers of government as revenue for February amid plans by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to deduct 242.53 billion nara for subsidy. The fact director of information or Lajideh Oshundun who disclosed this in a communique after the virtual conference noted that the gross revenue available from value added tax for the month of February was 177.873 billion nara as against 191.222 billion nara distributed in the preceding month of January resulting in a decrease of 13.349 billion nara. The distribution shows that the federal government got 24.845 billion nara, the states received 82.818 billion nara, local government councils got 57.972 billion nara, while the cost of collection to the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the National Nigerian Custom Service got 7.115 billion nara. In allocation to the NEDC project received 5.123 billion nara.


Thank you for that. Today we want to talk about something utterly important always but increasingly which is democracy and what does democracy have to do with architecture a lot actually it should however me in the academia I was once told you shouldn't talk about politics but what else can you talk about because aren't politics what we agree on as rules and regulations and ethics as a society we have to talk about it so if we can get the first slide up how do we connect architecture to politics democracy on our island here the one that reminds me the most of it from experience having him on on a review which is who you see at the very top left a former governor Abercrombie Neil Abercrombie and he is the one that I associate the most with democracy because he came to the review very prepared with his book that he did his PhD on and that's Lily Mumford with her Honolulu that he brought with him and he got as close to proposing which was highly controversial a super tall tower taller than the 400 feet cap that we have on towers and in the review he suggested someone that I can see why suggesting as an architect who is rental piano who after all is one of the most biochlametically concerned and engaged architect just like his former partner Norman Foster well that is history and although we are electing a new governor in the future Abercrombie is not running but we will see what happens and it's important let's go to the next stage because politics on a world stage we're an unprecedented times right now with the Ukraine war and as if we would have known a year before the Ukraine war started with the show quotes at the bottom and the top right we're addressing that issue with an article that was called hoser for Putin and that was pricks wolf pricks who we talked about the ethical breach of who do you work for and more recently very top left is one of our most engaged and successfully operating architects of these days another European fellow European this is the arcade angles you see standing to the Brazilian president Bolsonaro who also hasn't treated democracy as much as he should have been and you hopefully watched that the election was and shockingly he still won too many votes so for the final results we need to wait until the end of this month and keep the fingers crossed because when it was in these leaders we give the hands of our future the rainforest the tropical rainforest of the amazon has a huge impact and he has been cutting it down like no one else before so saying that at the very bottom right by the way going back to to pricks and Putin pricks has been building this rather pretentious episode of and i thought infotainment center for bnw in unix and that's next to one of the modern marvels not just of architecture but as a representation of democracy in my home culture in country of germany which gets to the next slide please that is what the article at the bottom which my father gave me from his newspaper and dressed in germanese and i don't want you to make you learn german here on your own so i translated for you the title is your toothpicks over a pantyhose over toothpicks and this is the olympics in 72 that we had in germany which was overshadowed by the terrible terrorist attack of the israelian athletes but we didn't let it or the world didn't let it overshadow because the architecture of that was so powerful who be remembered as a demonstration of democracy at the top right you see from this past month a fifties anniversary exhibit in the main capital in downtown of germany top left you see our guest larry medlin who we had in many shows who was a collaborator with a great fry auto and he said fry is the name that his mother gave to him because it means free and he wanted him to be free as a pulse for emerging generations and fry auto was the engineer on that project next slide the architect was going to banish and about that architect and the office and his firm and the legacy and the continuation of that firm we want to talk about gunter and the other gunter my father gunter are both from sex to me and my father didn't have to go to the military but gunter had and there's more than rumor the story is that he happened to be in a submarine and the submarine he said impressed him or had an impact on him so much that he said if I ever get out of that confined compressed contained suffocating space I was trapped in I will make sure and no one will ever be again and that's why freedom uh not just as a living model but as an architectural agenda became his mission for his lifetime which he very successfully basically executed at the very bottom left is a museum he did in the outskirts of munich at the strong magazine and it has something that mostly museums don't have but any building in a white here should have is lanai it's very lanai heavy so next slide my first sort of personal interaction was when I was at my emerging generation that now working with me was still in school and I worked for my professor and there was a competition I'm invited limited competition for the most iconic building in my hometown which is the state bank and you had big names participates mario botas swiss architect helmut yon who I bless him recently got run over by two cars I am reporting from the big island here which we have the iron man going on so everyone drives safe out there direct to that regard and you know that was the beginning of the the 90s and everything the computer was new so we all tried to do the most fancy renderings and try to create squeeze that pretty big program into into everything and so we all had to come up with powers and we all use the computers as to look make look everything very professional and clean not so much one submission that was rather freestyle hand drawn the lines didn't meet at the corner of let's say you know a 90 degree angle that continued very provocatively and there was no tower and I X this out here because the only drawing I found online is this one here so there was no tower so we all thought what is that but we all knew who is that because that was the signature style and continues to be of think of banish and his office or as multiple offices which is split into shortly after that so it took quite a while for the client to decide and I had the chance to have heard winter one and only time in my life and we'll never forget in this amazing talk that he gave to the players in the city and he did not mention that project in one single word but he mentioned all the opportunities and also missed opportunities clients with similar projects had you know taken advantage of or not and it didn't take long after that when the city and the client public client sort of decided to build it that was going to then get up in age and wasn't doing so well anymore and passed away not that long after that so I'm very happy I have that amazing experience to having had him you know make his case in a very understated yet very very powerful way later on by the way at power we appeared and also attended a that gets us to the next slide I attended a lecture of his structural engineer at school at my at my alma mater in Hanover Germany where he was saying how hard it was to work with winter because winter always said well a column can't be you know thicker than eight centimeters and he said everyone said why is that and he said well that's the distance between the eyes of a human being and we should never clog and block things again because of his agenda of democracy there also he had to add a large glass sculpture to the top of the building at a point when the building was already under construction because ginger was trying to oppose and superior a rather reactionary town hall building that the people had decided to build in the early last century or the last millennium in my hometown so this slide here is also very important because the office believes in inclusivity and they believe that even if the the the typology is very very enclosed and exclusive as the bank is on the money you're allowed to go in there you fought that and you said no it needs to be open to the public so this is here at the top right you see Lenny and me having a lunch in our favorite sushi restaurant where you can get all you can eat a floor still like 15 euros or 15 bucks so rather inclusive for people to go there at the bottom right in middle this is a one of our most traditional sunday evening crime time crime scene tv shows that the building played the major role in at one point so a very iconic building a very powerful building a very ecologically successful building and a very public building and although it's modern architecture that not everyone might buy into but what the building does how the building performs many people can agree that's the right way to go and next slide so it rightly so made it into this world encyclopedia of architecture here which our firm has the honor to be next to them so their bank high-end high-tech and our little kindergarten first passes off kindergarten for a hometown in low-end and low-tech both on the opposite ends but of this on the same side of architecture of the 21st century which needs to be post fossil the two gentlemen down there the one on the left is our dear collaborator martin spade who was in charge of the structural engineering and the biochromatics and the guy on the right side is martin shula who i once when i was on another jury there was a guy sitting in the back and looking for the casual so we didn't know who he was looked like a custodian and that is martin shula he's a mechanical engineer and the most progressive mechanical engineer in the world that now all architects want to work that if they want to make a building that is net zero and actually net plus so he works with architects on that and started out with banish as to begin with and trans solar and his firm is called was involved in that in that project by that time stefan banish good to banish son early had started after initially not wanting to get into that business and he studied philosophy and then later on changed his mind luckily rightly so we can tell now and joined the firm but ran a separate branch so next slide that branch that he ran made in project do many many projects and he was they did collaboration so he was involved in the north LB as well and obviously when his father wasn't doing so well he was representing the firm when they pulled us as the ones who had gotten the highest award on a state level for our little community grocery store that was the precursor of the kindergarten and many thought why would you give the highest award to a box where you can wear a shell underwear in six packs and so they pulled us out on a public panel discussion with one lady that we know very well because we've been talking about her quite a lot and she's quite in the spotlight now as the president commission president of the european union or the la funda line by that time she was our state minister slash secretary of cultural and family affairs and she was the one giving the award so talking inclusivity Stefan at that time already for a while you know one of the most busy and arguably here the most relevant german architect here basically came and spend an afternoon with our client and when it was time to go on the panel discussion he basically said okay i spend the time with clients that i could have never worked for they run one dollar stores or one euro stores as to make a living and and he said these guys these poor guys whose budgets of the whole project was what i had for the facade and he said that's why i appreciate what we were doing and we obviously appreciate what Stefan was doing for us and then the rest is that i went after that to go back to the u.s and coach and next slide and by that time Stefan had been doing their not their first but their most iconic project in the u.s on the east coast in boston and that's the gen sign building and this is once again a sort of a short high rise in a similar climate to the one in germany but yet different in detail again applying the same principles of making a livable organism a building that breathes a building that has like natural systems as the body has of natural daylight of heating and cooling everything being as natural as you can be it yet architecture being architecture nature being nature next slide i teamed up with the a is that's the american institute organization of architectural students and at some point we were thinking who we get as a guest speaker and we were thinking of banish and so we picked up the phone i wanted to use my connection to the man over fade and atlas and ask for the project architect was and i was told it was another martin martin hotly you see on the left and i was told by juta and juta was as you think of a huge successful architectural office she's the secretary there is no such thing banish has the utmost horizontal basic democratic organization where everyone picks in the picks up the phone at some point so they just don't have that vertical hierarchy to have a horizontal hierarchy and she said well i i talked to martin and he did but he said well before you really want to get me on board why don't you come and look at our most at my most current project which was in hamburg which is a big city over from hand over and they built the only lever headquarters which is a big multinational organization corporate of nature and once again he wanted to democratize that the architectural detail is here what we have been experimenting with some years ago for that school for mentally disabled children which you see at the top in the middle which we did a show about and he pushed it to the next level and used that as a single layer on the trail if you want to know why you got to go back and watch the show awking um um you know being a good educator not just to your clients but also to the emerging generation gets us to the next slide uh because into banish had taught at a school in germany and darmstadt and for that reason when i went to school you know that was the school to go if you if you really made it i didn't go there uh you went there and so i got to know that school years later when i was invited by one of the founding members that martin is as well that's the german uh uh sustainability uh chamber or council the deutscher gesellschaften nachhause gestauen and manfred hegger uh one of their presidents who unfortunately passed away too early in his life a few years ago one something with his emerging generation twice consecutively which is an american student uh competition which is the solar decathlon you see at the bottom here our school's contributions from some years ago spearheaded by professor rockwood traffic here rockwood and at the top you see the two solar decalons by the darmstadt school of architecture which again are banish taught from the mid six east to the mid eighties next slide we return to our predominant typology here us being squeezed in between two month rages high rises and this is martin stopping by in the prairie in lingon braskan my home away from home where i talk went back to to teach and so you see him at the top right without quick with a fantastic project in downtown about skating orientation rides first and foremost and the project the other three slides is the project next to the unilever building in hamburg which is the marco poodle tower which again you see what it has it has lanais all the way around in chili cold and pretty soon and deep problems because of fruiting gas not available hamburg germany next slide uh this is what all the buildings here should have and we think in chicago should have as we're currently investigating the tool and comparing and alluding to the little show quote at the top right getting us to the next slide we've been proposing for quite a while one of the most attractive fenestration uh products which is the good old jealousy that's our local thing that the german company who always made it had optimized uh to triple pane glass uh passive house uh absolutely top notch uh so you're not losing any energy so if you're doing split system a c you at least a few times you use it you don't lose it and then you open them up all the time next slide jealousies are a banish legacy this is uh proof of evidence of when i revisited one of his other most iconic projects that have to do a lot with the core of democracy uh and you see the jealousies and next slide uh that is the project and that is why we paired it to our capital this is the capital the national capital of germany at that time in bond before their unification and it's basically roof architecture with spaces underneath flowing through and his agenda was that you as a citizen could just like you can do in the chambers here by the way you can walk by press your nose at the glass and watch the ones you elected down there because you know there are no dictators there basically collaborators who you elect to run things so so far about roof architecture but what about some of the horizontal fenestration wrapping wall architecture next slide if you do it here as soto and i talked many years ago on this show on here you should do it and always shading yourself so here's the kashi anbi's king center that has a glass facade behind but it's shaded and wrapped all the way around with this metal mesh next slide that here it is again and again a prime example of the kashi anbi's work uh next slide this is the sunset tower just on the opposite side of elamona mall on edkinson drive the the plinth part has the same thing next slide and as we discovered in the show here it's a theme that carries through and architect mid-century have embraced and have used as to naturally cool buildings by not letting them go overheated by not letting the sun get to the glass behind next slide just one more example about the ingenuity of different ways and you know different iterations different variations you can find to achieve that so next slide another building in honolulu you know that doesn't right no it's not in honolulu yet but it should be right because it seems like you know the light is nicely filtered there's still daylight coming through but just as much as not to overheat and how does that make it look from the outside because varnish this is a varnish building varnish always does it as to design from inside out versus outside in how does that then look from the outside next slide this is it it has a similar to anbi a metal screen wrapped around it that keeps it cool next slide and that screen is very carefully calibrated and next and final slide is zooming in and what that is and why that is you will hear next week when we have its creator on the show who is Matt no black who is varnish partner in his american offices of boston messachusetts on the east coast so hopefully with a cheerleading about the context of the firm and their utterly important most democratic approach of planet and people friendliness i leave you with that so hopefully having gotten you excited about meeting matt next week on the show and until then please stay easy breezy breezy easy bye bye thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com mahalo


Representative Rashida Taib, she became the 26th member in congressional history to be censured in part for, well in part for a tweet she made that was jumping to the conclusion that Israel bombed a hospital when in fact it was a rocket that Hamas misfired and then she didn't really make any effort whatsoever to correct that. The rocket was technically not fired by Hamas but an allied group with Hamas. Yeah the Islamic shihad I think but yeah. Thank you for that clarification and Taib released the statement on October 8th the day after the attack kind of tellingly titled on ongoing violence in Israel and Palestine where she says I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday. Today and every day I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace. The past of that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance and her characterizing this this action as resistance was cited as a reason to censure her. Does that statement strike you as beyond the pale and worthy of censure? Well first of all it's an offensive statement. It offends because it implies that what happened on October 7th was justified. It was the inevitable result of the behavior of Israel and how it treats the Palestinians. I don't like the use of the word apartheid. There were two million Arabs who live in Israel who have free healthcare college can vote. It's not free totally but it's free healthcare but they have the same healthcare that every Israeli has. They have the same educational system as every Israeli. They have equal rights. So calling this an apartheid situation I find offensive just as I find offensive the phrase genocide. The population in West Bank and Gaza has risen fivefold over the last I think five or six decades. If this genocide we're not very good at it. The phrase allows the comparison of Israel to the Nazis. Just I don't find that helpful or honest. Having said that I don't have any problem with that statement. I would not have censured her. I don't think it's good for the Jews that we censured her. I'm not sure it's good for Israel and I wanted to say one other thing. Before you say that could you tell me why you say that about why is it not good for the Jews or Israel to censure her? Like the idea that we're so powerful we can you know get a member of Congress censured because she said something that we don't like. That's the way it's easily interpreted. I'm sure if there were no Jews in Congress and no Jews in America it's possible she would have been censured either way but I don't think it looks so good for us. Yeah and to be clear there were Jewish members of Congress who voted to censure her and to not censure her. So you're not really too much there substantively but I understand here. Fair enough but it's just it does it's the same reason I don't like I don't think it's for Jews that we get these people fired or tear down the posters. It's like this makes people angry at the Jews who already don't like them. We have to stand up for ourselves. I'm about to try to stand up and block the poster ripper than to use the legal system or other things to punish them in ways they can't anticipate which is also I think unjust. But I want to say something I think is important about say congressional speech and it's a perfectly legitimate opinion to oppose American military aid to Israel on the grounds that Israel is treats the Palestinians poorly. I don't agree with that the justification but I'm not sure American aid is always good for Israel. So strategically and in terms of making the world a better place that it's a complicated question but it certainly should be protected by free speech to say that American support for Israel is wrong. That is and fundamentally it would be grotesque to censure people who didn't want to stand by Israel in this particular moment and who feel that the Palestinian cause has been inaccurately presented or distorted or anything. So I want to be clear I don't I don't think Israel is entitled or Jews are entitled to any special treatment in this moment because of the horrific nature or savage and barbaric nature of October 7th. I just think we should get the same treatment as everybody else. But that in general I remain a fan of free speech but I do think exhorting people of violence might fall into a different group different category. I do think it's also worth sort of bringing into the conversation that like censuring a member of Congress doesn't actually do anything it is essentially a formal a formalized means of slapping somebody on the wrist. Yeah absolutely and and much of what we're talking about here is is virtue signaling of various kinds that I find unhealthy for for democracy. I would much rather she get voted out of office if her constituents find her offensive or disagree with her and that's the way a democracy should handle this. I wrote the hospital thing. The hospital thing is a little tricky because in the moment I could understand that someone would blame Israel for that bombing you know when that when that story broke it was Israel destroys hospital with 500 people dead. It turned out hospital wasn't destroyed near times ran a photograph of a destroyed building it wasn't the hospital. It turns out that parking lot of the hospital was struck a lot of cars were burned. I don't know if anybody died maybe a few people which very sad but it probably wasn't by Israel. So in the first half hour hour five hours you could maybe have leapt to the wrong conclusion when it came pretty clear that it wasn't the case forget who did it forget whether Israel did it or whether it was Islamic Shi'a missile that did it. It wasn't 500 people it wasn't a hospital destroyed why wouldn't you fix that and she stood up at a rally the next day and said some things are probably not true. It's embarrassing for her again let her constituents put her out of office and if they agree with her or like what she says anyway you know it's hard to disagree they can let them do what they do. Hey thanks for watching that clip from our conversation with Russ Roberts about life in Israel in the aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attacks. You can watch another clip from that conversation over here or the full conversation right over here.